In this instance the impetus did not emanate from the reigning prince. Wilhelm Ernst was a man of education, it is true, and in his service were good artists; but, absorbed in a solitary life[74] of exceeding piety, and occupied with good works, the duke entrusted to his nephew, Johann Ernst,[75] the duty of encouraging his musicians. Johann Ernst was skilled in music, playing the harpsichord and the violin; he had even studied the elements of composition with Walther;[76] music was made to cater to his sickly constitution, especially the Italian chamber music, for solo instruments and orchestra, whose subtle charm was well suited to this invalid; for he himself could take part in its performance.
Bach's temperament, so entirely different, was certain to draw its lesson from association with such works; the precise moment has now arrived when, by his own determination, he shall profit by it; he is master of his own virtuosity; and both his manual dexterity and his present position make it possible for him to choose what he will retain of the ideas which crowd upon his imagination in such profusion. To succeed in such a choice were already to produce a work of art; but to bring these ideas into their proper relative order, the selection once made, is the achievement of a great artist.
The Italians had for a long time possessed precisely this sense of correct succession; this architectural aspect of the art could not fail to attract, by its harmony of proportions, those who had always displayed so much taste in works of sculpture.
It is particularly to be noted that what the Germans were able to acquire from these composers, they derived from the concerted music for stringed instruments. In fact, it may be said without exaggeration that, while the Germans were well-informed, not only upon organ composition, but upon vocal writing as well, still they possessed no violinists,[77] in the sense that among them there was no one who wrote for that instrument with the clearness or sentiment which it demanded. The Italians brought them something more, if not something essentially different: the interesting and varied movements, the perfect balance between the musical phrases, the elaboration and refinement of design for which they always strove; for it was with them that monody first dawned, and was afterwards developed. It is easy to conceive that with instruments the conditions are varied; although that is not saying that a manner of writing suited to one instrument may not also be fitted to another; in writing for strings the same style recommended itself to the Italians as that which had enriched the school of organ composition. We refer particularly to the sonatas and concertos.
While the sonata still lacked that unity resulting from the development and ingenious combination of two themes of necessary co-relationship, which P.E. Bach was to impart to it later, it already possessed three well-defined divisions at least, as is indicated by the variety of the movements: the first one rapid in tempo, assertive; the second slow, full of sentiment; while the third finished gaily, often recalling the rhythms of popular dances.
As to the concerto, it was on the whole nothing more than a sonata for one, sometimes for more than one solo instrument, accompanied by the orchestra, whose interludes produced new effects through the contrast between the soli and the tutti.
The facilities offered by the organ, with its several keyboards, for the delineation of these designs, rendered it particularly appropriate that they should be transcribed for that instrument. This Bach did. In addition to sixteen transcriptions for the harpsichord, he left us arrangements for the organ of three of Vivaldi's[78] concertos, and the first movement of a fourth.[79] They are arrangements, rather than integral reproductions; and if we take a certain interest in this transcription for the organ, by special methods, of works not originally intended for that instrument, it is an interest like that inspired by a well-made translation.
Possibly Bach regarded it in another light; for him it may have been a means of penetrating to the core of such compositions, of analyzing their inherent qualities.
We now see him quite preoccupied with this three-movement form; take, for instance, the Toccata in C major.[80]
The Prelude itself is subdivided. First we find an introduction,[81] free in style; then an Allegro, built, as is very important to notice, upon two different and well-defined themes.[82]