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The middle section of sonata form where themes from the exposition are fragmented, transformed, reharmonized, and explored through modulation.
The development is where your compositional skill is most tested. Techniques include: fragmentation (breaking themes into motifs), sequence (repeating fragments at different pitch levels), modulation (exploring remote keys), inversion, augmentation, and combination of themes.
Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony, first movement — one of the longest and most dramatic developments in the symphonic repertoire, with false recapitulation and climactic dissonance.
Development is one of 228 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary, where every definition is written around how composers actually use the word.
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