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The bridge passage of sonata form has generally been considered less attractive to listeners and analysts than the themes it connects. This applies to general aesthetic judgements as well as to music analyses where it has been usually neglected. Sequential structures and other conventional materials typical of these transitions for a long time have deterred music theory from acknowledging the fact that many of the most important innovations of the classical sonata were shaped in the multifarious linear processes and harmonic contents of the bridge passage. The movement away from the initial tonic and the introduction of a new tonal area has become a key feature of the sonata form between 1730 and 1780 and thus has provoked many highly original compositional solutions. After general components of a formal model of the sonata bridge passage are introduced, the main section of this article discusses a broad number of examples from symphonic, chamber and solo works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in order to demonstrate how they continuously modified this scheme in order to raise attention, expectancy and expressive power. On the basis of James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s seminal book on sonata form (Elements of Sonata Theory, 2006) it can be shown how the compositional function of a bridge passage (exposition and extension of the principle theme, harmonic transformation from the tonic to a new key and its affirmation by a cadence, exposition of contrasting material) is modified through procrastination or hurry, displacement in time, exaggeration and understatement, interrupted processes, interpenetration, and the incongruence of design and function. Such a dialogue between generic norm and individualization can also imply semantic perspectives.

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