Johann Sebastian Bach, his Life, Art, and Work Part 4

Again, Bach's statement that "over a pedal point all intervals are permissible that occur in the three scales"(148) should be regarded rather an expansion than a violation of the recognised rule. In general what is called an Organ point is merely a r.e.t.a.r.ded close. Bach, however, did not hesitate to employ it in the middle of a piece; a striking example occurs in the last Gigue of the _English Suites._(149) On a first hearing this Gigue, imperfectly rendered, may not sound well. But it grows more beautiful as it becomes more familiar, and what seemed harsh is found to be smooth and agreeable, until one never tires of playing and hearing it.

Bach's modulation was as original and characteristic as his harmony, and as closely related to it. But the two things, though closely a.s.sociated, are not the same. By harmony we mean the concordance of several parts; by modulation, their progression through keys. Modulation can take place in a single part. Harmony requires more than one. I will endeavour to make my meaning clearer.

Most composers stick closely to their tonic key and modulate out of it with deliberation. In music that requires a large number of performers, and in a building, for instance a church, where the large volume of sound dies away slowly, such a habit shows good sense in the composer who wishes his work to produce the best possible effect. But in chamber or instrumental music it is not always a proof of wisdom, but rather of mental poverty. Bach saw clearly that the two styles demand different treatment. In his large choral compositions he bridles his exuberant fancy. In his instrumental works he lets himself go. As he never courted popularity, but always pursued his ideal, Bach had no reason to suppress the n.o.bility of his inspirations, or to lower their standard for public consumption. Nor did he ever do so. Therefore every modulation in his instrumental work is a new thought, a constantly progressive creation in the plane of the chosen keys and those related to them. He holds fast to the essentials of harmony, but with every modulation introduces a new suggestion and glides so smoothly to the end of a piece that no creaking of machinery is perceptible; yet no single bar-I might almost say no part of a bar-is like another. Every modulation bears a strict relations.h.i.+p to the key from which it proceeds, and springs naturally from it. Bach ignored, or rather despised, the sudden sallies by which many composers seek to surprise their hearers. Even in his chromatic pa.s.sages his progressions are so smooth and easy that we are hardly conscious of them, however extreme they may be. He makes us feel that he has not stepped outside the diatonic scale, so quick is he to seize upon the consonances common to dissonant systems and combine them to his sure purpose.

[The Bach Statue at Eisenach]

The Bach Statue at Eisenach

CHAPTER VI. BACH THE COMPOSER (CONTINUED)

Bach's treatment of harmony and modulation powerfully influenced his melody. The strands of his harmony are really concurrent melodies. They flow easily and expressively, never engross the hearer's attention, but divide his interest, as now one now the other becomes prominent. Even when they are noticeable they seem obscured by the melodic parts that accompany them-I say "seem obscured," for if the hearer is sufficiently instructed to distinguish the several melodies in the ensemble he will discover them to be more clearly defined by their accompaniment.

The combination of several melodic lines obliges the composer to use devices which are unnecessary in h.o.m.ophonic music. A single melody can develop as it pleases. But when two or more are combined each must be so delicately and cleverly fas.h.i.+oned that it can be interwoven with the others in this direction and in that. And here we detect one at least of the reasons why Bach's melodies are so strangely original, and his tunes so clearly distinguishable from those of other composers. Provided that novelty does not degenerate into eccentricity or extravagance, and that clearness and facility of expression march with agreeableness, a composer's meritoriousness is proclaimed in his originality.(150) The one drawback is that the ordinary hearer cannot appreciate melodic beauties which are patent only to the expert.

But Bach's melodies are not invariably so handicapped. They are always original, it is true. But in his free compositions the melodies are so natural and spontaneous that, while they sound differently from those of other composers, their naturalness, and the sincerity of feeling that inspires them, make them intelligible to every listener. Most of the Preludes in the _Well-tempered Clavier_ as well as a number of movements in the Suites are of this character.

Bach's melody, then, bears the unmistakable stamp of originality. And so does his pa.s.sage work, as it is called. Such novelty, originality, and brilliancy are not found in any other composer. Examples are to be found in all Bach's Clavier works. But the most striking and original are in the _Great Variations,_(151) in the first Part of the _Clavierubung,_(152) in the _English Suites,_(153) and the _Chromatic Fantasia._(154) In the last particularly Bach's fertility impresses us. The greater part of its pa.s.sage work is in the form of harmonic arpeggios whose richness and originality match the chords they represent.

In order to realise the care and skill Bach expended on his melody and harmony, and how he put the very best of his genius into his work, I need only instance his efforts to construct a composition incapable of being harmonised with another melodic part. In his day it was regarded as imperative to perfect the harmonic structure of part-writing.

Consequently the composer was careful to complete his chords and leave no door open for another part. So far the rule had been followed more or less closely in music for two, three, and four parts, and Bach observed it in such cases. But he applied it also to compositions consisting of a single part, and to a deliberate experiment in this form we owe the six Violin and the six Violoncello Solo Suites,(155) which have no accompaniment and do not require one. So remarkable is Bach's skill that the solo instrument actually produces all the notes required for complete harmony, rendering a second part unnecessary and even impossible.

Bach's melody never palls on us, because of the presence in it of those qualities to which I have referred. It remains "ever fair and young,"

like Nature herself. In his earlier works, in which we find him still in bondage to the prevailing mode, there is a good deal that to-day seems antiquated. But when, as in his later works, he draws his melody from the living wells of inspiration and cuts himself adrift from convention, all is as fresh and new as if it had been written yesterday. Of how many compositions of that period can the same be said? Even the works of ingenious composers like Reinhard Keiser(156) and Handel have become old-fas.h.i.+oned sooner than we or their composers might have supposed. Like other caterers for the public, they were obliged to pander to its taste, and such music endures no longer than the standard which produced it.

Nothing is more inconstant and fickle than popular caprice and, in general, what is called fas.h.i.+on. It must be admitted, however, that Handel's Fugues are not yet out of date, though there are probably few of his Arias that we now find agreeable.(157)

Bach's melody and harmony are rendered still more distinctive by their inexhaustible rhythmic variety. Hitherto we have discussed his music merely subjectively as harmony and melody. But to display vivacity and variety music needs to be uttered with rhythmic point and vigour. More than those of any other period composers of Bach's time found no difficulty in this, for they acquired facility in the management of rhythm in the "Suite," which held the place of our "Sonata." Between the initial Prelude and closing Gigue the Suite includes a number of characteristic French dance measures, whose rhythm is their distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic. Composers of Bach's day, therefore, were familiar with measures and rhythms which are now obsolete. Moreover skilful treatment was necessary in order that each dance might exhibit its own distinctive character and swing. Herein Bach exceeded his predecessors and contemporaries. He experimented with every kind of key and rhythm in order to give variety and colour to each movement. Out of his experience he acquired such facility that, even in Fugue, with its complex interweaving of several parts, he was able to employ a rhythm as easy as it was striking, as characteristic as it was sustained from beginning to end, as natural as a simple Minuet.

The source of Bach's astonis.h.i.+ng pre-eminence is to be sought in his facile and constant application of the methods we have discussed. In whatever form he chose to express himself, easy or difficult, he was successful and seemingly effortless.(158) There is not a note in his music that does not suggest consummate ease of workmans.h.i.+p. What he sets out to do he concludes triumphantly. The result is complete and perfect; no one could wish for a single note to be other than it is. Some ill.u.s.trations will make my point clearer.

Carl Philipp Emmanuel, in the preface to his father's _Vierstimmige Choralgesange_ ("Four-part Hymn-tunes"), which he edited,(159) says that the world was accustomed to look for nothing but masterpieces from Bach.

Some reviewers thought this praise exaggerated. But if the term "masterpiece" is restricted to works written during the years of Bach's maturity(160) it is nothing less than the truth. Others have produced masterpieces in various forms which may be placed honourably by the side of his. For instance, certain Allemandes, Courantes, etc., by Handel and others are not less beautiful, though less richly wrought, than Bach's.

But in Fugue, Counterpoint, and Canon he stands alone, in a grandeur so isolated that all around him seems desert and void. No one ever wrote Fugues to compare with his; indeed, persons unacquainted with them cannot imagine what a Fugue is and ought to be. The ordinary Fugue follows a rule of thumb development. It takes a theme, puts another beside it, pa.s.ses them into related keys, and writes other parts round them over a Continuo. Certainly this is Fugue: but of what merit? Persons who know no other not unnaturally hold the whole species in little esteem, and the player who hopes to make such commonplace material convincing will need all his skill and imagination.

Bach's Fugue is of quite another kind. It presents all the characteristics we are accustomed to in freer musical forms: a flowing and distinctive melody, ease, clarity, and facility in the progression of the parts, inexhaustible variety of modulation, purest harmony, the exclusion of every jarring or unnecessary note, unity of form and variety of style, rhythm, and measure, and such superabundant animation that the hearer may well ask himself whether every note is not actually alive. Such are the properties of Bach's Fugues, properties which excite the admiration and astonishment of all who can appreciate the intellectual calibre their composition demands. How great a tribute of homage is due to work of this kind, which exhibits all the qualities which lend distinction to compositions in other musical forms! Moreover, while all Bach's Fugues of his mature period have the foregoing properties in common, each is endowed with peculiar excellencies of its own, has its own distinctive individuality, and displays a melodic and harmonic scheme in keeping with it. The man who can play one of Bach's Fugues is familiar with, and can play, one only; whereas knowing one, we can perform portfolios of Fugues by other performers of Bach's period.

To what a height was the art of Counterpoint carried by Bach's genius! It enabled him to develop out of a given subject a whole family of related and contrasted themes, of every form and design. It taught him to develop an idea logically from the beginning to the end. It gave him such a command of harmony and its infinite combinations that he could invert whole themes, note by note, in every part, without impairing in the least the flow of melody or purity of his harmony. It taught him to write in canon at all intervals and in movements of all kinds so easily and naturally that the workmans.h.i.+p is not perceptible and the composition sounds as smoothly as though it were in the free style. Lastly, it has given to posterity a legacy of works immensely various, which are, and will remain, models of contrapuntal form as long as music endures.(161)

I have written exclusively so far of Bach's Clavier and Organ work. But in its expression music has two branches, instrumental and vocal, and as Bach excels in both of them, the reader will desire to hear somewhat respecting his vocal writings.

It was at Weimar that Bach first had occasion to write for the voice,(162) upon his appointment to the Kapelle, which imposed on him the provision of music for the ducal chapel. His church music, like his Organ works, is devout and serious, and in every respect what church music ought to be. He makes a point also of not elaborating individual words, which leads to mere trifling, but interprets the text as a whole.(163) His choruses invariably are magnificent and impressive, and he frequently introduces Chorals into them,(164) making the other parts accompany their Cantus fugally, as was the practice in a Motet. As elsewhere in his works, the harmonic structure of his voice parts and instrumental accompaniment is rich. The declamation of the recitatives is expressive, and the latter have fine Continuo parts.(165) In his Arias, hardly one of which is not beautiful and expressive, Bach seems to have been handicapped by the inefficiency of his singers and instrumentalists, who constantly complained of the difficulty of his music. If he had been fortunate enough to have capable performers the merits of his church music would have been established and, like his other works, they would still be sung and admired; for they contain treasures which deserve immortality.(166)

Among the works composed at Leipzig I single out two Cantatas, one of which was performed at Cothen at the funeral of Bach's beloved Prince Leopold, and the other in St. Paul's Church, Leipzig, on the occasion of the funeral sermon in honour of Christiana Eberhardine, Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony.(167) The first contains double choruses of uncommon magnificence and most affecting sentiment.(168) The second has only four-part choruses, but they are so delightful and fresh that he who begins the work will not pause till he has reached the end of it. It was written in October 1727.

Bach also composed a great number of Cantatas, chiefly for the choir of St. Thomas' School, Leipzig.(169) The choir ordinarily numbered fifty singers, and sometimes more, over whose musical training Bach presided like a father. He practised them so hard in Cantatas for single and double chorus that they became excellent singers. Among these works are some which, in profundity of conception, magnificence, richness of harmony and melody, and animation, surpa.s.s everything of their kind. But, like all Bach's works, and in common with other masterpieces, they are difficult to perform and need a numerous orchestra to produce their full effect.

Such are Bach's most important vocal compositions. (170) In minor forms of the art, morceaux for social entertainments and the like, he wrote little,(171) though he was of a most sociable disposition. For instance, he is said never to have composed a song.(172) And why should he? They produce themselves so spontaneously that there is little call for genius to aid their gestation.

[Johann Sebastian Bach. From the picture discovered by Professor Fritz Volbach]

Johann Sebastian Bach. _From the picture discovered by Professor Fritz Volbach_

CHAPTER VII. BACH AS A TEACHER

It not infrequently happens that talented composers and players are incapable of imparting their skill to others. Either they have never troubled to probe the mechanism of their own facility, or, through the excellence of their instructors, have taken the short cut to proficiency and allowed their teacher and not their own judgment to decide how a thing should be done. Such people are useless to instruct beginners. True, they may succeed in teaching the rudiments of technique, a.s.suming that they have been properly taught themselves. But they are certainly unqualified to teach in the full sense of the word. There is, in fact, only one way to become a good teacher, and that is to have gone through the discipline of self-instruction, a path along which the beginner may go astray a thousand times before attaining to perfection. For it is just this stumbling effort that reveals the dimensions of the art. The man who has adventured it learns the obstacles that obstruct his path, and how to surmount them. To be sure, it is a lengthy method. But if a man has patience to persevere he will reap a sure reward after an alluring pilgrimage. No musician ever founded a school of his own who has not followed such a course, and to his experience his teaching has owed its distinctive character.

This is so with Bach, who, only gradually discovering his full stature, was thirty years old before unremitting application raised him above the difficulties of his art. But he reaped his reward. Self-discipline set him on the fairest and most alluring path that it has ever been given to a musician to tread.

To teach well a man needs to have a full mind. He must have discovered how to meet and have overcome the obstacles in his own path before he can be successful in teaching others how to avoid them. Bach united both qualities. Hence, as a teacher he was the most instructive, clear, and definite that has ever been. In every branch of his art he produced a band of pupils who followed in his footsteps, without, however, equalling his achievement.

First of all let me show how he taught the Clavier.(173) To begin with, his pupils were made to acquire the special touch of which I have already spoken.(174) To that end for months together he made them practise nothing but simple exercises for the fingers of both hands, at the same time emphasising the need for clearness and distinctness. He kept them at these exercises for from six to twelve months, unless he found his pupils losing heart, in which case he so far met them as to write short studies which incorporated a particular exercise. Of this kind are the _Six Little Preludes for Beginners,_(175) and the _Fifteen Two-part Inventions,_(176) both of which Bach wrote during the lesson for a particular pupil and afterwards improved into beautiful and expressive compositions. Besides this finger practice, either in regular exercises or in pieces composed for the purpose, Bach introduced his pupils to the use of the various ornaments in both hands.

Not until this stage was reached did Bach allow his pupils to practise his own larger works, so admirably calculated, as he knew, to develop their powers. In order to lessen their difficulty, it was his excellent habit to play over to them the pieces they were to study, with the remark, "That's how it ought to sound."(177) It would be difficult to exaggerate the helpfulness of this method. The pupil's interest was roused by hearing the piece properly played. But that was not the sole result. Without the help thus given the pupil could only hope to overcome the difficulties of the piece after considerable effort, and would find it much less easy to realise a proper rendering of it. As it was, he received at once an ideal to aim at and was taught how to surmount the difficulties the piece presented. Many a young performer, still imperfect after a year's practice, probably would master his music in a month if he once had it played over to him.

Bach's method of teaching composition was equally sure and effective.(178) He did not begin with the dry details of counterpoint, as was the custom of other teachers in his day. Still less did he burden his pupils with the physical properties of sound, which he held to be matter for the theorist and instrument-maker rather than the composer. He started them off at once on four-part harmony over a figured Ba.s.s, making his pupils write each part on a separate stave in order to impress on them the need for accurate harmonic progression. Then he pa.s.sed to Hymn tunes, setting the Ba.s.s himself and making his pupils write the Tenor and Alto parts. In time he let them write the Ba.s.s also. He insisted on correct harmony and on each part having a real melodic line. Every musician knows what models Bach has left us in this form. The inner parts of his four-part Hymn-tunes are so smooth and melodious that often they might be taken for the melody. He made his pupils aim at similar tunefulness, and until they showed a high standard of merit did not permit them to write compositions of their own. Meanwhile he aimed at cultivating their feeling for pure harmony and for the order and connection of ideas and parts by familiarising them with the compositions of others. Until they had acquired facility in those qualities he neither permitted them nor held them competent to put pen to paper.

Bach required his pupils in composition to work out their musical ideas mentally. If any of them lacked this faculty he admonished him not to compose and discountenanced even his sons from attempting to write until they had first given evidence of genuine musical gifts. Having completed their elementary study of harmony, Bach took his pupils on to the theory of Fugue, beginning with two-part writing. In these and other exercises he insisted on the pupil composing away from the Clavier.(179) Those who did otherwise he ridiculed as "Harpsichord Knights." In the second place he required rigorous attention to each part and its relation to the concurrent parts, permitting none, not even an inner one, to break off before it had finished what it had to say. He insisted upon a correct relation between each note and its predecessor. If he came upon one whose derivation or destination was not perfectly clear he struck it out as faulty. It is, indeed, a meticulous exact.i.tude in each individual part that makes Bach's harmony really multiple melody. Confused part-writing, where a note that belongs to the Tenor is given to the Alto, or vice versa, or the haphazard addition of extraneous parts to a chord which suddenly shows an increase of notes as if fallen from the sky, to vanish as suddenly as they came, are faults found neither in his own nor his pupils' writing. He regarded his musical parts as so many persons engaged in conversation. If there are three, each of them on occasion may be silent and listen to the others until it finds something relevant to say itself. But if, at an interesting point of the conversation, an interloping voice intervened, Bach regarded it as an intruder and let his pupils understand that it could not be admitted.

Notwithstanding his strictness on this point, Bach allowed his pupils considerable licence in other respects. In their use of certain intervals, as in their treatment of harmony and melody, he let them experiment within the limits of their ability, taking care to discountenance ugliness and to insist on their giving appropriate expression to the character of the composition. Beauty of expression, he postulated, was only attainable on a foundation of pure and accurate harmony. Having experimented in every form himself, he liked to see his pupils equally adventurous. Earlier teachers of composition, for instance, Berardi,(180) Buononcini,(181) and f.u.x,(182) did not allow such liberty.

They were afraid to trust their pupils to encounter difficulties, and short-sightedly prevented them from learning how to overcome them. Bach's system was wiser, for it took his pupils farther, since he did not limit their attention, as his predecessors did, to the harmonic structure, but extended it to the qualities that const.i.tute good writing, namely, consistency of expression, variety of style, rhythm, and melody. Those who would acquaint themselves with Bach's method of teaching composition will find it fully set forth in Kirnberger's _Correct Art of Composition._(183)

As long as his pupils were under his instruction Bach did not allow them to study any but his own works and the cla.s.sics. The critical sense, which permits a man to distinguish good from bad, develops later than the aesthetic faculty and may be blunted and even destroyed by frequent contact with bad music. The best way to instruct youth is to accustom it early to consort with the best models. Time brings experience and an instructed judgment to confirm the pupil's early attraction to works of true art.

Under this admirable method of teaching all Bach's pupils became distinguished musicians, some more so than others, according as they came early or late under his influence, and had opportunity and encouragement to perfect and apply the instruction they received from him. His two eldest sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emmanuel, were his most distinguished pupils, not because he gave them better instruction than the rest, but because from their earliest youth they were brought up amid good music at home. Even before they began their lessons they knew what was good. On the other hand, others, before they became Bach's pupils, either had heard no good music or their taste had been already vitiated by contact with bad. It at least attests the excellence of Bach's method that even his pupils thus handicapped took high rank in their profession and distinguished themselves in one or other of its branches.(184)

Bach's first pupil was JOHANN CASPAR VOGLER, who received instruction from him in his early days at Amstadt and Weimar and, on Bach's testimony, was an exceedingly able player. He became organist, and later burgomaster, at Weimar, retaining his professional position. Some Choral Preludes by him for a two-manualed Organ with pedals were engraved about 1737.(185)

Other pupils of Bach who became famous were:

1. HOMILIUS, of Dresden. He was not only an excellent organist but a distinguished composer of church music as well.(186) 2. TRANSCHEL, of Dresden. He was a fine musician and performer on the Clavier. There exist in MS. six Polonaises by him which perhaps are superior to those of any composer but Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.(187) 3. GOLDBERG, of Konigsberg. He was a very finished player on the Clavier, but without any marked talent for composition.(188) 4. KREBS, Organist at Altenburg. He was not only a player of the first rank, but also a prolific composer for the Organ, Clavier, and of church music. He was fortunate in having Bach's instruction for nine years.(189) 5. ALTNIKOL, Organist at Naumburg. He was Bach's son-in-law and is said to have been a very competent player and composer.(190) 6. AGRICOLA, Court Composer at Berlin.(191) He is less known as a composer than as a theorist. He translated Tosi's(192) _II canto figurato_ from Italian into German and provided the work with an instructive commentary.

7. MuTHEL, of Riga. He was a good Clavier player and wrote for that instrument. His Sonatas and a Duet for two Claviers attest his ability as a composer.(193) 8. KIRNBERGER,(194) Court Musician at Berlin to the Princess Amalia of Prussia.(195) He was one of the most distinguished of Bach's pupils, full of genuine enthusiasm for his art and eager to a.s.sure its interests. Besides his exposition of Bach's system of teaching composition, we are indebted to him for the first logical treatise on harmony, in which he sets forth his master's teaching and practice. The first work is ent.i.tled _Kunst des reinen Satzes,_ and the second, _Wahre Grundsatze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie._(196) He served the interests of his art also by other writings and compositions, and was an excellent teacher. The Princess Amalia was his pupil.

9. KITTEL, Organist at Erfurt. He is a sound, though not a finished, player, and is distinguished as a composer by several Organ Trios, so excellent that Bach himself might have written them.

He is the sole survivor (1802) of Bach's pupils.(197) 10. VOIGT, of Ans.p.a.ch,(198) and an organist named SCHUBART(199) were mentioned to me by Carl Philipp Emmanuel as having been Bach's pupils. He knew nothing about them except that they entered his father's house after he left it.(200)

I have said already that Bach's sons were his most distinguished pupils.

The eldest, WILHELM FRIEDEMANN BACH, came nearest to his father in the originality of his genius. His melodies have quite a different character from those of other composers. They are exceedingly clever, elegant, and spontaneous. When performed with delicacy, as he played them, they cannot fail to charm every hearer. It is greatly to be regretted that he preferred to follow his fancy in extemporisation and to expend his genius on fugitive thoughts rather than to work them out on paper. The number of his compositions therefore is small, but all are beautiful.

CARL PHILIPP EMMANUEL BACH, who comes next, went out into the world sufficiently early to discover that it is a good thing for a composer to have a large public behind him. Hence, in the clearness and easy intelligibility of his compositions, he approaches the popular style, though he scrupulously avoids the commonplace.(201) Both he and his elder brother admitted that they were driven to adopt a style of their own by the wish to avoid comparison with their incomparable father.