Satzmelodie

Satzmelodie is a term used in German music theory to describe the melodic line that defines a musical sentence, or Satz, within a larger work. It is the principal melodic contour that gives shape to a musical unit and is typically heard as the most memorable line within the phrase, guiding its rhetorical flow through motif, intervallic structure, and rhythm.

It contrasts with the accompaniment and harmonic progression, which provide support rather than defining the sentence. The Satzmelodie may consist of a motif that recurs and develops across the sentence, helping to mark boundaries such as antecedent and consequent in a phrase and leading to the cadence that closes the sentence. In more complex sentences, composers may employ multiple Satzmelodien to articulate subordinate clauses or layers of meaning.

In analysis, identifying the Satzmelodie helps explain how a composer shapes musical syntax and expression. The concept is especially common in German-language scholarship on tonal form from the Baroque through the Romantic periods, though it is not always singled out in English-language theory; its closest equivalents are described as the phrase melody or the main melodic line of a sentence.

See also: phrase, motif, melody, German music theory.