Solfeggietto

For the music education method, see Solfège.

Solfeggietto (H 220, Wq. 117: 2) is a short solo keyboard piece in C minor composed in 1766 by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.^[1] Although the Solfeggietto title is widely used today, according to Powers 2002, p. 232, the work is correctly called Solfeggio, but the author provides no evidence for this. Thomas Owens refers to the work as a toccata.^[2]

Qualities

The work is unusual for a keyboard piece in that the main theme and some other passages are fully monophonic, i.e. only one note is played at a time. The piece is commonly assigned to piano students and appears in many anthologies; pedagogically it fosters the playing of an even sixteenth note rhythm by alternating hands.

This piece is easily Bach's best-known, to the point that Paul Corneilson's introduction to The Essential C.P.E. Bach is subtitled "Beyond the Solfeggio in C Minor".^[3] Owens also describes it as C. P. E. Bach's most famous work.^[2]