# 50 Unidentified Excerpts from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Sonatas



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

50 randomly-selected, unidentified 20-second excerpts from 50 different C.P.E. Bach keyboard sonatas (each excerpt extracted from a different work). How many can you identify?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

zero. We need AbsoluteBachKing.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I've listened to CPE Bach's solo keyboard works (complete) several times over, and recognize most of it, but I couldn't put a name to any of the extracts. That's just not a gameshow I'll ever win.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

vtpoet said:


> I've listened to CPE Bach's solo keyboard works (complete) several times over, and recognize most of it, but I couldn't put a name to any of the extracts. That's just not a gameshow I'll ever win.


Can you recognise and name any of Mozart's sonatas? (Koechel numbering)

and if so - why Mozart and not CPE Bach - considering you have listened to the latter several times over?

I think we can do this with J Haydn next - great idea HK


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

LOL 108 views so far and no takers.

Imagine if this had been a Mozart or Beethoven or Schubert selection.

So much for CPE Bach - composed music so amazing and cutting edge that nobody can place an extract to an opus number or whatever.

Next one is Joseph Haydn - let's have the same and see how good the Haydn fans are at spotting the piece.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Still no takers - too many excerpts HK - 5 would have been enough to prove the point. All these big fans of CPE can place any of Mozart's 12 top class symphonies or say 20 piano concertos - quartets etc - but they can't identify more than a few of CPE Bach's bold groundbreaking movements. LOL


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

PlaySalieri said:


> LOL 108 views so far and no takers.
> 
> Imagine if this had been a Mozart or Beethoven or Schubert selection.
> 
> ...


This has to be one of the *dumbest* comments on TC (sorry). I've listened to the entirety of Bach's Cantata cycles several times over, and not just one cycle, but Koopman, Suzuki, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Kuijken. I own them all, but I mostly couldn't tell you which cantata I was listening to if you simply sampled this or that aria. The same goes for Schubert's songs. The same goes for Haydn's Symphonies and Mozart's Symphonies. And, of course, the same goes for Scarlatti's Sonatas. Mozart wrote a trifling 18 piano sonatas. CPE Bach wrote over 400 pieces (surviving) for solo keyboard of which the majority are sonatas. You think because a listener can't differentiate between hundreds of pieces that condemns them as crap? Then by your reasoning that also condemns the cantatas of Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, and the songs of Schubert. SMH...


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

vtpoet said:


> This has to be one of the *dumbest* comments on TC (sorry). I've listened to the entirety of Bach's Cantata cycles several times over, and not just one cycle, but Koopman, Suzuki, Gardiner, Harnoncourt, Kuijken. I own them all, but I mostly couldn't tell you which cantata I was listening to if you simply sampled this or that aria. The same goes for Schubert's songs. The same goes for Haydn's Symphonies and Mozart's Symphonies. And, of course, the same goes for Scarlatti's Sonatas. Mozart wrote a trifling 18 piano sonatas. CPE Bach wrote over 400 pieces (surviving) for solo keyboard of which the majority are sonatas. You think because a listener can't differentiate between hundreds of pieces that condemns them as crap? Then by your reasoning that also condemns the cantatas of Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, and the songs of Schubert. SMH...


No I don't think it condemns them as crap - but I wonder that you can't identify pieces that you have listened to several times over. I was going through Mozart's early symphonies fairly recently - and if I found one work I was impressed with - I made a mental note of the K number. Having been through them a few times now and I can identify many of them. So you just blindly listen then and don't bother with the notes and BWV numbers etc? I understand that when HK issued his bach cantata challenge there was someone who got a high number correct so some can identify even if you can't.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

vtpoet said:


> The same goes for Haydn's Symphonies and Mozart's Symphonies. And, of course, the same goes for Scarlatti's Sonatas. Mozart wrote a trifling 18 piano sonatas.


If you think they're not really different from the C.P.E. Bach sonatas in that regard, would you "test" us on them similarly? Look at Levin discussing the individuality of Mozart sonatas: youtube.com/watch?v=RWKbOGMqDVw&t=5m20s. The melodies of Mozart's 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th, 21st, 23rd, 25th, 26th, etc, especially the slow movements, are pretty vivid in my mind and I'll never forget the expressiveness in moments like the final movement of the 18th youtube.com/watch?v=tuIXSC_wVK8&t=1m4s , btw, as I discussed in Mozart Early Symphonies. Let's say there's a person named "A", who can't even identify 10% of the stuff but goes on about how ingenious/artistic it is, (to prove they aren't just unmemorable note-spinnings) sometimes with technical jargon like "narrative processes or whatever, bla bla...", and there's another person, named "B", who simply "appreciates" the stuff for what it is, without making such claims, but still able to identify the works - Which of them is being more "pretentious"? -I mean it's just something for us to consider. (I'm not trying to denigrate anyone or anything with this post.)



> You think because a listener can't differentiate between hundreds of pieces that condemns them as crap?


Now THIS is a straw man.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

PlaySalieri said:


> No I don't think it condemns them as crap - but I wonder that you can't identify pieces that you have listened to several times over.


I can't be bothered remembering the catalog listings of the hundreds of pieces I listen to.



PlaySalieri said:


> So you just blindly listen then and don't bother with the notes and BWV numbers etc?


If there's a piece of music I want to listen to, I know where to find it, but no, I don't bother with the notes or BWV numbers. The vast majority of humanity doesn't listen to classical music and couldn't tell you the difference between a Mozart, Salieri or Rossini opera, between Beethoven or Schumann, between Field or Chopin or CPE for that matter. That few could identify the snippets in the Youtube video above says nothing whatsoever. Nothing. I could do the same with Shakespeare or photographic snippets of great paintings. So. What.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

vtpoet said:


> I can't be bothered remembering the catalog listings of the hundreds of pieces I listen to.
> 
> *If there's a piece of music I want to listen to, I know where to find it,* but no, I don't bother with the notes or BWV numbers. The vast majority of humanity doesn't listen to classical music and couldn't tell you the difference between a Mozart, Salieri or Rossini opera, between Beethoven or Schumann, between Field or Chopin or CPE for that matter. That few could identify the snippets in the Youtube video above says nothing whatsoever. Nothing. I could do the same with Shakespeare or photographic snippets of great paintings. So. What.


How do you do that if you don't know the identifier? I understand you have your entire music collection on a memory stick. Correct me if I am wrong.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Please describe the "random" method you used to choose these excerpts.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> Please describe the "random" method you used to choose these excerpts.


You have previously recommended a CPE Bach symphony for me to listen to - I assume you can name some of the examples which you find interesting. How many CPE Bach symphonies do you know that if you heard you could name?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

PlaySalieri said:


> You have previously recommended a CPE Bach symphony for me to listen to - I assume you can name some of the examples which you find interesting. How many CPE Bach symphonies do you know that if you heard you could name?


That would likely vary depending on whether the person who chose the excerpts chose characteristic passages or chose obscure transitional and developmental passages while carefully avoided statements of themes. As my question indicates, one needs to know how the excerpts are chosen in order to know whether something like the OP is offered in good faith or is more like Hammered's usual bad faith method of biased cherry picking to make a point.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

PlaySalieri said:


> How many CPE Bach symphonies do you know that if you heard you could name?


With the orchestral works though, there are many I think I could, such as:


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I enjoy a good deal of CPE keyboard works, though some also appear too simple, & own among other things two ~complete sets, and the Pletnev/DG CD, plus a bit more. 

It's a slow process exploring that huge and varied oeuvre (Markovina's set is 26 CDs of mostly not very long works), but having no professional interest in the cycle, and knowing hardly any other with an interest in the music, I don't plan to go through the trouble of memorizing all the works and their titles.

Should the BIS concerto set be released at budget price, I'll invest in it too.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

PlaySalieri said:


> How do you do that if you don't know the identifier? I understand you have your entire music collection on a memory stick. Correct me if I am wrong.


Mostly on CD, about a third of which I've ripped with Monkey's Audio.

My memory works in peculiar ways. I have a photographic memory. That means that if I hear a cantata I really liked and want to find it again, I remember the cover of the CD. It's odd, but it works. It's also short-circuited by streaming.


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