VI
Though in the matter of musical form the name of Bach at once suggests the fugue, he brought the suite to no less perfection and significance. It must, however, be granted that the suite suffers by comparison with the fugue as a great form in music. First, the convention that all its movements be in the same key is more than likely to make the work as a whole monotonous. Secondly, the more or less obligatory dependence upon dance rhythms tends to restrict emotional vivacity and subtlety. Thirdly, since there can be but little contrast and variety among the separate movements, the suite lacks organic or internal life.
On the other hand, the emphasis laid upon rhythm may give the individual movements more obvious charm than the fugue is likely to exert. Furthermore, though the scope of the movements is more restricted than that of the fugue, the form is freer. And the neat balance of structure, with its two repeated sections, is undoubtedly more sympathetic to our modern ear than the involved architecture of the fugue. Lastly, though the sequence of allemande, courante, bourrée, gigue and other conventional movements may give us too much of a good thing, the sarabande does afford that striking point of contrast which is the precious asset of the great cyclic forms, whether sonata, string quartet, or symphony.
Bach wrote three complete sets of suites: the so-called French suites, which seem to have been written for his second wife during the time of his stay at Cöthen; the English suites,[20] and the ‘Partitas,’ which we may call the German suites. Both the English suites and the Partitas were written at Leipzig, and the latter were among the few works engraved and printed during his lifetime.
Inasmuch as the form of the suite, its sequence and normal number of movements, had been clearly defined both by Froberger and Kuhnau some time before Bach began to write, he cannot be said to have assisted in its creation, as he did in the creation of the fugue. From the point of view of form he neither added anything nor, strictly speaking, improved upon what he inherited. What he did do was to expand the limits of the various movements to great and noble proportions, and to fill them with a wealth of musical vigor and imagination hardly suggested before his day in any instrumental music except Corelli’s.
The French suites are the simplest and the most conventional. The style of them is unquestionably lighter than that of the later suites; but this may well be due less to an attempt to write in the style galant of Couperin, than to a desire to compose music technically within the grasp of his young and charming second wife. The sequence of the movements is conventional. All six have as their first three movements the normal allemande, courante and sarabande. All close with a gigue. Between the sarabande and the gigue he placed a number of extra dances, two minuets in the first suite, an air and minuet in the second, two minuets and an Anglaise in the third. The fourth and fifth have each three of these intermezzi, including gavottes, a bourrée and a loure; and the last has an odd group of four, consisting of a gavotte, a polonaise, a bourrée and a minuet. Only two of the courantes follow the French model with its complicated shifting rhythm. The others are of the more rapid Italian style.
The movements are all short and in the now familiar binary form, with its first section modulating from tonic to dominant, and repeated; and its second section going by way of a few more complicated modulations back again from dominant to tonic. There is little trace of a marked differentiation between the musical material given first in the tonic, and that given later in the dominant.
The hand of Bach is, however, not to be mistaken even here in these relatively simple pieces. The style is firm and for the most part close upon the organ style; the melodies—and there are melodies—are surprisingly sweet and fresh; the rhythm, delightfully crisp and vivacious. It is to be regretted that these early suites have generally dropped from the concert stage.
In looking over the English suites, which are undoubtedly the greatest works of their kind, one is first struck by the magnificent preludes. Each of the six suites has its prelude, longer by far and more powerful than any of the subsequent movements. In breadth of plan, in all-compelling vigor and vitality, in a magnificent, healthy emotion, these preludes may hold their places beside any single movements which have since been written. It cannot be denied that their style is more the style of organ than pianoforte music. A certain severity must also be admitted, which may leave something lacking to the modern ear that in a relatively long movement craves something of sensuous warmth. But their power is truly immense.
The style is highly contrapuntal and with few exceptions follows the convention of uninterrupted movement. This tends, as in many of the fugues, to hide the formal outline. The listener hears the music flowing on page after page and may be pardoned if, being able to recognize in the torrent of sound only one distinctly recurring theme, he thinks he is hearing music akin to the fugue. As a matter of fact, however, with the exception of only the first, the structure of these preludes is astonishingly formal and astonishingly simple. The second, fourth, fifth and sixth are fundamentally arias, on a huge scale.
The aria form is one of the simplest in music, one of the most effective as well, and was the first to develop under the influence of the Italian opera of the seventeenth century. It has frequently been called the A-B-A form. This is because it is made up of three distinct sections of which the first and last, predominantly in the tonic key, are identical, and the middle in some contrasting key or keys and of contrasting musical material. To spare themselves the trouble of writing out the last section, composers adopted the convention of merely writing the Italian words da capo (from the beginning) at the end of the second section, and of placing a double bar at the end of the first, over which the singer or player was not to pass upon his second performance of this section. Bach could have adopted this economical device, had he so desired, in the four preludes just mentioned; for each of them proves, upon examination, to be composed of three distinct sections, the middle more or less the longest, the first and last note for note the same.
We have already remarked how most of Bach’s fugues, especially the shorter ones, can be divided into three sections based upon harmony. In the preludes to the English suites the question of musical material enters into the division. Take for analysis the prelude in A minor to the second suite. The first section ends at the beginning of the fifty-fifth measure. It will be seen to open with a bold figure, the first notes of which are at once imitated in the left-hand part. There follows then a constant flow of figure work over a relatively simple harmonic foundation and through orderly sequences, the hands frequently imitating each other. Fragments of the opening phrase are heard five times. In the thirty-first measure a very distinct phrase is introduced, still in the tonic key, it will be observed, though in dominant harmony; and this is repeated in purely conventional manner in three registers, giving way to formal passage work which, falling and rising, leads to a good stout reiteration of the opening motive. With this the first section ends, in a full tonic cadence.
The second section begins at once with a wholly new figure which dominates the music from now on up to the one hundred and tenth measure. At this measure the second section ends, and here Bach might have written the words da capo; for what follows is but a repetition of the first fifty-five measures.
It must be noticed that, although the middle section is decidedly dominated by a figure which does not appear in the first, still the first theme is not allowed to be forgotten. It may be found five times in the course of the middle section, dividing, as it were, the new material into distinct clauses, and serving as well to impress upon our ears the unity of the piece as a whole.
This device is not truly germane to the aria form. It is suggestive of the rondo in general; and in particular of the modified rondo form of the Vivaldi violin concerto, of which we know Bach made a minute study.
In the splendid prelude to the third suite, in G minor, this concerto form is far more in evidence than the aria form. But the fourth, fifth, and sixth (barring the slow introduction) are like the second in superbly simple three-part aria form. This fact is well worth recollecting in connection with the development of the sonata form of a later period.
The remaining movements of the suites present no irregularities. These are the dignified allemandes, the Italian or French courantes, the elusive, sad sarabandes, always one or two Intermezzi, a Gavotte, a Bourrée, a Passepied or a Minuet, and the final Gigues with their conventional contrapuntal tricks and turns.
The Partitas are far less regular in structure. The opening movements are called by various names. There is a prelude for the first, short and in simple, rich style; a Sinfonie for the second, with three distinct parts, suggesting the French overture; a Fantasie for the third; and for the fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively, an Overture, a Preamble, and a Toccata. The second and third have odd movements, such as a Rondo, a Caprice, a Burlesca, and a Scherzo. On the whole, in spite of the technical perfection never absent in Bach’s work, and some movements such as the closing Gigue of the first partita, these suites are inferior to the English suites. There is something tentative about the new styles of preludes and about the interpolation of freakish intermezzi, which rather mars them from the point of view of unity and balance in the cyclic forms.
But the English suites stand out as magnificent specimens of vigorous and yet emotional music, great and broad in scope, perfect in detail—keyboard music which in many ways has never been surpassed.