Of his sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel is the most celebrated, and did much to prepare the way for Haydn in the development of the sonata.  J.S.  Bach wrote many sonatas, but none for the clavichord; his sonatas were for the violin and the ’cello alone, a great innovation.  The violin sonatas bring into play all the resources of the instrument; indeed it is barely possible to do them justice from the technical standpoint.  His “Wohltemperierte Clavier” naturally was a tremendous help to clavichord technique, and even now the “Chromatic Fantaisie” and other works require fine pianists to perform them properly.

In considering the development of music, it must always be remembered that Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries knew little or nothing of Bach’s works, thus accounting for what otherwise would seem a retrograde movement in art.  C.P.E.  Bach (born 1714) was much better known than his father; even Mozart said of him, “He is the father, and we are mere children.”  He was renowned as a harpsichord player, and wrote many sonatas which form the connecting link between the suite and the sonata.  He threw aside the polyphonic style of his father and strove to give his music new colour and warmth by means of harmony and modulation.  He died in 1788 in Hamburg, where he was conductor of the opera.  It should be mentioned that he wrote a method of clavichord playing on which, in later days, Czerny said that Beethoven based his piano teaching.

Up to the period now under consideration, music for the orchestra occupied a very small part in the composer’s work.  To be sure, J.S.  Bach wrote some suites, and separate movements were written in the different dance forms for violins, with sometimes the addition of a few reed instruments, and possibly flutes and small horns or trumpets.  It is in the works of C.P.E.  Bach, however, that we find the germ of symphonic orchestral writing that was to be developed by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.  The so-called “symphonies” by Emanuel Bach are merely rudimentary sonatas written for strings, with flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets, etc., and have practically no artistic significance except as showing the inevitable trend of musical thought toward greater power of expression.  In Germany (and indeed everywhere else) the Italian element had full sway over opera, and non-Italian musicians were forced into writing for the concert room instead of the stage.  Even Beethoven had many disappointments in connection with his one opera “Fidelio,” and so strong was the Italian influence, that here in America we are only just now (1897) recovering from the effects of it.

Franz Joseph Haydn was born near Vienna, in 1732, of humble parents, his mother a cook in a count’s family, and his father a wheelwright and sexton of the parish church.  When a young boy Haydn had a fine voice, on account of which he was admitted as a member of the choir at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.  This entitled him to admission to St. Stephen’s School, connected with the cathedral, in which the city paid for the board and lodging as well as the instruction of the singers.  When the boys’ voices changed or “broke,” however, they were turned adrift.  On leaving the cathedral, Haydn suffered the direst poverty, engaging himself at one time as valet to the Italian singing teacher, Porpora, in order to secure some lessons.