Sonatas and similar sonata cycle pieces

RedEyedAbyss

It bugs me that each movement feels like a separate piece, and often I'm not sure how they are connected. Mainstream culture seems to only care about a few individual movements anyways, which is probably why I am confused about the former. After all, do most people really care about the other three movements of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (if they're not only in it for the G G G Eb... F F F D...)?

glennmagusharvey

I like the third movement of said symphony.  And the fourth.  The second isn't too bad either.  The whole thing is pretty catchy.

I'm not quite sure how to categorize movements.  Generally speaking I prefer keeping them as separate music tracks for the purpose of listening, sometimes even when they are joined by "attaca" ("go immediately to next movement").

However, movements rarely have individual names (apart from the custom to use their tempo as a name), and they are not meant to stand alone.  So they don't quite occupy the same role as do songs in an album.

This is one of the many odd incompatibilities between classical music and modern popular music.  That said, I generally tag movements with the tempo or occasional movement title, and then put their meta-work name as album.