Musical Offerings, Spring 2019

Musical Offerings ⦁ 2019 ⦁ Volume 10 ⦁ Number 1 33 Emanuel Bach not only incorporated Empfindsamkeit into his composition style but also into his performance practice. In his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, he famously admonishes his students to “play from the soul, not like a trained bird.” 14 Observe the following advice he gives to performers in his Essay . Pay special attention to the way he uses the words “insensibility” and “sensitive”: A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humor will stimulate a like humor in the listener. In languishing, sad passages, the performer must languish and grow sad. Thus will the expression of the piece be more clearly perceived by the audience. . . . Similarly, in lively, joyous passages, the executant must again put himself into the appropriate mood. And so, constantly varying the passions, he will barely quiet one before he rouses another. . . . Those who maintain that all of this can be accomplished without gesture will retract their words when, owing to their own insensibility , they find themselves obliged to sit like a statue before their instrument. . . . Those opposed to this stand are often incapable of doing justice, despite their technique, to their own otherwise worthy compositions. . . . But let someone else play these, a person of delicate, sensitive insight who knows the meaning of good performance, and the composer will learn to his astonishment that there is more in his music than he had ever known or believed (emphasis mine). 15 In summary, one can see that Empfindsamkeit , when adapted to music composition, refers to a passionate, expressive style with frequent juxtaposed and contrasting moods and unpredictable form. In performance practice, it refers to the performer’s ability to interpret the subtle emotions embedded into a piece of music; the performer must not only himself be emotionally moved but must also perform the piece in such a way as to move his audience. 14 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments , trans. and ed. by William J. Mitchell (London, UK: Eulenburg, 1974), 150. 15 Ibid., 152-153.