Bach’s Clavichord Technique

In this chapter, as in chapter 2, reception history is used as a tool to follow the reception of an abstract concept (rather than reception of a “musical work”) through time. Was the clavichord central to J. S. Bach’s technique and, if so, how? There are many good modern surveys of keyboard technique, and many treatises dating from the late Baroque. Some of them will be discussed here, but many of them will not, because our focus is on the immediate Bach family and instruments as close to that family as possible. Of all of Bach’s children C. P. E. Bach was the great proponent of the clavichord, not only in his own writings but also in accounts of his contemporaries. Johann Friedrich Reichardt wrote about C. P. E. Bach in 1774:

Bachs Spielart konnte ohne Clavier gar nicht erfunden werden, und er hat sie auch nur fürs Clavier erfunden: derjenige aber, der diese einmal inne hat, der spielt auch ganz anders den Flügel, als jener, der nie ein Clavier berühret.

It is clear from the context in Reichardt’s original letter that “Clavier” refers to the clavichord. The prceding sentence reads: “Die Italiäner haben nie das Clavier bey sich im Gebrauch gehabt, sondern bedienen sich allein des Flügels” (The Italians have never used the clavichord, but rather use only the harpsichord). The wing-shaped harpsichord, the Flügel, was more popular than the clavichord in eighteenth-century Italy, although he exaggerates when he says the clavichord never existed there. According to Reichardt, C. P. E. Bach’s technique is closely related to the clavichord. The question remains whether his father’s was equally closely related.