Beethoven employs what I might propose be termed a “staggered crux,” one in which harmonic-functional correspondence and motivic correspondence resume at different times (we could call them the “partial crux” and the “full crux”). This is perhaps the most tactful option for Beethoven given the exposition’s use of I: HC to announce the medial caesura.
Read MoreWe might picture a youthful, unfledged character in this opening gesture, somewhat facetiously reiterating this simple punctuation mark as if discovering its use for the first time. The woodwinds in mm. 17-18 use the familiar ascending I – V7/ii – ii chord progression to “notch” the tonicized center up to d minor—yet another punctuation mark, perhaps now the exclamation point, for our amused friend to spam.
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