Such a conception of the sonata is by no means always so clear in his work; yet it must be said that he, more than any composer down to Beethoven, was inclined to make of the sonata a poetic whole. His aim was rather furthered than hindered by the vagueness of form of the separate movements. His sonatas are all the more fantasies for being less clearly sonatas; and they are often rich in that very quality in which the regular classical sonata was so poor—imagination.
Most of what has been said regarding his creation or establishing of the sonata, particularly of the triplex form, must be very largely discounted. Haydn and Mozart learned little from him in the arrangement of their ideas, which is form; much in the treatment of them, which is expression. That quality of poetry which we may still admire in his music today, vague or obscure as its form may be, was the quality in his playing most admired by those contemporaries who heard him.
His excellent book on how to play the clavier counsels clearness and exactness, but it is a heartfelt appeal for beauty and expressiveness as well. What is the long, detailed analysis of agrémens but the explanation of practically the only means of subtle expression which the cembalist could acquire? His love for the clavichord, which, for all the frailty of its tone, was capable of fine shadings of sound, never waned. He commended it to all as the best instrument upon which to practise, for the clumsy hand had no power to call forth the charm which was its only quality. Indeed, he received the pianoforte coldly. His keyboard music was probably conceived, the brilliant for the harpsichord, the more intimate for the clavichord. And towards the end of his life he gave utterance to his belief that the only function of music was to stir the emotions and that the player who could not do that might as well not play.
In turning to the best of his sonatas one turns to profoundly beautiful music, music that unquestionably has the power to stir the heart. The great spirit of the father has breathed upon it and given it life. The turns of his melodies and their ineffably tender cadences, and, above all, the chromatic richness of his harmonies are the voice of his father. One may be constantly startled and bewildered. There is something ghostly abroad in them. We hear and do not hear, we almost see and do not see, the all-powerful Sebastian. But it is the voice of the father in a new language, his face in shadow, in the mist before dawn. One is tempted to cry with Hamlet: ‘Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ the ground so fast?’ It is easy to understand that Haydn, worn out with his daily fight against starvation, could come back to his cracked clavichord and play away half the night with the sonatas of Emanuel Bach; that Mozart could call him father of them all. But in spirit, not in flesh. And it is, after all, the spirit of Sebastian that thus attends the succeeding births and rebirths of music.
The harpsichord works by W. Friedemann Bach, the oldest and, according to some accounts, the favorite son of Johann Sebastian, have had probably far less influence upon the development of pianoforte music. But they contain many measures of great beauty. Madame Farrenc included twelve polonaises, a sonata (in E-flat major), several fugues, and four superb fantasias in the Trésor des pianistes. The sonata is regular in form, and a few of the polonaises are in the triplex form. Thus Friedemann Bach shows that he, too, like his brother Emanuel, allied himself to the new movement in music. His mastery of musical science, however, is evident; and that he knew the keyboard well is proved by the unusual brilliance of his fantasias. In the main it may be said that the greatest beauty of his music whispers of his father.
Something of the spirit shows itself in the pianoforte sonatas of Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, a composer now little known, whose work deserves study. He died at Dessau, where most of his life had been spent, in 1796, just on the eve of Beethoven’s rise to prominence. Twelve of his sonatas have recently been published in Paris under the supervision of M. Vincent d’Indy. They show a blending of two styles: the German style which he acquired from Emanuel Bach in Berlin, and the Scarlatti style, of which he made a study during two years spent in Italy. Three sonatas, in E minor, in F-sharp minor, and in D major, written near the close of his life, are in two movements, both of which seem welded together in the manner of the later sonatas of Beethoven. The treatment of the pianoforte or harpsichord is modern, particularly in the major section of the Rondo of the sonata in E minor, and in the passage work contrasted with the beautiful first theme of the sonata in F-sharp minor. In a sonata in C major, belonging to this period, a fugue is introduced as an episode in the final rondo. Haydn had already used the fugue as the last movement of the string quartet, Mozart as the last movement of a symphony. Rust, in applying it to the pianoforte sonata, foreshadowed Beethoven.[29]
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Pietro Locatelli, b. Bergamo, 1693; d. Amsterdam, 1764; famous violinist, pupil of Corelli. His works, Concerti, trio sonatas, etc., are important in the development of the sonata form.
[22] Antonio Vivaldi, b. Venice, ca. 1680; d. 1743; completed Torelli’s and Albinoni’s work in the creation of the violin concerto.
[23] Jean Benjamin de Laborde: Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, 1780.