The “Sonate per Gravicembalo, novamente composte,” published by Giovanni Battista Pescetti in 1739, deserve notice, since they appeared three years before the six sonatas dedicated by Emanuel Bach to Frederick the Great.  They are nine in number.  In style of writing, order, and character of movements, they bear the stamp of the period in which they were written.  Most of the movements in binary form are of the intermediate type, i.e. they have the principal theme in the dominant at the beginning of the exposition section, and again, later on, in the principal key.  There is considerable variety in the order and number of movements.  No. 1, for instance, has an Adagio, an Allegro, and a Menuett with variations.  No. 2, in D, has four movements:  Andante, Adagio, Allegro, Giga; the short Adagio is in D minor.  No. 3, in G minor:  Presto and A Tempo Giusto (a dignified fugue).  The influence of Handel is strong, also that of Scarlatti.  Bars such as the following—­

[Music illustration]

foreshadow, in a curious manner, the Alberti bass.

A great number of clavier sonatas were written about the time during which Emanuel Bach flourished:  his first sonatas appeared in 1742, his last in 1787.  An interesting collection of no less than seventy-two sonatas (sixty-seven by various composers; five anonymous), issued in twelve parts, under the title Oeuvres melees (twelve books, each containing six sonatas), was published by Haffner at Wuerzburg, somewhere between 1760 and 1767.  And another collection of symphonies and sonatas, principally by Saxon composers, was published at Leipzig in 1762 under the title Musikalisches Magazin.  We will give the names of some of the chief composers, with titles of their works, adding a few other details.  It is difficult in some cases to ascertain the year of publication; and it is practically impossible to say when the sonatas were actually composed:—­

BACH, Wilh.  Friedemann.  Sei sonate, No. 1,[19] D major (Dresden, 1745).  Sonata in C (published in Litolff’s Maitres du Clavecin), and others in D and G (autographs), and in F, A, and B flat (manuscripts).

     BACH, Joh.  Ernst.  Two sonatas (in Oeuvres
     melees).

     NICHELMANN, Christoph.  Sei brevi sonate, etc., Op.
     2; Nuremberg (between 1745-1756).

HASSE.  Two sonatas in E flat and B flat (manuscript; on one is the date of 1754).  Two sonatas, one in D minor (only one Lento movement); the other in D major (only one Allegro movement in old binary form).  These are both in the Leipzig collection named above.

     BENDA, Georg.  Sei sonate (Berlin, 1757).  Sonatas in
     G, C minor, and G, also seven sonatinas (Vermischte
     Clavierstuecke, Gotha, 1780).

     WAGENSEIL, Georg.  Sonata (Oeuvres melees).  Six
     sonatas for the harpsichord (with accompaniment for a
     violin).[20] Opera prima. (A.  Hummel, London.)