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

Multiple transformations of this motive generate material to serve every
thematic function, although—oddly enough, given the character of the introduction—
there is very little actual imitative writing to be found, apart from some very effective
close imitation that intensifies the recapitulation of the opening subject (bb.192-198).
The most imaginative thematic transformation, however, occurs during the
development (Ex.5.13). In bar 110 a semiquaver run (emerging out of the preceding
figuration) deposits us on a low F, after which a mysterious chord, low in register and
ambiguous in significance is reiterated. This chord eventually proves to be ii of A
minor; but a clear arrival on V of this key is at once undermined by a return of the
Largo introduction, this time in C major. This time there is no fugato, however.
Instead, the opening material is presented as a grand operatic aria, with the early
nineteenth-century rhetoric of Weber’s piano writing at its most grandiloquent (this, in
1795!) Even more unexpectedly, the semiquaver figuration, which looks as if it is
about to settle down over a dominant pedal, undergoes a sophisticated ‘metric
modulation’, and before we quite know it the Allegro tempo has resumed. The exact
point at which this modulation occurs is a little obscure. There is a sense in which the
low G in b. 135 is both on the beat and off the beat; it occurs on the second beat of the
bar, to be sure, but at the same time the 3/4 tempo primo could be construed as
beginning with this note as well. On the other hand, for the ‘naïve listener’ without a
score, the transition would probably not become clear until the start of b.139 or b.141.
To Plantinga this C major return of the opening in b.126 sounds ‘very bland’
and exemplifies a difficulty Clementi has with major-key passages in minor-key
movements, where ‘he tends to spoil his work’; he compares it to another
‘conspicuously weak point’ in the second movement of op.13/6. 96 It is clear that
Plantinga has little taste for the rather old fashioned ‘brillante’ pianism of the early
96 Plantinga, Clementi, p.176.
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