Corelli’s works are, leaving aside his personal genius, indicative of the state of the sonata at the end of the seventeenth century. That the sonatas with suite movements were called chamber sonatas and the others church sonatas gives us some hint of the relative dignity of the two forms in the minds of composers of that day. In 1695 J. Kuhnau published in Leipzig his sonata in B-flat for the harpsichord, with the prefatory remarks that he saw no reason why the harpsichord, with its range of harmony and its possibilities in contrapuntal music, should be restricted to the lighter forms of music (such as the suite). He therefore offered to the public a piece for harpsichord written in the more dignified form of the violin music of the day, which he called the Sonate aus dem B.
Here, as we remarked in chapter I, the word sonata comes into pianoforte music, bringing with it a dignity, if not a charm, which was felt to be lacking in the suite. Kuhnau’s sonata is in four movements, none of which is very clearly articulated. The adagio comes between the second and fourth and is in the key of E-flat major. This sonata was followed by seven more, published the next year under the title of Frische Clavier Früchte. The tone of all is experimental and somewhat bombastic. But at any rate we have at last keyboard sonatas.
During the lifetime of Corelli two other Italian violinists rose to shining prominence, Locatelli[21] and Vivaldi[22]. To them is owing a certain development in the internal structure of a new form of the sonata called the concerto, of which we shall say more later on. Here we have to note, however, the tendency of both these composers to make their concertos and sonatas in three movements: two long rapid movements with a slow movement between. Corelli left sonate da camera and sonate da chiesa of the same description; but the procedure seems to have recommended itself to Sebastian Bach mainly by the works of Vivaldi, of which, as we have seen, he made a most careful study. Hence we have from Bach not only the beautiful sonatas for violin and harpsichord in three movements, but harpsichord concertos,—many of which were transcriptions of Vivaldi’s works, but some, like the exquisite one in D minor cited in the last chapter, all his own,—likewise on the same plan. So, too, were written many of the Brandenburg concertos, notably the one in G major, No. 5. Finally we have the magnificent concerto in the Italian style for cembalo alone, which is more truly a sonata, leaving for all time a splendid example of the symmetry of a well-wrought piece in three movements.
Of this perfect masterpiece we have already spoken. It is well to recall attention to the fact, however, that the first and last movements are of about equal length and significance. Both are in rapid tempo and of careful and more or less close-knit workmanship; and both are in the key of F major. The movement between them is in a different key (D minor) and of slow tempo and wholly contrasting character.
Here, then, as regards the number and grouping of movements in the sonata, we have in the work of the father, the model for the son Emanuel. For so far as Emanuel Bach contributed at all to the external structure of the pianoforte sonata, it was by adhering consistently to this three-movement type which was later adopted by Haydn, Mozart, and, to a great extent, Beethoven.
His consistency in this regard is indeed well worth noticing. For between the years 1740 and 1786, when he composed and published his numerous sets of sonatas, there was much variety of procedure among musicians. Bach, however, rarely varied; and this, together with the models his father left, justifies us in calling the sonata in three movements distinctly the German type of this period.
Meanwhile composers who were more in the current of Italian music fought shy of committing themselves to a fixed grouping of movements. Italian instrumental music was taking a tremendous swing towards melody and lightness. This was especially influential in shaping the triplex form of movement; but was also affecting the general grouping. Padre Martini (1706-84) of Bologna alone adhered to a regular, or nearly regular, number and sequence of movements in harpsichord sonatas. His twelve harpsichord sonatas, published in Amsterdam in 1742, but written some years earlier, seem strangely out of place in their surroundings.
To begin with, even at this late date they are written either for organ or for harpsichord. This alone prepares us for the general contrapuntal style of them all. Then, though named sonatas, they are far more nearly suites. Each is composed of five movements. The first is regularly in sonorous prelude style, suitable to the organ. The second is regularly an allegro in fugal style, the third usually an adagio. The fourth and fifth are in most cases dances,—gavottes, courantes or gigues, with sometimes an aria or a theme and variations. All the movements in one sonata are in the same key. Only one feature resembles those of the growing Italian harpsichord sonata: the generally light dance character of the last or the last two movements. For what is very noticeable in the sonatas of E. Bach is that the last movements, though cheerful in character, are usually of equal musical significance with the first.
Far more in the growing Italian style are the eight sonatas of Domenico Alberti, the amateur thorn in the professional side. Just when they were written is not known. The young man was born in 1717 and died probably in 1740 if not before. None of them has more than two movements. Both are in the same key and the second is usually the livelier of the two, often a minuet.
A group of the Italians preferred the sonata in two movements, Francisco Durante (1684-1755), for example, and later Domenico Paradies (1710-92). Later still, some sonatas of Johann Christian Bach, youngest son of Sebastian, who submitted quite to the Italian influence, have but two movements; and the first of Clementi’s sonatas also. Other Italians, like Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85), seem never to have decided upon any definite number, nor any definite order of movements.