INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD BAUER ix PART I. THE CLASSICAL PERIOD OF PIANOFORTE MUSIC CHAPTER I. KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF KEYBOARD TECHNIQUE 1 Keyboard instruments and their derivation; the clavichord and its mechanism; the harpsichord and its relatives, virginal, _cembalo_, etc.; technique and use of the harpsichord--The beginnings of harpsichord music; the Gabrielis and Merulo; early forms; the influence of harmony and the crystallization of form--Frescobaldi and other organist-composers for harpsichord; early English virginal collections; John Bull, etc.--Genesis of the suite; influence of lute-music; Froberger, Denis Gaultier, etc.; Kuhnau--Development of the harpsichord ‘style’; great players: Chambonnières, etc. II. THE GOLDEN AGE OF HARPSICHORD MUSIC 40 The period and the masters of the ‘Golden Age’--Domenico Scarlatti; his virtuosity; Scarlatti’s ‘sonatas’; Scarlatti’s technical effects; his style and form; æsthetic value of his music; his contemporaries--François Couperin, _le Grand_; Couperin’s clavecin compositions; the ‘musical portraits’; ‘program music’--The quality and style of his music; his contemporaries, Daquin and Rameau--John Sebastian Bach; Bach as virtuoso; as teacher; his technical reform; his style--Bach’s fugues and their structure--The suites of Bach: the French suites, the English suites, the Partitas--The preludes, toccatas and fantasies; concertos; the ‘Goldberg Variations’--Bach’s importance; his contemporary Handel. III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PIANOFORTE SONATA 89 Vienna as the home of the sonata; definition of ‘sonata’--Origin and history of the standard sonata cycle; relationship of sonata movements--Evolution of the ‘triplex’ form: Pergolesi’s ‘singing allegro’; the union of aria and binary forms; Padre Martini’s sonatas, Scarlatti’s true sonata in C; Domenico Alberti; the Alberti bass; the transitional period of the sonata--Sonata writers before Haydn and Mozart; J. C. Bach; Muzio Clementi--Schubert and Wagenseil; C. P. E. Bach; F. W. Rust. IV. HAYDN, MOZART AND BEETHOVEN 131