Kirkpatrick (1976) - C. P. E. Bach_s Versuch Reconsidered

8/10/2019 Kirkpatrick (1976) - C. P. E. Bach_s Versuch Reconsidered

1/10

C. P. E. Bach's "Versuch" ReconsideredAuthor(s): Ralph KirkpatrickSource: Early Music, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Oct., 1976), pp. 384-392Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3126153.

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2/10

C

P

E

B a c h s

V e r s u c h

re onsidered

RALPH

KIRKPATRICK

TIM

.

als.

Frederick

heGreat's

osthaus

signboard,

776.

Bundespost

Museum,

rankfurt

384

Germany

of the 1750s saw

the first

intimation

of a

flood of

instrumental

treatises

that

has never subsided

to this

day. Perhaps

one of the

most

famous of them

all,

and

one of the

earliest,

was Carl

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach's Versuch

iber

die wahre Art das

Clavier

zu

Spielen,

his

'essay

on

the

true

manner of

playing keyboard

instruments'.

Its

reputation

has remained

constant ever since

its last

18th-century

edition but

its

accessibility

has not

corresponded

to

its fame.

Furthermore,

the

publication

of

the

examples

in

the

original

edition,

in a

large

format

separated

from

the main text of the

book

itself,

made

consultation

difficult,

and

generally

brought

about

the

separation

of

the

examples

from

the

book and their

subsequent

loss. The

first

part

of

the Versuch

appeared

in

1753,

with

a

second

edition

in

1759,

and the second

part

in

1762.

Later

editions of both

parts

came

out

in 17

80,

and the

last

18th-century

edition

of

Part One with

additions made

many

years

earlier

by Philipp

Emanuel

Bach

appeared

in

1787 and

that of Part

Two

in

comparable

fashion

in

1797.

Since

then there have been

many

quotations

that

helped

to

keep

the book

from

being forgotten.

A

badly

mauled edition was

brought

out in the mid-

19th

century

by

one

Schilling,

and a

partial

re-edition

by

Walter

Niemann

in

1906.

The

first

complete

republication

of

the text

appeared

in 1949

in

a

rather infelicitous

English

translation by William Mitchell, but without the sonatas that served as

supplements

to the

examples. Finally,

in

1957,

Breitkopf

published

a

facsimile of the first editions of both

parts

of the text

and,

separately,

the

sonatas and

sonatinas from the last

edition of the

example

volume

in a

wretchedly

careless and inaccurate

transcription

nto modern notation.

An

adequate

reissue

of

the entire work

must still

be awaited.

Part

One deals with

keyboard playing,

that

is,

with

the

playing

of

set

pieces.

It is the first

German

keyboard

manual of

any consequence

since

the

prefatory

material to Amerbach's

Tabulaturbuch

f

1571.

It has

copious

introductory

material,

extensive discussion

of

fingering

and

ornamentation,

and a most

revealing

section on

performance

in

general.

Part Two concerns

itself with

thoroughbass,

accompaniment

and

improvisation.

Again,

highly

interesting

introductory

material is followed

by

a

very

lucid

survey

of the

materials of

keyboard

harmony

and

thoroughbass,

further

particulars

of

accompaniment

such as

pedals,

suspensions,

syncopations,

ornaments. There are

further

highly

revealing

chapters

on

performance,

on

the

making

of cadenzas

and

fermatas,

on the

refinements

of

accompaniment,

on certain

precautions

which

the continuo

player

needs to

take,

and

on

recitative.

The final

chapter

on free

fantasy

contains

a

fantasycomposed expressly

as an

example.

While the

first

part

is

really epoch-making

in its

thoroughness

in

dealing

with

keyboard playing,

the second

part,

in

dealing

with

thoroughbass,

descends

from

a

long

line of German treatises

and

practical

manuals

for

the continuo player. I think especially of such treatises as that of Niedt

which was

quoted by

J.

S.

Bach,

of

the

Grosse nd the

KleineGeneralbass

Schule of Matthson

(1731

and 1735

respectively),

and

the

large

and

extensive Generalbass

f Heinichen of

1728.

The

keyboard part,

the

first

part

of the

Versuch,

ears little

trace of

acquaintance

with

any

of the earlier

keyboard

treatises.

But this is not

surprising

since most of them

originated

in other cultures

and at earlier

times,

like those of

Santa

Maria

and Diruta.As

usual,

the

highly

important

treatise

of St Lambert

of

1702

passes

unnoticed,

but

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach

does mention

Couperin,

and he would have known

Marpurg's

adaptation

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de

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e

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ublished

as

Die

Kunst

das

Clavier u

spielen

n

1751. For

logic

and

clarity Philipp

Emanuel

Bach's

keyboard

treatise

surpasses

any

of its

predecessors.

This

treatise

represents

a

kind

of fusion of

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's

early

training

in

Leipzig

as

a

pupil

of his

father with

influences

from

the

totally

different musical

atmosphere

at the

court

of

Frederick

the

Great. He

arrived

in

Berlin

and

Potsdam

in

1738

while

Frederick the

Great was

still

Crown

Prince,

and

in

1740

had

what he

calls the honour of

accompanying

the first flute solo

that the then

newly-crowned

King

played

in

the

Charlottenburger

Schloss

in

Berlin.

Johann

Joachim

Quantz,

the

royal

flute

master,

had

published

his

great

book,

Versuch

iner

Anweisung

ie

Fldte

Traversiereu

Spielen

n

1752 with

a

dedication to Frederick he

Great.

It

is

much

more

than a

mere

manual of

flute

playing;

it

is

a

compendium

dealing

with almost

every

kind

of

musical

activity

that

went

on

at the Prussiancourt. He discusses

not

only

the duties

of

a flute

player,

but the duties of an

accompanist,

and

the functions

of

even the last wind

player

and

ripieno

violinist in the orchestra. It is a

perfect

practical exposition

of the musical life that went

on in the

evenings

at

Berlin and Potsdam and of which there have been so

many

evocations

eversince.

Bach's

book,

unlike that of

Quantz,

has

no dedication to the

king,

nor

indeed

to

anyone

else.

Like

his

father,

C.

P.

E.

Bach was

only reluctantly

court-oriented. One

has

the

impression

that

Quantz's

book

is

more

practical,

more realistic

in

terms

of the

ambience

from

which

it

came

and

that Bach's has

leanings

toward

a

theoretical

approach. Certainly

the

organization

and

exposition

of

Bach

is

vastly

superior

to that of

Quantz.

Bach's book

owes

as

much

of its

carrying

power

to this literate and

logical

exposition

as to its

authority

as

the

work

of a

first-class

composer

who

is

also

a first-class

performer.

One

feels

on

every

page

that

he

is

writing

not

merely

out of

abstract

speculation

but

also

from observation

and

experience,

which

he

has

had the intellectual

power

to

elevate into the

domain of

theory.

Bach's Versuch

directly

influenced a number of other treatises such as

the

Anleitung

um

Clavier-spielen

f

Marpurg, published

in

1755,

which

leans

especially

on

Bach's

terminology

for ornamentation.

Agricola's

expanded

translation of Tosi's

treatise

on

singing,

published

in

1757,

is

very

close to

Philipp

Emanuel Bach.

Agricola

was

also

a

court

composer

at Potsdam.

And

the

last

great

German

keyboard

treatise

of the 18th

century,

by

J.

G.

Turk,

is

likewise

heavily

beholden to

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach.

Both

parts

of the

Versuch

present

their

expositions

with

an admirable

definitiveness

in

the face

of

imminent

change

in

musical

style

and

practice.

They

strike

a

balance between

playing

of set

pieces

and

improvising

which

is later to be drastically upset in favour of set pieces as the age of

thoroughbass

comes to

an

end.

Bach's

thoroughbass

doctrine in this book

is

one

of its last and most

complete

statements.

In

a

way,

it is a

pity

that

something

so

good

should

have come so

late,

almost too late. On the other

hand,

his

writings

about

keyboard playing

are in

many ways

precursors

of later and

much more

highly

developed

discussionsof the

playing

of set

keyboardpieces.

This

standing

on a

pinnacle mid-way, mid-century,

betweentwo

musical

periods

is

nowhere more evident than

in

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach's relation

to

keyboard

instruments.

As he

repeatedlysays,

he is

veering

away

from the

386



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Left:

Adolph

Menzel 1815-1905),

a well-known

chronicler

f

Prussian

istory,

rew his ketch

f

C.

P. E.

Bach,

possibly

tthe imehe was

working

on

his

celebrated

ainting

Flute

Recital

at

Sans

Souci,

begun

n

1850

andJinished

n 1852.

Right:

ontemporary

ngraving

f

C. P. E. Bach

harpsichord;

the

piano

is not

yet

satisfactorily

developed-this

he

frequently

points

out;

and

the instrument

of

all

his

predilections

is

the

clavichord. Thus his

keyboard style

and his

keyboard

teaching

is

involved

with

a

period

of transition. Much of it

applies

to a

set

of

conditions with

respect

to

instruments

that

will never

again

return.

And his

own

style

of

composition,

as the

example pieces

or

any

of his

other

pieces

show, retains a certain number of

vestiges

from the

past,

although

those that are

obviously

in

the

style

of his

father are

very

infrequent. Basically

his is an

innovative

style;

it is

looking

forward and

indeed

is to

have

a rich

progeny

well

into

the 19th

century,

through

its

influence

on

Haydn,

Mozart,

Beethoven

and

many

others.

And

yet

it

is

itself

about

to

be

overwhelmed. The vision

is

constantly

conjured up

in

connection with

the Versuch of

the

stability

of

its

utterance

and

the

instability

of

its

historical

position.

But its

exposition

of

sound

disciplined

musicianship,

of

observation from

experience,

give

it

enduring

value. Like

most

treatises,

it

indulges

in

the

expression

of

a few

personal

prejudices,

but not as

many

as

most,

and

in

no

way

do

they

affect

the

book

as

a

whole.

Its

codification

and

nomenclature of

ornaments

is

the clearest of any 18th-

century

treatise,

and

as

I

have

already

said,

its

codification and

exposition

of

the

elements

of

thoroughbass

is

unsurpassed.

There are

perhaps

some

special,

highly personal points

of

view

that

limit

the

general

applicability

of

this

book. One of

them

is

undoubtedly

its

strong

orientation

toward the

clavichord,

especially

if

one takes into

consideration

the limitations of

that instrument

in

connection

with

public

performance,

and its

later

overwhelming

by

the

piano.

Both

halves of the

book

are

intensely

concerned

with

the

use

of

piano

and

forte

dynamics

to

a

degree

that

is

almost

unprecedented.

The

musical

style

in

connection

with

387



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Title

pageoffirst

edition

of

Versuch,

Part

,

1759

which

these

dynamics

are

used

has

little

to

do

with

that

of

an

earlier

age,

so

that

fundamentally they

are

relevant

only

to the music

of

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach and his

contemporaries.

Throughout

the

book,

in

fact,

despite

the

universal

validity

of

many

of

its

generalizations,

most

of the

particular

examples

are

drawn

from

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's own

highly

personal

style

of

composition.

My

own

experience

with

the

Versuch ow covers

a

span

of over

forty

years.

I

first

encountered

it

in an

atmosphere

in

which the

concept

of

earlyor old music was still

relatively

new. There was a

tendency

to

lump

all kinds

of

styles

and

periods

together

under the

rubric

of

early

music.

This

can

easily

be seen

in

the

organization

and

tenor

of a

book like

Dolmetsch's

Interpretation

f-the

Music

of

the Seventeenthnd

Eighteenth

enturies.

he work

of Arnold

on

thoroughbass

and

that

of Dannreuther

on

ornamentation

is

not

that

much

more

discriminating.

Their

quotations,

with

which

I

was

already

familiar,

were

regarded

by

me

as

having

a kind of

general

authority

that

I

would

no

longer

ascribe to

them,

but Bach's

book,

of

which

I

acquired

a

copy

of the 1780

edition,

together

with

its

examples,

in

December

1932,

not

only

constituted,

along

with

Goethe's

Wilhelm

Meister,

some

of

the

first

reading

I

ever

did in

German,

but

it

has

remained

with

me

ever since. What most influenced me at the beginning was its attitude

toward

the

clavichord,

its comments

on touch

and

the

examples

themselves.

I think

the

style

and

language

of ornamentation that

I

evolved

over the

years

owes

as much

to

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

as to

any

other

treatise.

And I

learned

a certain amount

from

the sections on

thoroughbass,

but

practical

experience

was

later to teach

me much more

than

studying

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's

examples.

For

many years

I

continued,

whether

rightly

or

wrongly,

to use

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's

terminology

for

ornamentation.

I

used

it

in

the

preface

of

my

1938

edition

of the

Goldberg

Variations,

ut

I

now

think

to an

excessive

degree,

especially

with

respect

to

the

choice

between

long

and short

appoggiaturas.

And I still used it as

a

basis

of

terminology

in

my

Scarlatti

book of 1953,

mainly

because of its

clarity

and

general

applicability.

The

Versuchoes

cover

a

large

amount

of the

ornamentation

that

was

practised

in the

fifty

or

seventy-fiveyears preceding

its

time,

but one

can

be misled

by

its excessive codification and

by

its

almost exclusive orientation toward

the

style

represented

by

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

himself.

In

recent

years

I

became more and more conscious

of the

unsuitability

to the

performance

of

earlier

music

of

the

long

appoggiaturas

which

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

so

abundantly

uses. I

developed

great

reservations about

many

of

those

appoggiaturas

ofJ.

S. Bach which I

formerly

played

as

long,

and

more and

more

they

have tended

to

disappear

in

favour of short

grace

notes.

My

most recent reassessment

of

this

book

leaves unabated

my

admiration for it, but provokes me to a few new observations.

I

had

not

really

studied the

thoroughbass chapters

of

Part Two

since

before

gaining

the

experience

of

years

and

years

of continuo

playing.

On

returning

to it

now I find some of the same solutions

to

all

sorts of

problems

that

I had

been

obliged

to

work

out in the heat of

battle,

so to

speak;

I find all the

tricks

of

the

trade mentioned in one

spot

or

another. If one reads these

pages

before

having

had

practical

experience

for one's self

they

have

a

tendency

to

go

in one

eye

and out the other.

But now

it

was

a

fascinating

experience

to see how

fully

C.

P. E. Bach has dealt with

continuo

playing,

from what sound

experience,

and

with what

finesse of

hearing

and of taste.

388



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II,

1762

I think that no other continuo treatise exhibits

such

impeccable

taste,

much

of which

is

applicable

in

any style.

My

recent

experience

of

going through

most of the

examples

of

ornamentation

in

Part One

and

playing

through again

all the sonatas

and

sonatinas

of

the

Probestiicke

howed

me

even

more

than I had

ever

realized

how

closely

the

book

is allied to C. P. E. Bach's

own

style.

Certainly

t

has

been more convenient

than accurate to use

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

as

a

source book for

J.

S. Bach. There

is, however,

no one source that

can

be

used for

application

to

J.

S. Bach; one is

obliged

to

compile

and assess a

variety

of sources

in

the

light

of historical

judgement

and

experience

in

order

to

draw

conclusions,

of

which

many

will

always

remain

debatable.

My

re-examination of the

Probestiicke

howed

me that much more

limited

use

is made than I had

thought

of the

wide

range

of

ornamentation

discussed

in

the text and

examples.

Of

many

of the variants cited

in

connection with trills

that turn

up

in other

schools,

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach

himself makes

no

use. I

was

surprised

to see how

far

away

I

had

been

carried

by

the

consistent

but

perhaps idiosyncratic

style

of

dealing

with

ornaments that

over

years

I had

worked out for

myself.

As I

said

before,

this

took much

of

its

impetus

from

my

initial

study

of

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach, but in the interveningyearsit has been much more stronglyfortified

by

a

study

of

French

treatises

and

of

French

style.

The basic

principles

of

my

own

style

have

been

taken

over

by

most

of

my pupils,

but often with

a

quite

different effect. It

is

certain that

with

equal

faithfulness

to the sources

it is

possible

to treat

many

ornaments

in

a

way

quite

different from

mine.

What is

important,

however,

is the

combination of

consistency

and

flexibility

that assures

communicative

power

to

any

language.

The

distance

of

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

from

the French

style

is much

greater

than I

had recalled. I

was aware that

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's use of

appoggiaturas

is almost

entirely

harmonic,

whereas the French use

of

them

is almost

entirely

melodic

and

declamatory.

The

rigorous

ornament-on-

the-beat

prescriptions

of

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

are not borne out

by

much

of early music and especially not by much French music. In general, the

regularly

measured

appoggiaturas

that

he

prescribes

are

attributes more

of

his

own music than of that of

anyone

else.

There is a

great

difference

in

his

treatment

of

trills. His use of

the

termination

(Nachschlag)

nstead of

the

stopping

of

a trill

on

a note

is so

frequent

that even

without

the

presence

of

a

sign

he takes its

insertion

for

granted.

This is in

direct contrast to

the more

precise

indications

of

the

French, who, moreover,

use

far

fewer

terminations and

many

more

trills

that

do not demand

them. There

seems

to

be

a

great

deal more

variety

in

the French school in

the variations of

speed

within

trills and in

their

rhythmic

function in

general.

The French school

would seem

to

have

a

much

greatervariety

in

tied

trills,

that is in

trills

of

which

the first

auxiliary

tone

is tied

to

a

preceding descending

interval.

With

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach,

both

inprecept

and

application,

this tied trill

becomes what he calls

a

Pralltriller,

nd it is

always

short

and

not extended

through

the note.

Also

he has a

peculiar

association of this ornament with a

turn,

which

is

also a

short

ornament

in a

way quite

different from what

appears

to be

implied by

the

French.

Although

Philipp

Emanuel Bach is

obviously

using

ornamentation as a

means of

declamation,

his

usage

is

totally

different from

that

of

the French.

It

is

much more

emphatic,

as is the nature of the

German

language

itself.

389



8/10

C.

P.

E.

Bach

?)

at the

keyboard,

etail

of

engraving fFrederick

he Great

ndhis

musicians

y

P. Haas

P

The accents are much

stronger,

the

contrasts much

sharper,

and the

declamation

of

consonants,

diphthongs,

and

vowel

sounds

much

less

subtle,

as

one

would

expect

from

the inherent

qualities

of German as

compared

with French. In

fact,

in

comparison

with the French

style Philipp

Emanuel

Bach

seems

ever

so

slightly

crude,

except

for his

abundant

use of

dynamics.

There is

much

finesse

in his

playing,

but

it is

obviously

intended

to be

achieved

through

the

swelling

and

tapering

of notes

whereas the

entire French

keyboard

school is

based

on

the

harpsichord

and not on

the

clavichord,

and

on

dealing

with

non-inflecting

instruments

and

with means

of

providing compensation.

I

think this

perhaps

may

explain

the

greater

complexity

and

subtlety

of

French

ornamentation,

namely

that

it

could not

fall back

on

taperings

and

swellings.

In

fact,

Couperin

says

as

much: 'Le

Clavecin est

parfait

quant

A

son

etendiie,

et brillant

par luy

merme;

mais

comme on

ne

peut

enfler,

ny

diminuer ses

sons,

je

sgauray

to

ijours

gr

$a

ceux

qui

par

un

art

infini,

soutenu

par

le

goit,

pouront

ariver

a

rendre cet

instrument

susceptible

d'expression'.

Philipp

Emanuel Bach shares

with

Couperin

an

evident abhorrence of

gymnastics

as

a

substitute

for

expression.

While

his

digital

technique

in

terms of

passage

work and

figuration

is

somewhat more

extended

than

Couperin's, his fingering is not nearly as subtle. While his principles of

fingering

open

the

way

to

the modern

ten-finger

system,

his

chief

innovation is

the

passing

under of

the thumb as

against

the

passing

of

long

fingers

over shorter

as

was the case

with

Couperin.

It is

surprising

that

Philipp

Emanuel Bach almost never

changes fingers

on

repeated

notes.

This is a

cardinal

principle

of

my

own

technique,

because

a

failure to

change fingers

can

produce

a

kind of shove

of

the hand or

the

wrist

that

risks

upsetting

the

general

cohesion

of the

passage

being

played.

Couperin

evidently

felt

this,

because he

nearly always

changes fingers

on

repeated

notes,

and often

does a

great

deal

of

binding

by

changing

fingers

on

one

note,

far

more than

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach.

The

Probestiicke

are

full of

cantabile

passages

in

which

the

same

finger

plays

successive

diatonic

intervals in a

way

which makes a

legato

almost

impossible.

One of the few

mentions of

Couperin

in

the

Versuch

occurs

in

connection with

a

criticism

of his

unnecessary

changing

of

fingers

on

sustained notes. But

the

gestures

of

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's

fingerings

and their

very crudity perhaps imply

a kind

of Germanic

Heftigkeit,

a kind of bear-like

enthusiasm,

one

might

better

say,

dog-like

enthusiasm as

compared

with the cat-like desinvolture

and the

invariably

smooth movements and

concealed

intensity

of

the

French.

In the

Germanic

style

the heart

is laid

out

on the

sleeve,

and

certainly

in

Philipp

Emanuel Bach's music his

Heftigkeit

shows itself not

only

in

keyboard

gestures

but

in

strong

dynamic

changes

ranging

from

pianissimo

to

fortissimo,

in

rapidly

alternating

fortes and

pianos

and in

surprising modulations of a kind that would have been considered quite

outrageous

by Couperin.

Yet

Philipp

Emanuel Bach was

vastly

better educated and

intellectually

infinitely

more

disciplined

than

Couperin.

He

writes

very

much better.

Couperin

writes

really quite

badly;

he

expresses

himself with more colour

than

clarity. Philipp

Emanuel Bach

continually

shows the benefits

of

a

classical education and

probably

also those of his four

years

of

study

of

law.

(Until

1738,

when he

accepted

his first

appointment

at

the court of the

Crown

Prince,

he was not intended to be a

professional

musician.)

His

intellectual interests

were

considerable. His

culture he

acquired,

I

think,

390



9/10

.

.I.

Vl.

C. P. E.

Bach's

autograph, eptember

774,from

thefacsimilef

C.P.

E.Bach's

utobiography

published

y

Frits

Knuf,

Amsterdam

for

himself,

instead

of

by

osmosis as did

Couperin.

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

is

known

to

have

frequented

nearly

all

the best

poets

of his

time,

and men

of

letters

in

general,

and also to have had

strong

connections

with the

visual arts.

He

represents

an embodiment

of

two

opposing

characteristics

hat

in its

way

is

typical

of

many

late

18th-century

figures

with their balance on the

one

hand,

of

vigorous logic,

and on

the

other,

of

exceedingly

personal

sentiment.

C.

P. E. Bach has

a

predilection

for the kind of

direct

expression

that

among

keyboard

instruments

only

the clavichord can

give.

And

yet

his

logic

and

his

tendency

to

theorize

is

always

based

on

practical

experience.

I

have

formed

a

theory

or

two

that

might

explain Philipp

Emanuel

Bach's dislike

of

Rameau. He

rejected

Rameau's

principle

of fundamental

bass

and

inversion,

and

I

think

quite rightly,

because Bach's traditional

thoroughbass

classification

of

chords

in his treatise relates to the

way

in

which

they

are

actually

used.

The

classification

of

chords

by

inversion

is

purely

theoretical and has

absolutely

nothing

to do

with the

manipulation

of

part

writing

or

with the conduct

of the

fingers

on the

keyboard

in

thoroughbass

playing.

I

think

Bach

had an instinctive

mistrust of Rameau

as a theoretician. Rameau's

theoretical

writings

do not

always

function as

an extension of his activities as a composer; in their abstractnessthey have

rather a

tendency

to

do

violence

to his

own

very

great genius.

He

is

capable

of

pursuing

a

system

for its

own

sake,

regardless

of

what

experience

or

feelings

may

have

told him

about

it. That

Rameau

was able

to

be

so

brutally

rationalistic

is

perhaps explained by

the

fact

that he

was

essentially

a

non-performing

composer.

His

keyboard playing

is

reputed

to have been

quite

primitive,

as was also

his violin

playing,

and

his

precepts

for

performance

bear the hallmark

of

distance

from

practical

experience.

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

in his

balance between

logic

and

sentimentality

is

in

his

way

a

perfect

representative

of the

age

of

enlightenment,

of

the whole

turn

of

thought

of

the last

half of

the 18th

century.

It

is

dominated

on

the

one hand

by

the

conception

of

man as a

superlatively

rational

being,

and

by investigationinto all realms of knowledge on the part of scientistsand

encyclopedists,

and

on

the

other

hand

by

the

conception

of

man

as

a

creature

of

infinite

capacities

for

feeling.

These

capacities

find

their

exacerbation

in

the

products

of

the

empfindsame

eit in

Germany

and

in

novels like La Nouvelle Hiloise of

Rousseau,

or

in

a

quite

different and

highly

ironic sense

in

Sade's

Justine.

On one

hand,

homely

subjective

unqualified

sentimentality,

on

the other

hand,

noble

magnificent

objective

structures

of

reason and

logic.

This

antithesis

is

abundantly

shown

on

the

stage

in

such a work

as Mozart's

Zauberflite.

And

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

represents,

as

I

have said

already,

a

mixture

of a solid

heritage

from

the era

of his

father,

of

a solid classical education and

of

the

modishness and

stylishness

of

the court of

Frederick

the

Great.

This

court had

its

very

special atmosphere.

It

was

capable

of

inviting

Voltaire as a

privileged guest

but it was also

capable

of

having

terrific rows with him. It

harboured all

sorts

of

quaintnesses

and sentimentalities.

In

Potsdam monumental

colonnades

adjoin

simulated

peasant

houses and

windmills,

and the rooms

at Sans Souci lead from marble

formality

to

rococo

intimacy.

On the

occasion of

my

last visit to

Sans Souci

I was

provoked

to

remark that

in

Proustian terms one could describe the

atmosphere

as a kind of combined

emanation of the Baron de Charlus and of

Mme Verdurin.

Like most of

the Bach

family

C.

P. E.

Bach seems to have been a

very

391



10/10

A

pagefrom

n

account

ook t

Frederick

he

Great's ourt

showing payment

f300

thaler o

C. P. E.

Bach

10th

entry

own).

The

singer

Astrua

drew

4725,

Graun nd

Quantz

000 each.

Geheimen

taatsarchivs

reusischer

ulturbesitz,

Berlin

V I P

.

A4......

.............

i4e5i

poor

courtier.

He

was

not

popular

with

the

King;

his

pay

was never raised

until

very

late

in his

career;

and

in

1768 he was

happy

to leave for

Hamburg.

The

Versuch,

lthough

a

product

of

Berlin

and Potsdam and

Leipzig,

foreshadows

in

a

way

the later life of

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach and

the

later

function

of

music

in

Germany.

Its

orientation

is

not

toward

the

court and

the

aristocracy,

hence the absence

of

any

dedication whatsoever.

It

is

toward

the

rising

cultivated

bourgeoisie

that

was

to

make

19th-century

German literature

and music

possible,

toward that

exceedingly

high

middle-class culture,

higher

probably

in the first half of the 19th

century

than

in

any

country

in

Europe except

England,

because

in

other countries

either the

middle class

scarcely

existed

or it was

desperately

uncultivated as

in

France

under

the shadow of a

highly sophisticated

aristocratic radition.

My

re-examination of

the Versuch

rought

me once

again

to the

problem

of

Philipp

Emanuel

Bach's

music.

My

own relations with

it

have never been

for

any

length

of time

more than

chilly.

It is

undeniably

first-class

music,

but

I

have

never been

able

to

sustain the moments

of

enthusiasm

and

surprise

which

it

has sometimes aroused

on

first encounter.

Yet its

high

reputation

is

fully justified by

its

quality.

An

enormous amount

of

this

music

has

been

republished,

but one wonders how much

of

it

is

ever

played. The rareoccasionson which I played any of it myselfin public have

never left

me

with

any

feeling

of real

success. Of

the

half

dozen

harpsichord

concertos that

I

have

played

at least once there

is

not

one

which

I

would

particularly

care to

play

again,

and of the

fifty

or

sixty

which

I

have

actually

seen there are few that

I

would have

considered

even

playing

once.

I

played

one of the sonatas

on

the

harpsichord

on

what

may

have

been

at least

thirty

recitals

in

half

a

dozen different

countries

with what seemed to be a

remarkably

consistent failure to render it attractiveto the

public,

but as a

protagonist

of

the

piece

I

myself

developed

quite

a

liking

for

it.

In

fact

I

played

it with considerable

sincerity

and

passion.

But the

unfamiliarity

to

audiences

of the

style,

its failure to

give

an audience what

it had been

expecting,

and

its

failure to dazzle

was so

complete

I

finally

eliminated

it.

I think I would be more

strongly

attracted

by

the big clavichordfantasies

if it

were not for the

problem

of

obtaining

adequate

instruments.

These

pieces

do not

lend

themselves

at all to

performance

on

any

other

instrument

than the clavichord. Yet

in

my

entire

life

I

have encountered

fewer than half

a dozen

clavichords

that live

up

to the

demands

posed

by

this music.

Among

them is

one

in

the

Claudius collection

in

Copenhagen,

and

another

is in

the Berlin collection.

Usually

old clavichords

have such

weak discants

or have lost their tone so

completely

that

there

is

no

hope

of

obtaining

from

them

anything

but a

travesty

of

these

pieces.

Among

large

modern

clavichords

I have

never

encountered

an

upper

register

adequate

to the demands

of the

fantasies.

My

own attitudes towards

Philipp

Emanuel Bach

are

chequered

with

a

kind of alternation

between

frustration

and

the

hope

that

one

day

I

might

achieve

a

relationship

with his music. Given

its

obvious

quality

I cannot

help

feeling

that the fault

is

mine,

unless it be

Haydn's

and

Mozart's for

satisfying

me

so much more.

I

do not know whether

any

kind of final

conversion to

this music

will ever

be

granted

me,

whether

anywhere

or with

the

general

public

it

will achieve the

admiration that it once

enjoyed.

The

Versuch, owever,

is

certainly

sure of survival

by

virtue

of its double

role as a document of

performing practices

and

by

virtue

of its

position

as

the

utterance

of a consummate musician.

392

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Kirkpatrick (1976) - C. P. E. Bach_s Versuch Reconsidered

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