There were, no doubt, respecters of tonality also in Emanuel Bach's day, to whom such free measures must have seemed foolhardy. While composing this sonata Bach was, apparently, in daring mood. The slow middle movement in D minor opens with an inversion of the dominant ninth, and the Finale in F thus—
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Of the character of the first section of movements in binary form we have already spoken in the [introductory chapter].
In the matter of development, the Bach sonatas are in one respect particularly striking; the composer seems to have resolutely turned away from the fugal style, and in so doing probably found himself somewhat hampered. Like the early Florentine reformers, Bach was breaking with the past, and with a mightier past than the one on which the Florentines turned their back; like them, he, too, was occupied with a new form. Not the music itself of the first operas, but the spirit which prompted them, is what we now admire; in E. Bach, too,—especially when viewed in the light of subsequent history,—we at times take the will for the deed.
We meet with much the same kinds of development as in Scarlatti: phrases or passages taken bodily from the first section and repeated on different degrees of the scale, extensions of phrases, and passage-writing based on some figure from the exposition, etc. The short development section of the Sonata in G (Collection No. 6) offers examples of the three methods of development just mentioned. Bach, like Scarlatti, was a master of his instrument, and even when—as was said of Mendelssohn—he had nothing particular to say, he always managed to say that little well. E. Bach has already much to suffer in the inevitable comparison with Beethoven; and the fact that we have the full message of the one, but not of the other, no doubt accentuates the difference.
In many ways Bach reminds one of Beethoven. There are unexpected fortes and pianos, unexpected crescendos and diminuendos. Of such, the noble Larghetto in F minor of the Sonata in F (Collection 1779, No. 2) offers, indeed, several fine examples. Particularly would we notice the passage just before the return of the opening theme; it begins ff, but there is a gradual decrease to pp; the latter seems somewhat before its time, and therefore surprises. Then, again, we meet with out-of-the-way modulations. Bach was extremely fond of enharmonic transitions,[71] and the same can be said of Beethoven in both his early and his late works. The means employed by the two composers may be the same, but the effect is, of course, always more striking in Beethoven, whose thoughts were deeper, and whose means of expressing them were in every way more extended. And once again, in some of the forms of melody, in figures and passages, traces can be found of connection between the two masters. To our thinking the bond of union between E. Bach and Beethoven is stronger than the oft-mentioned one between the early master and Haydn: Haydn was practically Bach's pupil; Beethoven, his spiritual heir. This it is which gives interest to any outward resemblances which may be detected, not the resemblances themselves.
In Bach's six sonatas of 1742 the movements are detached. But the opening movement (an Andante in sonata form) of the 2nd Sonata of the Leipzig Collection of 1779 ends with a few bars in canonic form (and with quaint Bebung effect), leading without break to the following Larghetto. The next sonata also connects the second with the third movement. In the above case the change was merely from the key of tonic major to that of minor; but here the movement is in G minor, and an enharmonic modulation leads to the dominant of B minor, key of the final movement. The sonata begins in B minor, and the choice of the remote key of G minor for the middle movement is somewhat curious. Sonata No. 4 connects first and second movements; and the third is evidently meant to follow without pause. It must, however be remembered that the majority of the Leipzig sonatas do not have the various movements thus connected. It therefore seems to have been an experiment rather than a settled plan. Examples of the connection of movements are also to be found in Nichelmann and J.C.F. Bach. The same thing may be seen in some of Haydn's sonatas (Nos. 18, 22, etc.), while Beethoven offers a remarkable instance in his sonata, Op. 57.
The 1st Sonata of the 2nd Collection passes from the first to the second movement (Allegretto, G minor; Larghetto, F sharp minor) in a curious manner, by enharmonic means. The last bar has—