A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Extempore Playing
EXTEMPORE PLAYING. The art of playing without [1]premeditation, the conception of the music and its rendering being simultaneous. The power of playing extempore evinces a very high degree of musical cultivation, as well as the possession of great natural gifts. Not only must the faculty of musical invention be present, but there must also be a perfect mastery over all mechanical difficulties, that the fingers may be able to render instantaneously what the mind conceives, as well as a thorough knowledge of the rules of harmony, counterpoint, and musical form, that the result may be symmetrical and complete.
This being the case it is not surprising that the greatest extempore players have usually been at the same time the greatest composers, and we find in fact that all the great masters, including Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, have shown much fondness for this form of art, and have even exercised it in public. Mozart improvised in public at the age of 14, as is shown by the programme of a concert given as an exhibition of his powers by the Philharmonic Society of Mantua on Jan. 16, 1770, which included an extempore sonata and fugue for the harpsichord, and a song with harpsichord accompaniment, to be sung to words given by the audience.
These extemporaneous performances were sometimes entirely original, but more frequently consisted of the development (often in the form of a fugue) of a theme given by the listeners, and they not unfrequently took the form of a competition between two players, each giving the other subjects on which to extemporise. Thus when Louis Marchand, banished from France, came to reside in Dresden in 1717 and was about to receive the appointment of organist to the King of Poland, Volumier, the court conductor, fearing Marchand as a rival, invited Bach to appear at a court concert in competition with him. Accordingly, after Marchand had played with great applause a French air with variations, Bach took his place, and extemporised a number of new variations on the same theme, in such a manner as incontestably to prove his superiority.
Sometimes two players would extemporise together, either on one or two pianofortes. This appears to have been done by Mozart and Clementi at Vienna in 1781, and also by Beethoven and Wölffl, who used to meet in 1798 at the house of Freiherr von Wetzlar, and, seated at two pianofortes, give each other themes upon which to extemporise, and, according to Seyfried (Thayer, ii. 27), 'created many a capriccio for four hands, which, if it could have been written down at the moment of its birth, would doubtless have obtained a long existence.'
It is probable that in most of these competitions the competitors were but ill-matched, at least when one of them happened to be a Bach or Beethoven; and the wonder is that men were found willing to measure their strength against such giants. Occasionally their presumption was rebuked, as when Himmel extemporised before Beethoven in 1796, and Beethoven having listened for a considerable time, turned to Himmel and asked 'Will it be long before you begin?' Beethoven himself excelled all others in extempore, and according to the accounts of his contemporaries his playing was far finer when improvising than when playing a regular composition, even if written by himself. Czerny has left a most interesting account of Beethoven's extempore playing, which is quoted by Thayer (ii. 347), and is worth reproducing here, since it helps us to realise to some extent the effect of his improvising. Czerny says—'Beethoven's improvisation, which created the greatest sensation during the first few years after his arrival at Vienna, was of various kinds, whether he extemporised upon an original or a given theme. 1. In the form of the first movement or the final rondo of a sonata, the first part being regularly formed and including a second subject in a related key, etc., while the second part gave freer scope to the inspiration of the moment, though with every possible application and employment of the principal themes. In allegro movements the whole would be enlivened by bravura passages, for the most part more difficult than any in his published works. 2. In the form of variations, somewhat as in his Choral Fantasia, op. 80, or the last movement of the 9th Symphony, both of which are accurate images of this kind of improvisation. 3. In mixed form, after the fashion of a potpourri, one melody following another, as in the Fantasia op. 77. Sometimes two or three insignificant notes would serve as the material from which to improvise a complete composition, just as the Finale of the Sonata in D, op. 10, No. 3, is formed from its three opening notes.'[2] Such a theme, on which he had 'göttlich phantasirt' at Count Browne's house, has been preserved (Nohl's 'Beethoven's Leben,' iii. 644):—
Another given him by Vogler was the scale of C major, 3 bars, alla breve (Thayer, ii. 236).
Since Beethoven many great musicians have extemporised in public—Mendelssohn, Hummel, Moscheles, and, on the organ, our own Wesley, have all been celebrated for their improvisations; but the practice of publicly extemporising, if not extinct, is now very rare. Mendelssohn himself, notwithstanding his uniform success, disliked doing it, and in a letter to his father, written in Oct. 1831 (Reisebriefe, p. 283), even declares his determination never to extemporise in public again; while Hummel on the other hand says ('Art of playing the Pianoforte') that he 'always felt less embarrassment in extemporising before an audience of 2000 or 3000 persons than in executing any written composition to which he was slavishly tied down.' Even the Cadence of a concerto, which was once the legitimate opportunity for the player to exhibit his powers of improvisation, is now usually prepared beforehand.