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:
![[PNG]](#4545014759173569793_p110_score.png.id-8528263863980627472.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
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.
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:
![[PNG]](#4545014759173569793_p112_score1.png.id-451017011342184459.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
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.
![[PNG]](#4545014759173569793_p112_score2.png.id-2882959562354162681.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
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]