Over the past decades, theoretical and analytical interest in musical form in the late 18th and early 19th centuries has surged in North America and beyond. Concepts first presented in two landmark publications of what has become known as the "new Formenlehre" — Caplin's Classical Form (1998) and Hepokoski and Darcy's Elements of Sonata Theory (2006) — have not only entered the lingua franca of international music theory, but have also stirred intense methodological debates.

This seminar offers a thorough study of differing recent approaches to classical form and their practical application through analysis of music between c. 1760 and 1825. Over the course of the seminar, we will read both central texts of the new Formenlehre and recent responses, adaptations, and alternatives to them, and analyze compositions in a variety of genres by a broad range of composers.