With respect to this sonata, Kuhnau remarks in his preface:  “I have added at the end a Sonata in B flat, which will please amateurs; for why should not such things be attempted on the clavier as well as on other instruments?” In such modest fashion was ushered into the world the first sonata for clavier, or, at any rate, the earliest with which we are acquainted.[40]

Mattheson, in Das neu eroeffnete Orchester (1713), speaks about the revival of clavier sonatas, so that it is not quite certain whether that B flat Sonata was actually the first.[41] During the seventeenth century, sonatas were written for various instruments, with a figured bass for the cembalo.

It will, of course, be interesting to trace the influences acting upon Kuhnau.  They were of two kinds:  the one, Italian; the other, German.  Corelli deserves first mention; and next, the Italian organist and composer, Vincenzo Albrici,[42] capellmeister to the Elector of Saxony from 1664-88, and afterwards organist of St. Thomas’, Leipzig, who is known to have encouraged Kuhnau when young, and to have helped him to learn the Italian language.  But German influence must also have been strong.  Of Froberger special mention will be made later on.  There was one man, Diderich Becker, who published sonatas for violins and bass already in 1668, and these, if we mistake not, must have been well known to Kuhnau.  Apart from the character of the music, the title of the work, Musikalische Fruelings Fruechte, and the religious style of the preface, remind one of Kuhnau’s “Frische Fruechte,” also of his preface to the “Bible” Sonatas.  It is curious to find the quaint expression “unintelligent birds” used first by Becker, and afterwards by Kuhnau.

Let us describe briefly the above-mentioned B flat Sonata.  The first movement is in common time, but the composer gave it no heading.  It is generally supposed (Becker, Rimbault, Pauer) to be an Allegro; moderato might well be added, for the stately, Handelian-like (the anachronism must be excused) music will scarcely bear a rapid tempo.  The movement opens with an eight-bar phrase, closing on the dominant.  Then the music, evolved from previous material, passes rapidly through various related keys.  After this modulation section there is a cadence to F major, and in this, the dominant key, something like a new subject appears, though it is closely allied to the first.  A return is soon made to the principal key, but there is no repetition of the opening theme.  After a cadence ending on the tonic (B flat), and two coda-like bars, comes a fugal movement, still in the same key.  The vigorous subject, the well-contrasted counterpoint, the interesting episodes, and many attractive details help one to forget the monotony of key so prevalent in the days in which this sonata was written.  This, and indeed other fugues of Kuhnau show strong foreshadowings of Handel and Bach; of this matter,