The Awkward Idiom: Hand-Crossing and the European Keyboard Scene around 1730

Author(s): David Yearsley

Source: Early Music, Vol. 30, No. 2 (May, 2002), pp. 224-235
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3519244
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 * PERFORMING MATTERS .

David Yearsley

The awkward idiom: hand-crossing

and the European keyboard scene around 17

'Exercises' speaks to the program of technical

T HEand
18th century
while modernwas an era has
scholarship of musical
been able journeys,
to
say much about the impact of some of the travellers
who undertook them, it has not always been willing
to venture specifics about the dissemination of cer-
tain stylistic trends which these cosmopolitans fos-
tered. Among the myriad uncharted, and now
unchartable, developments brought about by expa-
triates and adventurers through their foreign stud-
ies, jobs, rivalries, friendships, acquisitions and
losses, certain musical exoticisms brought back from
distant places can, through their distinctiveness,
provide a telling marker of the circulation of musical
ideas throughout Europe. Perhaps no musical device
draws attention to itself more self-consciously than
does hand-crossing at the keyboard. By taking a
seemingly illogical approach to the instrument and
rendering it idiomatic, the hand-crossing technique
of the first half of the 18th century created a novel
and (in most cases) instantly recognizable aural and
visual effect. The nearly simultaneous appearance of
this curious conceit in a number of printed editions
in northern Europe around 1730 speaks to the rapid-
ity with which fashions could spread, and, in turn,
highlights the extent to which the European key-
board scene of the early 18th century could show
remarkable signs of integration.
Hand-crossing is now most closely associated
with the work of Domenico Scarlatti, whose collec-
tion of 30 sonatas (K1-30) published as the Essercizi
in London in late 1738 or early 1739, constitutes the
gesture's single most important lexicon. The title
improvement the pieces pursued as they graduated
to increasing levels of difficulty. The sonatas
required not only dexterity but a level of physical fit-
ness literally out of reach of the old, infirm and cor-
pulent; Charles Burney, a later 18th-century musical
traveller and one of the age's greatest proponents of
Scarlatti's music, bore witness to its callisthenic
rigours by claiming, spuriously, that in later years
'Scarlatti was too fat to cross his hands as he used to
do." The portrait of Scarlatti painted around the
time of the publication of his Essercizi (illus.i) shows
he was certainly trim enough to manage them when
in his fifties. So capricious and obsessively 'unid-
iomatic' were the uses to which Scarlatti put this
technique that in some cases he introduced it as a
purely arbitrary feat of virtuosity rather than for any
musical considerations, as in ex.1, the famous, or
perhaps infamous, parallel 3rds of the penultimate
number of the Essercizi (K29), a passage which Scar-
latti specifically demands should be played with the
hands crossed; thus the easy is made onerous, the
difficulties remaining imperceptible-it is hoped-
to any listener unable to see the player's hands.
Of course, the idea of approaching the keyboard
with crossed hands was not a new one. John Bull's
use of the device in the 28th variation of Walsingham
(ex.2) is as unnecessary from a technical point of
view as that in Scarlatti's K29. Likewise, 17th-century
North German chorale fantasias sometimes require
similar contortions, as when the solo voice, played
on a separate manual, descends far below the

David Yearsley teaches at Cornell University. His book Bach and the meanings of counterpoint is
forthcoming from Cambridge University Press; his most recent recording, The great contest: Bach,
Scarlatti, Handel, has just been released on the Loft label (www. loftrecordings. com).

EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002 225

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 1 Domingo Antonio de Velasco, portrait of Domenico Scarlatti (c.1740)
(by permission of Casa Museu dos Patudos, Alpiarea, Portugal)

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 Ex.1 Domenico Scarlatti, K29, bars 37-49

CaTIlieo i S. GIACOMO e aetro

LSSLRC1I PLR GR AVICEMBI AC)

C alli e ode d i S. GIAC ( O

dAe

de02e a srglie 0c.

'??~ ~All
6 E RISIn0
C;Z

226 EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002

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 Ex.2 John Bull, Walsingham, bars 217-18
217
28.

accompaniment. Elsewhere in the 17th-century he points out that the dissemination of Scarlatti's
repertory compass-traversing scales and arpeggios music in German-speaking Europe can first be doc-
were generally played by alternating the hands. umented
But only with the appearance of an edition of
in its most usual arrangement the technique six Scarlatti sonatas in a volume printed by the
devel-
oped in the first half of the 18th century sent Nuremberg
one publisher Johann Ulrich Haffner in
hand vaulting over the other so that the bass could
1754.3 But before we place too much emphasis on the
echo the soprano (or vice versa), while thepublicationother of the Essercizi and its possible influence
hand remained busy in the middle range; it is on this
the Goldberg Variations, perhaps we should ask
hopping of one hand back and forth, and sometimes whether or not Scarlatti's sonatas and the techniques
having the hands play virtually one on top of with them may have made their way to
associated
the other, that appears to have been born innorthern this Europe before the appearance of his
period. famous volume of 1738/9.
The importance of Scarlatti's role in the promo- Ironically, perhaps, the earliest surviving evidence
tion of hand-crossing has been put forward by for this kind of hand-crossing is to be found not in
Robert Marshall, who hypothesizes that with their Italy or Spain, the countries where Scarlatti resided
publication the Essercizi could have provided the from 1720, but in the north. In the catalogue com-
inspiration for some of the technical fireworks to be piled by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and added to
found in the Goldberg Variations.2 Scarlatti scholar the 1773 German translation of Burney's The Present
Joel Sheveloff, however, is more sceptical, and State of Music in Germany, The Netherlands, and
believes it is unlikely, though not impossible, that United Provinces, the very first entry, dated 1731, lists
the Essercizi had reached Leipzig by 1741, by which 'eine Menuet mit tibergeschlagenen Hinden aufs
time it would in any case have been too late for them Clavier gesetzt. Eine nattirliche und damals sehr ein-
to figure as an immediate influence on the Goldberg gerissene Hexerey.' ('... a minuet with hand-cross-
Variations. Sheveloff suggests that before Witvogel's ing composed for the keyboard. A natural and at that
pirated edition appeared in Amsterdam in 1742, the time very popular kind of trick.')4 (See ex.3.) Except
Essercizi were circulating primarily in England, and for the chordal figuration at cadences, this energetic

Ex.3 C. P. E. Bach, Minuet, H1.5, bars 26-44

29

37

EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002 227

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if diminutive work (H1.5) is made up entirely of a
single melodic line full of unnecessary but appealing
hand-crossings, the choreography of which is indi-
cated by the beaming; the arpeggios in bars 29-32 of
ex.3 could easily have been played without all the
acrobatic bother, yet they spring charmingly to life
through these superfluous antics. Not surprisingly,
the young C. P. E. Bach's mode of hand-crossing is
cut from the same cloth as the gigue from his father's
first partita, swv825, first published five years earlier
in 1726 (ex.4). This technique is combined with a
gambit found in the minuet of the fifth partita,
Bwv829, first published in Clavier-Ubung I (1730)
(ex.5). Like his son's piece, J. S. Bach's minuet archly
dedicates both hands to the execution a single
melodic line, except at the chordal cadences and a
few bars of two-part writing towards the end of the
second half. In both items the interplay of the hands
is both literally and figuratively off-beat-unex-
pected and all the more humorous because these
passages could be managed more easily in other
ways. The Praeambulum of the same fifth partita also
includes some bolder hand-crossing; this not only
sets up the intricacies of the funny minuet to follow
later in the suite but, when added to the gigue from
the first partita, accords to the technique of hand-
crossing a certain prominence in the Clavier-Obung
I as a whole.5
This complex of Bach family compositions-and
one can assume that eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann
also got into the act at this time, even though no
piece survives to document it-are dedicated to a
kind of hand-crossing one might think of as very
Scarlattian, if not for the chronology of the com-
posers' respective publications. Judging by the his-
torical record alone, it was J. S. Bach who, surveying
the European scene from the central German city of
Leipzig, anticipated his exact contemporary Scarlatti
in publishing music that featured this technique.
Bach also introduced the device in the unpublished
Fantasia in C minor, BswVg6 (ex.6); that he may
have had plans to publish this piece as well (perhaps
as the opening movement to the second partita) is
suggested by the fact that he made a fair copy of it at
some time between 1726 and 1731, the same period in
which he was serializing the six partitas.6 In 1731 he
collected the partitas and published them as the first
part of his Clavieriibung, a title which anticipated
that of Scarlatti's Essercizi, though Bach had in fact
taken it from two collections of the same name

Ex.4 J. S. Bach, Partita no.1, Bwv825, Gigue, bars 1-4

Ex.5 J. S. Bach, Partita no.5, Bwv829, Tempo di Minuetto, bars 34-8

34

Ex.6 J. S. Bach, Fantasia in C minor, Bsw906, bars 9-10o

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published in 1689 and 1692 by his Leipzig predeces-
sor Johann Kuhnau.
C. P. E. Bach's statement that hand-crossing was
a popular trick around 1730 is striking, since it refers
to a practice which, aside from his own minuet and
his father's two brilliant uses of the technique in
works of the 1720s, has almost completely vanished
from the historical record; scant evidence survives
to suggest a hand-crossing craze at the time,
although a careful look at the sources reveals traces
that might confirm its existence. A rather modest
example appears near the close of a passacaille by
the Hamburg organist Johann Valentin G6rner in
the bi-weekly anthology Der getreue Music-Meister
published and edited by Telemann in Hamburg
over the course of 1728 (ex.7).7 As founder of
Leipzig's first collegium musicum, Telemann had
strong ties to the city, and, in his capacity as C. P. E.
Bach's godfather, to the Bach family itself; G6rner
also had connections to Leipzig, since his brother
Johann Gottlieb was organist at the university
church.8 There were many avenues of musical
exchange between Hamburg and Leipzig, and, given
the interrelationships between musicians from both
cities, it is not surprising that the Bachs and G6rner
were investigating hand-crossing at about the same
time.
Telemann shaped Der getreue Music-Meister with
the emerging bourgeois amateur market in mind,
and Valentin G6rner's use of hand-crossing is far
from demanding; once again, though, the pattern
could have been more 'idiomatically' played in the
typical fashion of handling broken chords-with the
Ex.7 J. V. GOrner, Passacaille, 57-64
57
61
l~ r r r r
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left hand taking the lowest note and the right follow-
ing with the triadic figure. Even with the arrange-
ment demanded by the beaming, the interlocking of
thumbs does not require too much practice or con-
centration until bar 62, where the arpeggio leapfrogs
over itself, and the playing of successive notes with
alternating hands becomes quite tricky. This is a
paler version of the manoeuvre more buoyantly exe-
cuted in C. P. E. Bach's minuet. The effect of the
device, which Gorner saves for the penultimate cou-
plet before returning for an exact reprise of the
opening six-bar unit, is to tinge the piece with the
exotic. This importation of a seemingly new musical
commodity takes up the trans-European theme run-
ning through Telemann's collection, which includes
genres evoking distant European lands-from
Poland to Ireland-and presents offerings as diverse
as scenes from the comic world of the Hamburg
opera to the lofty realms alluded to by J. S. Bach's
so-called 'Hudemann' canon, Bwv1o74.
But Garner's gesture towards hand-crossing, or
more precisely hand-overlapping, hardly constitutes
a substantial interest in the topic outside the Bach
family, and does not provide much of an answer to
the question of how widespread the hand-crossing
fad referred to by C. P. E. Bach really was. Given the
relative geographic proximity of this small complex
of pieces, one might be tempted to interpret C. P. E.
Bach's reference to the device's popularity as specific
to central, and perhaps northern, Germany. Could
he have been recalling a musical phenomenon that
encompassed most of Europe, even if he himself
only glimpsed part of it?
wF
EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002 229
 The same year that Telemann's Getreuer Music-
Meister appeared, Jean-Philippe Rameau published
his Nouvelles pi&ces de clavecin; this includes one of
the most celebrated instances of hand-crossing in
the first half of the 18th century, Les trois mains. Four
years earlier, in the Picces de clavepin of 1724, Rameau
had introduced some lively hand-crossing into his
display piece Les Cyclopes. In the prefatory remarks
to the 1724 volume Rameau claimed that this form of
hand-crossing was at that time unique to his music.9
Thus Rameau apparently beat J. S. Bach into print by
only two years with an example of the new virtuoso
technique. The very title of Rameau's next explo-
ration of this newly opened terrain, Les trois mains,
draws attention to the technique and its imposition
on the player, conjuring up physical feats (or defor-
mities) that pushed far beyond the everyday (ex.8).
Les trois mains also raises the question of when to use
two manuals to alleviate or to exacerbate (and there-
fore celebrate) the difficulties inherent in various
forms of hand-crossing; the piece in fact begins as a
rather staid piLce croisee in which musical material
lying in the same range is given to hands continu-
ously playing on separate keyboards (ex.9). It is only
after some 25 bars-midway through the first half-
that this well-worn native genre (here predomi-
nantly in quavers) breaks into a full-on hand-cross-
ing blitz of a much newer vintage, these gymnastics
now displayed against a backdrop of semiquaver
motion: it is almost as if Louis Couperin and the 17th
century suddenly gives way to Scarlatti and the
18th-an unlikely and wonderful stylistic confronta-
Ex.8 J. P. Rameau, Les trois mains, bars 26-9
26 9
Ex.9
230
230 EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002
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tion. Where the opening of Les trois mains requires
two manuals, the Scarlattian mode which then
intrudes at bar 25 seems to allow for, or even recom-
mends, a move to a single manual. Indeed, the thrill
of the 18th-century variety of hand-crossing is often
predicated on using only one manual. Unlike the
harpsichords available to many of the northern
European buyers of the Essercizi, Scarlatti would
have played his sonatas on a single-manual harpsi-
chord; the technical conceit which closes both halves
of K29 (ex.1) is merely dyslexic when played on two
manuals, but when mercilessly crowded onto one
keyboard it is downright sadistic. In variation 29 of
the Goldberg Variations, Bach for his part gives the
player a choice ('1 ovvero 2 Claviere'): if not willing
to confront the ungainly constrictions of a single
keyboard, seek the relative ease of two. More gener-
ally, however, the near-simultaneous appearance of
these examples of hand-crossing in France and Ger-
many suggests that Rameau and others must also
have been capitalizing on the currency of the device.
In the wake of Rameau's liberating bravura, Jean-
Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville's Pieces de clavecin
en sonates, avec accompagnement de violin probably
published in 1734 revel in this new-found form of
flamboyance: the first four of the six sonatas feature
a range of hand-crossing techniques of various sorts
and levels of difficulty in the obbligato harpsichord
part (ex.io). That Rameau so boldly broke out of the
refined, controlled harpsichord style perfected by
Francois Couperin with a range of stylistic innova-
tions which included a new kind of hand-crossing,
J.
EAR
 Ex.io J.-J. C. de Mondonville, Sonata I, op.3, bars 1-6, obbligato harpsichord part

6' GiLad/4ro.

Y~1~rim r ri r ri O n

and that he was the first

C. P. to do so in
E. Bach's print, cl
reference t
raises which
the possibility that only awas
Rameau few the remna 'inve
many
and first great 'promoter' of clues
the that technique. speak to In
words, it may have cal been sources that in Scarlatti
tracing and the
musical ideas.
learned about hand-crossing from Rameau.
From 1720o on-that is, Indeed, hand-crossing the
during and othertime
techniques asso-
when
published his partitasciated
and with Rameau
Scarlatti could havehiscome north
first long tw
lections-Scarlatti wasbefore
living on
the publication the
of the Essercizi.Iberian
Many German pen
sula, and although he was
musicians certainly
of the early 18th century met influenced
Scarlatti in
indigenous musical lifeItaly, there,
and these travellers
itwouldseemshave brought back
likely t
was he who introduced reports Iberian keyboard
of his astounding virtuosity at the keyboard, playe
the kind of hand-crossing
as well as some of hispublished later i
music, as apparently Thomas
Essercizi. Hand-crossing is did
Roseingrave not in evidence
when returning to England after his in P
gal and Spain memorable
before encounter with Scarlatti
Scarlatti's arrival,in Venice but
occurs in the work of his
around Portuguese
1710.12 colleague
After his play-off with Roseingrave,
possibly also his Scarlatti alsoCarlos
student, encountered the
decentral German
Seixas (170
and, with much greater frequency
organist Heinrich in ina1712.13
Stilzel, probably in Rome set
sonatas by Vicente Less than ten years(1690-1760)
Rodriguez later J. S. Bach copied pieces
found by
1744 Spanish manuscript.10 Keyboardists
St6lzel into the Clavier-Biichlein for Wilhelm Friede- a
Europe were quite quickly becoming
mann Bach (nos.35, 48); St6lzel would intereste
later be joined
the by J. S. Bach asprimacy
technique, and Scarlatti's a member of Lorenz in Mizler's
its pro
gation cannot be ruled out simply
Correspondirende Societit der because
musikalischen Wis- he
apparently pre-empted senschaften.
by his The northern
future Dresden Kapellmeister
counter
Johann David
in bringing hand-crossing Heinichen
into was also inAfter
print. Rome in 1712, all,
latti wrote the book andon probably made Scarlatti's acquaintance
hand-crossing, as well,th
and
the Essercizi were not published
mentioning until
the great keyboard virtuoso1738 or
in his mon-
umental treatise Der General-Bass
they were probably composed some ten in der Composi-
to 15
earlier-that is, at about
tion, the same
a book for which J.time
S. Bach actedasas Bach's
Leipzig
agent.'4trois
partita and Rameau's Les While in Rome
mains.HeinichenIt gavecan
lessons har
to
taken as decisive thatthe musically talented
there is no Prince Leopold of Anhalt-
surviving evi
for the arrival of Scarlatti's
C6then, himselfmusic in
on an Italian Germany
tour which could also b
1750; the highly contingent state
have included hearing Scarlattiof the
play the sour
harpsichord.
grimly punctuated by Leopold
the would meet J. S. Bach a few years
destruction in later
Worldand
II of the few German hire himmanuscripts of Adolph
as his Kapellmeister in 1717. Johann Scar
sonatas that Hasse, another
remained from of J. the
S. Bach's 18th
friends, as centu
well as

EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002 231

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Heinichen's successor as Dresden Kapellmeister, of the 1720s and were certainly good friends by the
also met Scarlatti in Naples in 1725. Hasse had end of the 173os, when Weiss stayed in the Bach
returned to central Germany by 1731, when his opera household in Leipzig for several weeks. If not pro-
Cleofide was premiered at Dresden, a performance viding actual copies of the sonatas, Weiss would cer-
almost certainly attended by J. S. Bach and his son tainly have told Bach of Scarlatti's gifts as a key-
Friedemann. Fifty years later in Vienna, Hasse would boardist and the unique aspects of his style. The
recount for Charles Burney the younger Scarlatti's conjecture here, in relation to hand-crossing, is that
technical facility and improvisational gifts--his Scarlatti would have developed the technique before
'wonderful hand' and 'fecundity of invention'; con- his removal to Portugal. In any case, there were sim-
sidering the strength of this impression, it seems ply too many German witnesses of Scarlatti's virtu-
likely that Hasse would have told his friend Bach of osity for Bach to have remained oblivious of his con-
Scarlatti's abilities in similarly enthusiastic terms.'5 temporary's reputation and perhaps his music as
Likewise, C. P. E. Bach's long-time colleague at well.
the Berlin court, J. J. Quantz, heard Scarlatti play The most famous cosmopolitan composer of the
during his 1724 Italian tour; Quantz in his autobiog- early 18th century was, of course, Handel, who,
raphy referred to Scarlatti as 'ein galanter Clavier- according to his first biographer, John Mainwaring,
spieler nach damaliger Zeit' ('a gallant keyboard met Scarlatti in a famous contest in Rome in 1708 or
player of that time'), and praised him for his Fer- 1709.'19 Handel's surviving oeuvre offers only a
tigkeit ('facility') at the keyboard.'6 As a flautist in the glimpse of his activities as a keyboard player, and
Dresden court orchestra after his return from Italy, among his works there is, aside from numerous
Quantz probably made J. S. Bach's acquaintance, scales and arpeggios to be played by alternating
and could have provided him with yet another hands, only one example of hand-crossing, or, more
account of Scarlatti's prowess at the keyboard. As exactly, overlapping-a technique reminiscent of
Scarlatti's reputation grew, his name began to several Scarlatti sonatas and the above-mentioned
appear in print in Germany. Bach's relative and passage from Gorner's Passacaille; this appears in the
Weimar associate Johann Gottfried Walther gigue from the Suite in G minor, Hwv439, published
described Scarlatti in his Musicalisches Lexicon of by Walsh first in 1727-again, at about the time of
1732 as a 'famous Roman Kapellmeister' who had
Bach's B6 partita-but probably composed by 1719
been brought to Portugal at considerable expense.'7(ex.11).20 Handel does not span a great distance in his
Besides relying on reports of Scarlatti published in
use of hand-crossing, but makes things difficult for
German newspapers such as the Hidllische Zeitung, the player by placing both hands in such tight quar-
Walther may have heard personal accounts from his ters and at high velocities, requiring utter control in
numerous contacts with musicians who had trav- order to prevent one hand from knocking the other
elled to Italy. The most direct connection betweenoff course.
Scarlatti and Bach, however, is through the Dresden It is not as if Scarlatti's skill was necessarily the
most fascinating phenomenon all these musical
lutenist S. L. Weiss, who served with Scarlatti in the
musical establishment of the exiled Polish Queen
tourists witnessed in Italy, but clearly his style was so
Maria Cassimira and her son Prince Alexander remarkable that it would have warranted descrip-
Sobiesky in Rome between 1710 and 1714.18 Weisstion,
and especially when travellers were discussing it
with less well-travelled musicians such as J. S. Bach,
Bach might have become acquainted by the middle

Ex.ll G. F. Handel, Suite in G minor, HwV439, Gigue, bars 92-4

92

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who was himself constantly in search of information other instances of hand-crossing are to be found in
about the wider musical world-greedily imbibing Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's Eb major sonata (F5),
Vivaldi's concertos after copies of some of these were published in Dresden in 1748 (ex.12), and the final
brought back to Weimar by the young Duke Johann movement of the first of the Sei sonate (Nuremberg,
Ernst in 1713; leading a performance of Pergolesi's c.1755) by the devotee of J. S. Bach, F. W. Marpurg
Stabat mater in the last decade of his life; trying to (ex.13). Friedemann's is a demanding piece which
arrange meetings with Handel on his return trips to certainly exceeded the technical proficiency of most
Saxony; finding his way into a competition against amateurs, and the type of hand-crossing he employs
the touring French organist Louis Marchand in has been described as Scarlattian.21 But before we too
Dresden in 1719; and copying music originating in hastily ascribe all appearances of the technique to the
France and Italy. Clearly there were travellers, many influence of Scarlatti, it should be noted that rather
who had personally encountered Scarlatti, who than being directly modelled on Scarlattian tech-
could have brought the Italian's music north before niques, the Marpurg sonata is more likely a gallant
the appearance of the Essercizi in London and the updating of the hand-crossing effects of Les trois
pirated Amsterdam edition of 1742. In spite of the mains by Rameau, a composer whom Marpurg
absence of Scarlatti sources in Germany in the first greatly admired.22
half of the 18th century, to claim that Bach did not By mid-century the technique had spread the
know of Scarlatti is to negate the essential purpose of length of Europe: from Sweden in the north, where
musical travels. Since the goal of all these journeys to the German-born Stockholm organist H. P. Johnsen
Italy was to take in the latest musical fashions and composed a set of Sei sonate per il cembalo (c.1754)
mingle with the country's greatest musicians, it is which contain numerous hand-crossings and other
hard to believe that Prince Leopold, Heinichen, technical idiosyncrasies strongly indebted to
St6lzel, Hasse, Quantz, Weiss and probably many Scarlatti, to Spain in the south, where Scarlatti's
others would not have at least told Bach about Scar- pupil Antonio Soler continued to explore hand-
latti's virtuosity and one of its most flamboyant fea-crossing with originality and vigour.23 In France
tures-hand-crossing. Michel Corrette concluded his harpsichord tutor Les
After the first appearance of hand-crossing in Amusemens du Parnasse (Paris, 1749) with a section
northern Europe in the years around 1730 the tech- on hand-crossing, and promised yet more examples
nique witnessed a revitalization in the 1740s, perhaps of the technique culled from the work of 'Handel,
due in part to the publication, at last, of the Essercizi. Scarlatti, Rameau, Mondonville and others' which
Besides the already mentioned Goldberg Variations,was to appear in a now-lost or never-published

Ex.12 W. F. Bach, Sonata in Eb major, F5, third movement, bars 28-30

28 3 I.H. .H. I.H I.H. I.H. tr

,,r . I. -. ?. -. I

Ex.13 F. W. Marpurg, Sonata in C major, third movement, bars 18-20

18

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002 233

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second volume. Corrette was compiling music to a technical innovation whose popularity encom-
already at least a decade old, written, perhaps during passed a geographical area stretching from Leipzig
the initial popularity of hand-crossing, a skill which, to Lisbon and beyond, a craze ignited perhaps by a
given its placement at the conclusion of his tutor, single legendary keyboard virtuoso. Given the
seems to have been considered by then to be a contemporary appearance of the few, though impor-
requirement of all advanced keyboard players, an tant, printed sources that remain, this trend must
indispensable flourish to be mastered by all virtu- have spread very quickly across Europe and then,
osos worthy of the name.24 with the loss of manuscripts, published volumes,
Interestingly, aside from the early minuet, H1.5, and the evanescence of countless improvisations
hand-crossing appears in only one other place in employing the technique, it largely disappeared
C. P. E. Bach's work-in one of the Probestiicke from the historical record. That the earliest rem-
(H75) published along with the first volume of his nants of the practice fall within such a close period
famous Versuch iiber die wahre Art das Clavier zu suggests that the surviving manifestations of hand-
spielen (1753) (ex.14). Indeed, there seems to be a hint
crossing in Paris, Leipzig and elsewhere were related
of condescension in C. P. E. Bach's own descriptionindirectly-or even directly-through the busy
of the technique in his 1773 catalogue, as if he thenpaths of music and musicians. In positing a possible
viewed it as something of a gimmick: like all fads itlink between the music of Scarlatti and that of J. S.
had seen its day, and perhaps he felt compelled to Bach, in particular the Goldberg Variations, Robert
Marshall has suggested that music may have been
include it in his Probestiicke only because that collec-
tion purported to be a comprehensive if compact disseminated throughout Europe much more
survey of keyboard technique. quickly than has often been assumed.25 The hand-
The initial examples of hand-crossing whichcrossing fad of the period around 1730 certainly goes
appeared within a few years of each other in the a long way to confirming this hypothesis. The exper-
1720s and the 1730s could not have been indepen- iments with this awkward idiom by Rameau and
dent, isolated events-like Leibniz and Newton northern Europeans like the Bachs could well have
inventing calculus simultaneously. To assert as been a distant echo of an 'ingenious jesting with art'
much would be to allow positivistic scepticism to referred to later by Scarlatti in the preface to the
discount completely sensible inferences about how Essercizi-evidence not only of certain unities within
the international trade in musical ideas in the 18th European keyboard practice of the time but of the
century was conducted. Much more likely is the sometimes irresistible appeal of certain outlandish
possibility that C. P. E. Bach's 1773 catalogue referred ideas.

Ex.14 C. P. E. Bach, Probestiicke, H75/ii, Sonata no.6, first movement, bars 1-4

Allegro di molto

[sopra]

234 EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002

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1 Charles Burney, The Present State of
Music in France and Italy (London,
1771; R/New York, 1969), p.248.
2 R. Marshall, 'Bach the progressive:
observations on his later works', The
music off. S. Bach (New York, 1989),
pp.23-63. See also C. Wolff, H. David
and A. Mendel, The new Bach reader
(New York, 1998), p.12.
3 J. Sheveloff, The keyboard music of
Domenico Scarlatti (PhD diss., Brandeis
U., 1970), p.252. See also Sheveloff,
'Domenico Scarlatti: tercentenary frus-
trations, part II', Musical quarterly,
lxxii (1986), pp.90o-118.
4 Carl Burneys der Musik Doctors Tage-
buch einer Musikalischen Reise, trans.
and ed. C. D. Ebeling and J. J. C. Bode,
3 vols. (Hamburg, 1772-3), ii, p.203.
9 Jean-Philippe Rameau, 'De la "Bachsche Auction" von 1789', Bach-
Mechanique des Doigts sur le Jahrbuch, lxxvii (1991), pp.97-126.
Clavessin', Pieces de Clavessin (Paris,
1724), PP.5-6. Couperin's Les Tours de 15 Charles Burney, The Present State of
Passe-passe (1730) probably also reflects Music in Germany, The Netherlands,
the influence of Rameau's innovative and United Provinces, 2 vols. (London,
hand-crossing. See also J. Clark, '"His 2/1775), i, PP.351-2.
own worst enemy": Scarlatti, some
16 Johann Joachim Quantz, 'Herrn
unanswered questions', Early music,
Joachim Quantzens Lebenslauf, von
xiii (1985), PP-542-7, at pp.545-6.
ihm selbst entworfen', (dated August
to For an example by Seixas see Sonata 1754), in Friederich Wilhelm Marpurg,
no.21 in A major from 25 Sonatas, ed. Historisch-kritische Beytriige zurAuf-
M. S. Kastner (Lisbon, 1980), PP.93-7. nahme der Musik, 5 vols. (Berlin,
For a modern edition of Rodriguez's 1754-60), i, pp.197-250, esp. pp.226,
sonatas from the 1744 manuscript 228. Quantz was himself recruited by
(Ms.12-VII-21, Orfe6 Catalt, Alessandro Scarlatti to take up a post
Barcelona), see Vicente Rodriguez, in Lisbon, where he would have
Toccatas for harpsichord: thirty sonatas become Domenico's colleague.
Quantz declined the lucrative offer
and a pastorella, ed. A. Howell (Madi-
son, WI, 1986). For Scarlatti's influence and eventually returned to the Dresden
on Rodriguez after Scarlatti's removal court orchestra.

to Spain in 1729 see p.vii of Howell's

5 In his biography of Bach, Spitta
remarked on these examples of hand-
crossing and placed them in the con-
text of Scarlatti's use of the technique.
See P. Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach,
2 vols. (Leipzig, 1873-80), ii, p.662.
6 R. Marshall, 'J. S. Bach', Eighteenth-
century keyboard music, ed. R. Marshall
(New York, 1994), pp.68-123, at p.lo8.
7 Dietz Degen's modern edition of
Gorner's piece misses the point of the
notation and the manual interplay it
signifies. Degen simply beams each
group of four semiquavers together so
that the left hand takes only the first
(and therefore lowest) note of each
group, thus avoiding hand-crossing
altogether. See G. P. Telemann, 'Der
getreue Musikmeister', iv, ed. D.
Degen, Hortus Musicus, ix (Kassel,
1953), p.32
8 Although J. S. Bach was in open con-
flict with Gottlieb G6rner's superiors
for what he saw as the trampling of his
prerogatives as the city's music direc-
tor, he was apparently friendly with
G6rner himself, since Anna Magdalena
Bach made him guardian of her
children after her husband's death.
See J. S. Bach, ed. M. Boyd (Oxford,
1999), p.194.
introduction.
11 These German manuscripts
are cited in W. Gerstenberg, Die
Klavierkompositionen Domenico
Scarlattis (Regensburg, 1969), p.28.
12 F. Hammond, 'Scarlatti', Eigh-
teenth-century keyboard music, ed.
Marshall, pp.154-90o, at p.181.
13 Heinrich St6lzel in Johann Matthe-
son, Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte
(Hamburg, 1740; modern edition,
Berlin, 1910), p.345. Around the time
that Scarlatti and St6lzel met, the south
German organist Franz Anton
Maichelbeck may also have become
acquainted with Scarlatti while study-
ing in Rome. William S. Newman has
suggested that Maichelback's sonatas of
1736 might reflect Scarlattian inflec-
tions in the use of alternating hands,
and a few large leaps; W. S. Newman,
The sonata in the Classic era (New
York, 1983), p.320.
14 Johann David Heinichen, Der
General-Bass in der Composition (Dres-
den, 1728); Wolff et al., The new Bach
Reader, p.139. C. P. E Bach owned a
copy of Der General-Bass in der Com-
position which he probably inherited
from his father; U. Leisinger, 'Die
17 Johann Gottfried Walther, Musi-
calisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), P.546.
18 J. S. Bach, ed. Boyd, p.434.
19 John Mainwaring, Memoirs of the
Life of the Late George Frederic Handel
(London, 1760), pp.59-62.
20 P. Williams, 'Critical Notes' to G. F.
Hindel, Klavierwerke, ed. P. Williams,
3 vols. (Vienna, 1991-4), vol.ib, p.xxvii.
21 F. Blume, 'Vorwort' to Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach, Sdmtliche Klavier-
sonaten, 3 vols. (Kassel, 1930-59), ii, P-3.
22 Marpurg's Clavierstiicke of 1762 are
also indebted to Rameau. See M. Kroll,
'French masters', Eighteenth-century
keyboard music, ed. Marshall,
pp-124-53, esp. p.140.
23 For the suggested dating of
Johnsen's sonatas see Heinrich Philip
Johnsen, Sei sonate per il cembalo,
facsimile edn, ed. E. Nordenfelt-Aberg
(Stockholm, 1978), unpaginated.
24 Michel Corrette, Les Amusemens du
Parnasse (Paris 1749), ed. O. Baumont
(Paris 1984), pp.22, 27.
25 See esp. Marshall, 'Bach the pro-
gressive', p.47.

EARLY MUSIC MAY 2002 235

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