Mozart and the Keyboard Culture of His Time

 

C. P. E. Bach’s Essay on the Keyboard
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C. P. E. Bach (1714-1788), the second surviving son of J. S. Bach, had an enormous impact on succeeding generations of composers. His Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments says a great deal about not only issues of harmony, ornamentation, and improvisation, but also performance subtleties that he deems essential to proper expression. The examples shown here illustrate when the ordinary note values should be either held back or shortened, depending on the musical context. "In slower or reserved tempos the phrase segments are mostly drawn out longer than normally, especially when the bass has the same notes and pauses as the upper notes."

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (1762). Sibley Library, Eastman School of Music
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Introduction
From Sketch to Completed Work
From Print to CD
How did Mozart Compose?
The Mozart Myth: Tales of a Forgery
Mozart's Images
Mozart's Images Imagined
What the Score Doesn't Tell Us
The Piano Lesson
The Cult of Mozart
Commodification & Kitsch
Credits
Cornell University Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Cornell University Library

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