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All the other sonatas are more or less after the pattern of the one given. The other two volumes contain suites, airs with variations, arias, and a quantity of short figured basses, apparently as studies.
Before closing this short chapter we will add a word or two about Italian music for the harpsichord at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A recent writer remarks that "Domenico Scarlatti seems to spring full-armed into the view of history." But his father, the renowned opera-writer, Alessandro Scarlatti, wrote music for the harpsichord, also his pupil, Gaëtano Grieco, who succeeded him as Professor at the Conservatorio dei poveri di Gesù Cristo (Naples) in 1717. The influence of the master can be clearly traced in the music of the pupil; and, if one may judge from the simpler character of Grieco's music[55] as compared with that of D. Scarlatti, he, too, was a predecessor. Grieco is said to have been born about 1680; D. Scarlatti was born in 1683; but this, of course, decides nothing as to the dates of their compositions. The harpsichord music of G. Grieco has both character and charm, and it is indeed strange that none of his pieces have been included either in the Trésor des Pianistes, the Maîtres du Clavecin, or Pauer's Collections of old music.
This chapter is headed: "A Contemporary of Kuhnau." The latter published all his known sonatas by the year 1700, while the dates assigned to the Pasquini sonata volume are, as we have seen, 1703-4. But at that time Pasquini was over sixty years of age; it is therefore more than probable that he was really the predecessor of the German master as a writer of clavier sonatas.
CHAPTER IV
EMANUEL BACH AND SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES
Carl Phillip Emanuel, third son of J.S. Bach, was born at Weimar, 8th or 14th March, 1714, and died at Hamburg, 14th December, 1788. He studied composition and clavier-playing with his father. His brother, Wilhelm Friedemann, his senior by four years, went through a similar course, but learnt, in addition, the violin under J.G. Graun. Emanuel's attention, however, was concentrated on the one instrument; and to this we probably owe the numerous clavier sonatas which he wrote, and which paved the way for those of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. In his twenty-first year (1735) Emanuel left his father's house in order to study jurisprudence at Frankfort-on-the-Oder; three years later, however, he went to Berlin, and as cembalist entered the service of Frederick the Great (1740).[56] Already in his father's house, the young student saw and heard many distinguished musicians; he himself has told us that no musician of any note passed through Leipzig without seeking an opportunity to meet his father, so famed as composer and as performer on the organ and clavier. And again, afterwards, at the Court of Prussia, he came into contact with the most notable composers and performers of his day. From among these may be singled out C.H. Graun (composer of the "Tod Jesu") and Georg Benda.[57] Graun was already in the service of Frederick when the latter was only Crown Prince.[58] It would be interesting to learn the special influences acting upon Emanuel before he published his first set of sonatas in 1742, but this is scarcely possible. The collection of symphonies[59] or sonatas published at Leipzig in 1762, mentioned in our [introductory chapter], gives, however, some idea of the music of that period; and it is possible that many of the numbers were written before Emanuel Bach published his first works. The "Sammlung Vermischte Clavierstücke für geübte und ungeübte Spieler," by Georg Benda, may also be mentioned; it is of great interest, especially the Sonata in C minor. The character of the music and style of writing for the instrument constantly remind one of Emanuel Bach. Benda, born in 1721, joined the King of Prussia's Band in 1742, and soon became known as an experienced performer on the harpsichord. Unfortunately it is impossible to ascertain the dates of composition of the various pieces of this collection, and thus to find out whether Benda was an imitator of Bach or vice versâ; the collection itself was only published at Gotha in 1780.