On April 2, 2020 I submitted my new book, A Sonata Theory Handbook, to Oxford University Press. This starts the production process, and with luck it will be out by the end of this year or the beginning of the next. A product of four years of off-and-on work, the book is a complement to and update of Elements of Sonata Theory from 2006. Part of the “pre publication” description is as follows:
“A Sonata Theory Handbook provides a convenient overview of that analytical method’s main points through a step by step introduction to them modeled on author James Hepokoski’s seminars on the subject. The book teaches the method by juxtaposing close readings of eight individual movements—by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms—with four updated discussions of some of the most foundational concepts behind the theory: dialogic form, expositional action zones, trajectories toward generically normative cadences, rotation theory, the five sonata types, and much more. . . . It advances the discussion not only through a detailed showing of the analytical method in action but also through a deeper, more inclusive engagement with recent developments in form theory, schema theory, and other related studies since 2006, including some of the language and insights of cognitive research into music perception and the more generalized concerns of conceptual metaphor theory. . . . The book ultimately builds to reflections on sonata form in the Romantic era: the heuristic applicability of Sonata Theory to mid- and late-nineteenth century works.”