J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

compositional models are Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Paradies, and
Handel. 91 The Harmonicon’s list (especially if we accept Plantinga’s suggestion that
‘Alessandro’ was a mistake for ‘Domenico’ Scarlatti) raises no eyebrows, accurately
reflecting as it does English musical taste of the 1760s. On the other hand, if Méreaux
is correct in dating Clementi’s interest in the Bachs to this period of his life, then—as
we saw in chapter two—he was in the tiniest of tiny minorities. It seems almost
incredible that Clementi should have encountered the music of J. S. Bach around 1767,
in the library of Beckford’s isolated estate at Stepleton; but this may—just possibly—
have been the case. The ‘London autograph’ of WTC II is known to have been in
Clementi’s possession later in his life, and he ‘is said to have come across this copy in
the library of his patron.’ 92 Benjamin Cooke’s roughly contemporaneous copy of
BWV 545 (transposed to B flat, supplemented with a movement adapted from BWV
1029 and another of unknown provenance, and attributed to John Robinson (c.1682-
1762, organist at Westminster Abbey) remains utterly mysterious, both as to the means
of transmission and the question of how it might have been performed on English
organs, but shows that such a thing could happen. 93 Likewise, substantial works by
Pachelbel and Georg Muffat are also known to have made their way into English
libraries. 94 William Beckford was after all a fairly omnivorous collector of European
curiosities, who (like many collectors) was often perhaps unaware of the significance
of what he had collected—as in the case, probably, of Clementi himself.
On the other hand, the development of his music tells a slightly different story.
No trace can be seen of J. S. Bach’s influence in Clementi’s opp.1-4 (?1771-1780).
91 Ibid., p.5.
92 C. Richardson, ‘The London autograph of “The 48”’, Music & Letters 34/1 (Jan 1953), 39; for more
detail see W. Emery, ‘The London autograph of “The Forty-Eight”’, Music & Letters 34/2 (Apr
1953), 106-23. Both Charles Burney and Lord Fitzwilliam acquired partial copies of the WTC in the
early 1770s.
93 See W. Emery, ‘A neglected Bach manuscript’, Music Review, August 1950, 169-74, and the preface
to his edition of this piece (Novello, 1959).
94 Pachelbel: St Michael’s College Tenbury MSS 1208-9 (formerly in the possession of William
Boyce); Muffat: complete copy of Apparatus Musico-organisticus, R.C.M. MS. 820.
357