Conditions of Possibility of a Perceived Formal Rhetoric.

Musical form has been considered by composers and music theorists, at least since the end of the XVIII th century, as a main aspect of musical composition. Some theoretical views of musical forms, even its perceptive reality, are challenged by music psychologists. However, other data suggest that a representation in memory of large-scale structures is possible. This article proposes to assess, through a review of the form theories and the experimental psychology literature, two fundamental questions on the perception of form: Which musical dimensions and types of representation in memory support the perception of form? We propose a new conception of musical form which able to include, with Western tonal musical architectures, some other expressions of musical form.