THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SONATA FORM
Vienna as the home of the sonata; definition of
‘sonata’--Origin and history of the standard sonata cycle;
relationship of sonata movements--Evolution of the ‘triplex’
form: Pergolesi’s ‘singing allegro’; the union of aria
and binary forms; Padre Martini’s sonatas, Scarlatti’s
true sonata in C; Domenico Alberti; the Alberti bass; the
transitional period of the sonata--Sonata writers before
Haydn and Mozart: J. C. Bach; Muzio Clementi--Schobert and
Wagenseil; C. P. E. Bach; F. W. Rust.
Turning our backs upon Bach and looking over the musical marches, we
shall observe many roads in the second half of the eighteenth century
making their way even from the remotest confines towards Vienna. There
they converge towards the end of the century. Thither comes pouring
music from England, from France, volumes of music from Italy; music
from Prussia, from Saxony, from Russia; from all the provinces, from
Poland, from Bohemia and from Croatia. There is a hodge-podge and a
_pêle-mêle_ of music, of types and nationalities. There are the pompous
oratorios from the west, light operas and tuneful trios and sonatas
from the south, dry-as-dust fugues from the north, folk-songs gay and
sad from the east. All whirling and churning before Maria Theresa, or
her lovable son, or the intelligent courtiers about them. France will
grow sick before the Revolution, Italy will become frivolous, Germany
cold. Only Vienna loves music better than life. Presently up will come
Haydn from Croatia, and Mozart from Salzburg, and Beethoven from Bonn.
Then young Schubert will sing a swan-song at the feast from which the
honored guests have one by one departed; and waltzes will whirl in to
gobble up all save what fat Rossini can grab for himself.
And what is the pianoforte’s share in this profusion of music?
Something of all, variations, pot-pourris from the operas, rondos and
bagatelles and waltzes; but chiefly sonatas, and again sonatas.
Now sonatas did not grow in Vienna. Vienna laid before her honored
guests the great confusion of music which had poured into her for fifty
years from foreign lands, and in that confusion were sonatas. They
were but babes, frail and starved for lack of many things, little more
than skin and bones. But they had bright eyes which caught Haydn’s
fatherly glance. He dragged them forth from the rubbish and fed them
a good diet of hearty folk-songs, so that they grew. Mozart came from
many wanderings and trained them in elegance and dressed them with his
lovely fancies. And at last when they were quite full-grown, Beethoven
took charge of them and made them mighty. What manner of babe was this
that could so grow, and whence came it to Vienna?
The word sonata slips easily over the tongues of most people, great
musicians, amateurs, dilettanti and laymen alike; but it is not a word,
nor yet a type, easily defined. The form is very properly associated
with the composers of the Viennese period. Earlier sonatas, such as
those of the seventeenth century composers, like Kuhnau and Pasquini,
are sonatas only in name, and not in the generally accepted sense of
the word. The rock which bars their entrance into the happy kingdom of
sonatas is the internal form of the movements. For a sonata is not only
a group of pieces or movements in an arbitrary whole. At least _one_
of the separate movements within the whole must be in the special form
dubbed by generations with an unfortunate blindness to ambiguity, the
_sonata form_. Attempts have been made from time to time to rename this
form. It has been called the _first movement_ form; because usually
the first movements of sonatas, symphonies and other like works, are
found to have it. Unhappily it is scarcely less frequently to be found
in the last movements. Let us simply cut the Gordian knot, and for no
other reason than that it may help in this book to render a difficult
subject a little less confusing, call this special form arbitrarily the
_triplex_ form.
I
To trace the development of the pianoforte sonata, then, is a twofold
task: to trace the tendency towards a standard group of pieces or
movements in one whole; and to trace the development of the triplex
form of movement, the presence of which in the group gives us the
somewhat despotic right to label that group a sonata.
The first task leads upon something of a wild-goose chase. The number
of movements which a sonata might contain never became rigidly fixed.
A single movement, however, is not a sonata in the generally accepted
meaning of the word. It is true that the separate pieces of D.
Scarlatti are still called sonatas; but this is only one of the few
cases where the original natural use of the word has persisted beside
the arbitrarily restricted one. We are, as a matter of fact, almost
forced to this continued free use of the term by the lack of a more
specific one to cover the circumstance, or even of a suitable abstract
one. As we have seen, the few pieces Scarlatti published himself he
called _esercizii_. Even in his day the word sonata was applied mostly
to compositions made up of two or more movements. His pieces were not
fugues; neither were they dances. They were too regular and too compact
to be called fantasies or toccatas. They were not rondos, and his
imagination was sterile in fanciful titles such as Couperin gave to his
pieces. Our modern minds reject his own title as utterly unmusical.
In abstract terms we have ‘piece,’ which may do for the historian but
not for the program. ‘Movement’ has been chained up in the sonata and
symphony. ‘Gems’ and ‘jewels’ are too often in music a paste of musk
and tears. So we hold to sonata, for the lack of anything better.
Though the word originally signified any music sounded or played on
instruments, thus differentiating instrumental music from vocal, its
use was limited early in the seventeenth century to music written
for groups of strings or wind. At that time, it will be remembered,
harpsichord and clavichord music was still essentially organ music, to
which the word sonata was rarely applied.
The string sonatas had developed chiefly from the old _chanson_, the
setting of a poem in stanzas to polyphonic vocal music. The composer
attempted in this old form to reflect in his music the varied meaning
of the stanzas of his poem. Thus the music, taken from its words and
given to groups of strings to play, was more or less clearly divided
into varied sections, showing, as it were, the shape or skeleton upon
which it had originally been moulded. At first the instrumentalists,
even the organists, as we have seen, were content merely to play upon
their instruments what had been thus written for voices. Such had long
been their custom with popular madrigals and with other simpler forms.
Soon the organists broke ground in a wholly different direction. But
the other instrumentalists, chiefly the violinists, on the contrary,
though they began to compose their own music with an ever-growing
regard to the special qualities of their instruments, still retained
the well-known form. Hence the many fledgling sonatas in the last
quarter of the sixteenth century and even the first quarter of the
seventeenth, with their title of _canzon a suonare_. This title was
soon cut down to sonata. The form was enormously expanded by the
enthusiasm and rapidly soaring skill of the instrumental composers. The
many more or less vague sections, fossil outlines, as it were, of the
poem in stanzas, swelled out to broad and clear proportions. The number
of them was consequently cut down to four or even three, the selection
and sequence of which had been almost unconsciously determined by
principles of contrast. Finally the influence of the growing suite
combined with the breadth and formal perfection of the several sections
to cut them off distinctly, each from the other. The word sonata, then,
it will be observed, was applied almost from the beginning to a piece
of music divided into several more or less clearly differentiated
sections or movements.
The growth of the suite was, as we have seen, of quite a different
nature. The sonata developed rapidly from a seed. The suite was a
synthesis of various dance pieces, held together by a convention,
without any inherited internal relationship. In spite of the number
of suites written during the seventeenth century for string band
and even other combinations of instruments, it is practically a
special development of keyboard music. The lighter character of the
music itself, depending largely upon dance rhythms for its vitality,
encouraged the free style suitable to the harpsichord. Its influence
upon the string sonata is, however, unmistakable.
Thus, though harpsichord music and the suite were more or less
neglected in Italy during the second and third quarters of the
seventeenth century, we find Corelli publishing between 1683 and 1700
his epoch-making works for violin and other instruments in alternate
sets of _suonate_ (sometimes called _suonate da chiesa_), and suites,
which he called _suonate da camera_. In the former the movements had
no titles but the Italian words which marked their character, such as
_grave_, _allegro_, _vivace_, and other like words. In the latter most
of the movements conformed to dance rhythms and were given dance names.
The normal number of movements in both sonatas and suites is four, and
normally these four are in the order of slow, fast, slow, fast. The
movements of the suite are all normally in the same key; but among
the sonatas the middle adagio is often in a different key from the
other movements. This variety of key is nearly always present as a
distinctive feature of the sonata.
Corelli’s works are, leaving aside his personal genius, indicative of
the state of the sonata at the end of the seventeenth century. That
the sonatas with suite movements were called chamber sonatas and the
others church sonatas gives us some hint of the relative dignity of
the two forms in the minds of composers of that day. In 1695 J. Kuhnau
published in Leipzig his sonata in B-flat for the harpsichord, with the
prefatory remarks that he saw no reason why the harpsichord, with its
range of harmony and its possibilities in contrapuntal music, should
be restricted to the lighter forms of music (such as the suite). He
therefore offered to the public a piece for harpsichord written in the
more dignified form of the violin music of the day, which he called the
_Sonate aus dem B_.
Here, as we remarked in chapter I, the word sonata comes into
pianoforte music, bringing with it a dignity, if not a charm, which was
felt to be lacking in the suite. Kuhnau’s sonata is in four movements,
none of which is very clearly articulated. The _adagio_ comes between
the second and fourth and is in the key of E-flat major. This sonata
was followed by seven more, published the next year under the title of
_Frische Clavier Früchte_. The tone of all is experimental and somewhat
bombastic. But at any rate we have at last keyboard sonatas.
During the lifetime of Corelli two other Italian violinists rose to
shining prominence, Locatelli[21] and Vivaldi[22]. To them is owing
a certain development in the internal structure of a new form of the
sonata called the concerto, of which we shall say more later on.
Here we have to note, however, the tendency of both these composers
to make their concertos and sonatas in three movements: two long
rapid movements with a slow movement between. Corelli left _sonate
da camera_ and _sonate da chiesa_ of the same description; but the
procedure seems to have recommended itself to Sebastian Bach mainly
by the works of Vivaldi, of which, as we have seen, he made a most
careful study. Hence we have from Bach not only the beautiful sonatas
for violin and harpsichord in three movements, but harpsichord
concertos,--many of which were transcriptions of Vivaldi’s works, but
some, like the exquisite one in D minor cited in the last chapter, all
his own,--likewise on the same plan. So, too, were written many of the
Brandenburg concertos, notably the one in G major, No. 5. Finally we
have the magnificent concerto in the Italian style for cembalo alone,
which is more truly a sonata, leaving for all time a splendid example
of the symmetry of a well-wrought piece in three movements.
Of this perfect masterpiece we have already spoken. It is well to
recall attention to the fact, however, that the first and last
movements are of about equal length and significance. Both are in rapid
tempo and of careful and more or less close-knit workmanship; and both
are in the key of F major. The movement between them is in a different
key (D minor) and of slow tempo and wholly contrasting character.
Here, then, as regards the number and grouping of movements in the
sonata, we have in the work of the father, the model for the son
Emanuel. For so far as Emanuel Bach contributed at all to the external
structure of the pianoforte sonata, it was by adhering consistently to
this three-movement type which was later adopted by Haydn, Mozart, and,
to a great extent, Beethoven.
His consistency in this regard is indeed well worth noticing. For
between the years 1740 and 1786, when he composed and published his
numerous sets of sonatas, there was much variety of procedure among
musicians. Bach, however, rarely varied; and this, together with the
models his father left, justifies us in calling the sonata in three
movements distinctly the German type of this period.
Meanwhile composers who were more in the current of Italian music
fought shy of committing themselves to a fixed grouping of movements.
Italian instrumental music was taking a tremendous swing towards melody
and lightness. This was especially influential in shaping the triplex
form of movement; but was also affecting the general grouping. Padre
Martini (1706-84) of Bologna alone adhered to a regular, or nearly
regular, number and sequence of movements in harpsichord sonatas. His
twelve harpsichord sonatas, published in Amsterdam in 1742, but written
some years earlier, seem strangely out of place in their surroundings.
To begin with, even at this late date they are written either for organ
or for harpsichord. This alone prepares us for the general contrapuntal
style of them all. Then, though named sonatas, they are far more nearly
suites. Each is composed of five movements. The first is regularly in
sonorous prelude style, suitable to the organ. The second is regularly
an allegro in fugal style, the third usually an adagio. The fourth and
fifth are in most cases dances,--gavottes, courantes or gigues, with
sometimes an aria or a theme and variations. All the movements in one
sonata are in the same key. Only one feature resembles those of the
growing Italian harpsichord sonata: the generally light dance character
of the last or the last two movements. For what is very noticeable in
the sonatas of E. Bach is that the last movements, though cheerful in
character, are usually of equal musical significance with the first.
Far more in the growing Italian style are the eight sonatas of
Domenico Alberti, the amateur thorn in the professional side. Just
when they were written is not known. The young man was born in 1717
and died probably in 1740 if not before. None of them has more than
two movements. Both are in the same key and the second is usually the
livelier of the two, often a minuet.
A group of the Italians preferred the sonata in two movements,
Francisco Durante (1684-1755), for example, and later Domenico Paradies
(1710-92). Later still, some sonatas of Johann Christian Bach, youngest
son of Sebastian, who submitted quite to the Italian influence, have
but two movements; and the first of Clementi’s sonatas also. Other
Italians, like Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85), seem never to have decided
upon any definite number, nor any definite order of movements.
What is, however, due particularly to the Italian influence is the
persistent intrusion of a dance form in the cycle--usually a minuet. We
find it in Alberti, in Christian Bach, and especially in the clavecin
works of Jean Schobert, a young Silesian, resident in Paris from about
1750 to 1766, one of the most brilliant clavecinists of his day, one of
the most charming, and one who brought a very decided influence upon
the development of the young Mozart.
The Italian tendency was invariably to put at the end of the sonata
a movement of which the lightness and gaiety of the contents were to
bring refreshment or even relief after the more serious divulgences of
the earlier movements,--a rondo or even a dance. To this impulse Haydn
and Mozart both yielded, retaining from Emanuel Bach only the standard
number of three movements.
It must be added here that something is due to Slavic influences in the
ultimate general triumph of the objectively gay over the subjectively
profound in the last movement or movements of the sonata and the
symphony. Not only did Haydn incorporate in the scheme the lively
expressive melodies and the crisp rhythms so native to the Slavic
peoples among whom he grew to manhood. Earlier than he the Bohemian,
Johann Stamitz, had thus enlivened and clarified the symphony, and
given it the great impetus to future development which bore so
splendidly in Vienna. And Schobert, whom we have but now mentioned, was
from a Polish land. What such men brought was essentially of spiritual
significance; but in music, as in other arts, the new spirit brings the
new form.
As we have already said, the number and sequence of movements in
the pianoforte sonata has never been rigidly fixed. But an average
combination is clear. The majority of sonatas by Haydn and by Mozart,
as well as by lesser men like Clementi, Dussek and Rust, and many of
the sonatas by Beethoven, are in three movements. Of these the first
and last are invariably in the same key (major and minor). The first
movement is normally of a dignified, formal, and more or less involved
character, though such a generalization may be quickly stoned to death
by numbers of conspicuous and great exceptions. The second movement is
normally in a key contrasting with the first movement, usually of slow
and lyrical character, usually also simple, at least as regards form.
The last movement is, in perhaps the majority of cases, more brilliant,
more obvious and more rapid than the others, calculated to amuse and
astonish the listener rather than to stir his emotions, to send him
away laughing and delighted, rather than sad and thoughtful.
The number three was established by Emanuel Bach. The character of
the last movement, however, was determined by Italian and Slavic
influences, and is somewhat reminiscent of the suite. If one more
sign is necessary of the complex crossing and recrossing of various
lines of development before the pianoforte sonata rose up clear on
its foundations, we have but to note the curious facts that the suite
was neglected in Italy during the seventeenth century in favor of
the string sonata; that the suite reached its finest proportions in
Germany, chiefly at the hands of Sebastian Bach; that through Sebastian
Bach the three-movement sonata group passed from the Italian Vivaldi to
Emanuel Bach, who established it as a norm; finally that the Italians,
who neglected the suite in the seventeenth century, conceived an
enthusiasm for it in the eighteenth and brought their love of it to
bear on the German sonata group, introducing the minuet and giving to
the last movement the lively care-free form of a dance or a rondo.
Before proceeding to outline the development of the triplex form in
which at least one movement of this sonata group was written and which
is one of the most distinctive features of the sonata, it is not out of
place to stop to consider what relationship, if any, existed between
the movements. Was the sonata as a whole an indissoluble unit? Rather
decidedly no. The grouping of several movements together came to be
as conventional and as arbitrary, if not so regular, as the grouping
of the suites. There is about the sonatas of Emanuel Bach a certain
seriousness and an emotional genuineness which might prevail upon the
pianist today, if ever he should think of playing them in concert, to
respect the grouping in which the composer chose to present them to
the world. But there is no organic life in the sonatas as a whole.
Occasionally in his sonatas and in those of Clementi and Haydn the slow
middle movement leads without pause into the rapid finale. In these
cases, however, the slow movement is introductory to the last, to which
it is attached though not related.
Haydn, Mozart and even Beethoven took movements from one work and
incorporated them in another. Moreover, it was the custom even as late
as the time that Chopin played in Vienna, to play the first movement
of a symphony, a concerto or a sonata early in a program and the last
movements considerably later, after other works in other styles had
been performed. The sonatas and symphonies of the last quarter of
the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries in
the main lacked any logical principle of unity. We say in the main,
because Emanuel Bach, F. W. Rust, and Beethoven succeeded, in some of
their greatest sonatas, in welding the movements inseparably together.
Clementi, too, in the course of his long life acquired such a mastery
of the form. But these developments are special, and signalize in a way
the passing on of the sonata. As a form the sonata proper was doomed by
the lack of a unity which composers in the nineteenth century felt to
be necessary in any long work of music.
The day will come, if indeed it has not already come, when most sonatas
will have been broken up by Time into the various distinct parts of
which they were pieced together. Out of the fragments future years will
choose what they will to preserve. Already the Bach suites have been so
broken. It makes no difference that their separate numbers are for the
most part of imperishable stuff. Movements of Haydn and Mozart will
endure after their sonatas as wholes are dead. So, too, with many of
the Beethoven sonatas. The links which hold their movements together
are often but convention; and there is evidently no convention which
Time will not corrode.
II
In looking over the vast number of sonatas written between 1750 and
1800 one is impressed, if one is kindly, not so much by their careless
structure and triviality as by their gaiety. In the adagios the
composers sometimes doff their hats, somewhat perfunctorily, to the
muse of tragedy; but for the most part their sonatas are light-hearted.
They had a butterfly existence. They were born one day but to die the
next. Yet there was a charm about them. The people of that day loved
them. A run and a trill do, it is true, but tickle the ear; but that
is, after all, a pleasant tickling. And simple harmonies may shirk
often enough the weight of souls in tragic conflict, to bear which
many would make the duty of music; yet their lucidity is something
akin to sunlight. The frivolities of these countless sonatas are the
frivolities of youth. There is no high seriousness in most of them. And
our triplex form came sliding into music on a burst of youth. A star
danced and it was born.
What gave definite shape to this fundamentally simple form is the
Italian love of melody. So far as it may be traced to the influence of
one man, it may be traced to Giovanni Pergolesi, whose trio-sonatas
first gave to the world as a prototype of the classical triplex form
what is now known as the ‘singing allegro.’ Pergolesi was born in 1704
and lived to be only thirty-three years old; but in that brief life,
gaily and recklessly squandered as it seems to have been, he exerted
an influence upon the growth of music which apparently started it upon
a new stage. He was all but worshipped by his countrymen. His opera,
_La serva padrona_ (1733), won instant success, not only in Italy,
but well over all Europe; and had an influence comparable to that of
but few other single works in the history of music. On the ground of
instrumental music his trio-sonatas have, as it seems now, accomplished
scarcely less.
We must here restrict ourselves to the harpsichord music of the time in
Italy, in which the ‘singing allegro’ found place almost at once. Let
us first consider what lay at the bottom of the new form.
We may plunge at once to the very foundation, the harmonic groundwork.
As we have seen, perhaps the most important accomplishment in music
of the seventeenth century was the discovery and establishment of key
relationships in that harmonic conception of music which has endured
almost to the present day. Instrumental forms developed upon this
re-organization of musical material. Subsequently, however polyphonic
the texture of a piece of music--a fugue of Bach’s, for instance--might
be, its shape was moulded upon a frame of harmony. The piece was in a
certain key, clearly affirmed at the beginning and at the end, points
in the structure which in a piece of music as in a paragraph are
naturally the most emphatic. Within these limits there was the life
and variety of a harmonic development, which, departing from the tonic
key, must return thence. Long before the year 1700 the regulation of
such harmonic procedures had definitely fixed the symmetrical plan of
two forms: the so-called aria form and the binary form. Neither was in
itself capable of much development; and it was in a sort of fusion of
both that the harmonic plan of the triplex form was created.
The aria form was in three sections which we have elsewhere represented
by the letters A, B, A. A, the opening section, was all in the tonic
key, and was practically complete in itself. B, the second section,
was in a contrasting key or was harmonically unstable. A, the third
section, was but an exact repetition of the first, to give balance
and unity to the whole. The limitations of the form were essentially
harmonic. The first section offered little or no chance for modulation.
Its tonality must be unmistakably and impressively tonic. Therefore it
did not develop into the second section by means of harmonic unrest.
The second was simply a block of contrasting harmonies, like a block
of porphyry set beside a block of marble. Frequently, however, the
second section was incomplete without the third. In such cases a hyphen
between the B and the second A in our lettered scheme would represent
the relations between the three sections more nearly, thus: A, B-A.
The binary form, in which most of the dance movements of the suite
were composed, was usually shorter than the aria form; but though
apparently simpler, it was, from the point of view of harmony, more
highly organized. It consisted, as we have seen, of two sections, each
of which was repeated in turn. The first modulated from the tonic key
to the dominant or relative major; the second from that key back to the
tonic again. It will be observed that the first section really grew
into the second by harmonic impulse; for the first section, ending as
it did in a key that was not the key of the piece, was incomplete. The
two sections together not only established a perfect balance of form
and harmony, but had an organic harmonic life which was lacking in the
aria.
However, the tendency of most forms was towards the triple division
typified by the aria, with a clearly defined first section, a second
section of contrasting and uncertain character, and a third section
which, being a restatement of the first, reestablished the tonic key
and gave to the piece as a whole a positive order. In the binary
forms of Froberger and Chambonnières there is the harmonic embryo of
a distinct middle section; namely, the few modulations through which
the music passes on its way from dominant back to tonic in the second
section. It can be easily understood that composers would make the
most of this chance for modulation as they became more and more aware
of the beauty of harmony; likewise, that the bolder their harmonic
ventures in these measures, the greater was their need to emphasize the
final re-establishment of the tonic key. Ultimately a distinct triple
division was inevitable, with an opening section modulating from tonic
to dominant, a second section of contrasting keys and few modulations;
finally a restatement of the first section, as in the aria, but
necessarily somewhat changed so that the whole section might be in the
tonic key. Such is the harmonic foundation of the triplex form.
Such a form makes its appearance in music very shortly after the
beginning of the eighteenth century. It seems akin now to the aria,
now to the binary form. One may suspect the latter relationship if the
first section is repeated, and the second and third sections (as one)
likewise. These repetitions are obviously inherited from the binary
form. On the other hand, if these sections are not thus repeated, the
piece resembles more nearly the aria.
Take, for example, an adagio from the second sonata in a set of twelve
published by Padre Martini in 1742, written probably many years
earlier. These sonatas were republished by Madame Farrenc in the third
volume of her _Trésor des pianistes_. The adagio in question is clearly
in three sections very like an aria, with the difference that the first
section ends in the dominant (in the eighth measure), and the last is
consequently changed from the first so that it may end in the tonic.
There are no repeats.
Far more remarkable is a sonata in C major by D. Scarlatti. It is
the eleventh in the Breitkopf and Härtel collection of twenty to
which reference has already been made. Here we find a first section
modulating from tonic to dominant. This is repeated. Then follows the
second section, full of free modulations, and this section comes to
a very obvious half-close. The last section very nearly repeats the
first, except for the necessary changes in harmony so that all may be
in the tonic key. Scarlatti nowhere else wrote in this form so clearly.
Did he merely chance upon it? The wide crossing of the hands marks
an early stage in his composing, yet the form is clearly triplex and
astonishingly orthodox.
The most striking aspect of this little piece is the obvious, clear
divisions of the sections. The first section is marked off from the
second by the double bar for the repeat. There is a pause before the
third section, or restatement, begins. But clearest of all is the
arrangement of musical material. By this we know positively that the
triplex form has become firmly fixed, that the old binary form has
expanded to a ternary form, submitting to the same influences that had
made the perfect aria and the perfect fugue.
It will be remembered that in the old binary form, composers made
little effort to differentiate the material proper to the dominant
part of the first section from that which had already been given out
in the tonic. Such pieces dealt not in clear themes but in one or two
running figures which lent themselves to more or less contrapuntal
treatment. The opening figure was usually the most definite. The
second section began with this figure in the dominant key; but in the
final restoration of the tonic key the figure played no part. In other
words, the chief figure of the whole piece almost never appeared
in the second section in the tonic. It was not until the embryonic
middle section, which, as we have seen, consisted of but one or two
modulations, had developed to something of the proportions of the
contrasting section of the aria, that composers realized that in order
fully to re-establish the tonic key at the end, the chief figure should
again make its appearance and usher in the final section, which thus
became a restatement of the first.
Scarlatti’s treatment of the binary form was always brilliant and
clear. He was, as we know, fertile in sparkling figures. His sonatas
are always made up of two or more of these, which, unlike the figures
in the suites of most of his contemporaries, are distinct from each
other. But in most of his pieces, long as the middle section might be,
the tonic key was never re-introduced by the return of the opening
figure of the first section. It is precisely this that he has done
in the sonata in C major now in question. The first section presents
two distinct figures or subjects, one in the tonic, the other in the
dominant. The first, or opening figure, is in the nature of a trumpet
call. The second is conspicuous by the wide crossing of the hands.
The second section begins immediately after the double bar in the
proper manner of the binary form; that is, with a modification of the
first subject in the key of the dominant. Then follow many interesting
modulations, leading to the unmistakable half-close, prefatory to the
third section. And the third section begins at once with the _first_
figure in the _tonic_ key, and proceeds to the second, now likewise
in the tonic. This, more than all else, marks the passing of the
binary form into the triplex. The Padre Martini adagio presents the
same feature, but less clearly because the second figure is hardly
articulate.
These two little pieces, which are but two out of many now known and
others yet to be discovered, seem to reveal to us a stage at which
the aria form and the binary form merged into the form of movement
generally known as the sonata form, which we have chosen arbitrarily
to call the triplex. The three distinct sections, the last repeating
the first, seem modelled on the aria. The highly organized harmonic
life seems inherited from the binary form of the dance movements of the
suite. Finally the arrangement and development of two distinct figures
or subjects on this plan are proper to the new form alone.
Upon this hybrid foundation Pergolesi built up his ‘singing allegro.’
Where Scarlatti had employed figures, Pergolesi employed melodies.
Therefore we find a melody in the tonic key, a melody in the dominant,
these two constituting with the measures which accomplish the
modulation between them, the first section, which is repeated. Then
follows a section of free modulation, in which fragments of either
melody, but chiefly of the first, play their parts; and lastly the
return of both melodies in the tonic key.
It is the Italian love of melody which gives it its final stamp.
To this love Scarlatti hardly felt free to abandon himself in his
harpsichord music; partly, probably, because of the ancient polyphonic
tradition which still demanded of organ and of harpsichord music the
constant movement we find in the preludes of Bach’s English suites;
also because as a virtuoso he was interested in making his instrument
speak brilliantly, and because he realized that the harpsichord was
really unfitted to melody.
But the singing allegro of Pergolesi won the world at a stroke, and
almost at once we find it applied to the harpsichord by the young
amateur, Domenico Alberti. One should give the devil his due. Poor
Alberti, hardly more than a youth, for having supposedly seduced the
world of composers to bite the juicy apple of what is called the
Alberti bass, has been excoriated by all soberminded critics and
treated with unveiled contempt. Let us look into his life and works for
a moment.
Little enough is known of him, and that little smacks of faëry. He
was probably born in Venice in 1717. He died about 1740, probably in
Rome. Only twenty-three, masters, but he tied his bass to the tail of
music and there it swings to this day. But more of the bass anon. He
was an amateur, according to Laborde,[23] a pupil of Biffi and Lotti.
He was a beautiful singer. At least we read that he went to Madrid in
the train of the Venetian ambassador, and astonished Farinelli, one of
the greatest and most idolized singers of the day, who was then living
in high favor at the Spanish court. Later he came back to Rome, where
he recommended himself to the patronage of a certain Marquis Molinari.
About 1737 he set two of Metastasio’s libretti, _Endymion_ and
_Galatea_, to music, which was, according to Laborde, highly esteemed.
All his teachers recalled him with great enthusiasm. He could so play
on the harpsichord, so improvise, that he charmed large assemblies
during whole nights. And sometimes he would go abroad at night through
the streets of Rome with his lute, singing, followed by a crowd of
delighted amateurs. He died young and much regretted. Laborde closes
his article by saying that Alberti wrote thirty-six sonatas which are
said to be superb, and of a new kind (_d’un genre neuf_). Laborde’s
article, though pleasing, is a bit highly colored. From it we have a
right only to infer that Alberti was lovable, a good singer and a good
player. That he speaks of the sonatas as being of a new sort, however,
should not be forgotten.
Dr. Burney mentions Alberti twice in his ‘Present State of Music in
Germany,’ both times in connection with his stay in Vienna in the
autumn of 1772, more than thirty years after Alberti’s death. Once
it is to give his name among the seven men who were at that time
considered to be the greatest composers for harpsichord and for organ.
Other names were Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach (either Emanuel or
Christian: the father was not then generally appreciated). High company
for poor Alberti, from which he since has fallen most low. But that he
should have been reckoned with such men thirty years after his death,
speaks irrefutably for the influence his works must have had, for a
time, at any rate, upon the development of pianoforte music.
Reference was made in the second chapter to the other mention of
Alberti in Dr. Burney’s book. It occurred in connection with Dr.
L’Augier’s reminiscences of D. Scarlatti. Scarlatti had told the
eminent physician that he had always borne in mind, while writing his
pieces for the harpsichord, the special qualities of that instrument,
whereas other ‘modern’ composers, like Alberti, were now writing in
a style that would be more fitting to other instruments. In the case
of Alberti, Scarlatti must have had the voice in mind, for Alberti’s
harpsichord sonatas are hardly more than strings of melodies.
Considering then that Alberti was held in such high esteem as late as
1772, and that D. Scarlatti complained of him that he wrote in a manner
less fitting to the harpsichord than to some other instrument, it seems
likely that to him in part is due the appearance of the singing allegro
in harpsichord music, which was to be characteristic of Christian Bach,
of Mozart, of Haydn, of Clementi and in some part of Beethoven.
The sonatas themselves bear this out. The eight which we have been
able to study, are light stuff, indisputably. But the triplex form is
clear in most of the movements. He uses two separate distinct melodies
as themes. The first appears at once in the tonic, the second later
in the dominant. The first section, which is nothing more than the
exposition of these two themes, is repeated. After the double bar
follows a section of varying length, usually dominated by reminiscences
of the first theme, the modulations of which are free but by no means
unusual. Then the third section repeats both melodies in the tonic
key. The first movement of a sonata in G major is conspicuous for the
length of its second section, in which there is not only a good bit of
interesting modulation, but also actually new material.
The bass which bears his name is no more than the familiar breaking of
a chord in the following manner:
[Illustration: Music score]
It is hardly more true that he invented it than that such a formula is
intrinsically as contemptible as many musicians, mostly theoreticians,
would make it out to be. If a musician is, in a given composition,
concerned with melody, he may be justified in following the procedure
which makes that melody reign undisputed over his music. This
inevitably will reduce the accompaniment to the simplest function
possible; namely, outlining or supplying the harmony upon which all
melodies, since the Middle Ages at least, have been felt to rest.
In the first sophisticated experiments with melody--the opera early in
the seventeenth century--the accompaniment to a song was frequently
no more than a few occasional chords upon the harpsichord. These
chords were not even written out for the accompanist, but were
indicated to him by figures placed over the notes of a single bass
part. As composers acquired skill in combining several instruments in
accompaniments to their operas, the figured bass lost its importance;
but it was still employed as a sort of harmonic groundwork almost to
the end of the eighteenth century. It was a prop to the harmonies woven
more or less contrapuntally by other instruments, which, unlike
the harpsichord, had power to sustain tone.
[Illustration]
Harpsichord composers. From top left to bottom right:
D. Scarlatti, Couperin, C. P. E. Bach, Clementi.
When a man like Alberti at last endeavored to write purely melodic
music on the harpsichord alone, which by the way was wholly unfitted
to sing, three methods of accompaniment were open to him. One of these
was to give to the left hand, as accompanist, a counter-melody or
counter-melodies, which, interweaving with the upper melody, would
create harmonic progressions. Allowing him to have had the skill
to do this, as Couperin or Bach had been able to do, it would not
have recommended itself to him as the best way to set off the chief
melody. Such a procedure inevitably tangled melody with accompaniment.
Secondly, he could give to the left hand a series of chords. But owing
to the nature of the harpsichord, these would sound dry and detached,
with cold harmonic vacancies between; unless he chose to repeat the
chords rapidly, which process was decidedly clumsy. Finally he could
break up the chords into their separate notes, combine these in groups
easily within the grasp of the hand, and by playing these groups
rapidly over and over again, produce a constantly moving harmonic
current on which his melody might float along. This is in fact what
Alberti did, and this is the legitimate function of the Alberti bass,
one which can no more be dispensed with from pianoforte music than the
tremolo from the orchestra.
It is hardly possible to believe that he invented the particular
formula which plays such a part in his music. Bach had devised many
methods of breaking chords so that their component parts might be kept
in rapid and constant vibration. Witness alone the first and second
preludes in the first book of the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord.’ In the
ninth toccata of the elder Scarlatti there is an eight-measure passage
of chords broken exactly in the Alberti manner. But such devices were
employed by Bach and likewise by A. Scarlatti in passages of purely
harmonic significance. Alberti must be among the first, if he is not
actually the first, to use them to supply a simple harmonic basis for
his melodies.
From the almost universal acceptance of the formula in the last half of
the eighteenth century one may deduce two facts: one, that a good many
composers were too lazy or too lacking in natural endowment to bother
with acquiring a skill in counterpoint; second, that the whole trend of
music was away from the contrapuntal style towards the purely melodic.
Both facts are true; but one should no more deplore the former than be
thankful for the latter, to which is owing many an imperishable page of
Mozart and of Beethoven.
Other formulas of accompaniment in no way superior to Alberti’s were
quick to make their appearance. Among them should be noticed the
arpeggio figures:
[Illustration: Music score]
and the perhaps even more monotonous ones which one finds even in
such a sublime masterpiece as the sonata in A-flat major (op. 110) of
Beethoven.
[Illustration: Music score]
Alberti is a convenient figure to whom to trace an early style of
sonata movement which developed through Christian Bach and Clementi,
and Haydn and Mozart. He fits the case pretty well because he happened
to write a number of sonatas for harpsichord alone. But the great
influences which, apart from Pergolesi, affected the growth of this
triplex form not only in the symphony, but in the sonata as well,
emanated from Mannheim in the Upper Palatinate. The orchestra there
under the gifted Johann Stamitz had come to be, before the middle
of the century, the best in Europe. The two great composers who were
associated with it, Franz Xaver Richter (1709-89) and Stamitz (1717-57)
himself, did perhaps more than any other composers of the time to
strengthen the new form and give it use as a vehicle of lively feeling.
Their energy and their success left an indelible impression upon
the symphony, and upon the string-quartet. And they made themselves
felt upon the pianoforte sonata; in Vienna through the famous
pianist-composer, G. C. Wagenseil (1715-1777); in Paris through the
young and popular Jean Schobert (d. 1767) already mentioned; and even
in London through Christian Bach.
Emanuel Bach, who was frequently publishing sets of sonatas in
Berlin from 1740 to 1786, rather gradually adopted the new form than
contributed to its development. He never quite shook off a conception
of music inherited from his father, which was at the time a little too
serious to submit wholly to the new influences. Hence, for example,
the triplex form is always a little vague in his music. The themes
which he employed, though often beautiful and poetic, were not of the
distinct and melodious type which was characteristic of the form. The
first and second themes were not often clearly differentiated. In fact
he frequently inclined towards constructing his movements out of one
theme, which dominated them as the opening figure dominated the old
binary form. And he very rarely made use of the stereotyped formulas of
the harmonic accompaniment, born of the universal tendency towards a
melodic or homophonic style.
He cannot be closely associated with the developments which took place
within the ‘singing allegro,’ preparing it for use in the great sonatas
of the Viennese period. These took the form of setting the two themes
out of which the movement was constructed distinctly apart from each
other, in strong _relief_, so to speak; and of similarly giving the
three sections a clear outline, and the movement as a whole a stable
balance.
The processes by which this was accomplished in harpsichord music may
be briefly touched upon. The first theme tended towards simplicity.
Already in sonatas of Christian Bach and Jean Schobert a dignified and
somewhat declamatory type of melody is favored for the opening. This
was usually repeated, that it might be impressed upon the mind of the
listener. Often it came to an end squarely in a full tonic cadence.
The transitional passage which was then to accomplish the modulation
to the dominant or relative major key in which the second theme was to
be announced, tended to become highly conventional, a sort of service
music with little more than formal significance. Usually a figure of
some technical brilliance carried the music along in repetitions that
could not fail to attract the attention of the listener and arouse his
curiosity as to what was coming next. These figures might or might not
be fragments of the opening theme. The modulation to the desired key
having been accomplished, the passage came to an end in a flourish or
in a pause of a beat or two. No feature of the triplex form is more
distinctive than these conventional transitional passages which seem to
carry on the double function of porter and herald.
After the claim to attention had been thereby established the second
theme was allowed to sing. The general tendency was to give to this
second theme a gentler and more truly melodious character than the
first. Here was the great domain of the Alberti bass, for instance. And
following the second theme came another busy little passage, service
music again, of which the duty was to bring the first section of the
movement to an orderly close in the key of the dominant.
The treatment of the middle section varied. It remained always the
part in which the composer exercised the most freedom. It might be
long or short, in the manner of a fantasia; it might merely present
fragments of the first or second themes or both in a series of
modulations or sequences. It may be said that the tendency towards a
more or less dramatic development made an appearance before the end
of the century, as if the composer was submitting his will to the
suggestions of the themes themselves. The greater the inherent vitality
of these themes the more likely were they to assert themselves in this
middle section and to reveal, as it were, the germinating power within
them and color the section with their nature. The end of the section
was more and more contrived to lead up to the last section in an
obvious manner, either with a long run, a series of flourishes reaching
a climax, or a pause, or anticipations of the coming theme.
The last section differed little from the first except that the second
theme now appeared in the tonic key. The transitional passage was
taken, along with the themes themselves, from the first section; but,
relieved of one half its duty--that of bringing to pass a modulation
from tonic to dominant--was likely to be considerably shortened. The
closing measures, however, were usually an exact reduplication in the
tonic key of those which had closed the first section in the dominant.
The first section was always repeated, and so were the second and
third, _en bloc_.
Such was the sonata form of movement which we have chosen to call
the triplex form; a movement in three clear sections, made up of two
themes appearing variously in each of them. The three sections are
generally known in English as the exposition, the development, and
the recapitulation or restatement; and what distinguishes them is the
conventional figure or passage work which was used to mark them off,
one from the other, and to stand as dividing line between the first
and second themes. In the sonatas of Christian Bach all these things
are clear and _en règle_; in Emanuel Bach they are obscure. They are
clear in the works of the Mannheim group, and in those of the Viennese
and Parisian composers who responded to their influence. They are
clear in the sonatas and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart and can still
be traced in most of those of Beethoven. Hence it would seem that in
many ways Emanuel Bach, instead of being the source of the pianoforte
sonata, stands very nearly outside the current of influences to which
it really owes its most distinctive feature.
We may again define the sonata as a piece of music which is a
conventional group of several pieces or movements, usually three, more
rarely four. The movements are not internally related to each other.
The bond which holds them together is only traditional. One of these
movements, most often the first, is written in a form sprung of the
love of Italians and Slavs for melody, known generally as the _sonata
form_. The presence of a movement in this form in a group of pieces
will give an unchallenged right to call that group a sonata.[24]
III
The pianoforte sonata was a sufficiently clearly defined product of
musical craftsmanship, if not art, before Haydn and Mozart began
seriously to express themselves in it. It is right then to summarize
briefly the musical value of the chief sonatas before their day.
The many writers may be divided according to the countries in which
they practised their art. In London are to be found P. D. Paradies
(1710-1792) and Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), both Italians, and
Johann Christian Bach, submitting almost unconditionally to Italian
influence. In the London group too must be reckoned one of the most
important men in the development of pianoforte music, Muzio Clementi.
In Vienna the chief figure is G. C. Wagenseil; in Paris, Jean
Schobert; in Berlin, Emanuel Bach, with whom may be reckoned Friedrich
Wilhelm Rust, who, through his brother Johann Ludwig Anton, a pupil
of Sebastian Bach, was clearly influenced by the works of the great
masters.
Both Galuppi and Paradies rather continue the tradition of Scarlatti
than contribute to the development of the new style. Both, however,
published sets of sonatas, that is sets of pieces in more than one
movement; though the triplex form is practically unfamiliar to them.
Their music has great sprightliness and charm. It should be mentioned
because the work of Paradies especially was admired and recommended by
Clementi.
Christian Bach, on the other hand, is full of the new idea. His life
itself may well claim attention. It is sufficiently remarkable that he
almost alone of the great Bach family which had for generations played
a part in the development of music in Germany, and was to play such a
part there for many years to come, broke the traditions of his fathers,
went to Italy for eight years, even became a Catholic, and finally
decided to pass the last twenty years of his life in London. Though
the many stories of his extravagances and dissipations have been most
unrighteously exaggerated, he was none the less of a gay, light-hearted
and pleasure-loving nature which is in sharp contrast to the graver and
more pious dispositions of his ancestors.
His father died when he was but fifteen years old. He had already shown
marked ability as a player of the harpsichord, and his brother Emanuel
took him to Berlin after the father’s death and trained him further in
the art for four years. Then followed the eight years in Italy where he
was beloved and admired by all with whom he came in contact, not the
least by the great Padre Martini in Bologna, with whom he studied for
many years. In 1762 he went to London, chiefly to write operas. He was
enormously popular and successful. He was court clavecinist to Queen
Anne and in 1780 a Bath paper spoke of him as the greatest player of
his time.
At some time not long after his arrival in England he published a set
of six sonatas for the harpsichord, dedicated to the amusement of
‘His Serene Highness, Monseigneur le duc Ernst, duc de Mecklenburg.’
Of these the second, in D major, offers a particularly excellent
example of clear, lucid writing in the sonata form. The first movement
is admirable. The first theme is composed of vigorous chords. It is
given twice, then followed by a transitional passage full of fire; the
right hand keeping a continuous flow of broken chord figures, over
the rising and falling powerful motives in the left. The preparation
for the announcement of the second theme is in remarkably mature
classical manner, and the lovely melodious second theme, with its
gentle Albertian accompaniment, is clearly a promise of Mozart to
come. There is a fine free closing passage. The development section
is long and varied, astonishingly modern; and the return to the first
theme, prepared by a long pedal point and a crescendo, is not a little
fiery and dramatic. The second movement, an andante in G major, and
the quick final movement in D again, round off a work which for
clearness of form, for balance in proportions, and for a certain fine
and healthy charm, is wholly admirable. Above all there is about all
his work a real grace which, superficial as it may be, is a precious
and perhaps a rare quality in pianoforte music, a quality both of
elegance and amiability. It is a reflection of his own amiable nature,
so conspicuous in all his dealings with the little Mozart during the
spring of 1765.
Christian Bach is no careless musician. His work is done with a sure
and unfailing hand. No man could have lived fifteen years in the
house of his father, Sebastian, and four more in that of his brother
Emanuel, and yet again eight under the strong personal influence of
Padre Martini, the most learned contrapuntist of his day, without
acquiring a mastery of the science of music. Such Christian Bach had at
his command; such he chose to conceal under a lightness and gaiety of
thought and style.
As regards instrumental music in particular his influence upon Mozart,
though in some ways ineradicable, was largely supplanted by the
influence of Josef and Michael Haydn. What Mozart received from him in
the domain of opera, however, as summarized by Messrs. de Wyzewa and
Saint-Foix in their ‘W. A. Mozart’ (Paris, 1912), was characteristic
of all of Bach’s music: ‘A mixture of discrete elegance and melodic
purity, a sweetness sometimes a little too soft [_un peu molle_] but
always charming, a preference of beauty above intensity of dramatic
expression, or rather a constant preoccupation to keep expression
within the limits of beauty.’
Muzio Clementi was born in Rome in 1752, but when hardly more than
a lad of fourteen was brought to London by an English gentleman,
and London was henceforth his home until he died in 1832. He was a
brilliant virtuoso, though he travelled but little to exhibit his
powers; an excellent pedagogue; a very shrewd business man. Among his
many compositions of all kinds, about sixty are sonatas for pianoforte.
The first series of three was published in 1770 and is usually taken to
determine the date at which the pianoforte began really to supplant the
harpsichord.
Concerning Clementi’s relation to the development of a new pianoforte
technique we shall speak further on. Here we have to do with the
musical worth of his sonatas. Clementi was born before Mozart and
Beethoven. He outlived them both, not to mention Haydn, Weber and
Schubert. Mozart, after a test of skill with him in Vienna, had little
to say of him save that he had an excellent, clear technique. He
remained primarily a virtuoso in all his composition; but on the one
hand he undoubtedly influenced Mozart and Beethoven,--and not only
in the matter of pianoforte effects,--while on the other he no less
obviously held himself open to influence from them, particularly from
Beethoven.
His pianoforte sonatas show a steady development towards the curtailing
of sheer virtuosity and the supremacy of emotional seriousness. In the
early works, op. 2, op. 7, and op. 12, for example, he is obviously
writing for display. The sonatas in op. 2 have but two movements. After
that he generally composes them of three. The spirit of Scarlatti
prevails, though it is almost impossible to point to any close
relationship between the two men. The last movement of the second
sonata in op. 26 perhaps resembles Scarlatti as definitely as any. But
the fundamental difference between them, which may well obliterate all
traces of the indebtedness of the one to the other, is that Clementi
writes in the new melodic style. That he was a skilled contrapuntist
did not restrain his use of the Alberti bass and other formulas of
accompaniment.
He composed with absolute clearness. The classical triplex form, with
its conventional transitional passages, its clear-cut sections, and,
above all, its well-defined thematic melodies, can nowhere else be
better exemplified. What perhaps mars his music, or at any rate makes
a great part of it tiresome to modern ears, is the employment of long
scale passages in many of his transitional passages. They cannot but
suggest the exercise book and the hours of practice which are back of
them. The concise figures of Schobert, of Haydn and Mozart may sound
thin, but, though they suggest sometimes the schoolboy, they spare us
the school.
On the other hand, Clementi was wonderfully fertile in figures that
sound well on the piano, and many of his sonatas, empty enough of
genuine feeling, are still pleasant and vivacious to the listener.
Yet they seem to have sunk down into the tomb. They are perhaps never
heard in concerts at the present day. Those which are only show music
may willingly be let go. They lack the diamond sparkle of Scarlatti.
But there are others, even among the earlier ones, which are musically
too worthy and still too interesting to be so ruthlessly consigned to
the grave as the modern temper has consigned them. Have we after all
too much pianoforte music as it is? It seems to be more than a change
of fashion that keeps Clementi dead. Perhaps it is the shade of the
admirable but awful _Gradus ad Parnassum_ over all his other work.
Perhaps a man has the right to live immortally by the virtue of but one
of his excellencies. In the case of Clementi posterity has chosen to
remember only the success of a teacher. The great series of studies or
exercises published in 1817 under the usual pompous title of _Gradus ad
Parnassum_ alone of all his work still retains some general attention.
And this in spite of many beauties in his sonatas. Even among the
early ones there are some distinguished by a fineness of feeling and
a true if not great gift of musical expression. Take, for example,
the sonata in G minor, number three of the seventh opus. The first
movement, _allegro con spirito_, has more to recommend it than unusual
formal compactness and perfection. The opening theme has a color not
in the power of the mere music-maker. It is true that there is the
almost ever-present scale passage in the transition to the second
theme; but the second theme itself has a grace of movement and even
a certain sinuousness of harmony that cannot but suggest Mozart.
There are sudden accents and rough chords that foreshadow a mannerism
of Beethoven; and the full measure of silence before the restatement
begins is a true romantic touch.
The spirit of the slow movement is perhaps a trifle perfunctory. There
is little hint of Mozart, who, alone of the classical composers, could
somehow always keep the wings of his music gently fluttering through
the leaden _tempo adagio_. The sharp--one may well say shocking--sudden
fortissimos herald Beethoven again. The movement is, however, blessedly
short; and the final _presto_ is full of fire and dark, flaring and
subsiding by turns.
Of the later sonatas that in B minor, op. 40, No. 2, and that in G
minor, op. 50, No. 3, have been justly admired. Yet excellent as they
are, one can hardly pretend to do more than lay a tribute on their
graves. Only some unforeseen trump can rouse them from what seems to be
their eternal sleep. One feature of the former may be noted: the return
of a part of the slow movement in the midst of the rapid last movement.
Such a process unites at least the last two movements very firmly
together, tends to make of the sonata as a whole something more than a
series of independent movements put in line according to the rule of
convention.
The sonata in G minor also seems to have an organic life as a whole.
Clementi gave it a title, _Didone abbandonata_, and called the whole
a _scena tragica_. This is treating the whole sonata as a drama based
upon a single idea; but inasmuch as it was written probably between
1820 and 1821, this conception of the sonata probably came to him from
Beethoven rather than from his own idealism.[25]
It is hard to turn our thumbs down on Clementi. It may be unjust as
well. He entered the arena of the sonata and in many ways no man
excelled him there. Mozart’s impulsive condemnation has gone hard
with him. We are like sheep, and even the wisest will listen all but
unquestioning to a man who had, if ever man had, the voice of an
angel. And so Clementi is all but forgotten as a sonatorial gladiator
and remembered only as a trainer. That the greatest of the fighters
profited by his teaching cannot be doubted. That they despoiled him of
many ideas and even of his finery before his flesh was cold is also
true. They made better use of them.
A glance over Clementi’s sonatas can hardly astonish more than by
what it reveals of the great commonness of musical idioms during
the Viennese period. Phrase after phrase and endless numbers of
fragments bob up with the features we had thought were only Haydn’s,
or Mozart’s, or Beethoven’s. Mozart quite openly appropriated a theme
from one of Clementi’s sonatas[26] as the basis of his overture to the
‘Magic Flute.’ Such a fact is, however, far less suggestive than the
intangible similarity between the stuff Clementi used and that which
his greater contemporaries in Vienna built with. Compare, for instance,
the first movement of Clementi’s sonata in B-flat, op. 34, No. 2, with
the first movement of Beethoven’s symphony in C minor. Likeness of
treatment, likeness of skill, likeness of mood there are not; but the
juxtaposition of the two movements creates a whisper that Clementi
passed through music side by side with some of the greatest of all
composers.
IV
Both Schobert in Paris and Wagenseil in Vienna are more than straws
which show the way the wind blew through the classical sonata. They
are streaks in the wind itself. On the one came the seeds of the new
works in Mannheim to the clavecins in Paris; and on the other such
seeds were blown to harpsichords in Vienna. Both men wrote great
quantities of music for the harpsichord, but oftenest with a part for
violin added. This part was, however, usually _ad libitum_.
Concerning Schobert we may quote once more from the ‘Life of Mozart’
by Messrs. de Wyzewa and de Saint-Foix. ‘From 1763 up to the general
upheaval caused by the Revolution, he was the most played and the most
loved of all the composers of French sonatas. * * * Outside France,
moreover, his works were equally highly prized; we find testimony to it
in every sort of German, English and Italian treatise on the history or
on the _esthétique_ of the piano.’
Concerning Wagenseil we may recall the anecdote of little Mozart who
one evening, on the occasion of his first visit to Vienna, refused
to play unless Wagenseil, the greatest of players and composers for
harpsichord in Vienna, were present. Dr. Burney visited him some years
later and heard him play, old and ailing, with great fire and majesty.
Schobert was, as we have said, of Silesian origin. He came to Paris
as a young man, probably by way of Mannheim, some time between 1755
and 1760; and from then on to the time of his death in 1767 adapted
his music more and more to the French taste. Hence we find in it a
simple but strong expression, an elegant clearness and a touch of that
_sensibilité larmoyante_ made fashionable by Rousseau, showing itself
in the frequent use of minor keys, evidently at the root of the very
personal emotional life of his music.[27] Mozart came very strongly
under his influence.
Wagenseil, on the other hand, shows yet more of the Italian influence,
so strong even at that day in Vienna, to which Haydn was to owe much.
His work lacks emotion and poetry, is facile and brilliant and clear,
without much personal color.
In the matter of emotional warmth the sonatas of Emanuel Bach, however
vague they may be in form by contrast with those of Schobert and his
brother Christian, are distinguished above those of his contemporaries.
Emanuel--his full name was Carl Philipp Emanuel--was born in Weimar
in March, 1714. An early intent to devote himself to the practice of
law was given up because of his marked aptitude for music. In 1740 he
entered the service of Frederick the Great as court cembalist. In 1757
he gave up this post and went to Hamburg, where he worked as organist,
teacher, and composer until his death there on the fourteenth of
December, 1788.
The works by which he is best known are the six sets of sonatas, with
rondos and fantasies too, which he published between 1779 and 1787 in
Leipzig under the title of _Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber_ (‘Sonatas
for Connoisseurs and Amateurs’). Many of the sonatas, however, had been
composed before 1779.
An earlier set, dedicated to the Princess Amelia of Prussia and
published in 1760, bears the interesting title, _Sechs Sonaten fürs
Clavier mit veränderten Reprisen_ (‘Six Sonatas for Clavier with Varied
Repeats’). This title, together with Bach’s preface to the set, shows
conclusively that in repeating the sections of movements of sonatas,
players added some free ornamentation of their own to the music as the
composer published it. The practice seems to have been an ancient one,
applied to the suite before the sonata came into being. Thus some of
the _doubles_ of Couperin and Sebastian Bach may be taken as special
efforts on the part of the composers to safeguard their music from the
carelessness and lack of knowledge and taste of dilettanti. To what an
extent such variation in repeat might go and how much it might add to
the richness of the music are shown, for example, by the double of the
sarabande in Sebastian Bach’s sixth English suite.
Emanuel Bach’s sonatas are of very unequal merit. The sonata in F
minor,[28] published in the third set for _Kenner und Liebhaber_ in
1781, but written nearly twenty years earlier, has little either of
extrinsic or intrinsic beauty to recommend it. Not only does the
inchoate nature of the second theme in the first movement fail to
save the movement from monotony; the first theme itself is stark and
devoid of life. There is a lack of smoothness, a constant hitching. The
andante is not spontaneous for all its sentimentality, and the final
movement is fragmentary.
A sonata in A major, on the other hand, written not long after, and
published in 1779, is charming throughout. The first theme in the
first movement is conventional enough, but it has sparkle; and though
the second theme is not very distinctly different from the first,
the movement is full of variety and life. Particularly charming are
the measures constituting an unusually long epilogue to the first
section. The harmonies are richly colored, if not striking; and the
use of the epilogue in the development section is most effective. So
is the full measure pause before the cascade of sound which flows into
the restatement. The andante is over-ornamented, but the harmonic
groundwork is solid and interesting. The last movement suggests
Scarlatti, and has the animated and varied flow which characterizes the
first.
A sonata in A minor, written about 1780 and published in the second
series for _Kenner und Liebhaber_, is in many ways typical of
Emanuel Bach at his best. There is still in the first movement that
vagueness of structure which may usually be attributed to the lack
of distinctness of his second theme. But the first theme has a
fine declamatory vigor, in the spirit of the theme out of which his
father built the fifth fugue in the first book of the ‘Well-tempered
Clavichord’; and the movement as a whole has the broad sweep of a
brilliant fantasy.
The andante, with its delicate imitations, foreshadowing Schumann, is
full of poetic sentiment. It leads without break into the rapid final
movement. Here the declamatory spirit of the first movement reigns
again, but in lighter mood. There is in fact an unmistakable kinship
between the first and last movements, which must be felt though it
cannot be traced to actual thematic relationship. Here is a sonata,
then, which, though divided into three movements, seems sprung of one
fundamental idea.
Such a conception of the sonata is by no means always so clear in his
work; yet it must be said that he, more than any composer down to
Beethoven, was inclined to make of the sonata a poetic whole. His aim
was rather furthered than hindered by the vagueness of form of the
separate movements. His sonatas are all the more fantasies for being
less clearly sonatas; and they are often rich in that very quality in
which the regular classical sonata was so poor--imagination.
Most of what has been said regarding his creation or establishing of
the sonata, particularly of the triplex form, must be very largely
discounted. Haydn and Mozart learned little from him in the arrangement
of their ideas, which is form; much in the treatment of them, which is
expression. That quality of poetry which we may still admire in his
music today, vague or obscure as its form may be, was the quality in
his playing most admired by those contemporaries who heard him.
His excellent book on how to play the clavier counsels clearness and
exactness, but it is a heartfelt appeal for beauty and expressiveness
as well. What is the long, detailed analysis of _agrémens_ but the
explanation of practically the only means of subtle expression which
the cembalist could acquire? His love for the clavichord, which, for
all the frailty of its tone, was capable of fine shadings of sound,
never waned. He commended it to all as the best instrument upon which
to practise, for the clumsy hand had no power to call forth the charm
which was its only quality. Indeed, he received the pianoforte coldly.
His keyboard music was probably conceived, the brilliant for the
harpsichord, the more intimate for the clavichord. And towards the end
of his life he gave utterance to his belief that the only function of
music was to stir the emotions and that the player who could not do
that might as well not play.
In turning to the best of his sonatas one turns to profoundly beautiful
music, music that unquestionably has the power to stir the heart. The
great spirit of the father has breathed upon it and given it life.
The turns of his melodies and their ineffably tender cadences, and,
above all, the chromatic richness of his harmonies are the voice of
his father. One may be constantly startled and bewildered. There is
something ghostly abroad in them. We hear and do not hear, we almost
see and do not see, the all-powerful Sebastian. But it is the voice of
the father in a new language, his face in shadow, in the mist before
dawn. One is tempted to cry with Hamlet: ‘Well said, old mole! Canst
work i’ the ground so fast?’ It is easy to understand that Haydn, worn
out with his daily fight against starvation, could come back to his
cracked clavichord and play away half the night with the sonatas of
Emanuel Bach; that Mozart could call him father of them all. But in
spirit, not in flesh. And it is, after all, the spirit of Sebastian
that thus attends the succeeding births and rebirths of music.
The harpsichord works by W. Friedemann Bach, the oldest and, according
to some accounts, the favorite son of Johann Sebastian, have had
probably far less influence upon the development of pianoforte music.
But they contain many measures of great beauty. Madame Farrenc included
twelve polonaises, a sonata (in E-flat major), several fugues, and four
superb fantasias in the _Trésor des pianistes_. The sonata is regular
in form, and a few of the polonaises are in the triplex form. Thus
Friedemann Bach shows that he, too, like his brother Emanuel, allied
himself to the new movement in music. His mastery of musical science,
however, is evident; and that he knew the keyboard well is proved by
the unusual brilliance of his fantasias. In the main it may be said
that the greatest beauty of his music whispers of his father.
Something of the spirit shows itself in the pianoforte sonatas of
Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, a composer now little known, whose work
deserves study. He died at Dessau, where most of his life had been
spent, in 1796, just on the eve of Beethoven’s rise to prominence.
Twelve of his sonatas have recently been published in Paris under the
supervision of M. Vincent d’Indy. They show a blending of two styles:
the German style which he acquired from Emanuel Bach in Berlin, and
the Scarlatti style, of which he made a study during two years spent
in Italy. Three sonatas, in E minor, in F-sharp minor, and in D major,
written near the close of his life, are in two movements, both of which
seem welded together in the manner of the later sonatas of Beethoven.
The treatment of the pianoforte or harpsichord is modern, particularly
in the major section of the Rondo of the sonata in E minor, and in the
passage work contrasted with the beautiful first theme of the sonata
in F-sharp minor. In a sonata in C major, belonging to this period, a
fugue is introduced as an episode in the final rondo. Haydn had already
used the fugue as the last movement of the string quartet, Mozart as
the last movement of a symphony. Rust, in applying it to the pianoforte
sonata, foreshadowed Beethoven.[29]
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Pietro Locatelli, b. Bergamo, 1693; d. Amsterdam, 1764; famous
violinist, pupil of Corelli. His works, _Concerti_, trio sonatas, etc.,
are important in the development of the sonata form.
[22] Antonio Vivaldi, b. Venice, ca. 1680; d. 1743; completed Torelli’s
and Albinoni’s work in the creation of the violin concerto.
[23] Jean Benjamin de Laborde: _Essai sur la musique ancienne et
moderne_, 1780.
[24] It seems hardly worth while to add that there are well-known
sonatas in which no movement is in the triplex form. _Cf._ the Mozart
sonata in A major (K. 331) and the Beethoven sonata in A-flat major,
op. 26.
[25] It is worthy of note that a sonata in G minor for violin by
Tartini was at one time known by the name _Didone abbandonata_. _Cf._
Wasielewski: _Die Violine und ihre Meister_.
[26] Opus 43, No. 2.
[27] _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 65, _et seq._
[28] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).
[29] The sonatas of Rust as printed by his grandson showed many
extraordinary modern features which have since been proved forgeries.
The fiery discussions to which they gave rise have been summarized by
M. D. Calvocoressi in two articles in the _Musical Times_ (London) for
January and February, 1914.