Dances were often grouped together, especially when they had some slight intrinsic musical value.  Probably the term sonata first designated a composition in one of these dance forms not intended for dancing.  Gradually groups of dances were called suites; then, little by little, the dance titles of the separate numbers were dropped, and the suite was called sonata.  These different numbers, however, retained their dance characteristics, as we shall see later.  The arrangement of the pieces composing the suites differed in various countries.  There were French, Italian, German, and English suites, generally, however, retaining the same grouping of the different movements.  The first movement consisted of an allemande; then came a courante; then a minuet; then a sarabande; and last of all a gigue; all in the same key.  Sometimes the minuet and sarabande changed places, just as in modern times do the andante and scherzo.

Already in 1685, when Corelli’s sonatas for strings appeared, the custom of decreasing the number of movements to three began to obtain, and a century later this custom was universal.  The allemande, overture, or preludio formed the first movement; the second consisted of the sarabande, the ancestor of our adagio; and the last part was generally a gigue.  Even when the dance titles were no more used (the music having long outgrown its original purpose), the distinctive characteristics of these different movements were retained; the sarabande rhythm was still adhered to for the adagio (even by Haydn) and the triple time and rhythm of the gigue were given to the last part.  In addition to this, these three movements were often kept in one key.  In his first sonatas Beethoven added a movement, generally a minuet, to this scheme; but returned to the three-movement structure later.  His Op. 111 has only two movements, in a way returning to a still earlier general form of the sonata.  Now, as has already been said, some of the earliest examples of instrumental music were mainly descriptive in character, that is to say, consisting of imitations of things, thus marking the most elementary stage of programme music.  Little by little composers became more ambitious and began to attempt to give expression to the emotions by means of music; and at last, with Beethoven, “programme music” may be said, in one sense, to have reached its climax.  For although it is not generally realized, he wrote every one of his sonatas with definite subjects, and, at one time, was on the point of publishing mottoes to them, in order to give the public a hint of what was in his mind when he wrote them.

Analysis may be considered as the reducing of a musical composition to its various elements—­harmony, rhythm, melody—­and power of expression.  Just as melody may be analyzed down to the motives and phrases of which it consists, so may the expressiveness of music be analyzed; and this latter study is most valuable, for it brings us to a closer understanding of the power of music as a language.