C.P.E. Bach

A Guide to Research

Doris Powers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781136799471
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Although he is the son of J. S. Bach, C. P. E. Bach is an important composer in his own right, this long-awaited annotated bibliography presents a complete listing of the works of C. P. E. Bach. This volume in the Routledge Music Bibliographies series includes many different aspects of his work: the editing of his father's masterpieces, his concert

Chapter 1. Introduction Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach 1714–1788

This chapter first reviews Bach's works, musical style, and personal associations, then surveys the history of Bach research from the eighteenth century to the present. A third section briefly summarizes the assessments of Bach's place in history made by writers in the last 225 years.

WORKS, MUSICAL STYLE, PERSONAL ASSOCIATIONS

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the second son of Johann Sebastian Bach, was characterized by his contemporary, Johann Friedrich Reichardt, as an original genius.¹ This is not surprising, because C. P. E. Bach, among the last of seven generations of Bach musicians, distinguished himself as one of the most imaginative and prolific composers of the late eighteenth century. After growing up under the tutelage of his father and spending four years as a law student at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder from 1734 to 1738, he served as cembalist in the court of King Frederick II of Prussia for the next thirty years until 1768. That same year, he succeeded his godfather, Georg Philipp Telemann, as cantor of the Johanneum Lateinschule and also as director of music in the five principal churches in Hamburg, where he remained for twenty years until his death in 1788. In that post, he composed works for church and secular settings, organized concerts, and continued other compositional activities.

In his Thematic Catalogue, E. Eugene Helm lists about 750 authentic compositions by C. P. E. Bach.² In addition, a number of works have been discovered in the last decade: arrangements, cantatas, and small keyboard pieces from the early years.³ Instrumental music makes up about three-quarters of Bach's output, and the remaining compositions consist of vocal works and a few theoretical pieces. The keyboard output, comprising about half of his total number of compositions, includes sonatas, concertos, fantasias, rondos, and assorted pieces. The abundance of his keyboard literature, 1772 catalog of clavier music, and attention to keyboard matters in his treatise, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (1753, 1762), indicate Bach's special preference for the clavier. The secondary literature on analysis and criticism of his compositions and writings found in Chapter 8 generally reflects these proportions found among the works themselves.

Bach's 123 chamber works are marked by their wide variety of instrumental combinations, ranging from duos up to small ensembles of fourteen parts. In general, they are written for solo instruments, instruments with continuo, or keyboard obbligato. Most of the chamber works consist of duos and trios in which he writes for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, viola, viola da gamba, or bass recorder, along with more traditional combinations using flute, violin, cello, and keyboard. The quartet literature, devoid of the traditional eighteenth-century string quartet, includes three quartets for flute, viola, bass, and keyboard, and one quartet for three trumpets and tympani. Chamber ensembles for more than four parts—namely, quintets, septets, octets, nonets, and larger ensembles of eleven and fourteen parts—are scored primarily for winds. He uses flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and sometimes trumpet, tympani, violin, and viola.

The orchestral literature consists of nineteen symphonies, the keyboard concertos, as well as four concertos for two keyboards, two for organ, four for flute, two for oboe, and three for cello. Moreover, many of the concertos for nonkey-board instruments were derived from keyboard concertos. In the vocal realm, most of the ninety-nine works for solo voice are accompanied by keyboard, although a few are written for stringed or orchestral accompaniment. Choral works are scored for the most part for chorus, vocal soloists, and orchestra. Five are written for a cappella chorus and seven are accompanied only by continuo. Further, the Helm Catalogue lists five theoretical and didactic works and some pieces for musical clock. Bach authored a variety of short writings, such as forewords, reviews, and an obituary. Chapter 3 contains citations for these works as well as his letters. At the present time, many of the manuscripts are located in Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, and Kiev, although materials can also be found in numerous other libraries.

Bach's compositions are full of unusual musical features through which he imprints his individualized and highly creative style. They are notable for their rich use of harmonic language and abrupt changes of harmony. Melodies employ unusual methods of contrast, complicated rhythms, and dynamic contrasts. He favors sudden changes of pace and well-placed moments of silence. His formal structures balance qualities of unity and variety. Bach contributed significantly to the development of the sonata form. Both in his compositional activities and in his own playing, Bach is inclined toward the free form of the fantasy and toward the art of improvisation. In vocal music, he approaches texts with an unusual capacity to set the essence of their meaning to music. In short, his music is unusually expressive, often termed later by critics as empfindsamer Stil, a style full of sensitivity and feeling. Toward this end, Bach played and wrote for the clavichord, a keyboard instrument with a small sound but one that is extremely sensitive to the touch.

As with many composers of the eighteenth century, Bach composed some of his pieces for well-trained professional musicians who could handle difficult parts, and wrote others for both the nonprofessional expert (Kenner) who was knowledgeable about music, and for the amateur (Liebhaber) who derived great enjoyment from being able to play music for pleasure. Bach's keen awareness of different audiences and players with varying musical capacities led him to take a flexible focus toward his compositional activities, respecting the needs of an audience. Scholarship has well documented Bach's astute differentiation of audiences in the composition and marketing of his pieces. At the end of his life, Bach left his widow with unpublished works for her to sell as a continued source of income. He was, indeed, an entrepreneur in the finest sense of the word.

Throughout his time in Berlin and Hamburg, Bach maintained close associations with a number of persons active in literary and philosophical circles. They met together in literary societies and clubs, and, in general, shared their ideas with each other and influenced the cultural life around them. Some of their mutual interests revolved around the expression of feelings and the relationship of words and music. Two obvious musical experiments appear in Bach's works. One is the Sonata a 2 violini e basso (H. 579), which shows how textless music can communicate thoughts and feelings. Bach's foreword to the piece interprets and documents the location in the score where subtleties occur regarding the affective interactions of two opposing characters, Sanguineus (violin 1, playful) and Melancholicus (violin 2, serious).

As a response to ideas about the aesthetic of pure instrumental music, Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg, an important poet associated with the Sturm und Drang authors (ca. 1767–1785), undertook a musical experiment with one of Bach's fantasias, the third movement in C minor of Bach's Sonata in F minor for keyboard (H. 75). Gerstenberg used two monologue texts, one from Hamlet's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, “To be, or not to be,” and the other, concerning Socrates' contemplation about taking the cup of poison as related in Plato's Phaedo. He started with Bach's fantasia as the accompaniment and fashioned two different melodies above it, one for each text.⁴ His concern centered on the relationship of words, music, and the expression of feelings. Both versions worked well. Though not published until 1787, letters show that Gerstenberg had been considering the idea of placing words of the text under existing notes of the fantasia for twenty years.

Bach's other friends included numerous authors prominent in the eighteenth century. He had contact with writers who were a part of the German Enlightenment (1720–1785), such as poets Christian Furchtegott Gellert and Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim and playwright and essayist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He had acquaintances with several who were a part of the Empfindsamkeit and Sturm und Drang movements (ca. 1740–1780), namely, poets Matthias Claudius, Gellert, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, and Johann Heinrich Voß. Other associations included essayists Christian Gottfried Krause and Johann Adolph Scheibe; pastor Christoph Christian Sturm; poets Johann Andreas Cramer, Johann Joachim Eschenburg, Carl Wilhelm Ramler, and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä; professor Johann Georg Büsch; and translators and writers Johann Joachim Christoph Bode and Christoph Daniel Ebeling.

SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF C. P. E. BACH RESEARCH

Eight articles written from 1927 to the present, mostly in the late 1980s and 1990s, provide excellent summaries in their respective eras about research in C. P. E. Bach studies.⁵ This current volume, in itself a review of research through 1996 with some later citations, contains 790 references dating from 1741 to 2000.

Eighteenth-century citations in this monograph consist of a variety of sources: catalogs; editions of music that relate to discussions in this volume; biographical materials; a few analytical comments about his works; and early writings by Bach himself. For the first half of the nineteenth century, the citations mainly involve short biographies printed in historical biographical dictionaries. Some comments appear about the extent of his influence and place, with fewer observations about his style. During Bach's life, and until the mid-1850s, seventy years following his death, there appears to be scant attention given to his life and works. This may not be the case to the extent we now perceive, however, because writings printed during the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries have not yet been fully examined. There is need for methodical investigation of newspapers, music and nonmusic journals, and other writings of this period to glean the thoughts a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Introduction: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach 1714–1788
• Chapter 2. Basic Resources I: Catalogs, Indexes, and Other Sources
• Chapter 3. Basic Resources II: C. P. E. Bachiana (Writings and Letters)
• Chapter 4. Editing and Editions: A Historical View
• Chapter 5. Biographical Materials
• Chapter 6. C. P. E. Bach's Legacy: His Estate and Reception
• Chapter 7. Bach's Cultural Milieu and Aesthetics
• Chapter 8. Analysis and Criticism of Compositions and Writings
• Chapter 9. Performance Practices
• Indexes