The Art of Music. Vol. 01 (of 14), A Narrative History of Music. Book 1, The Pre-classic Periods / A Comprehensive Library of Information for Music Lovers and Musicians

by Unknown

III

We have already observed that all great composers from the time of Beethoven have acknowledged Bach as the father of modern music, but this relationship which his descendants have so gladly acknowledged is, on the whole, general and intangible. The reason is partly that Bach invented no new forms, and that the forms which he chose, and the style in which he wrote, passed out of circulation, so to speak, immediately after his death. The fugue, the cantata, and the Passion he brought to the highest point it was possible for these forms to attain. They have rarely been attempted since with near enough success to suggest even imitation. The fugues of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms are essentially different from the fugues of Bach. Mendelssohn fell far short of the master whom he, more almost than all others, worshipped. César Franck has been compared to Bach, but is curiously unlike him. The cantata and the Passion grew up to Bach and then stopped: the cantata, because even in the hands of Bach it was an uncouth hybrid, neither opera, which is itself an illogical mixture, nor church music; the Passion, because, as Bach left it, it is as unattainable as the sun. As far as form and outward show are concerned, therefore, Bach’s position in the history of music is that of the culmination, the ultimate consummation, of certain styles and forms now obsolete. To understand his appearance in the history of music one must step back into the history of the seventeenth century in German music, a history strangely complicated with that of Protestantism, Lutheran hymns, and cantata texts, inextricably associated with the church and with the organ loft. In the growth of church music in Germany Bach had not one, nor two predecessors. A dozen different courses converged in him. Strangely enough, of the music of the one man before him with whom he might seem related, Heinrich Schütz, he knew little or nothing. All others worthy of the name of composers, however, contributed some share to his development.

All the great organists from the time there were great organists led to Bach, step by step, unmistakably. Every new phase of form, every new device of virtuosity but paved the way for one who was so supremely great as to cast them all into shade or oblivion. All hymn writers, all composers of chorales led the same way. The Protestant religion found its perfect artistic expression in Bach, not in the cantatas but in the chorale fantasies for organ, the motets and the Passion according to St. Matthew. Catholic art contributed its share. He copied out masses by Palestrina, and by other men now forgotten, such as Lotti and Caldara. For a good part of the Lutheran service, especially at St. Thomas church in Leipzig, was practically Catholic in form. The Kyrie, the Gloria, Credo, Benedictus, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei had their place in the ritual; and, what is more, German composers, and Bach was no exception, seldom troubled to set them to new music but adapted music of the earlier Italian writers to the new German words. The enormous number of cantatas was owing to the fact that the form had grown out of a native German custom of singing hymns between the reading of the Gospel and the Credo, on the one hand, and the sermon, on the other, and composers were given opportunity to set texts not already time-worn. The history of these texts is one full of sad failures to achieve a truly artistic form, of futile efforts to reconcile chorale and hymn with the new operatic style, of bad verse and trivial, mechanical sentiment. Bach was constantly harassed by problems of text, varying in his choice between an old style Bible text woven with the strophes of the chorale hymns, by far the best though least suited to the operatic style of music which had established itself in the church, and a free text developed from a line or passage in the Bible, consisting of strophic arias and passages for recitative in the so-called madrigal style, a loose versification. The artistic perfection of the Passion is due no little to the fact that he himself supervised the arrangement of the text, the introduction of strophic verse for arias, and madrigal style for ariosos and the chorales.

The history of Passion music leads to Bach, and further than that it cannot go. Way back in the Middle Ages the story of the Passion was chanted in the churches, some time, usually on Good Friday in holy week. The words of the evangelist, of actors in the drama, and of Christ were chanted by a priest or deacon in the monotonous reciting tone, and the choir was given the ejaculations of the crowd. Later the words of Christ, the evangelist, Pilate, Peter, etc., were allowed to different chanters and with the growth of the operatic style the monotonous chant was changed to more expressive recitative. This intrusion of the operatic style was at times bitterly opposed, and the greatest German composer before Bach—Heinrich Schütz—was among the reactionaries, though he had received his training in Italy under Giovanni Gabrieli and Monteverdi himself. However, the influence of opera was too strong for the conservative clergy, and not only did recitative, aria, and dramatic choruses come to play a part in the singing of the story of the Passion, but instruments were introduced into the accompaniment, and the whole became practically a drama. The need for texts suitable for treatment in recitative and aria finally led to versified arrangements of the Biblical narrative itself, as well as to the introduction of strophic stanzas interpretative of the mood or action of the story. A new character, the so-called daughter of Zion, was introduced as a convenient spokeswoman for the congregation.

Such were the theatrical arrangements made by C. F. Hunold, known as Menantes, and by B. H. Brockes, a town councillor of Hamburg, whose arrangement was set to music by Keiser, Mattheson, Telemann, and Handel. Chorale melodies and hymns found no place in these passions. Schütz had employed them at the beginning and the end of his settings, as introduction and epilogue. They were apparently first woven into the body of the work by a little-known composer, Johann Sebastiani, about 1672. The arrangement which Bach finally used for his St. Matthew Passion was a combination of these earlier styles. For the narrative he reverted to the Biblical text, divided among the various characters. He retained the interpretative arias which in the midst of the story dwell for a time on the suffering, on the horror of it all, and their effect upon man; he included among the singers the Daughter of Zion. The chorus was used for the utterances of the crowd, with considerable restraint, and, throughout the work, for richly harmonized chorales which served to draw the congregation into the tragedy even though they were but once or twice given a voice in them. At the beginning and the end massive double choruses, into the first of which a chorale melody was woven, opened and concluded the story. Orchestra and organ made up the accompaniment. All these various elements he combined with unerring sense of proportion and fitness and with no inconsistencies and no histrionic glamour, so that the work stands perfect as a piece of art, and as the purest expression in music of the Lutheran religion.

In his general treatment of the orchestra Bach is allied so much more closely to the past than to the future that in this regard he can be said to have had practically no influence upon his successors. Before his death the Mannheim school, led by Johann Stamitz, was already pointing the way toward a new treatment of the orchestra which was to be taken up and developed by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Bach differs from these later men not so much in a lack of appreciation of tone color as in his forcing all instruments, irrespective of their peculiar capabilities, to conformity in a polyphonic style much influenced by the organ. The result is that trumpets and oboes, for examples, are made to play rapid, agile figures suitable only to violin. All instruments are treated in the same way, may be required to take equal and similar parts in the music. This is, of course, distinctly old-fashioned. Purely technical reasons would prevent any composer of the new school from writing for the oboes as he would write for the violins. Sonority and color, too, ousted the old polyphonic ideal. Bach was not, however, deaf to orchestral color. Often in the accompaniments to cantatas and other vocal works the coloring is rich and unusual, and unusual combinations of solo instruments in the Brandenburg concertos seem to show him on voyages of discovery, so to speak, into the effects of combinations of different timbres.

The two series of orchestral works are the Brandenburg concertos and the Ouvertures, both written during his stay at Cöthen. The names themselves speak from the now distant past of orchestral music. The name concerto then signified a composition written for a small group of solo instruments, called the concertino, accompanied by or alternating with a larger group called the tutti. For instance, in the second concerto the solo group is composed of trumpet, flute, oboe, and violin, the tutti being in all cases made up of strings. The form is Corellian. The relatively modern treatment of a solo instrument in a concerto, writing for it to show off its special qualities and technical peculiarities, is hardly suggested, tutti and concertino having to play the same musical material in the same polyphonic style, offering principally contrast between sonority and delicacy; though, as we have said, the element of tone color plays a part. It must be added, however, that the long passage for harpsichord at the end of the first movement of the fifth concerto is very similar to modern cadenzas. The treatment of all parts is consistently polyphonic.

The same is true of the four Ouvertures. These compositions are in reality suites, having as the first two movements the two characteristics of the French ouverture invented by Lully, one slow and serious, the other an extended allegro in fugal style. The following movements are in dance forms and rhythms. They are scored for the customary brass, wood, and strings, employed here not so much for their specialties as for contrasts of sonority and delicacy.

Bach has not, therefore, contributed in matters of style and form to the development of music after his time nor to the growth of orchestral music, which was the distinguishing feature of the age which followed immediately upon his death. This is due, as we have said, to the fact that the style and forms which were his own inheritance passed out of circulation. In many cases, too, his work was of such unique greatness that no imitation of it could come near enough to suggest more than most vaguely an influence. Copies of his style but emphasize its remoteness, both in time and quality. Certain works must remain forever unique because their peculiar perfection must always keep them in a class by themselves. Among these there are none more striking than the works for solo violin and for solo violoncello, works which have no counterpart in music. Still, we are not limited to intangible influences of melody and harmony in noting the effect which his compositions have had upon his followers. In two ways at least he gave a definite impulse to the course of music; he reorganized the system of fingering keyboard instruments, and invented a satisfactory and universally accepted method of equal temperament.