Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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Cromatica, and parts of some of the Toccatas.
John Ernst Bach also left something more after
the manner of the present instance as the prelude
to a fugue. Emanuel Bach's position is
particularly emphasised as the most prominent
composer of sonatas of his time, who clearly
shows the tendency of the new counter-current
away from the vigour and honest comprehensiveness
of the great school of which his father was
the last and greatest representative, towards the
elegance, polite ease, and artificiality, which
became the almost indispensable conditions of
the art in the latter part of the 18th century.
Fortunately the process of propping up a tune
upon a dummy accompaniment was not yet
accepted universally as a desirable phenomenon
of high-class instrumental music ; in fact such
a stride downward in one generation would
have been too cataclystic ; so he was spared
the temptation of shirking honest concentration,
and padding his works, instead of making them
thoroughly complete ;
and the result is a curious
combination, sometimes savouring strongly of
his father's style :
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and sometimes coldly predicting the style of
the future :
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In general, his building up of movements is full
of expressive detail, and he does not spare himself
trouble in enriching his work with such
things as ingenuity, genuine musical perception,
and vivacity of thought can suggest. He occasionally
reaches a point of tenderness and poetic
sensibility which is not unworthy of his descent,
but there is also sometimes an uncomfortable
premonition in his slow movements of the posturing
and posing which were soon to be almost
inevitable in well-bred Adagios. The spirit is
indeed not greatly deep and earnest, but in
outward things the attainment of a rare degree
of point and emphasis, and of clearness and
certainty in construction without emptiness,
sufficed to give Philipp Emanuel a foremost
place among the craftsmen of the art.
P. Ddmenico Paradies was Emanuel Bach's
senior by a few years. Two of his sonatas, at
least, are deservedly well known to musicians.
The structural qualities shown by the whole set
SONATA 517
of twelve, emphasise the opinion that binary
form was familiar to composers of this period.
They differ from Philipp Emanuel's chiefly in
consisting uniformly of two movements only.
Of these, the first movements are almost invariably
in binary form. That of the first sonata
is perfectly complete and of the later type ;
many of the others are of the early type. Some
details in the distribution of the movements
are worth noticing. Thus the last movenient
of No. 4 is a very graceful and pretty minuet,
which had hitherto not been so common an
ingredient in sonatas as it afterwards became.
The last movement i of No. 3 is called an aria ;
the arrangement of parts of which, as well as
that of the last movement of No. 9, happens
to produce a rondo, hitherto an extremely rare
featm'e. His formulation and arrangement of
subjects is extremely clear and masterly, and
thoroughly in the sonata manner—that is,
essentially harmonica!. In character he leans
towards the style of the latter part of the 1 8th
century, but has a grace and sincerity which
are thoroughly his own. In a few cases, as in
the last movements of the Sonatas in A and D,
Nos. 6 and 10, which are probably best known
of all, the character assumed is rather of the
bustling and hearty type which is suggestive
of the influence of Scarlatti. In detail they are
not so rich as the best specimens of Emanuel's,
or of Friedemann Bach's workmanship ; but
they are thoroughly honest and genuine all
through, .and thoroughly musical, and show no
sign of shuffling or laziness.
The two-movement form of clavier sonata,
of which Paradies's are probably the best examples,
seems to have been commonly adopted
by a number of composers of second and lower
rank, from his time till far on in the century.
Those of Durante have been already mentioned.
All the set of eight, by Domenico Alberti, are
also in this form, and so are many by such forgotten
contributors as Koeser and BarthMemon,
and some by the once popular Schobert. Alberti
is credited with the doubtful honour of having
invented a formula of accompaniment which
became a little too familiar in the course of the
century, and is sometimes known as the
'Alberti Bass.' (See vol. i. p. 63a.) He may
not have invented it, but he certainly called
as much attention to it as he could, since not
one of his eight sonatas is without it, and in
some movements it continues almost throughout.
The movements approach occasionally to
binary form, but are not clearly defined ; the
matter is for the most part dull in spirit, and
poor in sound ;
and the strongest characteristic
is the unfortunate one of hitting upon a cheap
device, which was much in vogue with later
composers of mark, without having arrived at
that mastery and definition of form and subject
1 In some modem reptints of this sonatA the order of 'the movements
has been reversed.