Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s Clavier Concertos: Between the Baroque and the Classical Styles

Abstract

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710–1784) was known by his contemporaries primarily as a virtuoso clavier player and a master of improvisation. In his quantitatively small compositional legacy, by 18th century standards, the primary position is reserved to clavier music, most notably, the large-scale genres — fantasias, concertos and sonatas. The six clavier concertos by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (the authorship of five of them having been confirmed, while the sixth was ascribed to the composer) manifest the characteristic features of his musical style — a combination of baroque and early classical stylistic features. The present article is devoted to revealing these qualities. Thus, the attributes of the baroque style include the use of the ritornello form, the principles of unfolding in the episodes, the incorporation of rhetorical figures into the thematicism, as well as the characteristic textural calls-over between the tutti and the solo sections. The principles of the classical style are disclosed in the sonata-form attributes complexifying the ritornello form, in the concise segmentation of the expositional constructions (the ritornellos), and the turn toward the classical topics. In general, the model of Bach’s concertos fits into the type of “nested sonata” model proposed by Omer Maliniak and Yoel Grinberg, holding an intermediary position between the baroque (“ritornello-style”) and the classical types. Special attention in the article is given to one of the most crucial qualities that emphasized the originality of Friedemann Bach’s style — the fantasia quality. The latter is expressed in the sudden changes of melodic and rhythmical contours and types of texture, the emergence of fantasia-like compositions in ritornellos, as well as in quotations from the music of J. S. Bach and the inventive reassessment of the derived material.