Giorgio Pestelli ; translated by Eric Cross.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

pp. 261-264

Giorgio Pestelli ; translated by Eric Cross., (1987) The age of Mozart and Beethoven Cambridge University Press

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Course of Study: MUSI1261/r1043304 - Historical Studies 1

Title: The age of Mozart and Beethoven
Name of Author: Giorgio Pestelli ; translated by Eric Cross.
Name of Publisher: Cambridge University Press
 READINGS

1 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

The V ersuch uber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, or Essay on the
true art of playing keyboard instruments (but in particular the harpsi-
chord and clavichord), goes back to C. P. E. Bach's Berlin period
and consists of two parts which appeared in Berlin in 1753 and 1762
respectively. The first part of the work is devoted mainly to prob-
lems of fingering and the realization of ornaments, the second to
harmony, chords and the technique of accompaniment. The fol-
lowing extract is taken from the third chapter of the first part,
entitled 'Performance', and reveals the importance of an emotional
element in the performer as a significant virtue opposed to mere
professionalism or superficial virtuosity. The importance given to
the interpreter's autonomy, then, was not to disappear, but
remained in a position to reveal ideas in the music being performed
that were even beyond the composer's intentions. This translation
is reprinted from Essay on the True Art of Playing KeylJoard Instru-
ments by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, translated and edited by
William J. Mitchell, by permission of Ernst Eulenburg Ltd and by
permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright 1949 by
W. W. Norton & Company Inc. Copyright renewed 1977 by Alice
L. Mitchell.
1. Keyboardists whose chief asset is mere technique are clearly at a
disadvantage. A performer may have the most agile fingers, be competent
at single and double trills, master the art of fingering, read skillfully at
sight regardless of the key, and transpose extemporaneously without the
slightest difficulty; play t~ths, even twelfths, or runs, cross the hands in
every conceivable manner, and excel in other related matters; and yet he
may be something less than a clear, pleasing, or stirring keyboardist. More
often than not, one meets technicians, nimble keyboardists by profession,
who possess all of these qualifications and indeed astound us with their
prowess without ever touching our sensibilities. They overwhelm our
 Readings

hearing without satisfying it and stun the mind without moving it. In
writing this, I do not wish to discredit the praiseworthy skill of reading at
sight. A commendable ability, I urge its practice on everyone. A mere
technician, however, can lay no claim to the rewards of those who sway in
gentle undulation the ear rather than the eye, the heart rather than the ear,
and lead it where they will. Of course it is only rarely possible to reveal the
true content and affect of a piece on its first reading. Even the most
practiced orchestras often require more than one rehearsal of certain pieces
which, to judge from the notes, are very easy. Most technicians do nothing
more than play the notes. And how the continuity and flow of the melody
suffer, even when the harmony remains unmolested! It is to the advantage
of the keyboard that dexterity can be developed beyond the limits of other
instruments. But finger velocity must never be misused. It should be
reserved for those passages that call for it, without advancing the tempo of
the piece as a whole. As proof that I do not disparage speed, nor scorn its
usefulness and indispensability, I point to the Lessons in G and F minor
[Sonata no. 2, third movement, and Sonata no. 6, first movement] and the
runs in the- C minor Fantasia [Sonata no, 6, third movement], all of which
must be played as rapidly, but at the same time as distinctly as possible. In
certain other countries there is a marked tendency to play adagios too fast
and allegros too slow. The contradictions of such faulcy playing need not be
systematically stated. At the same time it must not be assumed that I
condone those whose unwieldly fingers give us no choice but to slumber,
whose cantabile is a pretense which hides their inability to enliven the
instrument, whose performance, thanks to their lazy fingers, deserves far
greater censure than that addressed to shallow fleetness. At least the tech-
nicians are subject to improvement; their fire can be damped by expressly
checking their speed. The opposite remedy is either not at all or only
partially applicable to the hypochondriac disposition which is disclosed, to
our greater misery, by flabby fingers. Both, however, perform only mech-
anically; but a stirring performance depends on an alert mind which is
willing to follow reasonable precepts in order to reveal the content of
compositions.
2. What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or
playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a
composition. Any passage can be so radically changed by modifying its
performance that it will be scarcely recognizable.
3. The subject matter of performance is the loudness and softness of
tones, touch, the snap, legato and staccato execution, the vibrato, arpeggi-
ation, the holding of tones, the retard and accelerando ['Stiircke und
Schwache der Tone, ihr Druck, Schnellen, Ziehen, Stossen, Beben,
Brechen, Halten, Schleppen und Fortgehen']. Lack of these elements or
inept use of them makes a poor performance. [... ]
5. In general the briskness of allegros is expressed by detached notes and
the tenderness of adagios by broad, slurred notes. The performer must keep
in mind that these characteristic features of allegros and adagios are to be
given consideration even when a composition is not so marked, as well as
when the performer has not yet gained an adequate understanding of the
affect of a work. I use the expression, 'in general', advisedly, for I am well
aware that all kinds of execution may appear in any tempo.
 Readings
6. There are many who play stickily, as if they had glue between their
fingers. Their touch is lethargic; they hold notes too long. Others, in an
attempt to correct this, leave the keys too soon, as if they burned. Both are
wrong. Midway between these extremes is best. Here again I speak in
general, for every kind of touch has its use.
7. The keyboard lacks the power to sustain long notes and to decrease or
increase the volume of a tone or, to borrow an apt expression from painting,
to shade. These conditions make it no small task to give a singing perform-
ance of an adagio without creating too much empty space and a consequent
monotony due to a lack of sonority; or without making a silly caricature of it
through an excessive use of rapid notes. However, singers and performers
on instruments which are not defective in this respect also do not dare to
deliver an undecorated long note for fear of eliciting only bored yawns.
Moreover, the deficiencies of the keyboard can be concealed under various
expedients such as broken chords. Also, the ear accepts more movement
from the keyboard than from other instruments. Hence, satisfactory and
successful examples of the art of performance can be presented to all but
those who bear a strong prejudice against keyboard instruments. A golden
mean is difficult but not impossible to discover, particularly in view of the
fact that our most usual sustaining devices, such as the trill and the mar-
dent, are also well known to other instruments and the voice. Such embel-
lishments must be full and so performed that the listener will believe that he
is hearing only the original note. This requires a freedom of performance
that rules out everything slavish and mechanical. Play from the soul, not
like a trained bird! A keyboardist of such stamp deserves more praise than
other musicians. And these latter should be more censured than keyboard-
ists for bizarre performance. [... ]
12. As a means of learning the essentials of good performance it is
advisable to listen to accomplished musicians ... Above all, lose no oppor-
tunity to hear artistic singing. In so doing, the keyboardist will learn to
think in terms cf song. Indeed, it is a good practice to sing instrumental
melodies in order to reach an understanding of their correct performance.
This way of learning is of far greater value than the reading of voluminous
tomes or listening to learned discourses. In these one meets such terms as
Nature, Taste, Song, and Melody, although their authors are often incap-
able of putting together as many as two natural, tasteful, singing, melodic
tones, for they dispense their alms and endowments with a completely
unhappy arbitrariness.*
13. A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of
necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the
revealing of his own humor will stimulate a like humor in the listener. In
languishing, sad passages, the performer must languish and grow sad. Thus
will the expression of the piece be more clearly perceived by the audience.
Here, however, the error 'of a sluggish, dragging performance must be
*Two specimens appeared serially in Marpurg's Der Critische Musicus an der Spree.
Both were translations from the"French. The first, Grandvall's Essay on Good Taste in
Music, started on June 3, 1749· Later, starting December 2, 1749, an Essay on the
Decline of Good Taste in Music by Bollioud de Mermet began. Both contain terms
similar to those mentioned here and are marked by 'a completely unhappy
arbitrariness'.
 Readings
avoided, caused by an excess of affect and melancholy [this sentence
appeared as a footnote in the 1787 edn]. Similarly, in lively, joyous passages,
the executant must again put himself into the appropriate mood. And so,
constantly varying the passions, he will barely quiet one before he rouses
another. Above all, he must discharge this office in a piece which is highly
expressive by nature, whether it be by him or someone else. In the latter
case he must make certain that he assumes the emotion which the composer
intended in writing it. It is principally in improvisations or fantasias that the
keyboardist can best master the feelings of his audience. Those who main-
tain that all of this can be accomplished without gesture will retract their
words when, owing to their own insensibility, they find themselves obliged
to sit like a statue before their instrument.* Ugly grimaces are, of course,
inappropriate and harmful; but fitting expressions help the listener to
understand our meaning. Those opposed to this stand are often incapable of
doing justice, despite their technique, to their own otherwise worthy com-
positions. Unable to bring out the content of their works, they remain
ignorant of it. But let someone else play these, a person of delicate, sensitive
insight who knows the meaning of good performance, and the composer will
learn to his astonishment that there is more in his music than he had ever
known or believed. Good performance can, in fact, improve and gain praise
for even an average composition.

2 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In the epistolary novelJulie ou la nouvelle Heloi"se (1761), Rousseau

(1712-78) returns to some of his ideas on contemporary music,
which he had already expounded in particular in the Lettre sur la
musique franfoise (1753). In the forty-eighth letter of the first part of
the novel (Saint-Preux to Julie), the old querelle between Italian and
French music takes on a passionate tone in which the literary man
surpasses the musician in imagining a type of music directly linked
to the passions (drawing abundantly, moreover, in the realism of
some of the images, on An essay on musical expression, published by
Charles Avison in 1752). The translation is by Philip Yarrow.
Ah! my Julie! what did I hear? What touching sounds! what music! what a
delicious source of emotion and pleasure! Waste not a moment; gather
carefully together your operas, your cantatas, your French music, light a
great fire, and when it is burning well, throw all this lumber on it, and poke
it carefully so that all that ice may burn on it and give out heat at least once.
Make this propitiatory sacrifice to the god of taste, in order to atone for your
* Marpurg (op. cit., Sept. 9, 1749) in covering similar material writes, 'I know a great
composer [Bach?] on whose face one can see depicted everything that his music
expresses as he plays it at the keyboard.'