…The World in a Skater's Silence Before Bach”

Home , After Bach, Barthold Kuijken, Go Too, Johann Peter Kellner, Organ Sonatas (Bach), Silence

”…the world in a skater’s silence before Bach”

Historically Informed Performance in the Perspective of Contextual Musical Ontology, Illustrated through a Case Study of Sonata in E major, BWV 1035, by J. S. Bach

Lena Weman Ericsson

Distribution

Department of Music and media/Luleå University of Technology Box 744 SE‐941 28 Piteå Sweden

Telephone: +46‐911‐72600 Fax: +46‐911‐72610

Original title:

”…världens skridskotystnad före Bach” Historiskt informerad uppförandepraxis ur ett kontextuellt musikontologiskt perspektiv, belyst genom en fallstudie av Sonat i E‐dur, BWV 1035, av J S Bach

Translation from Swedish: Joel Speerstra

ISSN: 1402‐1544 ISRN: LTU‐DT – 08/54 – SE

Printed by Universitetstryckeriet, Luleå University of Technology, March 2010

ii Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Musical Performance at School of Music, Department of Music and Media, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Luleå University of Technology. Presented on December 5, 2008. Faculty examiner: Professor emeritus Jan Ling, University of Gothenburg.

Abstract Lena Weman Ericsson: ”…the world in a skater’s silence before Bach”. Historically Informed Performance in the Perspective of Contextual Musical Ontology, Illustrated through a Case Study of Sonata in E major, BWV 1035, by J. S. Bach. Department of Music and Media, Luleå University of Technology, 2008.

The aim of the present study is to explore the so‐called historically informed performance movement, which also is my own musical performance tradition, from a general perspective grounded in musical philosophy. The discussions concerning this performance tradition have been dominated by different subjects, such as musical works, authenticity, intention and interpretation. The study focuses on Western art music where the performance of the music, the sounding realisation, of a notated work is central. Therefore, the performance in connection with the above‐mentioned subjects is of prime interest. This more overarching theme gave rise to the following questions: What factors can be considered decisive for whether a performance is a historically informed performance or not? How can these factors be identified? Does this mean that there are instructions in the music that I, as a musician, must obey? What does my artistic freedom look like? Where can I find it? The path to tentative answers to these questions is taken via theoretical discussions and the application of the theory in method and analyses as well as in interpretation.

The theoretical perspective of the study is based on contextual musical ontology. The scientific theoretical framework, emanating from this ontology, is formulated in the field of social constructionism.

The performance can, through this perspective, be identified as an indispensable part of the musical work, which also implies that the notated work itself is not sufficient to identify the work. Further, the emphasis on the context’s importance for the performance in order to allow the performance to be of the work in question implies the necessity of awareness of the context of the work. This concept is deepened in the study through the emphasis on the importance for the performance, in a broad perspective, of the historical as well as the contemporary socio‐ cultural context. For the work itself this means that the identity of the work is unstable, it is constantly changing, since the different performances of the work that are parts of the work can never be identical. The perspective is based on social constructivist theories about knowledge. With contextual musical ontology as a point of departure, a strategy is formulated concerning analysis and investigation of a musical work. This strategy focuses on the notation, the instrumentation, and historical performance conventions. These three parts interact with one another and in the study they are formulated as being inseparable from the performance of the work.

The theoretical part of the study is followed by a case study in which a sonata by Johann Sebastian Bach is studied from the articulated theoretical perspective. The case study contains an investigative part and an interpretative part. The work’s notation is always in focus in the investigative and descriptive part, with emphasis on the socio‐ cultural context connected to the notation. Through the sounding interpretations, the different performances, the final chapter results in a summary of the study as a whole.

Keywords: Historically informed performance practice, contextual musical ontology, Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 1035, authenticity, socio‐cultural context, social constructionism, musical work, intention, interpretation, flute, sonata, figured bass iv The Stillness of the World before Bach

There must have been a world before the Trio Sonata in D, a world before the A minor Partita, but what kind of a world? A Europe of vast empty spaces, unresounding, everywhere unawakened instruments where the Musical Offering, the Well‐Tempered Clavier never passed across the keys. Isolated churches where the soprano line of the Passion never in helpless love twined round the gentler movements of the flute, broad soft landscapes where nothing breaks the stillness but old woodcutters' axes, the healthy barking of strong dogs in winter and, like a bell, skates biting into fresh ice; the swallows whirring through summer air, the shell resounding at the child's ear and nowhere Bach nowhere Bach the world in a skater's silence before Bach.

Lars Gustafsson from the collection Världens tystnad fore Bach [The Stillness of the World before Bach]. (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1982) Reproduced with permission from the author

v vi Prologue Can a dissertation be given a poetic title? Most members of the research community would probably say no. Why? The two reasons I heard most often when contemplating this title were that it’s simply not traditional, and that nobody will be able to find the dissertation in an online database. I rejected these arguments as not strong enough to keep from following my instinct that a dissertation can have a poetic title.

Maybe we could think like this: the title of a dissertation can be expected to both clarify the content of the work and communicate a glimpse of the author – in this case the former function is filled by the subtitle and the latter by the main title.

There are parts of the artistic process that analysis can never reach, and perhaps shouldn’t reach either. There are chains of subjective and emotional references that give artistic expression dimensions that should probably never be set down in print. There are experiences of artistic expression that no words can reach. Lars Gustafsson’s poem, “The Stillness of the World before Bach,” clothes a dimension of musical meaning and content in words in the form of a poem, a form that challenges our imaginations and our preconceptions. The process of listening to music is always our own, as is the process of hearing a poem with our inner ears.

Allowing this dissertation to have a title from the last line of a poem is an attempt to emphasise the personal experience borne by art in all of its forms. If you give yourself the time, you will generate associations about what this line means personally for you. Perhaps the experience will be different when it is placed in the context of the whole poem, and surely the experience of the poem will be different if the works of Bach that it names are well known to you. But who can say that your experience is more true than someone else’s?

I am so fascinated and so deeply moved by Bach’s music, emotionally as well as intellectually. It is a music that never leaves me untouched and that I continuously return to. It is a music in which I discover new universes, in which I find a feeling of safety and comfort. Without it I would hear only ice‐skate silence.

vii Clarification of terms and abbreviations BWV = Bach‐Werke‐Verzeichnis is the most common catalogue of J. S. Bach’s works. The catalogue is built up by genre, not chronologically.

When I use the term “flute” in the following text, I am referring to the flutes that were current during the eighteenth century. If I refer specifically to the modern flute or the recorder, I use those terms.

Lowered tones are designated with b. Raised tones are designated with #.

Octaves are given according to the following system:

viii Content

ABSTRACT ...... III

PROLOGUE ...... VII

CLARIFICATION OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ...... VIII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 A personal introduction ...... 1 Aim ...... 5

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ...... 7 Ontological foundation ...... 11 The concept of the work ...... 11 Contextual musical ontology ...... 14 The concept of authenticity ...... 16 Authenticity and contextual musical ontology ...... 17 Authenticity and the Early Music Movement ...... 18 Epistemological foundation ...... 23 Summary ...... 27

CHAPTER 3: A METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATION FOR ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ...... 29 Notation ...... 32 Background to Dreyfus’s concept of inventio ...... 32 An approach for an inventio‐based analysis ...... 35 Harmonic analysis ...... 36 Instrumentation ...... 39 Conventions ...... 41 Interpretive attitudes ...... 42 Summary ...... 43

ix CHAPTER 4: AN HISTORICAL SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT ...... 45 Sonata in E major BWV 1035 – sources and manuscripts ...... 46 Dating ...... 50 Excursus – earlier research ...... 52 A discussion of an alternative dating ...... 55 Summary ...... 56 Genre and style ...... 57 Excursus – sonata as genre ...... 58 The genre of the Sonata in E major ...... 63 Galant style and J. S. Bach ...... 66 Excursus – galant style ...... 67 Discussion ...... 69 Summary ...... 70 Instrumentation ...... 71 Excursus – the flute in Germany ...... 71 The flute and Bach ...... 74 Bach’s chamber music with flute ...... 80 Summary ...... 86 Concluding reflections ...... 87

CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS ...... 89 Notation ...... 89 Movement 1 – Adagio ma non tanto ...... 90 Movement 2 ‐ Allegro ...... 98 Movement 3 – Siciliana ...... 104 Movement 4 – Allegro assai ...... 109 Summary ...... 114 Instrumentation ...... 115 The temperament of the keyboard instrument ...... 117 Excursus – possible Bach temperaments ...... 118 A personal temperament ...... 121 Summary ...... 121 Conventions ...... 122 Articulation ...... 122 Tempo and time signature ...... 127 x Ornamentation ...... 131 Trills ...... 131 Appoggiaturas ...... 136 Notated free ornamentation ...... 144 Summary ...... 145 Concluding reflections ...... 146

CHAPTER 6: INTERPRETATION ...... 149 The interpretative process ...... 149 Performance ...... 152 A number of interpretive results ...... 154 Terms – public performance versus recording ...... 154 Descriptions of the different performances ...... 155 Conclusion ...... 167

EPILOGUE ...... 169

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 171 Music ...... 171 Manuscripts ...... 171 Prints ...... 171 Modern editions ...... 171 Literature ...... 172

Chapter 1: Introduction

A personal introduction The idea for this dissertation grew out of my own musical practice, deeply anchored as it is in the Early Music Movement. As a flutist, I have specialised in the music of the late seventeenth to the mid‐eighteenth centuries, and I have been engaged for many years in performance practice traditions most often referred to as “historically informed.” This background has convinced me that music from this period has the greatest possible chance to be expressive in an environment that respects the historical context of the work. This conviction has admittedly also been influenced by countless performance experiences that have left me dissatisfied. The number of questions starting with “how” had reached a point where I felt I could no longer manage them purely through performance alone. Nevertheless my basic conviction remained unchanged that historically informed performance practice had given me a depth of general knowledge that could be applied in practice to reach new musical depths as well, which in turn made it meaningful – both emotionally and intellectually – to continue to make music at all.

My music‐making is characterised by a number of strong choices held together by the belief that it is important not to just play the right notes but also to respect the instruments. For me this means taking into account diverse factors like pitch, temperament, and performance practice conventions that affect everything from the execution of ornamentation, the meanings that can be assigned to harmonic progressions, appropriate tempo in relation to the note‐picture, to patterns of accents – conventional as well as exceptional – and so forth.

Parallel with this focus on historicism, I can never completely separate my own music making from my place in current culture with all of the different kinds of music that I have internalized both actively and passively. Neither can I disregard the influence that a number of special people have had upon my musicianship, from the rector of the community music school in Sigtuna and Sigtuna’s church organist, through the different teachers that have influenced me at many summer courses, the music ensembles in which I have played, and the musical journey that I am still making with Hans‐Ola Ericsson, my life partner. All of these people with whom I

1 have made music are a part of the journey of my musical education and therefore present in every moment of the creative process that music‐making entails.

Even in this dissertation’s more general discussions, a single piece will be my central focus, namely Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata in E major BWV 1035 for flute and basso continuo. One motive for choosing this particular sonata is that it is written in a time (probably 1741) when Johann Sebastian Bach had reduced his compositional output to either the composing of works that where clearly meant for, or works that were specifically dedicated to, a particular person, as well as works that would later be labelled speculative. On the surface, the sonata is a relatively modest work in four movements with tendencies toward the galant style but with an inner harmonic and rhythmic complexity. That this sonata balance between several different traditions makes it even more interesting to study deeply, not least for my own continuing education. The music itself mirrors, in a small format, the musically exciting time in which it was produced. It reflects two different, and to some extent contrasting, musical directions: the galant style dominant at the court in Berlin, and the learned or antique style (both terms were used in Bach’s time), a harmonic and contrapuntally more complex music that was cultivated in Leipzig, among other places, and heavily influenced by forms proscribed by church music.

I find Bach’s E major Sonata a fairly problematical work. Before playing this sonata I confess I have not always felt enthusiastic. A performance of this sonata has often felt more like wandering along an uncleared forest path, with blockages everywhere, where I have stumbled forward without any great pleasure.

When I have worked with the sonata, the technical difficulties have tended to overshadow the musical content, and at the same time, I have the feeling, or can we define this as understanding generated by knowledge, that the technical difficulties of this piece should absolutely not be audible because the sonata’s style and character is as elegant as it is ingratiating.

To a great extent, my view of the E major Sonata has also been coloured by the summer course I took in the middle of the 1980s, where all of the Bach sonatas were the focus of a master class with Barthold Kuijken. As an introduction, before every sonata he presented a great deal of contextual material about the sonata’s creation as well as his ideas about interpretation. Since Kuijken was in the process

2 of publishing an edition of the sonatas for Breitkopf, he was engaged with the source studies as well as the history of their creation. When I look back at the scores I used then, I see in the notations I made how deeply influential this encounter was for me and what importance his considerations had for how I later related to this sonata as an interpreter. In my score I found notes on tempi, on the length of grace notes and indications of places he singled out as especially interesting, often from a harmonic perspective. As a curiosity, the instructions Kuijken gave on the third movement, the Siciliana, can serve as an example. He felt compelled to point out that the movement should not be double dotted, because the pastoral character would become lost. Today, almost twenty years later, I do not think the idea to double dot would occur to anyone at all. This is given as an illustration of how traditions as well as preconceptions are in a constant state of change in the relatively young Early Music Movement.

Somewhere near the beginning of my doctoral work I was challenged, in connection with a seminar, to document my relationship to this sonata. In April of 2007, I wrote down the following reflections as a kind of reconstruction of this relationship as it existed at the beginning of January of that same year:

“I have an ambiguous relationship to the sonata – it is technically difficult in the sense that the key in which it is written demands so many fork fingerings and thereby some rather unnatural fingering combinations. It is also audibly problematic because E major, due to all the fork fingerings, is a weak key purely from the perspective of tone production.

When I have played the sonata I am always filled with questions of why, and/or how?

Adagio ma non tanto – In principle, an uncomplicated movement but with tricky fingering combinations that make it a mess. It is singable. Tempo choice? If it goes too slowly, the ornamentation becomes too important; if it goes too quickly then it becomes careless. I have, however, most often played it a little too slow. Have successively gotten a more relaxed attitude to the piece in the sense of really treating the thirty‐second notes as ornaments and thus play after. The movement has a tendency to be fragmentary because of all the pauses which has disturbed me.

3 Some special moments: the deceptive cadence and the following triplets in bar 6, the cadence in bar 8 as resting point, repeated off‐beat accents like in bars 2, 9, 10 etc, in bar 13 the G# minor passage to F# minor in bar 14 to C# minor in bar 15, that is to say challenging key excursions. Delicious, but it can be difficult from an intonation perspective.

Allegro – Have always understood it to be simple and dancelike in structure, but I have also been fascinated by all the slur marks. It is unusual in a quick movement with such long slurs as especially found in the second half. Don’t like the bass line in bars 73‐76. Have successively moved to a more and more quick tempo.

Siciliana – HARD! I have had difficulty finding a tempo that creates flow while still capturing the melancholy of the movement. C# minor is a difficult key because it wants to drift even farther away harmonically. Difficult to make the legato work with complex fork fingerings. It happens easily that the tempo becomes too slow. Does the movement win anything by it? How should the grace notes be handled? How much slurring should be found, or inserted, in the bass line? How can one find a good balance with the bass line because the movement is so canonical in its structure? I have successively used more and more legato to create both flow and accentuations.

Allegro assai – Strange movement! Why does it begin the way it does? Why does Bach present a figure in the flute with the bass line as only an accompaniment to then let the bass line itself do something else and then start again? The long upbeat gives the movement an imbalance and then come all of the syncopations in the bass line in the second half. This creates a continuous sense of back beat. Again, technically difficult and many slurs. Which tempo should one choose in order not to lose all the details which happens easily in a tempo that is too fast.”

At a later date (August 2007), when I had started work with the analysis of the first movement, I noted the following:

Adagio ma non tanto – I find myself humming this movement so often. It has a really undulating lure about it. I would like to bring this out, it is elegant and it would mean that all of the technical problems would just have to be solved to get it to flow! When I read the movement I saw a clear structure with sheer sequences and heavy fourth beats – how to make them clear?

4 Allegro – Eppstein talks about it as a Bourrée or Passepied – haven’t thought so before, works quite well, but should this lead to a prouder character? More and more important to feel it in one beat per bar. At the same time, it can’t go too fast because then the accents I create through the different slurs easily disappear. Siciliana – Nothing special.

Allegro assai – Important with pauses and bass line and articulation that uses slurs and dots. Tested the other day playing it much slower than before − was quite exciting.”

Aim The overarching aim of the dissertation is to understand and express my conscious points of view and uncover my unconscious ones using scholarly study, and document how they all affect an interpretation process that leads to a performance.

As I have already mentioned in the personal introduction, I am in my active music making, a part of the performance tradition that is most often named with the accepted term “Historically Informed Performance” (or Practice) or “early music movement.” The most obvious mode of expression for this tradition, or movement, is the goal of using historically relevant instruments and applying both historical playing techniques as well as historical performance practice in music making. In this way one aims at an interpretation that makes the music come alive from a tradition that isn’t part of our own time.

The different terms and areas of inquiry that are contained within this performance tradition include performance in relation to

• the musical work concept – what defines a musical work?

• authenticity – in relation to what?

• intention – whose intention and what does it intend?

• interpretation

5 By problematising these concepts in the text that follows, I have the goal of seeking answers to the following general questions, and thereby also reaching the aim of the study.

Which factors can be seen as conclusive for a performance in order to be considered a historically informed one? How can these factors be identified? Does this mean that there are instructions in the music that I as a musician must follow? What does my artistic freedom look like? Where do I find it?

To study these questions without relating them to a sounding performance would be to miss an important chance at integrating the theoretical and the practical, which is why I will follow up the theoretical discussion with a case study. In this study, I exemplify a possible way, through theory and analysis, to reach a sounding performance, an interpretation where the choices that are made are given a scholarly basis. Any such interpretation has naturally no ambitions to make a “final” truth because that, from my experience, is a musical impossibility.

6 Chapter 2: Theoretical perspectives I have a score in front of me. The score contains information about how I am expected to relate to the work when I perform it. But is this information enough? The answer to this question is dependent to a great extent on my performance intentions, but even setting that aside, I can be sure that if the score represents a flute sonata from the first half of the eighteenth century, a great deal of information that is important for the performance is probably missing, information that I probably would find in a score from the late nineteenth century.

What can I expect to find in the score that will help me prepare to play this sonata? There are symbols that indicate the time signature, the pitches, the length of the notes, as well as sharps and flats that define the key. There is probably an indication of which instrument should be used, at least for the melodic voice. Perhaps the bass line is figured to make it easier for the keyboard player to decide what chords should be added to the bass line. There are also some written‐out articulations, like slurs, dots and dynamic markings. Sometimes there are notations for trills and other ornaments. Another issue can be made of the score itself; if the score is a facsimile it is often originally handwritten, leading to different interpretations arising perhaps from unclear tendencies in the handwriting style. But even a facsimile of an original print can leave some details unclear.

What is absent from the score? There are probably no exact instructions about the correct pitch, the instrumentation for the bass line, types of articulation in general, as well as how each individual note should be articulated, how it should be attacked and what dynamic it should have. There is probably no realisation of the bass line’s figures. Often the bass line isn’t even figured, which means that I am uncertain about what chords the composer intended. I also don’t know the exact type of flute I should use, or which accompanying instrument was intended. Concerning the keyboard instrument, I also can’t tell the temperament that the composer would have considered appropriate for the work, even though it has a direct impact on both the intonation and the affect of the performance.

These are just a few examples of the questions and decisions a musician is confronted with.

7 A notated work’s path from creation to performance both historically and in our time can be described with the help of Figure 1 below. The figure is intended to give a picture of how I see the interpretive process, which also reflects my understanding of historically informed performance practice:

Figure 1

8 This interpretation process is always present within, and influenced by, the socio‐ cultural context in which I participate. The arrows represent influence, and this influence also represents a chain of events based on a scenario where it is my aim as a musician to interpret the work in a way that actively relates to its historical socio‐cultural context, including the performance practice conventions that historically complimented an incomplete notation picture.

The figure also expresses a possible description of an interpretation process in the present, where the musician has the intention of presenting a work from the past with the ambition of following instructions we understand to be a part of the work.

If we look more closely at Figure 1, we see two types of geometrical shapes, an ellipse and a rectangle. The ellipses represent the parts of the interpretive process that a musician is able to influence and actively change. The rectangles represent the parts of the process that wield a great deal of influence but cannot be affected by the performer in the same way. With these rectangles, I mean to suggest areas about which we can only speculate, even if we have some knowledge about the content within them. How this knowledge is communicated and how we understand and interpret it is however dependent on our own socio‐cultural context and the meanings that different concepts have accrued in our time, which can differ from their historical meanings.

“Contemporary socio‐cultural context” is not limited, because as I see it, this would be impossible. All of our activities in these ellipses are constantly dependent upon and acting upon our socio‐cultural context.

The rectangle “Historical socio‐cultural context” is bordered by a dotted line to mark that the socio‐cultural context of the past is no longer available to us, but precisely as in our present, all activities were included and were influenced by the past socio‐cultural context.

The music that is the result of a composer’s compositional activity is also the result of how a composer is affected by and exists within his or her socio‐cultural context. Assuming that the composer also intended his or her music to be performed, each composer is dependent on the musician’s ability to understand the notation, and, when necessary, to fill in an incomplete notation with content from the contemporary historical socio‐cultural perspective.

9 When we move the notation to our time, the socio‐cultural context is different, but contemporary musicians can choose interpretations that take into account past performance practice conventions to the greatest extent possible. We can acquire skills so that we can understand the performance practice conventions around the notated score, even though our musicianship is also dependent upon our own socio‐cultural context. Therefore, a performance in our time cannot be a kind of repetition or copy of how music sounded then. The performance will be a reconstruction, or perhaps more accurately a contemporary construction, that takes its sustenance from the past as much as from the present.

As I have already noted, and as the figure above expresses, it is not possible for me as a musician to directly reach the past socio‐cultural context – or the exact intentions of the composer. We can assume that the composer was motivated by certain intentions to compose a work, and that the composer also had expectations that the work would be performed in certain ways. Can I reconstruct any of the composer’s intentions and expectations? The answer must reasonably be no, but on a hypothetical level we can develop theories about the composer’s intentions.

This relationship is illustrated partly by the dashed line that divides the figure, and also by the single arrow from past conventions to present knowledge. We have good reason to presume that the composer’s interpretational intentions can be found among the general conventions of the period’s performance practice. When we choose to perform music from the eighteenth century and earlier, we have no unified tradition to fall back on, as opposed to the relatively unified interpretive practice that developed as a consequence of the rise of the conservatory tradition, beginning with Paris just before 1800. This lack of a unified tradition before 1800 generates a number of interpretive questions. How, for instance, do I make decisions as a musician when I know I do not have enough information? What gaps do I choose to fill with content? How do I choose in each case what the content should be?

From my interpretive perspective as a musician, as well as my own intuition and experience, I do not want to create a performance that is merely a sounding tapestry of the score’s prescribed pitches and rhythms. I am led to ask questions about how I can ground my intuition and experience – that together constitute my preconceptions – in theory. There are several different scholarly disciplines I can

10 turn to, but in the present study, I will choose to anchor my interpretation in music philosophy and musicology.

Ontological foundation Within the frame of the interpretative process there are a number of concepts. Among the most important concepts in Figure 1, we find intention (the composer’s as much as the musician’s), context, performance practice conventions, performance, and notation.

The study’s theoretical perspective is based on contextual musical ontology, where one of the most important suppositions is that the performance is a part of the work. This supposition is a prerequisite for the study’s continued discussion of the relationship between notation and performance in general, and the demands that can be placed on the performance in particular. This relation also frames the other concepts from Figure 1, which is why it can seem a contradiction that the concept of the work is not represented; nevertheless the musical work is the central focus of musical ontology generally, which is why I will begin by touching more closely upon the concept of the work.1

The concept of the work Among the different branches of music‐related research, the musical work stands as a phenomenon that can be studied from different perspectives. In historical research individual works are the starting point for covering music history, and within music philosophy one tries to formulate the musical work’s ontology.

When we speak about the “musical work,” we imagine surely that it is a piece of music, composed by a particular composer, that it is written down on paper and that it is intended to be performed. This description is close to the basic consensus that was reached within the frame of the symposium about the concept of the work

1 In this study and in my argument, I focus exclusively on Western art music. This also means that I will not take up genres like jazz, rock, or music that is handed over in different forms.

11 in Liverpool in 2000: “...a musical work, to merit the description, has to be discrete, reproducible and attributable...”2

As I interpret this definition of the work concept, it is based on the possibility of some form of repeatability, regardless of when the work was composed. This implies that the work concept is coupled to the existence of a score, or some kind of notation. To further develop this definition we can ask the question; what is it that brings the author to compose the work in a notated form? One way to answer this question is by touching upon the composer’s historical context in the way Lydia Goehr does.3

Goehr’s hypothesis can be summarised as follows: historical context drives the development of compositions before 1800, while the work concept itself is paramount after 1800. She further suggests that when the historical context is in the forefront, the composition cannot be called a work because the work concept, according to her, is connected to the concept that the work is autonomous. This independence constitutes, among other things, that the work does not have a clear function within a rite or another social context, but rather that the work is a separate entity and should constitute an aesthetic experience in itself for the listener. According to Goehr, this situation is not prevalent in the period up to and including the eighteenth century, because compositions were dependent on their historical context for their specific creation.4 A composer’s primary motive during this period was the premise that the music was needed in some concrete situation. The great dividing line comes right at 1800. Only thereafter does Goehr suggest that we can speak of the work, because the focus gradually moves from the function of the work to a work in itself where both the work and its performance were autonomous.5 In a parallel development, the composer’s social status also changed. The composer was viewed first and foremost not as a part of an institution of some

2 Michael Talbot, ed., The Musical Work. Reality or Invention? Liverpool Music Symposium I (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 3. 3 Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music, 2nd edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 4 Goehr, The Imaginary Museum, chapter 7. 5 Goehr, The Imaginary Museum, 203.

12 kind, but rather became more and more autonomous from the structures of both church and aristocracy.6

If, for the moment, we disregard any performances of the work, this is a distinction that deeply affects how knowledge of music history can be communicated. Is music history constructed around individual works and their analyses, or will it be written based on music’s social function?7 In the meantime, Goehr’s hypothesis has so fundamentally influenced music philosophy concerning the definition of the musical work from an ontological perspective, that in principle we now avoid using the term “musical work” for music created before 1800. The focus of this study lies in pieces from the eighteenth century, so I need to broaden my work concept in order to encompass more than Goehr intended. How should this be accomplished?

We established in the introduction of this section that a generally held criterion for a piece of music to be called a musical work is its ability to be reproduced, which implies the existence of a score. This implies, in turn, that the score has a regulating function in relation to the performance. Stephen Davies argues for a work concept that is based on this approach. It is thus a work concept that is based on a sufficiently high degree of unchangeability in the notation so that the uniqueness, the specificity, of the work will not be distorted or even risk being lost. On the other hand, the score can be more or less precise in its instructions – the less precise it is, the more is left to the decision of the performing musician. This is also a work concept that includes performance and is therefore central for contextual musical ontology.8

6 Goehr, The Imaginary Museum, 206. 7 For further discussion of this topic, see, among others, Leo Treitler, “The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present,” in Rethinking Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 356‐377, and Tobias Pettersson, De bildade männens Beethoven. Musikhistorisk kunskap och social formering i Sverige mellan 1850 och 1940 [The Educated Man’s Beethoven: Music‐historical Knowledge and Social Formation in Sweden Between 1850 and 1940] (PhD diss., University of Gothenburg, 2004), 26‐31. 8 Stephen Davies, “Ontologies of Musical Works,” in Themes in the Philosophy of Music, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 30‐46.

13 Contextual musical ontology Contextual musical ontology is a branch of the philosophical field of musical ontology. Musical ontology can be briefly defined as the study of different existing musical elements that constitute a work, and the relationships that hold them together.9 The definition of musical ontology can also be formulated as the study of “what kind of thing is a musical sound or a musical work?”10 Even more precisely it can be expressed as “what exactly is a work of music. When is a work A the same as work B…? … what is the relation between a work and a (true) performance of it?”11

A central question for musical ontology is, in other words, the relationship of the performance to the work.12 As we could establish in the section on the concept of the musical work, contextual musical ontology views the work as made up of equal parts notation and performance.13 In addition to this, contextual musical ontology put demands on the performance itself. A fundamental idea within contextual musical ontology is, as the name implies, that the musical work is a cultural phenomenon that is dependent on its historical socio‐cultural context, and though the work presupposes its performance, it must take into account the context and in particular the part of the socio‐cultural context that consists of historical performance practice conventions.14

This can also be expressed by looking at how the specific work arises in dialog between the score/notation and the performance.15 But it also suggests that if the

9 Andrew Kania, “The Philosophy of Music,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music (accessed January 12, 2008). 10 Stephen Davies, “Ontology,” in Grove Music Online. http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed January 5, 2008). 11 Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 97. Parentheses and italics are Scruton’s. 12 For a comprehensive and clear summary of the different musical ontological points of view, I recommend Andrew Kania, “New Waves in Musical Ontology,” in New Waves in Aesthetics, ed. Kathleen Stock and Katherine Thomson‐Jones (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 20‐40. 13 Stephen Davies, Musical Works & Performances: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), and Stephen Davies, “Ontologies of Musical Works,” in Themes in the Philosophy of Music, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 30‐46, as well as Andrew Kania, Pieces of Music: The Ontology of Classical, Rock, and Jazz Music (PhD diss., University of Maryland, 2005), Chapters 1‐2. 14 Davies, Musical Works, Chapter 3, and Kania, “Philosophy of Music,” parts 2.1‐2.2. 15 Davies, Philosophy of Music, 31, and Scruton, Aesthetics , 109.

14 work’s distinctive character, its identity, is dependent on the performance, then the work’s identity is changeable because the performance is changeable since every person in every moment is dependent on their own socio‐cultural context for their interpretation.16

I suggested above (see page 7) that notation never can communicate all the instructions that a musician needs for a performance. To some extent, a score is always indeterminate in relation to the performance. Davies describes this presence or absence of instructions in the notation of a work as either ontologically thick or thin. The more ontologically thin a work is, the more there is left to the interpreter to express primarily by relying upon historical performance practice conventions. Davies has formulated the role of the interpreter thus:

Works for performance, though, are always thinner than the performances that faithfully instance them… What is added by the performer constitutes her interpretation of the work. That interpretation closes the gap between what is instructed and the repleteness of sounded music.17 As an interpreter of a work, I contribute important aspects to the sounding performance of the music. In the following discussion, as an interpreter of a musical work, I must ask which instructions – notated or inferred – can be constituted as necessary for a performance of the work to have taken place. Which instructions can I interpret as suggestions, where I can choose to take them into consideration or not? Which parts are left entirely to me as an interpreter to shape myself?

When performing music from the eighteenth century, it is helpful to reflect upon what these socio‐culturally relevant factors could have been. It is here that we can return to the Early Music Movement once again and tie the concepts of authenticity and intention to contextual musical ontology. I return to these concepts in the following section, see pages 16‐18. However, I would first like to conclude this section with a discussion around the question of the identity of a work.

16 That there can be performances that are so similar that they are experienced as identical is certainly true, especially in a didactic context, but the question is then whether we can talk about the interpretation of the work. It’s more a question of the reproduction of the work, in the same way that we play a recording. 17 Davies, Philosophy of Music, 39.

15 We have already seen that the work’s identity is not permanent because it is dependent on a changeable performance. Is there something that constitutes the work in some permanent way, something that can be thought to constitute the core of the work’s essential character?

In the interpretive process that I sketched in Figure 1, the notation is the only permanent element. The notation encompasses information and instructions that are necessary for the performance of the work. Notation waits, like a text, to be interpreted. For a musical work, interpretation implies putting the text into practice in a sounding form. However, notation in itself is not so simple to adhere to.

A single piece of music can exist in a great number of versions, from the composer’s hand to a computer printout. All of these versions are constructions dependent on their socio‐cultural context. What about the information that the notation expresses? Again, it is subject to construction and interpretation when it is written down, copied or reworked for any reason: an edition, for example. From this argument is it not possible to talk about a core. A notation is more or less approximate, which is why, to come closer to the composer’s notated intention, we must apparently try to find the earliest possible notation for the work. This could be a manuscript from the composer, or a print where the composer had some influence. In this way, we can have access to a score that we can have reasons to assume reflects the composer’s notation and instructions for performance. It is also possible that the score that we have chosen to trust is a construction representing later layers of influence, but we actively and consciously choose to accept it as believable anyway. We are in precisely this situation with Bach’s Sonata in E major. We can talk about the parameters that define the work, that consist of instructions for the performance notated by a specific composer, but I still believe that the notation in this score is of a non‐essential nature.

The concept of authenticity We can approach the concept of authenticity from several different angles. One way is from the perspective of contextual musical ontology; another is from the first days of the Early Music Movement, which would lead to a more practice‐based approach. My aim in this section is to give an overview of the different meanings with which authenticity has been imbued, which is why the section “Authenticity

16 and the Early Music Movement” clearly has a character of historical background description.

Authenticity and contextual musical ontology As I will go into further below (see page 18) the Early Music Movement began, relatively dogmatically, by insisting on historical authenticity in all things, musically as well as what I would call extra‐musically.18 Over time, this ambition became less dogmatic, and the concept of authenticity has proven to be problematic, which is why the Early Music Movement has begun to talk about historically informed music‐ making and historically informed performance practice. It can be discussed whether in reality there is any difference. Perhaps, as Peter Kivy insists, this is mostly a play on words to escape the loaded term “authentic performance.”19

What does the concept of authenticity mean, when it is used in relation to contextual musical ontology? For contextual musical ontology, the concept of authenticity is highly relevant, because authenticity from a musical ontological perspective is inseparable from the performance of a work. When a performance is a part of the work, where the performance is expected to take into consideration the instructions that the notation expresses, and those instructions in turn are dependent on socio‐cultural conventions to be understood, authenticity is “… an ontological requirement, not an interpretative option.”20 In this context, the meaning assigned to the concept of authenticity is a compliance to the notated score, the dimension of the composer’s intention that we can judge as either notated or implied through past performance practice conventions. As the concept of authenticity is used within contextual musical ontology, it does not concern the part of the interpretation that is a mirror of the performing musician’s expression, and the concept is not limited to historical music either. It also applies to contemporary music. At the same time, it needs to be pointed out that, at least concerning works where the author is no longer living, a completely authentic

18 The extra‐musical in this context could be exemplified by dressing in clothes typical of the period or staging the performance in a historical setting. 19 Peter Kivy, “On the Historically Informed Performance,” in Music, Language, and Cognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 91‐110. 20 Davies, Musical Works, 207. The italics are Davies’ own.

17 representation of the composer’s intentions is a utopia. It can be striven for but never reached.

Davies emphasises that the concept of authenticity is actually value neutral, because the type of authenticity that he speaks about is faithfulness to the part of the work that is possible to comment upon from a contextual musical ontological perspective. Here we also find the performance practice conventions that guide our understanding of the composer’s instructions.21 However, Davies suggests that from this perspective the social norms that guided the performance in the past are irrelevant for an authentic performance in the present. In other words, he believes that certain parts of the historical socio‐cultural context have no relevance for a performance in the present.

To assert that the historical socio‐cultural context lacks relevance for the performance to any degree is, from my perspective, to make things too easy for ourselves. I am not suggesting that it is worthy or meaningful to fixate on the outward historical trappings, but at the same time, I think it is impossible to ignore, for example, that a sacred cantata of J. S. Bach once was a part of a Lutheran church service, where the different parts had their prescribed places within a liturgical framework. Even if we do not have contact with that time period’s socio‐cultural context, it is relevant to be aware of its existence and to have as much knowledge as possible about it, in order to deepen our understanding of the work.

It is possible, perhaps even likely, that this knowledge will have no direct bearing on the performance, but it is fully possible that it might – and thereby cannot be dismissed out of hand. Therefore, I seriously believe that it is meaningful to the highest degree for my interpretive process that I try to create a picture of the historical socio‐cultural context using the notated work as a point of departure.

Authenticity and the Early Music Movement To begin with, the Early Music Movement, already from around 1930, placed great emphasis on objectivity in musical expression. By retaining an objective relationship to the work, one signalled a desire to follow the composer’s intentions, believing that they were fully expressed in the notation. In order to understand these

18 instructions in the notation one studied theoretical texts from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. If one could follow the composer’s intentions, one could also express oneself in terms of interpretive “truths.” By accepting these truths, one achieved an authentic performance where one was faithful to the work.22 How did this point of view develop?

Primarily the clues can be found in the strong development of the Early Music Movement in Germany after World War I. Even before the war, interest in reawakening the old music had already begun in Europe, but within the Early Music Movement this interest would not be sparked by editions and arrangements as it had been in the nineteenth century, but rather by returning to the sources and the notated works and not involving the romantic viewpoint. This new philosophical direction was also closely related to the aesthetic stream within German music during the Weimar Republic that is characterised by the “new objectivity” where subjective expressionism was rejected in the process of creating an objective analysis.

The fact that the Early Music Movement as a popular movement developed during the interwar period is not unimportant. This movement stood on the sidelines of traditional music life and made claims that in early music one could find “pureness” and “trueness,” ideals that coincided with the ideals of the German youth movement.23

The early music suited this movement perfectly:

Sung or played slowly, it presented only moderate technical difficulties, and the absence of tempo and dynamic markings meant that this music could be used to make “objective” music. 24

21 Davies, Musical Works, 213. 22 It is interesting that in the study of older theoretical writings, statements about emotions have been consistently ignored, for example, that music must be able to express an emotional message to the listener. It is equally interesting that this knowledge has still not achieved its breakthrough. 23 Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Musik als Klangrede: Wege zu einem neuen Musikverständnis (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1982), 92. 24 “Langsam gesungen oder gespielt, ergaben sich nur geringe technische Schwierigkeiten, durch das Fehlen von Tempo‐ oder Dynamikbezeichnungen bot sich diese Musik geradezu an für »objektives« Musizieren.“ Harnoncourt, Musik, 92.

19 The music that Harnoncourt refers to in this quotation is more likely Renaissance ensemble music than the more complex music of the Baroque, and he also infers that those that began to work with this music were not professional musicians but amateurs. The movement practiced an “…ideologically grounded protest music, discovered and performed by a circle of well‐read and enthusiastic dilettantes.”25 But perhaps the key word in the quotation is still “objective” (see above). This can be said to include a musical practice whose primary relationship to historical accuracy is faithfulness to the score, thereby allowing the music to speak for itself. Musicians put themselves, as it were, in the service of the composer and abdicated their own right to engage emotionally and interpretively.

Some years after the end of the Second World War, Theodor W. Adorno published an essay that has come to be a powerful and meaningful critique of the Early Music Movement as it expressed itself in that time.26 Adorno was deeply engaged in questions surrounding the performance and interpretation of music, borne witness to not least by his plans to write a substantial work on the theory behind musical reproduction, or interpretation.27 Therefore, it was natural that Adorno, as one of the twentieth century’s most important musical philosophers and social critics, expressed himself about the movement that he emphasised was a monster with fascist and sectarian tendencies, blindly led by authorities. This movement turned Bach, “a composer for organ festivals in well‐preserved Baroque towns, into ideology.”28 Ten years later Adorno makes an even more brutal attack on the Early

25 “…Ideologisch fundierte Gegenmusik, die von erlesenen Zirkeln begeisterter Dilettanten entdeckt und gepflegt wurde.” Harnoncourt, Musik, 91. 26 Theodor W. Adorno, “Bach Defended Against his Devotees,” in Prisms (Cambridge Mass: MIT Press, 1981), 133‐146. The German original is from 1951. The English translation, authorised by Adorno, was published first in 1967. 27 Theodor W. Adorno, Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, ed. Henri Lonitz (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006). The volume includes notes that Adorno made during most of his life and that should provide a basis for the comprehensive work that never reached its conclusion. The notes do, however, make fascinating reading about his thoughts concerning musical interpretation. 28 Adorno, “Bach Defended,” 136.

20 Music Movement. In the essay “Different Types of Musical Behavior”29 he categorises members of the Early Music Movement as “resentment listeners.”30

[The resentment listener] scorns the official music life as watered‐down and illusory [and] flees back to the periods that he imagines is protected from the prevailing commodity and reification … Fidelity to the work … becomes an end in itself.31 Does Adorno’s ruthless critique of the Early Music Movement also mean to include the practicing musicians? On this question, one can answer yes without doubt, because he dryly states in a subordinate clause “they also make music.”32 Adorno continues:

Subjectivity and expressivity is the same thing as promiscuity for the resentment listener … The compromise is meaningless, sterile music, cleaned of all mimetic content.33 More blatantly obvious than in the previously‐mentioned article, Adorno connects the Early Music Movement with fascist‐leaning groups and from this perspective, his strong critique is understandable. He saw a clear connection to the German youth movement, which during the 1930s paved the way for the Nazis’ totalitarian Germany.

Parallel to this movement, which was dominated by amateurs driven by an ideal of objectivity, there were a growing number of professional musicians that made music through knowledge of both the historical context as well as performance practice conventions, but at the same time with a personal and emotional engagement. For these musicians, in the light of Adorno’s critique among other things, the concept of authenticity became negatively charged and therefore impossible to use.

29 Theodor W Adorno, Inledning till musiksociologin. 12 teoretiska föreläsningar [Introduction to Music Sociology: 12 Theoretical Lectures] (Lund: Cavefors, 1976), 11‐29. The first German edition was published in 1962. 30 Adorno, Music Sociology, 19. 31 Adorno, Music Sociology, 19‐20. 32 Adorno, Music Sociology, 20. 33 Adorno, Music Sociology, 20‐21.

21 Exactly when this shift happened is rather dependent on whether one looks at the Anglo‐Saxon scene or the rest of Europe. Especially in the German‐speaking countries, a number of texts were written and debates were arranged at the end of the 1950s and during the 1960s; in Great Britain and the United States these discussions didn’t begin until the 1980s.34 Perhaps the most influential critic of the concept of authenticity within the English‐speaking world is Richard Taruskin. In an often‐cited essay, he condemns the possibility of authentic music making as well as the likelihood of being able to find the composer’s intentions for the performance of the work.35 Taruskin’s point of view has been reviewed and contradicted to a certain degree by John Butt, who, while avoiding the authenticity discussion, still believes that the composer’s intentions are mirrored to a certain extent in the notation and thereby accessible to us.36

When the term authenticity began to accrue negative meaning, the Early Music Movement tried to leave it behind and began to talk instead about historically informed performance practice, or historically informed performance.

Why can music philosophy and musical ontology use the concept of authenticity but not the practice‐based Early Music Movement? Perhaps the primary difference is that authenticity within the Early Music Movement became a validation of the value of the performance itself with a substantial escalation during the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, something that above all can be attributed to the promotion of the concept by the growing recording industry. If one could write on the record jacket that a recording was authentic, which often meant no more than that the musicians played on historically relevant instruments, it became a sometimes‐misleading stamp of quality for the consumer.

One alternative to authenticity being tied to a realisation of the composer’s intentions is to talk about personal authenticity in the sense that musicians who are

34 Dorottya Fabian, “The Meaning of Authenticity and the Early Music Movement: A Historical Review,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol. 32.2 (2001):154. 35 Richard Taruskin, “The Pastness of the Present and the Presence of the Past” in Text and Act: Essays on Musical Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 90‐151. 36 John Butt, Playing with History: The Historical Approach to Musical Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 94.

22 being authentic to themselves are also making music authentically.37 It is an elegant way to avoid the difficult dead‐end that comes as much from the authenticity that strives for objectivity as from the authenticity of replicating the composer’s intentions. But even this is too simplified. It might be more fruitful to find a position somewhere between these poles, where authenticity in the sense of the greatest possible faithfulness to the work is something to strive for – but hardly a goal that the musician can ultimately realise.

Epistemological foundation The epistemological viewpoint that can be deduced from the argument above on contextual musical ontology is based on the thought tradition which came to be called social constructionism and that above all is distinguished by a view of the terms, “reality,” “truth,” and “knowledge” as constructions based on the socio‐ cultural context within which they are articulated.

Kenneth J. Gergen has formulated four basic suppositions that are differentiated by a social constructionist thought tradition.38 These were later condensed by Vivien Burr to the following four basic premises:39

‐ A critical stance toward taken‐for‐granted knowledge ‐ A historical and cultural specificity ‐ Knowledge sustained by social processes ‐ Knowledge and social action go together

Based on these premises Burr pointed out the following qualities that marked a social constructionist viewpoint: a) an anti‐essentialist attitude in relation to things or people, b) a questioning of realism, c) language as a prerequisite for thought, d)

37 This is a definition of authenticity that has been given primarily by Peter Kivy in Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance (Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), Chapter 5, but also in Taruskin, Text and Act, Chapter 2. 38 Kenneth J. Gergen, “The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology,” American Psychologist, vol. 40.3 (1985): 266‐275. 39 Vivien Burr, Social Constructionism, (London: Routledge, 2003), 2‐5.

23 language as a social act, e) a focus on interaction and social conventions, f) a focus on social processes instead of on structures.40

The starting point for both Gergen and Burr, when they formulate their view of social constructionism, is psychology as a scientific discipline; they set social constructionism against more traditional psychological practices that depart from a given and essential core of human personality.41 Fundamental for the social constructionist tradition is, however, postmodernism’s and poststructuralism’s expressed distrust of rational science and reason, an approach that among others were represented by philosophers like Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault, who also wanted to emphasise a belief in the significance of the local context instead of a belief in the universal ideal.42 As social constructionism has developed, the tradition has had a strong influence on discussions about knowledge, which is why it comes to be expressed within other social sciences and within the humanities.43

On the basis of this approach it is contemplated that what we experience as true and real is constructed within the socio‐cultural context where it has arisen, where cooperation and communication between people builds community and shared understanding and perception. This also involves that what we experience as true and real today, probably was not experienced as true and real during the eighteenth century. There exists, and existed, an historical and cultural specificity.

Furthermore, a social constructionist viewpoint implies that knowledge and perception is constructed through social interaction between people, and thereby rejects the thought of an empirical truth and objective knowledge. Because what we believe to be real and true is constructed within a socio‐cultural context that is continuously capable of development and change, reality and truth are thus continuously exposed to a negotiation about its contents.

40 Burr, Social Constructionism, 5‐9. 41 Burr, Social Constructionism, 5‐6. 42 Søren Barlebo Wenneberg, Socialkonstruktivism – positioner, problem och perspektiv [Social Constructivism – Positions, Problems and Perspectives] (Malmö: Liber, 2000), 52. 43 Georg G. Hubry, “Sociological, Postmodern, and New Realism Perspectives in Social Constructionism: Implications for Literary Research,” Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 36.1 (2001): 48‐62.

24 Is all knowledge continuously changing and unstable to the extent that knowledge becomes relative? A common critique against social constructionism is that it is experienced as relativistic, but because social constructionist thought traditions emphasise the communal and shared understanding of knowledge and perception, norms and value judgements are created, as well as borders for what is possible to believe, think and say in a certain socio‐cultural context. Through these norms, value judgements, and borders, there is an inbuilt resistance to changing the meanings of these terms, and so we can postulate that total relativism is not possible.44

Within this study the theoretical field of social constructionism becomes expressed in, or serves as a basis for, every part of the process that leads to the performance of a specific musical work through analysis and interpretation. The work is as dependent upon the notation with its accompanying performance practice conventions as it is on the performance. It is a part of the socio‐cultural context where it is created, but also, in every time, a part of the context in which it is performed. We have already established that the work is dependent on its performance in order to have its identity. On the way from notation to performance, a number of processes take place, processes that influence a group’s shared and differentiated understanding of the musical work.45

As it is expressed in Burr’s premises above, maintaining a critical relationship to knowledge is assumed to include a continual readiness to question its content. In an artistic process, this should be self evident, but more often than not, working out an interpretation of a musical work becomes stuck in a kind of process of interpreting accepted “facts” that can be experienced as normative.

An important consequence of the premises and qualities that are formulated by Burr is that social constructionism denies the existence of the essential, something that will always be true and stable, because what we name in common parlance as reality is a product of social processes.46 In the section on “Contextual musical ontology” I rejected the idea that notation alone can have an essential character

44 Gergen, “Social Constructionist Movement,” 273. 45 Kania, Pieces of Music, 24. 46 Burr, Social Constructionism, 5.

25 (see page 16), which is grounded here epistemologically. For the same reasons, I must reject the young Early Music Movement’s concept of objectivity, because this concept presupposed that the score was essential and represented the composer’s true intentions.

A social constructionist way of looking at what a musical work is – an activity that is necessarily dependent on people’s actions – means also that we must contemplate the musical work as created in a certain time and that it did not exist before that time, which within musical ontology is an important distinction, because a strong branch within the musical ontological debate maintains that the musical work is a platonic ideal and therefore is discovered by the composer.47

Can a social constructionist starting point mean that the work, if it is historic in the sense that it is from another epoch, is not accessible to us, so that an authentic performance is no longer possible because we are not a part of the work’s socio‐ cultural context? Or are there possibilities for us, even though we are active in a different time, to assimilate so much knowledge that we can claim that the work’s socio‐cultural context has not disappeared but rather that it is possible to recreate it?

In a performance of an eighteenth‐century work today, any direct contact with the historical socio‐cultural context has disappeared. It is a dimension we can have knowledge about through secondary sources but we cannot reach it, much less be a part of it. However, we can recreate with some certainty one part of the historical socio‐cultural context: the performance practice conventions. It is a knowledge that we can dedicate ourselves to, as much as we can dedicate ourselves to a listening that is attentive to details without which some listening habits would otherwise pass us by.

Through communication, ground is recovered for our understanding of reality as well as our stored knowledge. We build up our knowledge through communicative interaction, through social interaction between people. Knowledge can, therefore, never be “only individual but is rather to a great degree cultural, that is to say common and shared, and is made common knowledge exactly through the creation

47 Davies, Philosophy of Music, 41.

26 of shared agreed upon meanings.”48 We are, in other words, dependent on our socio‐cultural context for our knowledge about the world. Language should be understood in this context in a broader perspective, which contains all forms of communication, naturally also the normally wordless form of communication that is music‐making.

Taken together, this expression of an epistemological foundation constitutes an explanatory model for how I position myself in view of the actions that lead to a performance of music.

Different versions of the E major Flute Sonata were recorded for this dissertation. How they are experienced and understood can help illuminate the role played by a socio‐cultural context and the perceptions created by an individual’s interaction with this context. For some, the differences between these recordings will pass by without any reaction, because the overlapping shared understandings are not big enough. For others, where the overlapping shared understandings are meaningful, the differences will be razor sharp.

Summary In order to focus on my research questions and my overarching aim, and thereby give the dissertation a theoretical perspective, I have written and presented arguments around the content of contextual musical ontology. The concept of the musical work has been discussed because it is central for the entire music philosophical field of musical ontology. Musical ontology defines performance as a part of the work. Therefore contextual musical ontology makes demands on the performance to take into account the work’s historical socio‐cultural context, which includes conventions of performance practice to the extent that striving for authenticity within the frame of the performance is an ontological demand. I have also expanded the view of the socio‐cultural context’s relevance for the performance by emphasising the importance of the effect that a musician’s contemporary socio‐cultural context has on the performance.

48 Karin Ljuslinder, På nära håll är ingen normal. Handikappdiskurser i Sveriges Television 1956‐2000 [Up Close, Nobody’s Normal: Handicap Discourses on Swedish Television 1956‐2000] (PhD diss, Umeå University, 2002), 12.

27 Because contextual musical ontology can use the concept of authenticity, a term that has been so negatively charged within the Early Music Movement, I have also given an historical background of a descriptive character for how the Early Music Movement has used the concept of authenticity and why it came to be replaced by “historically informed performance.”

Finally, I have discussed this dissertation’s epistemological viewpoint, which from an ontological perspective, was formulated within the frame of contextual musicology and is based on the social constructionist thought tradition. In this way the socio‐ cultural context’s relevance for every part of the interpretive process is emphasised – from the notated work to the performance of that same work.

28 Chapter 3: A methodological foundation for analysis and interpretation In the previous chapter, we reached the view that the musical work consists of the notation as well as the performance. At the same time, the importance of the work’s socio‐cultural context was also emphasised. This discussion was limited to Western art music (see footnote 1, page 11). Chapters 4 through 6 are devoted completely to the case study surrounding J. S. Bach’s Sonata in E major for flute and basso continuo. In this chapter, I will restrict the discussion primarily to general questions about Western tonal art music composed during the eighteenth century.

In Chapter 6, the results of the case study include a number of recorded performances of Bach’s sonata. In order to move from the notation to a performance that consciously takes into account performance practice conventions in accordance with the requirements on performance set by contextual musical ontology, I need to analyse the work’s sound structure from several points of view.

By the term “sound structure” I mean the part of the work that is necessary in order to perform it. Note that this term does not include the performing musician’s

Con‐ sounding interpretation of the work. Even though we ventions distance ourselves from a part of the work through the act of writing about and analysing the work’s sound structure, if I am serious about viewing the work from a Instrumentation contextual musical ontological perspective it is precisely the sound structure that is crucial for the performance. This analysis of the work must, therefore, Notation have as its goal to locate itself within the frame of the work’s historical socio‐cultural context. If I contemplate Figure 2: A description of a the work from this perspective, I have given myself the work's sound structure possibility of performing the work in a historically informed manner.

The work’s sound structure can be described as a triangle, see Figure 2, where each level is dependent on the level beneath. When we study a historical work in our

29 own time, we naturally start with the work’s notation and accompanying instructions, written down by a specific composer. In the work’s own time, it is likely that this dependence would have been reversed, at least from the composer’s perspective.

From a contextual musical ontological point of view, the notation is regarded as the basis for the musical work.

The musical notation can be defined as rhythmically articulated strings of tones with given pitches, where “given pitches” implies that the notes are elements with functions in a scale.49 The notation is also made up of other written instructions.

Because the functions of the notes in the scale are included in the above definition, harmony is also included, that is to say, tones that sound simultaneously. These tones cannot be regarded as isolated, rather they have a functionality in a process through time. However, neither a melodic nor a harmonic process can be reduced to a collection of pitches. Harmony as well as melody must be understood within a socio‐cultural context and thereby must be seen as integral parts of the sound structure.50

On the level above, instrumentation appears as a determining element for the work. It should be pointed out that a work’s instrumentation is not always unambiguously stated. This is most often true of the basso continuo part, but even the solo part can be left unspecified. In such cases, the performance practice conventions for the time play a role in combination with the interpreter’s attempts to decide how well suited a piece is for one instrument or another.

At the top of the triangle we find performance practice conventions, which are dependent on their historical socio‐cultural context and necessary for the interpreter. With the help of relevant instruments and the conventions, the interpreter should be able to transform the notation with its instructions into a sounding performance.

49 Davies, Musical Works, 51‐53. 50 Davies, Musical Works, 54.

30 As I describe it, a sound structure is not a closed entity, but rather could be made infinitely large depending on how close we can come to the work’s socio‐cultural context. In Chapter 5, I will focus on the parts of the sound structure that directly affect a performance of Bach’s Sonata in E major – the notation, instrumentation, and performance practice conventions – while in Chapter 4, I will focus on the Sonata’s historical socio‐cultural context using the notation as a point of departure.

An analysis of the notation identifies relationships and content, and builds up hierarchies of supportive and communicative elements. The starting point of such an analysis is musicological, but I always remain consciously aware that my goal is also to interpret the work that I am analysing. In this way, I also point out that the goal of the analysis is not to give the listener a deeper insight and understanding, or alternatively a changed view of the work, as so often is the case in traditional musicology, but rather to equip myself as a musician with a number of possible keys to the actual musical work.

This focus remains the same when I move to the level that treats performance practice conventions. Here, it can be easier to directly see the interpretive implications, and again the goal is to equip myself as an interpreter with keys to the work. How I utilise these keys, or perhaps more precisely which ones I finally chose to use, will be described primarily in sounding ways in the final chapter of this dissertation.

When I choose to formulate the shape of the analysis in this way it can be said to be based on the concept of intention, as much the composer’s compositional intention as the composer’s interpretational intention. These are seen from a hypothetical and debatable perspective where the point of departure must always be the work’s notation. It is an analysis that observes, judges, in some cases breaks down, and draws conclusions where they can be formulated from the work’s socio‐cultural context through the filter of my own socio‐cultural context.

31 Notation In the analysis of the sonata’s notation, I use Laurence Dreyfus’s concept of inventio as the composer’s basis for a composition.51 Beginning with the idea of hypothetically finding the composer’s original idea, the inventio, I will “decompose” in the sense of following the compositional process backwards, and make an attempt to come to the original idea that inspired the composer to write the musical work in the first place. In other words, we will be “taking apart what was once put together.”52

If compositional ideas can be identified, can the same be achieved for the composer’s intentions? In relation to the study’s epistemological perspective this could be seen as a contradiction, but I maintain that it can be fruitful as an interpretative challenge, admittedly from a hypothetical perspective, to try to understand how a composer acted when composing the work, precisely because this process can show structures that can be interesting for interpretation, but that upon first glance are not obvious. It is, therefore, an exciting challenge to consciously seek to try to make contact with a historical socio‐cultural context, even though in reality it is not possible to reach it completely.

Background to Dreyfus’s concept of inventio Dreyfus grounds his methodology primarily in two historical text citations. The first is a description, written by C. P. E. Bach, of his father’s teaching strategy in composition. J. S. Bach began by demanding his students be able to write a perfect four‐voice setting from a figured bass line. Bach was also clear that his students must have good ideas of their own; otherwise, he dissuaded them from the art of composition, something that C. P. E. Bach described in this way:

In teaching composition he focused on what was useful and rejected the dry art of counterpoint, as is given in Fuxen and others. In the beginning, his students had to learn to make a pure four‐part thorough‐bass. After that he turned to chorales; first he gave the bass himself and the students had to write the alto and

51 Laurence Dreyfus, Bach and the Patterns of Invention (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), and Laurence Dreyfus, “Bachian Invention and Its Mechanisms,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 171‐192. 52 Dreyfus, “Bachian Invention,” 171.

32 tenor parts. After that he taught them how to write the bass voice. … As for the invention of ideas, my late father demanded this ability from the very beginning, and whoever had none he advised to stay away from composition altogether.53 In contrast to many contemporaries, Bach introduced counterpoint later in his lessons. The quotation also gives the impression that Bach was not primarily a theoretician but rather a practician. The expression “the dry art of counterpoint, as it is given in Fuxen, among others” refers to Gradus ad parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux from 1725, which was the pedagogical text most commonly used in studies of strict contrapuntal composition and is, in fact, still widely in use.

The other quotation is taken from J. S. Bach’s introduction to a little notebook with pieces for keyboard instrument that he called Inventiones: 54

Honest instruction wherein the lovers of the Clavier, and especially those desirous of learning, are shown a clear way not alone (1) to learn to play clearly in two voices but also, after further progress, (2) to deal correctly and well with three obbligato parts; furthermore, at the same time not alone to have good inventions [ideas] but to develop the same well and, above all, to arrive at a singing style in playing and at the same time to acquire a strong foretaste of composition.55 Dreyfus points out that the introduction to Inventiones gives us many separate reasons why Bach wrote these pieces, but that they also can be seen as a totality where musical skills via good musicianship make the structure of the compositions clear. In the way they are built up they give the student good ideas, and when performed in a singing manner give “a foretaste of composition.” Bach sees his

53 “In der Composition gieng er gleich an das Nützliche mit seinen Scholaren, mit Hinweglassung aller der trockenen Arten von Contrapuncten, wie sie in Fuxen u. andern stehen. Den Anfang musten seine Schüler mit der Erlernung des reinen 4stimmigen Generalbasses machen. Hernach gieng er mit ihnen an die Choräle; setzte erstlich selbst den Bass dazu, u. den Alt u. den Tenor musten sie selbst erfinden. Alsdenn lehrte er sie selbst Bässe machen. /…/ Was die Erfindung der Gedancken betrifft, so forderte er gleich anfangs die Fähigkeit darzu, u. wer sie nicht hatte, dem riehte er, gar von der Composition wegzubleiben.“ Bach Dokumente III, ed. Hans‐Joachim Schulze (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1972), nr. 803. 54 These pieces are normally called Inventions and Sinfonias BWV 772‐801. 55 ”Wormit denen Liebhabern des Clavires, besonders aber denen Lehrbegirigen, eine deûtliche Art gezeiget wird, nicht allein (1) mit 2 Stimmen reine spielen zu lernen, sondern auch bey weiteren progressen (2) mit dreyen obligaten Partien richtig und wohl zu verfahren, anbey auch zugleich gute inventiones nicht alleine zu bekommen, sondern auch selbige wohl durchzuführen, am allermeistern aber eine cantable Art im Spielen zu erlangen, und darneben einen starcken Vorschmack von der Composition zu bekommen.“ Johann Sebastian Bach, Inventionen und Sinfonien, in Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ed. Georg von Dadelsen, vol. 5 nr. 3 (Kassel:Bärenreiter, 1970), 1.

33 collection of two‐ and three‐voice pieces as models for how a good idea can be developed.

In short, Dreyfus’s thought process can be described as an attempt to formulate and execute an analytical method that allows the listener and the musician to experience another dimension of Bach’s music and that avoids placing Bach in different formal categories. Through this process, he wants to preserve Bach’s differentness.56 He also tries to avoid what Adorno accused the Early Music Movement of doing in its infancy, placing Bach in a kind of vacuum without any relationship to the socio‐cultural context in which his music was created.57

Another source of inspiration for Dreyfus’s analytical method can be seen in Adorno’s essay from 1951, an essay that Dreyfus had used earlier as a basis for a well‐known discussion on the Early Music Movement.58 Adorno points out that Bach’s compositional technique is built to a large extent upon variations on a theme. Adorno calls him the thematically economical Bach. If one seeks to socially decipher Bach, in order to create the context that we perhaps lack today, Adorno suggests that this should really involve the establishment of a link between the deconstructed, thematic material through subjective reflection of the motivic work that it includes, and the changes in work processes that occurred parallel to industrial revolutionary society, where processes were streamlined by breaking them down into smaller components.59 Dreyfus does not go so far as to try to establish this sociological link, but as far as I understand, it is from Adorno that Dreyfus takes his idea of deconstructing Bach’s compositions and identifying the thematic material. Bach maximally utilised this material, more studiously than any other composer, through variations and repetitions that become building blocks in his compositions. Variations create new possibilities and Dreyfus suggests that there is an indwelling mechanical process in the variations where the composer can lead us in different directions through conscious choice and action. It is these

56 Dreyfus, Patterns, 4. 57 Theodor W. Adorno, “Bach Defended Against his Devotees,” in Prisms (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1981), 136. 58 Laurence Dreyfus, “Early Music Defended against Its Devotees: A Theory of Historical Performance in the Twentieth Century,” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 69.3 (1983): 297‐322. 59 Adorno “Bach Defended,” 139.

34 choices and actions that Dreyfus considers to be the composer’s intention with the work.

In what way does Dreyfus’s analysis differ from a more traditional musicological analysis? One important difference is that the musical work’s inventio is not identical with “thematic material,” something that is central to many musicological analyses. A compositional idea can be much more diversified than that. It can be a musical figure, a genre, a compositional style, or, as Dreyfus says, “to compose against the grain.”60 Another difference is that questions of form are not allowed to take precedence over a musical progression. Dreyfus begins with a music‐historical context relevant for the work, using the terminology of the time, which is why he believes that the concepts of form that were formulated in the musicology of the nineteenth century are irrelevant.61

Instead, he chooses to foreground the conscious actions that the composer manifested in the music, rather than pressing a piece of music into a preformed analytical construction that ignores the human being behind the composition who lived in a specific socio‐cultural context.62

An approach for an inventio-based analysis In the analysis of the notation, I use the concept of inventio primarily from the perspective of a certain musical material subject to variation and repetition. A musical building block that is used in this way can be seen as important for the compositional process. As has already been mentioned, both Adorno and Dreyfus remark on how large a proportion of Bach’s music is built on variation and repetition of ideas. If one discovers the relevant building blocks, even the most complex of Bach’s works becomes surprisingly transparent.63

To try to establish a work’s inventio departing from the concept that ideas are varied and repeated, my analysis must begin by identifying the different repetitions of this material, but I also have to make decisions about what are variations of the

60 Dreyfus, Patterns, 36. 61 Dreyfus, Patterns, 27‐28. 62 Dreyfus, “Bachian Invention,” 173. 63 Dreyfus, “Bachian Invention,” 173.

35 same material. A variation can also be decorative, leaving the original idea unchanged when the decoration is peeled away, or it can be of the kind that changes the idea itself. When the inventio is altered as a consequence of this change, can I expect that the piece as a whole has also changed in some way? This can be a question of harmonic direction, a change in the pattern of accents, or some similar process. If I break down the piece into smaller sections and identify inventio where it exists, I have decomposed the piece. I have taken it apart and can establish how inventio is distributed over the entire piece. But in order to understand how the composer has treated his ideas, I need to also look at the material that connects the different appearances of inventio. This concerns harmonic progressions, or bridging material of other kinds, primarily different types of sequences. I use this way of working in my analysis of the sonata’s second and fourth movements.

One variant of this process of decomposition, which I apply to the sonata’s first and third movements, is to reduce the music to a skeleton. The motivation for a process like this is that the piece is dominated by notated ornamentation, something that is normal in Bach’s slow movements, and which can also serve as a generative compositional inventio in its own right. By successively stripping away layers of ornamentation, the form of the intended basic structure gradually appears. It can then be possible to identify the inventio behind the ornamentation.

Finally I observe that genre functions as an inventio for the third movement. The concept of a specific genre – in order for it to be usable – must be based in the time that the piece was composed when the different genres in this period were connected, albeit loosely, to stylistic and formal schemes. The clearest example of this can be seen in the collections of dance movements that dominated French‐ inspired music. Through this identification, we can also discover exceptions from what was expected at that time, exceptions that are often meaningful for the interpretation that will follow.

Harmonic analysis I touched above on the importance of observing the bridge material between instances of inventio, a material that is constructed on musical figures as well as harmonic progressions, often generated by different types of sequential

36 movements. How can this structure be made more visible and analysed? And above all, from what premises does it evolve?

Before 1800 there were no established effective ways of describing harmonic progressions and harmonic relationships comparable to modern functional analysis and step theory.64 At the same time, in our period, we have a need to understand harmonic progression in order to take us to the level of compositional handcraft. Can we use step theory, for example, to describe harmonic progressions or different tonal levels in a musical work from the first half of the eighteenth century? Or should we limit ourselves to models of describing harmony that began to be formulated during the third decade of the eighteenth century and beyond, like Rameau’s concept of basse fondamentale where a hypothetical bass line is won from the original score and the different bass notes of the chords? Or should we perhaps use Kirnberger’s harmonic theory where he departed from a distinction between “essential” and “non‐essential” dissonances that lead him to a ground bass?65

Step theory illuminates harmonic developments that are clear and observable, but I have difficulty shaking the notion that using step theory presupposes concepts and descriptive models that were not relevant during the first half of the eighteenth century, and consequently may never have been a part of the original compositional intention.

Are there alternatives to this procedure? Nicholas Cook points out that past music theory studies were intended for compositional studies, a handcraft that departed from practice‐based arguments related to voice leading and the handling of dissonances. In this context we return to figured bass, which lies close to a harmonic functional analysis, with the important exception that the figured bass line says nothing about the relationships within the harmonic progressions. Cook even questions whether the concept of the chord is compatible with figured bass, because the figures do not say which chord is relevant, but rather only describe the building up of intervals that together with the tone connected to the figure, gives

64 Ian D Bent and Anthony Pope, “Analysis,” in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/41862 (accessed June 26, 2008). 65 David Beach, “The Origins of Harmonic Analysis,” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 18.2 (1974): 276‐283.

37 the original chord.66 I maintain, however, that a figured bass line can say a great deal about the harmonic progression if we take into account how music from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was conventionally constructed. Since music from this time is generally based on tension and relaxation – which in the harmonic progression is manifested by the resolving of dissonance into consonance – a dissonant chord always has a direction. There is, therefore, a progression that is based on compositional rules. In these thoughts, there is a clear similarity with Johann Philipp Kirnberger’s analytical method, which he formulated in Die Kunst des reinen Satzes and Die wahren Grundsätze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie, and which I will use to various degrees in my analysis chapter.67

In brief, Kirnberger’s concept builds on the idea that all of harmony consists of only two basic chords, and that all chords can be related to these basic chords. The basic chords are the consonant triad appearing in three different shapes – major, minor, and diminished – and the dissonant independent seventh chord found in four different constructions: minor seventh, pure fifth and major third; minor seventh, pure fifth and minor third; minor seventh, diminished fifth and minor third; major seventh, pure fifth and major third. The chords are enumerated in order of completeness, from most to least complete. This gradation of chords has to do with the amount of stillness one experience when one hears them; mathematically one can refer to the relationship between the different intervals according to the overtone series. The chords can naturally appear in different inversions but no matter what the inversion, the ground bass is the same.

A central point in Kirnberger’s harmonic theory construction is the distinction between essential and non‐essential dissonance.68 A non‐essential dissonance is

66 Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 17. 67 Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, Berlin 1771, (facsimile rpt., Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2004) and Die wahren Grundsätze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie, Berlin 1773, (facsimile rpt., Hildesheim; Olms, 1970). The relationship between these two texts is such that Die wahren Grundsätze is a kind of appendix to Die Kunst that was a reaction to the critique that Kirnberger got when his analysis in the larger text was built entirely on his own compositions. Therefore in Die wahren Grundsätze – after a concentrated summary of his harmonic concept – he makes an analysis of the Fugue in B minor from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier I. Kirnberger himself had rather strong bonds with Bach, and during the period between 1739 and 1741, was a student of Bach and therefore was also strongly influenced by Bach’s teaching method of composition. 68 The German terms are wesentlich and zufällig respectively.

38 defined by Kirnberger as a suspension that stands in for a consonance. As a rule, its resolution occurs before the next chord. An essential dissonance does not hold the place of a consonance, and must be seen as a part of the chord. One can also tell the difference between essential and non‐essential dissonances from their place in the measure.

The essential dissonance can occur on a weak as well as a strong beat, whereas the non‐essential dissonance can occur only on a strong beat.69 What Kirnberger wants to show, therefore, is that all chords can be related either to a triad or to a seventh chord and that the piece’s bass line is generated from these chords. The ground bass is therefore a simplified picture of the harmonic progression, a kind of reduction that focuses on cadences. In a music that is based on a stable major‐minor concept, cadences confirm either the current tonal centre or confirm the establishment of a new tonal centre, and therefore Kirnberger’s system doesn’t differ greatly from functional analysis.

In the following analysis of the notation, I use Kirnberger’s harmonic reduction model in order to show the harmonic progression through the resulting bass line, especially in the parts that are more harmonically complex.

Instrumentation As described in the introduction to this chapter, instrumentation is a part of the sound structure. We also have established in Chapter 2 that authenticity is an ontological requirement for performance. What does this ontological requirement imply concerning instrumentation when we engage in music from the eighteenth century?

If instrumentation is specified in the notation then I maintain that the instrumentation is integral for the performance. In these cases, the composer intended the piece to have a particular tonal colour, as important for the compositional process as the performance. This tonal colour includes a number of parameters that together create a whole. It is not possible to avoid the fact that the instruments of a certain period are tonally compatible with one another, something

69 “Die wesentliche Dissonans kann sowol auf einem guten als schlechten, die zufälligen aber nur auf einem guten Taktglied allein vorkommen.“ Kirnberger, Die wahren Grundsätze, 13.

39 that can be illustrated with an example from Bach’s second Brandenburg Concerto. Four solo instruments are given in the concerto’s notation: trumpet, recorder, oboe, and violin. We can imagine two different performances where one uses modern instruments and the other uses historically relevant instruments. Is the difference between the two performances so great that we risk distorting the piece if we choose modern instruments?

As we see in Illustration 1 below from the concerto’s first movement, the answer is yes. There are dialog parts between the recorder and the trumpet that work marvellously well with historically relevant instruments because the trumpet, with its narrow scale is not radically louder than the recorder.

Illustration 1: J. S. Bach Brandenburg concerto nr 2, measures 20‐22, trumpet and recorder.

In Illustration 1, the trumpet has the theme but the figures that lie in the recorder in the second system are not so irrelevant that they should be covered up completely. Both descant voices are accompanied here by a figured bass line alone. Bach could trust that the balance, between the two instruments would not be problematic. This dynamic balance is surely lost with a modern trumpet and a modern flute or a recorder.

So what do we do when instrumentation is not specified in the score? Are we free to choose whatever instrument is at hand? I am convinced that even when the exact instrumentation is not specified, period instruments are still an ontological necessity, but this places even greater importance upon knowledge of performance practice conventions and on studies of historical socio‐cultural context in order to determine which instruments are relevant.

40 The choice between period and modern instruments is, however, not simply about tonal colour and dynamics. Ornamentation and decoration are other examples of how the modern equivalents of eighteenth‐century instruments deprive music of certain qualities. For example, an eighteenth‐century French composer could presuppose that long tones could be decorated with a kind of finger vibrato called flattement. This ornament is easy to perform on an instrument with a completely open finger hole like the eighteenth‐century flute, while it is basically impossible to perform on a modern keyed flute, because it can only be achieved by trilling with a partially covered finger hole.70 The choice of instrument will also influence the intonation and the colour of the temperament. Older instruments, especially wind instruments, were not equally tempered. They were more or less clearly influenced by mean‐tone temperament.

It is possible to raise many similar examples that point toward the meaningful, and in certain cases ontologically necessary, use of the instruments that were originally intended; in other words, these are an inseparable part of the work’s sound structure.

Conventions However detailed the instructions it contains, the notated score can never convey everything the interpreter needs in order to realise a performance. The composer assumed simply that the musician or musicians that would perform the work were familiar with a number of performance practice conventions that were part of the socio‐cultural context in which the work was composed. For a performance in our time that is as ontologically authentic as possible, we must therefore identify as thoroughly as we can, the elements dependent upon conventions. The interpreter is then free to make decisions about them in the interpretation.

As a contemporary musician, what I can strive after is to begin with the autograph or the score that is most closely related to it, and gather as much knowledge as possible so that my reading of the score takes into account the notational conventions that were in use when the work was composed and written down. This

70 For a more complete discussion of flattement, see Maria Bania, “Sweetenings” and “Babylonish Gabble”: Flute Vibrato and Articulation of Fast Passages in the 18th and 19th Centuries, (PhD diss,

41 also means weighing different alternatives against one another to see what consequences come from a specific interpretation.

Among notated elements that are dependent upon performance practice conventions we can include articulation markings, notated ornaments, time signatures, tempo indications, and figured bass lines.

Interpretive attitudes The results of different analytical methods are mirrored through performance in Chapter 6. To do this, I apply an interpretative process that can be likened to a hermeneutic spiral. Wandering between the particular and the whole, between preconceived ideas and understanding, I attempt to weave these perspectives together.71 If my aim as a musician is to interpret and perform a musical work, I am embodying a hermeneutic attitude. This attitude concerns both textual interpretation (the original meaning of “hermeneutics”) and an interpretive process that has to do with dialog by its very nature. A dialog with the notation is created from our own preconceptions, but also with conventions, depending on the amount of information in the notation. These conventions can be contemporary to the musician or to the composition, or both. Through these dialogs a sounding interpretation is formed.

The music in this study had a socio‐cultural context when it was composed. We cannot recreate this context completely, but we can deepen our understanding through a dialog with the text of the musical work by taking into account what it means for us and what it meant for its original time, which in turn will affect the sounding interpretation.72 In some sense, we can speak about discovering the hidden, but not in the sense of an underlying meaning or written message. Perhaps we uncover a more abstract plan in our search for better understanding of the contents of the notation. Through a dialog between the work and its socio‐cultural

University of Gothenburg, 2008), 31‐39. 71 Mats Alvesson and Kaj Sköldberg, Tolkning och reflektion. Vetenskapsfilosofi och kvalitativ metod [Interpretation and Reflection: Scientific Philosophy and Qualitative Method] (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2008), 211. 72 Laurence Dreyfus, “Early‐Music and the Repression of the Sublime,” The Journal of Musicology, vol. 10.1 (1992): 117.

42 context and myself as a musician and my socio‐cultural context, my understanding of the work moves to a new position that can create a fresh point of departure for continued exploration and interpretation.

Summary In this chapter, I have presented how I intend to work with J. S. Bach’s Sonata in E major in the case study found in the rest of the dissertation. One central focus of this study is the work’s sound structure, which is why an analysis of this kind should focus on defining the parts that comprise the sound structure. Apart from the notation, the sound structure also includes the instructions that can be found in the score and that the musician must take into account if the performance strives toward ontological authenticity. These instructions are dependent upon knowledge of performance practice conventions if they are to be realised in performance. From an ontological viewpoint, instrumentation can be seen as a part of the work, and thus relevant for the authenticity of its performance.

In the analysis of the notation, I have allowed myself to be influenced by Laurence Dreyfus’s thoughts about the composer’s inventio, as representative of a conscious original idea for the composition. An advantage with this method is that it not only focuses solely on the actual piece, but takes into account the piece’s socio‐cultural context. Comparisons with other works are relevant primarily to the extent that the genre can be identified as the work’s inventio, or otherwise strongly influential. Regardless of which shape inventio takes, music contains bridging material that often is harmonic in nature. Instead of using explanatory models for harmonic analysis that were formulated during the nineteenth century, I have chosen, in certain cases, to use Kirnberger’s figured‐bass model that he formulated in writing at the end of the 1770s. This model is explained generally.

In conclusion, I have described the interpretive attitude that is dominated by the hermeneutic spiral that encompasses inspiration as well as confirmation of an interpretive process.

Chapter 4: An historical socio-cultural context Chapters 4, 5, and 6 contain the dissertation’s case study. The focus of this case study is J. S. Bach’s Sonata in E major BWV 1035. The socio‐cultural context of this sonata can serve as a connecting link between the notated work and the performance, as will be sketched out in the following text. The notation will serve as a natural point of departure and will be treated thoroughly, but the analytical methods will also be extra‐musical, focusing on form and structure from the outside looking in. As we study the preserved notation, what conclusions can we draw about the impact that the historical socio‐cultural context had on the formation of the work? And what relevance can this context have for a performance in our time?

As I am already speaking about conclusions, it is important at this point to clarify that this chapter can be experienced as, and to some extent actually is, descriptive. But it also focuses on reflection and discussion. I will try to construct a possible historical socio‐cultural context for this piece based on my own understanding of the material that I document in the descriptive sections.

With a point of departure grounded primarily in my own perspective as a musician, the questions raised by the notation can be divided into three main topics:

• Dating – The dating of a work gives clues to relevant socio‐cultural context. It can also problematise stylistic questions. • Genre and style – Dating may affect genre and stylistic questions, but the reverse is also true: questions of genre and style can affect the discussion about dating. • Instrumentation – This may seem uncomplicated. Instrumentation is often relatively clear, but through the expansion of this area, we can add contextual depth. Here there is also an exchange of ideas between dating and style and genre.73

73 I use two terms in this chapter, genre and style, respectively, which can be experienced differently depending on which tradition the reader is familiar with. Common to how I use both terms is that they relate to how they were used in the eighteenth century. Genre therefore covers different compositional forms like the sonata, the cantata or the opera, while style covers compositional style as chamber styles like church style, galant style or theatrical style.

45 The chapter is built around these main topics. The entire discussion departs from the score. This physically observable object is a touchstone in my search for knowledge about the work’s creation as I explore its historical socio‐cultural context. Several excurses along the way will introduce descriptive material on general musical topics necessary to move the discussion along. Naturally, the questions from the three main topics will tangent one another and sometimes even anticipate coming discussions.

So where do I begin my investigations? I know Bach’s chamber music with flute very well. From time to time I have worked very intensively with it. This does not mean by definition that I have made an analytical study of each piece at the level of the analysis I am carrying out in this dissertation. However, I have actively played this repertoire in periods over the last quarter century. It is a part of my musicianship and the music continues to fascinate me and challenge me in ways that no other music does. From this familiarity with the repertoire, here are some of the first questions I ask as an interpreter. Why is the E major Sonata so different from the other works? What does this difference consist of? Why did Bach write in a key that he must have known is directly uncomfortable for the flute? Why did he write this sonata at all? Are there obvious reasons?

How will I begin to handle these questions? As I have already said, I will primarily address them directly to the notation, and so we begin, of necessity, with a source‐ critical review of the score.

Sonata in E major BWV 1035 – sources and manuscripts There are three surviving manuscripts of the sonata, named below as a), b), and c). All three date from the first half of the 1800s.74 They survive in two different libraries, the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin and the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal in Brussels.75 The three manuscripts are probably based on the same original

74 For details in this section concerning manuscripts, see Hans‐Peter Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” in Johann Sebastian Bach. Werke für Flöte 6, Bd 3 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963), 22‐27. 75 a) Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, mus. ms. Bach P 621; b) Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, mus. ms. Bach P 622 and c) Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, XY 15.140.

46 source, a conjecture supported by the repetition of the same copying error in all three manuscripts.76

Manuscript a) bears the title: Sonata per Traverso solo e Continuo del Signr. Giov. Seb: Bach. Under this text there is written, in another hand and probably written at another time, für den Kämmerier Fredersdorf aufgesetzt. The basso continuo part is mostly realised, probably by Count Voss‐Buch, from whose collection this manuscript comes.77 The manuscript is easily readable. The bass part with its realisation is consistently written with larger note heads, suggesting it was the copyist’s main focus. The flute part is a little bit less carefully copied and there are some articulation markings missing that can be found in manuscript b). In comparison with both manuscripts b) and c) manuscript a) is copied by a clearly less professional copyist, while b) and c) show signs of a professional copyist’s hand. This can clearly be seen by comparing the first two measures of each manuscript given in Illustrations 2, 3, and 4:

Illustration 2: Manuscript a).

76 Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” 24 as well as Barthold Kuijken’s postscript to Breitkopf’s edition of the sonata from 1992. 77 Count Karl Voss‐Buch (1786‐1864), minister in the Prussian public administration, had a large manuscript collection, among which, works of J S Bach, were given to the Royal Library in Berlin. See Otto E. Albrecht and Stephen Roe, “Collections, private,” in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/06108pg2 (accessed August 15, 2008).

Illustration 3: Manuscript b).

Illustration 4: Manuscript c).

On the title page of manuscript b) we see:

SONATA / per / Traverso Solo e Continuo / del Sgre: / Giov: Seb: Bach. Farther down on the title page, probably in count Voss‐Buch’s hand:

On the manuscript from which this copy was made is the remark: ‘after the autograph prepared by the composer when he was in Potsdam in 17 for the royal chamberlain Fredersdorf’.78 Schmitz suggests that manuscript b) is a copy of manuscript a),79 but this argument is weakened by the fact that the commentary above does not appear in manuscript a). There seems to have been yet another copy that is now lost and that served as the model for manuscript b). Considering the written‐out figured bass realisation, manuscript a) could be Count Voss‐Buch’s own performance copy and might have been copied from manuscript b).

Manuscript c) has been dated to about 1850, and it is likely that it, too, was copied from manuscript b). BWV 1035 is included, together with BWV 1034 (Sonata for

78 “Auf dem Exemplare, von welchem diese Abschrift genommen worden ist steht die Bemerkung: ‚nach dem Autographo des Verfassers welches o. 17 da er in Potsdam war, für den Geb. Kämmerir Fredersdorf von ihm angefertigt worden‘.“ 79 Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” 24.

48 flute and basso continuo in E minor), in a larger collection of music. The title page reads:

Due / Sonate /per / Flauto traverso e Cembalo di Sgr. Gio. Seb. Bach / No 1. A subsequent addition, in a different hand‐writing style: “à Mr Fredersdorff”.80

The differences between the three manuscripts are insignificant and consist mainly in the length of the slurs. Generally, it can be said however that manuscript b) is the most carefully made, considering both the placement of legato slurs and the placement of the figured bass numbers. Some copying mistakes can be found in all three manuscripts. In Breitkopf’s edition from 1992 (edited by Barthold Kuijken) there is a detailed overview of the differences between manuscripts a) and b). Kuijken consciously left out manuscript c), with the rationalisation that it does not add anything that is not already present in manuscript b).

In all three manuscripts, J. S. Bach is given as the composer of the sonata. Can this claim be questioned? I choose to accept the attribution, but there is actually nothing that proves Bach’s authorship with certainty. Because there is no autograph, and no print of the sonata authorised by Bach in his lifetime, we are obliged to accept these three manuscripts, all from a later date, and all apparently intimately related to one another. Musicologists have never questioned whether the sonata is by J. S. Bach, and perhaps there is no reason to, but there are several ways in which this sonata falls outside the current view of what Bach’s music usually contains.

Two other important details of the manuscript are the dedication to Fredersdorf (sometimes spelled Fredersdorff) as well as the reference to Potsdam in manuscript b). However, the copyist of manuscript b) was obviously unsure of when Bach was in Potsdam, because an empty space was left after the two first numbers in the year: “17 . ”

Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf was close to Frederick II of Prussia from before his coronation in 1740, and was in service to him more or less until Fredersdorf died in 1758. Fredersdorf was also a flutist and had a special position of trust as royal

80 ”No 2” represents BWV 1034.

49 chamberlain to Frederick, whose court primarily was stationed in Potsdam.81 We have thereby a fairly strong connection between the sonata and the Berlin court, at least according to the manuscript copyists. Whether it is real or not depends to a great extent on what chance we have of dating the E major Sonata.

Finally, it is clear, from what has been noted in the different manuscripts, that the sonata is written for flute and basso continuo. This raises further questions around the instrumentation, to which I will return below, see page 71.

Dating How important is the question of the sonata’s dating? The question of the chronology in a catalogue of works has always engaged researchers from a music historical perspective. From another angle, relevant for music historians as well as interpreters, dating is also important in order to try to see the piece in its context and to identify stylistic tendencies, and similarities as well as differences. How has this discussion developed around the E major Sonata? What is clear from the excursus below (see page 52) is that most music researchers have chosen to see the dedication to Fredersdorf as definitive for the dating. In order to further this discussion, researchers have looked for biographical information that would support the idea that Bach really could have met Fredersdorf. And there is evidence for two visits by Bach in Berlin/Potsdam; once in 1741 and again in 1747.

The 1741 visit is supported through a correspondence between Bach himself and his relative Johann Elias Bach that concerns J. S. Bach’s wife Anna Magdalena’s health during his absence.82 The other visit is much better known. In May of 1747, Bach visited the court at Potsdam, after an invitation from King Frederick himself,83

81 Berit Gloede, “Michael Gabriel Fredersdorff” in http://www.preussen.de/de/geschichte/1740_friedrich_ii./michael_gabriel_Fredersdorff.html (accessed March 5, 2007). 82 Bach’s own letter has been lost but the answer he received has been preserved, as well as another piece of information from the same Johann Elias, who lived with the Bach family at this time. (Bach Dokumente II, nr. 489‐490). 83 Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, Leipzig 1802 (facsimile rpt. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999), 9.

50 to listen to court concerts at the newly built palace of Sanssouci. The visit resulted in The Musical Offering, one of Bach’s most fascinating works.84

Christoph Wolff suggests that we can assume that Bach, aged about 55, no longer left Leipzig except when there was an official invitation.85 This was certainly the case in 1747, but at whose invitation did he travel to Berlin in 1741? Wolff speculates that Bach wished to visit the court, but that it did not happen because Frederick was at war. Chamberlain Fredersdorf was surely there, however, and Bach’s son Carl Philip Emanuel had just officially been named as court harpsichordist.86 So the visit could have been purely social, but it is also possible that Bach, on his own initiative, had wished to establish a first contact with the Berlin court.

When it comes to the dating of the E major Sonata, we are still floating in a good deal of uncertainty. There is every reason to believe that Bach really did dedicate the sonata to chamberlain Fredersdorf, but it could have happened in 1741 as well as in 1747. The sonata could also have been written at an earlier time and given an appropriate dedication on the occasion of either of these visits.

Another attempt to collect evidence for dating this sonata is to make stylistic comparisons, either with other similar works of Bach or with other composers’ works that we have reason to believe Bach knew. Two themes become important here; musical style and genre.

In order to knit these discussions together, the following excursus summarises earlier research surrounding this sonata, as well as discussions about its dating. Thereafter, I will present an argument for an alternative dating where I depart from stylistic comparisons with several other composers’ works influenced by the galant

84 The visit is referred to in the Spenersche Zeitung 11 May 1747 (Bach Dokumente II, nr 554). Two months after his visit Bach sent the entire Musical Offering, in print, to Frederick II (Bach Dokumente I, nr 173). 85 Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2001), 425. 86 Already in 1738 Emanuel Bach was connected to the court of Frederick the Great as a musician, an offer that Emanuel saw as so tempting that he turned down an offer to follow a young noblemen on his grand tour through Europe See Hans‐Günter Ottenberg, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 34.

51 style that dominated Dresden’s musical life, and that could have had an influence on Bach.

Excursus – earlier research Research surrounding Bach’s chamber music has primarily focused on two categories of works: the works for unaccompanied solo instrument, and the works for solo instrument with obbligato keyboard. Among the works for flute, the main interest has been focused on the Sonata in B minor because its complexity is considered unsurpassed. The Sonata in A major has also interested music researchers, although this interest is mostly focused on the sonata’s incomplete state, and on the question of why Bach cut about 46 measures from the existing autograph. There are also a number of attempts to reconstruct the missing measures. The standard work on the sonatas for solo instrument and obbligato keyboard is Hans Eppstein’s study from 1966, where he takes an overarching stylistic and structural approach to these works, and also discusses their history and hypothetical earlier versions.87 The sonatas that J. S. Bach wrote for a single solo instrument and basso continuo are surprisingly few considering how popular the form was all over Europe. Grove Music Online mentions six sonatas in its list of authentic Bach works, among them the E major Sonata BWV 1035. There are already some questions of authenticity surrounding one of these, the Violin Sonata in C minor BWV 1024.88 There is scarce information in the literature about these basso continuo sonatas. Often it is simply reported that the sonatas exist. In Philipp Spitta’s standard late‐nineteenth‐ century work on J. S. Bach and his music, the E major Sonata is named together with the other sonatas for solo instrument and basso continuo, using genre and instrumentation to create the category. Spitta made a fairly rough and generalised introduction to Bach’s works in general, dating them by using Bach’s employment situation as the conclusive factor for the type of music he composed. According to this principle, Spitta dated Bach’s organ works to the Weimar period of 1708‐1717; chamber music to his time in Köthen from 1717 to 1723; and the sacred music to his time in Leipzig from 1723 to 1750. From this assumption, Bach composed the sonatas for solo instrument and basso continuo in

87 Hans Eppstein, Studien über .J S. Bachs Sonaten für ein Melodieinstrument und obligates Cembalo (PhD diss., Uppsala University, 1966). 88 Christoph Wolff, “Johann Sebastian Bach,” in Grove Music Online, http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed March 28, 2007).

52 Köthen between 1717 and 1723.89 Spitta writes the following about the two flute sonatas: The other [sonatas], in e minor and E major, have a normal form, but their allegro movements are often divided in two, and naturally do not show the same richness in variation as the sonatas with obbligato harpsichord.90 But both sonatas are of great interest and beauty.91 Hans Eppstein treats the sonatas for solo instrument and basso continuo more specifically in his 1972 Bach‐Jahrbuch article.92 He describes the E major Sonata as a chamber sonata, citing the binary form of the movements, and with the exception of the prelude‐like first movement, the clear dance character of the other movements.93 Eppstein continues with a discussion where he sets the E major Sonata against the E minor and points to the former sonata’s relatively simple tonal language and uncomplicated structure that, according to Eppstein, would perfectly suit the court in Berlin.94 Questions about authorship and chronology are the focus of Robert Marshall’s study of Bach’s flute music where he is often in controversy with Eppstein.95 They are, however, in agreement concerning the E major Sonata. Both have the same understanding of its style, and both agree that it was composed by Bach for the Prussian court around 1741. Wendy Ann Mehne’s dissertation combines historical research with performance practice.96 In Mehne’s case, this means that she uses historical sources and treatises as well as secondary literature in order to create a practical edition of Bach’s sonatas for flute, an edition that includes interpretive suggestions for parameters like tempo, articulation, and ornamentation. Chapter 5, “The Structure and Chronology of J. S.

89 Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach. His Work and Influence on the Music of Germany, 1685‐1750, trans. Clara Bell, London, 1889, vol. 2, (modern rpt, Mineola: Dover, 1992), 124 ‐125. The original edition was published in German in 1873 and 1880. 90 Here Spitta refers to the Sonata in B minor for flute and obbligato keyboard BWV 1030. 91 Spitta, Bach, 125. 92 Hans Eppstein, ”Über J. S. Bachs Flötensonaten mit Generalbass, Bach‐Jahrbuch, vol. 58 (1972): 12‐ 23. 93 Eppstein, “Flötensonaten,” 14‐15. 94 Eppstein, “Flötensonaten,” 19. 95 Robert L. Marshall, “J. S. Bach’s Compositions for Solo Flute: A Reconsideration of Their Authenticity and Chronology,” in The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Sources, the Style, the Significance (New York: Schirmer, 1989), 201‐225. The article was first published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society 32, no. 3 (1979): 463‐498, and in Marshall’s book a postscript is included that specifically addresses Hans Eppstein and the critique Eppstein presented of Marshall in Eppstein’s article from 1972. 96 Wendy Ann Mehne, A Research/Performance Edition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Acknowledged Flute Sonatas, (DMA diss., University of Wisconsin, 1992).

53 Bach’s Flute Sonatas,” gives short descriptions of the sonatas her dissertation touches upon. However, she does not carry out any analysis of the music in the proper meaning of the word.97 Ronda Miller Mains’ dissertation also focuses on creating a practically oriented edition, and makes a thorough review of all existing sources of the sonatas with a special emphasis on the different articulation marks.98 Her text is followed by a section with notation that compares all the articulation markings for all the existing sources as a basis for a practical edition with suggestions for articulation from the existing scores as well as from secondary material. When it comes to the E major Sonata, Mains takes the trio sonata from the Musical Offering as a model for her articulation suggestions. Her additions are given exclusively to standardise the Sonata’s articulation marks. Mary Oleskiewicz frames her discussion of the E major Sonata and the trio sonata from the Musical Offering in terms of the tradition represented by Johann Joachim Quantz, taking into account relevant instruments, pitches, time of origin, and styles for these pieces.99 Oleskiewicz points out many similarities between the movements in Bach’s E major Sonata and some of the flute sonatas of Quantz. Both have cantabile first movements that make rich use of the French ornament tierce coulé100 and both composers use the siciliana as a third movement set in the parallel key of C# minor. According to Oleskiewicz, the Bach E major Sonata’s relatively limited range of e’‐e’’’, and the movement’s relatively low tessitura also points to a close kinship, stylistically, formally, and even thematically, with similar compositions by Quantz.101 Both Eppstein102 and Marshall103 have dated the sonata to 1741 based on two premises. First, there are the inscriptions in the manuscripts that suggest Bach composed the piece for chamberlain Fredersdorf. Secondly, there is the style of the sonata, which is strikingly different from the other sonata compositions of Bach. On the other hand, Schmitz suggests that simply on stylistic grounds the E major Sonata cannot be from the 1740s, because it is essentially too different stylistically from the trio sonata in the Musical Offering, composed in 1747.104 Schmitz would rather suggest that

97 Mehne, Bach’s Acknowledged Flute Sonatas, 130‐138. 98 Ronda Miller Mains, An Investigation of the Articulations Found in the Primary Sources of the Flute Sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach Resulting in a Composite Edition (DMA diss, University of Oregon 1993). 99 Mary A. Oleskiewicz: Quantz and the Flute at Dresden: His Instruments, His Repertory and their Significance for the Versuch and the Bach Circle (PhD. diss., Duke University, 1998). 100 Originally a French ornament that filled out an unaccented falling third. 101 Oleskiewicz, “Quantz and the Flute at Dresden,” 361‐447. 102 Eppstein, “Flötensonaten,” 12‐23. 103 Marshall, “Bach’s Compositions for Solo Flute,” 463‐498. 104 Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” 24.

54 the sonata dates from the Köthen period, because, at least on the surface, it has a much simpler structure.105 Schmitz also compares the E major Sonata to other Bach pieces from the later 1730s and 1740s, among them the Sonata in B minor for Flute and Harpsichord, the Orchestra Suite in B minor, the Goldberg Variations, the Well Tempered Clavier II, and the Art of the Fugue, in order to establish a date using stylistic tendencies as criteria. These other works from the same period show a high level of contrapuntal complexity, making it difficult for Schmitz to place the E major Sonata among them.

A discussion of an alternative dating The discussion above shows that the suggested dating of the E major Sonata, in absence of other proof, is primarily grounded in stylistic arguments, like similarities and differences with other Bach works, but also on stylistic similarities to the works of Quantz. Even if the arguments put forth by Oleskiewicz, Marshall, and Eppstein seem reasonable, I would like to propose that an earlier date of origin could still be considered.

From 1729, Bach took over the Collegium Musicum, a collection of students from the University in Leipzig that gave secular concerts in Zimmermann’s coffee house almost every week.106 Secular life in Leipzig was influenced by its strong educational institutions, but it was also a trading city. It was open to influences not only from France, but also Italy.107 It is not difficult to imagine that the bourgeoisie also responded to new influences on their musical taste and expected that concert music would be a la mode, including the galant style. One could easily imagine that the Zimmermann’s milieu might have created an environment that led Bach to compose a flute sonata in a modern galant style. Bach led the Collegium Musicum between 1729 and 1737, when he left its leadership for a few years. He took up the post again in 1739, but when Zimmerman died in May of 1741, Bach left the position for good.

105 Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” 24. 106 Zimmermann’s was seen as an institution in Leipzig. The house was located in central Leipzig and included a hall where 150 listeners could visit the concerts that Zimmermann arranged every week. The collaboration with Collegium Musicum was already established in 1723 and continued undiminished in size during Bach’s leadership. Zimmermann’s created conditions for a growing concert life in Leipzig through this collaboration See Wolff, Bach: The Learned Musician, 352. 107 George J. Buelow, (ed.), Man and Music: The Late Baroque Era from the 1680s to 1740 (London: Macmillan, 1993), 254‐255.

55 Is the E major Sonata really so stylistically innovative or unusual? Already in the middle of the second decade of the eighteenth century, Francesco Veracini wrote a collection of 12 sonatas for flute or violin and basso continuo that he dedicated to the Prince of Saxony. These sonatas all have a structure that is similar to Bach’s E major Sonata, balanced between church and chamber style: four movements (slow‐ fast‐slow‐fast), no contrapuntal movement, dance‐like movements, and a writing style that foregrounds the melody, and the horizontal above the vertical.108 The sonatas existed in Dresden already before Bach visited for the first time in 1717, making his acquaintance with them entirely possible. Another Italian composer that is stylistically interesting in this context is Pietro Locatelli, who published a collection of 12 sonatas for flute and basso continuo in 1732. Here, there are several characteristics reminiscent of Bach’s sonata and because the sonatas were published, it is not impossible that Bach also knew of them.109 Locatelli’s sonatas also have many similarities with Telemann’s Methodische Sonaten from 1728 and 1732, also widely disseminated in Europe.

What relevance do similarities of this type have on the dating of the work? Perhaps not much, but at the same time the socio‐cultural contextual expectations in general were highly influential upon what music was composed. The majority of Bach’s works, like those of his eighteenth‐century contemporaries, were produced after commissions or special assignments. From this perspective, it is equally reasonable to suggest that Bach composed the E major Sonata in the early 1730s.

Summary This section has focused on the question of the dating of the E major Sonata. Even if it is possible to suggest several alternative datings, it is most likely that the sonata dates from the time of Bach’s visit to Berlin in 1741, a claim primarily based on the dedication that is found on the cover of manuscript b), from which the other copies were made. This dating is further strengthened by the argument Oleskiewicz makes, connecting the sonata to the court in Berlin in other ways than simply the

108 Daniel Heartz, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720‐1780, (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003), 210; Francesco Maria Veracini, [12] Sonate a Violino, o Flauto solo e Basso, (Dresden: no pub., 1716). 109 Pitero Locatelli, XII Sonate à Flauto Traversiere Solo è Basso, Opera seconda (Amsterdam: no pub., 1732).

56 dedication to Fredersdorf. She suggests that the stylistic idiom and the purely instrument‐specific qualities of this sonata, both acoustic and technical, and related to specific flutes around Quantz’s Berlin, are a very strong argument that the sonata can be dated to 1741.

My concluding argument is similar to Oleskiewicz, but rather than depending on Berlin, it uses other composers that had a connection to Dresden. This leads to the possibility of dating the sonata to the period when Bach was the director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig. To the extent that the Sonata’s similarities with a Sonata in E major of Locatelli are seen as equally relevant, an alternative dating could be given as early as 1732.

Genre and style At the beginning of this chapter, I defined “genre and style” as one of the three main areas of exploration we would use to build up a hypothetical historical socio‐ cultural context. I have already touched on this topic several times in the previous section, but we will return to this theme more comprehensively now, and first deal with questions of genre followed by a discussion of stylistic questions, primarily in relationship to the concept of the galant style.

Again, the notation will serve as our point of departure. The sonata can broadly be described like this:

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Adagio ma non tanto E major 20 C Allegro E major |:32:||:48:| = 80 2 4 Siciliana C# minor |:12:||:16:| = 28 6 8 Allegro assai E major |:27:||:27:| =54 3 4

We have a sonata in four movements with a large‐scale structure that connects to the tradition of church sonatas where the movements are ordered according to the principle of slow – fast – slow – fast. On the other hand, as Eppstein has pointed out, there are similarities to the chamber sonata, see above page 53.

57 Is it possible to say definitively what the genre and style of this sonata is? Or does it represent a blended form both in style and in genre?

Before we go further to discuss how this specific sonata can be categorised, we must take another excursus dealing with what is generally implied by the term “sonata.” We will also touch upon the culturally determined expectations inherent in the term, which was used during the eighteenth century to define an entire genre.

Excursus – sonata as genre It is clear from eighteenth‐century literature that the term “sonata” was used to describe a genre, and used to systematise, classify, and thereby give a description of an established phenomenon. Johann Gottfried Walther writes briefly in his lexicon from 1732 that a sonata is: …a solemn and artful piece for instruments, in particulars for violins, consisting of alternating adagios and allegros. 110 Roughly thirty years earlier, Sébastien de Brossard’s music lexicon111 describes the sonata genre as the compositions that can only be performed by instruments. It can be seen as the instrumental answer to the cantata for the voice. Brossard’s sonata entry also takes up the freedom that the genre gives to the composer: a grand free harmonious composition, diversified with great variety of motions and expressions … and all this according to the fancy of the composer, who without confining himself to any general rule of counterpoint, or any fixed number of measure gives a loose to his genius, and runs from one mode, measure etc. to another, as he thinks fit.112

110 ”…ein vor Instrumente, insonderheit Violinen gesetztes gravitätisches und künstliches Stück, so in abgewechselten adagio und allegro bestehet.“ Johann Walther, Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec, Studienausg. im Neusatz des Textes und der Noten (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001), 514. 111 Sébastien de Brossard: A musical dictionary; being a collection of terms and characters, as well ancient as modern; including the historical, theoretical, and practical parts of music: ... The whole carefully abstracted from the best authors ... By James Grassineau, Gent. London, 1740. Based on information from English Short Title Catalogue. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale Group http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO (accessed April 17, 2007). The Lexicon was first published in 1702. 112 Brossard, A musical dictionary, 231.

58 Furthermore, he writes about the two different types, the sonata da chiesa and sonata da camera: Suonata da chiesa, that is one proper for Church music, which commonly begins with a grave solemn motion, suitable to the dignity of the place and the service; after which they strike into a brisker, gayer, richer manner, and these are what they [the Italians] properly call Sonatas. The other comprehends the Suonata di Camera, fit for chamber music. These are properly a series of little short pieces named from the dances which may be put to them, yet not designed for dancing … They usually begin with a prelude or little Sonata, serving as an introduction to all the rest.113 The first Brossard quotation alludes to what today we would call the freedom of absolute music, where music is governed neither by program nor dance form. In the second quotation, we see that the early‐eighteenth‐century sonata da camera began with a free movement, which in certain contexts was labelled a sonata. It was followed by a number of dance movements: allemande, courante, minuet, gavotte, bourrée, and often a concluding gigue. In the third edition of Brossard’s lexicon there is a distinction made between the two attributes da chiesa and da camera, where he makes clearer that the movements in a sonata da chiesa consist of adagios and largos interspersed with fugues that make up the allegro movements.114 The sonata da chiesa also often includes at least one slow movement in another key, often the parallel key to the main key, but, as Newman points out, this is an observation that is built solely upon a study of surviving material, and cannot be stated as a proven rule.115 Johan Mattheson emphasises that the sonata is an instrumental composition form, but also gives important information on is aesthetic aims: The Sonata, with several violins or on one particular instrument, e.g., on the transverse flute, etc., whose aim is principally towards complaisance and kindness, since a certain Complaisance must predominate in sonatas, which is accommodating to everyone, and which serves each listener. A melancholy person will find something pitiful and compassionate, a sensuous person something pretty, an angry person something violent, and so on, in different varieties of sonatas. The composer must also set himself such a goal with his adagio, andante, presto, etc.: then his work will succeed. 116

113 Brossard, A musical dictionary, 231. 114 William S. Newman, The Sonata in the Baroque era (4th edition, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1983), 25. 115 Newman, Sonata, 34. 116 ”Die Sonata mit verschidenden Viollinen oder auf besondern Instrumenten allein, z. E. auf der Qveerflöte etc, deren Absicht hauptsächlich auf eine Willfährig‐ oder Gefälligkeit gerichtet ist, weil in

59 A sonata’s primary function was, in other words, to emotionally confirm the listener’s expectations. Mattheson gives this description in a section that classifies different types of melodies and their attributes. The main purpose of this whole section in Der vollkommene Capellmeister is to give relatively strict instructions for how one should compose a good melody. In emphasising the quality and function of melody, he also talks about the function of the sonata, namely that it should entertain, delight and give a sense of fulfilment. In chapter 10 of the same book he speaks about different musical styles – church style, theatre style, and chamber style – and points out that in principle all genres can be adapted to all three styles.117 Mattheson does not name the expectation that fugal movements appear in the church style, he talks instead about serious and grave style. The definition Mattheson uses for the chamber style is to use the adjective “häuslich” – domestic – something that emphasises its intimate character.118 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, both sonata types blend more and more and it became more common to find dance movements in a church sonata or fugual movements in a chamber sonata. Chamber sonatas in their pure form, with an introductory preludium followed by a number of dance movements, more often were described using the French term “suite.” The term “sonata” became more exclusively used to describe the da chiesa type, but with a relaxation of its strict form, while at the same time it became less strictly connected to the church. Instead, this music became more associated with the court and the home.119 Quantz describes in his Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversière zu spielen the qualities that a “solo” (which is his term for the sonata with a solo instrument and basso continuo) should have “to do honour both to its composer and to its performer.”120 He complains that “today one does not perceive it to be any art at all to write a solo. To a great extent every instrumentalist is engaged in this” and if the instrumentalists do not have any ideas of their own, they borrow someone else’s. If he does not know the rules den Sonaten eine gewisse Complaisance herrschen muss, die sich allen beqvemet, und womit einem ieden Zuhörer gedienet ist. Ein Trauriger wird was klägliches und mitleidiges, ein Wollüstiger was niedliches, ein Zorniger was hefftiges u. s. w. in verschiedenen Abwechslungen den Sonaten antreffen. Solchen Zweck muss auch der Componist bey seinem adagio, andante, presto etc vor Augens setzen: so wird ihm die Arbeit gerathen.“ Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, Studienausg. im Neusatz des Textes und der Noten (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999), 346. English translation from Johann Mattheson, Johann Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister, (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1981), 466. 117 Mattheson, Vollkommene Capellmeister, 136‐167. 118 Mattheson, Vollkommene Capellmeister, 138. 119 Dorothea Mielke‐Gerdes, “Sonate,” in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Bd. 8 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998), columns 1573‐1581. 120 Johann Joachim Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversière zu spielen, Berlin 1752 (facsimile rpt. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1992), 304, ch. XVIII, §48.

60 of composition, he asks someone else to write the bass line. “In this way only monsters are produced instead of good models.”121 Quantz goes on to give examples of the qualities that a solo sonata should contain. The sonata that he describes is a three‐movement slow – fast – fast work, a form that became more and more common, especially in Italy, until it became the dominant model during the latter half of the eighteenth century: 48. § … 1) the Adagio must be singing and expressive in its own right; 2) the performer must have an opportunity to demonstrate his judgement, inventiveness, and insight; 3) tenderness must be mixed with ingenuity from time to time; 4) a natural bass part, upon which it is easy to build, must be provided; 5) one idea must not be repeated too often either at the same pitch or in transposition, since this would weary the player, and would become tedious to the listeners; 6) at times the natural melody must be interrupted with some dissonances, in order to duly excite the passions oft he listeners; 7) the Adagio must not be too long. 49. § The first Allegro requires : 1) a melody that is flowing, coherent, and rather serious; 2) a good association of ideas; 3) brilliant passage‐work, well joined to the melody; 4) good order in the repetition of ideas; 5) some beautiful and well‐ chosen phrases at the end of the first part which are so adjusted that in transposed form they may again conclude the last part; 6) a first part which is a little shorter than the last; 7) the introduction of the most brilliant passage‐work in the last part; 8) a bass that is set naturally and with progressions of a kind that sustain a constant vivacity. 50. § The second Allegro may be either very gay and quick, or moderate and arioso. Hence it must be adjusted to the first Allegro. If the first is serious, the second may be gay. If the first is lively and quick, the second may be moderate and arioso. ... If a solo is to please everyone, it must be arranged so that the inclinations of each listener find sustenance in it. It must be neither entirely cantabile nor entirely of a lively character. Just as each movement must be quite different from the others, so each must have in itself a good mixture of pleasing and brilliant ideas.122

121 Quantz, Versuch, 303, ch. XVIII, §46. 122 § 48 ”…1) das Adagio desselben an und vor sich singbar und ausdrückend sein. 2) Der Ausführer muss Gelegenheit haben, seine Beurtheilungskraft, Erfindung, und Einsicht zuzeigen. 3) Die Zärtlichkeit muss dann und wann mit etwas Geistreichem vermischet werden. 4) Man setze eine natürliche Grundstimme, worüber leicht zu bauen ist. 5) Ein Gedanke muss weder in demselben Tone, noch in

Note that Quantz repeatedly emphasises the listener’s experience of a piece of music. A composer does not write for himself, but rather in order to give the listener the greatest possible pleasure. Quantz also does not speak especially clearly about the formal content of a sonata, but rather emphasises the importance of contrast and change – also here with the listener in mind. One can see a clear difference between the first and the second allegro to the extent that the first allegro should be more thoroughly worked out with good planning for the different entrances and with variations of its own thoughts or themes. The description of the harmonic plan of the first allegro is also noteworthy. Quantz describes a model where the movement ends with a recapitulation of the ideas from the first part’s introduction. Only in the paragraphs about the slow movement does Quantz talk about the relationship between the performer and the composer. Here, he emphasises that the performer should have the chance to present his good taste and expressive skill. Quantz labels this compositional style “German,” unifying the best of the French and the Italian.123 Johann Adolph Scheibe, in Critischer Musicus (printed first in 1740), makes a different distinction between the true sonata and the sonata “auf Concertenart,” a sonata that is similar to a concert in its construction. The most common plan of the movements in

der Transposition, zu vielmal wiederholt werden: denn dieses würde nicht nur den Spieler müde machen, sondern auch den Zuhörern einen Ekel erwecken können. 6) Der natürliche Gesang muss zuweilen mit einigen Dissonanzen unterbrochen werden, um bei den Zuhörern die Leidenschaften gehörig zu erregen. 7) Das Adagio muss nicht zu lang sein. 49. § Das erste Allegro’ erfordert: 1) einen fließenden, an einander hangenden, und etwas ernsthaften Gesang; 2) einen guten Zusammenhang der Gedanken; 3) brilliante, und mit Gesange wohl vereinigte Passagien; 4) eine gute Ordnung in Wiederholung der Gedanken; 5) schöne ausgesuchte Gänge zu Ende des ersten Theils, welche zugleich so eingerichtet sein müssen, dass man in der Transposition den letzten Theil wieder damit beschließen könne. 6) Der erste Theil muss etwas kürzer sein als der letzte. 7) Die brillianten Passagien müssen in den letzten Theil gebracht werden. 8) Die Grundstimme muss natürlich gestzet sein und solche Bewegungen machen, welche immer eine Lebhaftigkeit unterhalten. 50. § Das zweyte Allegro kann entweder sehr lustig und geschwind, oder moderat und arios sein. Man muss sich deswegen nach dem ersten richten. Ist dasselbe ernsthaft: so kann das letzte lustig sein. Ist aber das erste lebhaft und geschwind: so kann das letzte moderat und arios sein. /…/ Soll überhaupt ein Solo einem jeden gefallen; so muss es so eingerichtet sein, dass die Gemüthsneigungen eines jeden Zuhörers darinne ihre Nahrung finden. Es muss weder durchgehend pur cantabel, och durchgehend pur lebhaft sein. So wie sich ein jeder Satz von dem andern sehr unterscheiden muss; so muss auch ein jeder Satz, in sich selbst, eine gute Vermischung von gefälligen und brillanten Gedanken haben. Quantz, Versuch, 304, ch. XVIII, §48‐50. English translation from Edward R. Reilly, Johann Joachim Quantz. On Playing the Flute (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), 318‐319. 123 Quantz, Versuch, 332, ch. XVIII §87.

62 these sonatas is fast – slow – fast, similar to Vivaldi’s instrumental concertos. The first movement is usually built up around a ritornello form where the ritornello is interleaved with virtuoso sections. Bach’s clearest examples of this compositional style can be found in the first movement of the Sonata in B minor for flute and harpsichord BWV 1030; the second movement of the Sonata in E minor BWV 1034 for flute and basso continuo; and the first movement of the Sonata in G minor BWV 1029 for viola da gamba and harpsichord.124

The genre of the Sonata in E major Hans Eppstein suggests that Bach’s Sonata in E major is a sonata da camera, which he supports with the observations that all of the movements have a two‐part structure (either with or without reprises of the parts), that the introductory movement has the character of a prelude, and the following movements have a clear dance character. The third movement has a dance title (Siciliana), but Eppstein suggests that also the second Allegro movement has the character of a rigaudon – a faster variant of the bourrée – and that the fourth Allegro assai movement can be seen as a fast polonaise.125

Eppstein uses the term “pronounced chamber sonata”126 to describe the Sonata in E major, which I find a bit too categorical. There is reason to suggest that the second movement has the character of a rigaudon, even if it is not as clear as Eppstein would like it to be. The movement begins with clear rigaudon characteristics such as clear four‐measure periods with gradually accelerating harmonic rhythm,127 but these periods are not consistently applied.128 It is, however, likely that Eppstein’s strongest argument for claiming that the movement is a rigaudon is the clear similarity it bears to the Rigaudon from François Couperin’s fourth Concert Royeaux, published in 1722, see Illustration 5:

124 For further discussion concerning this movement’s form see Jeanne R. Swack, “On the Origins of the ‘Sonate auf Concertenart’,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 46.3 (1993): 369‐414. Details about Scheibe were also taken from this article. 125 “ausgesprochene Kammersonate,” Eppstein, “Flötensonaten,” 15. 126 Eppstein, “Flötensonaten,” 14. 127 I use the term “harmonic rhythm” to refer to the number of chord changes per measure. 128 Meredith Little, “Rigaudon,” in The New Grove Online http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed April 12, 2007).

Illustration 5: F. Couperin Rigaudon from 4e Concert Royeaux, measures 1‐4, and J. S. Bach BWV 1035 movement 2, measures 1‐4.

The most obvious similarities are the key and the opening figure, but whereas Couperin uses this characteristic figure consistently throughout the movement in the melodic voice as well as in the bass, Bach embroiders it with a great deal of sixteenth notes.

When it comes to the fourth movements of the Sonata in E major, I can find no support for Eppstein’s contention that it should be regarded as a quick polonaise. The movement has none of the polonaise’s proud processional character, and nothing that looks like the rhythmical scheme typical of a German polonaise, see Illustration 6:129

Illustration 6: Different typical rhythmical forms in a polonaise.

The fourth movement from the sonata is also demonstrably dissimilar to the other three movements that Bach labelled Polonaise – in the sixth French Suite BWV 817, in the First Brandenburg Concerto BWV 1046, and in Orchestra Suite No 2 BWV 1067, see Illustration 7:

129 Daniela Gerstner, “Polonaise,” in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Band. 7 (Kassel:Bärenreiter, 1997), columns 1686‐1689.

Illustration 7: The introductory measures to three polonaises of J. S. Bach.

Of the three examples above, the polonaise from BWV 1067 displays the proudest affect most characteristic of ceremonial music, but also more than the other two examples, displays typical traits of a polonaise.

The contrast with the opening to the Sonata in E major is great, with its soft upbeat and similarly cantabile opening measure, see Illustration 8:

Illustration 8: Movement 4, measures 1‐2.

65 The Sonata in E major could rather be seen as an example of the blending of the older church sonata and the newer chamber one, which from the 1730s onwards became increasingly more common than a “pronounced chamber sonata.” Bach preserves the movement scheme of the church sonata (slow – fast – slow – fast) and uses traditional terms for sonata movements (Adagio ma non tanto – Allegro – Siciliana130 – Allegro assai); in addition he sets the third movement in C# minor, the parallel key to E major. However, he gives each movement a two‐part structure, which is not common for the church sonatas, and he avoids writing a fugal second movement, which would normally have been the case. Oleskiewicz also points out that many sonatas from Dresden, and later from Berlin, took just this form.131

If we depart from the idea that Bach composed the piece entirely with this view in mind, then the Sonata in E major could be seen as more forward‐looking and perhaps even as calculating. He composed the sonata before Quantz had come to Berlin, but through his knowledge of Dresden and the traditions that were in fashion, he was familiar with the style. Besides that, Bach surely knew that Frederick II was taking lessons with Quantz. Looking at the sonata from this perspective makes it even more likely that it was written with the Berlin court in mind and for Frederick II’s chamberlain Fredersdorf. One can only speculate on the reasons, but it is probably not completely impossible that Bach, who received the title of court composer in Dresden after a conscious lobbying effort, was after a similar title in Berlin, and that the flute sonata was a first careful step on the way to that goal.

Galant style and J. S. Bach I have already used the term “galant” in connection with the Sonata in E major. What does it stand for, and what does the notion “galant style” imply? From a slightly larger perspective, it implies the use of stylistically distinctive features. Again, I begin with a excursus dealing with the galant style, in order to connect it to the section discussing the galant style in relation to J. S. Bach.

130 In the manuscript c) the movement is marked Siciliano. 131 Oleskiewicz, “Quantz and the Flute at Dresden,” 426.

66 Excursus – galant style More than any other musical style, the galant style is connected to Dresden. The term galant comes from the French, and is used within both art and literature to evoke chivalry and charm with connotations of moderation, as well as a desire to please.132 It is first in Germany that the term became defined in connection to musical life. One talked interchangeably about the galant style – galantery as a genre in itself, made up of simple keyboard pieces based on dance forms – and about the theatre style. Johann Mattheson, based in Hamburg, was one of the very first to describe this galant style. In addition, he did it in connection with writing about a number of contemporaneous composers, which he saw as representatives of this style. One thing they all had in common was that they were all engaged in composing operas in the Italian style around 1720.133 Mattheson primarily used the term “theatrical style”, which he set up in opposition to the church or strict style, a vocabulary that he shared with Johann Adolph Scheibe and Johann David Heinichen, among others. The music that came to be connected to the galant style more than any other, and was also labelled as such in its own time, was opera and chamber music in an Italian style.134 One used a French word to describe something that was new and modern, but the “new” material was Italian in its derivation.135 Heinichen is perhaps the most important person when it comes to the galant style and its connection to Johann Sebastian Bach. Heinichen became the Kapellmeister in Dresden in 1717, and as such, worked closely with important solo instrumentalists like the violinists Pisendel and Veracini, the lutenist Weiss, as well as the flutists Buffardin and Quantz. Heinichen believed that music should be composed in a style that combined the Italian, French, and German musical tastes.136 He described this in his extensive figured bass school Der General‐Bass in der Composition, oder Neue und gründliche Anweisung from 1728, where he also was troubled over the north German predilection for writing contrapuntally. As the title of his book suggests, it deals not only with the art of playing figured bass, but also about the importance of figured bass for composition – a way of viewing the role of figured bass study that was also shared by J. S. Bach. Even if Bach did not share Heinichen’s stylistic belief that counterpoint had only two functions

132 Daniel Heartz and Bruce Allan Brown, “Galant,” in The New Grove Online http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed n April 20, 2007). 133 Johann Mattheson, Das Forschende Orchester, Hamburg 1721 (facsimile rpt. Laaber: Laaber, 2002), 276 and 353. 134 David A. Sheldon, “The Galant Style Revisited and Re‐Evaluated,” Acta Musicologica, 47.2 (1975): 254. 135 Daniel Heartz, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720‐1780 (New York; W. W. Norton & Co. 2003), 19. 136 George J. Buelow, Thorough‐Bass Accompaniment according to Johann David Heinichen (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1966), 281.

67 – to be used in compositional studies or in church music – Bach was familiar with Heinichen’s book and the trains of thought that he presented about musical style.137 Heinichen points out that the theatrical style should not be weighed down with too many serious ideas. The pathetic, the melancholic, and the phlegmatic were effective in the church style or the chamber style, but not in the theatrical. The theatrical style should focus rather on entertainment than on expressing melancholy, without being too polished.138 According to Heinichen, it was the free treatment of dissonance that was the most concrete distinctive feature of the theatrical and galant style that made the music, and the composition, freer from existing rules of counterpoint.139 This could, among other things, mean that the leading tone could resolve up in another octave, something that was impossible in a stricter style.140 Roughly seventy years later, Hans Christian Koch describes this free and unhampered writing style and notes: 1) through many elaborations of the melody, and the divisions oft he principal melodic tones, through more obvious breaks and pauses in the melody, and through more changes in the rhythmic elements, and especially in the lining up of melodic figures that do not have a close relationship with each other, etc. 2) through a less interwoven harmony 3) through the fact that the remaining voices simply serve to accompany the main voice and do not take part in the expression of the sentiment of the piece, etc.141

137 Buelow, Thorough‐Bass Accompaniment, 280 (counterpoint); Wolff, Bach: The Learned Musician, 333‐334 (Bach’s knowledge of Heinichen’s book). Bach was also a dealer for Heinichen’s book. See Robert L. Marshall, “Bach the Progressive: Observations on His Later Works,” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 62.3 (1976): 316. 138 Buelow, Thorough‐Bass Accompaniment, 282. 139 Buelow, Thorough‐Bass Accompaniment, 382. 140 Heartz, The Galant Style, 210. 141 “1) durch mannigfaltigere Verzierungen der Melodie, und Zergliederungen der melodischen Hauptnoten, durch mehr hervorstehende Absätze und Einschnitte, und durch mehr Abwechslung der rhythmischen Theile derselben, und besonders durch das Aneinanderreihen solcher melodischen Theile, die nicht immer in der nächsten Beziehung auf einander stehen u. s .w. 2) durch eine weniger verwickelte Harmonie, und 3) dadurch, daß die übrigen Stimmender Hauptstimme bloß zur Begleitung dienen, und als begleitende Stimmen mehrentheils keinen ganz unmittelbaren Antheil an dem Ausdruck der Empfindung haben u. s. w.“ Heinrich Christoph Koch, Musikalisches Lexikon, Frankfurt/Main 1802 (facsimile rpt. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001), 1453. Translation from Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York: Schirmer, 1980), 23.

68 Here Koch gives perhaps one of the clearest recorded descriptions of the typical characteristics of the galant style. It also constitutes a good summary of what different writers during the first half of the eighteenth century wrote about music of their own time.142

Discussion To what extent was J. S. Bach affected by these currents, primarily in Dresden, where the Italian influence was obvious? Marshall suggests that contacts with Dresden, in combination with the leadership of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, led Bach to compose more and more in a style that can be described as galant, at least when it came to music that he was asked to compose – such as the different kinds of secular celebratory cantatas – but that the style also influenced works such as the Mass in B minor and the Goldberg Variations.143 Perhaps it is going too far to call Bach’s compositional style from the 1730s “galant,” at least if one considers how contemporary writers described the style. However, in some movements, in some pieces, the characteristics can be found.

Possibly Bach was also extra‐sensitive to different stylistic trends after the critique that was levelled at him by Johann Adolph Scheibe in an article from 1737.144 Scheibe was a competent music critic and theoretician, but also a composer, and strongly influenced musically by Telemann, who, like Scheibe, was based in Hamburg. Stylistically, Scheibe argued for a musical style that was in line with the developing Enlightenment Era philosophy and its emphasis on the natural. Scheibe was of the opinion that Bach’s compositional style was too bombastic and complex, which meant that the beauty of compositions was overshadowed by too much artificial artistic skill. Bach’s compositions were, furthermore, too difficult to perform, and since all the ornaments were written out, Bach left no freedom to the performer. The artificial had led Bach away from the natural, from the noble to the

142 Heartz, The Galant Style, 1005. 143 Marshall, “Bach the Progressive,” 328 and 338. Marshall is strongly contradicted by Frederick Neumann in the article “Bach: Progressive or Conservative and the Authorship of the Goldberg Aria,” The Musical Quarterly, 71.3 (1985): 281‐294. For Neumann it is unthinkable that Bach should have degenerated into writing in a style that would touch upon the galant. Neumann cannot even concede that the third movement in the trio sonata from the Musical Offering BWV 1079 has galant influences, something that is commented upon for example by Wolff in Bach: The Learned Musician, 430.

69 obscure. Scheibe concludes his article by saying that even if one admires Bach for his work and his toil, that admiration is wasted because the music fights against nature and reason.145 If one relates this critique to a Telemannian compositional style, or, for that matter, even to that which is described by Mattheson at this time, it is clear that Scheibe criticised Bach precisely because he retains the old, learned style – instead of turning toward the beautiful surfaces of the galant style in the same way that, above all, Telemann had done.

This critique can have affected Bach, and may have led to the writing of the Sonata in E major in the way that he did. I suggest that the sonata can be described as galant, but at the same time that the sonata balances between different genres, it also balances between a learned and a galant style. The decorations in the first movement are connected to the galant style, but at the same time, they are rather too extensive to be typical – not least, if we compare them with the ornamented slow movements of Telemann’s Methodische Sonaten.146 In Telemann, we find short, fairly simple ornaments, but in Bach’s sonata there are many more notes in the ornaments and they are more complex. Bach also uses rich rhythmic variation in the way that Koch describes (see page 68), and at the same time, breaks conventions by letting the syncopations and the pauses on accented parts of the measure primarily lie in the bass voice. According to conventions of the galant style, the bass voice should have neither obvious traits of imitation nor any particularly important rhythm.

Summary In this section on genre and style, I have touched upon how the Sonata in E major has been categorised by previous research from the perspective of the sonata genre, and where it has been seen to fall between the church sonata and the

144 Bach Dokumente II, nr 400. The critique that Scheibe put forth is built on the fact that he was mainly familiar with Bach’s vocal works since his childhood and school days in Leipzig. 145 George J. Buelow, “In Defence of J. A. Scheibe against J S Bach,” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 101 (1974‐1975): 87‐88. Bach did not respond to this critique personally, it was done by professor of rhetoric at the University of Leipzig Johann Abraham Birnbaum, who was a good friend of Bach. It has been generally accepted that the pamphlet that gave an answer to Scheibe’s criticism was formulated and written by Birnbaum, but that Bach was perfectly aware of and influenced what was written. The pamphlet is published in Bach Dokumente II, nr 409. 146 Georg Philipp Telemann, Methodische Sonaten, ed. Max Seiffert (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1965).

70 chamber sonata. Furthermore, connections to the dominant musical preferences in Dresden and Berlin were also discussed.

As we have established in the excursus on the galant style, this style is known for its various decorations of the melody, short phrases, changeable rhythms, dominance of the melodic voice over the less important bass, and by its simpler harmonies, often in combination with a slower harmonic rhythm.

From both a stylistic and genre perspective, the sonata is more incongruous than it first seems, even though the galant style dominates in the same way as the characteristics of a chamber sonata.

Instrumentation The choice of instrumentation is another factor dependent on the socio‐cultural context. Perhaps this choice is especially important with the Sonata in E major if we assume from the dedication to Fredersdorf that this sonata must have eventually landed on the music stand of the flute‐playing Frederick II. Which instrument was intended? What did it look like? How was it used? How did Bach write for the flute? Which function, what meaning, did the instrument have? Some of these questions are too large to be properly addressed here, and perhaps they are not even decisive for the discussion of the Sonata in E major. At the same time, I would suggest that if we speak of a socio‐cultural context that somehow leads Bach to write a particular sonata intended for a particular instrument, it is relevant to look at the question of instrumentation. From the interpreter’s perspective, the question of which flute we should use is relevant to the highest degree.

Excursus – the flute in Germany147 French musicians introduced Germany to the flute during the first decade of the eighteenth century. Its development from the Renaissance flute, cylindrically bored in

147 For a more thorough discussion, see among others, Hans‐Peter Schmitz, Querflöte und Querflötenspiel in Deutschland während des Barockzeitalters (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1952); Ardal Powell, The Flute, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); Paul Carroll, Baroque Woodwind Instruments: A Guide to Their History, Repertoire and Basic Technique (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999); and Jonathan Wainwright and Peter Holman, eds., From Renaissance to Baroque: Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seventeenth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).

71 one piece, to the baroque flute, conically bored in three pieces, took place primarily in France. It was also there that the instrument experienced its first golden age at the end of the seventeenth century. We have an extensive extant repertoire of pieces and suites for different numbers of flutes and basso continuo written by composers like Marais, Philidor, de la Barre, and Hotteterre, dating from the period around the turn of the eighteenth century and forward. At first, it was normally noted that the music was written for recorder, violin, oboe, or flute, but composers became successively more instrument‐specific, leading to more specific instrumentation instructions. Apart from his compositions, Hotteterre also wrote an instruction book originally intended for amateurs that had great success when published in 1707. As the flute spread through northern and central Europe, the book was translated into many languages and became stylistically influential for how one played on the instrument.148 One of the first notations that a flutist was present in a German orchestra or ensemble comes from Dresden, where French flutists had been present from 1709. In 1715, the French virtuoso Buffardin came to Dresden but only a few years later the account books give flutists with German names, among them Johann Martin Blochwitz and Johann Joachim Quantz. The unique music culture that happened around the court in Dresden affected the German music scene in general and played a decisive role for how the instrument and its repertoire developed in Germany. Besides Quantz, both Telemann and J. S. Bach were influenced by this culture, not least when it came to music written for flute.149 Mattheson was among the first in Germany to publish music specifically written for flute with the collection Der Brauchbare Virtuoso,150 composed in 1717 and published in 1720.151 Stylistically, these pieces are clearly influenced by Italian violin music with its continuous sixteenth‐note or eighth‐note motion in arpeggiated figures (see Illustration

148 Jaques Hotteterre, Principes de la Flûte traversière ou flûte d’Allemagne; de la flute à bec, ou flute douce; et du haut‐bois, (Paris: no pub., 1707). After Hotteterre’s book, several similar instruction books were published, especially in England, Holland, and France, but before Quantz’s Versuch, no instruction book had any substantial material different from Hotteterre’s publication. 149 Mary Oleskiewicz, “The Flute at Dresden,” in From Renaissance to Baroque: Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Wainwright and Holman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 145‐165. 150 Johann Mattheson, Der Brauchbare Virtuoso, Welcher sich (nach beliebiger überlegung der Vorrede) mit Zwölf neuen Kammer‐Sonaten auf der Flute Traversiere, der Violine, und dem Claviere/ beij Gelegenheit hören lassen mag (Hamburg: no pub., 1720). 151 In the epilogue to the sixteen‐page‐long foreword Mattheson writes that the sonatas were composed already three years earlier, 1717, and if had the opportunity to write new sonatas he would have written them in a more elegant style.

72 9). This is a style that affected Quantz’s compositions and that he maintained during his entire active period, as did Frederick II in his own compositional output.

Illustration 9: Sonata III from Der Brauchbare Virtuso of J. Mattheson, opening of movement 2.

In order for music written with continuously arpeggiated movements that often take advantage of the c’ octave to function acoustically on the flute, it is necessary that the lowest register is as strong as possible. This was also a prominent sonic feature among the French flutes from around 1700, instruments that were taken as models when the German instrument builders began building flutes during the beginning of the eighteenth century. By using a strongly conical boring, they achieved an acoustically strong lowest register, at times at the expense of the highest register in the third octave that could be unclear and difficult to use. This type of boring became the dominant one, even when the flute’s construction changed in a decisive way shortly after 1720. Because the different courts of Europe used different pitch standards, it was necessary to be able to adapt wind instruments to a pitch that could vary from a’ ≈ 390 Hz to a’≈ 422 Hz. This was solved by dividing the three‐part flute into four parts instead. Because the part that was used by the left hand lay closest to the mouthpiece, it had the greatest affect on the pitch, and could easily be changed out for another with a different length that gave another pitch. Johann Joachim Quantz, apart from being a flutist in Dresden and teacher of the crown prince who later became King Frederick II of Prussia, was also a flute maker. Some characteristics that distinguished his instruments included the strong conical boring, thick walls that gave room for a large inner diameter, low pitch (the preserved flutes from his production all have a pitch of a’ ≈ 390 Hz) and an extra key in order to produce the enharmonic difference between d# and eb. Taken altogether, this made Quantz’s flutes very appropriate for music with a low tessitura and an arpeggiated motion. In

73 addition, because of this extra key, his instruments were especially appropriate for keys like E major and Eb major.152 Around Europe in general, however, flute builders began to reduce the conical angle of the flute boring step by step, which made the higher register more effective, something that was important for an increasingly elegant sound ideal that often used the flute as a kind of acoustic crown at the top of the soundscape. These instruments were also much more easily played and did not demand as much air. The pitch was raised successively, and during the 1730s there was a general rejection of the original French low pitch of a’ ≈ 390 Hz (more or less a whole tone under modern pitch) and more standardisation around a’ ≈ 410 – 420 Hz. The flute won popularity quickly in Germany and the rest of Europe in general and had soon overtaken the recorder. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the size of the repertoire grew substantially, including the moderately difficult repertoire for “Liebhaber.”

The flute and Bach The purpose of this section is to give an overview of how the flute successively, albeit sporadically, became a part of the instrumentarium for which Bach composed. The picture that reveals itself in the preserved repertoire suggests that he did not always have a flutist in Leipzig. However, it seems also to be the case that when there was a flutist at Bach’s disposal, this flutist was unusually gifted, because Bach composed more technically demanding music for the flute than any other composer.

Bach’s first acquaintance with the flute could have been in 1717, just before he began his position in Cöthen, when he was in Dresden to play an organ competition against Louis Marchand, a competition that was arranged by Volumier, the Konzertmeister in Dresden.153 In Dresden at this time, the French flutist Buffardin occupied the first chair (see page 72); it is possible that Bach became acquainted with Buffardin in connection with this visit, and through him had a first introduction to the instrument’s possibilities and limitations.

152 Mary Oleskiewicz, “The Trio in Bach’s Musical Offering: A Salute to Frederick’s Tastes and Quantz’s Flutes?” in The Music of J. S. Bach, Analysis and Interpretation, ed. David Schulenberg (Lincoln Neb.: University of Nebraska, 1999), 96. 153 Marshall, “Bach’s Compositions for Solo Flute,” 479. Marchand never came to the competition. He disappeared from Dresden the day before.

74 The first compositions of Bach in which the flute figures prominently are the cantatas BWV 173a and BWV 184a, as well as the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto BWV 1019. Besides the fact that the cantatas can clearly be traced to Bach’s time in Cöthen, since both cantatas celebrate Prince Leopold of Anhalt‐Cöthen, it is impossible to say with certainty when they were written. Most current writers date at least BWV 173a to 1722, for several reasons, including the autograph’s handwriting, as well as the content of the libretto, and its execution.154

Were there any flutists in Cöthen? The only flutists that are named in connection with Bach and Cöthen are the “Cammer Musicus” Johann Heinrich Freytag, and Johann Gottlieb Würdig.155 Freytag died sometime in 1720, and Würdig became the director of the city pipers in 1717, and cannot be traced after 1722.156 It seems, therefore, unfruitful to try to date the cantatas using the documented presence of the flutists.

Besides the cantatas, the only other preserved composition that requires a flutist, and that can definitely be connected to Bach’s time in Cöthen, is the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto in D major, scored for a solo group with flute, violin, and harpsichord, as well as a tutti group. Both the flute and violin voices have a moderate level of difficulty, while the harpsichord part is highly virtuosic. The concerto was performed in its entirety in 1719 on the occasion of the inauguration of a new harpsichord for the court in Cöthen.157 The middle movement of the concerto, scored for a chamber music combination of flute, violin and harpsichord, could have been composed as early as 1717, before Bach’s above‐mentioned visit to Dresden. It should also be noted that the flute part of the preserved celebratory cantata for Prince Leopold BWV 173a has a very moderate level of difficulty, and even though the flute part in BWV 184a is more technically demanding, it does not

154 Marshall, “Bach’s Compositions for Solo Flute,” 480; Ulrich Prinz, Johann Sebastian Bachs Instrumentarium. Originalquellen, Besetzung, Verwendung (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2005), 247; Hans‐ Joachim Schulze, Die Bach‐Kantaten. Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs (Stuttgart: Carus Verlag, 2006), 670. 155 Prinz , Bachs Instrumentarium, 258‐259. 156 Ardal Powell with David Lasocki, “Bach and the Flute: the Players, the Instruments, the Music,” Early Music vol. 23.1 (1995): 19‐20. 157 Christoph Wolff, “Johann Sebastian Bach,” in The New Grove Online http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed on March 28, 2007).

75 have the solo role. Rather, Bach uses the flutes either as a sound colour together with the violin or in more simple descant parts.

Bach took up his appointment 1723 as cantor of Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church and began his career by composing cantatas for all of the Sundays of the church year. Of the five cycles of cantatas he is documented to have composed, only three cycles are extant today, of which only the first two are complete; they come from the period between June of 1723 and May of 1725.158

In the first cycle, there is a flute part in four of the cantatas, all from the spring of 1724: BWV 67 performed on April 16th, BWV 172 on May 28th, BWV 173 on May 29th and BWV 184 on May 30th. The concentration of cantatas around the end of May coincides with the dates of Pentecost in 1724. These three Pentecost cantatas are based on previously composed works; BWV 173 and BWV 184 are based on BWV 173a and BWV 184a (see above) with the addition of new text; BWV 172 was written in 1714 in Weimar and performed there in another key. It is possible to suggest that Bach had two flutists available for this Pentecost festival, but it is equally possible that this was an exception. Cantata BWV 67 requires a flute that has an independent voice in one movement; otherwise the flute plays colla parte with the oboe or violin, or in octaves with the viola. It seems to be an exceptional event that Bach had access to a flutist for this cantata. The question of how the St. John Passion was first scored still remains, since it was performed for the first time just one week earlier, on April 7, 1724.

The St. John Passion that we know today engages two flutes, and has two arias where they serve as obbligato instruments.159 Whether Bach actually scored the

158 Every annual cycle of cantatas began with the first Sunday after Holy Trinity Sunday, which had the practical aspect that Bach began his position on that Sunday in 1723. Otherwise, it would perhaps have been more natural for Bach to follow the liturgical year, from the First Sunday of Advent to Christ the King Sunday. 159 The movements are numbered 9 and 35 respectively in the Neue Bach‐Ausgabe, which is the edition that is used regularly for most performances of the St. John Passion today. It is based on the changes made in 1739 and the fourth version from 1749 in combination with the score that was completed about ten years after Bach’s death. Movement number 9 is played by two flutes in unison and number 35 is often played by one flute against one oboe da caccia, but there is a notation in the posthumously completed score, that even number 35 should be played by two flutes in unison and also two oboes da caccia in unison. See Hans‐Joachim Schulze and Christoph Wolff, Bach Compendium:

76 first version of the work for two flutes has been questioned by Alfred Dürr, among others.160 Dürr points out that we only have the vocal ripieno parts from the first version, and doubled parts from the string group. There is no surviving score, and there are no preserved parts for wind instruments, and none of the vocal or instrumental solo parts have survived either.161 In 1725, when the work was to be performed anew in the St. Thomas Church, (the 1724 performance occurred in the St. Nicolai Church) Bach wrote new material, and made substantial changes. In this version, there are two clearly separate flute parts that contain soloistic material.

In general, one can say that the role of the flute in the most commonly performed version of the St. John Passion is relatively insignificant. Either the flutes are used as sound colour, in so much as they play colla parte or octavate the viola or tenor voice, or the keys are such in the more soloistic movements that the instrument’s sound is obscured.162 The one exception is the short movement numbered 23f in the Neue Bach‐Ausgabe where the flutes play in a range and a key that suits the instrument.

Can it simply have been that the St. John Passion was performed without flutes in 1724? How then would the version from 1724 have been scored in the movements that we know today to be arias with flute (“Ich folge dir gleichfalls mit freudigen Schritten” and “Zerfließe, mein Herz, in Fluten der Zahren”)? The alternatives are limited; solo oboe or violin are both possible since these two melody instruments already appear in the orchestra. Perhaps it is most likely that both of these arias were played by the violin, an idea that can be supported by looking at Aria 35 in the 1749 version, where the violin doubles the flute part – something that is rarely heard in contemporary performances.

Analytisch‐bibliographisches Repertorium der Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs, Band 3, (Leipzig: Peters, 1988), 985‐1023. 160 Alfred Dürr, St John Passion. Genesis, Transmission, and Meaning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 161 In vocal and instrumental solo parts from this time, the entire work is included, not only the solo voices as is the common practice today. Soloists played or sang everything while the instrumentalists and singers of the ripieno joined and strengthened the parts the needed larger numbers of musicians. 162 The arias are in B major and F minor respective, two keys that are acoustically weak on the flute compared with sharp keys with few sharps. See page 115 for a deeper discussion of the way different keys affect the flute’s sound.

77 Further support for the idea that the first version from 1724 was scored without flutes can be seen in the revision that Bach had intended to make before the performance of the work in 1739 – again in the St. Nicolai Church. Here, he gives the following instrumentation at the beginning of the score: oboe 1 and 2; violin 1 and 2; viola, and basso continuo. This version, which was never finished because the performance was cancelled since the city did not give its permission, was based on the score of the 1724 version. Bach wrote down ten movements in a revised form before the cancellation, regularly scoring for oboe, but nowhere did he notate that the flute should play.163

We do not have any evidence that Bach had a flutist available on a regular basis before August of 1724. Up until the middle of November of the same year there is at least one movement in almost every cantata from this period that demands a high level of skill from a flutist, often in a style that is reminiscent of that which Mattheson used in the examples above (see page 73). No other period in Bach’s production has such a concentration of works with flute than the fall of 1724.

It is striking that during this period Bach seems to have treated the flute exclusively as a solo instrument. Only in rare cases does the flute play in movements with a larger orchestration, and even then, it is used in a solo capacity. One example of this is the first movement of Cantata BWV 94, where the chorale is set against an instrumental movement clearly exemplifying characteristics of a flute concerto, see Illustration 10:

163 For further discussion of this instrumentation question, see Schulze and Wolff, Bach Compendium, 985‐1023. It should also be added that the viola da gamba is missing from this accounting despite the fact that the aria “Es ist vollbracht” in the versions that we know require a gamba. The lute part is not in the same way exclusively for written for lute, because Bach replaces the lute with the organ in some versions.

Illustration 10: BWV 94, measures 15‐17.

It is only later that Bach uses the flute also as a sound colour in orchestral movements.

After 1724 the flute appears more sporadically in Bach’s preserved production, which is in agreement with the idea that Bach clearly saw the flute as an instrument that was not completely necessary but desirable for its ability to create contrasts. The wind instruments that Bach himself saw as necessary were the trumpet (three), the oboe (three of which one could be an oboe da caccia), as well as the bassoon (one).164 In March of 1729, Bach takes over the directorship of Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum, which coincides with the period where his use of the flute increases

164 Bach Dokumente I, nr 22.

79 markedly. It is possible that he could use these musicians, the majority of whom were students at the University of Leipzig, in the different performances that took place in the city’s churches.165

Bach’s chamber music with flute As an introduction to this section, I first present an overview of Bach chamber music works that include the flute. The more detailed descriptions of these works that follow are organised according to the order of this table.

Partita (Solo) A minor, flute, BWV 1013, ca 1724

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Allemande A minor |:19:||:27:| = 48 C Corrente A minor |:22:||:30:| = 62 3 4 Sarabande A minor |:16:||:30:| = 46 3 4 Bourré Anglaise A minor |:20:||:50:| = 70 2 4

Sonata E minor , flute and basso continuo, BWV 1034, ca 1724

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Adagio ma non tanto E minor 30 C Allegro E minor 70 Alla breve Andante G major 55 3 4 Allegro E minor |:42:||:46:| = 88 3 4

165 Prinz, Bachs Instrumentarium, 259.

Sonata B minor, flute and obbligato keyboard instrument, BWV 1030, ca 1736

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Andante B minor 119 C Largo e dolce D major |:8:||:8:| = 16 6 8 Presto B minor 83 Alla breve [Allegro] B minor |:32:||:32:| = 64 12 16

Sonata A major, flute and obbligato keyboard instrument, BWV 1032 ca 1736

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Vivace A major 61|…|2 (incomplete) C Largo e dolce A minor 37 6 8 Allegro A major 255 3 8

Trio sonata G major, flute, violin and basso continuo, BWV 1039, ca 1736‐1741?

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Adagio G major 28 C Allegro ma non presto G major 113 3 4 Andante E minor 18 C Presto G major 142 Alla breve

Trio sonata c minor , flute, violin and basso continuo, BWV 1079, 1747

Movement Key Number of measures Time signature Largo C minor |:16:||:32:| = 48 3 4 Allegro C minor 249 2 4 Andante Eb major 30 C Allegro C minor 113 6 8

81 Previous Bach research suggested that most chamber music works were composed during Bach’s period in Cöthen between 1717 and 1723, but the only instrumental work with flute that can be dated with any certainty to this period is the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto from 1719. Concerning the other works, convincing evidence has been shown that they were produced in the Leipzig period between 1723 and 1750. As we have already seen, it was not likely that there were flutists in Leipzig before April of 1724. On the other hand, Bach must have had access to a very capable flutist during the fall of 1724; it is because of this that the Solo Partita in A minor BWV 1013, and the Sonata in E minor BWV 1034, are now considered to be from 1724 – even if this is not possible to prove with certainty.166 However, we can say with complete certainty that the E minor Sonata was written before 1727, the year from which we have a score copy written by Johann Peter Kellner, who was one of the most prolific copyists of Bach’s music.167

Both of these four‐movement works make great demands on the flutist. In its form, the partita is a relatively typical German suite, consisting of four movements with dance movement titles. All of the movements are also bipartite with reprises. The partita is one of the few works, perhaps the only one, for flute from the eighteenth century that takes advantage of the entire range of the flute from d’ to a’’’.

The Sonata in E minor BWV 1034 for flute and basso continuo is a sonata da chiesa with a harmonically complex first movement with continuous suspensions between the flute voice and the bass. The opening walking bass in the style of an andante movement later becomes clearly imitative. The sonata’s second movement is one of the earliest examples in Bach of what Scheibe described as a Sonate auf Concertenart (see page 62), that is, the composition of a sonata movement as if it was a part of a solo concerto. Here the solo and tutti sections can be discerned more clearly than in perhaps any of the other examples from Bach’s production. The third movement, in the parallel key of G major, is built up over an ostinato bass.

166 Christoph Wolff, “Johann Sebastian Bach, in The New Grove Online http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed on March 28). These ideas surrounding the dating are also discussed in Marcello Castellani, “J. S. Bach’s ‘Solo pour la flûte traversière’: Köthen oder Leipzig?” Tibia 14 (1989): 567‐573. BWV 1013 is given the general title of Partita but in the only surviving manuscript, not an autograph, the piece is titled Solo pour la Flute Traversiere par J S Bach. See Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” 8. 167 Russell Stinson, The Bach Manuscripts of Johann Peter Kellner and His Circle: A Case Study in Reception History (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 166.

82 The sonata concludes with a bipartite allegro, which despite its obvious clarity and simplicity shows a great deal of dialog between the voices.

The Sonata in B minor BWV 1030 and the Sonata in A major BWV 1032, both for flute and obbligato keyboard instrument, were probably composed in the middle of the 1730s. For both of these sonatas there are autograph manuscripts to consult. The dating to 1736 is based on when these autographs were written down, which probably only gives the latest possible date for when they could have been composed.168 It is, however, relatively likely that both the sonatas were written during the period when Bach led the Collegium Musicum. The Sonata in B minor is also one of Bach’s most extensive and intricate chamber music works, and Marshall further suggests that it could have been planned for Buffardin who was still in Dresden in the middle of the 1730s.169

This trio structure for two instruments, where the keyboard instrument’s right hand has an equally important function as the solo instrument, led to a further development of the sonata genre manifesting in the late‐eighteenth‐century sonatas for keyboard with accompanying melodic instrument. Bach works are a precursor to this compositional style where the keyboard instrument is said to be freed from its accompanying role and made independent; it is during the Leipzig period that Bach develops this technique. The six violin sonatas BWV 1014‐1019 are the first composition of this type, originally written in this form and for this combination of instruments. An earlier version of the harpsichord part for the Sonata in B minor BWV 1030 survives notated in G minor. It has, therefore, been discussed whether the sonata was originally written for oboe and keyboard, or whether the G minor version was originally for flute or even existed as a trio sonata for two flutes.170

It is also possible that the sonata could originally have been a trio sonata reworked by Bach, as he clearly did in the six trio sonatas for organ BWV 525‐530. At least some of the movements of the organ sonatas exist in previous instrumental

168 Schmitz, “Kritischer Bericht,” 29. 169 Marshall, “Bach’s Compositions for Solo Flute,” 217. 170 See, among others, Barthold Kuijken’s introduction to Breitkopf’s edition of the sonata, and Michael Heinemann, ed., Das Bach‐Lexikon. (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2000), 193.

83 versions from cantatas and other similar works.171 Bach notated these six organ sonatas in a strict trio structure for two manuals and pedal. In comparison to this structure, the Sonata in B minor is much more complex. It is interesting to note that by composing a written‐out harpsichord part, Bach again can be seen to limit the freedom of the musician in relation to the notation. With a figured bass line, the innovative capacity of the keyboardist was important since he was expected to be able to translate the bass line and figures into a multi‐voice setting with correct voice leading. With an obbligato keyboard part, one can say that Bach takes command over the performance.

The opening andante of the Sonata in B minor has a contrapuntal and harmonic complexity like no other chamber music work from this period. The movement is another example of a sonata movement written in the ritornello form of a concerto. It is followed by a richly ornamented siciliano movement (although it is titled Largo e dolce) where the obbligato keyboard part is a de facto written‐out figured bass line, far from our often relatively thin figured bass realisations. Here the figured bass realisation is often in five voices, and the highest voice is regularly in the same tessitura, or even higher than the flute part. Near the end of the movement he writes an octave doubling of the bass line.

The sonata’s final movement is bipartite and consists of a strict introductory fugue, in what can be called stile antico, followed by a gigue built around imitation between the two upper voices.

The autograph for the Sonata in A major is found on the three systems that were blank at the bottom of the score to the Concerto in C minor for two harpsichords and orchestra. After the end of the concerto score, the flute sonata takes up the rest of the systems on the following page of the notebook. Why Bach notated it this way can only be speculated on, but one possibility is that both the harpsichord concerto and the flute sonata were intended for the same concert with the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, and that they appear together simply for practical reasons. The sonata is not complete; about 46 measures from the first movement

171 Siegbert Rampe, ed., Bachs Klavier‐ und Orgelwerke. Das Handbuch, (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2008), 799.

84 are missing. They were simply cut out of the autograph sometime during Bach’s lifetime.172

The incomplete introductory movement as well as the concluding third movement are based on ritornello structures, but in a much simpler compositional style than in the Sonata in B minor. The second movement, called Largo e dolce, is a siciliano‐like movement in the somewhat surprising key of A minor. It would have been natural to use F# minor, the parallel key to A major. The key of the middle movement has led to speculations about an original version of the sonata with the outer movements in C major.

The preserved chamber music that includes flute and is considered to be definitely by Bach, also includes two trio sonatas, the Trio Sonata in G major BWV 1039 for two flutes and basso continuo and the Trio Sonata in C minor from the Musical Offering BWV 1079 for flute, violin, and basso continuo.

BWV 1039 is a sonata da chiesa in four movements, slow – fast – slow – fast, that possibly originally was a trio sonata in G major for two violins and basso continuo. Later, around 1740, Bach reworked the sonata and adapted it for gamba and obbligato keyboard.173 As a trio sonata for two flutes, the work is not particularly successful acoustically. The tessitura of the flute parts lies in a relatively low range, making little use of the arpeggiated figures that are so effective in both of the solo partita’s first two movements and in three of the Sonata in E minor’s four movements.

The four movements of the trio sonata from the Musical Offering BWV 1079 are based on the so‐called royal theme from Bach’s famous visit to the Berlin court of Frederick II. The key of C minor is unfavourable to the flute at first glance, but with a flute from the tradition represented by Quantz (see page 73), the work functions

172 That it was done during Bach’s time can be confirmed since a number of bass notes of the concerto were also cut off and Bach wrote them in himself in letter notation. For a more thorough discussion on the reason and possible reconstructions see Michael Marissen, “A Critical Reappraisal of J. S. Bach’s A‐ Major Flute Sonata,” The Journal of Musicology 6.3 (1988): 367‐386, and Jeanne R. Swack, “J. S. Bach’s A Major Flute Sonata BWV 1032 Revisited,” in Bach Studies 2, ed. Daniel R. Melamed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 154‐174, as well as the editions of Bärenreiter (Schmitz), Breitkopf (Kuijken) and Henle (Eppstein) that all three present their own attempts at reconstruction. 173 Eppstein, J. S. Bachs Sonaten, 73.

85 very well, even though it demands a high level of technical ability. Stylistically, the sonata is a kind of homage to Frederick II with clearly galant characteristics, especially in the third movement.174

Apart from the sonatas that briefly have been presented here, there are three other flute sonatas where there still is a great deal of uncertainty about authorship: the two three‐movement sonatas for flute and obbligato keyboard instrument in Eb major BWV 1031, and G minor BWV 1020, respectively, as well as a sonata in four movements for flute and basso continuo in C major BWV 1033.

How can we relate the Sonata in E major to the writing of the other chamber music works? As we have already seen in the section on genre and style, the Sonata in E major is simple in its harmonic structure with a generally slower harmonic rhythm. The sonata also has relatively few instances of imitation or dialog between the two voices, something that is so common in Bach’s other compositions. Instead, melody voice of the Sonata in E major dominates completely over the bass voice.

Summary In the section on instrumentation, I focused on the flute as an instrument, beginning with its early‐eighteenth‐century construction when it became an increasingly common part of German ensembles and orchestras. The centre of this development was Dresden; it was also in Dresden that an instrument‐idiomatic compositional style developed that was a further development of violin‐idiomatic writing with it’s continuously arpeggiated motion.

I have also established that Bach did not seriously begin to use the flute before the autumn of 1724, but when he did begin, he wrote solistically for it in a way that is more technically demanding and more advanced than other flute music of the time. The very first performance of the St. John Passion took place in April of 1724, and even though today we take for granted that the work is scored with flutes, I present

174 The literature concerning the Musical Offering in general is very rich. The trio sonata in particular is treated, among others, by Oleskiewicz (see Oleskiewicz, “The Trio in Bach’s Musical Offering,” 79‐110) who lays particular focus on the function of the flute in the work. See also the present dissertation’s section on the galant style, page 66‐69.

86 an argument that suggests that the flutes were not introduced to the score until the performance in 1725.

The amount of Bach chamber music that includes flute is not extensive, but it is stylistically interesting. And it is highly likely that the development of these works covers a time period of almost 25 years – from the Partita in A minor from 1724 (or possibly earlier) to the trio sonata from the Musical Offering from 1747. In this section, I have briefly examined the different sonatas from a structural standpoint, and it can be established that the Sonata in E major is relatively different from the other works, perhaps primarily concerning the simple harmonic structure, and the dominance of the melodic voice over the bass voice, as well as the insignificant degree of imitation between the voices.

Concluding reflections I have tried to construct a historical socio‐cultural context of the Sonata in E major in this chapter. Many of the threads in this discussion lead to the conclusion that the E major Sonata is a work that was written for a special recipient in a specific milieu. This idea was strengthened by a review of Bach’s other chamber music with flute. Among these works, only the E major Sonata uses an idiom that sets the melody before the harmony to the high degree that Scheibe wished for, Telemann composed, and Mattheson taught. In the other Bach flute repertoire, a contrapuntal attitude always shines through, and we find the ritornello form and an unbroken dialog between different voices. In the E major Sonata, only the Siciliano even comes close to this contrapuntal ideal. Perhaps it is exactly for this reason that the sonata is so challenging. Perhaps it is also the key itself that is most challenging; even for Bach, E major is a rare key, often used in the vocal works when the text and music describe emotional pain or sorrow.

There are many aspects of a historical socio‐cultural context that I have not touched upon in this chapter; I have tried to restrict myself to a context that stems from a study of the score to see where it can lead me. In this way, the chapter can be seen as the description of one historical socio‐cultural context.

Chapter 5: Analysis To begin, I will discuss the notation175 from the perspective of its inventio, and how this possible inventio manifests itself differently in each movement. I will also look at how each movement is constructed, both from a horizontal – melodic – perspective as well as a vertical – harmonic– one. Here, we also find written‐out ornamentation, among other things, used as bridging passages.

Secondly, I will shed some light on different aspects connected to the instrumentation specified by J. S. Bach. In this second section, I will also discuss questions of temperament as well as the significance that the choice of keyboard instrument has on the tonal development and articulation of the flute.

The third section will take up performance practice conventions relevant for interpreters. Apart from the ornamentation, I also discuss other performance practice elements like tempo and articulation marks.

The chapter is, thus, organised according to the model of the work’s sound structure discussed in chapter 3 (see page 29). The sources for Bach’s Sonata in E major BWV 1035 were discussed in Chapter 4 (see page 46). From the conclusions reached there, I will be using manuscript b) as the basis for this chapter.

Notation In this section, we will focus on the sonata from an internal musical perspective, looking for possible inventio in each movement. Inventio is not necessarily the same as thematic melodic material. A tonality key can be an inventio. An inventio for a movement could just as easily be a rhythmical figure, a compositional technique, a genre, a harmonic pattern, or a combination of different elements from more than one of these categories. Inventio constitutes, hypothetically, the musical material that drives the composer to make compositional decisions that leads to a certain composition. Fundamentally, inventio represents the work’s generative idea.

175 I use the term “notation” in this chapter to refer to the work’s notated form.

89 Movement 1 – Adagio ma non tanto The sonata’s opening movement is only 20 measures long. The movement is characterised by a rich ornamentation in the flute part, but behind these ornaments there is a clear structure. The movements are bipartite without repeats, but with a concluding coda. After eight measures, a cadence in the dominant of B major concludes the first part. After another nine measures, the movement cadences in E major, followed by a three‐measure coda.

The structure of the movement is reminiscent of a prelude to a French suite. Such a movement was expected to have an improvisatory character, giving the musician a chance to warm up and, at the same time, establish the tonality for the rest of the suite. There are no clear stylistic requirements for a prelude, but to provide a movement of this type with repeats would be counterproductive, because the improvisatory character would be lost. We can naturally turn the tables on this argument and see the absence of repeats as an indication that the rich notation really is just ornamentation that should be heard only once and, therefore, we have the option of handling it relatively freely.

Bach, in relationship to his contemporaries, was generally extremely careful to notate ornamentation (or diminutions, as it was also called), and he was even criticised for this in his own time (see page 69). It was much more common from this period to have slow movements that gave the skeleton of the piece for the performing musician to decorate with ornamentation. Bach did this only rarely. He chose to notate more than was common, at least within the frame of an Italian‐ influenced tradition. We could attribute this to his richer harmony and tighter texture with a moving bass voice, two aspects that make it much more difficult for a musician to freely ornament without the risk of destroying the music.176 It is also possible that Bach was following the established practice of many French composers who notated everything to keep musicians from involving themselves in the composition process itself.

There are ornaments in the flute part as well as in the bass part, although the character of these ornaments is different. The flute’s ornamentation consists of

176 Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation in Baroque and Post‐Baroque Music, with Special Emphasis on J. S. Bach (Princeton N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1978), 544.

90 many notes, while the ornaments in the bass part can be described as various kinds of written‐out simple short trills.

If we look at the movement as a prelude, is it possible to suggest that genre can have been the movement’s inventio? How did Bach compose in relation to the conventional expectations of a prelude? And what are these expectations? Is it possible to define them at all? A quick survey of the other movements for which Bach used the label “Preludium” [Prelude] is enough to see that it is impossible to generalise. In the French Suites for harpsichord, there are no preludes at all: in the lute suites, the preludes lead into a quick section, often in 3/8 time. In the Well‐ Tempered Clavier, we can see many preludes, but they have a completely different character, and also do not look much like one another. It seems as if the Well‐ Tempered Clavier’s goal is to give as many different models of preludes as possible, where the prelude is not tied to any expected form. If we, however, look at French music, for example the suites of Marain Marais, we can find a striking resemblance to the Sonata in E major. That similarity begins to dissipate though when Bach consistently uses sequences in this short movement, and even if the free character is present, it is broken by the triplet motion in the flute voice in measures 6‐7 and 15‐16. In these short passages the movement, in combination with a figure in the bass voice that requires rhythmical stability, develops a regular and sequential structure that begins to argue against the concept of the prelude. In these sections, the movement is clearly guided instead by the harmonic development. The fact that both voices take turns dominating the texture also makes it difficult to see the movement as a prelude in the French suite tradition. As we shall also see, and as was already hinted at in Chapter 4, the entire sonata becomes characterised by an ambivalence toward genre, style, and tradition.

The movement’s character of an improvised prelude can be a possible source of inventio. Bach could also have begun with a skeleton that he ornamented in different ways – and probably the inventio is somewhere in between these two things, where processes occurred fairly directly and simultaneously.

In the following section, I look more closely at the movement, starting with the assumption that the compositional process began with a simple idea that progressed stepwise to a complex realisation. Whether or not it is reasonable to make this assumption, it is illustrative to make a reduction of the note picture. The

91 reduction has been made in several steps, and is illustrated with the help of the movement’s first four measures, Illustration 11:

Illustration 11: Movement 1, measures 1‐4, with different levels of reduction.

Systems 1 and 4 reproduce the original note picture, while system 2 consists of the notes found in both the original flute part and in the figured bass part, a reduction that was made to give a clearer picture of the harmonically important tones. System 3 is a reduction of system 2, where all the passing notes are removed, even if they are a part of a chord. System 5 is a similar reduction of the bass part departing from the original in system 4.

Of course it is possible to continue with further reductions. In Illustration 12, I show a reduction where all of the suspensions and notes that can be judged to be filling out chords are taken away:

Illustration 12: Reduction of movement 1.

The goal with this reduction is to simplify the music to a skeleton without loosing the feeling for the music’s content. Therefore, some passing and repeated notes have been kept. What we have left has a regular structure and is far from a free prelude character. If we now back up in the process and return to the flute part in Illustration 12, adding the ornamented flute line and the bass line by Bach, it is even more clear what decorative role the ornamentation plays:

Illustration 13: Movement 1, measures 1‐5, reduced movement plus the original flute part.

The visual impression of Illustration 13 is also very much like a slow ornamented movement from Georg Philipp Telemann’s Methodische Sonaten, published in 1728 (sonatas 1‐6) and 1732 (sonatas 7‐12).177 I illustrate this with the first measures from

177 In the section on the dating of the sonata, see page 56, I suggested an influence of Telemann on Bach.

93 the opening slow movement from the Sonata in A major, see Illustration 14:

Illustration 14: Movement 1, measures 1‐6, from Telemann’s Sonata in A major from the Methodische Sonaten.

Telemann wrote his sonatas as didactic material to study different styles, and as essays in the art of ornamentation, which is why he provided one movement in every sonata with an extra system where he notated a maximally ornamented version of the melody line. However, we can establish a difference in character between the ornamentation of the two composers. Telemann’s is short and a little fragmentary, while Bach notates longer lines. Again, this can be connected to Telemann’s purpose with these sonatas, which is why these long movements tend to be overburdened with ornaments. From my own experience of playing Telemann’s sonatas, I rarely sense his ornaments to be free, which I often experience with Bach’s ornamentation.

94 It is possible to reduce Bach’s introductory movement further, but then the musical content becomes lost. In the most extreme case one can, for example, reduce the two first measures to the following note‐picture, as seen in Illustration 15:

Illustration 15: Movement 1, measures 1‐2, reduced skeleton.

In one way, it is possible to say that what is shown in Illustration 15 is really the movement’s inventio, but it is so completely uninteresting musically that it begs the question: how does Bach create something interesting from this? One way could be to build up tension through the introduction of uncertainty and irregularity, which is what Bach does through the written syncopations within the fourth beat, a part of the measure that normally has no accent. In the opening eight measures, we find these syncopations twice before the first cadence, in measure 2 and 7. Thereafter, they appear much more often, namely in measures 9, 11, 12, and 13 and to some extent in measure 16, see Illustration 16:

Illustration 16: Movement 1, measures 9‐12, flute part.

These unexpected syncopated accents not only create a feeling of motion, they also lead to the first beat of the next measure, a place that also needs an accent. Additionally, they have a harmonic function through intensification of the harmonic rhythm. Bach treats these accents in a slightly different way in the coda, using them to prepare dissonances on the following accented first beat in both measures 18 and 19, as can be seen in Illustration 17:

Illustration 17: Movement 1, measures 17‐20.

Could these accents in the fourth part of the measure have been interpreted in the reduction as an eighth note preceded by an eighth‐note rest, in analogy with measure 4 in the example from the Telemann sonata (see Illustration 14)? In most of the measures it would be possible, while it is more difficult to imagine this solution in measure 2, because then there would be an unprepared dissonance on an unaccented beat, which is not in accordance with the traditional method of handling dissonances from this time period. In the other measures a more regular structure is retained.

Bach also uses the bass voice in order to achieve forward motion in the movement; the figure in Illustration 18, see below, returns 19 times in the bass part.

Illustration 18: The bass part’s rhythmic figure.

This figure makes it basically impossible to find resting points in the movement, and it contributes also to the character of irregularity, despite the movement’s completely traditional structure of 8 plus 8 measures followed by a coda.

The large‐scale harmonic progression in the movement is uncomplicated, with three authentic cadences as well as a deceptive cadence in measure 6.

Measure 1 (6) 8 17 coda 20 Key or cadencing to: E major (G# minor) B major E major E major

96 On the micro‐level, the harmonic development in measures 9‐14 is more complex, travelling far from the normal and comfortable keys even if the harmonic motion itself is not complex. I have chosen here to illustrate this with a bass line according to Kirnberger’s concept, see Illustration 19:

Illustration 19: Movement 1, measures 9‐14 with added bass line (system 3).

This added bass line clearly illustrates how the harmonic movement in this section is built up around a circle of fifths, where a seventh is added to a bass chord to continue the forward motion. If we return to the reduction of the entire movement (see Illustration 12), it looks like a completely homogenous construction. In the work itself, there is an unbroken oscillation between agogic freedom and rhythmic regularity, something that I suggested concerning the triplet figures (see page 91). Bach uses thirty‐second notes to denote free ornaments, usually accompanied by a bass voice softer in character and devoid of any clear eighth‐note upbeats. However, when the bass voice has clear upbeats preceding the next accented beat, the flute part is also more strict. One example of this can be seen in Illustration 19 in the bridge from measure 12 onwards. This oscillation from free material to more strict is one of the movement’s most comprehensive characteristics.

97 Movement 2 - Allegro The sonata’s second movement is 80 measures long (32 + 48, with double repeats).178 If we take a bird’s‐eye view of the movement, the tonal range and construction share similarities with fast movements in sonatas by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed around 1740: two sections with repeats, the second roughly one and a half times as long as the first. Another similarity with C. P. E. Bach sonatas is that the introductory theme returns near the end of the second half, although slightly changed in order to reach a final cadence in the tonic of the movement.179 This is certainly no new compositional concept, but J. S. Bach uses it exclusively in dance movements, lending support to the idea that the movement – despite the way it’s marked – is based on a dance concept.180 For C. P. E. Bach however, this form became common, especially for a first movement in a sonata written in the period from about 1740 until 1760 in Berlin when he composed chamber music. Schulenberg points out that C. P. E. Bach surely met the form in his father’s dance movements and preludes, but that he perhaps was even more influenced by other composers that worked in a more typical galant style, like Telemann.181 This technique later developed into what we now call sonata form where the recurring theme is called recapitulation.

Which figure comprise Bach’s primary inventio? Is it the introductory measure with its upbeat, or is it a variation of this? Both figures appear so often and in so many variations, that the question is justified (see for example measures 26‐27, Illustration 23, page 102). The introductory theme is still the more obvious and because of its quarter notes, easily recognisable.

178 In the analysis, I choose to use the term “part” in the section on movements two, three, and four. With “part one,” “first part,” etc., I am referring to the section from the beginning of the movement to the repeat sign, with “part two” and “second part,” I mean the music from the repeat sign to the end of the movement. 179 See, for example, the Sonata in D major, H 505, of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. 180 For J. S. Bach, this involves the Sarabande and Bourée anglaise, movements three and four from the partita for flute, as well as a number of movements from the English Suites and the French Suites for keyboard. This compositional convention occurs where the movement is binary with double repeats and the second part is longer than the first. One also sees a clear cadencing to the movement’s tonic before the introductory theme returns, a similar harmonic progression as in the E major sonata. 181 David Schulenberg, “C. P. E. Bach through the 1740s: The Growth of a Style,” in C. P. E. Bach Studies, ed. Stephen L Clark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 219.

98 As has been pointed out earlier (see page 63) a rigaudon is characterised by two beats per measure, successively shorter note values, as well as an accelerating harmonic rhythm in the period. All of these features can be seen in the first four measures, a period that is then repeated with ornamentation of the quarter notes. Later, the movement is characterised by sixteenth‐note motion with careful articulation marks where the long slurring marks are conspicuous. The bass part is obviously rhythmical and harmonically driving but has no real melodic character, which is rather unusual for Bach. It is unexpected, therefore, that Bach allows the bass part to present the introductory theme in a short sequential passage in the final eight measures.

The bass part’s characteristic rhythmical figure is important for the movement’s sense of drive, see Illustration 20:

Illustration 20: Movement 2, rhythmic figure in the bass part.

This figure returns in different guises through the whole movement and gives, through the missing first beat, a clear direction forward to the next measure’s first beat as well as producing a complementary rhythm to the simple theme of the melody. The unaccented character of the first measure is also underlined by this figure, see Illustration 21:182

Illustration 21: Movement 2, measures 1‐4.

182 I also discuss this measure in the section on appogiaturas, see page 140.

99 The figure in the bass creates an accent on the first beat of the following measure, a pattern that persists throughout. In the flute part, however, we do not see the same patterns of accents, especially when the flute part has longer sixteenth‐note motion and where the first tone has a staccato mark; see, for instance, the bridge between measures 17 and 18 in Illustration 22 below. Do the parts need to have the same accents? According to my experience, it is not at all necessary: rather, both voices can even create excitement through contrasting patterns of accentuation, and break away from the habitual and expected to create a certain amount of uncertainty and therefore heightened attention in the listener.

These two elements – the flute’s introductory upbeat and following quarter notes and the bass’s eighth‐note motion, including the pause on the first eighth note in its most basic form – are so crucial for the movement’s construction that they can be seen as the movement’s basic idea, its inventio.

The first part of the movement has a cadence to the fifth, B, and establishes a stable tonal level there. Precisely according to convention, the first part finishes with a cadence to B major.

The establishment of B major as a tonal level is preceded by a motion through the circle of fifths in measures 13 to 18, based on a sequential motion repeated three times that is carried out completely in the bass voice while only twice in the melodic voice.

One reason that Bach chooses to break the sequential motion in the solo part, besides the fact that he rarely chooses to repeat the same figure three times in a row, could be that he needed the eighth‐note upbeat to measure 19. This upbeat is the seventh in the dominant chord, which strengthens the modulation to B major, see Illustration 22:

100

Illustration 22: Movement 2, measures 12‐22 with deceptive cadence in measure 20.

The expansion that Bach carries out in measures 20 and 21 delays the establishment of B major as a tonal level. He could have gone directly from measure 19 to measure 22 with no problem.

In measures 22‐25, the inventio returns, now in B major, as an ornamented version of the simple quarter‐note figure. The following sixteenth‐note motion is inverted, but in order to avoid parallel octaves against the bass voice, the inversion is not completely carried out. In these measures there is, however, no sign of the bass voice’s rhythmically ornamented inventio. Bach prioritises the harmonic motion, which makes it possible for him to repeat the figure from the melodic voice in measure 24, but now on the third of E major, see Illustration 23:

101

Illustration 23: Movement 2 measures 22‐32.

At the end of the first part, Bach again departs from the expected simple route to a conclusion. He could have gone directly from measure 25 to measure 31, without the harmonic digressions he undertakes via the arpeggiated and decorated diminished dominant chord in the flute part in measures 26 and 27.

The second part begins with the inventio in sequence with a circle of fifths from B major to F# minor. Here we have an important change in the way Bach uses his inventio. In the first part, the figure consisted of a rising fourth from the chord’s fifth to its root. In the beginning of the second part, measure 33, the figure consists of a rising fifth from the newly established root to the chord’s fifth. In this way, Bach creates a clear sense of motion away from a stable tonal level. This is strengthened in measure 37 where the circle of fifths motion allows Bach to shape the inventio as a rising sixth. In measures 5 to 8, where Bach repeats the inventio with minor ornament‐like changes, he uses the repetition of the inventio in order to start a modulation to F# minor. A similar opportunity appears in measure 34 with the minor third f#´´‐a´´, as well as the figure in measure 35 that takes the movement to E major in measure 36. With an identical figure, apart from the introductory leap of a sixth h’‐g#´´, he reaches F# minor, see Illustration 24:

102

Illustration 24: Movement 2, measures 33‐40.

As a tonal level, F# minor is temporarily strengthened through a sequential motion in measures 43‐47, a parallel place to measures 13‐18. The motion ends with a cadence in F# minor.

In measure 48, a motion begins back toward establishing E major as a tonal centre. Bach takes the melodic material from the first half, and through alterations, he modulates by way of several seventh chords back to E.

In measure 57, the recapitulation of opening material starts, with minor melodic changes in the flute part but no harmonic changes.

From measures 66 to 70, there is a complete three‐part sequential motion followed by a section where the harmonic rhythm is reduced to a rate of one harmony every two measures. In this last section, the movement’s melodic inventio appears unexpectedly in the bass part, at least the first bars of it. The movement ends with a kind of coda, where a sort of accent displacement develops through the legato slurs in the melodic voice, see Illustration 25:

103

Illustration 25: Movement 2, measures 64‐80.

The movement is characterised by the rhythmically distinct introductory figure that moves the accent from measure 1 to measure 2 through the staccato notes. It is remarkable how many measures begin with staccato notes. This leads to a limited number of accented first beats, which in turn gives the impression that the movement is always on the move, that it never rests. The relatively slow harmonic rhythm also makes it easier to create a pattern of fewer accents. Another characteristic of the movement is the bass part’s rhythmical figure with an eighth‐ note rest followed by three eighth notes; it returns many times in the movement, with varying harmonic functions.

Movement 3 – Siciliana The third movement is the only one with a dance title. It is necessary to point out, however, that very little is known about the siciliana as a dance. There are a few choreographies dating from the 1500s of a dance titled Siciliano, but strangely enough none from Italy, despite the fact that the vocal form clearly indicates a song

104 from Sicily. One other choreography is preserved from eighteenth‐century England, but it is difficult to judge whether it is related to any Italian dance.183

Still, among eighteenth‐century theoreticians, it was known and written about as an Italian dance. Walther calls it “Sicilianische Canzonetta” and calls it gigue‐like with a time signature that usually is either 12/8 or 6/8.184 Mattheson also talks about “Sicilianischer Styl,” by which he means that the iambic rhythmic pattern is obvious. He goes on to describe that the style “has something endearing about it and an innocent nobleness of feeling.”185 It is difficult to find support for the iamb as a rhythmic characteristic in the instrumental music that was labelled siciliana. The rhythmical patterns of the instrumental sicilianas are closer to Illustration 26, or variants thereof:

Illustration 26: Different rhythmical models for an instrumental siciliana.

It is also this type of rhythmical pattern that shows up in the few movements where Bach used the terms Siciliana or Siciliano.186

The Siciliana of the Sonata in E major is 12 + 16 measures long with repeats of both parts. Bach uses the traditional 6/8 time signature and also makes use of the traditional rhythmical figure with the dotted‐eighth‐note upbeat, followed by the dotted eighth – sixteenth – eighth. Here Bach follows the expectations that we have

183 Meredith Little, “Siciliana,” in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/25698 (accessed August 9, 2008). 184 Walther, Musikalisches Lexikon, 139‐140. 185 “hat was zärtliches und eine edle Einfalt an sich.“ Mattheson, Volkommene Capellmeister, 165. 186 Koch, Lexikon, 1383. Koch describes the siciliana, in not terribly flattering terms, as a country‐dance that differs from the pastorale in its slow tempo, and was common as an adagio movement in sonatas and concerti. Koch continues: “This sluggishness, whose presence can begin to be felt if the melody is played broadly, is without a doubt the basic reason why, for quite some time, this genre has been totally ignored because of its perceived decorative character.” [“Das Schleppende, welches dabei zum Vorscheine kommt, wenn die Melodie weit ausgeführt wird, ist ohne Zweifel die Ursache, warum man seit geraumer Zeit dieses Tonstück von so merklich sich auszeichnendem Charakter gänzlich vernachläßiget hat.”]

105 of the siciliana genre. These expectations also naturally include a clear one‐ or two‐ measure phrasing and a simple harmony. Against these expectations of the genre, Bach builds up the movement around imitation between the flute and the bass voices. In this way, we can say that his ınventio is bipartite. One structural concept of a genre that predefines some aspects is set up against another structural concept that determines the breaking of some of the genre’s conventions.

The movement is harmonically uncomplicated, but becomes complex when set in the keys that the movement uses (see also the discussion on page 96).

In the introduction to the movement, the bass voice imitates the solo voice exactly one measure later. This pattern is broken with the bass voice’s upbeat to measure 6. Even if the figures are still similar, the intervals are slightly shifted in relation to the flute material. In this way, the listener retains the feeling that the imitation has continued, but at the same time, Bach creates a meaningful harmonic progression. Measures 5‐8 build up a harmonic sequence using inventio material that elegantly moves the movement’s tonal level along to E major, something that is achieved in measure 9, see Illustration 27, and further strengthened in the following measures concluding the first part.

Illustration 27: Movement 3, measures 5‐9

The second part begins precisely like the first with an exact imitation between flute and bass, but already after two measures, the bass voice changes pitch, preparing for the sequence in measures 17‐18 that leads the movement to a cadence in F# minor in measure 20. Measures 21‐24, the movement’s most singable section, are reminiscent in part of measures 5‐9, with the difference that Bach does not complete a clear sequence to return to C# minor. Instead, with the help of sixteenth‐note motion in the flute voice and a seventh chord on b#, measure 25

106 becomes the key measure to return to the tonal area of C# minor in measures 26 and 27, see Illustration 28:

Illustration 28: Movement 3, measures 16‐28.

The movement consists of two‐ and four‐measure periods exactly as the genre describes, but through imitation the periodicity is disturbed, and the periods keep coming out of synch with one another sharpening a feeling of unease. The only resting points are the final tone of both parts; everywhere else there is a feeling of constant motion in the movement.

What about the many sixteenth‐note figures? Are they connecting material or are they ornamented inventio figures? Are they independent units, bearing their own meaning? In the other siciliano movements of J. S. Bach there are sixteenth‐note figures, most clearly in the first movement of the Sonata in C minor BWV 1017 for violin, and other movements in the Sonata in Eb major BWV1031 for flute.187 The sixteenth‐note motions have a double function in these movements, partly harmonic arpeggios, partly melodic material. It is possible to look upon the sixteenth‐note motion in the Sonata in E major in the same way, that is to say, both as melodic and as harmonic. If, however, we choose to see them as ornaments of an underlying structure, it could be interesting to see how such a structure might

107 look. If I use a similar reduction method as in the first movement, it could look like this, see Illustration 29:

Illustration 29: Movement 3, measures 1‐12, in a reduced shape.

I have chosen to let the siciliana’s rhythmical pattern serve as the point of departure for the reduction, and when the movement turns toward a cadence, I let the rhythmical pattern leave the siciliana rhythm in the same way that the original notation suggests.

Compared to the reduction of the first movement, it can seem that this reduction is not clarifying in the same way, because the comparatively active bass line regulates the structure. I do suggest, however, that the reduction shows that the sixteenth‐ note motion in this movement does have a double function, melodic as well as ornamental. They can be seen as ornaments, but through their connection to a rhythmical pattern in the opposite voice, they can never be as free as in the first movement. There is no reason to take away more, because then the inventio of the siciliano rhythm would be altered or removed completely.

As in the rest of the sonata, Bach is careful with articulation marks through the entire movement in the flute part; at the same time, it is striking how few articulation marks there are in similar figures in the bass voice. Why is this? A hypothetical possibility is that Bach himself played the bass part using the

187 It is not completely clear whether BWV 1031 really is a sonata by J. S. Bach.

108 autograph from which the surviving manuscripts are somehow related. If this is so, he wouldn’t have needed articulation marks for the performance, while the flute part might, equally hypothetically, have been performed by Fredersdorf, suggesting that Bach wanted to exert more control over the soloist’s interpretation. In any case, there is ample reason to weigh how much of the articulation marks should be transferred to the bass voice. There are many decisions left for the musicians to make, especially considering that articulations are dependent on the instruments used.

Movement 4 – Allegro assai This movement is 53 measures long with double repeats. Both parts are exactly the same length, 27 measures; a relationship that is most common in dance movements. It remains unclear, however, what kind of dance served as the model for this movement. The movement has an unusual introduction wherein the bass voice presents a figure with an upbeat alone in measures 5‐7. This material appears later in the flute voice. All the syncopations in the bass line of the second half are also striking, generating a strong offbeat character.

The sequence of an upbeat consisting of three eighth notes before the next measure’s first beat is so ubiquitous that it can be seen as the movement’s inventio, see Illustration 30:

Illustration 30: Movement 4, measures 1‐4.

This figure returns in both the flute and bass parts many times through the entire movement. The figure creates a forward motion towards the first beat of the next measure, as well as a relatively strong third beat.

109 In Bach’s production, a similar introductory upbeat occurs only three times: in the second movement of the Sonata A major BWV 1025 for violin and keyboard, (with unclear authorship), the second movement of the French Suite No 2 in C minor BWV 813 for keyboard – both of the movements are courantes – and “Et resurrexit…” in the B minor mass, BWV 232, see Illustration 31:188

Illustration 31: Other movements by J. S. Bach with introductory upbeats consisting of three eighth notes.

The upbeat of the flute sonata does have a different character than the other three examples in Illustration 31. In the first complete measure, both the quarter‐note upbeat in the bass and the legato figure in the flute give information for the choice of tempo and the character: soft and inviting in a reasonably fast tempo. In a faster tempo, the double accents in each measure become lost. Later in the movement, there are strong syncopations parallel to the unusually clear articulation markings, also supporting the idea of a reasonably relaxed tempo.

The presence of this upbeat makes it very difficult to accept Eppstein’s idea that the movement is a polonaise in form or character.

188 Wolfgang Schmieder, Thematisch‐systematisches Verzeichnis der Werke Joh. Seb. Bachs, (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1980).

110 Considering the two examples in Illustration 31, it is tempting to draw the conclusion that the fourth movement in BWV 1035 could be related to the courante, but the character of the movement is not similar to a French courante with its continuous movement between 6/4 and 3/2. Other dance types that could be relevant are the Italian corrente, normally in 3/4 with arpeggiated, sometimes virtuosic, passages and relatively slow harmonic rhythm, or the passepied that could be notated in 3/8 or 3/4, and precisely like the Italian corrente, consists of a flood of fast note values with an underlying slow rhythm with added rhythmical changes.189

Another alternative could be to see the movement as purposely playful.190 In that case, one could imagine the following division of the meter in the introduction, a pattern that could be repeated for all of the parallel places, see Illustration 32:

Illustration 32: Movement 4, measures 1‐4, with alternative mensural divisions.

To see the movement in this way gives a completely different pattern of accents, but to make this work consistently the interpreter has to ignore some slurs; for example, measure 2 should be the same as measure 10 where the slur is over only two eight notes. To view the movement as a joke is an attractive alternative that makes it easier to see the idea behind certain measures as in Illustration 32, above.

189 Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne, Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 83‐91 (Passepied), and 114‐142 (Courante and Corrente). Koch writes that the Passepied is a minuet‐like dance that must contain two equally long parts with cheerful and noble character. See Koch, Lexikon, 1142. 190 This interpretive idea comes from Cecilia Hultberg, who also made an interesting comparison to the fourth movement of the coffee cantata (BWV 211) for flute, soprano and basso continuo. The movement is in 3/8 throughout but both phrasing and text works very well in a constant change between 3/4 and 3/8.

111 The movement’s harmonic progression mostly follows the same pattern as in the second movement, with the exception that a stable tonal level in the piece’s dominant, B major, is not reached in the first half until the final cadence. In the second half there is a cadence to C# minor in measures 38 to 39, but afterwards there is no clear movement to a new tonal level. New sequences of inventio‐ material connect the sixteenth‐note motion which leads us back to E major. The sequential motion tied to the circle of fifths dominates the movement harmonically.

The part that is most difficult to understand is the opening 8 measures, see Illustration 33. Why does the bass part break in with a completely new figure in measure 5 with its upbeat? Why does Bach suddenly let the bass part have a melodic function in a way that it does not have anywhere else in the movement? And why didn’t he use this figure in the flute voice at this point?

Illustration 33: Movement 4, measures 1‐10.

If we look at the last question first, it could have been possible for the flute to have this four‐measure period. With inspiration from the parallel place in measures 16‐ 19, the introduction could look like Illustration 34:

112

Illustration 34: Movement 4, measures 1‐8 with an adaptation of measures 5‐8 including the upbeat.

Bach must have sought to create a contrasting effect in the introduction, which completely disappears in the illustration above. This is the only time in the sonata that the bass voice is heard without the flute. Because the figure first appears two octaves lower than the flute’s cadential tone in measure 4, the figure is experienced as divided from the introductory figure. What has Bach thereby created? When the different figures are presented for the first time, in measure 1‐4 for the flute and 5‐ 8 for the bass line, they do not form a whole – they are of a completely different character and lead to clear contrasts – but when they appear the next time, they create an obvious whole. Is this simply another example of Bach’s joking affect?

The material in measures 4‐8 also has a clear harmonic function because it returns the movement to E major so that the inventio can be presented once again in the tonic. In measures 16‐19, the harmony moves forward toward an establishment of B major as the tonic near the end of the first part, see Illustration 35:

113

Illustration 35: Movement 4, measures 16‐19.

Sequences harmonically decorate the second part of the movement. These sequences move within the same harmonic area as in the previous movements. However, no stable alternative tonal level is ever established. From the cadence in B major in the first part, the harmony swings toward a cadence in C# minor in measure 39, but there is an immediate motion away from C# minor to E major, reached after new sequences in measure 48.

Summary In different ways in this section of the chapter, I have tried to identify and describe possible inventio of the sonata’s various movements. Three principles have guided this search: a reduction of a visible complex note picture to a simple note picture in order to try to show underlying ideas; a focus on the repetition of recognisable figures and how they are distributed over the movement; and, finally, a test of the concept of genre itself as an inventio. One unifying factor for this part of the analysis has been to see how Bach could have worked with compositional intentions and goals, and to compare this with a possible historical‐cultural context.

The bridge material for the movements are built primarily on sequential motion manifested harmonically in the many circle of fifth paths, but also on the changing pattern of accents that in some cases include a break against normal conventions, even if the alternative reading of the fourth movement (Illustration 32) allows the movement to follow the pattern to a lesser extent. The different sequential patterns and circle‐of‐fifths motions represent a typical harmonic compositional pattern for the time period, a pattern that has consequences for the way the melodic material is altered, and the way the harmonic movement is supported.

114 Instrumentation Bach’s choice of instrument for the sonata sets practical limits for the range, but also affects certain sounding parameters, even if I would characterise the latter case as both limitations and possibilities. The flute’s most natural key is D major, where an upward‐moving scale is created by lifting one finger at a time. The farther one gets from D major moving around the circle of fifths, the more one is forced to use compromise fingerings. What is common for all of these compromise fingerings, more often called forked fingerings, is that they are weak in sound and often problematic in intonation. E major is not so far away from D major in the circle of fifths, but it is as far away on the sharp side as the flute repertoire of this period normally goes.

In Figure 3, I have illustrated the form of the circle of fifths and marked the keys that function best on the flute with white boxes. The keys that work less well for different reasons are marked with lighter to darker gray boxes, and finally the keys in black boxes, below the line in the circle of fifths, are almost unusable. E major moves easily below this line to its dominant B major and B major’s dominant F# major, in other words, to the problematic keys that create clearly noticeable consequences for the sound. C

F G

b E A

Ab/G# E

C# B F#

Figure 3: A circle of fifths to illustrate more (white boxes) or less (gray to black boxes) suitable keys for the flute.

115

The problematic thing with E major is the major third, the tone g# in both octaves, that is g#´ and g#´´. There are several fingerings for these tones, all fork fingerings that create a compromise between g and a and thereby making them weak in volume.191 Even if a completely equalised sound is not an ideal during the eighteenth century flutes of that time, it is not possible to avoid compensations for notes surrounding g# in the musical context. Also, g#´ and g#´´ are a little sharp, which means that one has to compensate the intonation downwards. The tone f# can also create problems where f# in D major becomes a low major third – completely in line with a meantone temperament – but in E major, f# is the scale’s second tone and in that function, f# should not be low in the same way as in D major. This means that one has to compensate f# upwards, not least when the tone is followed by a sharp g#.

Taken together, this makes E major a technically difficult key with problematic intonation and sound properties. In some aspects, it is harder than Eb major, even though there are more fork fingerings in the latter. The sound is easily obscured, since many tones have to be compensated for in different ways. As I see it, Bach was completely aware of this sound affect and uses it on purpose. The most obvious place can be found in the third movement that uses the parallel key of C# minor with the dominant on G# major.

From the above discussion, the key for this sonata is of great importance for the sounding realisation, providing that one chooses a flute that basically corresponds to the flutes available between 1710 and 1760 in Leipzig, Dresden, or Berlin. If I use a modern flute with its equalised sound and basically equal‐tempered intonation, all of the elements that I have treated above would be eliminated.

191 Forked fingering means that one or more finger hole is open between closed holes. In order to make a consistent and strong sound, for example in a rising scale, one finger at a time should lift so that the sounding length is shortened successively. This is, in fact, the case only in D major. In all other keys there are forked fingerings. Forked fingerings depart from the fingerings in D major and by closing one or more holes the original note is lowered to the desired pitch. For example, the fingering for g#’ is in reality the fingering for a’ but with three closed holes after an open one. This produces a relatively quiet and veiled sound quality.

116 The choice of keyboard instrument is also important for the work’s performance, but here I would suggest that the interpreter should refer to performance practice conventions. Even if Bach probably intended the harpsichord, as it states in the manuscript, it is still possible to choose another instrument, provided that it is part of the time period and can function well with the flute. The instruments in question are the harpsichord, the clavichord (although tonally quiet), the chamber organ, or the fortepiano. To use a modern equally tempered grand piano is not an option, however, because it would effectively overpower the flute, as well as obliterating the character of the different keys.

Each one of these keyboard instruments has its own character, and they have an impact on the interpretation. Above all, they affect how the individual tones are formed in relation to the keyboard instrument, and how the flute sound can follow the keyboard instrument or contrast with it.

With the organ, it is almost necessary to play with a more supported sound. I could further claim that it isn’t especially meaningful to use the so‐called messa di voce, a crescendo followed by a diminuendo on a sustained note, because the ornament is more or less eaten up by the organ sound.

With a harpsichord as the keyboard instrument, however, the situation is different. The harpsichord’s sound is more percussive in attack and then quickly dies away, which leaves a greater space to vary the flute sound. Simply put, I can choose to follow the harpsichord’s natural diminuendo or support the flute sound and make a contrasting crescendo that claims a place in the sounding picture.

The temperament of the keyboard instrument The keyboardist and the keyboard instrument also play important roles in the interpretation of a musical work of this kind, and so we cannot ignore the question of the keyboard instrument’s temperament. Even though the topic of temperament is generally understood, it often generates confusion because the historical source material is imprecise in certain cases. We have information about a number of different methods for tuning a keyboard instrument, but we know much less about the preferences of individual composers. Bach is no exception in this case. Therefore, from a contextual musical ontological perspective, we cannot say that

117 temperament is determinative for the performance. From a historical socio‐cultural perspective, we can at most say that it is likely that the instrument should be unequally tempered. We can only speculate about what type of temperament Bach favoured, but there are enough suggestions in the literature about Bach in order to exclude some types of temperaments, and also make some hypotheses about appropriate ones in relation to his harmonically complex music.

In the following excursus, I go deeper into this topic and also treat some current theories. After this excursus, I will give an overview of how I tune myself.

Excursus – possible Bach temperaments The contemporary discussion about which temperament Bach might have preferred is based primarily on statements that other people made about Bach’s preferences, which is why this section begins with several quotations that give some of these opinions. In the necrologue for Bach from 1754, written by, among others, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, it states: In the tuning of harpsichords, he achieved so correct and pure a temperament that all the tonalities sounded pure and agreeable. He knew of no tonalities that, because of impure intonation, one must avoid.192 In the description of contents for an essay from 1772 (the essay itself has not survived), Nikolaus Forkel writes: In this question, even though Johann Sebastian Bach was so learned in mathematics, he would have followed what was natural rather than following the rules, and all of this mathematical theorizing has not yet once led to a guaranteed success in the application of a credible temperament.193 Near the end of 1774 and the beginning of 1775, C. P. E. Bach wrote a number of letters to Forkel that later were the basis for the biography of Bach that Forkel published in 1802. One of the letters contains the following:

192 Die Clavicymbale wusste er [Bach], in der Stimmung, so rein und richtig zu temperiren, dass alle Tonarten schön und gefällig klangen. Er wusste, von keinen Tonarten, die man wegen unreiner Stimmung, hätte vermeiden mussten. Bach Dokumente III, nr 666. 193 “Selbst in der Mathematik so gelehrte Johann Sebastian Bach habe sich in diesen Fragen nach der Natur, nicht nach der Regel gerichtet, und die ganze Mathematisiererei habe noch nicht einmal der Erfolg gehabt, die Durchführung einer einwandfreien Temperatur zu gewährleisten.“ Bach Dokumente III, nr 772.

118 Purely tuning both his own instruments as well as the instruments of the entire orchestra was something he undertook himself. Nobody else could tune or quill his instruments to his satisfaction.194 In 1776, Marpurg wrote a critique of Kirnberger’s analyses of some fugues of Bach where Marpurg reflected on Kirnberger’s suggestion for a temperament that includes a pure third C‐E: Mr. Kirnberger has more than once told me as well as others about how the famous Joh. Seb. Bach, during the time when the former was enjoying musical instruction at the hands of the latter, confided to him the tuning of his clavier, and how that master expressly required of him that he tune all the thirds sharp.195 From these citations we can compose the following picture of how Bach wanted to have his instruments tuned, at least the more easily tuned ones, like the clavichord and the harpsichord. The temperament should allow music‐making in all keys and all the major thirds should beat above pure. There seems also to have been a dominating attitude of practicality, where the mathematical formulas were not so interesting. The demands that Bach set fall precisely in line with an equally beating temperament. At the same time, we can conclude that if we chose equal temperament, all differences between the keys are lost – meaning that the music loses something as well. It is also possible to temper an instrument so that all the keys are useable but that the characteristic differences remain. Are there any signs that point to what Bach wished from an unequally beating temperament? Mark Lindley sees the Well Tempered Clavier as a form of evidence for these wishes, because this work uses all 24 major and minor keys, where Bach uses more chromaticism in the keys that are more complex in order to rhetorically use tones that are influenced by the unequal temperament, while pieces in the simple keys are built on purer and more simple intervals.196 A speculation about how a Bach temperament could look was presented in 2005 by Bradley Lehman in a two‐part article published in Early Music.197

194 “Das reine Stimmen seiner Instrumente so wohl, als des ganzen Orchestres war sein vornehmtes Augenmerck. Niemand konnte ihm zu seine Instrument zu Dancke stimmen u. bekielen.“ Bach Dokumente III, nr 801. 195 “Der Hr. Kirnberger selbst hat mir und andern mehrmahl erzählet, wie der berühmte Joh. Seb. Bach ihm, währender Zeit seines von demselben genossnen musikalischen Unterrichts, die Stimmung seines Claviers übertragen, und wie dieser Meister ausdrücklich von ihm verlanget, alle großen Terzen scharf zu machen. Bach Dokumente III, nr 815. English translation from Hans T. David, Arthur Mendel and Christoph Wolff (editors), The New Bach Reader: a Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, (New York: Norton, 1998), 368. 196 Mark Lindley, “J. S. Bach’s Tunings,” The Musical Times, vol. 126.1714 (1985): 724. 197 Bradley Lehman “Bach’s Extraordinary Temperament: our Rosetta Stone [1 & 2],” Early Music, vol. 33. 1 and 2 (2005); 3‐23 and 211‐231.

119 Lehman, like Lindley, takes his starting point from the Well Tempered Clavier from 1722 (part 1), but not the music itself, rather the decoration that appears on the title page of the autograph, see Illustration 36:

Illustration 36: From the title page of J. S. Bach’s Well‐Tempered Clavier from 1722.

I will not go into detail in reviewing how Lehman came to this schematic description of Bach’s method of temperament, but the key to Lehman’s hypothesis is the number of loops per eye in the figure above, where every eye represents one of the octave’s twelve tones, ordered after the circle of fifths. Read from right to left, the order of the tones is the following: F‐C‐G‐D‐A‐E‐B‐F#‐C#‐G#‐D#‐A#. If it is a simple eye, the fifth is pure. An extra loop represents a 1/12 Pythagorean comma and two extra loops mean that the interval is different from a pure interval by 1/6 Pythagorean comma. The tuning system we get is: F‐1/6‐C‐1/6‐G‐1/6‐D‐1/6‐A‐1/6‐E‐0‐B‐0‐F#‐0‐C#‐1/12‐G#‐1/12‐D#‐1/12‐A# In this way of counting fifths, it is simply a question of narrowing the fifths by a part of a Pythagorean comma. However, if we add the different fractions we get 13/12 which is why the final fifth Bb/A#‐F has to be too large by 1/12 in order for the number of loops to add up. Apart from whether this teasing hypothesis has any truth in it, the temperament is attractive in itself with a relatively large usefulness. Lehman points out that F major and C major are purest, that E major becomes more brilliant with a relatively high g#, and that some thirds that are common in Bach’s music are not so hard and obvious as in other temperaments. And yet, the individual keys still have different characteristics.198 As expected, this hypothesis has been criticised; most of the criticism has been focused on how Lehman reached his conclusion about how the decorations on the title page of the Well Tempered Clavier could be used as a temperament scheme. Another area of critique concerns the assumption that fifths only are allowed to be either pure or beat by a 1/6 or 1/12 Pythagorean comma, the alternatives seem to be too few.199 A decisive

198 Lehman, “Bach’s Extraordinary Temperament,” 211. 199 Mark Lindley and Ibo Ortgies, “Bach‐style keyboard tuning,” Early Music, vol. 34.4 (2006): 613‐623.

120 subject for Lindley’s and Ortgies’ critique, apart from the fact that Lehman lays such a great deal of his argument upon a type of ornament that is found fairly widely in many manuscripts from this time, is the resulting large major third E‐G#. At the same time, they agree with Lehman about the basic principle that it results in a possible temperament that Bach could have accepted, a temperament that primarily focuses on the quotation above, in which Bach wished for all of the major thirds to be larger than pure.

A personal temperament The temperament that I tune myself departs from Kirnberger III with a quarter‐ Pythagorean comma between the fifths C‐G‐D‐A‐E and the rest of the fifths tuned pure. This temperament gives a purely tuned third C‐E. Musically this temperament functions beautifully in keys with zero or few accidentals, but really badly with string instruments that have an e string, which when tuned to the harpsichord is too low to be usable as open string. Even for the flute, this low e becomes problematic. One variant that solves the problem is Werckmeister III with a 1/4 Pythagorean comma divided between the fifths C‐G‐D and B‐F#. Here, the fifth A‐E is pure which reduces problems for string instruments. I have successively chosen to temper more fifths so that I can divide the Pythagorean comma between F‐C‐G‐D‐A‐E‐B‐F#. The largest beats are between the fifths C‐G‐D‐A, in order to have relatively modest beating between F‐C and A‐E‐B‐F#. I am speaking here consciously imprecisely about the division and of larger or smaller beating. I tune from a tuning fork and then only from what I hear, which is why one tuning is never identical with the previous one, but sufficiently near in order to be stable and recognisable.

The result of this temperament is a mild unequally beating temperament that has characteristics but still allows keys with many accidentals, which becomes more important in the later eighteenth‐century repertoire, not least when it comes to Bach’s music.

Summary The focus of this section has been on the flute as an instrument with its possibilities and limitations, as well as what consequences the choice of E major has on the sounding result and on the type of flute for which the sonata was written. Because of the many forked fingerings in E major, the sound is easily covered and relatively

121 weak. In relation to the flute, I have also touched upon what differences there are if the continuo instrument is an organ or a harpsichord, primarily from an acoustical perspective.

Further, I have discussed the importance of the temperament and, via an excursus about possible Bach temperaments, I have been able to suggest that the temperament I tune myself, a personal modification of historical temperaments, harmonises with the type of temperament that Bach could have preferred.

Conventions In this section I primarily treat articulation, ornamentation, and tempo. I choose to treat these themes separately, even if they often tangent one another. All of these aspects of music making are dependent on the performance practice conventions of the period, whether notated or not. This sonata is ontologically thick, that is to say, the notation is detailed and in many cases determinative for the performance. However, even though articulation, ornamentation, and tempo are notated, their interpretation is still dependent on un‐notated performance practice conventions.

Articulation The Sonata in E major is markedly richer in articulation marks than the other chamber music works for flute (with the exception of the trio sonata from the Musical Offering BWV 1079). Two types of marks appear: (legato) slurs and staccato dots or wedges. It is not possible to say with certainty if these markings originate from Bach himself, but if we start with the assumption that manuscript b) is a copy of the autograph (the arguments for this idea are given on page 46) it is reasonable to assume that these articulation markings really were intended by Bach. How one chooses to relate to these articulation marks as an interpreter has direct implications for the interpretation and performance of the sonata in a way that is not as clear in other sonatas of Bach.

As an interpreter, one must continually pose questions like: What does a slur mean? Is it just legato or is it a phrasing indication? What consequences does a slur have for the hierarchy of beats in a measure or in a phrase? What does this mean, therefore, for the musical direction of a phrase? Can I take away or add slurs? Why

122 is the slur there? Should the same type of figure have the same type of articulation, even if it is not given in the note picture? Is an articulation mark written there in order to mark that an articulation should be made there as an exception to the conventions? Do these questions apply to the staccato marks, and to what extent? Furthermore, a slur over two or more notes does not necessarily mean the same thing for a wind instrument as for a stringed instrument or a keyboard instrument. Slur marks can be a signal as to how the bow should be set, an up or down stroke. Where a wind instrument can have a stable sound, and even crescendo, a down stroke more or less forces a string instrument player to diminuendo for purely mechanical reasons. A violin bow was unevenly based during the first half of the eighteenth century, with its weightiest point at the frog. This means that the closer one comes to the tip of the bow, the quieter the tone becomes. If one plays tones under a slur with an upstroke, the first tone cannot easily be accented, while a crescendo is possible.

There is an extremely rich literature around the theme of articulation, but because this study does not have articulation as its main focus, I will only mention a few studies, ones that are relatively new and that are all broad overviews of the subject. Ruth Miller’s dissertation focuses on articulation marks in Bach’s flute sonatas, but because she chooses to not discuss the interpretive implications more than cursorily, her study is of less interest for this dissertation.200 More relevant is Ludger Lohmann’s study on articulation at keyboard instruments grounded in historical sources,201 and John Butt’s work, which has as its stated goal to complete Lohmann’s work by conducting a discussion of articulation set in a historical context of the baroque period’s intellectual world around music that uses J. S. Bach’s surviving autographs as a touchstone.202

As an example of the importance of slurs and staccato marks for the musical content of a movement, I would like to return to the first movement, Adagio ma

200 Mains, Articulations, chapter 3. 201 Ludger Lohmann, Die Artikulation auf den Tasteninstrumenten des 16.‐18. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg: Bosse, 1990), 18. 202 John Butt, Bach Interpretation: Articulation Marks in the Primary Sources of J. S. Bach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 5.

123 non tanto, and the fourth movement, Allegro assai, and thereby shed some light on the changing function of the slur mark in different kinds of movements.

Butt points out that slurs primarily relate to figures of an ornamental character.203 In the first movement of the Sonata in E major, this theory becomes extra clear if one reduces the note picture to a skeleton with only harmonically structural notes in the same way that was done above (see page 92‐94) and under that system give the original notation, see Illustration 37:

Illustration 37: Movement 1, measures 1‐4, reduced melody voice (system 1) and original (system 2).

In viewing the reduced note picture and the original side by side, one can see support for Butt’s thesis, also promoted by Quantz among others, namely that the slurs indicate ornaments that give the interpreter a signal about important and stressed notes.204

The first note under a slur automatically gets an accent because of the necessary clear attack. It is also possible to argue that tones that do not lie under a slur are somewhat more important because one expects them to be articulated. The movement is labelled Adagio ma non tanto, which also supports the assumption that the fastest note value in a movement like this should not be of too great importance, something that easily might happen if the tempo is too slow. Departing from the idea that at least the thirty‐second notes are notated ornaments, one should chose a tempo that maintains this ornamental character, creating an illusion of improvisatory decoration.

203 Butt, Bach Interpretation, 49‐50. 204 Quantz, Versuch, chapter 8.

124 In the sonata’s fourth movement, Allegro assai, we meet a slightly different scenario. The second half is especially rich in both slurs and staccato dots, and “Allegro assai” has implications for the choice of tempo that frame our understanding of what these slurs and dots could mean. A central question is whether assai should be interpreted as the word is normally understood from the nineteenth century and onwards, that is “very,” or according to Brossard’s definition: “…middle degree of quickness or slowness; quick or slow enough but not too much of either.”205

This denotation is not unambiguous. Does it mean “very fast” or “reasonably fast”? A very fast tempo would mean that the slurs are a technical aid rather than interpretive instructions. This interpretation will also risk losing the unique rhythm that appears primarily in the movement’s bass voice with syncopations that give the movement its uneasy character – or playful one. “Reasonably fast” can open up possibilities to chisel out all the details that the notated articulation can offer.

In a fast movement, it is reasonable to assume that the musician should prioritise clarity. This can be achieved, for example, through a clear attack on the first note under a slur and a shortening of the last note under the slur so that it will be possible to achieve a clear attack on the next note. To interpret slurs like this means that the slurs indicate accents, more pronounced in a fast movement than in a slow one, even if the principle seems to be similar, see Illustration 38:

Illustration 38: Movement 4, measures 33‐35. The small bows indicate unaccented tones, the line, accented.

205 Brossard, A musical dictionary, 6.

125 With accents according to this description, the section becomes really rich in accents that, in combination with the syncopated bass voice, mean that the traditional baroque hierarchy of beats in a movement in 3/4 time – heavy accent on the first beat, light accent on the third and minimal accent on the second – is set on its head. The feeling of being constantly offbeat dominates, both for the musician and for the listener. If these measures did not have all these slurs and dots, the accent pattern would surely be the traditional one with exceptions made for the syncopated bass voice, see Illustration 39:

Illustration 39: Movement 4, measures 33‐35 without articulation marks but with accent marks. Two lines mean a stronger accentuation than one line.

In the “clean” example above – without slurs or staccato dots – one would gain clarity when it comes to the musical direction, because the dissonances in every measure are given a clear resolution, in the sense of relaxation, on the first beat of the next measure.

When it comes to the meaning of the staccato marks, the historical sources are unanimous that a staccato tone, whether marked with a dot, a line, or a wedge, should be played separated from the surrounding notes, but not overemphasised.206 On the other hand, opinions diverge about whether the markings imply that the tone is stressed or not, or if it even indicates the accentuation of a note. Here, one

206 Quantz, Versuch, chapter XVII: §27, 201‐202, speaks about how note values in general should be halved and that if a note with a staccato point is followed by several notes with a shorter note value the tone should be accented. C. P. E. Bach speaks in Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu Spielen, Berlin 1753. (Facsimile rpt. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1986), chapter III:§17, 125, also about shortened note values but points out at the same time that tones are separated from one another with regard to note length, tempo and nuance. Generally, separated notes exist, detaché, in interval movements and in fast tempi.

126 must use the note picture as a whole in order to understand what might be relevant in the specific case. What is striking, however, is how often staccato marks appear in eighteenth‐century music in places where the normal procedure would be to play a long note, and thus an accented one. There seems to be a tendency to add markings in the score to signal that the composer expected something else than what is expected according to tradition.

Tempo and time signature In this section I will primarily discuss possible choices of tempo for the different movements. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that when the piece is performed, a large number of factors affect the choice of tempo. These factors are bound up with the socio‐cultural context in which the performance takes place. I will not discuss these factors here, but will get back to them in Chapter 6.

From an over‐arching perspective, the placement of the movements within the sonata affects the choice of tempo. We have already established that the movements have the basic pattern slow – fast – slow – fast. Further, we can conclude that the first movement is a prelude, granting a fairly free relationship to tempo – at least at certain points. The third movement is set in a minor key, which often signals a certain kind of thoughtfulness within the context of lighter movements. A concluding movement is often lighter in its character than the first fast movement, but what that actually means is difficult to state more precisely.

In this way, we can gain some guidance for our tempo choices from the placement of the movements in the sonata, but perhaps mostly from the sonata as a whole. It is, however, difficult to get away from the idea that the whole is a construction, and the individual interpreter creates her own picture.

We can also look upon the movements of the sonata as separate entities, and reflect on possible tempo choices from the tempo indications that, together with the time signature – and in certain instances the given note values – lend decisive clues for tempo choice, but also for the pattern of accents. At the same time, it is actually not possible to separate the question of tempo from all the other elements that are important for the performance. The choice of tempo is intimately related to the intention that the composer had, and what the interpreter wants to clarify

127 and communicate. Ido Abravaya talks about finding “tempo‐determining factors” that can be rhythmical elements or harmonic rhythms.207

Tempo is not only important quantitatively. In combination with the chosen time signature, it is also a musically qualitative dimension because the time signature defines the accent pattern to a large extent. A fast tempo does not give space for too many accents, while a slow tempo can. In this way, the choice of tempo has huge importance for the agogic freedom within a measure.

Abravaya makes a review of historical treatises on tempo, and it becomes clear that what Quantz and others have described is a simplification in order to make different areas of the field clear for amateurs. From a simplified description of different classes of tempo, it is a large leap to the huge variation of tempo‐related terms in Quantz’s own compositions.208 Quantz uses a spectrum of 1:16 for the different tempo indications he sees as correct, where the relationship between two tempo choices lying next to one another is always 1:2. Abravaya suggests that this spectrum and its internal relationships should be seen as the tolerable borders that delimit the different classifications of tempo that Quantz gives. The beginner needs clarity, while the more experienced can modify this structure through intuition and knowledge.209

While Quantz’s guide basically is seen as intended for not very advanced flutists – and in some cases other musicians – Johann Philipp Kirnberger’s theoretical writings are intended primarily for composers.210 Where Quantz describes a fixed form for tempo choice whose goal is that the fastest note values in different pieces always have the same duration, Kirnberger chooses instead to emphasise the flexibility and adaptability to a specific piece’s emotional affect.211

According to Kirnberger, the piece’s time signature and the note values determine the tempo, and this tempo is in turn modified by words like adagio or allegro. Kirnberger’s most important contribution to theories around tempo is his concept

207 Ido Abravaya, On Bach’s Rhythm and Tempo, (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2006), 2. 208 Abravaya, Bach’s Rhythm, 128. 209 Abravaya, Bach’s Rhythm, 129. 210 Abravaya refers to Kirnberger, Die Kunst. 211 Abravaya, Bach’s Rhythm, 130.

128 of tempo giusto. For the aspiring composer, Kirnberger emphasises the importance of creating the right feeling for the natural tempo for every time signature, tempo giusto, through the study of various dances.212 Through similar studies, an interpreter can build up an experientially based knowledge, which can give indications for appropriate tempo choices, even if the actual music is not specifically a dance movement. Kirnberger also suggests that it is important to not only look for how fast or slow a work should be performed, but also the emotional content, or affect, that the piece bears, and which tempo is best for communicating that content.213

A basic principle that was current already in the 1500s was: the shorter the note value, the slower the tempo. With Bach, however, it is not so simple, because he uses short note values clearly in both fast tempos and slow ones.214 Bach is also inconsistent in his use of tempo indications since he does not always notate a tempo word. It is also not possible to draw general conclusion like whether allegro always indicates a certain tempo. When it concerns instrumental music for more than one musician, Bach is more generous with tempo indications, and they also appear in other contexts where an unexpected change occurs. In general, he leaves the tempo indication to the interpreter, which is in line with the performance practice conventions of the time.

In the Sonata in E major, every movement has a heading or a title; in three of the movements this consists of tempo words. The third movement is marked with the name of a specific dance, siciliana (or siciliano) that Quantz, among others, defines as a slow gigue with a pastoral feeling. The other movements have indications that give more general information about the choice of tempo. More conclusive for the choice of tempo is the movement’s structure, and what I as an interpreter try to do is to determine what I think Bach considered to be most important in the musical structure, and what is less meaningful. Of course, this process involves the interpreter’s own preferences as well.

212 Johann Philipp Kirnberger, The Art of Strict Composition, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 376. 213 Kirnberger, Art of Strict Composition, 377. 214 Abravaya, Bach’s Rhythm, 139.

129 The first movement, Adagio ma non tanto, is notated in C or common time. The bass part consists mainly of eighth‐note motion, often called a walking bass‐line, which primarily appears in andante movements. Both the tempo markings as well as the time signature possibly indicate a relaxed but not too slow tempo, and this is also how the movement indication can be interpreted: “slow but not excessively so.” Bach used such combinatory tempo indications relatively often, and one could interpret this as sensitivity for nuances in tempo choice, even if, as we have already seen, Bach is not particularly liberal in his use of tempo indications.215 Even though the melody is notated with thirty‐second notes, this does not contradict this choice of tempo if they are interpreted as ornaments. It is, however, not so simple that the presence of thirty‐second notes indicates a slow tempo in music by Bach. Rather, one could argue that thirty‐second notes either indicate a rather fast tempo with virtuoso passages or a slow tempo where the thirty‐second notes have the character of an ornament.

Allegro, the second movement, is notated in 2/4 with sixteenth notes as the fastest note value, and a bass part that almost exclusively consists of eighth notes. As discussed earlier (see page 98), the movement has the character of a rigaudon, a fast variation of the bourrée. In combination with the relatively slow harmonic rhythm, this suggests a fast tempo.

The sonata’s third movement, Siciliana, follows entirely the expected scenario of this typical dance movement, both in its time signature and rhythmical patterns (see page 104 for a more detailed description). What deviates from the norm is that Bach gives the bass part the same importance as the melody; the same melodic material appears more or less in both parts. In combination with the complex harmony, these factors argue for a slow tempo.

Finally, we turn to the sonata’s last movement, Allegro assai. I have discussed this movement relatively thoroughly from a tempo perspective in the section on articulation (see page 125), where I pointed out several possibilities from the pattern of accents departing from the title of the movement; against the background of this argument, I interpret Allegro assai in this context as “relatively

215 Abravaya, Bach’s Rhythm, 141.

130 quick,” a tempo that makes it possible to make the rhythmical finesses meaningful and recognisable from one another.

Ornamentation The ornamentation present in this sonata is limited to only a few types: trills and appoggiaturas of various characters, as well as the written out ornamentation in the first movement.

Trills The notated and un‐notated trills in this sonata serve both cadential and decorative functions. The cadential trills will be treated briefly at the end of this section, in order to discuss them more fully in relation to different types of appoggiaturas, because a cadential trill is so intimately tied to the appoggiatura. Here I will first treat trills of a decorative or melodic character.

In the fifth measure of the first movement, the flute part moves to e´´ on the third beat of the measure, a seventh in F# major, see Illustration 40:

Illustration 40: Movement 1, measures 3‐5.

If Bach had chosen to complete the sequential movement he began with the upbeat of measure 4, he would have allowed the melody line to go to the fourth in A# major, d#´´, in order to resolve downwards to the third, c##´´. That he has chosen a seventh chord in the first inversion makes way for e´´ that he then resolves to f#´ but in a downward leap of a seventh. Bach has marked this f#´ with a trill sign. If I choose to see the trill as an ordinary trill starting from the upper neighbour note, from g#’ in this case, the leap from an intense seventh chord to a much milder sixth

131 is weakened, but at the same time it creates a motion from a dissonance in the chord to another dissonance in the same chord, a second.

There is also another sounding quality in the relation between g#´ and f#´, where g#´ is a weak tone on the flute because it needs a fork fingering. On the other hand, f#´ is a strong note that also has to be raised in pitch because it is naturally too low and that involves giving it extra wind pressure. If I choose to see the trill as unimportant I can go directly from e´´ to f#´ and thereby emphasise the leap of a seventh. If the trill is important for the movement it will be a weakly sounding trill where f# must be voiced to agree with g# in the trill itself. Furthermore, the trill is quite special itself due to the shift between the fingerings that demand too many fingers, making the performance of the trill a kind of compromise. If one does not compensate with wind pressure as well as how high the trilling finger is lifted above the flute, one produces a trill between a´ and a low f#´, a minor third instead of a second. By emphasising g#´ as the appoggiatura and then not lifting the trilling finger too high one can create the illusion of a trill at the interval of a second. The remaining question is only how all of this is going to be achieved in the space of an eighth note. From this discussion I would like to suggest that this trill marking can be seen as a free choice, where I as an interpreter have the liberty to decide what I think is important – the leap of a seventh or the trill.

A similar trill is also found in measure 16 of the last movement. Does this trill have its own function or is it an elegant decoration of the F# major chord? Alternatively, is it maybe so that the trill generates a momentum in order to bridge the presentation of the figure in the flute part, a figure that the bass part presented in the movement’s introduction? The same kind of bridge can be found in the parallel place in the movement’s third part; compare measure 16 (Illustration 41) with measure 44 (see Illustration 42):

132

Illustration 41: Movement 4, measures 12‐17.

Illustration 42: Movement 4, measures 40‐45.

Similarities between measures 16 and 44 give some support for the idea of a bridging trill in measure 16 that keeps the motion going. However, if the trill in measure 16 is technically time consuming to perform and tonally weak, then the motion that was intended will not be realised.

In both illustrations above, in measures 12 and 40, a trill is also seen as a part of the melody of the inventio as well as a decoration. It is a passing trill with a melodic rather than harmonic function. However, here again there are alternative ways to interpret this trill, which have consequences especially for the stress pattern. Illustration 43 renders the opening measures of the last movement. Without the trill, it is easy to stress the third beat in the upbeat, which the bass note in the introductory upbeat measure also supports.

133

Illustration 43: Movement 4, measures 1‐4.

If the trill is important, it is not possible to stress the third beat, because a trill automatically involves a certain accentuation due to the trill’s percussive effect, even if in this case it is found on an unstressed part of the measure. If one still wants to stress the third beat, it is possible to interpret the trill as a mordent or to choose a tempo that makes it possible to have several stressed notes per measure. A mordent would make it possible to emphasise the third beat of the upbeat measure, since the mordent would have a passing character.

Neumann points out that even though Bach is careful in his notation when it comes to so‐called free ornamentation, he is not especially careful with how he notates trills – with the possible exception of the keyboard music. For example, it is only in the keyboard music that Bach uses the mordent sign,216 but this does not mean that there are no mordents in his other works. Among the places in his keyboard works where the mordent is marked, the vast majority occurs in stepwise ascending motion, precisely as in this place in the fourth movement.217

216 The sign that Bach used for the mordent was . M 217 Neumann, Ornamentation, 441.

134 Below we see four variations for how the trill could be realised:

Illustration 44: The trill interpreted as a Illustration 45: The trill interpreted as mordent. a trill from above.

Illustration 46: The trill from above with an Illustration 47: Trills interpreted that J. after‐beat. S. Bach himself called “Cadence.”

If, as in Illustration 45, we interpret the ornament as an ordinary trill – starting on the upper note in this time period, in this case b – it will have the most percussive effect. Illustration 46 shows an Empfindsamkeit practice from only ten years later that Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel described as the correct way of executing a trill, with a termination.218 In this case, a trill with a termination would create a softer character because it has a bridging function. Illustration 47 is a variant of Illustration 46 where the alternations that create the trill itself are left out.

218 Bach, Versuch, 74‐75.

135 How important is this trill? Bach, or more accurately the copyist, has notated it with “tr” every time the figure appears. Without this notation the most likely interpretation of the three eighth notes would be to make them short in order to prepare for a stressed first beat in the next measure, or to stress beat three and then the following first beat. It is reasonable to assume that Bach, by notating the trill on this tone, wished to avoid these interpretations.

The other trills in the sonata are found in connection to the various cadences. However, they are not constructed like the most normal kind of trill, with an appoggiatura that creates a dissonance with the given chord, or as a part of the suspension in the harmonic cadence pattern, after which the trill becomes softer and leads to the resolution on a consonant chord. This kind of trill has a clearly harmonic function. Here, however, the appoggiaturas are part of the chord and written out, and therefore do not present any problems in terms of performance. It can be noted that Bach also uses ornamental trills in the cadences, primarily in the second movement.

Appoggiaturas In the sonata, the appoggiatura is notated in two different ways, sometimes with small notes and sometimes with notes of a normal size.

Illustration 48: Movement 1, measures 3‐4.

In both measures 3 and 4 in Illustration 48, a normal‐sized notated appoggiatura appears on the third beat of each measure, notes that also correspond to the figured bass numbers. These appoggiaturas do not create any interpretive problems. Bach has simply written out the appoggiaturas that have clear harmonic

136 meaning in normal notation and they appear also in various cadential patterns. The intention is clear, and I see no reason to deviate from the notation.

Rather, it is the small notes that raise questions. Should they be played on the beat or before it? Do they have a harmonic function or a melodic one, or simply a combination of the two? What length should they have? Since appoggiaturas, both notated and un‐notated, are very common in eighteenth‐century music, they are a common topic in the didactic literature of the period.219 In our time, these appoggiaturas are a constant source of interpretive discussions, between musicians as well as in the published literature, where every book on interpretation of eighteenth‐century music reviews appoggiaturas of different kinds and traditions.

I would also like to question whether the small notes might represent a later addition. We have no autograph to rely on. The manuscript we have was produced at least 50 years after Bach’s death, and we do not know how many layers of copying lie between the autograph and the preserved manuscripts. It is possible, for instance, that a flutist could have added them as extra ornaments. Does the sonata work without the small notes? I would like to suggest that it is possible, but in some movements the character is changed from somewhat reserved and elegant to something that could perhaps best be described as a more straight‐forward tonal language. I will not comment upon what is more Bachian, except that this could be seen as a hypothetical, perhaps fantastical thought.

Below, I go through the different appoggiaturas movement by movement. The fact that this section needs to be so comprehensive and detailed mirrors the interpretative plethora that this ornament represents.

Movement 1 – Adagio ma non tanto

First, I will carefully go through the different appoggiaturas in the first eight measures of the first movement. The arguments will be similar for the final 12 measures.

219 For example Bach, Versuch, 62‐70; Quantz, Verusch, 77‐83 and Leopold Mozart, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, Augsburg 1756. (Facsimile rpt. Kassel; Bärenreiter, 1995), 193‐217.

137

Illustration 49: Movement 1, measures 1‐3.

On the third beat of the first measure, there is a melodic filling‐in of the third interval. In the French literature this figures is called a tierce coulé, which also gives a clear guide to the performance – rolling thirds. According to the French tradition, the appoggiatura is expected to come exactly before the following tone to which it is slurred, with or without a legato slur mark. Almost all the other variants of the performance of the small notes leads to trouble for the flutist to keep in time with the bass voice – presupposing that the figure should sound freely from impulses from the bass voice, which I personally believe. One alternative, however, is to see the figure on beat three in measure 1 as another way of writing what is notated on the parallel place in measure 2. Then measure 1, beat three, could be read as four thirty‐second notes followed by an eighth note.

The small note in the third measure can be performed in several ways. If I choose to play it on the beat, it becomes stressed and creates at least the illusion of a short‐ lived dissonance against the A in the chord. However, the chord is diminished, and according to Kirnberger among others, should be interpreted as a dominant chord with a missing root, in this case b, and thus it is hardly possible to call the appoggiatura a dissonant one, because it creates more of a consonance. Alternatively, I can choose to allow the appoggiatura to be unstressed and thereby be a part of the ornamental figure, which would mean that the appoggiatura would be short and come before the beat.

On the third beat of the measure there is a cadence with a written‐out appoggiatura that has been dealt with already above (see page 136).

138

Illustration 50: Movement 1, measures 4‐5.

It is possible to make the f#´´ on the first beat of the fourth measure a little longer in order to create a dissonance, but at the same time g#´´ is a resolution of the dissonant a´´, which would argue against doing this. Also, the resolution from A to G# is given in the figured bass, so the keyboard instrument will play this suspension. On the third beat in the measure there is a parallel place to the written out appoggiatura in measure three.

Measure five begins the same as measure four; with the difference that measure five begins with an introductory appoggiatura. Both in terms of the time needed and thinking of the musical flow, the appoggiatura can be seen as melodically dependent, which would mean that it is more significant for the melody line but that it does not have any harmonic consequences.

Illustration 51: Movement 1, measures 6‐8.

On the second beat of the sixth measure, there is a typical example of an appoggiatura before a trill written out in normal notation. The appoggiatura on the fourth beat of the measure is not dependent on its harmonic surroundings thus far, as the figured bass line has a pause, so from this perspective it can be made long or short. However, the flow and the regularity of the triplet movement would be

139 interrupted if the appoggiatura is not played short and before the beat, like a passing ornament.220

On to the movement’s seventh measure. On the third beat of the measure, Bach has written an interesting appoggiatura from e´´ to d#´´´, an augmented seventh. The interval itself creates tension; furthermore the appoggiatura creates a dissonance to B major. In order to capture all of this, it is reasonable that the appoggiatura is played on the beat and also given time. It is less clear with the case of the appoggiatura on the fourth beat of the measure. The musical phrase moves toward the cadence in measure eight, so an emphasised appoggiatura in measure seven can give rise to an unnecessary stop in the musical flow. At the same time, the dissonance a#´´ against E7 major has been prepared in the figure that precedes beat four, which is why a#´´ should sound on the beat in order to not lose the dissonance.

Finally, we turn to the appoggiatura in measure 8, written out in normal notation on the first beat, creating a dissonance against B major in second inversion as well as an appoggiatura written in small notation to the un‐notated, cadential trill. The trill should be performed in agreement with the performance practice conventions in cadences, and the appoggiatura d#´´ is equally important according to the conventions. The appoggiatura also creates the sixth in the normal cadence formula I64 Æ V Æ I. This means that the appoggiatura should be played on the beat with a consciously formed length in order for the harmonic pattern to be clear. Alternatively, one can see the first and second beats of the measure as a single figure, which would mean that the appoggiatura before beat two would be unstressed, and only used as a beginning of the trill. What is attractive about this solution is that there are fewer accents, and the melodic motion can dominate over the harmonic, something that already was a sign of the galant style and defended by Mattheson among others.221

220 Neumann, Ornamentation, 141. 221 Mattheson, Volkommene Capellmeister, 219‐221.

140 Movement 2 ‐ Allegro

The appoggiaturas are unproblematic in the second movement of the sonata. It is possible to see them as short appoggiaturas before the beat. In measures 5, 22, 24, and 61 there is a kind of appoggiatura that later writers described as Zwischenschlag222 (Intermediate notes), which is a good descriptive term for these ornaments, see Illustration 52:

Illustration 52: Measure 5, original notation.

In Illustration 53, the appoggiatura is placed under a slur mark that connects the two main notes. As has already been noted (see page 98), the whole figure is a variant of the introductory figure. If Bach had not notated the figure as he had, he could have notated it with the symbol for a mordent, see Illustration 53:

Illustration 53: Measure 5, with mordent.

What would the difference be? The point of departure is the notation as it appears in measure 1, see Illustration 54:

Illustration 54: Measure 1 with original notation.

Here the two staccato points signal that both tones should be played detaché, separated, and unstressed. If the basic concept of the notation in Illustration 52 is kept, the different slurs have a softer character than in measure 1, according to Illustration 54. Bach then also adds this appoggiatura, or Zwischenschlag. What is

222 Neumann, Ornamentation, 125 and 143.

141 interesting with this kind of appoggiatura is that it can create an extra accent in the beat, if one chooses as an interpreter to play it as a further development and clarification of the introductory simple figure. If, as an interpreter, I choose to play a trill, rather than softening the passage, I create an active, energetic interpretation.

If I, as in Illustration 53 have a mordent, it would automatically lead to a stressed first beat. A “cadence” on the second beat would also have involved an accent (compare with Illustration 47). If I play a mordent instead of a soft appoggiatura, this also has consequences for the speed of the repetition of tones, where a mordent would clearly be faster.

Because Bach did not choose the notation form with a mordent, but rather wrote it out in normal‐sized notes, it is possible to suggest that he wanted to avoid accents in this figure and that he possibly was trying to create softness.

Finally there is an appoggiatura in this movement’s last measure that has a clear harmonic character, and that is not written with ordinary‐sized notes but rather as grace notes. Because there is no harmonic movement here, it is actually the only place in the movement where the convention of the time‐period can be applied, where the length of the appoggiatura should be at least half the length of the main note, see Illustration 55:223

Illustration 55: Movement 2, measures 79‐80.

Movement 3 – Siciliana and Movement 4 – Allegro assai

In the third movement, Siciliana, and also in the fourth movement, Allegro assai, there are several examples of appoggiatura where, apart from the harmonic

223 Quantz, Versuch, 78, Chapter 8, §7‐8.

142 meaning of the dissonance or consonance, it is also important to look at what happens in the counterpoint, and avoid parallel fifths or parallel octaves in the voice‐leading. A clear example of this can be seen in the fourth movement, see Illustration 56:

Illustration 56: Movement 4, measures 39‐40.

If the appoggiatura b#’ is held for two thirds of the main note’s value in measure 40 a hidden parallel octave is created, even if there is nothing in the harmony that argues against a long appoggiatura. Quite the reverse is true, because a desirable dissonance is created. There are, however, cases where the appoggiatura saves the voice‐leading from parallel octaves just like the example in measure 20 in the third movement. Without the appoggiatura e#´´ we would get a hidden parallel octave on f#, see Illustration 57:

Illustration 57: Movement 3, measures 19‐20.

If the appogiaturas are seen in a harmonic, vertical context, interpreters can get clues as to how the other appoggiaturas in the third movement should be understood. From a harmonic perspective it is possible to say that the grace notes in the Siciliana are of two types; either chordal or dissonance‐generating. In the

143 latter case they are quite often prepared; meaning that the appoggiatura is the same as the tone that precedes it, see Illustration 58:

Illustration 58: Movement 3, measures 5‐8.

In the illustrations above, all of the appoggiaturas that follow the normal pattern of an accented first beat in every measure are prepared from the previous measure. According to compositional rules, this is the most correct way to prepare a dissonance in a movement. In measure 8 beat 6, we see the other type of appoggiatura, which I called harmonic in the previous discussion. An even clearer example can be found in measure 2 in the melody voice and measure 3 in the bass, see Illustration 59:

Illustration 59: Movement 3, measures 1‐3.

Notated free ornamentation The notated free ornamentation that Bach uses in the opening movement consists mainly of two types. Most obviously he fills out large intervals with scalar passages, notated as thirty‐second notes with a few sixteenth‐note examples, and allows the ornament to stand under a long slur mark. There are two exceptions, measure 10 and measure 12, where the slur mark is missing, but they can perhaps be seen more

144 as accidentally omitted because one could hardly perform the movement in any spirit of galant cantabile if these measures were articulated. The sixteenth notes that appear in these figures give some information about phrasing, but this occurs only in the first four measures.

The other type of figure that attracts attention to itself is the triple motion in measures 6‐7 (see Illustration 52 on page 139) as well as the parallel place in measures 15 to 17. In contrast to the scalar passages that fill in intervals, where an interpreter can take great freedom, here one gets a feeling of regularity and rhythmical stability. But, as I showed above in the reduction of the movement, these triplets can also be seen as ornaments.

In neither the second nor the fourth movements can we really talk about any kind of notated free ornamentation. In the third movement it is possible, as I suggested in the analysis of the note picture (see above, page 104), to view the sixteenth‐note motion as ornamental, but at the same time it is difficult to apply the same free attitude to the figures as in the first movement. In addition, the imitation between soprano and bass voices make other demands on the performance, limiting agogic freedom.

Summary This third section has focused on performance practice conventions in relation to the notation of the sonata. An important goal with this section has been to avoid the normative, where it is so easy to wind up. Therefore, this section provides a number of arguments around alternative possibilities for articulation, understandings of tempo indications and time signature markings, as well as the performance of ornaments.

When it comes to articulation questions, I have primarily concentrated on the notated slur and staccato articulation marks, and here I have argued that the slurs are as valuable at indicating patterns of accents as at indicating ornaments. The staccato marks, like the slurs, are unusually richly indicated in the sonata, and are also not entirely unambiguous. Through the context within which the staccato marks are notated, we as interpreters can draw conclusions about whether they indicate stressed or unstressed notes; on the other hand, it is not possible to

145 generalise more than to state that the dot signals a tone that should be short (but not how short).

The question of tempo is also handled in a non‐normative fashion. I have, therefore, chosen to not give any metronome recommendations for the different movements. I suggested in the text that the choice of tempo can be seen primarily as a consequence of time signature and notation, where the length of the note value is a guide, but I also argued that it is not possible to be more definitive.

Finally, in this section dealing with performance practice conventions, I have discussed different types of ornament that appear in the sonata: trills, grace notes, and notated free ornamentation. I have discussed the possible interpretations of different notated trills, both cadential and decorative,.

The appoggiaturas that appear in the sonata are also of two main types, depending on whether they are notated as grace notes or as ordinary notes. The appoggiaturas that are notated with ordinary notes are all part of cadential patterns and relatively unproblematic. It is the small notes that raise questions. It is possible to see the small notes as short grace notes that generally can be placed before the beat, but they can also be given more importance through length and placement. In an alternative reading, I suggest that the grace notes might have been added later. From the three surviving manuscripts, the oldest is from about 1800, and we do not know how many copies lie between it and the autograph, or what might have been added by later copyists.

Notated free ornamentation appears primarily in the slow first movement and possibly in the third movement. The thirty‐second‐note passages in the first movement demonstrate this most clearly, but I argue that one could also see the triplets in the first movement and sixteenth‐note passages in the third movement as ornaments, even though both of these figure types are generally rhythmical regular.

Concluding reflections In this chapter, I have considered some elements that define this work at a detail level that are of importance to the performance of the sonata. By looking for compositional intention in the analysis of the notation, I have constructed an

146 understanding of the compositional process of the work. As has been pointed out earlier, the score’s instructions are not exactly exhaustive from an ontological perspective. In this score, even some basic musical elements need interpretation. Sometimes this interpretation concerns fairly simple decisions, sometimes interpretation is so subtle that it cannot even be formed into a conscious thought.

How ontologically thin or thick is Bach’s Sonata in E major? Firstly, we can establish that the frequency of instructions is unevenly distributed through the manuscript. The flute voice has a rich notation that shows articulation and ornamentation including trills and grace notes. Minor inconsistencies can be found in parallel places, and there we must decide as interpreters whether we will understand the inconsistencies as conscious variation or as mistakes. The articulation in the bass voice, on the other hand, is not noted in any detail, and leaves considerably more to the interpreter to decide. Is this lack of articulation marks bothersome, or is the bass voice in general so much simpler in relation to the flute voice that Bach trusted conventional articulation? In the third movement these questions become most evident. Even though there is much imitation between both voices, with few exceptions, only the flute voice has notated legato slur marks and staccato dots.

In one aspect the score is obviously thin. Like many sonatas from this time period, the bass voice has figured bass numbers, and that means that the keyboard player must interpret how the chords will be filled out. Figured bass numbers only give the tones that are found in the chord, not the octave, or the voice leading from chord to chord. In this way a substantial part of the work’s sounding structure is left by the composer for the interpreter, which means that there is a substantial dimension of improvisation in the work.

147

Chapter 6: Interpretation In this final chapter, I intend to connect the case‐study in the two text‐based chapters (4 and 5) to the analysis in performance recorded on the accompanying CD. In this way, Chapter 6 serves as a kind of report on the results for the dissertation as a whole.

The interpretative process To begin, I will present my co‐musician Hans‐Ola Ericsson, and thereafter give an overview of our collaborative music‐making process and how our shared interpretations have developed.

Hans‐Ola Ericsson is professor of organ at the Department of Music and Media at Luleå University of Technology and at the University of the Arts in Bremen. He has a broad international professional field as a concert organist, composer, and pedagogue; he often is often chosen as a jury member for international organ competitions. His musical roots, unlike mine, are in contemporary music. During the late 1970s and early 1980s he studied composition with Klaus Huber, Brian Ferneyhough, and Luigi Nono, and at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s worked in collaboration with Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, and John Cage on the interpretation of their organ works. However, early music has always played an important role in his musicianship. He has continuously sought out period instruments around the world, and allowed these to inspire and guide his thoughts about interpretation.

Our collaborative work began in 1993, and since then we have played a great number of concerts together, sometimes a combination of flute and organ or harpsichord, sometimes as continuo performers in many contexts where I have played viola da gamba and Hans‐Ola organ or harpsichord.

Our shared fascination with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach has always accompanied our work. But because we come from very different points of departure we often meet in “empty spaces, unresounding,” to use Lars Gustafsson’s words. In these spaces, we look for a common language and a common

149 understanding in the musical interpretive process where our contemporary shared socio‐cultural context is most evident and meaningful.

Our musical collaboration is based on listening and a feeling of safety in the knowledge that we can rely on one another’s competence and that we will be attentive to one another and will respond. This means that we rarely discuss specific interpretive questions, but rather play our way toward an interpretation where we are both satisfied. When we discuss something it is because we clearly don’t agree.

This way of working gives us a great amount of freedom as interpreters to do something completely different than we did the time before. We are also both consciously sparse with notations in the score in order to avoid locking ourselves into one specific interpretation.

Through this doctoral project we have both, in different ways, worked with the text of the dissertation. The division of labour has been clear: the text is mine, and it mirrors my reflections and thoughts, while Hans‐Ola’s role has been as the reflecting, and sometimes questioning, reader. During the process, we have had discussions about different musical questions, but even so, we have rarely had to discuss the kinds of questions of interpretation that I documented in Chapter 5. This is not meant to imply that our music‐making is without reflection. Just the opposite. We have lived with the text portion of this dissertation together, as writer and critical reader, and incorporated these tools into our own music‐making. Exactly which tools each of us have used when is not possible to verbalise; it is even unlikely that we used the same tools or experienced them in the same way. This interpretive process can also be described through the use of a part of Figure 1 that was given in the dissertation’s introduction, see page 8, but with a few changes:

150

Figure 4

In Figure 4, the solid arrows now represent questions that are directed towards the score and the socio‐cultural context, whereas originally in Figure 1 these arrows represented influences. This is why the arrows have now changed direction when it comes to the contemporary socio‐cultural context. The score can be brought into the present for the same reason, because it is the score that is used in the actual work of interpretation. The three ellipses that illustrate different aspects of the musician are reciprocally dependent upon one another in the form of a continuous dialog that is characterised by questions. Here, we also return to the interpretive attitudes that I briefly described in Chapter 3, see page 42.

151 Performance The concept of the composer’s intentions has been treated in several ways earlier in this text, in Chapter 2 – primarily in relation to the concept of authenticity – and in Chapter 3, in connection with the description of an inventio‐based analytical method, but also within the frame of the analysis in Chapter 5. Because the composer’s intention is something we are only capable of developing theories about, it is difficult to come to terms with, but I maintain that we should continue to search for it. Within the frame of the analysis, I pointed out that the notation can be seen to illustrate the composer’s compositional intention, at any rate a possible intention. At the same time, notation is also a possible expression of the composer’s interpretive intentions, where both the instrumentation and the performance practice conventions play a role in the composition, as well as for the interpretation.

It is also this conscious intention that we must relate to as musicians in an interpretive work that results in a performance with claims to authenticity. It is impossible to say how near or far the assumed intentions lie from the composer’s actual intentions; it is not even possible to be sure that the composer really had an interpretive intention, even though it is probably the case during the eighteenth century, where the composer was also the interpreter in the vast majority of cases.

Chapter 3 introduced the concept of the sound structure, a concept that is central for the work and for our understanding of it, and therefore the sound structure can be seen as central for our ability to perform the work. The primary categories that are contained within the frame of the sound structure are: the notation, the instrumentation, and the performance practice conventions. How I as a performing musician choose to relate to these three categories can be seen to determine the level of authenticity of the performance.

If it is possible to state that the performance has reached a high degree of authenticity, is it then automatically historically informed? From the perspective I have described in the study the answer is no, because the sound structure does not take into account the historical socio‐cultural context in a perspective that is wider than the performance practice conventions themselves. If we are going to be able to speak about a historically informed performance, I believe that the link between the notated work and the performance that goes through the historical socio‐

152 cultural context is necessary, as well as the link from the notation through analysis of the sound structure to the performance. Even if we cannot reach the historical socio‐cultural context, we can, through a pursuit of historical studies, allow it to have an influence over our shared understanding of the work’s performance aspects. Only then am I persuaded that it is possible to speak about a historically informed performance.

However, if a performance is seen as authentic from an ontological perspective, or if it is to be labelled historically informed, this says nothing about the quality of the performance. It says nothing about its artistic content, nothing about interpretation. Nothing ever prevents an “authentic” or “historically informed” performance from being artistically dead.

So where does a performance find life? The key, as I have tried to express in the previous chapters, lies in seeing the musical work as dependent on its performance, and that the performance consists of interpretive processes, that in every aspect are dependent upon and influenced by the socio‐cultural context. Through the musician’s artistic freedom to interpret, to make decisions and choices, the performance accrues life. With an imaginary backpack full of knowledge generated from studies of the various parts of the sound structure and the music’s historical socio‐cultural context, the musician can fill in the gaps by interpreting them from the perspective of her own socio‐cultural context. Here is where artistic freedom can be found and can give the performance life.

However, there is still nothing that can generally determine whether the performance will be good or bad. It is a value judgement, which only musicians and listeners can make from their own perspectives; perspectives that are themselves based on socially constructed knowledge.

What happens to the work if I choose to ignore elements or instructions that can be seen to be determinative for the performance from a contextual musical ontological point of view? Do we still have a performance of the work? I mean to suggest that we are discussing degrees of difference of authenticity; depending on which tradition we belong to and which tradition the work belongs to, some elements are more important than others. Even here we rest on our own socio‐cultural context, because in some cases we have expectations of how the music should sound. We

153 are, therefore, returning to the shared understanding of the least common denominators necessary for us to accept that a performance of a specific work has taken place. If we choose, for example, to ignore the historical instrument in the performance and use a modern example instead, we lose many dimensions, but I think one could still say one had a performance of the work, even though it would have a strong reduction in its degree of authenticity. A relevant choice of instrument is an important precondition to be able to apply certain performance practice conventions that are a part of the work’s sound structure.

In order to accept the approach of what a musical work is within the framework of contextual musical ontology – that is, as a social construction where the performance, historically as well as in the present moment, is a part of the work – I have provided myself as a musician with certain preconditions for my interpretation that are a part of a larger striving after an authentic relationship with the work.

This relationship points out the importance of reflecting on the consequences that come with interpretive decisions. The same can be said for certain general performance practice conventions. I can consciously choose to not follow certain instructions in historical writings when I am performing – these could concern breathing and articulation among other things – but as I see it, it is absolutely necessary that I am conscious that these are decisions that I have made, and that I am aware of the consequences.

A number of interpretive results Because the sounding interpretations that are a part of this dissertation include recordings of concert performances as well as studio recordings, I would like to briefly touch on performance in relation to recording.

Terms – public performance versus recording A public performance in connection with a concert is an unproblematic term, where the concert form itself gives us an intuitive understanding that the performance of a work takes place in the time when the music is sounding. Such a performance can be recorded, and when we listen afterwards to the recording, I suggest it is to be regarded solely as a repetition of a performance, not a new performance. Of course

154 the recording will not sound exactly the same on different equipment used to replay it, but the interpretation of the piece will not change.

How do we describe the recordings where there was no audience present for the performance? Are they performances or are they something else? In addition, how should we relate to the complicated factors introduced when movements are edited, that even include material from different takes?

In this discussion, I choose to take myself as a musician as a starting point and consciously not ground my thoughts in any theoretical discussion. In the moment that I play a musical work I play two roles: I interpret, but at the same time I am also a listener. In this way the character of the performance is not dependent on the presence of a public. The performance is a creative process, and this process is one that I go through every time a play a work.

But what happens when there are a number of performances, a plethora of versions, combined through editing? Even in these cases I think we can talk about a performance; this is true of each individual take, but also in the editing together of different ones. It is clear that differences can appear between different takes, which are so clear that they cannot be combined, and somewhere there is a border that can not be crossed, but generally I experience that a practicing musician in recording situations is so focused and so present in a specific context that parts of different takes absolutely can be brought together into a single whole. In our case it is remarkable how few edits we have in the slow movements, if any, while in both fast movements there are a number of edits. It is also the slow movements that are most sensitive to multiple takes because they are more dependent on the interpretation in the moment in the work process that Hans‐Ola and I have practiced. The fast movements, on the other hand, provide substantially fewer moments for obvious interpretive differences.

Descriptions of the different performances Before I go into the different recordings that are related to the dissertation, I ask the reader to review the introduction, specifically the notes from the Spring of 2007 that are given on pages 3 to 5. These notes were inspired by a discussion at the first seminar where I presented a text for my colleagues within the research group at the

155 Department of Music and Media. The discussion concerned whether, in order to describe my interpretive process, I should try to document how my relationship to the sonata had changed over time, or not changed. I began a journal, and it is that attempt that appears in Chapter 1. What focus did I have in my doctoral studies when I wrote this? The aim for the dissertation at that time was to perform a musicologically oriented analysis in order to increase my understanding of the structure of the sonata, and thereby achieve a more satisfying interpretation of the work.

I chose to not make further notes in that journal because I directly began work on the analysis chapter, which in itself mirrors a relationship to the sonata, a relationship that is even more characterised by questions without answers. At the same time, it is possible to see the entire text of this dissertation as a kind of journal of my relationship to this sonata, as it has been central the entire time.

The notes can however give a picture of where I found myself in the spring of 2007, and how I saw the sonata, and therefore serve as a point of departure for the dissertation’s recorded material, a material that consists of different moments in our interpretive journey, in our relationship with Bach’s Sonata in E major over the last year. At the same time, it must be said that we have performed the sonata earlier several times, but in comparison with the other sonatas of Bach, the Sonata in E major is the one that we have played least often. Perhaps it is most fair to call these “re‐studies,” taking place as preparations before the performances that fell within the scope of this dissertation work.

A conscious decision was made for all of the performances where I play the flute to not strengthen the bass line with a gambist or ‘cellist. The reason for this was that we wanted to maintain our own interpretation process, and not be forced into another kind of process that might have demanded more verbal communication or clearer agreements.

One might think it would be interesting to revisit the notations in our scores from the different recordings where one could expect that our different interpretive choices might be documented. But as I have already mentioned, we do not work this way. We simply do not add notes in our scores. To study our interpretations involves listening. Within the frame of this specific case study, it also means taking

156 into account the text that was formulated parallel to the interpretive process, which was manifested in a number of performances, all but one of which was documented through recording. These recordings can be found on the CD that was produced as a part of this dissertation. For the same reason I am not presenting any analysis of the interpretive decisions that are the basis of our different performances. If the listener has read the text, then the text is a part of the listening process, but the listening can also happen without the text. As an interpreter, I do not want to steer the listening process through analytical texts, where such a relationship could become normative for the listening. As I wrote in the prologue, the experience of the artistic expression is our own, and just like the experience of a poem, it is also influenced by its socio‐cultural context. No experience is more true than any other.

June 2007

In June of 2007 we performed the sonata in connection with a concert in Östhammar Church in Norduppland. The musical‐interpretive preconditions were as I described them in the opening notes to Chapter 1. We performed the sonata at a’ ≈ 440 Hz because the instrument that was available was the choir organ in the church.224 The pitch is not a major factor for either of us as we do not have absolute pitch. The most important consequence of the high pitch was that I had to use a flute that I would not otherwise have chosen.

Baroque flutes built today are almost all copies of existing historical flutes that normally had a pitch somewhere between a’ ≈ 390 – 425 Hz. For purely practical reasons, a consensus has developed in our time around a pitch of a’ ≈ 415 Hz (approximately a half tone under the normal modern pitch of a’ ≈ 440 Hz). With few adjustments, wind instruments built today according to baroque models are all suited to a’ ≈ 415 Hz.

When Hans‐Ola and I recorded the sonatas of C. P. E. Bach in 1995, the organ we wanted to use for the recording forced me to find a flute at a’ ≈ 440 Hz.225 The builder that I order flutes from, Alain Weemaels in Brussels, created an instrument at this pitch by reducing all of the dimensions proportionally instead of only

224 The choir organ in the Östhammar Church is built by Karl Nelson. 225 The recording is published by BIS, BIS‐CD‐755/756. The organ we used is built by Mads Kjersgaard and stands in the Masonic Temple in Uppsala.

157 shortening the left‐hand part, which would have given an inbuilt bad intonation. The result was good, but still not as good as a flute with a lower pitch. It is a compromise instrument that requires more compensation for sounding unevenness as well as constant adjustments for the intonation of individual notes. I am less free in relation to this instrument, which often leads to situations where I cannot completely trust the instrument and have to focus an unnecessarily large amount of energy just on intonation. Intonation is also a more sensitive issue with the organ than the harpsichord because of the organ’s sustained sound. Against an organ sound, the flute’s tones must be intonated against the same tone in the organ – in unisons or octaves – no matter how the organ is tempered. As I have already mentioned, the flute can be seen as a meantone instrument with a centre on d, which leads to cases where it can be quite problematic to intonate against, for instance, an equal‐tempered organ.

In this concert in Östhammar, we consciously tried to allow the fast movements to have a slower tempo, a tempo I would characterise as held‐back. I am not completely convinced whether it was successful, and the movements developed a cautious character. I remember a feeling from this performance of being held back, where the focus landed on controlling the tempo. There is no recording of this performance but I mention it here anyway, as it was part of the interpretive process that this dissertation illustrates. Our discussion around tempo in connection with the concert also had importance for later performances. Testing different tempi, or alternative interpretations of different elements like ornaments or articulations, is an important part of our interpretation process. Through this process we define the limits of what the music can bear and we can achieve, in order to build up an experiential bank of possible alternatives.

November 2007

The next time we performed the sonata was in connection with a seminar in November of 2007, where Hans‐Ola and I gave a public lunch concert in Studio Acusticum in Piteå. The same program was repeated two days later at a public concert in Piteå Church.

The conditions for the two concerts were quite different, and this also influenced the interpretation in different ways. The concert in Studio Acusticum developed a

158 sense of representation because the Norrbotten Academy attended the concert. Because we knew that the Academy’s board was pressed for time, we chose to ignore some of the repeats. For the Sonata in E major we cut the repeats from the second half of each of the fast movements, as well as both of the repeats from the third movement. We made the same cuts at the concert in the Piteå Church.

These performances appear on tracks 1‐4 (Studio Acusticum) and 5‐8 (Piteå Church).

For the concert in Studio Acusticum, we used our chamber organ built by Henk Klop in 2004 as a keyboard instrument. It is an organ with four registers: Principal 8’, Gedackt 8’, Flute 4’ and Flute 2’. The organ was tuned for this concert in a temperament close to Neidhardt “für eine große Stadt” (quite close to equal temperament). For the concert in the church we used the church’s harpsichord built by William Dowd around 1980, a one‐manual instrument in Flemish style with two 8’‐registers. I tuned the harpsichord myself for the concert in the way that I described on page 121.

I used the same flute for both concerts, a copy of a flute built originally by August Grenser. It is a type of flute that can be described as light in tone colour, with a quick response, but that does not have the strong lower register of the flutes that Quantz had built for the court in Berlin. It was mainly for practical reasons that I chose this flute. Acoustically it falls between the two other alternatives, a copy of a flute by G. A. Rottenburg and one by I. H. Rottenburg, where the I. H. Rottenburg would have been preferable. The latter, however, has a large left hand grip, which I have difficulty managing at times, which is why I chose the second best alternative acoustically.226

The differences between the organ and the harpsichord as keyboard instruments are not only acoustical as I have already pointed out in Chapter 5 (see page 121);

226 What mainly separate these three flutes from one another are their periods of construction. Exact dates of construction must remain relative, based on when the builders were active and which instruments we have preserved. I. H. Rottenburg lived from 1672‐1756 and built flutes primarily between 1700‐1735; preserved flutes from v G. A. Rottenburg (1703‐1768?) are most likely from 1750 onward; August Grenser (1720‐1807) began building flutes in 1744 and all of his preserved instruments are from after 1750 Information taken from Ardal Powell and David Lasocki, “Bach and the Flute: the Players, the Instruments, the Music,” Early Music vol 23 nr. 1 (1995): 22‐23.

159 the different instruments also affect how the figured bass line can be formed. The figured bass line itself does not need to change; articulation possibilities, however, are affected greatly because the harpsichord allows a more diversified playing technique, particularly in how chords are broken. Arpeggiating chords are an element that is effective to give accents but also a tool for creating dynamics. Both the harpsichord and organ lack the possibility of making dynamic differentiation within the register.

Besides the different articulation possibilities, sensitivity in respect to the intonations can be seen as an important factor, something that is strengthened in these two concerts through the use of different temperaments. My relationship to intonation was more relaxed at the concert in the Piteå Church because the temperament that we used is the one we use most often.

Another difference between these two performances lay in the different venues themselves. In Studio Acusticum, the adjustable ceiling was set in its highest position, which meant that there was a reverberation of about two and a half seconds, while in the Piteå Church, a wooden church with many textiles, the reverberation time is around 0.2 seconds. The acoustic response of the room has a quite obvious effect on the interpretation and therefore a performance, in this case perhaps not so much in terms of choice of tempo but in the experience of one’s own sound, and how we as musicians can rest in it. The timing is also affected. One example could be how long a suspension can be allowed. If the acoustic is dry, it can be difficult to maintain a musical tension in a suspension or in a pause, but such agogics can be experienced as completely natural in rooms with a longer reverberation time.

The audience naturally affects a performance, but here it is much more difficult to pinpoint what that might mean. The audience was markedly larger in Studio Acusticum, but a large number of them were more or less forced to be there. At the same time we felt a great interest and enthusiasm. In Piteå Church there was a small audience, but even though those who were there had chosen to be there, they were more restrained in their reactions.

When these recordings took place, my dissertation text was in a phase where the analysis of the notation was primarily completed and written, but the dissertation

160 was lacking a theoretical framework, which is why I saw the inventio‐based analysis as my main tool for a deeper understanding of the sonata’s structure as a key to interpretation.

12‐13 June 2008

On the 12‐13 June 2008 we recorded three more versions (tracks 9‐12, Sonata in E major with harpsichord; 13‐16, Sonata in E major with organ; as well as 17‐20, Sonata in G major with harpsichord). We were once again in Studio Acusticum, but this time it was a recording session without a live audience. We had limited time for both extra takes and editing.

These recordings were meant to be a time capsule of how we viewed the sonata just then on the 12‐13 June, 2008. I was in a phase of my doctoral work where many parts of the text existed in some form, but where a number of theoretical arguments needed to be sharpened in order to create a whole out of the text.

Why did we record the sonata in a different key? It was a sounding experiment inspired by a question that I have often posed to myself: Why did Bach choose the key of E major? The choice of key makes the piece technically difficult because E major and its related keys mean many forked fingerings, often in troublesome combinations. The sound of the flute is influenced greatly by a key with many sharps. Even if the goal isn’t an equalised sound, it isn’t possible to play all the tones in E major or C# minor with full strength, because the notes that are not played with forked fingerings stick out and are much stronger than the others. It would create an unwanted acoustic picture in ensemble with an accompanying keyboard instrument. Both the organ and harpsichord have an equalised sound.

Because this sonata has a modest range from e’‐e’’’, the sonata can be transposed, with no octave transpositions or similar exercises, to D major, Eb major, F major, and G major. It will still be playable within the flute’s range of d’‐a’’’. In reality, F# major would also be possible, but I more than gladly skipped that experiment as F# major consists almost solely of forked fingerings. The possibility that was most attractive was to transpose to G major. With G major it was possible to experience more freedom without direct technical problems, and a more open sound. A transposition up a small third also affects the range and gives a more open and light sound.

161 For these three recordings we had planned to use the same flute, a copy of a flute by I. H. Rottenburg whose acoustic qualities are reminiscent of Quantz’s flutes and should therefore lie fairly close to a type of flute for which the sonata might have been designed. The flute is built in grenadilla wood, a hard and resilient type that I experience gives a somewhat darker sound than boxwood, which is another typical wood for flute builders. I use this flute for both versions with harpsichord, but in the recording with the organ I was forced to use a different flute. Due to the climate, the organ had risen in pitch to a’≈ 418 Hz, a pitch that only a few of my flutes can manage. Therefore, the choice fell on the G. A. Rottenburg, a flute built in boxwood with a softer and more intimate sound. The organ in this case was a smaller version of the instrument we used in November, with only two registers, Gedackt 8’ and Flute 4’, built by Henk Klop in 2006. The harpsichord built by Stig Lundmark in 1988, is a two‐manual copy of an instrument built by Taskin in 1769.

24 and 26 June 2008 – Båstad Chamber Music Festival

The time between the recordings in Studio Acusticum and our involvement in the Båstad chamber music festival was short, but in that period I had studied social constructionism and its view on knowledge‐creation was very meaningful and in many respects artistically freeing, exercising a profound influence on my personal relationship to music‐making.

The recording from the concert in Förslöv Church on the 24th of June is different in many ways from the other recordings. The flute line was played by Kerstin Frödin on the recorder. The key is F major, a key that suits the recorder perfectly, so we do not have the complicated relationship that develops between the flute and E major and we also do not have the G major version’s perhaps slightly strained high tessatura. Hans‐Ola and I play the basso continuo together in this recording: I play the viola da gamba and Hans‐Ola the harpsichord. I have chosen to include this recording in order to show how an interpretation can change when yet another musician joins the ensemble, and in a situation where we had not met before and had to look for a shared way of expressing the piece the evening before the concert. What happens in a situation like this is that a pragmatic approach is taken. One achieves a spoken or unspoken agreement about who will dominate the interpretation, and in this specific case it went without saying that Hans‐Ola and I tried to adapt ourselves as much as possible to how Kerstin Frödin wanted to

162 interpret the sonata. Perhaps the differences between this version and the others are most clear in the slow movements.

I play on a seven‐stringed gamba – a copy of a gamba by Collichon, built by Norman Myall in 2006 – and Hans‐Ola performs on a two‐manual harpsichord built by Mats Arvidsson, date of building unknown to me.

The concert was recorded by Sveriges Radio P2 [Swedish Broadcast Channel 2] and can be found on tracks 21‐24 on the CD.

The CD’s last four tracks, 25‐28, were recorded by Sveriges Radio P2 [Swedish Broadcast Channel 2] two days later, where Hans‐Ola and I introduced a varied chamber music concert with this sonata. Now we play again in E major, I on the flute and Hans‐Ola on the organ. The organ was of the same type as our own Klop organ, and I played a copy by G. A. Rottenburg, in principle the same sounding combination of instruments as in the recording from June 13th.

In both of these concerts, the audience was completely different than the earlier public concerts. Over the course of the week we met a public with a great passion for chamber music that visited thirty concerts, and took part in what we had to say as musicians with interest and attention. It is naturally inspiring but also challenging, when expectations in these cases can be quite high.

163 CD – contents

Total duration: 79:57

Recording 1 – Studio Acusticum 15 November 2007, a’ ≈ 415 Hz

Flute: Copy by A. Grenser, A. Weemaels 2006

Keyboard instrument: chamber organ, H Klop 2004

Track Movement Duration

1 Adagio ma non tanto 2:18

2 Allegro 2:06

3 Siciliana 2:05

4 Allegro assai 2:35

Recording engineer: Johannes Oscarsson and Sebastian Lönberg

Recording 2 – Piteå City Church 17 November 2007, a’ ≈ 415 Hz

Flute: Copy by A. Grenser (ca 1760), A. Weemaels 2005

Keyboard instrument: harpsichord, Flemish model, W. Dowd ca 1980

Track Movement Duration

5 Adagio ma non tanto 2:15

6 Allegro 2:06

7 Siciliana 2:03

8 Allegro assai 2:22

Recording engineer: Johannes Oscarsson and Sebastian Lönberg

164 Recordings 3 – Studio Acusticum 12 June 2008, a’ ≈ 415 Hz

Flute: Copy by I. H. Rottenburg (ca 1730), A. Weemaels 2005

Keyboard instrument: harpsichord, based on Taskin (1769), S. Lundmark 1988

Track Movement Duration

9 Adagio ma non tanto 2:29

10 Allegro 2:56

11 Siciliana 3:57

12 Allegro assai 3:12

Recording engineer: Johannes Oscarsson

Recording 4 – Studio Acusticum 13 June 2008, a’ ≈ 418 Hz

Flute: Copy by G. A. Rottenburg (ca 1750), A. Weemaels 1985

Keyboard instrument: chamber organ, H. Klop 2006

Track Movement Duration

13 Adagio ma non tanto 2:32

14 Allegro 3:04

15 Siciliana 4:09

16 Allegro assai 3:11

Recording engineer: Johannes Oscarsson

165

Recording 5 – Studio Acusticum 12 June 2008, a’ ≈ 415 Hz, G major

Flute: Copy by I. H. Rottenburg (ca 1730), A. Weemaels 2005

Keyboard instrument: harpsichord, based on Taskin (1769), S. Lundmark 1988

Track Movement Duration

17 Adagio ma non tanto 2:13

18 Allegro 2:52

19 Siciliana 3:26

20 Allegro assai 3:06

Recording engineer: Johannes Oscarsson

Recording 6 – Förslövs Church, 24 June 2008, a’ ≈ 415 Hz, F major

Kerstin Frödin – recorder

Lena Weman Ericsson – viola da gamba, Copy by Collichon (1691), N. Myall 2006 Hans‐Ola Ericsson – harpsichord, M. Arvidsson

Track Movement Duration

21 Adagio ma non tanto 2:01

22 Allegro 3:08

23 Siciliana 3:22

24 Allegro assai 3:02

Recording engineer: Hans Larsson and Bo Kristiansson Producer: Pia Bygdéus Sveriges Radio P2

166 Recording 7 – Torekovs Church, 26 June 2008, a’ ≈ 415 Hz

Flute: Copy by G. A. Rottenburg (ca 1750), A. Weemaels 1985

Keyboard instrument: chamber organ, H Klop 2006

Track Movement Duration

25 Adagio ma non tanto 2:36

26 Allegro 3:00

27 Siciliana 4:02

28 Allegro assai 3:19

Recording engineer: Hans Larsson and Bo Kristiansson Producer: Pia Bygdéus Sveriges Radio P2

Conclusion In the overarching aims of this study, I discussed on page 5 how to understand and communicate my interpretive choices, which in turn lead to a performance. Through the process of formulating the theoretical framework as it has developed, I have achieved this, but the results of this study reach further than that. The dissertation balances between the academic and artistic, and in this balancing, not least through the epistemological approach that is based on the social constructionist tradition, I have been able to experience artistic freedom and security.

The key to this experience lies in the view of the performance as a part of the work, where the work draws its identity from the moment in which it is performed, an identity that is a result of the socio‐cultural context in which I find myself as a musician. To accept the importance of my own socio‐cultural context is to accept my own artistic freedom.

Is there any substantial difference between this view and historically informed performance practice, which above all emphasises the historical context? I would argue that a historically informed performance requires knowledge about both the

167 historical and the current socio‐cultural context. A basic idea is that knowledge is constructed in communication with others. Historical knowledge is valuable, but there are insights that are equally valuable: the insight that reconstruction is impossible and that it is only possible for us to interpret the historical socio‐cultural context from the norms, value judgements, and performances that are a part of our current socio‐cultural environment.

The different sounding versions are to be seen as results of the work with theory and method as analytical tools, but are equally meant to be seen as a mirror of an interpretive process over time, where Hans‐Ola and I have been influenced by the work with the text of the dissertation.

There are audible differences between the different recordings. The most obvious differences are the different locations with their varying acoustics and atmospheres, and the different instruments that we have used: different flutes as well as different organs and harpsichords. There are other differences between the recordings that touch on everything from the formation of individual tones to the direction of a phrase, how a trill is formulated, or if it is played at all, and so forth. It is a list that could be never‐ending, precisely because no performance is identical with another. They can be experienced as similar or different, as better, or less good, but all this belongs to the listener. In her role, the listener is also dependent on her socio‐cultural context and knowledge.

For me as a musician, and as the author of this dissertation, the greatest difference has been the knowledge and insights that this work generated for me. For me, these are mirrored in the recordings, but these insights are also important for my music‐making in general. The work with this dissertation has shown me the artistic possibilities that open up for me when I allow myself to view and process music‐ making and performance from a scholarly theoretical perspective. It has, at the same time, shown me the theoretical possibilities that can be found within an artistic process. In addition, through the process of understanding and formulating the importance of the socio‐cultural context in which we take part, I also accept that there are many emotional influences that are not possible to express in words. And perhaps, it is also the absence or presence of excitement, conflict, sorrow, love, lust, joy, happiness, calm that in the end is the most conclusive for what we as musicians manage to communicate.

168 Epilogue The financial support needed to complete a doctoral project within a field like music interpretation, where even one’s home university has difficulty finding full economic support, I would like to begin by thanking the philosophical faculty board at LTU for approving prefect Karin Ljuslinder to allocate support for my professional development, as well as my home institution that assigned some strategic funds also for this project.

Writing a dissertation in two years as a little special. It takes patience from more than the author. It requires will‐ power from more than the author. But above all it requires that there are people on the side of the author that believe it is possible. Without this support and validation it would not have been possible. I have been given a fantastic chance that I have tried to use to the best of my ability.

Thanks to Yvonne, Helen, Matts and Johan at the library of the Institute for Music and Media ‐ you simplified a doctoral student’s life immensely. Your concept of service and support can only be wondered at.

Thanks to Pia for your unfailing support. Many were the times I sank into a chair in your office, often without knocking, and I never felt I was in the way, quite the reverse.

Three other offices I often barged into in the same way were Kristina’s, Kicki’s and Annika’s. Your open doors were inviting and I took the invitation and felt welcomed. It was more valuable than you would know. To be able to talk about other things. To be able to discuss the institution in general, or educational programs or budgets sometimes felt more real and just the down‐to‐earth release I needed, but what reality really is we could discuss another time.

Thanks also to Johannes who in a fantastic way helped me, and us, with recordings and editing. You always volunteered with an enthusiasm and gladness that was invaluable.

Thanks to my father Gunnar for his proofreading.

Thanks to Natanael for his cover art.

Thanks to Lars Gustafsson that you so enthusiastically gave me permission to use your poem and to use the final lines of that poem as the title of this work.

Thanks to the doctoral student group and the research seminars for valuable input to a sometimes halting text.

Thanks to Sverker for your advising.

Everyone that I have named are invaluable for me. Your support made me believe that his might be possible.

Patience, will and faith.

Karin Ljuslinder and Hans‐Ola Ericsson, you both in different ways made this project possible by personifying will and patience to complete what you believe in – and you also have the capacity to communicate this and in your own ways have led me farther on my way, and for that I am eternally and lovingly thankful.

Piteå 25 October 2008 Lena Weman Ericsson

169

Bibliography

Music

Manuscripts Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonata per Traverso solo e Continuo del Signr. Giov. Seb. Bach. Manuscript. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Mus. ms. Bach P 621.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonata per Traverso Solo e Continuo del Sigre. Giov. Seb. Bach. Manuscript. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Mus. ms. Bach P 622.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonate per Flauto traverso e Cembalo di Sgr Gio. Seb. Bach. Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, XY 15.140.

Prints Mattheson, Johann. Der Brauchbare Virtuoso, Welcher sich (nach beliebiger überlegung der Vorrede) mit Zwölf neuen Kammer‐Sonaten auf der Flute Traversiere, der Violine, und dem Claviere/ beij Gelegenheit hören lassen mag. Hamburg: no pub., 1720.

Couperin, Francois. Concerts Royaux. Paris : no pub., 1722.

Locatelli, Pietro. XII Sonate à Flauto Traversiere Solo è Basso. Opera Seconda. Amsterdam: no pub., 1732.

Veracini, Franceso Maria. [12] Sonate a Violino, o Flauto solo e Basso. Dresden: no pub., 1716.

Modern editions Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Vier Sonaten für Flöte und Cembalo, Wotq 83‐86 (H 505‐508), book I. Edited by Gerhard Braun. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1987.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Concerto II (BWV 1047). In Sechs Brandenburgische Konzerte. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie VII. Orchesterwerke, Band 2. Edited by Heinrich Besseler. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1956.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Flötensonaten I. Die vier authentischen Sonaten. Edited by Hans Eppstein. München: Henle, 1978.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Inventionen und Sinfonien. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie V, Band 3. Edited by Georg von Dadelsen. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1970.

171 Bach, Johann Sebastian. Johannes‐Passion (BWV 245). Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie II, Band 4. Edited by Arthur Mendel. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1973.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonate für Flöte und Basso Continuo, E‐dur, BWV 1035. Edited by Barthold Kuijken. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1992.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonate für Flöte und Basso Continuo, e‐moll, BWV 1034. Edited by Barthold Kuijken. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1991.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonate für Flöte und Cembalo, A‐dur, BWV 1032. Edited by Barthold Kuijken. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1997.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Sonate für Flöte und Cembalo, h‐moll, BWV 1030. Edited by Barthold Kuijken. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1995.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. “Was frag ich nach der Welt (BWV 94)“. In Kantaten zum 9. Und 10. Sonntag nach Trinitatis. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie I, Band 19. Edited by Robert L Marshall. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1985.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Werke für Flöte. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie VI. Kammermusik, Band 3. Edited by Hans‐Peter Schmitz. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Zwei Sonaten für Flöte und Basso Continuo. Zwei Sonaten für Flöte und obligates Cembalo, BWV 1034, 1035, 1030, 1032. Edited by Hans‐Peter Schmitz, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963.

Telemann, Georg Philipp. Methodische Sonaten. Edited by Max Seiffert. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1965.

Literature Abravaya, Ido. On Bach’s Rhythm and Tempo. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2006.

Adorno, Theodor W. “Bach Defended Against his Devotees.” In Prisms, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1981, 133‐146

Adorno, Theodor W. Inledning till musiksociologin. 12 teoretiska föreläsningar. Lund: Cavefors, 1976.

Adorno, Theodor W. Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction. Edited by Henri Lonitz. Cambridge: Polity, 2006.

Albrecht, Otto E., and Roe, Stephen. “Collections, Private”. In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http.//www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/06108pg2 (accessed August 15, 2008).

172 Aldrich, Putnam. ”Rhythmic Harmony” as Taught by Johann Philipp Kirnberger. In Studies in Eighteenth‐Century Music. Edited by H.C. Robbins Landon. London: no pub., 1970.

Alvesson, Mats, and Sköldberg, Kaj. Tolkning och reflektion. Vetenskapsfilosofi och kvalitativ metod. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2008.

BACH DOKUMENTE I, BACH DOKUMENTE II. See Neumann, Werner, and Schulze, Hans‐Joachim (editors)

BACH DOKUMENTE III. See Schulze, Hans‐Joachim (editor).

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, Berlin 1753. Facsimile reprint, Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1986.

Bania, Maria. “Sweetenings” and “Babylonish Gabble”: Flute Vibrato and Articulation of Fast Passages in the 18th and 19th Centuries. PhD diss., University of Gothenburg, 2008.

Bar‐Elli, Gilead. “Ideal Performance.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 42.3 (2002).

Bartel, Dietrich. Musica Poetica. Musical‐Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Beach, David W. “The Origins of Harmonic Analysis.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 18.2 (1974): 274‐ 306.

Bent, Ian D and Pope, Anthony. “Analysis.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. http.//www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/41862 (accessed June 26, 2008).

Bernard, Jonathan W. “The Marpurg‐Sorge Controversy.” Music Theory Spectrum, vol. 11.2 (1989): 164‐186.

Bonds, Mark Evan. Wordless Rhetoric. Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1991.

Boomgaarden, Donald R. Musical Thought in Britain and Germany during the Early Eighteenth Century. American University Studies V, vol. 26. New York: Lang 1987.

Born, Georgina. “On Musical Mediation. Ontology, Technology and Creativity.” Twentieth‐Century Music, vol. 2.1 (2005): 7‐36.

Brossard, Sébastien de. A musical dictionary; being a collection of terms and characters, as well ancient as modern; including the historical, theoretical, and practical parts of music. ... The whole carefully abstracted from the best authors ... By James Grassineau, Gent. London, 1740. Based on information from English Short Title Catalogue. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Group http.//galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO (accessed April 17,2007).

173 Buelow, George J and Marx, Hans Joachim, editors. New Mattheson Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1983.

Buelow, George J, editor. Man and Music. The Late Baroque Era from the 1680s to 1740. London: Macmillan, 1993.

Buelow, George J. “In Defence of J. A. Scheibe against J. S. Bach.” In Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 101 (1974–1975): 85‐100. Buelow, George J. “Rhetoric and Music.” In Grove Music Online, http.//www.grovemusic.com (accessed on May 7, 2007).

Buelow, George J. Thorough‐Bass Accompaniment according to Johann David Heinchen. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1986.

Burmeister, Joachim. Musical Poetics. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993.

Burr, Vivien. Social Constructionism. London: Routledge, 2003.

Butt, John (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Bach. Cambridge 1997.

Butt, John. Bach Interpretation. Articulation Marks in Primary Sources of J. S. Bach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Butt, John. Playing with History. The Historical Approach to Musical Performance. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Carroll, Paul. Baroque Woodwind Instruments. A Guide to Their History, Repertoire and Basic Technique. Aldershot: Ashgate,1999.

Castellani, Marcello. “J. S. Bachs ‘Solo pour la flûte traversière’. Köthen oder Leipzig?” Tibia vol. 14 (1989): 567‐573.

Cone, Edward T. “Schubert’s Promissory Note. An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics.” 19th‐Century Music, vol. 5.3 (1982): 233‐241.

Cook, Nicholas. A Guide to Musical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Cumming, Naomi. “The Subjectivities of ‘Erbarme Dich’.” Music Analysis, vol. 16.1 (1997): 5‐44.

Dahlhaus, Carl. Die Musiktheorie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (=Geschichte der Musiktheorie, Band 11). Edited by Ruth E Miller. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989.

Dammann, Rolf. Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1995.

Dasilva, Fabio B, and Brunsma, David L (editors). All Music. Essays on the Hermeneutics of Music. Aldershot: Avebury 1996.

174 David, Hans T., Mendel, Arthur and Wolff, Christoph (editors). The New Bach Reader: a Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents. New York: Norton, 1998.

Davidsson, Hans. Matthias Weckmann. The Interpretation of His Organ Music. Stockholm: Gehrmans musikförlag, 1991.

Davies, Stephen, and Koopman, Constantijn. “Musical Meaning in a Broader Perspective.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 59.3 (2001): 261‐273.

Davies, Stephen. “Authors’ Intentions, Literary Interpretation, and Literary Value.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 46.3 (2006): 223‐247.

Davies, Stephen. “Ontology.” In Grove Music Online http.//www.grovemusic.com (accessed January 5, 2008).

Davies, Stephen. “Performance Interpretations of Musical Works.” Nordisk estetisk tidskrift, vol. 33‐34 (2006): 8‐22.

Davies, Stephen. “Relativism in Interpretation.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 53.1 (1995): 8‐13.

Davies, Stephen. “The Aesthetic Relevance of Authors’ and Painters’ Intentions.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 41.1 (1982): 65‐76.

Davies, Stephen. ”Profundity in Instrumental Music.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 42.4 (2002): 343‐356.

Davies, Stephen. Musical Meaning and Expression. Ithaca : Cornell Univ. Press, 1994.

Davies, Stephen. Musical Works & Performances. A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Davies, Stephen. Themes in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Dilworth, John. “Artistic Expression as Interpretation.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 44.1 (2004): 10‐28.

Dodd, Julian. “Types, Continuants, and the Ontology of Music.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 44.4 (2004): 342‐360.

Dreyfus, Laurence. “Bachian Invention and Its Mechanisms”. In The Cambridge Companion to Bach. Edited by John Butt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997: 171‐192.

Dreyfus, Laurence. “Early Music Defended against Its Devotees. A Theory of Historical Performance in the Twentieth Century.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 69.3 (1983): 297‐322.

175 Dreyfus, Laurence. “Early‐Music and the Repression of the Sublime.” In The Early Music Debate. Ancients, Moderns, Postmoderns. The Journal of Musicology, vol. 10.1 (1992): 114‐117.

Dreyfus, Laurence. Bach and the Patterns of Invention. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Dreyfus, Laurence. Bach’s Continuo Group. Players and Practices in His Vocal Works. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1987.

Dürr, Alfred. Johann Sebastian Bach, St John Passion. Genesis, Transmission, and Meaning. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press; 2000.

Edidin, Aron. “Artistry in Classical Musical Performance.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 40.3 (2000): 317‐325.

Edidin, Aron. “Playing Bach His Way. Historical Authenticity, Personal Authenticity, and the Performance of Classical Music.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 32.4 (1998): 79‐91.

Edlund, Bengt. “Sonate, que te fais‐je? Toward a Theory of Interpretation.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 31.1 (1997): 23‐40.

Edlund, Bengt. ”Tolkningstankar.” In Frispel. Festskrift till Olle Edström. Edited by Alf Björnberg. Göteborg: Institutionen för musikvetenskap, Göteborgs universitet, 2005: 435‐447.

Eppstein, Hans. “Über J. S. Bachs Flötensonaten mit Generalbass.” Bach‐Jahrbuch, vol. 58 (1972): 12‐ 23.

Eppstein, Hans. „Zur Problematik von Johann Sebastian Bachs Flötensonaten.“ Bach‐Jahrbuch, vol. 67 (1981): 77‐90.

Eppstein, Hans. Studien über J. S. Bachs Sonaten für ein Melodieinstrument und obligates Cembalo. PhD diss., Uppsala University, 1966.

Fabian, Dorottya. “The Meaning of Authenticity and the Early Music Movement. A Historical Review.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol. 32.2 (2001): 153‐167.

Fabian, Dorottya. Bach Performance Practice 1945‐1975. A Comprehensive Review of Sound Recordings and Literature. Aldershot: Ashgate 2002.

Ferris, Joan. “The Evolution of Rameau’s Harmonic Theories.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 3.2 (1959): 231‐256.

Forchert, Arno. Johann Sebastian Bach und seine Zeit. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2000.

Forkel, Johann Nikolaus. Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke Leipzig 1802. (Facsimile rpt.) Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999.

176 Forsblom, Enzio. Mimesis. På spaning efter affektuttryck i Bachs orgelverk. [Helsingfors]: Sibelius‐ akademin, 1985.

Gallagher, Sean, and Kelly, Thomas Forrest (editors). The Century of Bach & Mozart. Perspectives on Historiography, Composition, Theory & Performance. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Department of Music, 2008.

Geck, Martin. Johann Sebastian Bach. Life and Work. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006.

Gergen, Kenneth J. “The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology.” American Psychologist, vol. 40.3 (1985): 266‐275.

Gerstner, Daniela. “Polonaise.“ In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Sachteil, Bd 7. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1997: columns 1686‐1689.

Gloede, Berit. ”Michael Gabriel Fredersdorff.“ In http.//www.preussen.de/de/geschichte/1740_friedrich_ii./michael_gabriel_fredersdorff.html (accessed March 5, 2007).

Godlovitch, Stan. Musical Performance. A Philosophical Study. London: Routledge, 1998.

Goehr, Lydia. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. (2nd edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett 1976.

Grier, James. The Critical Editing of Music. History, Method, and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996.

Gustafsson, Lars. Världens tystnad före Bach. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1982.

Harnoncourt, Nikolaus. Musik als Klangrede. Wege zu einem neuen Musikverständnis. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1982.

Haskell, Harr. The Early Revival. A History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1988.

Heartz, Daniel, and Brown, Bruce Allan. “Galant.” In Grove Music Online, http.//www.grovemusic.com (accessed April 20, 2007).

Heartz, Daniel. Music in European Capitals. The Galant Style, 1720‐1780. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003.

Heinemann, Michael (editor). Das Bach‐Lexikon. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 2000.

Hermerén, Göran. ”Musik som språk.” Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning . (1986): 7‐16.

177 Hosler, Bellamy. Changing Aesthetic Views of Instrumental Music in 18th‐Century Germany. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research P., 1981.

Hotteterre, Jaques. Principes de la Flûte traversière ou flûte d’Allemagne; de la flute à bec, ou flute douce; et du haut‐bois. Paris: no pub., 1707.

Houle, George. Meter in music, 1600‐1800. Performance, Perception, and Notation. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1987.

Hubry, Georg G. “Sociological, Postmodern, and New Realism Perspectives in Social Constructionism. Implications for Literary Research.” Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 36.1 (2001): 48‐62.

Jensen, H. James. Signs and Meaning in Eighteenth‐Century Art – Epistemology, Rhetoric, Painting, Poesy, Music, Dramatic Performance, and G. F. Handel. New York: Lang, 1997.

Johnson, Peter. “Musical Works, Musical Performances.” The Musical Times, vol. 138.1854 (1997): 4‐ 11.

Kania, Andrew. “New Waves in Musical Ontology.” In New Waves in Aesthetics. Edited by Kathleen Stock and Katherine Thomson‐Jones. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan; 2008: 20‐40.

Kania, Andrew. “The Philosophy of Music.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http.//plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/ (accessed January 12, 2008).

Kania, Andrew. Pieces of Music. The Ontology of Classical, Rock, and Jazz Music. PhD diss. University of Maryland, 2005.

Kenyon, Nicholas (editor). Authenticity and Early Music. A Symposium. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988.

Kirnberger, Johann Philipp. Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, Berlin 1771. (Facsimile rpt.) Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2004.

Kirnberger, Johann Philipp. Die wahren Grundsätze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie, Berlin 1773 (Facsimile rpt.), Hildesheim: Ohlms, 1970.

Kirnberger, Johann Philipp. The Art of Strict Composition. London: Yale Univ. Press; 1982.

Kirnberger, Johann Philipp; Nelson, Richard B. Nelson; Boomgarden, Donald B.. Kirnberger’s ”Thoughts on the Different Methods of Teaching Composition as Preparation for Understanding Fugue”. Journal of Music Theory, vol. 30.1 (1986): 71‐94.

Kivy, Peter. “Another Go at Musical Profundity. Stephen Davies and the Game of Chess.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 43.4 (2003): 401‐411.

178 Kivy, Peter. “Ars Perfecta. Toward Perfection in Musical Performance?” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 46.2 (2006): 111‐132.

Kivy, Peter. Authenticities. Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Kivy, Peter. Music, Language, and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Kjørup, Søren. Människovetenskaperna. Problem och traditioner i humanioras vetenskapsteori. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1999.

Klingfors, Gunno. Bach går igen. Källkritiska studier i J S Bachs uppförandepraxis. (PhD diss. Gothenburg University), Göteborg 1991.

Koch, Heinrich Christoph. Musikalisches Lexikon, Frankfurt/Main 1802. (Facsimile rpt.) Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001.

Kramer, Laurence. ”Odradek Analysis. Reflections on Musical Ontology.” Music Analysis, vol. 23.2‐3 (2004): 287‐309.

Kramer, Lawrence. Music as Cultural Practice, 1800‐1900. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of California Press, 1990.

Kramer, Lawrence. Musical Meaning. Toward a Critical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Krummacher, Friedrich. “Bach als Zeitgenosse. Zum historischen und aktuellen Verständnis von Bachs Musik.“ Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, vol. 48.1 (1991): 64‐83.

Kuijken, Barthold. “Weiss – Quantz/Blandwitz/Braun – Blavet – Taillart… und J. S. Bach? Kreuz‐ und Querverbindungen im Repertoire für Flöte solo des 18. Jahrhunderts, Teil I.“ Tibia Nr. 1 (2006): 9‐22.

Le Huray, Peter and Day, James (Editors). Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early‐Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press, 1981

Le Huray, Peter. Authenticity in Performance. Eighteenth Century Case Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990.

Ledbetter, David. “On the Manner of Playing the Adagio. Neglected Features of a Genre.” Early Music, vol. 29.1 (2001): 15‐28.

Lee, Douglas A. “Some Embellished Versions of Sonatas by Franz Benda.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 62.1 (1976): 58‐71.

Lehman, Bradley. “Bach’s Extraordinary Temperament: our Rosetta Stone – 1.” Early Music, vol. 33.1 (2005): 3‐23.

179 Lehman, Bradley. “Bach’s Extraordinary Temperament: our Rosetta Stone – 2.” Early Music, vol. 33.2 (2005): 211‐231.

Lehtinen, Hari. Frederic the Great and his influence on Flute Music. (PHD diss.), Helsinki: Sibelius Academy, Department of Solo Studies, Unit for Research of Music Performance; 1996.

Lester, Joel. Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992

Levinson, Jerold. The Pleasures of Aesthetics. Philosophical Essays. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1996.

Levinson, Jerrold. “The Irreducible Historicality of the Concept of Art.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 42.4 (2002): 367‐349.

Liebert, Andreas. Die Bedeutung der Rhetorik für das deutsche Musikdenken im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1993.

Liedman, Sven‐Eric. Mellan det triviala och det outsägliga. Blad ur humanioras and samhällsvetenskapernas historia. Göteborg : Daidalos, 1998.

Lindley, Mark, and Ortgies, Ibo. “Bach‐Style Keyboard Tuning.” Early Music, vol. 34.4 (2006): 613‐623.

Lindley, Mark. “J. S. Bach’s Tunings.” The Musical Times, vol. 126.1714 (1985): 721‐726.

Little, Meredith and Jenne, Natalie. Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2001.

Little, Meredith. “Rigaudon.” In The New Grove Online, http.//www.grovemusic.com (accessed April 12, 2007).

Little, Meredith. “Siciliana.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online http.//www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/25698 (accessed August 9, 2008).

Ljuslinder, Karin. På nära håll är ingen normal. Handikappdiskurser i Sveriges Television 1956–2000. PhD diss., Umeå University, 2002.

Lohmann, Ludger. Die Artikulation auf den Tasteninstrumenten des 16.‐18. Jahrhunderts. Regensburg: Bosse, 1990.

Mains, Ronda Miller. An Investigation of the Articulations Found in the Primary Sources of the Flute Sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach Resulting in a Composite Edition. DMA diss, University of Oregon, 1993.

Marissen, Michael. “A Critical Reappraisal of J. S. Bach’s A‐Major Flute Sonata.” The Journal of Musicology, vol. 6.3 (1988): 367‐386.

180 Marshall, Robert L. “Bach the Progressive. Observations on His Later Works.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 62.3 (1976): 313‐357.

Marshall, Robert L. “J. S. Bach’s Compositions for Solo Flute. A Reconsideration of Their Authenticity and Chronology.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 32.3 (1979): 463‐498.

Marshall, Robert L. The Compositional Process of J. S. Bach. Princeton: no pub., 1972.

Marshall, Robert L. The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Sources, the Style, the Significance. New York : Schirmer, 1989.

Mattheson, Johann. Das Forschende Orchester, Hamburg 1721. (Facsimile rpt.) Laaber: Laaber, 2002.

Mattheson, Johann. Der vollkommene Capellmeister. Studienausg. im Neusatz des Textes und der Noten. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999.

Mattheson, Johann. Johann Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister. Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1981.

Meekel, Joyce. “The Harmonic Theories of Kirnberger and Marpurg.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 4.2 (1960) s 169‐193.

Mehne, Wendy Ann. A Research/Performance Edition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Acknowledged Flute Sonatas. DMA diss, University of Wisconsin 1992.

Melamed, Daniel R, and Marissen, Michael. An Introduction to Bach Studies. New York : Oxford Univ. Press, 1998.

Melamed. Daniel (Editor). Bach Studies 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Miegel, Fredrik and Johansson, Thomas. Kultursociologi. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2002.

Mielke‐Gerdes, Dorothea. “Sonate.“ In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Sachteil, Band 8. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998: columns 1573‐1581.

Mitchell, William J. “Chord and Context in 18th‐Century Theory.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 14.2 (1961): 221‐239.

Moisala, Pirkko. ”Grundpremisser för dialogisk musikanalys.” Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning (2003): 13‐27.

Mozart, Leopold. Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, Augsburg 1756. (Facsimile rpt), Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1995.

Neumann, Frederick. “Bach. Progressive or Conservative and the Authorship of the Goldberg Aria.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 71.3 (1985): 281‐294.

181 Neumann, Frederick. Ornamentation in Baroque and Post‐Baroque Music, with Special Emphasis on J. S. Bach. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Neumann, Werner and Schulze, Hans‐Joachim (Editors). Bach‐Dokumente. Bd I. Schriftstücke von der Hand Johann Sebastian Bachs. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963.

Neumann, Werner and Schulze, Hans‐Joachim (Editors). Bach‐Dokumente II. Fremdschriftliche und gedruckte Dokumente zur Lebensgeschichte Johann Sebastian Bachs, 1685‐1750. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1969.

Newman, William S. The Sonata in the Baroque Era. (4th edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1983.

Nicholas Cook and Mark Everest (Editors). Rethinking Music. Oxford : Oxford Univ. Press, 2001.

Nussbaum, Charles. “Kinds, Types, and Musical Ontology.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 61.3 (2003): 273‐291.

O’Donnell, John. “Bach’s Temperament, Occam’s Razor, and the Neidhardt Factor.” Early Music, vol. 34.4 (2006): 625‐633.

Oleskiewicz, Mary A. Quantz and the Flute at Dresden. His Instruments, His Repertory and their Significance for the Versuch and the Bach Circle. PhD diss, Duke University, 1998.

Oleskiewicz, Mary. “The Flute at Dresden.” In From Renaissance to Baroque. Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Jonathan Wainwright and Peter Holman. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005:145‐165.

Oleskiewicz, Mary. “The Flutes of Quantz. Their Construction and Performing Practice.” The Galpin Society Journal, vol. 53 (2000): 201‐220.

Oleskiewicz, Mary. “The Trio in Bach’s Musical Offering. A Salute to Frederick’s Tastes and Quantz’s Flutes?“ In The Music of J. S. Bach, Analysis and Interpretation. Edited by David Schulenberg. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska, 1999: 79‐110.

Olsen, Stein Haugom. “Modes of Interpretation and Interpretative Constraints.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 44.2 (2004): 135‐148.

Ottenberg, Hans‐Günter. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1987.

Paddison, Max. “Authenticity and Failure in Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music.” In The Cambridge Companion to Adorno. Edited by Tom Huhn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004: 198‐221.

Paddison, Max. Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997.

Parrott, Andrew. The Essential Bach Choir. Woodbridge : Boydell & Brewer, 2000.

182 Pepper, William Bloomfield. The Alternate Embellishment in the Slow Movements of Telemann’s Methodical Sonatas. PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1973.

Peters, Manfred. Johann Sebastian Bach. Was heißt ”Klang=Rede”? München: Text + Kritik, 2003.

Pettersson, Tobias. De bildade männens Beethoven. Musikhistorisk kunskap and social formering i Sverige mellan 1850 och 1940. PhD diss., University of Gothenburg, 2004.

Powell Grant, Cecil. “The Real Relationship between Kirnberger’s and Rameau’s Concept of Fundamental Bass.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 21.2 (1977): 324‐338.

Powell, Ardal, with Lasocki, David. “Bach and the Flute. the Players, the Instruments, the Music.” Early Music, vol. 23.1 (1995): 9‐29.

Powell, Ardal. The Flute. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Predelli, Stefano. “The Sound of the Concerto. Against the Invariantist Approach to Musical Ontology.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 46.2 (2006): 144‐162.

Prinz, Ulrich. Johann Sebastian Bachs Instrumentarium. Originalquellen, Besetzung, Verwendung. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2005.

Quantz, Johann Joachim. On Playing the Flute. London: Faber, 1966.

Quantz, Johann Joachim. Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversière zu spielen Berlin 1752. (Facsimile rpt.), Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1992.

Radice, Mark A. “The Nature of the “Style Galant”. Evidence from the Repertoire.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 83.4 (1999): 607‐647.

Rampe, Siegbert (editor). Bachs Klavier‐ und Orgelwerke. Das Handbuch. Laaber : Laaber Verlag, 2008.

Ratner, Leonard G. Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style. New York: Schirmer, 1980.

Rauterberg, Frauke. “Die Klangrede einer Soloflöte. Zur rhetorischen Dispositio in der Allemande aus J. S.Bachs Partita a‐moll BWV 1013.“ Musica, vol. 50.1 (1996): 2‐8.

Ricoeur, Paul. Hermeneutics & the Human Sciences: essays on language, action and interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Ridley, Aaron. The Philosophy of Music. Theme and Variations. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2004.

Rothfarb, Lee A. “Hermeneutics and Energetics. Analytical Alternatives in the Early 1900s.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 36.1 (1992): 43‐68.

183 Ruf, Wolfgang (Editor). Musik als Klangrede. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Günter Fleischhauer. Köln: Böhlau, 2001.

Schmieder, Wolfgang. Thematisch‐systematisches Verzeichnis der Werke Joh. Seb. Bachs. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf, 1980.

Schmitz, Hans‐Peter. Die Kunst der Verzierung im 18. Jahrhundert. Instrumentale und vokale Musizierpraxis in Beispielen. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1955.

Schmitz, Hans‐Peter. Kritischer Bericht. In Johann Sebastian Bach. Werke für Flöte. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Serie VI. Kammermusik, Band 3. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963.

Schmitz, Hans‐Peter. Querflöte und Querflötenspiel in Deutschland während des Barockzeitalters. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1952.

Schulenberg, David (editor). The Music of J. S. Bach. Analysis and Interpretation. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska, 1999.

Schulenberg, David. “C. P. E. Bach through the 1740s. The Growth of a Style.” In C. P. E. Studies. Edited by Stepen L. Clark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988: 215‐231.

Schulze, Hans‐Joachim (Editor). Bach‐Dokumente III. Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs 1750‐1800. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984.

Schulze, Hans‐Joachim, and Wolff, Christoph. Bach Compendium. Analytisch‐bibliographisches Repertorium der Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs. Band 3. Leipzig: Peters, 1988.

Schulze, Hans‐Joachim. Die Bach‐Kantaten. Einführungen zu sämtlichen Kantaten Johann Sebastian Bachs. Leipzig: Carus Verlag, 2006.

Scruton, Roger. The Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Sharpe, Robert A. Music and Humanism. An Essay in the Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Sheldon, David A. “The Galant Style Revisited and Re‐Evaluated.” Acta Musicologica, vol. 47.2 (1975): 240‐270.

Sheldon, David A. “The Ninth Chord in German Theory.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 26.1 (1982): 61‐ 100.

Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. “Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement. Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Works.” Ethnomusicology, vol. 45.1 (2001): 1‐29.

Sherman, Bernhard. Inside Early Music. Conversations with Performers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

184 Shirlaw, Matthew. “The Science of Harmony. The Harmonic Generation of Chords.” Journal of Music Theory, vol. 4.1 (1960): 1‐18.

Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Dell, 1966.

Spitta, Philipp. Johann Sebastian Bach. His Work and Influence on the Music of Germany, 1685‐1750. Vol. 2. London: no pub., 1889 [modern rpt, Mineola: Dover, 1992].

Spitzer, John, and Zaslaw, Neal. “Improvised Ornamentation in Eighteenth‐Century Orchestras.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 39.3 (1986): 524‐577.

Stinson, Russel. Bach. The Orgelbüchlein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Stinson, Russell. The Bach Manuscripts of Johann Peter Kellner and His Circle. A Case Study in Reception History. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1990.

Swack, Jeanne R. “J. S. Bach’s A Major Flute Sonata BWV 1032 Revisited.” In Bach Studies 2. Edited by Daniel R. Melamed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995: 154‐174.

Swack, Jeanne R. “On the Origins of the ‘Sonate auf Concertenart’.”. Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 46.3 (1983): 369‐414.

Swack, Jeanne R. The Solo Sonatas by Georg Philipp Telemann. A Study of the Sources and Musical Style. PhD diss., Yale University, 1988.

Talbot, Michael (editor). The Musical Work. Reality or Invention? Liverpool Music Symposium I. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000.

Taruskin, Richard. Text and Act. Essays on Music and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Treitler, Leo. “Hermeneutics, Exegetics, or What?” In 13th Nordic Musicological Congress. Edited by Thomas Holme Hansen. Aarhus: Århus University, 2000:48‐73.

Treitler, Leo. “The Historiography of Music. Issues of Past and Present.” In Rethinking Music. Edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001: 356‐377.

Treitler, Leo. Music and the Historical Imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.

Vogt, Hans. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chamber Music. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1988.

Wainwright, Jonathan and Holman, Peter (editors). From Renaissance to Baroque. Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seventeenth Century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

Walther, Johann. Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec. Studienausg. im Neusatz des Textes und der Noten. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001.

185 Wenneberg, Søren Barlebo. Socialkonstruktivism – positioner, problem och perspektiv. Malmö: Liber, 2000.

Whaples, Miriam K. “Bach’s Recapitulation Forms.” The Journal of Musicology, vol. 14.4 (1996): 475‐ 513.

Williams, Peter. J. S.Bach. A Life in Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Winther Jörgensen, Marianne, and Phillips, Louise. Diskursanalys som teori and metod. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2000.

Wolff, Christoph. “Bach’s Leipzig Chamber Music.” Early Music, vol. 13.2 (1985). Sid 165‐175.

Wolff, Christoph. “Johann Sebastian Bach.” In Grove Music Online (accessed March 28, 2007).

Wolff, Christoph. “New Research on Bach’s ‘Musical Offering’.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 57.3 (1971): 379‐408.

Wolff, Christoph. Bach. Essays on his life and music. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press., 1991.

Wolff, Christoph. Johann Sebastian Bach. The Learned Musician. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2001.

Yearsley, David. “Alchemy and Counterpoint in an Age of Reason.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 51.2 (1998): 201‐243.

Yearsley, David. Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002.

Young, James O. “The ‘Great Divide’ in Music.” British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 45.2 (2005): 175‐184.

Young, James O. Key, “Temperament and Musical Expression.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 49.3 (1991): 235‐242.

Zacher, Gerd. Bach gegen seine Interpreten verteidigt. München: Text + Kritik, 1993.

Ödman, Per‐Johan. Tolkning, förståelse, vetande. Hermeneutik i teori och praktik. (2nd and revised edition), Stockholm: Norstedts akademiska förlag, 2007

186