Can someone define the difference between a sonata and a concerto, is one part of the other?
1) Short answer: music historians use those categories to describe afterwards the music that has been composed. Composers do not necessarily respect particular forms. A sonata is originally a piece played as opposed to the cantata, which was a piece sung. The word came to represent a principle of composing large scale works. A concerto as a musical work is a composition usually in three parts or movements, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano or violin) is accompanied by an orchestra. It is conventional to state that the first movements of concertos from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form. 2) “Sonata (from Latin and Italian sonare, “to sound”), in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian cantare, “to sing”), a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era. The term took on increasing importance in t
