Fantasy in the piano sonatas of C.P.E. Bach and Beethoven. |
By: Roger Hansford |
‘A point which is frequently made about Beethoven, namely that he adopted sonata form and burst its traditional bonds by packing it with dynamic and subjectively impregnated material, really applies to C. P. E. Bach’. [1]
Thus Philip Barford links the keyboard sonatas of both composers in our discussion. Although it was Beethoven (1770-1827) who actually applied the label ‘Sonata Quasi una Fantasia’, the sonatas of C. P. E. Bach (1714-1788) had already made extensive use of fantasia elements. However, as the comparison of Bach’s Sonata VI of Six Sonatas from the Versuch (1753) with Beethoven’s Op.27 No.2 “Moonlight” Sonata (1802) will show, each composer employed different elements of the fantasia, and with different purposes in mind.
Before the sonatas are investigated, the nature of the fantasia itself needs to be clarified. According to Stanley Sadie it is ‘an instrumental piece in which the imagination of the composer takes precedence over conventional styles and forms’.[2] Leonard Ratner, using evidence from eighteenth-century writings, lists four main qualities. First is ‘invention’, through which the composer demonstrates their creative ability. Second is ‘freedom of action’, including a leisurely or improvised method of composition, and a structure unbound by a pre-determined plan. Third is ‘strangeness of effect’, with subtle and unusual uses of material, and fourth is ‘figuration’, including broken chords.[3] When employed as a stylistic topic for listeners to recognise within other works, the fantasia includes ‘elaborate figuration, shifting harmonies, chromatic conjunct bass lines, sudden contrasts, full textures or disembodied melodic figures’.[4] With its undisciplined and unconventional character - unusual within eighteenth-century music - the fantasia allowed the creative genius of the composer to shine through.[5]
Fantasia elements, according to Hans-Günter Ottenberg, can be seen just as clearly in the sonatas of C. P. E. Bach as in his fantasias themselves.[6] This is due to his emphasis on ‘the principle of difference’: he breaks the rhythmic flow and unity of mood expected of a baroque sonata with ‘stabs of contrasting feeling, halting rhythms, enharmonic modulations and all the devices of Empfindsamkeit’.[7] This disunity reflects Bach’s view of the fantasia as ‘nothing more’ than a demonstration of the composer’s keyboard improvisation skills.[8] Made perceptible within a system of tonal unity, the ‘beauty of variety’ created by an extempore style was intended to move the listener.[9] In producing this effect, the sonatas relied upon the listener’s capacity to appreciate deviations[10] from the ‘stereotyped designs and patterns’ of late Baroque music [11]. By showing his ‘ability to work creatively without regard to rules and restrictions’, Bach expected to be well received by audiences newly interested in ‘artistic individuality’ and ‘the creative process itself’.[12] Therefore Bach used the stylus phantasticus [13] to create a quasi-improvisational sonata that would demonstrate his genius.
Bach’s most obvious use of fantasy elements within Sonata VI is the Fantasia movement [Example 1]. The lack of bar lines qualifies the movement as an unmeasured or ‘free fantasia’, heightening the sense of improvisation, and the variety of originality and sentiment is engendered by a mix of textures. The broken chords (editorial marks ii, iv, vi) contrast with the closing ‘arpeggio’ chords - spread once up and down - that create the strange effect of dissonance.[14] Another effect is the quasi-recitative, seen at v and vii [15]; a figure which represented contrasting emotions and improved the fantasia’s capacity to communicate[16]. The ‘expressive passage work’ (iii) - which is functional to the harmony - plus the non-functional ‘plain scale’ (x and xiv) and ‘figurative flourish’ (viii and xiii)[17] echo elements of Ratner’s fantasia topic [18]. The brilliant, virtuosic figures also suggest the transcription of a keyboard improvisation over figured bass.[19] As Ferguson’s ‘harmonic skeleton’ shows[20], the wide-ranging harmony - creating an ‘emotional force’[21] - occurs only after the page-long establishment of the tonic, meeting Bach’s intention to establish tonality in a fantasia.[22] Therefore Bach uses fantasia elements in Sonata VI just as he would in a fantasia proper, creating a final movement that demonstrates his ‘compositional virtuosity’ [23].
Although in tempo an antithesis to the rest of the sonata, the Adagio affetuoso e sostenuto [Example 2] also demonstrates Bach’s use of fantasia elements. The sentimental performance direction, linking to the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight”, is compounded by the use of ornaments including shakes (bar 1), turns (bar 4), mordents (bar 6) and appoggiaturas (bar 4) [24], all of which suggest an improvised spontaneity. The juxtaposed rhythms - especially in bars 49 to 54 - unsettle the movement, and the unmeasured section from bar 55 creates an abrupt change of meter, leading towards the final movement. While not necessarily specific to the fantasia, these elements do create variety and strangeness, and Bach’s use of them makes for a second movement that is forward-looking in its level of expression.
Even the first movement of Sonata VI [Example 3], apparently the closest to convention, demonstrates Bach’s employment of fantasia elements. Although basically following sonata form, the recapitulation has no reprise of the secondary or the transitory material. While this ellipsis does not specifically denote a fantasia element, the strange brevity of the whole form may do; the primary key area lasts only four bars and the recapitulation just eight bars. The harmony and rhythm of the first movement are also unusual: note the syncopated rhythms and chromaticism of the secondary material, especially in bars 37 to 44, and the odd naturalisation of the third scale degree in bar 8, just before the abruptio right hand rest. The G-flat major chord reached in bar 39 is unusually distant from the tonic, although not a definitive element of fantasy as it occurs within the development. The ‘daring’[25] of improvisation is demonstrated, though, by the virtuosic hand-crossing in bar 2, and by the rapid dynamic changes of bars 9 to 16. Therefore, although used more subtly in this movement than elsewhere, the fantasy elements still help to disrupt the ‘forensic exercise’ of sonata form [26], making it more ‘eccentric’ [27]. That any movement could undergo a ‘varied repeat’ [28] suggests that Bach’s use of the fantasia has made the whole of Sonata VI a demonstration of improvisatory skill.
Although Beethoven was keen to improvise - a fact linking him directly to C. P. E. Bach’s Essay [29] - his sonatas were more than ‘transcriptions of . . . improvisations’ [30]. Timothy Jones describes how, thanks to Beethoven’s use of fantasy:
Musical genres became more markedly personal; forms were shaped as much by their unique contents as by an adherence to traditional models; and the coherence of multi-movement works was intensified by the use of recurrent basic unifying ideas from movement to movement. [31]
Like Bach, then, Beethoven used the fantasia to depart from strict adherence to sonata form. But rather than creating an improvisational style through variety, Beethoven gave the multi-movement sonata the unity of the single-movement fantasia. Transforming the genre into a vehicle for personal expression, Beethoven applied the title ‘fantasia’ so that critics would analyse his works using ‘the language of feeling rather than the language of form’.[32] Even when writers did refer to form, this, after 1800, denoted ‘an organic relationship of parts to the whole’, organicism emphasising ‘the autonomy of both the artwork and its creator’, and reducing the audience to the level of ‘interested third party’.[33] Once the sonata had its own ‘force of life’[34], listeners no longer needed to achieve full and instant comprehension of its formal elements.[35] In this way Beethoven’s use of fantasy in Op.27 No.2 - to transcend sonata conventions and convey his own feelings - pre-empts the Romantic piano works of Schubert, Chopin and Schumann [36].
Beethoven begins Op.27 No.2 with the Adagio Sostenuto [Example 4], immediately giving listeners the movement ‘in which fantastic elements are most integral to the shape’[37]. This opening may signify the elision of an Allegro movement, and shows an intention to focus on long-term goals.[38] Another element of fantasia is formal ambiguity within the movement. Although Jones suggests a possible sonata form for the Adagio Sostenuto, with an exposition from bars 1 to 23, a development up to bar 41, a recapitulation from bars 42 to 60, and then a nine-bar coda, he believes that this ‘fails to convince’ as the movement lacks strongly-defined motives and key areas. He claims instead that the movement may be a song without words, or a binary form dividing at bar 42, the first part containing five phrases.[39] The uncertainty is echoed by Donald Tovey, who avoids naming the form and describes the movement as a ‘large scale’ melody with ‘elements of’ development and recapitulation.[40] The melody runs throughout the Op. 27 first movement, creating a unity unlike the motivic variety of the Sonata VI Allegro. This shows how Beethoven uses the same fantasia element - disruption of sonata form - as Bach, but creates the opposite effect.
Because of the structural ambiguity in the Adagio Sostenuto, Beethoven’s use of fantasia elements to portray personal feeling is able to dominate. The unifying motive is one of ‘mourning music’, with its extra-musical connotations of suffering and death.[41] This explains the grouping of notes to reflect psalm tones, the monotone anacrusis which evokes the tolling of a bell, and use of the established funereal topics like dotted crotchets and repetitive triplet figures.[42] Even the fantastic harmonies of the movement can be linked to the mourning subject. The ‘radically original’ shifts of mode [43], from E major to E minor in bars 9 to 10, and from B major to B minor within bar 15, plus the chromaticism of bars 12 to 23, links to rhetorical figures like mutatio toni (a sudden, expressive shift of a tone) and pathopoeia (a mournful chromatic step).[44] The expressive harmonic effect is compounded by idiomatic use of the sustain pedal, and the mono-thematic structure is emphasised by the soft dynamics. Jones goes so far as to suggest that, because of the pp dynamics, the mourning is that of Beethoven for the loss of his own hearing.[45] If true, this interpretation would underline the way Beethoven infuses the topics and harmony with elements of fantasy geared towards personalisation of the sonata.
Another use of fantasia elements seen more in Beethoven’s sonata than in Bach’s is the organic development of material. Jones shows how most melodic material within the Adagio Sostenuto is derived from three motives of the first nine bars.[46] In fact it is organic development that unites the whole piece. According to Jones, the coda (bars 60-9) of the Adagio Sostenuto is anti-climactic and, thanks to the Attacca instruction, leads directly into the Allegretto [Example 5], to which it is linked by the opening rhythmic motive.[47] The Presto Agitato [Example 6] is also linked to the Adagio Sostenuto by elements such as the arpeggios and bassline (bars 1-14), and the dominance throughout of G-sharp.[48] However, the movement still has a unique character; the coda (bars 157-200) incorporates the virtuosic fantasia topics [Example 7] that Bach used, but within a ‘ferocity’[49] that was Beethoven’s own. The movement is also physically distanced from the Adagio Sostenuto by the Allegretto [50], with its distinctive ‘lyric’ character.[51] This existence of connections and divisions between the outer movements may explain Rosen’s contradiction that Op.27 ‘went further than any previous work in a stylistic unification of all the movements of a sonata’ but that ‘contrast between the opening and closing movements . . . exceeds anything else conceived for the keyboard until then’.[52] Just like a fantasia, therefore, Beethoven’s Sonata is unified yet varied. Unlike Bach, he does not simply create a sonata with fantasy elements, but a sonata ‘as fantasy’ [53]: a combination essential in conveying the composer’s personal expression.
So C. P. E. Bach and Beethoven made different uses of fantasia elements in their keyboard sonatas. As Sonata VI showed, Bach used adventurous harmonies, ornaments, juxtaposition of rhythms, expressive performance directions, and deviations from standard sonata form to create variety. This variety, together with the interpolation of fantastic keyboard figuration, emphasised the genius of the composer as performer. Although still reliant on idiomatic keyboard techniques, Beethoven’s use of fantasia elements emphasises the true nature of the composer as designer. His disruption of the sonata form is so extreme as to make it unintelligible, and this allows his use of topics and fantastic harmonies to convey his personal message. The organic development of material within movements further destroys any sense of sonata form, and the motivic links across movements makes Op. 27 No. 2 both a sonata and a fantasia at the same time. Despite these differences there is still an overriding similarity linking the sonatas of C. P. E. Bach and Beethoven. Making fantasia elements the ‘dynamic’ content, each was able to re-cast the keyboard sonata, becoming - in his own time - ‘father of sonata form’ [54].
NOTES
[1] Philip Barford, The Keyboard Music of C. P. E. Bach (London: Barrie & Rockliffe, 1965), p.50.
[2] Stanley Sadie, ed., ‘Fantasia’, The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music (London: Macmillan, 1994), p.263.
[3] Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style (New York: Schirmer, 1980), p.308.
[4] ibid., p.24.
[5] ibid., p.314.
[6] Hans-Günter Ottenberg, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, trans. Philip J. Whitmore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p.78.
[7] Barford, p.56.
[8] C. P. E. Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, 2nd Ed., trans. William J. Mitchell (London: Eulenberg Books, 1974), p.431.
[9] ibid., pp.430-1, 438-9.
[10] Susan Wollenberg, ‘A New Look at C. P. E. Bach’s Musical Jokes’ in C. P. E. Bach Studies, ed. Stephen L. Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp.302-3.
[11] Douglas A. Lee, ‘C. P. E. Bach and the Free Fantasia for Keyboard’ in Clark, ed., p.177.
[12] Ottenberg, pp.139-140.
[13] Matthew W. Head, Fantasy in the Instrumental Music of C. P. E. Bach (PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1995), p.i.
[14] Howard Ferguson, ed., C. P. E. Bach - Selected Keyboard Works Book VI: Six Sonatas from the ‘Versuch’ (London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (Publishing) Ltd, 1981), p.5.
[15] ibid., p.6.
[16] Ottenberg, p.84.
[17] Ferguson, ed., pp.5-6.
[18] Ratner, p.24.
[19] C. P. E. Bach, pp.431-2.
[20] Ferguson, ed., pp.5-6.
[21] Barford, p.43.
[22] C. P. E. Bach, p.431.
[23] Wollenberg, p.297.
[24] Ferguson, ed., pp.4-5.
[25] Head, p.i.
[26] Ratner, p.246.
[27] Head, p.i.
[28] Ferguson, ed., p.5.
[29] Kenneth Drake, The Sonatas of Beethoven As He Played and Taught Them ed. Frank S. Stillings (Cincinnati: Music Teacher’s National Association, 1972), p.14.
[30] Timothy Jones, Beethoven: The Moonlight and Other Sonatas, Op. 27 and Op. 31 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.57.
[31] ibid., p.15.
[32] ibid., pp.62-5.
[33] Mark Even Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of Oration (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1991), p.4.
[34] ibid., p.4.
[35] Carl Dahlhaus, Ludwig Van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music, trans. Mary Whittal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p.118.
[36] Sadie, ed., p.264.
[37] Jones, p.16.
[38] ibid., p.16.
[39] ibid., pp.80-2.
[40] Donald Francis Tovey, A Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas (London: Associated Board of the R. A. M. and R. C. M., 1931), p.111.
[41] Jones, pp.78-9.
[42] ibid., pp.78-9.
[43] Charles Rosen, Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2002), p.159.
[44] Jones, p.79.
[45] ibid., p.14.
[46] ibid., p.83.
[47] ibid., pp.85-5.
[48] ibid., p.87.
[49] Rosen, p.159.
[50] Jones, p.87.
[51] Tovey, p.112.
[52] Rosen, pp.153, 159.
[53] Jones, p.62.
[54] Barford, pp.48, 50.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bach, C. P. E. Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, 2nd Ed., trans. William J. Mitchell. London: Eulenberg Books, 1974.
Barford, Philip. The Keyboard Music of C. P. E. Bach. London: Barrie & Rockcliffe, 1965.
Bonds, Mark Even. Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of Oration. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Buonamici, G., ed. L. van Beethoven - Pianoforte Sonata. London: Augener & Co., 1903.
Dahlhaus, Carl. Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music, trans. Mary Whittal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Drake, Kenneth. The Sonatas of Beethoven As He Played and Taught Them, ed. Frank S. Stillings. Cincinnati: Music Teacher’s National Association, 1972.
Ferguson, Howard, ed. C. P. E. Bach - Selected Keyboard Works Book VI: Six Sonatas from the ‘Versuch’. London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (Publishing) Ltd, 1981.
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Ratner, Leonard G. Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style. New York: Schirmer, 1980.
Rosen, Charles. Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Sadie, Stanley, ed. ‘Fantasia’, The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music. London: Macmillan, 1994.
Tovey, Donald Francis. A Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas. London: Associated Board of the R. A. M. and R. C. M., 1931.
Wollenberg, Susan. ‘A New Look at C. P. E. Bach’s Musical Jokes’ in C. P. E. Bach Studies, ed. Stephen L. Clark. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.