Music and Its Masters

by O. B. Boise

The Teutonic character is less emotional and impulsive than the Italian, but it is more methodical, more romantic, and deeper. It is more like that of the Netherlanders, but in measuring their status we must not forget that at the period of which I write two hundred years had passed since the beginning of music's decadence in the northern first home. The Reformation, which had such a depressing effect upon that initial art, incited these less scientifically musical people to song. Luther, who co-ordinated the modern German language, also struck a song tone, which set the hearts of his race into sympathetic vibration.

The choral voices the deepest strata of German character, and its spirit echoes through their more earnest works,—in the substratum, mentioned in Chapter III.,—so the Reformation marks the beginning of Germany's musical culture, which under direct and indirect guidance and incitement from Italy grew substantially and broadened until the eighteenth century, when the appearance of Händel and Bach evidences a northward turn in the stream of development.

The Italians had contributed the most potent qualities of their nature to this stream, and now the Germans added their deep feeling, intellectual force, and somewhat later their romance. As will be seen, Italy had not entered an inactive era, but Germany at this period took first place among the factors of evolution, a place she still holds.

BACH

My theory in regard to the essential character of widely diffused interest in music finds full endorsement in the conditions which prevailed at that time, and still continue in Germany. Luther's chorals were written for and were sung by the people. Each worshipper found in them a conveyance for his devotional feelings. This feature of church service, this song essence, gradually permeated every-day life and bore wonderful fruit; produced a really musical nation, out of which our second high-priest, Johann Sebastian Bach, and his less German contemporary, George Frederick Händel, could arise.

Before the advent of these giants Germany had written and performed numerous operas, and had in various ways manifested high aspirations, but her musicians had composed no monumental works.

Her early troubadours, of whom Walther von der Vogelweide was the greatest, and the "Meistersänger," of whom Hans Sachs, who lived 1494-1576, was the most gifted, left no record of their melodies. The very existence of these Meistersänger guilds for hundreds of years shows vitality of purpose and high aim. Spurred on to ever higher accomplishment by friendly rivalry, these guilds doubtless contributed much to the lyric strain in the German nature, and therefore to the ultimate greatness of their "Fatherland." The last of these guilds was disbanded at Ulm in 1836.

Bach was the mightiest man who has composed music. A writer who saw him says, "His black eyes, shining out of his massive head, looked like flames bursting from a rock." He was the descendant of a line that was both mentally and physically stalwart. His remotest traceable ancestor was a baker who migrated from Hungary to Saxony, and his son, Johann Sebastian's great-grandfather, was a carpet-weaver and musician. The two succeeding generations devoted themselves exclusively to music, and they furnished half Thuringia with capable musicians. Their conscientious work, however, gave no premonition of the coming sublime climax in their family achievements.

Johann Sebastian Bach inherited an iron will, self-abnegation, and devotion to art. His conceptions soared so far above the existing traditions, and he did so little to attract public attention, that he was but slightly heeded during his lifetime; indeed, it required a century after his death and the appreciation of a Mendelssohn to make the world realize that a veritable god had lived among men. The modest cantor of Leipzig's St. Thomas' school was obliged to struggle to support his large family, but he made no concessions to prevailing taste; he did not depart from the lines of his ideal to secure popularity. He patiently submitted to whatever teaching-drudgery was necessary to earn bread for his children, but when seated on his organ-bench or when he took his quill in hand he admitted no other allegiance than that to art, and no other impulse than that which prompted him to serve her with his fullest powers.