se
of a great variety of embellishments and the spreading out of
harmonies in the form of arpeggios. It is obvious enough that Bach,
being one of those monumental geniuses that cast their prescient
vision far into the future, refused to be bound by such mechanical
limitations. Though he wrote _Clavier_, he thought organ, which was
his true interpretative medium, and so it happens that the greatest
sonority and the broadest style that have been developed in the
pianoforte do not exhaust the contents of such a composition as the
"Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue."

[Sidenote: _Scarlatti's sonatas._]

The earliest music written for these instruments--music which does
not enter into this study--was but one remove from vocal music. It
came through compositions written for the organ. Of Scarlatti's music
the pieces most familiar are a Capriccio and Pastorale which Tausig
rewrote for the pianoforte. They were called sonatas by their
composer, but are not sonatas in the modern sense. Sonata means
"sound-piece," and when the term came into music it signified only
that the composition to which it was applied was written for
instruments instead of voices. Scarlatti did a great deal to develop
the technique of the harpsichord and the style of composing for it.
His sonatas consist each of a single movement only, but in their
structure they foreshadow the modern sonata form in having two
contrasted themes, which are presented in a fixed key-relationship.
They are frequently full of grace and animation, but are as purely
objective, formal, and soulless in their content as the other
instrumental compositions of the epoch to which they belong.

[Sidenote: _The suite._]

[Sidenote: _Its history and form._]

[Sidenote: _The bond between the movements._]

The most significant of the compositions of this period are the
Suites, which because they make up so large a percentage of _Clavier_
literature (using the term to cover the pianoforte and its
predecessors), and because they pointed the way to the distinguishing
form of the subsequent period, the sonata, are deserving of more
extended consideration. The suite is a set of pieces in the same key,
but contrasted in character, based upon certain admired dance-forms.
Originally it was a set of dances and nothing more, but in the hands
of the composers the dances underwent many modifications, some of them
to the obvious detriment of their national or other distinguishing
characteristics. T