Transcript The Keyboard Fantasia

The Keyboard Fantasia
A music of the Self
Free Fantasia in F-sharp minor, ‘C. P. E.
Bach’s Feelings’ (H. 300, 1787)
Representation of the composer’s ‘character’ –
consistent with our discussions in lecture 6. The
fantasia becomes autobiographical, confessional
– a first person ‘oration’.
The free fantasia was particularly suited to selfrepresentation: freedom from conventions of
other types of piece, and from unity of meter –
less constrained by existing musical conventions.
Listen to the first few minutes: what were CPEBs
Feelings?
Christoph Christian Sturm, Sacred Songs with
Melodies to Sing at the Keyboard by C. P. E. Bach
(1780-81)
‘Andenken an den Tod’ (H. 749, 1781), the first
phrase is quoted in the fantasia, for which the
text reads ‘Who knows how close death is to
me’ (‘Wer weiss wie nah der Tod mir ist’). The
sentiment here is not ‘sadness’ but
uncertainty – and the idea is of the
omnipresence of death and the fleeting
nature of life.
Listen to the song.
Understanding ‘C. P. E. Bach’s Feelings’
If we take this (apparent) quotation as a ‘key’ to
understanding H. 300, it is reasonable to look more
broadly at the collection of Sacred Songs. Notably, all
the songs are Christian meditations on life, death,
salvation and the created world. Perhaps the fantasia
in f-sharp shares in this register of theological-poetic
meditation. With specific reference to the quotation,
death features often in the Sacred Songs, and as an
occasion for a wide-range of feelings as we might
expect in a Christian context – physical suffering,
redemption of sins, release from the body, reunion
with God, salvation.
The autobiographical fantasia: a
broader phenomenon?
There are other hints that the free fantasias of
C.P.E. Bach may be self-expressive or
autobiographical. According to Bach’s friend, Carl
Friedrich Cramer, the composer wrote the free
fantasia in A-major (H. 278, 1782), ‘in tormentis’
(‘in agony’) while suffering from gout. In a review
of the collection in which the piece was
published, Cramer gave more detail, albeit in a
joking manner. More significant than Cramer’s
specific suggestions for ‘gout pain’ in the music is
the fact that he links the fantasia with the
composer’s body and feelings.
Cramer, review of Kenner und Liebhaber
v. 4, Magazin der Musik (Nov.-Dec. 1783)
‘I happen to know that the second of these two Fantasias
was prepared for his own enjoyment on a day when he
nursed irksome rheumatism, and, according to his
friends, he named it jokingly the fantasia in tormentis,
with reference to the celebrated paintings of the
blessed King of Prussia. No one would thank me if,
based on this, I wanted to abstract an entire theory of
gout pain, according to which [the music] would
incarnate flying pain in the rambling runs that are
immediately repeated on an elusive 6/4/2 chord;
stabbing pain in the short, jerky passages; the
impression of a troubled soul etc. “No, that’s fanciful!”
says a serious reader. So be it, then!’
A closer look at Cramer’s notion of
Bach’s ‘pain’ in H. 278
Is there any plausibility to Cramer’s suggestions that
the fantasia represents physical sensation and
related mental states? Consider:
• ‘Flying pain’ in the opening scales;
• ‘Stabbing pain’ in the ‘short jerky passages’;
• ‘The impression of a troubled soul’
What is the topic at ‘E’ in the score? What is
happening at ‘F’? Characterise the material at ‘H’
in terms of Cramer’s theory. What is the name of
the type of rhythm used at ‘G’.
Broader Connections Between ‘Self’
and Fantasia
Social context: fantasias were private music, improvised
for oneself, or for a small group of connoisseurs. CPEB
was reluctant to publish fantasias, fearing they would
not be understood. In other words, fantasias seemed
to be outside market forces and to be relatively free
from the kinds of authorial compromises imposed
when composing pieces to be published for amateurs.
‘More sugar’ is required, Bach wrote, in pieces for the
public. In fantasias the composer/improviser presents
their ideas and knowledge, moment by moment. The
metaphor of the body as clavier plays a part in the
intimacy and autobiographical quality of improvisation.
Cont.: An eye witness account ...
Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany ... Or The
Journal of a Tour, 2 vols. (London: Becket et al., 1773),
vol. 2, pp. 269-70: ‘After dinner, which was elegantly
served, and cheerfully eaten, I prevailed upon him to
sit down again to a clavichord, and he played, with
little intermission, till near eleven o’clock at night.
During this time, he grew so animated and possessed,
that he not only played , but looked like one inspired.
His eyes were fixed, his under lip fell, and drops of
effervescence distilled from his countenance. He said,
if he were to be set to work frequently, in this manner,
he should grow young again’.
Cont.: an impression of monologue
and confession
In 1767, Bach’s friend, the poet Heinrich Wilhelm von
Gerstenberg, added words to the free fantasia in C
minor, H. 75 (from the Essay, vol. 1) which bring out
the impression of a first-person narration. Specifically,
he adapted Hamelet’s soliloquy (‘To be or not to be’)
and invented a monologue for Socrates, contemplating
the cup of hemlock. In so doing, he situated the
fantasia at the boundary of life and death (cf. H. 300
above) and linked it, generically, to the elevated genre
of theatrical monologue. This was in part a response
to the use in fantasias of a recitative topic.
Listen to the fantasia, in Bach’s wordless version.
The Topic of Wordless Recitative
H. 75 (as you may recall from I&T3 if you took it
with me last year) employs an idiom derived from
recitative, in which accompanimental chords
support a fragmentary, declamatory melody.
In the Essay (vol. 1, ch. 3), Bach explains that the
‘accompanied’ or orchestral recitatives of opera
seria (also employed in the cantatas of J. S. Bach)
can present rapidly changing sentiments because
they are relatively unconstrained in key and
meter:
CPE Bach, Essay, vol. 1, ch. 3, trans.
Mitchell, 153.
‘It is especially in fantasias, those expressive not of
memorized or plagarised passages, but rather of
true musical creativeness, that the keyboardist ...
can practice the declamatory style, and move
audaciously from one affect to another. ...
Unbarred free fantasias seem especially adept at
the expression of affects, for each meter carries a
kind of compulsion within itself. At least it can be
seen in accompanied recitatives that tempo and
meter must be frequently changed in order to
rouse and still the rapidly alternating affects’.
‘Accompanied Recitatives’
Bach refers not to plain recitative but a ‘high
style’ recitative, with orchestral
accompaniment, employed in opera seria for
moments of crisis when lead characters
approach madness, or our overwhelmed with
emotion. One of the best known examples of
the period was from Johann Adolph Hasse’s
Cleofide (Dresden, 1731).
Cont.
The scene – a soliloquy or monologue -- begins with
Cleofide alone on stage. Believing her husband
Poro dead, she imagines that she hears the furies
(of the underworld); the blood-stained ghost of
Poro appears to her – but so faithful is she, that
she addresses him tenderly; in the final section
she again despairs at life without Poro. Notable is
the internationalisation of the supernatural –
which exists only in her mind -- and the faintly
Orphic idea of travelling – here in the imagination
– to be with the deceased beloved. Listen to the
scene.
The Viennese Fantasia: An Exception?
Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor, K. 475 (1785)
appears to differ from the genre as practised
by C.P.E.Bach – at least at a stylistic level,
because it is thematic, almost entirely
measured, and not particularly declamatory.
But, in broader terms, does it relate to the
northern German ‘culture’ of the fantasia and
its field of associations?
Listen to K. 475.