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.

What is, however, due particularly to the Italian influence is the persistent intrusion of a dance form in the cycle--usually a minuet. We find it in Alberti, in Christian Bach, and especially in the clavecin works of Jean Schobert, a young Silesian, resident in Paris from about 1750 to 1766, one of the most brilliant clavecinists of his day, one of the most charming, and one who brought a very decided influence upon the development of the young Mozart.

The Italian tendency was invariably to put at the end of the sonata a movement of which the lightness and gaiety of the contents were to bring refreshment or even relief after the more serious divulgences of the earlier movements,--a rondo or even a dance. To this impulse Haydn and Mozart both yielded, retaining from Emanuel Bach only the standard number of three movements.

It must be added here that something is due to Slavic influences in the ultimate general triumph of the objectively gay over the subjectively profound in the last movement or movements of the sonata and the symphony. Not only did Haydn incorporate in the scheme the lively expressive melodies and the crisp rhythms so native to the Slavic peoples among whom he grew to manhood. Earlier than he the Bohemian, Johann Stamitz, had thus enlivened and clarified the symphony, and given it the great impetus to future development which bore so splendidly in Vienna. And Schobert, whom we have but now mentioned, was from a Polish land. What such men brought was essentially of spiritual significance; but in music, as in other arts, the new spirit brings the new form.

As we have already said, the number and sequence of movements in the pianoforte sonata has never been rigidly fixed. But an average combination is clear. The majority of sonatas by Haydn and by Mozart, as well as by lesser men like Clementi, Dussek and Rust, and many of the sonatas by Beethoven, are in three movements. Of these the first and last are invariably in the same key (major and minor). The first movement is normally of a dignified, formal, and more or less involved character, though such a generalization may be quickly stoned to death by numbers of conspicuous and great exceptions. The second movement is normally in a key contrasting with the first movement, usually of slow and lyrical character, usually also simple, at least as regards form. The last movement is, in perhaps the majority of cases, more brilliant, more obvious and more rapid than the others, calculated to amuse and astonish the listener rather than to stir his emotions, to send him away laughing and delighted, rather than sad and thoughtful.

The number three was established by Emanuel Bach. The character of the last movement, however, was determined by Italian and Slavic influences, and is somewhat reminiscent of the suite. If one more sign is necessary of the complex crossing and recrossing of various lines of development before the pianoforte sonata rose up clear on its foundations, we have but to note the curious facts that the suite was neglected in Italy during the seventeenth century in favor of the string sonata; that the suite reached its finest proportions in Germany, chiefly at the hands of Sebastian Bach; that through Sebastian Bach the three-movement sonata group passed from the Italian Vivaldi to Emanuel Bach, who established it as a norm; finally that the Italians, who neglected the suite in the seventeenth century, conceived an enthusiasm for it in the eighteenth and brought their love of it to bear on the German sonata group, introducing the minuet and giving to the last movement the lively care-free form of a dance or a rondo.

Before proceeding to outline the development of the triplex form in which at least one movement of this sonata group was written and which is one of the most distinctive features of the sonata, it is not out of place to stop to consider what relationship, if any, existed between the movements. Was the sonata as a whole an indissoluble unit? Rather decidedly no. The grouping of several movements together came to be as conventional and as arbitrary, if not so regular, as the grouping of the suites. There is about the sonatas of Emanuel Bach a certain seriousness and an emotional genuineness which might prevail upon the pianist today, if ever he should think of playing them in concert, to respect the grouping in which the composer chose to present them to the world. But there is no organic life in the sonatas as a whole. Occasionally in his sonatas and in those of Clementi and Haydn the slow middle movement leads without pause into the rapid finale. In these cases, however, the slow movement is introductory to the last, to which it is attached though not related.

Haydn, Mozart and even Beethoven took movements from one work and incorporated them in another. Moreover, it was the custom even as late as the time that Chopin played in Vienna, to play the first movement of a symphony, a concerto or a sonata early in a program and the last movements considerably later, after other works in other styles had been performed. The sonatas and symphonies of the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries in the main lacked any logical principle of unity. We say in the main, because Emanuel Bach, F. W. Rust, and Beethoven succeeded, in some of their greatest sonatas, in welding the movements inseparably together. Clementi, too, in the course of his long life acquired such a mastery of the form. But these developments are special, and signalize in a way the passing on of the sonata. As a form the sonata proper was doomed by the lack of a unity which composers in the nineteenth century felt to be necessary in any long work of music.

The day will come, if indeed it has not already come, when most sonatas will have been broken up by Time into the various distinct parts of which they were pieced together. Out of the fragments future years will choose what they will to preserve. Already the Bach suites have been so broken. It makes no difference that their separate numbers are for the most part of imperishable stuff. Movements of Haydn and Mozart will endure after their sonatas as wholes are dead. So, too, with many of the Beethoven sonatas. The links which hold their movements together are often but convention; and there is evidently no convention which Time will not corrode.

II

In looking over the vast number of sonatas written between 1750 and 1800 one is impressed, if one is kindly, not so much by their careless structure and triviality as by their gaiety. In the adagios the composers sometimes doff their hats, somewhat perfunctorily, to the muse of tragedy; but for the most part their sonatas are light-hearted. They had a butterfly existence. They were born one day but to die the next. Yet there was a charm about them. The people of that day loved them. A run and a trill do, it is true, but tickle the ear; but that is, after all, a pleasant tickling. And simple harmonies may shirk often enough the weight of souls in tragic conflict, to bear which many would make the duty of music; yet their lucidity is something akin to sunlight. The frivolities of these countless sonatas are the frivolities of youth. There is no high seriousness in most of them. And our triplex form came sliding into music on a burst of youth. A star danced and it was born.

What gave definite shape to this fundamentally simple form is the Italian love of melody. So far as it may be traced to the influence of one man, it may be traced to Giovanni Pergolesi, whose trio-sonatas first gave to the world as a prototype of the classical triplex form what is now known as the ‘singing allegro.’ Pergolesi was born in 1704 and lived to be only thirty-three years old; but in that brief life, gaily and recklessly squandered as it seems to have been, he exerted an influence upon the growth of music which apparently started it upon a new stage. He was all but worshipped by his countrymen. His opera, _La serva padrona_ (1733), won instant success, not only in Italy, but well over all Europe; and had an influence comparable to that of but few other single works in the history of music. On the ground of instrumental music his trio-sonatas have, as it seems now, accomplished scarcely less.

We must here restrict ourselves to the harpsichord music of the time in Italy, in which the ‘singing allegro’ found place almost at once. Let us first consider what lay at the bottom of the new form.

We may plunge at once to the very foundation, the harmonic groundwork. As we have seen, perhaps the most important accomplishment in music of the seventeenth century was the discovery and establishment of key relationships in that harmonic conception of music which has endured almost to the present day. Instrumental forms developed upon this re-organization of musical material. Subsequently, however polyphonic the texture of a piece of music--a fugue of Bach’s, for instance--might be, its shape was moulded upon a frame of harmony. The piece was in a certain key, clearly affirmed at the beginning and at the end, points in the structure which in a piece of music as in a paragraph are naturally the most emphatic. Within these limits there was the life and variety of a harmonic development, which, departing from the tonic key, must return thence. Long before the year 1700 the regulation of such harmonic procedures had definitely fixed the symmetrical plan of two forms: the so-called aria form and the binary form. Neither was in itself capable of much development; and it was in a sort of fusion of both that the harmonic plan of the triplex form was created.

The aria form was in three sections which we have elsewhere represented by the letters A, B, A. A, the opening section, was all in the tonic key, and was practically complete in itself. B, the second section, was in a contrasting key or was harmonically unstable. A, the third section, was but an exact repetition of the first, to give balance and unity to the whole. The limitations of the form were essentially harmonic. The first section offered little or no chance for modulation. Its tonality must be unmistakably and impressively tonic. Therefore it did not develop into the second section by means of harmonic unrest. The second was simply a block of contrasting harmonies, like a block of porphyry set beside a block of marble. Frequently, however, the second section was incomplete without the third. In such cases a hyphen between the B and the second A in our lettered scheme would represent the relations between the three sections more nearly, thus: A, B-A.

The binary form, in which most of the dance movements of the suite were composed, was usually shorter than the aria form; but though apparently simpler, it was, from the point of view of harmony, more highly organized. It consisted, as we have seen, of two sections, each of which was repeated in turn. The first modulated from the tonic key to the dominant or relative major; the second from that key back to the tonic again. It will be observed that the first section really grew into the second by harmonic impulse; for the first section, ending as it did in a key that was not the key of the piece, was incomplete. The two sections together not only established a perfect balance of form and harmony, but had an organic harmonic life which was lacking in the aria.

However, the tendency of most forms was towards the triple division typified by the aria, with a clearly defined first section, a second section of contrasting and uncertain character, and a third section which, being a restatement of the first, reestablished the tonic key and gave to the piece as a whole a positive order. In the binary forms of Froberger and Chambonnières there is the harmonic embryo of a distinct middle section; namely, the few modulations through which the music passes on its way from dominant back to tonic in the second section. It can be easily understood that composers would make the most of this chance for modulation as they became more and more aware of the beauty of harmony; likewise, that the bolder their harmonic ventures in these measures, the greater was their need to emphasize the final re-establishment of the tonic key. Ultimately a distinct triple division was inevitable, with an opening section modulating from tonic to dominant, a second section of contrasting keys and few modulations; finally a restatement of the first section, as in the aria, but necessarily somewhat changed so that the whole section might be in the tonic key. Such is the harmonic foundation of the triplex form.

Such a form makes its appearance in music very shortly after the beginning of the eighteenth century. It seems akin now to the aria, now to the binary form. One may suspect the latter relationship if the first section is repeated, and the second and third sections (as one) likewise. These repetitions are obviously inherited from the binary form. On the other hand, if these sections are not thus repeated, the piece resembles more nearly the aria.

Take, for example, an adagio from the second sonata in a set of twelve published by Padre Martini in 1742, written probably many years earlier. These sonatas were republished by Madame Farrenc in the third volume of her _Trésor des pianistes_. The adagio in question is clearly in three sections very like an aria, with the difference that the first section ends in the dominant (in the eighth measure), and the last is consequently changed from the first so that it may end in the tonic. There are no repeats.

Far more remarkable is a sonata in C major by D. Scarlatti. It is the eleventh in the Breitkopf and Härtel collection of twenty to which reference has already been made. Here we find a first section modulating from tonic to dominant. This is repeated. Then follows the second section, full of free modulations, and this section comes to a very obvious half-close. The last section very nearly repeats the first, except for the necessary changes in harmony so that all may be in the tonic key. Scarlatti nowhere else wrote in this form so clearly. Did he merely chance upon it? The wide crossing of the hands marks an early stage in his composing, yet the form is clearly triplex and astonishingly orthodox.

The most striking aspect of this little piece is the obvious, clear divisions of the sections. The first section is marked off from the second by the double bar for the repeat. There is a pause before the third section, or restatement, begins. But clearest of all is the arrangement of musical material. By this we know positively that the triplex form has become firmly fixed, that the old binary form has expanded to a ternary form, submitting to the same influences that had made the perfect aria and the perfect fugue.

It will be remembered that in the old binary form, composers made little effort to differentiate the material proper to the dominant part of the first section from that which had already been given out in the tonic. Such pieces dealt not in clear themes but in one or two running figures which lent themselves to more or less contrapuntal treatment. The opening figure was usually the most definite. The second section began with this figure in the dominant key; but in the final restoration of the tonic key the figure played no part. In other words, the chief figure of the whole piece almost never appeared in the second section in the tonic. It was not until the embryonic middle section, which, as we have seen, consisted of but one or two modulations, had developed to something of the proportions of the contrasting section of the aria, that composers realized that in order fully to re-establish the tonic key at the end, the chief figure should again make its appearance and usher in the final section, which thus became a restatement of the first.

Scarlatti’s treatment of the binary form was always brilliant and clear. He was, as we know, fertile in sparkling figures. His sonatas are always made up of two or more of these, which, unlike the figures in the suites of most of his contemporaries, are distinct from each other. But in most of his pieces, long as the middle section might be, the tonic key was never re-introduced by the return of the opening figure of the first section. It is precisely this that he has done in the sonata in C major now in question. The first section presents two distinct figures or subjects, one in the tonic, the other in the dominant. The first, or opening figure, is in the nature of a trumpet call. The second is conspicuous by the wide crossing of the hands. The second section begins immediately after the double bar in the proper manner of the binary form; that is, with a modification of the first subject in the key of the dominant. Then follow many interesting modulations, leading to the unmistakable half-close, prefatory to the third section. And the third section begins at once with the _first_ figure in the _tonic_ key, and proceeds to the second, now likewise in the tonic. This, more than all else, marks the passing of the binary form into the triplex. The Padre Martini adagio presents the same feature, but less clearly because the second figure is hardly articulate.

These two little pieces, which are but two out of many now known and others yet to be discovered, seem to reveal to us a stage at which the aria form and the binary form merged into the form of movement generally known as the sonata form, which we have chosen arbitrarily to call the triplex. The three distinct sections, the last repeating the first, seem modelled on the aria. The highly organized harmonic life seems inherited from the binary form of the dance movements of the suite. Finally the arrangement and development of two distinct figures or subjects on this plan are proper to the new form alone.

Upon this hybrid foundation Pergolesi built up his ‘singing allegro.’ Where Scarlatti had employed figures, Pergolesi employed melodies. Therefore we find a melody in the tonic key, a melody in the dominant, these two constituting with the measures which accomplish the modulation between them, the first section, which is repeated. Then follows a section of free modulation, in which fragments of either melody, but chiefly of the first, play their parts; and lastly the return of both melodies in the tonic key.

It is the Italian love of melody which gives it its final stamp. To this love Scarlatti hardly felt free to abandon himself in his harpsichord music; partly, probably, because of the ancient polyphonic tradition which still demanded of organ and of harpsichord music the constant movement we find in the preludes of Bach’s English suites; also because as a virtuoso he was interested in making his instrument speak brilliantly, and because he realized that the harpsichord was really unfitted to melody.

But the singing allegro of Pergolesi won the world at a stroke, and almost at once we find it applied to the harpsichord by the young amateur, Domenico Alberti. One should give the devil his due. Poor Alberti, hardly more than a youth, for having supposedly seduced the world of composers to bite the juicy apple of what is called the Alberti bass, has been excoriated by all soberminded critics and treated with unveiled contempt. Let us look into his life and works for a moment.

Little enough is known of him, and that little smacks of faëry. He was probably born in Venice in 1717. He died about 1740, probably in Rome. Only twenty-three, masters, but he tied his bass to the tail of music and there it swings to this day. But more of the bass anon. He was an amateur, according to Laborde,[23] a pupil of Biffi and Lotti. He was a beautiful singer. At least we read that he went to Madrid in the train of the Venetian ambassador, and astonished Farinelli, one of the greatest and most idolized singers of the day, who was then living in high favor at the Spanish court. Later he came back to Rome, where he recommended himself to the patronage of a certain Marquis Molinari. About 1737 he set two of Metastasio’s libretti, _Endymion_ and _Galatea_, to music, which was, according to Laborde, highly esteemed. All his teachers recalled him with great enthusiasm. He could so play on the harpsichord, so improvise, that he charmed large assemblies during whole nights. And sometimes he would go abroad at night through the streets of Rome with his lute, singing, followed by a crowd of delighted amateurs. He died young and much regretted. Laborde closes his article by saying that Alberti wrote thirty-six sonatas which are said to be superb, and of a new kind (_d’un genre neuf_). Laborde’s article, though pleasing, is a bit highly colored. From it we have a right only to infer that Alberti was lovable, a good singer and a good player. That he speaks of the sonatas as being of a new sort, however, should not be forgotten.

Dr. Burney mentions Alberti twice in his ‘Present State of Music in Germany,’ both times in connection with his stay in Vienna in the autumn of 1772, more than thirty years after Alberti’s death. Once it is to give his name among the seven men who were at that time considered to be the greatest composers for harpsichord and for organ. Other names were Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach (either Emanuel or Christian: the father was not then generally appreciated). High company for poor Alberti, from which he since has fallen most low. But that he should have been reckoned with such men thirty years after his death, speaks irrefutably for the influence his works must have had, for a time, at any rate, upon the development of pianoforte music.

Reference was made in the second chapter to the other mention of Alberti in Dr. Burney’s book. It occurred in connection with Dr. L’Augier’s reminiscences of D. Scarlatti. Scarlatti had told the eminent physician that he had always borne in mind, while writing his pieces for the harpsichord, the special qualities of that instrument, whereas other ‘modern’ composers, like Alberti, were now writing in a style that would be more fitting to other instruments. In the case of Alberti, Scarlatti must have had the voice in mind, for Alberti’s harpsichord sonatas are hardly more than strings of melodies.

Considering then that Alberti was held in such high esteem as late as 1772, and that D. Scarlatti complained of him that he wrote in a manner less fitting to the harpsichord than to some other instrument, it seems likely that to him in part is due the appearance of the singing allegro in harpsichord music, which was to be characteristic of Christian Bach, of Mozart, of Haydn, of Clementi and in some part of Beethoven.

The sonatas themselves bear this out. The eight which we have been able to study, are light stuff, indisputably. But the triplex form is clear in most of the movements. He uses two separate distinct melodies as themes. The first appears at once in the tonic, the second later in the dominant. The first section, which is nothing more than the exposition of these two themes, is repeated. After the double bar follows a section of varying length, usually dominated by reminiscences of the first theme, the modulations of which are free but by no means unusual. Then the third section repeats both melodies in the tonic key. The first movement of a sonata in G major is conspicuous for the length of its second section, in which there is not only a good bit of interesting modulation, but also actually new material.

The bass which bears his name is no more than the familiar breaking of a chord in the following manner:

[Illustration: Music score]

It is hardly more true that he invented it than that such a formula is intrinsically as contemptible as many musicians, mostly theoreticians, would make it out to be. If a musician is, in a given composition, concerned with melody, he may be justified in following the procedure which makes that melody reign undisputed over his music. This inevitably will reduce the accompaniment to the simplest function possible; namely, outlining or supplying the harmony upon which all melodies, since the Middle Ages at least, have been felt to rest.

In the first sophisticated experiments with melody--the opera early in the seventeenth century--the accompaniment to a song was frequently no more than a few occasional chords upon the harpsichord. These chords were not even written out for the accompanist, but were indicated to him by figures placed over the notes of a single bass part. As composers acquired skill in combining several instruments in accompaniments to their operas, the figured bass lost its importance; but it was still employed as a sort of harmonic groundwork almost to the end of the eighteenth century. It was a prop to the harmonies woven more or less contrapuntally by other instruments, which, unlike the harpsichord, had power to sustain tone.

[Illustration]

Harpsichord composers. From top left to bottom right: D. Scarlatti, Couperin, C. P. E. Bach, Clementi.

When a man like Alberti at last endeavored to write purely melodic music on the harpsichord alone, which by the way was wholly unfitted to sing, three methods of accompaniment were open to him. One of these was to give to the left hand, as accompanist, a counter-melody or counter-melodies, which, interweaving with the upper melody, would create harmonic progressions. Allowing him to have had the skill to do this, as Couperin or Bach had been able to do, it would not have recommended itself to him as the best way to set off the chief melody. Such a procedure inevitably tangled melody with accompaniment. Secondly, he could give to the left hand a series of chords. But owing to the nature of the harpsichord, these would sound dry and detached, with cold harmonic vacancies between; unless he chose to repeat the chords rapidly, which process was decidedly clumsy. Finally he could break up the chords into their separate notes, combine these in groups easily within the grasp of the hand, and by playing these groups rapidly over and over again, produce a constantly moving harmonic current on which his melody might float along. This is in fact what Alberti did, and this is the legitimate function of the Alberti bass, one which can no more be dispensed with from pianoforte music than the tremolo from the orchestra.

It is hardly possible to believe that he invented the particular formula which plays such a part in his music. Bach had devised many methods of breaking chords so that their component parts might be kept in rapid and constant vibration. Witness alone the first and second preludes in the first book of the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord.’ In the ninth toccata of the elder Scarlatti there is an eight-measure passage of chords broken exactly in the Alberti manner. But such devices were employed by Bach and likewise by A. Scarlatti in passages of purely harmonic significance. Alberti must be among the first, if he is not actually the first, to use them to supply a simple harmonic basis for his melodies.

From the almost universal acceptance of the formula in the last half of the eighteenth century one may deduce two facts: one, that a good many composers were too lazy or too lacking in natural endowment to bother with acquiring a skill in counterpoint; second, that the whole trend of music was away from the contrapuntal style towards the purely melodic. Both facts are true; but one should no more deplore the former than be thankful for the latter, to which is owing many an imperishable page of Mozart and of Beethoven.

Other formulas of accompaniment in no way superior to Alberti’s were quick to make their appearance. Among them should be noticed the arpeggio figures:

[Illustration: Music score]

and the perhaps even more monotonous ones which one finds even in such a sublime masterpiece as the sonata in A-flat major (op. 110) of Beethoven.

[Illustration: Music score]

Alberti is a convenient figure to whom to trace an early style of sonata movement which developed through Christian Bach and Clementi, and Haydn and Mozart. He fits the case pretty well because he happened to write a number of sonatas for harpsichord alone. But the great influences which, apart from Pergolesi, affected the growth of this triplex form not only in the symphony, but in the sonata as well, emanated from Mannheim in the Upper Palatinate. The orchestra there under the gifted Johann Stamitz had come to be, before the middle of the century, the best in Europe. The two great composers who were associated with it, Franz Xaver Richter (1709-89) and Stamitz (1717-57) himself, did perhaps more than any other composers of the time to strengthen the new form and give it use as a vehicle of lively feeling. Their energy and their success left an indelible impression upon the symphony, and upon the string-quartet. And they made themselves felt upon the pianoforte sonata; in Vienna through the famous pianist-composer, G. C. Wagenseil (1715-1777); in Paris through the young and popular Jean Schobert (d. 1767) already mentioned; and even in London through Christian Bach.

Emanuel Bach, who was frequently publishing sets of sonatas in Berlin from 1740 to 1786, rather gradually adopted the new form than contributed to its development. He never quite shook off a conception of music inherited from his father, which was at the time a little too serious to submit wholly to the new influences. Hence, for example, the triplex form is always a little vague in his music. The themes which he employed, though often beautiful and poetic, were not of the distinct and melodious type which was characteristic of the form. The first and second themes were not often clearly differentiated. In fact he frequently inclined towards constructing his movements out of one theme, which dominated them as the opening figure dominated the old binary form. And he very rarely made use of the stereotyped formulas of the harmonic accompaniment, born of the universal tendency towards a melodic or homophonic style.

He cannot be closely associated with the developments which took place within the ‘singing allegro,’ preparing it for use in the great sonatas of the Viennese period. These took the form of setting the two themes out of which the movement was constructed distinctly apart from each other, in strong _relief_, so to speak; and of similarly giving the three sections a clear outline, and the movement as a whole a stable balance.

The processes by which this was accomplished in harpsichord music may be briefly touched upon. The first theme tended towards simplicity. Already in sonatas of Christian Bach and Jean Schobert a dignified and somewhat declamatory type of melody is favored for the opening. This was usually repeated, that it might be impressed upon the mind of the listener. Often it came to an end squarely in a full tonic cadence.

The transitional passage which was then to accomplish the modulation to the dominant or relative major key in which the second theme was to be announced, tended to become highly conventional, a sort of service music with little more than formal significance. Usually a figure of some technical brilliance carried the music along in repetitions that could not fail to attract the attention of the listener and arouse his curiosity as to what was coming next. These figures might or might not be fragments of the opening theme. The modulation to the desired key having been accomplished, the passage came to an end in a flourish or in a pause of a beat or two. No feature of the triplex form is more distinctive than these conventional transitional passages which seem to carry on the double function of porter and herald.

After the claim to attention had been thereby established the second theme was allowed to sing. The general tendency was to give to this second theme a gentler and more truly melodious character than the first. Here was the great domain of the Alberti bass, for instance. And following the second theme came another busy little passage, service music again, of which the duty was to bring the first section of the movement to an orderly close in the key of the dominant.

The treatment of the middle section varied. It remained always the

## part in which the composer exercised the most freedom. It might be

long or short, in the manner of a fantasia; it might merely present fragments of the first or second themes or both in a series of modulations or sequences. It may be said that the tendency towards a more or less dramatic development made an appearance before the end of the century, as if the composer was submitting his will to the suggestions of the themes themselves. The greater the inherent vitality of these themes the more likely were they to assert themselves in this middle section and to reveal, as it were, the germinating power within them and color the section with their nature. The end of the section was more and more contrived to lead up to the last section in an obvious manner, either with a long run, a series of flourishes reaching a climax, or a pause, or anticipations of the coming theme.

The last section differed little from the first except that the second theme now appeared in the tonic key. The transitional passage was taken, along with the themes themselves, from the first section; but, relieved of one half its duty--that of bringing to pass a modulation from tonic to dominant--was likely to be considerably shortened. The closing measures, however, were usually an exact reduplication in the tonic key of those which had closed the first section in the dominant. The first section was always repeated, and so were the second and third, _en bloc_.

Such was the sonata form of movement which we have chosen to call the triplex form; a movement in three clear sections, made up of two themes appearing variously in each of them. The three sections are generally known in English as the exposition, the development, and the recapitulation or restatement; and what distinguishes them is the conventional figure or passage work which was used to mark them off, one from the other, and to stand as dividing line between the first and second themes. In the sonatas of Christian Bach all these things are clear and _en règle_; in Emanuel Bach they are obscure. They are clear in the works of the Mannheim group, and in those of the Viennese and Parisian composers who responded to their influence. They are clear in the sonatas and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart and can still be traced in most of those of Beethoven. Hence it would seem that in many ways Emanuel Bach, instead of being the source of the pianoforte sonata, stands very nearly outside the current of influences to which it really owes its most distinctive feature.

We may again define the sonata as a piece of music which is a conventional group of several pieces or movements, usually three, more rarely four. The movements are not internally related to each other. The bond which holds them together is only traditional. One of these movements, most often the first, is written in a form sprung of the love of Italians and Slavs for melody, known generally as the _sonata form_. The presence of a movement in this form in a group of pieces will give an unchallenged right to call that group a sonata.[24]

III

The pianoforte sonata was a sufficiently clearly defined product of musical craftsmanship, if not art, before Haydn and Mozart began seriously to express themselves in it. It is right then to summarize briefly the musical value of the chief sonatas before their day.

The many writers may be divided according to the countries in which they practised their art. In London are to be found P. D. Paradies (1710-1792) and Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), both Italians, and Johann Christian Bach, submitting almost unconditionally to Italian influence. In the London group too must be reckoned one of the most important men in the development of pianoforte music, Muzio Clementi. In Vienna the chief figure is G. C. Wagenseil; in Paris, Jean Schobert; in Berlin, Emanuel Bach, with whom may be reckoned Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, who, through his brother Johann Ludwig Anton, a pupil of Sebastian Bach, was clearly influenced by the works of the great masters.

Both Galuppi and Paradies rather continue the tradition of Scarlatti than contribute to the development of the new style. Both, however, published sets of sonatas, that is sets of pieces in more than one movement; though the triplex form is practically unfamiliar to them. Their music has great sprightliness and charm. It should be mentioned because the work of Paradies especially was admired and recommended by Clementi.

Christian Bach, on the other hand, is full of the new idea. His life itself may well claim attention. It is sufficiently remarkable that he almost alone of the great Bach family which had for generations played a part in the development of music in Germany, and was to play such a part there for many years to come, broke the traditions of his fathers, went to Italy for eight years, even became a Catholic, and finally decided to pass the last twenty years of his life in London. Though the many stories of his extravagances and dissipations have been most unrighteously exaggerated, he was none the less of a gay, light-hearted and pleasure-loving nature which is in sharp contrast to the graver and more pious dispositions of his ancestors.

His father died when he was but fifteen years old. He had already shown marked ability as a player of the harpsichord, and his brother Emanuel took him to Berlin after the father’s death and trained him further in the art for four years. Then followed the eight years in Italy where he was beloved and admired by all with whom he came in contact, not the least by the great Padre Martini in Bologna, with whom he studied for many years. In 1762 he went to London, chiefly to write operas. He was enormously popular and successful. He was court clavecinist to Queen Anne and in 1780 a Bath paper spoke of him as the greatest player of his time.

At some time not long after his arrival in England he published a set of six sonatas for the harpsichord, dedicated to the amusement of ‘His Serene Highness, Monseigneur le duc Ernst, duc de Mecklenburg.’ Of these the second, in D major, offers a particularly excellent example of clear, lucid writing in the sonata form. The first movement is admirable. The first theme is composed of vigorous chords. It is given twice, then followed by a transitional passage full of fire; the right hand keeping a continuous flow of broken chord figures, over the rising and falling powerful motives in the left. The preparation for the announcement of the second theme is in remarkably mature classical manner, and the lovely melodious second theme, with its gentle Albertian accompaniment, is clearly a promise of Mozart to come. There is a fine free closing passage. The development section is long and varied, astonishingly modern; and the return to the first theme, prepared by a long pedal point and a crescendo, is not a little fiery and dramatic. The second movement, an andante in G major, and the quick final movement in D again, round off a work which for clearness of form, for balance in proportions, and for a certain fine and healthy charm, is wholly admirable. Above all there is about all his work a real grace which, superficial as it may be, is a precious and perhaps a rare quality in pianoforte music, a quality both of elegance and amiability. It is a reflection of his own amiable nature, so conspicuous in all his dealings with the little Mozart during the spring of 1765.

Christian Bach is no careless musician. His work is done with a sure and unfailing hand. No man could have lived fifteen years in the house of his father, Sebastian, and four more in that of his brother Emanuel, and yet again eight under the strong personal influence of Padre Martini, the most learned contrapuntist of his day, without acquiring a mastery of the science of music. Such Christian Bach had at his command; such he chose to conceal under a lightness and gaiety of thought and style.

As regards instrumental music in particular his influence upon Mozart, though in some ways ineradicable, was largely supplanted by the influence of Josef and Michael Haydn. What Mozart received from him in the domain of opera, however, as summarized by Messrs. de Wyzewa and Saint-Foix in their ‘W. A. Mozart’ (Paris, 1912), was characteristic of all of Bach’s music: ‘A mixture of discrete elegance and melodic purity, a sweetness sometimes a little too soft [_un peu molle_] but always charming, a preference of beauty above intensity of dramatic expression, or rather a constant preoccupation to keep expression within the limits of beauty.’

Muzio Clementi was born in Rome in 1752, but when hardly more than a lad of fourteen was brought to London by an English gentleman, and London was henceforth his home until he died in 1832. He was a brilliant virtuoso, though he travelled but little to exhibit his powers; an excellent pedagogue; a very shrewd business man. Among his many compositions of all kinds, about sixty are sonatas for pianoforte. The first series of three was published in 1770 and is usually taken to determine the date at which the pianoforte began really to supplant the harpsichord.

Concerning Clementi’s relation to the development of a new pianoforte technique we shall speak further on. Here we have to do with the musical worth of his sonatas. Clementi was born before Mozart and Beethoven. He outlived them both, not to mention Haydn, Weber and Schubert. Mozart, after a test of skill with him in Vienna, had little to say of him save that he had an excellent, clear technique. He remained primarily a virtuoso in all his composition; but on the one hand he undoubtedly influenced Mozart and Beethoven,--and not only in the matter of pianoforte effects,--while on the other he no less obviously held himself open to influence from them, particularly from Beethoven.

His pianoforte sonatas show a steady development towards the curtailing of sheer virtuosity and the supremacy of emotional seriousness. In the early works, op. 2, op. 7, and op. 12, for example, he is obviously writing for display. The sonatas in op. 2 have but two movements. After that he generally composes them of three. The spirit of Scarlatti prevails, though it is almost impossible to point to any close relationship between the two men. The last movement of the second sonata in op. 26 perhaps resembles Scarlatti as definitely as any. But the fundamental difference between them, which may well obliterate all traces of the indebtedness of the one to the other, is that Clementi writes in the new melodic style. That he was a skilled contrapuntist did not restrain his use of the Alberti bass and other formulas of accompaniment.

He composed with absolute clearness. The classical triplex form, with its conventional transitional passages, its clear-cut sections, and, above all, its well-defined thematic melodies, can nowhere else be better exemplified. What perhaps mars his music, or at any rate makes a great part of it tiresome to modern ears, is the employment of long scale passages in many of his transitional passages. They cannot but suggest the exercise book and the hours of practice which are back of them. The concise figures of Schobert, of Haydn and Mozart may sound thin, but, though they suggest sometimes the schoolboy, they spare us the school.

On the other hand, Clementi was wonderfully fertile in figures that sound well on the piano, and many of his sonatas, empty enough of genuine feeling, are still pleasant and vivacious to the listener. Yet they seem to have sunk down into the tomb. They are perhaps never heard in concerts at the present day. Those which are only show music may willingly be let go. They lack the diamond sparkle of Scarlatti. But there are others, even among the earlier ones, which are musically too worthy and still too interesting to be so ruthlessly consigned to the grave as the modern temper has consigned them. Have we after all too much pianoforte music as it is? It seems to be more than a change of fashion that keeps Clementi dead. Perhaps it is the shade of the admirable but awful _Gradus ad Parnassum_ over all his other work. Perhaps a man has the right to live immortally by the virtue of but one of his excellencies. In the case of Clementi posterity has chosen to remember only the success of a teacher. The great series of studies or exercises published in 1817 under the usual pompous title of _Gradus ad Parnassum_ alone of all his work still retains some general attention.

And this in spite of many beauties in his sonatas. Even among the early ones there are some distinguished by a fineness of feeling and a true if not great gift of musical expression. Take, for example, the sonata in G minor, number three of the seventh opus. The first movement, _allegro con spirito_, has more to recommend it than unusual formal compactness and perfection. The opening theme has a color not in the power of the mere music-maker. It is true that there is the almost ever-present scale passage in the transition to the second theme; but the second theme itself has a grace of movement and even a certain sinuousness of harmony that cannot but suggest Mozart. There are sudden accents and rough chords that foreshadow a mannerism of Beethoven; and the full measure of silence before the restatement begins is a true romantic touch.

The spirit of the slow movement is perhaps a trifle perfunctory. There is little hint of Mozart, who, alone of the classical composers, could somehow always keep the wings of his music gently fluttering through the leaden _tempo adagio_. The sharp--one may well say shocking--sudden fortissimos herald Beethoven again. The movement is, however, blessedly short; and the final _presto_ is full of fire and dark, flaring and subsiding by turns.

Of the later sonatas that in B minor, op. 40, No. 2, and that in G minor, op. 50, No. 3, have been justly admired. Yet excellent as they are, one can hardly pretend to do more than lay a tribute on their graves. Only some unforeseen trump can rouse them from what seems to be their eternal sleep. One feature of the former may be noted: the return of a part of the slow movement in the midst of the rapid last movement. Such a process unites at least the last two movements very firmly together, tends to make of the sonata as a whole something more than a series of independent movements put in line according to the rule of convention.

The sonata in G minor also seems to have an organic life as a whole. Clementi gave it a title, _Didone abbandonata_, and called the whole a _scena tragica_. This is treating the whole sonata as a drama based upon a single idea; but inasmuch as it was written probably between 1820 and 1821, this conception of the sonata probably came to him from Beethoven rather than from his own idealism.[25]

It is hard to turn our thumbs down on Clementi. It may be unjust as well. He entered the arena of the sonata and in many ways no man excelled him there. Mozart’s impulsive condemnation has gone hard with him. We are like sheep, and even the wisest will listen all but unquestioning to a man who had, if ever man had, the voice of an angel. And so Clementi is all but forgotten as a sonatorial gladiator and remembered only as a trainer. That the greatest of the fighters profited by his teaching cannot be doubted. That they despoiled him of many ideas and even of his finery before his flesh was cold is also true. They made better use of them.

A glance over Clementi’s sonatas can hardly astonish more than by what it reveals of the great commonness of musical idioms during the Viennese period. Phrase after phrase and endless numbers of fragments bob up with the features we had thought were only Haydn’s, or Mozart’s, or Beethoven’s. Mozart quite openly appropriated a theme from one of Clementi’s sonatas[26] as the basis of his overture to the ‘Magic Flute.’ Such a fact is, however, far less suggestive than the intangible similarity between the stuff Clementi used and that which his greater contemporaries in Vienna built with. Compare, for instance, the first movement of Clementi’s sonata in B-flat, op. 34, No. 2, with the first movement of Beethoven’s symphony in C minor. Likeness of treatment, likeness of skill, likeness of mood there are not; but the juxtaposition of the two movements creates a whisper that Clementi passed through music side by side with some of the greatest of all composers.

IV

Both Schobert in Paris and Wagenseil in Vienna are more than straws which show the way the wind blew through the classical sonata. They are streaks in the wind itself. On the one came the seeds of the new works in Mannheim to the clavecins in Paris; and on the other such seeds were blown to harpsichords in Vienna. Both men wrote great quantities of music for the harpsichord, but oftenest with a part for violin added. This part was, however, usually _ad libitum_.

Concerning Schobert we may quote once more from the ‘Life of Mozart’ by Messrs. de Wyzewa and de Saint-Foix. ‘From 1763 up to the general upheaval caused by the Revolution, he was the most played and the most loved of all the composers of French sonatas. * * * Outside France, moreover, his works were equally highly prized; we find testimony to it in every sort of German, English and Italian treatise on the history or on the _esthétique_ of the piano.’

Concerning Wagenseil we may recall the anecdote of little Mozart who one evening, on the occasion of his first visit to Vienna, refused to play unless Wagenseil, the greatest of players and composers for harpsichord in Vienna, were present. Dr. Burney visited him some years later and heard him play, old and ailing, with great fire and majesty.

Schobert was, as we have said, of Silesian origin. He came to Paris as a young man, probably by way of Mannheim, some time between 1755 and 1760; and from then on to the time of his death in 1767 adapted his music more and more to the French taste. Hence we find in it a simple but strong expression, an elegant clearness and a touch of that _sensibilité larmoyante_ made fashionable by Rousseau, showing itself in the frequent use of minor keys, evidently at the root of the very personal emotional life of his music.[27] Mozart came very strongly under his influence.

Wagenseil, on the other hand, shows yet more of the Italian influence, so strong even at that day in Vienna, to which Haydn was to owe much. His work lacks emotion and poetry, is facile and brilliant and clear, without much personal color.

In the matter of emotional warmth the sonatas of Emanuel Bach, however vague they may be in form by contrast with those of Schobert and his brother Christian, are distinguished above those of his contemporaries. Emanuel--his full name was Carl Philipp Emanuel--was born in Weimar in March, 1714. An early intent to devote himself to the practice of law was given up because of his marked aptitude for music. In 1740 he entered the service of Frederick the Great as court cembalist. In 1757 he gave up this post and went to Hamburg, where he worked as organist, teacher, and composer until his death there on the fourteenth of December, 1788.

The works by which he is best known are the six sets of sonatas, with rondos and fantasies too, which he published between 1779 and 1787 in Leipzig under the title of _Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber_ (‘Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs’). Many of the sonatas, however, had been composed before 1779.

An earlier set, dedicated to the Princess Amelia of Prussia and published in 1760, bears the interesting title, _Sechs Sonaten fürs Clavier mit veränderten Reprisen_ (‘Six Sonatas for Clavier with Varied Repeats’). This title, together with Bach’s preface to the set, shows conclusively that in repeating the sections of movements of sonatas, players added some free ornamentation of their own to the music as the composer published it. The practice seems to have been an ancient one, applied to the suite before the sonata came into being. Thus some of the _doubles_ of Couperin and Sebastian Bach may be taken as special efforts on the part of the composers to safeguard their music from the carelessness and lack of knowledge and taste of dilettanti. To what an extent such variation in repeat might go and how much it might add to the richness of the music are shown, for example, by the double of the sarabande in Sebastian Bach’s sixth English suite.

Emanuel Bach’s sonatas are of very unequal merit. The sonata in F minor,[28] published in the third set for _Kenner und Liebhaber_ in 1781, but written nearly twenty years earlier, has little either of extrinsic or intrinsic beauty to recommend it. Not only does the inchoate nature of the second theme in the first movement fail to save the movement from monotony; the first theme itself is stark and devoid of life. There is a lack of smoothness, a constant hitching. The andante is not spontaneous for all its sentimentality, and the final movement is fragmentary.

A sonata in A major, on the other hand, written not long after, and published in 1779, is charming throughout. The first theme in the first movement is conventional enough, but it has sparkle; and though the second theme is not very distinctly different from the first, the movement is full of variety and life. Particularly charming are the measures constituting an unusually long epilogue to the first section. The harmonies are richly colored, if not striking; and the use of the epilogue in the development section is most effective. So is the full measure pause before the cascade of sound which flows into the restatement. The andante is over-ornamented, but the harmonic groundwork is solid and interesting. The last movement suggests Scarlatti, and has the animated and varied flow which characterizes the first.

A sonata in A minor, written about 1780 and published in the second series for _Kenner und Liebhaber_, is in many ways typical of Emanuel Bach at his best. There is still in the first movement that vagueness of structure which may usually be attributed to the lack of distinctness of his second theme. But the first theme has a fine declamatory vigor, in the spirit of the theme out of which his father built the fifth fugue in the first book of the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord’; and the movement as a whole has the broad sweep of a brilliant fantasy.

The andante, with its delicate imitations, foreshadowing Schumann, is full of poetic sentiment. It leads without break into the rapid final movement. Here the declamatory spirit of the first movement reigns again, but in lighter mood. There is in fact an unmistakable kinship between the first and last movements, which must be felt though it cannot be traced to actual thematic relationship. Here is a sonata, then, which, though divided into three movements, seems sprung of one fundamental idea.

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.

[24] It seems hardly worth while to add that there are well-known sonatas in which no movement is in the triplex form. _Cf._ the Mozart sonata in A major (K. 331) and the Beethoven sonata in A-flat major, op. 26.

[25] It is worthy of note that a sonata in G minor for violin by Tartini was at one time known by the name _Didone abbandonata_. _Cf._ Wasielewski: _Die Violine und ihre Meister_.

[26] Opus 43, No. 2.

[27] _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 65, _et seq._

[28] See Musical Examples (Vol. XIII).

[29] The sonatas of Rust as printed by his grandson showed many extraordinary modern features which have since been proved forgeries. The fiery discussions to which they gave rise have been summarized by M. D. Calvocoressi in two articles in the _Musical Times_ (London) for January and February, 1914.

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