Early French, Italian and German Composers

by Daniel Gregory Mason

Early French Clavier Composers

Aside from a premature school of composers for the harpsichord, which sprang up in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth (the end of the sixteenth century), and which later culminated in the work of that solitary genius, Henry Purcell (1658-1695), the earliest successful application of the principles we have been studying, and of the skill gained by the development of violin music which went on in the seventeenth century, was made in France. De Chambonnieres, court clavier player to Louis XIV, was the pioneer, but the master of the school was Francois Couperin (1668-1733), called 'le Grand". His pieces are animated, gay, or stately dances; courantes, allemandes, minuets, gavottes, sarabandes,and the like, mingled with more elaborate types like the gigue, in which the polyphonic texture is apparent, and the rondo, in which a "refrain" constantly recurs after various couplets - all bound together, as Bie happily phrases it, "into one bouquet, which he offers to his lady friends, often with a polite dedication appended, under the general title of 'ordre'" (suite). A striking feature of his style, aimed at overcoming the weak melodic relief of the harpsichord, is the profusion of ornaments (agrements or manieren) of all kinds, through which the melody peers, it has been said, "like a high frizzed beauty hidden by a richly wrought lace veil." Couperin had a characteristic French tendency to make his music tell stories rather than embody moods, and is fond of picturesque titles, such as The Hen, The Harvesters, and the like.

The Italian School

The warmer southern temperament of Italy so naturally expressed itself in lyric melody, either for voices or for the singing bowed instruments rather than in elegantly formal pieces for the clavier, that the only prominent Italian clavier virtuoso is Domenico Scarlatti (1683-1757). Virtuoso he emphatically is; "he played", says Parry, "upon his audience as much as he did on his harpsichord"; and "the incisiveness of his rhythms, . . . his wild, whirling, rapid passages, his rattling shakes, his leaps from end to end of the keyboard, all indicate a preternaturally vivacious temperament." The love of dexterity for its own sake thus came into the music of keyboard instruments at an early period, and has always remained a part of its tradition.

It is, however, to the more reflective and simple emotional Teutonic temperament the we owe the finest musical achievement of this, as of some later periods. While the French tended toward the dramatic and the superficially elegant, and the Italians toward the sensuously pleasing, the Germans approached art with a subjective earnestness which is precisely the quality music is best fitted to express. The difference is seen in so comparatively trivial a matter as choice of instrument; the Germans, from Bach to Mozart, preferred the slighter but more intimate and expressive clavichord to the harpsichord, more showy and brilliant. It is seen in their tendency to retain the thoughtful polyphonic element in textures, even while adapting it to keyboard realization (as in Bach's fugues). It is seen in their constant effort to broaden the schemes of design used, resulting, in the work of C.P.E. Bach and his followers, in the development of the sonata form. Above all, is it shown in the type of melody they instinctively adopted, coherent, sober, and charged with deep feeling.

In Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) we see a great genius who, at the very moment he is bring the polyphonic method of writing, as shown in his organ fugues, his cantatas, his B minor Mass, to full fruition, is able in lighter moments to adopt a style diametrically opposed to it, the light, secular, homophonic style of his French and English suites, his partitas, some of the preludes in the Well Tempered Clavichord and other clavier works. In his suites, as to a slighter degree in Handel's (1685-1759), we find the infusion of a greater seriousness and a deeper expression, in short of more music, into the brief and simple binary and ternary dance forms used by Couperin, together with other movements of a more elaborate cast. His concertos and sonatas show a reaching out at times toward the sonata form which was to follow, usually coupled with a thoughtful Andante and a merry finale, often in rondo form. In the wonderful collection of preludes and fugues called the Well Tempered Clavichord, generations have found their musical bible - a work which stands alone with Beethoven's Sonatas as supreme expression of the musical aspiration of the race.

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), belonging to a later generation, wisely realized that it was his business not to imitate his father's methods, but to investigate the possibilities of a more homophonic and light style which were opening up. With him clavier style becomes more idiomatic, the single melody reinforced by "graces" and supported by chords, arpeggios, or similar figures, taking usually the place of his father's more intricate texture. Above all, he outlines clearly for the first time the sonata form, consisting (1) of an exposition of two themes in contrasting keys (though with him the second theme still remains rudimentary), (2) of their development, and (3) of their restatement or recapitulation in the same key. This form, sometimes extended by an introduction and coda, dominated musical art throughout the nineteenth century.

C.P.E. Bach, though blamed by the critics of his day for his "light, unscholarly style", opened up by it the path later cleared by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). In the work of these masters we find the classical sonata at the highest stage it was destined to reach before it was transformed by Beethoven. It consists usually of four movements. The first, in sonata form, with a first theme of marked rhythmic character, and a second theme more song like and appealing, often with Mozart almost Italian in its grace, is broadly developed in their concertos with orchestra, more concisely in their solo sonatas. A slow movement of tranquil, often somewhat antiquated, charm follows in simple sectional design. A stately minuet or perversely humorous scherzo provides a lighter mood and a merry finale, usually a rondo, concludes. As regards style, Haydn is notable for a homely humor and good cheer, Mozart for delicacy and aristocratic grace. to the latter, melody was so transcendently important that on the whole he is less successful in his clavier works than in those for more sustaining instruments - violins or orchestra. His sonatas especially bear evidence of having been composed in some haste, and are not free from routine formalisms, especially in the stereotyped accompaniments for the left hand known as the Alberti bass. His melodies, however, are never devoid of charm, and his playing set that charm always in the most favorable light. It was noted especially for its clearness, euphony and ease; he deprecated mere speed, and advised his sister not to take too much pains with the passages in thirds and sixths in Clementi's sonatas, "so as not to spoil her quietness, suppleness and flowing velocity." Mozart's piano music (for from 1771 he used the piano as well as the clavichord) thus brings to its highest point the courtly grace, the charm, the fine taste, which was the special quality of this art in the eighteenth century. With Beethoven began a new era.