Musical Structure and Design (The Student's Music Library) vintage 1953 London Cedric Thorpe Davie is himself a noted composer, and musical forms are as familiar to him as armatures are to the sculptor. As a result, he is able not only to describe them clearly, but also to evaluate their qualities and to point out their truly characteristic fundamentals. It is his discussions of such core questions as: What is the true basis of sonata form? And What are the qualities of a successful form that make for convincing music? that cause his book to be the unusually interesting and lively study that it is. The text defines and describes the forms commonly used by Western composers in the period between 1550 and 1900. These are the binary and ternary forms, including the de capo aria, minuet-and-trio, and rondo; the sonata form; the forms in the concerto; variation forms — including ground bass, passacaglia, and chaconne; and the contrapuntal forms, notably the fugue and canon.