A musical form in which the first or main section recurs, normally in the home key, between subsidiary sections (couplets, episodes) and to conclude the composition. The familiar Classical rondo had an important precursor in the French rondeau of Lully, François Couperin and Rameau. Englishmen such as Purcell and Germans such as Georg Muffat and Bach adopted French forms and techniques, and by the mid-18th century the rondeau of French stamp was widely established. In the 1770s there began a vogue for rondos of a simple, tuneful kind for which opera buffa provided much of the impetus. C. P. E. Bach's rondos in the series for ‘Connoisseurs and Amateurs’ are extended leisurely compositions which stand outside the mainstream of the genre's evolution. The independent rondo for piano was cultivated with yet greater distinction by Mozart (k 494 and 511), Beethoven (opp. 51 no. 1 and 129) and Mendelssohn (Rondo capriccioso op.14).
More often the Classical rondo (ABAC...A) functioned as a movement within a large composition, especially as the finale in a sonata, serenade or concerto. Haydn began composing rondos in the early 1770s; examples are found in his symphonies, string quartets and piano trios. Mozart used the form in a variety of media throughout his career. Beethoven used it in his early chamber works, sonatas and concertos, but later largely abandoned it. A significant innovation of the Classical period is the sonata-rondo, a fusion of rondo design with a sonata-allegro tonal plan. This entails the recapitulation in the tonic of the first episode and, possibly, the replacement of the contrasting central episode (C) with development of earlier material.
The sonata-rondo survived after Beethoven mainly in the finales of concertos (by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Brahms and others). A famous later rondo in Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel. Mahler's Fifth Symphony has a Rondo-Finale and the third movement of his Ninth Symphony, Rondo-Burleske, is a free, expansive treatment of the Classical rondo.
