Richibi’s Weblog

     “Dinner at the Ball“ (1879) 

              Edgar Degas

                _________

a formal dinner among family and friends 

has traditionally consisted of a salad, 

followed by a main course, then by 

dessert, all of this by convention, it is not

forbidden to serve dessert first, just highly

unusual, and noticeably disconcerting

these primary courses have since evolved,

in more elegant places, to include an

appetizer, either added, or to replace the

salad, and cheese can do the same for 

dessert, so that five services can now  

outpace the original three

different cultural settings may change 

somewhat the above order, some

Europeans, for instance, have their  

salad after the main course, but in  

general, this sequence is fixed

you can say the same for the sonata,

and all its derivatives

a sonata was originally served in three

courses, called movements, the first

sprightly, the second, in contrast, more

somber, contemplative, probing, the last 

jovial again upon imminent farewells, for

the same reasons that applied to formal

dinners, to express opulence, 

magnanimity, and variety of invention,

which is to say, power, and eventually,

cultural influence

here’s Mozart’s Sonata no 14 in C minor, 

K457, in three movements, auditory,

rather than gustatory, courses, where 

our era’s musical parameters, their order 

of presentation, for better or for worse, 

all began 

listen

R ! chard