Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1

by Unknown

He had been actively at work in Eisenach and Erfurt for thirteen years, gave instruction to Bach's oldest brother and exercised a great influence upon organ music in Thuringia and upon Bach himself in his earlier years. That poetic treatment of the organ choral already described owes its origin to Pachelbel, whose strength lay chiefly in this form of art. Buxtehude's forte, on the other hand, is pre-eminently a free style of composition for the organ and a brilliant artistic handling of the instrument, in contrast to which the thorough, but unpretending technique of Pachelbel falls into the background. All the creative power possessed by these two masters, Bach combined in his own person.

Over one hundred organ chorals by Bach are still extant and a large proportion of them are in his own handwriting. A fine collection of forty-five shorter pieces is presented by his "Orgelbüchlein" (Little Organ Book). The compilation of this was made in Cöthen, but the greater part of its contents belongs to the Weimar period. The pieces are almost wholly in Pachelbel's manner, but are more characteristic, richer and of greater depth. The melody always moves on uninterruptedly and, with few exceptions, in the simple style adapted to congregational singing. The other parts are artistically interwoven and reflect the particular sensations which the significance of the choral melody in the church liturgy and the import of the poem to which it belongs awaken in the mind. The musical thought from which the accompanying parts are developed is usually brief; it takes its character from the poem, into the meaning of which Bach penetrates very deeply. The effect is especially beautiful when he reproduces in his music the idea of certain visions, which have been called up by the poem. An example of this is furnished by the choral: "Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar" ("From Heaven came the Angel Host"), in which two of the accompanying parts with their ascending and descending strains seem to personify the Christmas angels coming down to the shepherds and again soaring upward. A favorite plan of Bach for increasing in an artistic manner the importance of the choral melody, is that of managing it after the fashion of a canon; that is to say, it is heard not merely in a single part, but recurs in another, after a certain interval, an arrangement from which surprisingly expressive harmonies result.

Besides the "Little Organ Book," we possess a second autograph collection by Bach, containing sixteen organ chorals, interspersed with several pieces of the same order written by his pupil Altnikol. In this volume are included the most noteworthy of the more extended organ chorals composed during the Weimar period; these however were not published until they had undergone the careful revision of the artist and received many changes from his hand. Here we find model compositions in all the larger forms, which either came down to Bach from his predecessors, or were acquired by his own continually increasing culture. His constant and energetic efforts to attain the greatest possible organic unity in his compositions naturally obliged him to place the strongest emphasis upon the development of the polyphonic web of the melodic accompaniment from a single musical thought. If this thought became expanded into a longer and more expressive theme, worked out according to the rules of art, the accompaniment was then likely to acquire an independence and importance which interfered with the predominance of the choral melody. The sole means therefore of strengthening this melody was to introduce a vocal part, and that is precisely what was done by Bach. While he added to the composition thus changed, other instruments besides the organ and also other vocal parts, he transferred the organ chorus to the domain of vocal music, in order that he might give it the grandest conceivable form. Bach's choral choruses, which excite the astonished admiration of all who know them, are the direct outgrowth of his organ chorals. The piece from the "Little Organ Book" consisting of twenty-seven measures, composed upon the melody, "O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig" ("O, Innocent Lamb of God"), and the gigantic opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, in which the same melody is accompanied and crowned by two vocal choruses, two orchestras and two organs, rest upon exactly the same principle of construction.

Buxtehude had paid no attention to the third method of developing the choral, as previously described, but bestowed much thought and artistic skill upon the second, and had succeeded in imparting to it an especial charm, through tasteful ornamentation of the melody and the combination of several different kinds of organ registers. His works in this line, however, are not distinguished by any especial unity or by reserve of form. Bach felt himself attracted by this free and more fantastic style of composition, because it stimulated him to evolve from it something which should satisfy his own lofty ideal. A number of highly remarkable organ chorals, of the most dissimilar character, originated in this way; among them are the elaborations of "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele" ("Adorn thyself, beloved Soul"), "An Wasserflüssen Babylon," two re-arrangements of "Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr" ("Glory alone to God on High"), and one of "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland."

In the Leipsic period, few organ chorals were composed by Bach, but each one of these is a master work of the musician. The forms are those of the Weimar chorals, but are on a comparatively colossal scale and the art of the composer has increased in corresponding measure. They were published in the year 1739, together with several choral fugues in the third part of his so-called "Clavier-Uebung"; in 1746 were issued five variations in canonic form upon the Christmas song: "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" ("From Heaven on high come I hither"). Bach's strong attachment for this artistic form, over which he had gained entire mastery in his youth, continued to the end. His last work, composed immediately before his death and dictated to Altnikol, was an organ choral.

MONUMENT TO BACH IN PARK AT LEIPSIC.

Reproduced from an old steel engraving.

In Bach's organ music of a freer style, it is easier than in the chorals to perceive the gradual approach to perfection. Here it is very evident that Pachelbel was not his master; even the few preludes and fugues which he wrote in his first years at Arnstadt betray a study of Buxtehude. After the journey to Lübeck, what had before been imitation became free creation after the manner of his model. In Weimar, where he rose to eminence as an organ virtuoso, the striving after external brilliancy and the desire of developing his skill as a performer in all directions, bear evidence for a considerable period of his continued adherence to the style of the Danish master. Although the compositions of this time are in no wise superficial, they yet stand far below his later works in solidity. By degrees, and evidently in consequence of close and persevering labor with the choral, Bach's melodies become much richer and more expressive. The study of Italian music, to which he devoted himself in Weimar, had the effect of imparting to his work greater clearness and finish, and his beautiful "canzone" for the organ is the direct result of that study. The name itself bears witness to the fact, since the Italians of the seventeenth century were accustomed to designate by this word the musical form which afterwards was called the fugue. In a group of organ compositions, which manifestly belong to the later Weimar period, Bach shows himself to have reached that eminence as a composer of fugues which only he was able to attain. The greatest skill in execution is everywhere presupposed, but nothing is sacrificed to this; the fugal themes are forms of a strongly accentuated type; in the management of the parts great restraint and system are displayed; the preludes also lose their extemporaneous character, are given a real theme and subjected to the rules of the contrapuntal style. The only organ passacaglio by Bach was composed at about this time. Well knowing that Buxtehude had excelled in this form he resolved to make an attempt in that direction, summoned all his powers and created one of the most lofty works of German tonal art.

At the time when Bach's playing excited the general admiration of the Hamburg public in 1720, he probably performed there his great G-minor fugue with prelude, one of his best known and most celebrated works. A musician of the eighteenth century pronounced this to be "the very best pedal piece of Herr Johann Sebastian Bach," and it is certainly safe to assert that he never wrote one which surpassed it. Play of imagination, inexhaustible invention, transparent clearness, unaffected simplicity, lofty earnestness and deep inward joy are here combined to form a whole of such unapproachable grandeur as to exclude every thought of a comparison with other composers. Among the works of the Leipsic period should be mentioned first of all the six sonatas for two manuals and pedal. These were completed between the years 1727 and 1733 and, according to tradition, were intended for the education of the musician's eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The form of these pieces, as is well known, is borrowed from the Italian chamber music. Properly speaking, they are not intended for the organ, but for a pedal-clavier with two manuals, yet they do not lose in effect, when played upon the former instrument. They present the most difficult of tasks to the organ-performer, not only because the most perfect independence of movement is demanded of both hands, as well as the feet, but also on account of the crystalline transparency of the three-part movement which renders the smallest defect in execution extremely painful to the ear. The six so-called "great preludes and fugues" (Edition of the Bach Society, Vol. XV., p. 189-260) are also considered as belonging to the Leipsic time, although no positive external evidence in favor of the assumption can be produced. If we add to these the preludes and fugues in G major, the toccata and fugue in F major, the "Doric" toccata and fugue in D minor and the great prelude with fugue in E♭ major, we shall have nearly exhausted the list of works composed by Bach during the latest period of his life. Should this seem to any one a small amount for so great an artist to accomplish in twenty-seven years, he must remember that the principal object of Bach's activity throughout this period was the vocal church music, which, as cantor of St. Thomas's, it was his duty to provide each Sunday. The value of works of art, moreover, is not to be estimated by their number or extent. Haydn wrote over one hundred symphonies, Beethoven only nine, yet the composer of "Fidelio" certainly does not rank below Haydn in importance. These later organ pieces of Bach's are creations of a universal type. Into each one of them the artist infused the whole of his giant intellect, animating by the breath of his genius the masses of sound poured forth from the organ in prodigious volume, yet governed in the smallest details by the most rigorous rules of art. They are true and actual prototypes of the divinely ordered processes of nature, and in listening to them one calls to mind the profound saying of Goethe: "Bach's music produces in me the feeling that the eternal harmonies are holding converse together as they may have done in the bosom of God before the creation."