Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Public Domain translation of C.P.E. Bach's Keyboard Essay?

I am sure that there are a great many treatises written recently that would give them more useful to most people playing music of the Baroque and Galant period today than their own efforts trying to understand the literature of that period. Even among the tiny minority of people who play any of that music, I would suspect that very few read any literature about it, though. It would take rather dogged determination to slog through any 200 year old technical German treatise even in translation. People who do read it today do not read it for the reasons that Bach would have expected the people who were reading it then to have had. Bach was writing for the wannabe Beyonces and Lady Gagas of his time, who are decidedly not the people who read it today.

I can afford to buy a translation if I am interested enough to read something in a language that I do not know. I was curious enough about that book to buy a copy years ago when it showed up at a used book store. My skills with foreign languages are not as sharp as I might like, but I do have a little familiarity with some of them, including German. If I were a scholar in early 18th century music, though, I would want to be better at the German of that time, and the French, Italian, and English as well.

Hi B,

I think we wouldn't agree about who is actually a singer. Beyonce has a lovely voice but doesn't sing all that well or seriously. Lady Gaga has no voice and is no singer at all, and so the comparison is not apt.

I have the impression that there are some relatively recent books on Baroque performance practice. I don't think the Bach is the only source of information available for those who are interested in the subject.

I thought I had posted something about this, but something happened to my post and it got lost.

In a review of the Mitchell translation I found in a musicological journal (from shortly after the translation was published), it said it was the first complete English translation.

People need to remember that the HIP thing really got going in earnest around the middle of the 20th century, and so finding translations of source materials from before that time is going to be hit and miss.

If anything you understate it. Relatively few people have ever referred to it -- pianists, singers, whatever.

Presumably he didn't mean "everybody" literally, so I'm not complaining that it's not literally accurate. But it's not close.

I'm a very serious pianist who has studied music and pianism way more than the average bear .....and I've never referred to it (and have never seen it). The only way I know anything of what's in there is that I've seen portions quoted occasionally, including a couple of times on this site. BTW I don't disagree that it's a historically significant work.

Hi Wr,

That's very true. And those more contemporary works all reference C.P.E. Bach and his essay.

Hi BDB,

"Even among the tiny minority of people who play any of that music, I would suspect that very few read any literature about it, though. It would take rather dogged determination to slog through any 200 year old technical German treatise even in translation."

That "minority" is not so tiny, considering just how many other works use this essay as a source, and how many people play or listen to Bach in the world.

Look, if you want to justify your willful ignorance on this count by not picking up a book which you seem very proud not to have read, have at it. I guess playing music of this period is not important to you. Your disdain for such an effort is very well expressed.

But you're not impressing me or anyone. And it's not charming.

And don't compare the Bach family to Lady Gaga. Comparing one of the great seminal geniuses of the last 1,000 years of European Art music to idiots who can't sing, and wear cone bras and panty sets to sell tickets, shows that your opinion is worthless.

Ah: This is the single most relevant piece of information to the OP's original question! Thanks.

-J

I am sorry, but did you read where I said that I own the book?

Of course. And they reference other material as well, which provides a broader outlook than a single source can.

Who would have ever guessed that this subject would cause a war.....

It shouldn't.

Name one. Why one wouldn't want to take the time to read the words of one C.P.E. Bach, himself, on the matter is beyond me. Then again, as usual, no one wants to do the homework. Cmonnnnnnn...make it easy for meeeeee.....

+1 Thank You!

Hi Mark,

Actually, yeah, it should in this day and age. The mediocrity of pop culture, its inexorable dumbing down, and the arrogant, self-reinforcing ignorance that allows it to flourish, has never been put to such a display of venality as it has these days.

It's enough to make even a saint vomit.

HI BDB,

"I am sorry, but did you read where I said that I own the book?"

Great! Care to explain then, why you've spent so much time on this thread belittling and marginalizing both the source and its meaning? I call that last post back-pedaling. Not to mention that you still haven't read the book, by your own admission, even though you own it.

As I said before, it's not charming, that attitude-thing you've got going on there.

And since you brought up Lady Gaga (and Beyonce, even though I like her voice), it has become impossible to take any concern you have seriously.

Hi Wr,

Apparently you don't consider the value of a so-called "primary source" in your estimation. Or did you read the preface or bibliography that far down?

If you are into reading the primary source, fine. It's not essential (and, I might add, those that do read it don't necessarily do as it says).

After all, prior to this translation, those pianists who didn't read German didn't even have the opportunity to read it, but many still managed to play the music from C.P.E.'s era and earlier, somehow.

My Point, Wr,

Is that all the newer works are based on this, and a few other documents extant from that period.

Since that's the case, why not just read the original since the new works are going to quote it anyway?

I'm not sure that "all" of the newer works are based on it, for one thing, but more importantly, they incorporate research that will be missed if one just reads the Bach essay and nothing else. Plus, I think there is an advantage to be had in modern writers writing for modern performers in modern language. And, in my case, I don't read German, which is the language of the original. I have no idea of how dependable the Mitchell translation may be. And even if it is a really fine translation, it is still a translation and not the original.

Most people who know about it do not understand the most important points of the Bach essay, anyway. If they did, there would be no discussions about whether the score is sacred. They would know he felt the score is just a crutch for those who need it, and even if they were using it, they would be expected to add to it.

It is true that the essay is important to those few people whose view of the world has shrunk to the point that they themselves are even less important than what the book means to almost everyone else. People like that have lost touch with the way the world is today.

Most people today who want to play late baroque music would be better off reading something more contemporary, like Kirkpatrick's introduction to his edition of 60 Scarlatti sonatas. What he writes there, in far easier to understand terms, is also applicable to music from many more periods.