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KMBB L6 Two 18th-Century Aesthetic Concepts for Keyboard Music: ‘Character’ and ‘Oration’ Mozart on the resemblance of his Sonata in C, K. 309/ii (1777) to Rosa Cannabich ‘[Johann Christian Cannabich’s] daughter, who is 15 [sic] ... Is a very pretty, pleasing girl. She has great sense for her age, and an engaging demeanor; she is rather grave and does not talk much, but what she does say is always amiable and good natured. ... The andante ... She executed with the greatest possible feeling ... Young Danner asked me how I intended to compose the andante, “Entirely in accordance with Madlle. Rosa’s character”, said I. ... And it really is so; she is just like the andante’. Francoise Couperin (1668-1733) Organist at St. Gervais (Paris, 1685), Royal Chapel (1693), Court organist and composer (1717) *L’art de toucher le clavecin* (The art of playing the harpsichord) (1716) *Pieces de clavecin* (Harpsichord pieces), four volumes (1713, 1717, 1722, 1730), arranged not as suites of dances, but as ‘orders’ of dance movements and titled/descriptive pieces. Fr. Couperin, Pieces de clavecin, 1 (1713), preface ‘I have always had an object in composing all of these pieces... the titles correspond to the ideas that I have had; I may be excused for not rendering an account of them. However, since among these titles there are some that seem to flatter me [because they refer to aristocrats], it is well to point out that the pieces that bear them are a kind of portraits, which have sometimes been found good likenesses under my fingers ...’ E.g. Book 1, order 5, ‘La tendre Fonchon’ refers to the singer Francoise Moreau Imitative Subjects in Couperin Passions/sentiments: ‘Les sentiments’ (Book 1) Sounds/music: ‘Le Carillon de Cithere’ (Book 3) People: ‘La Couperin’ (Book 4) [= La piece Couperin, rather than a female Couperin] Abstract or ambiguous: ‘Les ombres errantes’ (Book 4) Animals (or a nickname?): ‘L’amphibie’ (Book 4) Scenes: ‘Les bergeries’ (Book 2) The Principal of Imitation ‘Music’, in Couperin’s keyboard works doesn’t appear ‘alone’ – through titles, it evokes something outside the piece, be that a person, an object, an idea from the imagination, or just a type of music/dance.* This reflects his social context where music formed part of aristocratic salons. ‘Portraits’ and ‘characters’ were fashionable literary genres. (See Fuller, ‘Of Portraits, “Sapho” and Couperin’, M&L 78/2 (1997): 149-74). It also represents an aesthetic principle of ‘the imitation of nature’ that united the arts – but which proved difficult for instrumental music. (Recall that the debates over canon made reference to different conceptions of ‘Nature’). Shifting Focus of Musical Imitation ‘Mimesis’ was variously understood by 18thC musicians to refer to the imitation of the natural world (e.g. Storms), gesture and dance steps, and human character, the latter winning out in the course of the 18th century. The shift towards imitation of human character (a set of defining sentiments) is evident in the 24 character pieces of C. P. E. Bach, composed 175457 – all of which refer to his Berlin friends, none to more abstract or fanciful objects. Contexts of CPEB’s Character Pieces The Berlin court was Francophile: Friedrich’s rococo palace in Potsdam, built approximately one decade before Bach wrote his character pieces, was given the French moniker “Sanssouci” (“carefree”). Surrounded by French gardens, the palace contained the king’s extensive collection of Jean-Antoine Watteau and other French artists. Friedrich wrote predominantly in French, invited French cultural figures to visit the court, and expected artists, authors, and musicians under his patronage to be familiar with French culture. Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg observed that: “Very many of our most famous players admit that they have taken from the French the preciseness of their performance.” Fr. W. Marpurg’s Prompt* ‘Words have exercised more power over the singer and his performance than people believe. ... With instrumental pieces, however, this Ariadnian guideline [sic = thread] drops away, and players lose their way in the labyrinth of a more or less extravagant performance, according to whether they have many embellishments in their heads, their throats, or their hands, and according to whether they possess less or greater capability of comprehending the true sense of the piece.’ Cont. ‘French character pieces largely preclude such [extravagant performance], and one would wish that it weren’t considered sufficient, in all compositions in the new style, to set nothing more than the words “allegro” or “adagio” at the head of a piece without giving the player more explicit information about the inner nature and distinctiveness of this particular Adagio ...’* C. P. E. Bach, ‘La Gleim’, H. 89 In A minor, has two parts. The first follows the French Rondeau with three episodes (couplets) – tonic, relative major, dominant minor. The fourth (in A major) is titled “II. Partie” and is followed by the refrain written out with a little coda. So it is an extended version of the Baroque model that CPEB knew from Francoise Couperin. Gleim’s Character We happen to know a fair bit about Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803), a poet (set by CPEB). He was said to be extremely refined, kind-hearted, and sensitive. His first collection of poetry, Essay in playful songs (1744) was light, sentimental, amorous and playful (Anacreontic). In his home in Halberstadt, he contrived a ‘Temple of Friendship’ in which he displayed his collection of portraits and prints. Based on CPEB’s representation, Gleim was slightly melancholic (refrain); given to mood swings (the final A major episode); graceful, elegant (grazioso), refined, with quicksilver emotions (in each couplet the emotions, and their intensity, fluctuate and change).* Gleim, by Johann Heinrich Ramberg (1789) A Broader Phenomenon: Johann Jacob Engel, ‘Painting in Music’ (1780)* ‘Engel likens the composer to a Tonkünstler, a tone artist, who paints Empfindungen with musical notes. The composer represents sensibility by manipulating such elements as key, rhythm, melody, and harmony to cause vibrations in the nervous system of the listener, whose feelings the composer may imagine being played upon, as an instrument. These vibrations trigger what he calls “passionate imaginings,” and the same sensibilities the composer wishes to represent in his subject are conjured in the soul of the listener. In Engel’s terms, a listener imagines the subject of a character piece or musical portrait by listening empathetically and recognizing the passions it represents ...’ Waldon, ‘Composing Character’, MQ (2009). What about music’s temporal organisation? The notion of musical portraits or character pieces gets at music’s power of representation but has less to say about how music is organised temporally. Indeed, in listening to K. 309/ii it seems both necessary, but also a little like special pleading, to ‘hear’ the progress of the piece as a story of Rosa Cannabich’s unfolding feelings. So how was music’s temporal organisation conceptualised? A favoured metaphor: music as oration Musical ‘form’ was generally conceptualised not in architectural or spatial terms, nor even quite so abstractly as a set of harmonic and thematic events following conventional patterns, but under the heading of ‘oration’: music was an ‘address’ – like a speech or sermon – to an audience. Thus the ultimate questions were: is it moving and persuasive; and, specifically, is it ‘about’ something – is it focused and intelligible. The metaphor of oration throws weight onto perception and on the technique by which the composer elaborates a main ‘theme’ or ‘subject’. Francesco Galeazzi, ‘TheoreticalPractical Elements of Music’ (1796)* ‘The Motive, then, is nothing but the principal idea of the melody—the subject or theme, one might say, of the musical discourse–and the whole composition must revolve around it ... It must be well rounded and lucid, for, being the theme of the discourse, if it is not well understood, the discourse that follows will not be understood either’ (89). Galeazzi’s on ‘laying out the melodies’ of a musical discourse Part 1 1. Introduction 2. principal motive 3. second motive 4. departure to the most closely related keys 5. characteristic passage 6. cadential period 7. coda Part 2 1. Motive 2. modulation 3. reprise 4. repetition of the characteristic passage 5. repetition of the cadential period 6. repetition of the coda Perceptible relationships between ideas, not ‘purely musical’ unity ‘The introduction is ... a preparation for the true Motive’ ‘The second Motive ... is either derived from the first motive or is entirely new, but, well connected with the first, immediately follows the period [cadence] of the Motive’ ‘The departure from the key ... Should end in the fifth of the key in which it is actually set [that is, the new key], so that the following period may emerge with more prominence and individuality’ Cont. ‘The characteristic passage is a new idea ... introduced... for the sake of greater beauty. This must be gentle, expressive, and tender ...’ ‘The cadential period ... is a new idea, but it is always dependent on previous ideas ... It will display animation and skill, with agility of voice or hand’ ‘The coda is ... a prolonging of the cadence ... it links the ideas which end the first part with those which have begun it, or with those with which the second part begins’. Cont. Galeazzi then proceeds through the second part, which is essentially as we would expect (he mentions the transposition of material in the secondary key). He ends by praising a ‘beautiful device’ in the coda: ‘to recapitulate in the Coda the motive of the first part, or the introduction ... Or some other passage that is both remarkable and well suited to end with; this produces a wonderful effect, reviving the idea of the Theme of the composition and bringing together its parts’. Application to K. 309/i Can you locate the ‘parts’ of part 1 in the exposition – does the music want to fall out in this way? What are the strengths and weaknesses of understanding this movement in Galeazzi’s terms? How does topic fit in, if at all? Is this movement also a portrait or imitation of anything? Can we reconcile ‘character’ and ‘oration’?