Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

Giuliani Op. 61, Grand Overture--a great big single-movement sonata form with everything where it's expected to be

This is a single-movement sonata form and it opens with an A minor introduction that leads laconically to a lively exposition theme in A major. Don't let the initially chromatic and regressive harmonies fool you.  Yes, there's a chord that could be interpreted as a secondary leading tone triad on E sharp (an enharmonic respelling of a B diminished chord) that leads to F sharp minor in first inversion because that's what's there.  That harmonic/melodic sequence is sequenced into another diminished triad with an enharmonically respelled secondary leading tone, and this chord leads to E major in first inversion.  We get another sequence of this that arrives at D major but we'll hear soon enough that this is the subdominant of our key.  We're still in Part 1 of Theme 1 and if you have doubts that we're in A major the strong cadential movement that gets us into Part 2 (labeled in blue) makes it clear this is a sonata form that is starting in A major.  Thanks to the long A minor introduction Giuliani can open his exposition with such a frisky and harmonically unstable theme that doesn't settle into articulating its...