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Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel
Complete Keyboard Variations
ANDREA COEN
CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH (1714-1788) Complete Keyboard Variations CD1 1. Arioso in F Wq118/4 (H54) 1’08 2. Variation 1 1’03 3. Variation 2 0’58 4. Variation 3 0’57 5. Variation 4 0’59 6. Variation 5 1’03 7. Variation 6 1’03 8. Variation 7 1’10 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
Allegretto in C Wq118/5 (H65) 1’28 Variation 1 1’22 Variation 2 1’25 Variation 3 1’17 Variation 4 1’22 Variation 5 1’19 Variation 6 1’30
16. “ Ich schleif, da träumte mir” Wq118/1 (H68) 0’54 17. Variation 1 0’55 18. Variation 2 0’53 19. Variation 3 0’50 20. Variation 4 0’50 21. Variation 5 0’50 22. Variation 6 0’50 23. Variation 7 0’51 24. Variation 8 0’43 2
25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.
Variation 9 0’49 Variation 10 0’55 Variation 11 0’47 Variation 12 1’08 Variation 13 0’51 Variation 14 0’57 Variation 15 0’57 Variation 16 0’51 Variation 17 0’53 Variation 18 1’00 Variation 19 1’02 Variation 20 1’13 Variation 21 Alla polacca 0’57 Variation 22 Allegro 0’38 Variation 23 Siciliano 1’43 Variation 24 Tempo di Minuetto 1’13
41. “Les Folies d’Espagne” Wq118/9 (H263) 2’03 42. Variation 1 0’30 43. Variation 2 0’36 44. Variation 3 0’35 45. Variation 4 0’35 46. Variation 5 0’40 47. Variation 6 0’42 48. Variation 7 geschwind 0’21 49. Variation 8 Sehr langsam 0’52 50. Variation 9 0’40 51. Variation 10 0’23 52. Variation 11 0’51 53. Variation 12 Sehr geschwinde 0’28
54. Arioso sostenuto in A Wq79 (H535) 1’39 55. Variation 1 1’37 56. Variation 2 1’25 57. Variation 3 2’29 58. Variation 4 1’56 59. Variation 5 1’37 60. Canzonetta in F by the Duchess of Gotha – un poco allegretto Wq118/8 (H275) 0’45 61. Variation 1 0’44 62. Variation 2 0’44 63. Variation 3 0’44 64. Variation 4 0’45 65. Variation 5 0’52 66. Variation 6 0’56 67. M inuet in C Wq118/3 (H44) with 5 variations 6’25 CD2 1. Arioso in C Wq118/10 (H259) 1’38 2. Variation 1 1’31 3. Variation 2 1’22 4. Variation 3 1’47 5. Variation 4 2’01 6. Variation 5 1’23 7. Variation 6 1’38 8. Variation 7 2’11 9. Variation 8 1’44
10. Variation 9
1’48
11. Minuet in G Wq118/7 (H14) by Pietro Locatelli 0’49 12. Variation 1 1’05 13. Variation 2 0’51 14. Variation 3 1’06 15. Variation 4 1’03 16. Variation 5 1’00 17. Variation 6 1’04 18. Variation 7 1’01 19. Variation 8 1’03 20. Variation 9 1’05 21. Variation 10 1’09 22. Variation 11 0’51 23. Variation 12 1’12 24. Variation 13 1’05 25. Variation 14 1’03 26. Variation 15 1’06 27. Variation 16 1’04 28. Variation 17 1’09 29. Variation 18 1’04 30. Variation 19 1’05 31. Variation 20 1’04 32. Variation 21 1’12 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.
Ariette in A Wq118/2 (H155) 0’48 Variation 1 0’44 Variation 2 0’47 Variation 3 0’48 Variation 4 0’47 Variation 5 0’47 3
39. Variation 6 0’45 40. Variation 7 0’46 41. Variation 8 0’42 42. Variation 9 0’41 43. Variation 10 0’44 44. Variation 11 0’42 45. Variation 12 “vom Herrn C. Fasch” 0’46 46. Variation 13 ”vom Herrn C.P.E. Bach” 1’02 47. Variation 14 “von ebendemselben“ 0’45 48. Variation 15 “vom Herrn C. Fasch“ 0’45 49. Variation 16 “von ebendemselben” 0’50 50. Variation 17 “vom Herrn C.P.E. Bach“ 1’02 51. Variation 18 0’57 52. Variation 19 0’50 53. Variation 20 0’53 54. Variation 21 1’21 55. Variation 22 0’52
56. “Colin à peine à seize ans Wq118/6” (H226) 1’03 57. Variation 1 1’20 58. Variation 2 0’28 59. Variation 3 0’52 60. Variation 4 0’55 61. Variation 5 0’52 62. Variation 6 0’55 63. Variation 7 1’18 64. Variation 8 1’00 65. Variation 9 0’50 66. Variation 10 0’54 67. Variation 11 0’50 68. Variation 12 0’42
The Variations for keyboard of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Andrea Coen pianoforte by Kerstin Schwarz, after G. Silbermann, 1749
The first group includes the typical sets of variations for beginners on the keyboard, comprising a newly invented theme and five to seven variations. The use of variations for pedagogical purposes was generally known, as Hans Adolf Friedrich von Eschstruth acknowledged in the announcement of a planned publication of his variations on “Mein Leipzig, mein Marburg etc. lebe wohl”:
Recording: 21-24 March 2015, Teatro Comunale di Montecarotto, Italy Recording producer and sound engineer: Luca Ricci Editing: Filippo Farinelli, Luca Ricci Mastering: Luca Ricci Cover: Ernst Haeckel, a great German scientist p & © 2016 Brilliant Classics 4
Heinrich Christoph Koch describes in a concise and clear way the technique of variations in his Musicalisches Lexicon (1802): Variationen, Variazioni: By this one understands immediate repetition, several times, of a short musical piece in which the melody is varied each time diminution of the main notes and the connecting and secondary notes without altogether eliminating the similarity to the main melody. C. P. E. Bach dedicated to this musical form the 11 sets contained in this release that form the integral output of the composer in this genre. Variations of C. P. E. Bach span a period of over 45 years, and only recently have been published in a single volume of high scientific calibre in the ambit of the Opera Omnia, published by Packard Humanities Institute. The volume, edited by Ulrich Leisinger (the director of Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg), is equipped with a wide and exhaustive preface, that is the only specific article written on the subject, and that will therefore be widely quoted; the Austrian musicologist divides the corpus of Changes in four groups:
The easiest way to achieve a certain degree of proficiency on an instrument and secure oneself in technique as well as in rhythm is indisputably through variations. Everyone can experience this himself or herself. Yet we Germans have a few good sets for the clavichord, for example those of C. P. E. Bach, Fasch, Forkel, the Gotha composers, Haydn, Rust, and Vogler. 5
Each variation of a given set displays a certain technical aspect of keyboard playing; the variations are presented in progressive difficulty, but rarely require more than a limited level of proficiency. Judging from the number of surviving copies, the sets of variations Wq 118/3 and 118/5 were among Bach’s most successful keyboard compositions and remained in use until the early nineteenth century; they were also well-received outside Berlin. ‘From a musical standpoint the Variations on a Minuet in C Major, Wq 118/3, composed in 1745, fall into the same category; curiously, almost no copies survive that can be shown to stem from Bach’s Berlin circle. It seems significant in this respect that a revised, expanded, and fingered version of keyboard treatise, namely Georg Simon Lohlein’s remarkably successful Clavier-Schule of 1765. Diverging from the tradition of keyboard variations in South Germany and Austria, where the sets almost invariably consist of six or twelve variations (fully established by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from c. 1774 on), early sets of variations in North and Central Germany typically have an odd number of variations. This apparently resulted from French traditions where variations were regarded as “doubles” of the theme: “VARIATIONS. Under this name is understood all ways of embroidering and doubling an air, whether by diminutions or by passages or other embellishments that ornament and figure this air”. Thus the theme itself is counted among the variations and, consequently, the entire set consists of six or (rarely) eight individual sections. This may also explain some confusing headings like “XII Variationes”, found more than once, for example, in copies of the anonymous Variations in A Major, H 371.7 that served as the starting point for Bach’s Ariette with Variations, Wq 118/2. These copies contain - according to our modern understanding - the theme and eleven variations, which sometimes, though not always, are numbered I to II, respectively. The second group of Bach’s variations includes cycles such as the 21 Variations on a Minuet by Locatelli, Wq118/7; the 12 Variations on “Les Folies d’Espagne’, Wq118/9; and the Variations on an Arioso in C major, Wq118/10, an elaboration 6
with varied reprises of the keyboard part of the trio Wq91/4. These works clearly aim at the professional musician. This is evident from a report in the second volume of Johann Friedrich Reichardt’s Briefe eines aufmerksamen Reisenden die Musik betreffend; Reichardt had visited Bach in Hamburg in the summer of 1774, and several times had heard Bach play his Silbermannisches Clavier (clavichord): “I have not yet told you anything about this master’s splendid fantasias. The complete calm and, one should almost say, the lifelessness of his body amply demonstrate that in them his entire soul is engaged. For in fantasias he holds the position and gesture that he adopts as he begins for hours long without moving. Here he shows quite clearly the great knowledge of harmony and the immeasurable richness of rare and unusual turns of phrase that mark him as the greatest original genius. He even showed me once the great variety of his ideas in variations on the delightful, last movement […] of the third sonata of his 6 Sonatas with Varied Reprises. I believe that there were more than thirty variations on it that he played for me.” Reichardt could not know, however, that Bach’s playing was less spontaneous than he may have assumed. Besides the version in the 1760 print, two elaborations of the sonata movement Wq50/3/III have been transmitted in manuscript. These contain altogether almost a dozen variations on the main theme, so that what may have appeared as an improvisation was at least partly fixed. These sets of variations are markedly longer than the ones for beginners; they are lessons not only in keyboard playing, but also in compositional technique. Given the length of the pieces, it is almost unavoidable that the overall difficulty increases towards the end. Nevertheless, they are associative and do not build to a final climax. The small number of copiesalmost all of which are associated directly with the composer-make it clear that Bach did not intend dissemination of these works, but may have used them from rime to rime as paradeurs or show-pieces to impress visitors like Reichardt. 7
The third group of Bach’s variations includes several shorter cycles for connoisseurs, in which Bach pursues the innovative ideas of character variation on the one hand and expansion of harmony on the other. In the latter case he not only overcomes the inherent harmonic uniformity of variation cycles by occasionally setting variations in the relative minor or major, but also sets entire variations in other keys than the main one, typically using third relationships. The progression of keys in the Arioso in A, Wq79, for example - both in its keyboard and its ensemble versions – is: A major (theme and variations 1-2), A minor (variation 3), F major (variation 4), and A major (variation 5). Similarly the Arioso in C Major, Wq91/4, and its revision as Wq 118/10, include some modulating extra measures to introduce the eighth and penultimate variation in E major. A different way of achieving variety is found in the “variazioni caratterizzate”, a term used and perhaps invented by Johann Wilhelm Hertel in Schwerin. In this type of variation the harmonic scheme of the theme is re-interpreted in the form of various dance movements, such as Tempo di Minuetto, Alla Polacca, or Siciliano, with varying meters and tempo indications. Still, Bach - unlike Mozart - never used adagio variations in order to prepare for a brilliant final variation. The character variation differs from the melody variation encountered elsewhere, where variety is sought mainly in the successive transformation of the melody shape of the theme. One example of character variation is the “einige noch unbekannte Veranderungen” on the widely known theme “Ich schlief, da träumte mir” from Wq 118/1, which Bach published in his Musikalisches Vielerley in 1770. The latter have little in common with the earlier set on the very same tune in the 1761 Musikalisches Allerley and should not be regarded as a mere sequel, but as an independent set in their own right. Their novelty was recognized in a review of the Musikalisches Vielerley in an issue of the Unterhaltungen:
continued in the 28th issue. It is pleasing to hear how a song becomes a menuet, a polonaise, a siciliano without losing its principal features. Another example of this new type of variation is the set of twelve variations on the French romance “Colin à peine à seize ans”, Wq118/ 6, of 1766. The fourth group of Bach’s variations includes sets for which multiple composers contributed to a large-scale variation work. There seem to be no precedents for such pasticcio variations, which appeared in Berlin in the 1750s and early 176os. In Wq118/2, Bach and his colleague Carl Friedrich Fasch expanded an anonymous setting of what was then a popular (instrumental) arietta; their variations were published as a continuous set in the Musikalisches Allerley. Variations on the song “Ich schlief, da träumte mir” were fashionable in Berlin throughout the second half of the eighteenth century; reconstructing their genesis and reception is a major challenge. Individual sets in F major for keyboard are known to have been composed by C.P. E. Bach (Wq118/1), Johann Philipp Kirnberger (Engelhardt No.68), and Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, but the sequence and number of variations differs from one manuscript to another. Minuet in G major by Pietro Locatelli with Variations Wq118/7 This work dates from I735, and consists of twenty-one variations on a Minuet by Pietro Locatelli (1695-1764), the final movement of Sonata Op.2 No.10 à fiauto traversiere è basso, and was published in Amsterdam (1732). Leisinger notes that those variations – some really challenging for the performer from a technical point of view – predates J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” by several years. They are preserved in only one (not an autograph) manuscript source, that contains also the first two of the original variations by Locatelli, not recorded here.
Variations on the song “Ich schlief da träumte mir” by Herr Kapellmeister Bach, are 8
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Minuet in C major with 5 Variations Wq118/3 This piece originates from the Berliner years of Carl Philipp and dates 1745, as an autograph manuscript confirms. This is a really early composition, only one other manuscript survives that can be proven to originate from the composer’s Berlin years. “lt seems likely, says Leisinger, that Bach wrote the piece for the exclusive use of one of his Berlin keyboard students, perhaps a member of the nobility. The theme shares the opening measures with a minuet attributed to Johann Nikolaus Tischer (1707-74), an organist in Schmalkalden in Thuringia whose published keyboard works w ere known by Bach”. Arioso in F major with 7 Variations Wq118/4 These variations were written in Berlin in 1747, two years later the preceding Menuet; this setting survives through several manuscript copies which explains its popularity. This Arioso was published without Bach’s knowledge by Anton Huberty in “Six Sonates pour le clavecin [ ... ] Oeuvre 1”, Paris, 1760. Allegretto in C major with 6 Variations Wq118/5 This is another work of the Berliner period (1750), which also had a large diffusion and several, minimal revisions by the composer. “Ich schlief, da träumte mir” with Variations Wq118/1 We don’t know the author of the song Ich schlief, da träumte mir; its first appearance - as Leisinger refers – is “in the so-called Crailsheimsche Liederhandschrift. […] This manuscript - supposedly assembled by Count Albert Ernst Friedrich von Crailsheim (1727-94) in Rugland near Ansbach in Middle Frankonia between 1747 and 1749 - contains the text (fourteen stanzas), but not the music. The tune was very popular in Germany and is often found in private keyboard tutorials or collections of easy instrumental pieces; […] Typical for a folksong in oral tradition, the text varies from source to source. 10
Bach created this setting in 1752, probably “per ordine di S. A. M. E.” (“at the request of His Majesty the Elector”, we could suppose Frederick August II of Saxony). Also in this case there is a large number of manuscripts containing different number of variations (from 13 to 15) and in a different order. In the version published in the Musikalisches Allerley (November 1761) we can find seventeen variations. The new variations display contrapuntal techniques and are really virtuosic. As Leisinger says, “These two additional variations could hardly have been possible without J. S. Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations as a model, and they deserve a special rank within the Berlin variation repertoire of the eighteenth century, as can be seen from Sulzer’s Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste: “The most difficult type of variation is indisputably that in which, within each repetition, new imitations and canons in double counterpoint occur. In this category we have, by J. S. Bach, such variations for keyboard on an aria, and the very same type on the melody Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her, which we may regard as the highest in the art of variation.” Ariette in A major with Variations Wq118/2 This “pasticcio” set has a very complex genesis; we can observe that, as written in the main source – also in this case the Musikalisches Allerley, with the simple heading “Clavierstück mit Veranderungen” -, Variations 12, 15 and 16 are attributed to “C. Fasch” (Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch), and variations 13, 14, and 17 to “C. P. E. Bach”. This piece was well known and loved in central and southern Germany: we can deduce it also in this case from the large number of copies preserved in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Leipzig; it was also included in the Nannerl Notenbuch, (1759).
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Bach provided five more variations for the Musikalisches Vielerley, really demanding from the technical point of view.
E. Bach, however, was not involved in this collection, but wrote a set of variations on the same theme independently.
“Colin à peine à seize ans” with 12 Variations Wq118/6 The text of the French romance “Colin à peine à seize ans” was an Anacreontic poem that was sung as a parody to the noël “Où s’en vont ces gais bergers”; this melody dates more or less to the first half of the XVII century, and was published in 1765 in a Parisian lyric anthology.
The style of this theme indicates that the author is rather Charlotte von SachsenMeiningen, wife of Duke Ernst II, rather than Luise Dorothea von Sachsen-GothaAltenburg, wife of Frederick III; Leisinger speaks about “a tribute by the Gotha musicians to the Duchess on her thirtieth birthday on 11 September 1781”.
Probably “C. P. E. Bach wrote his variations at the behest of a French lady; this would explain the limited transmission of the piece which apparently did not circulate until the 1780s” (Leisinger). “Les Folies d’Espagne” with 12 Variations Wq 118/9 After keyboard composers D’Anglebert, A. Scarlatti and Cabanilles and others, finally also C. P. E. Bach created these wonderful variations on this very well known and loved theme, published in 1803 by Johann Traeg in Vienna. Arioso in A major with 5 Variations Wq79 This Arioso is the original version for solo keyboard - written around 1781 - of the more well-known composition for violin and keyboard (see C. P. E. B:CW, II/3.1). From the sources we can assume, however, that the piece was originally conceived for solo keyboard. It survives in many manuscript copies and printed editions.
Arioso in C major with 9 Variations Wq118/10 Also this Arioso, like Arioso in A major Wq79, was published in a “chamber” version as a trio sonata with violin and violoncello (Wq91/4 ); the theme is taken by C. P. E. Bach from the first of his “Sechs leichte kleine Clavier-Stücke” Wq116/23 (Hamburg, 1775). The trio version was improved in the second edition of 1777 varied reprises. About the keyboard version, Leisinger informs us that “Fortunately, one source, a fair copy in the band of an unidentified scribe, transmits the variations as a complete set […]. It must have been directly copied from the materials in Bach’s possession and is likely to have originated during the composer’s lifetime or soon after […]. The sources give no date for the elaboration; obviously it cannot predate the publication of the simpler version for keyboard published in the summer of 1777.” © Andrea Coen
Canzonetta in F major by the Duchess of Gotha with 6 Variations Wq118/8 The publisher Ettinger of Gotha printed in 1781 the collection “Canzonette für Clavier, von einer Liebhaberin der Musik, mit Veranderungen von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern”, based on variations on the same theme by G. A. Benda, J. T. Cramer, J. G. Golde, J. D. Scheidler, J. V. Scherlitz, all of them related to the Gotha court. C. P. 12
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Andrea Coen was born in 1960 in Rome. He graduated in musicology at the La Sapienza University Rome, he received his degree in harpsichord from the Royal College of Music in London. After a period of research and study of Renaissance, Baroque and Classical performance techniques with such acclaimed musicians like Ton Koopman, David Collyer, Glenn Wilson and Emilia Fadini, dedicated himself to an intense concert career in Italy, Europe, USA and Japan, performing as soloist of harpsichord, organ and fortepiano and in various chamber and vocal ensembles. He is responsible for the first complete critical edition of the D. Cimarosa’s keyboard Sonatas and two Piano Sextets, and of the Intavolatura di Ancona (1644). At present he is in the scientific committee of the Opera Omnia di Muzio Clementi (60 vols), in the advisory board of Ad Parnassum (Journal if Eighteenth- and NineteenthCentury Instrumental Music), and he is working at the first critical edition of B. Marcello’s L’estro poetico-armonico. Coen has collaborated with artists including Christopher Hogwood, Monica Huggett, Aris Christofellis, Mariella Devia as well as the Ensemble Seicentonovecento, Modo Antiquo, L’Arte dell’arco and Odhecaton. He teaches harpsichord and ancient keyboards at L’Aquila’s State Conservatory, and is the First Organist in the Basilica di San Giacomo in Augusta (Rome). Among his recordings are Giustini’s piano sonatas (3 CDs, 94021), Telemann’s harpsichord Fantasies (3 CDs, 94228) and the Scarlatti viola d’amore sonatas (1 CD, 94242), all for Brilliant Classics. The complete keyboard works of D. Cimarosa (5 CDs), the Dissertations of Veracini after Corelli, the complete Oratori of G. Carissimi (9 CDs) and many other releases, featuring music from the Renaissance to Classical period. 14
Thanks to: Comune di Montecarotto; Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, Jesi; Gianluca Chiodi (Comune di Montecarotto); William Graziosi, Antonella Bonanni and Paolo F. Appignanesi (Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini).
Also available on Brilliant Classics from CPE Bach
Berlin Symphonies 94777 1CD
Hamburg Symphonies 94821 2CD
Sonatas for harpsichord and violin 94902 1CD 15