Not sure you could get away with a title like this nowadays: “Damensonaten”.
Leaving aside matters of political correctness, what was it that CPE saw as making these fitting for ladies?
Not sure you could get away with a title like this nowadays: “Damensonaten”.
Leaving aside matters of political correctness, what was it that CPE saw as making these fitting for ladies?
“Ladies” were amateurs.
Here’s an Italian edition:
https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/f/f8/IMSLP96447-PMLP198342-cpe_bach_wq54_dames.pdf
This was a particular class of vaguely upper-class ladies (ones who could afford harpsichords) who learned to play simple pieces. (In the case of Maria Barbara, of course, not vaguely, and not simple pieces, either). I think the men of that class spent their time in philosophizing.
Similar to how 19C girls learned to play piano and sing.
Presumably, although CPE’s dames were rich enough to afford harpsichords - the next generation after Couperin’s pupils. The 19thC girls merely had to be ‘respectable’ (in the economic sense, not in the moral sense).