||:A¹—B²:||:(A²)| Development or |A¹—B¹:|
‘Working-out’
This is clearly a three-division form, and as such is closely allied to the ballad form, or ternary song-form, which is as old as the binary. Already Johann Sebastian Bach in his Prelude in F minor, in the second part of the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord,’ gives an example of it, and in Emanuel Bach and his German contemporaries this type becomes the standard. But it is curious to observe how strongly the Italian influence worked upon composers of the time, for, whenever the desire to please is evident in their work, we see them adopt the simpler pattern, and even when the ternary form is used the so-called ‘working-out’ is little more than an aimless sequence of meaningless passage work intended to dazzle by its brilliance and its grandiose effects, with but little relation to the subject matter of the piece. Even Mozart and Haydn veered back and forth between the two types until they had arrived at a considerably advanced state of maturity.
The second theme, as time went on, became more and more individualized and, as it assumed more distinct rhythmic and melodic characteristics, it lent itself more freely to logical development, like the principal subjects, became in fact a real ‘subject’ on a par with the first. With Stamitz and the Mannheim school, at last, we meet the idea of contrast between the two themes, not only in key but in spirit, in meaning. As with characters in a story, these differences can readily be taken hold of and elaborated. The themes may be played off against each other, they may be understood as masculine and feminine, as bold and timid, or as light and tragic—the possibilities of the scheme are unlimited, the complications under which an ingenious mind can conceive it are infinite in their interest. Thus only, by means of contrast, could states of mind be translated into musical language, thus only was it possible to give voice to the deeper sentiments, the new feelings that were tugging at the heart-strings of Europe. Only with this great principle of emotional contrast did the art become receptive to the stirrings of Sturm und Drang, of incipient Romanticism, thus only could it give expression to the graceful melancholy of a Mozart, the majestic ravings of a Beethoven.
III
Having given an indication of the various stages through which the sonata form passed, we may now speak of the men who developed it. We are here, of course, concerned only with those who cultivated the later and eventually universal German type.
In the band of musicians gathered about the court of Frederick the Great we find such pioneers as Joachim Quantz, the king’s instructor on the flute;[25] Gottlieb Graun, whose significance as a composer of symphonies, overtures, concertos, and sonatas is far greater than that of his brother Karl Heinrich, the composer of Der Tod Jesu; and the violinist Franz Benda, who was, however, surpassed in musicianship by his brother Georg, kapellmeister in Gotha. All of these and a number of others constitute the so-called Berlin school, whose most distinguished representative by far was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the most eminent of Johann Sebastian’s sons. He has been called, not without reason, the father of the piano sonata, for, although Kuhnau preceded him in applying the form to the instrument, it is he who made it popular, and who definitely fixed its pattern, determined the order of its movements—Allegro; Andante or Adagio; Allegro or Presto—so familiar to all music-lovers.
Emanuel Bach was born in Weimar in 1714. He was sent to Frankfort to study law, but instead established a chorus with himself as its leader. In 1738 he went to Berlin, where, two years later, we see him playing the accompaniments to ‘Old Fritz’s’ flute solos. The royal amateur’s accomplishments were of doubtful merit, but Bach stood the strain for twenty-seven years, at the end of which the king abandoned the flute for the sword, and Bach abandoned the king to finish his days in Hamburg as director of church music. But church music was not his métier. His cantatas were ‘pot-boilers.’ Emanuel was made of different stuff from his father. He fitted into his time—a polished courtier, more witty than pious, more suave than sincere, more brilliant than deep, but of solid musicianship none the less—the technician par excellence, both as composer and executant, a clean-cut formalist, a thorough harmonist ‘crammed full of racy novelty,’ though not free from pedantry, and preferring always the galant style of the period. The ‘polite’ instrument, the harpsichord, was essentially his. The ‘Essay on the True Manner of Playing the Clavier,’ which he wrote in Berlin, is still of value to-day. His technique was, no doubt, derived from that of his father, but he introduced a still more advanced method of fingering.
His great importance to history, however, lies in his instrumental compositions, comprising no less than two hundred and ten solo pieces—piano sonatas, rondos, concertos, trio-sonatas of the conventional type (two violins and bass), six string quartets and the symphonies printed in 1780. These works exercised a dual force. While yielding to the taste of the time, they held the balance to the side of greater harmonic richness and artistic propriety; on the other hand, they played an important part in the further development of the prevailing forms to a point where they could become ‘free enough and practical enough to deal with the deep emotions.’ ‘As yet people looked on the art as a refined sort of amusement. Not until Beethoven had written his music did its possibilities as a vehicle for deep human feeling and experience become evident.’[26] By following fashion Bach became its leader, and so exercised a widespread influence over his contemporaries and immediate followers. For a few years, says Mr. W. H. Hadow, the fate of music depended upon Emanuel Bach; Mozart himself, though directly influenced by him only in later life, called him ‘the father of us all.’
Bach may hardly be said to have originated the modern ‘pianistic’ style—the free, brilliant manner of writing particularly adapted to the requirements of the instrument. Couperin and the astonishing Domenico Scarlatti were before him. Naturally the instrument which he used was not nearly so resonant or sonorous as the piano of our day; an instrument the strings of which were plucked by quills attached to the key lever, not hit by hammers as the strings of our piano, was, of course, devoid of all sustaining power. This fact accounts for the infinite number of ornaments, trills, mordents, grace notes, bewildering in their variety, with which Bach’s sonatas are replete. Despite the technical reason for their existence we cannot forego the obvious analogy between them and the rococo style prevalent in the architecture and decorations of the period. Emanuel Bach’s music was as fashionable as that style, and his popularity outlasted it. Strange as it may seem, ‘Bach,’ in the eighteenth century and beyond, always meant ‘Emanuel’!
Quite a different sort of man was Emanuel’s elder brother, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the favorite son of his father and thought to be the most gifted, too. But the definition of genius as ‘an infinite capacity for taking pains’ would not fit his gifts. Wilhelm preferred a good time to concentrated labor, hence his name is not writ large in history. Yet his work, mostly preserved only in manuscript—concertos, suites, sonatas and fantasias—shows more real individuality, more Innigkeit and, at times, real passion than does his brother’s. And, moreover, something that could never happen to his brother’s works happened to one of his. It was ascribed to his father and was so published in the Bach Society’s edition of Sebastian’s works. In the examples of his work, resurrected by the indefatigable Dr. Riemann, we are often surprised by harmonic vagaries and rhythmic ingenuities that recall strongly the older Bach; the impassioned fancy of that polyphonic giant finds often a faint echo in the rhapsodic wanderings of his eldest son.