Cadence: A Study of Closure in Tonal Music

William Caplin’s long-awaited monograph presents a tour-de-force examination of the cadence and related concepts, building upon ideas he developed over the past few decades in several celebrated publications. Its significance stands alongside his landmark 1998 book on classical form. Indeed, in some respects, this book is even more impressive, as it examines a broader scope of styles with penetrating and provocative analyses of hundreds of pieces. Each of this book’s two parts is substantial enough to form a separate volume on its own. Part I is devoted to exploring general concepts surrounding the cadence as exemplified in the music of Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven; Part II adapts and extends these ideas to the music of the Baroque, Galant, and early- and late-Romantic eras. Dotted throughout are lengthy analytic case studies that could well have served as separate articles, including an extended look at cadences in three fugues by J. S. Bach; an investigation of all of Frédéric Chopin’s Op. 28 Preludes; and an exploration of late-Romantic techniques in works by Edvard Grieg, Antonín Dvořák, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner.