Repetitions and Cadences

First, themes in Classical music tend to be repeated immediately after their first appearance, so that listeners can easily get to know them. (In earlier music, this happened only in dance music, as a general rule.) Later in the piece, those same themes are repeated again.

Second, themes are led into in a very distinctive manner. The music features prominent transitional passages that do not have much melodic profile, only a sense of urgency about arriving someplace — the place where the real theme will be presented (and probably presented twice).

Third, after themes have been played, they are typically closed off just as distinctly. Often there are quite long passages consisting of cadences repeated two, three, or more times, as though to assure the listener that one musical idea is over and another is coming up. Composers would devise little cadential phrases, often with minimal melodic interest, that could be repeated and thus allow for such multiple cadences.

Multiple cadences are a characteristic and easily recognizable feature of Classical music, particularly, of course, at the very ends of movements. We will hear examples of this in Haydn, Mozart, and — with special force — in Beethoven.