1 agos 1753 anni - Fantasia in C Minor

Descrizione:

From 6 Keyboard Sonatas, Wq. 63/6.

The Fantasia opens with an unusual feature: an instrumental recitative, "sung" here as if by a superhuman singer with a multioctave range. CPE's use of the operatic style associated with "speaking" suggests that the empfindsamer Stil communicates an unspoken text. An operatic recitative is traditionally a formless style of music that follows teh intonation of the words. Without an actual text to set in such a fantasy, the music comes, as CPE writes in his treatise, directly "from the soul" and communicates a sensiobility that transcends words. Such an instrumental recitative implies a direct address from the composer to the listener, who is taken, as it were, into the composer's confidence. It is not surprising that CPE's favorite instrument for conveying this impression was the clavichord, which is capable of dynamic gradations unavailable on the harpsichord, but much softer, more in the nature of a private conversation.

Although the opening of the Fantasia in C Minor sports a purely conventional signature denoting "common time," there are no bar lines and hence no measures to count, signaling a restlessly fluctuating tempo. Approximately half-way through the piece, however, a time signature of 3/4 replaces the original one. This new tempo (Largo) is to be strictly maintained, creating what amounts to an arioso following the recitative.

The fantasia style that opens the pieces is more often improvised than actually composed, as CPE stated in his ESsay. The vogue for Empfindsamkeit lent improvisation a new prestige, with CPE strongly implying that the ability to do so is the foundation of true musical talent. A fantasia might be characterized as a transcribed improvisation: JS, a master improviser, wrote down only a few. For him a fantasia was usually the equivalent of a prelude; not a fully viable piece in its own right but an introduction to a strict composition. CPE wrote down many fantasias and was inclined, in the spirit of Empfindsamkeit, to regard them as freeestanding, complete compositions.

By casting the Fantasia in C Minor in the recognizable vocal form of a recitative and arioso, and by emulating the nuances of passionate singing, CPE sugggests an imaginary text of which the music is the intensified expression, faithfully tracking every fugitive shade of meaning and feeling. This fantasia moved the poet Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg to write two different lyrics to it, one invoking Hamlet (by Shakespeare), the other about Socrates in Phaedo before he drinks the hemlock

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