Johan Svendsen and Two‐Dimensional Sonata Form

ABSTRACT This article discusses progressive formal strategies in the music of Johan Svendsen (1840–1911). Svendsen is one of Norway's foremost composers of large‐scale orchestral music, but his works have so far garnered scant attention in Anglophone scholarship. The article provides analyses of three orchestral works by Svendsen through the lens of Steven Vande Moortele's concept of two‐dimensional sonata form. It argues that Svendsen on several occasions entered into dialogue with this Lisztian formal strategy and that this is a neglected part of his formal practice. The article provides two‐dimensional readings of Svendsen's Cello Concerto in D major, Op. 7 (1870), Sigurd Slembe , Op. 8 (1872) and Norwegian Rhapsody No. 2, Op. 19 (1876–7). The analyses demonstrate how Svendsen, in all three works, provides original solutions to the inherent problem in two‐dimensional designs of balancing the tension between the overarching sonata form and the cycle of local movements.