Practically the whole seventeenth century has been required to lay down a firm foundation for the development of instrumental music in all its branches. This being well done, the music of the next epoch is not unaccountably surprising. As soon as principles of form had become established, composers trod, so to speak, upon solid ground; and, sure of their foothold, were free to make rapid progress in all directions. In harpsichord music few new forms appeared. The toccata, prelude, fugue, and suite offered room enough for all the expansion which even great genius might need. Within these limits the growth was twofold: in the way of virtuosity and refinement of style, and in the way of emotional expression. That music which expands at once in both directions, or in which, rather, the two growths are one and the same, is truly great music. Such we shall now find written for the harpsichord.
Each of the three men whose work is the chief subject of this chapter is conspicuous in the history of music by a particular feature. Domenico Scarlatti is first and foremost a great virtuoso, Couperin an artist unequalled in a very special refinement of style, Sebastian Bach the instrument of profound emotion. In these features they stand sharply differentiated one from the other. These are the essential marks of their genius. None, of course, can be comprehended in such a simple characterization. Many of Scarlatti’s short pieces have the warmth of genuine emotion, and Couperin’s little works are almost invariably the repository of tender and naïve sentiment. Bach is perhaps the supreme master in music and should not be characterized at all except to remind that his vast skill is but the tool of his deeply-feeling poetic soul.
I
It will be noticed that each of these great men speaks of a different race. We may consider Scarlatti first as spokesman in harpsichord music of the Italians, who at that time had made their mark so deep upon music that even now it has not been effaced, nor is likely to be. His father, Alessandro, was the most famous and the most gifted musician in Europe. From Naples he set the standard for the opera of the world, and in Naples his son Domenico was born on October 26, 1685, a few months only after the birth of Sebastian Bach in Eisenach. Domenico lived with his father and under his father’s guidance until 1705, when he set forth to try his fame. He lived a few years in Venice and there met Handel in 1708, with whom he came back to Rome. Here in Rome, at the residence of Corelli’s patron, Cardinal Ottoboni, took place the famous contest on organ and harpsichord between him and Handel. For Handel he ever professed a warm friendship and the most profound admiration.
He remained for some years in Rome, at first in the service of Marie Casimire, queen of Poland, later as maestro di capella at St. Peter’s. In 1719 came a journey to London in order to superintend performances of his operas. From 1721 to 1725 he seems to have been installed at the court of Lisbon; and then, after four years in Naples, he accepted a position at the Spanish court in Madrid. Just how long he stayed there is not known. In 1754 he was back again in Naples, and in Naples he died in 1757, seven years after the death of Bach.
Scarlatti wrote many operas in the style of his father, and these were frequently performed, with success, in Italy, England, Spain, and elsewhere. During his years at St. Peter’s he also wrote sacred music; but his fame now rests wholly upon his compositions for the harpsichord and upon the memory of the extraordinary skill with which he played them.
We have dwelt thus briefly upon a few events of his life to show how widely he had travelled and in how many places his skill as a player must have been admired. That in the matter of virtuosity he was unexcelled can hardly be doubted. It is true that in the famous contest with Handel he came off the loser on the organ, and even his harpsichord playing was doubted to excel that of his Saxon friend. But these contests were a test of wits more than of fingers, a trial of extempore skill in improvising fugues and double fugues, not of virtuosity in playing.
Two famous German musicians, J. J. Quantz and J. A. Hasse, both heard him and both marvelled at his skill. Monsieur L’Augier, a gifted amateur whom Dr. Burney visited in Vienna, told a story of Scarlatti and Thomas Roseingrave,[11] in which he related that when Roseingrave first heard Scarlatti play, he was so astonished that he would have cut off his own fingers then and there, had there been an instrument at hand wherewith to perform the operation; and, as it was, he went months without touching the harpsichord again.
Whom he had to thank for instruction is not known. There is nothing in his music to suggest that he was ever a pupil of Bernardo Pasquini, who, however, was long held to have been his master. J. S. Shedlock, in his ‘History of the Pianoforte Sonata,’ suggests that he learned from Gaëtano Greco or Grieco, a man a few years his senior and a student under his father; but it would seem far more likely that Domenico profited immediately from his father, who, we may see from a letter to Ferdinand de’ Medici, dated May 30, 1705, had watched over his son’s development with great care. It must not be forgotten that Alessandro Scarlatti’s harpsichord toccatas, described in the previous chapter, are, in spite of a general heaviness, often enlivened by astonishing devices of virtuosity.
Scarlatti wrote between three and four hundred pieces for the harpsichord. The Abbé Santini[12] possessed three hundred and forty-nine. Scarlatti himself published in his lifetime only one set of thirty pieces. These he called exercises (esercizii) for the harpsichord. The title is significant. Before 1733 two volumes, Pièces pour le clavecin, were published in Paris; and some time between 1730 and 1737 forty-two ‘Suites of Lessons’ were published in London under the supervision of Roseingrave. More were printed in London in 1752. Then came Czerny’s edition, which includes two hundred pieces; and throughout the nineteenth century various selections and arrangements have appeared from time to time, von Bülow having arranged several pieces in the order of suites, Tausig having elaborated several in accordance with the modern pianoforte. A complete and authoritative edition has at last been prepared by Sig. Alessandro Longo and has been printed in Italy by Ricordi and Company.