It gave to the Italian sonata of its time the same character of unity which the rhythm of the dance gave to the French clavier-piece. But, before the separate movements could reach their full formal development, the emancipation of the thematic subjects from counterpoint, and their absolute self-dependence, must be completed. The Italian ear, from its mere pleasure in motive and its development, released the subject from obligatory contrapuntal treatment. From the old thin forms of toccata and capriccio sprang fugal exercises with poor and limited themes, to which, so early as 1611, the old Francesco Turini gives the sounding title of sonatas. They are full of the passages associated with solo-instruments; they sound with flexible melodies; they run off in the measured steps of the dance, and circle round with repetitions of motives, groups, and movements. The point which a Rameau, in his “Cyclopes,” attains by an extension of the rondo-form--perhaps under the gentle influence of the sonata--is reached by the Italian by formalising the free fantasia, under the influence of the dance. It is _form_ at which everything on all sides aims. [Illustration] In Scarlatti’s sonatas we have very rarely more than one movement; the two-movement groups of the sonatas, numbered by Czerny 122 and 123, are exceptions. The pieces might be combined into sonatas on the Corellian model but for the lack of slow movements, which Scarlatti did not willingly write for the brilliant and spirited clavier. The structure of the movements displays that perfect freedom which still reigned in that springtime of the age of musical form. If we are so inclined, we may often detect, as in the prototype, a[67] first and a second theme; but the signs of this later form of the typical sonata are still so hidden that in many pieces we might, with equal justification, detect five or six themes in the more melodious or decorative passages. All is in transition, but the thematic conception is never left utterly in the background. The motives come out in apparently reckless profusion, but scarcely one remains without its adequate treatment. We observe all possible arrangements. Sonata 110 has a perfectly incongruous middle movement; in Sonata 111 a moderato alternates with a presto, and both are repeated in fuller elaboration. On the other hand some sonatas preserve throughout the same rhythmical movement. As a rule the second part of a movement concludes like the first, but in a different key, just as it began like the first, but again in a different key; or sometimes Part II. begins with some different motive from that of Part I., or even with one absolutely new. Usually the beginnings of both parts are somewhat stiff in their thematic, while their later course is usually more free. The development of a main motive--which in later times begins the second division of a movement in sonata form--is as yet confined to no definite part.