The Eighteenth-Century Fortepiano Grand and Its Patrons by Badura-Skoda Eva

Author:Badura-Skoda, Eva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2017-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

MUSIC EXAMPLE 7.9. Sonata in d minor Wq 69, 1st movement.

Did C. P. E. Bach privately acquire a harpsichord in Berlin after his marriage in 1744 (his father-in-law was not poor) and if he did, which kind? At present this question cannot be answered properly, and perhaps it never will be. But it is hardly probable that during the late 1740s C. P. E. Bach had no large keyboard instrument in his home for playing with a group of musicians. For practice purposes as well as for playing with two or three other musicians, he probably needed a quilled harpsichord. Which harpsichord served him when writing his famous treatise around 1750? Was there then a harpsichord with quills but no pianoforte at his home? Possibly. The only instrument—besides his Silbermann clavichord—we know that he owned in the 1740s is another clavichord built by Ernst Friederici. After 1758 this situation changed apparently. Friederici offered publicly his combined harpsichord-piano fortbien in this year and traveled with it probably to Berlin to show it there also to Bach. Could Bach then have acquired the fortbien already in 1758, the year it was first advertised by Friederici? This is possible, because by then C. P. E. was already so famous that Friederici might have supplied him free of charge with one of his earliest fortbiens for promotion reasons. The rectangular fortbien was an instrument that was certainly louder than a clavichord and thus more suited than a clavichord for ensemble music, and it took up less space than a normal harpsichord.

Through a letter of C. P. E. Bach to Forkel it is a generally known fact that Bach owned one of Friederici’s fortbien instruments, and he may have acquired it before 1760. Perhaps he performed on another new one, when Charles Burney visited him in 177220 because it is most likely that he agreed to act as Friederici’s agent and thus received many fortbiens from him for selling to pupils and friends. Burney confirmed that he heard Friederici’s combined harpsichord-piano and knew it was called a fortbien. Apparently, Bach liked the qualities of the fortbien instruments right from the beginning, and being known as a clever businessman, it is indeed possible that he agreed earlier to accept Friederici’s offer to become a sales agent for him. In a letter from November 10, 1773, Bach wrote to Forkel,

Die Fridericischen Clavicorde haben bey mir einen grösseren Vorzug- vor den Fritzischen und Hassischen wegen des Tractamentes and wegen des Basses ohne Octave [Oktävchen] welche ich nicht leiden kann. Die Fortbiens sind sehr gut und ich verkaufe Viele davon.21

(I prefer the clavichords made by Friderici to those made by Fritz or Hass because of the action facility and the omission of an added bass octave [Oktävchen], which I don’t like. The fortbiens are very good and I have sold many by now.

Thus, it is not at all a far-fetched assumption that C. P. E. Bach—like his father or Leopold Mozart—was acting as sales agent for Friederici; this was a rather common way for musicians to earn additional money.

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