Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1

by Unknown

The term chamber music was borrowed by the Germans from the Italians, with whom "musica da camera" was directly opposed to "musica da chiesa." In German it might be more appropriate to say "society music." We are accustomed in our day to think only of instrumental music in this connection, but it was the original intention to include vocal compositions as well. Works of both kinds were produced by Bach, but however interesting his vocal chamber music may be, it is of only secondary importance, relatively speaking. He must himself have been of this opinion, for he frequently made re-arrangements of these compositions (which were mostly written for particular occasions), and thus converted them into church music. His instrumental works, on the other hand, are of the highest importance, not only for their intrinsic merit, but as a means of determining the permanent artistic standing of the composer. In considering them, it is necessary to distinguish between such as are especially derived from organ music, those which grew out of Italian violin music, and the remaining portion, which found their origin in the exclusive domain of the clavier. In a general way at least, the style of organ music exercised great influence upon all three of the varieties mentioned; Bach made it his point of departure and it formed through his whole life the basis of his work.

To the first class of instrumental compositions belong the toccatos, preludes, fugues and all works for the clavier written in fugal style. It should here be observed that the modern clavier, or pianoforte, had just been invented in Bach's time and was still in its crudest form. Bach did not intend his clavier compositions for this instrument, but for the clavichord and clavicembalo, which are of a different quality of tone and much inferior in volume to the hammer clavier at present in use. When this fact is taken into account, no false impressions need prevail concerning the effect of those earlier clavier pieces, which were so much in the style of organ music. We find among them many works of marked originality and beauty, such as the three magnificent toccatas in E minor, C minor and F major, written probably in the Weimar period and offering, even in our own day, the most grateful task which can be undertaken by an earnest and painstaking pianist. Bach's chamber music compositions, however, reached their highest point of perfection in Cöthen, as has been already stated. Here he created in 1723 that collection of artistic and soulful melodies, in the form of two and three-part clavier pieces, which received the name of "Inventionen und Sinfonien "; here also in 1722 he finished the first part of the "Wohltemperirte Clavier." This world-renowned work contains twenty-four preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys of the twelve chromatic scales. Its title is due to the fact that the method of tuning an instrument in such a way as to secure purity of tone in nearly every key was first discovered in Bach's time. Until then, in the case of the clavier, the clavichord, etc., such keys as had either very few sharps or flats in the signature or none at all, had been tuned as correctly as possible and the remainder with proportionate inexactness. To distribute these unavoidable inaccuracies among the twelve keys of the instrument in such a way that, while no one of them attained perfect purity of interval, the deviations therefrom were too slight to offend the ear, was the task of the so-called "equal temperament." Bach's fame as an unsurpassed composer of fugues is founded especially upon the "Wohltemperirte Clavier," the contents of which were not composed at one time, but by degrees, many pieces dating from an early period of the artist's activity. The second part of the "Wohltemperirte Clavier" was completed in 1742. In this collection, the three-part fugue predominates and throughout the whole work there breathes that freedom and repose which are characteristic of the highest order of genius only. The first part is still more artistic, and Bach's command over the technicalities of the fugal style appears in it more plainly. Both parts have this in common, that they contain nothing but musical character-pieces of the first rank. The "Chromatische Fantasie und Fugue" may also have been written in Cöthen; it was certainly completed before 1738. The well-known C-minor fantasia was probably composed in 1738; of the fugue which was to follow it, nothing but a fragment remains. In 1747 appeared the "Musikalische Opfer" and in 1749 "Die Kunst der Fugue," these two works forming the conclusion of the whole series of compositions. The former is a collection of various fugues and canons, together with a four-movement sonata for violin, flute and clavier. Ingenious and important as the single pieces are, they cannot be said to form a symmetrical whole, while with regard to "The Art of Fugue" the contrary is true. In the original engraved edition of this work, which Bach was able to revise only in part, much extraneous matter had crept in. After this was excluded, there remained fifteen fugues and four canons, all composed upon the same theme. The fugues belong together and seem to be arranged in four groups in order to facilitate the hearer's comprehension of them; strictly speaking, however, they form all together a single gigantic fugue in fifteen divisions. Because Bach wished to show in this work the utmost that could be accomplished with a single theme, it should not be assumed that in writing it, his sole purpose was to instruct. The same may also be said of the "Orgelbüchlein," the "Inventionen und Sinfonien" and the "Wohltemperirte Clavier," which had also been composed by him for the benefit of rising artists. Yet the practical purpose had the effect of giving wings to his imagination; he strove to produce not only the most artistic work of which he was capable, but also the most beautiful, and in this he was successful. In fact the "Art of Fugue" is one of the most sublime instrumental works of the composer. But its deep and solemn earnestness, only rising to passionate emotion in the central fugues, in order to sink back into itself again, as well as the difficulty of understanding so great a number of complicated pieces, all bearing a certain relation to each other, has thus far interfered with the proper appreciation of this last great monument erected to himself by the master. In a still later fugue, Bach wished to make use of his own name, having perceived that its four letters, regarded as notes, formed a characteristic melody. The intention was not carried out, but several fugues upon the family name are still extant, one of which at least is well known, has been frequently printed, and may very easily have proceeded from the hand of Sebastian Bach.

The musician's numerous compositions for violin, gamba and flute, with and without accompaniment, belong in the domain of Italian chamber music, and take either the concerto or the sonata form, as established by the Italians in 1700—forms everywhere available, although different in many respects from those at present employed for the same class of works. Bach's own violin playing must have been exceptionally artistic, even though he may not have conquered the greatest difficulties of his compositions as triumphantly as Joseph Joachim is able to do in our day. The German violinists of the seventeenth century had a fondness for double and more-stopping violin-playing, and surpassed the Italians in this respect. Bach's three sonatas for violin without accompaniment probably mark the utmost limit of development attainable by this kind of technique. It cannot be proved with certainty that any one before him ever attempted the composition of sonatas without accompaniment and in these works a certain admixture of clavier music is perceptible, especially in the fugue movements. The sonatas were arranged, either in parts or as a whole, for the clavier or the organ, and appear to almost better advantage in this way than in their original form. The preference for clavier-music is a trait by which Bach, as a German, is distinguished from the Italians. The latter contented themselves even in violin sonatas with a simple form of thorough-bass, that is, in connection with the violin part only one bass was written down for the clavier player, who improvised with the right hand supplementary chords. Bach composed very few works of this class and seldom left the accompaniment to be extemporized, but preferred to write out in full an independent part for the right hand. Of this description are the famous six sonatas for violin and clavier, the three sonatas for gamba and for flute with clavier. Among the latter the F-minor sonata takes rank as the most beautiful piece of chamber music ever composed for the flute. Three of Bach's violin concertos have been preserved, written in A minor, E major and D minor respectively. In the latter, two violins are concerted with the orchestra. It was not uncommon at that time to employ more than one instrument in a concerto, and to such a composition the name concerto grosso was given. In 1721 Bach dedicated to the margrave Christian of Brandenburg, six concertos for a full body of instruments; of these numbers 2, 4 and 5 are concerti grossi. In the combining of solo instruments Bach is much bolder than his contemporaries and sometimes ventures upon the extraordinary. Thus in the second of this group of concertos he opposes to the orchestra a trumpet, a flute, an oboe and a violin, in the fifth a flute, a violin and a clavier. On the other hand, there are concertos by him in which the external contrast between solo and tutti has entirely vanished and nothing remains but the pure musical form arising from this contrast. Of this nature is the Italian concerto in F major, which Bach composed for the piano alone. Eight concertos for clavier and orchestra (the latter consisting here, as was usual in that day, of string instruments and cembalo) are still extant. The one in D minor is considered the finest of all. Of still greater value are the concertos for two and three pianos, in which the form of the concerto grosso is employed in a new manner. There even exists a concerto for four claviers and orchestra; this, however, is only an elaboration of a violin concerto by Vivaldi. It should be remarked in this connection that Bach regarded the organ as an instrument for church use exclusively and wrote no organ concertos, whereas Handel produced many works of that class.

The clavier variations and suites composed by Bach are most characteristic and individual in style. We possess, to be sure, only two sets of variations by him, but the aria with thirty variations is a work which has marked out new paths for the variation form and exerted an influence extending through and beyond Beethoven to Schumann and Brahms. In the suite consisting of dance-forms, or the partita, the French had distinguished themselves as also the German clavier masters, Johann Jacob Froberger, Johann Krieger and Johann Kuhnau, from all of whom Bach made zealous attempts to learn. His three principal works of this sort are the so-styled French Suites, English Suites and the Partitas. Each collection contains six suites, but in Bach's lifetime only the Partitas were published in the engraved form. These compositions are pervaded by the wholesome freshness and cheerfulness characteristic of the German people, while they exhibit at the same time unusual firmness and delicacy of structure; Bach indeed imparted to the clavier suite the highest conceivable degree of finish. In the six violoncello suites without accompaniment, the form is presented to us in a different tone-material. This style of music was abandoned after the master's death and was succeeded by the clavier sonata, to which Bach had never paid any considerable attention. Another form in existence at this time was the orchestra suite, which differed from the clavier suite in respect to the arrangement of the dances and showed much greater freedom as to the choice and number of the same; it was often the case, moreover, that an overture served as introduction to the work. Bach left behind four such orchestral suites or partitas; he also employed the same form in three suites for violin without accompaniment, which were published in one volume, together with the three unaccompanied violin sonatas, in one of which occurs the famous D-minor violin chaconne. And, finally, this form was transferred by Bach to the clavier, as in the case of the B-minor partita, which he published in 1735 in second part of his clavier-Uebung.

As a composer of church music, Bach occupies a position in the evangelical ranks analogous to that of Palestrina among the Catholics. The difference in time, nationality and artistic gifts naturally presupposes an equal degree of difference in musical forms and resources, but aside from this, emphasis must be placed upon the infinitely greater versatility of Bach, who was at home in every domain of art, with the exception of the opera and the oratorio, and in each one created works that have never been surpassed, while Palestrina confined himself almost wholly within fixed ecclesiastical limits. The different varieties of evangelical church music possible to be considered by Bach were the hymn, the motet, the church cantata, the evangelical histories, the mass and the magnificat. The hymn, or Protestant choral, received no increment from him; he composed very beautiful religious songs, but nothing in the style of the Volkslied. As regards the motet, that old ecclesiastical form of song without accompaniment and composed of many parts, Bach certainly paid some attention to it in his capacity as director of the vocal choir at St. Thomas's. Four works of this class with double chorus and one in five parts (Jesu, meine Freude) are ripe fruits of his genius, but however beautiful and powerful as compositions, they are not properly continuations of the motet in the form given it in the seventeenth century by Schütz, Johann Christoph Bach and others. These composers adhered closely to the severe style of the church motet of the sixteenth century, into which, however, a certain secular element had been introduced, while Bach's motets are rather to be regarded as a subsidiary form of his church cantatas. We find in them the same resemblance to organ music which characterizes his vocal compositions with instrumental accompaniment, and among the latter are many pieces precisely after the manner of the motet. It is now a tolerably well established fact that Bach's motets were never performed without the aid of the organ or other instruments; in fact remarkably well trained choruses would have been necessary in order to dispense with such support. That they must have been intended to serve as an occasional substitute for a cantata, is shown by their unusual length, which would prevent them from filling the regularly appointed place in the church liturgy.

According to excellent authority, Bach wrote five complete "year books" of church cantatas. Reckoned according to the requirements of the Leipsic church year, they would therefore reach a total of about four hundred, but not more than half that number have been preserved. The name here employed was given to the works in the present century; Bach himself called them concertos, and thereby indicates their historical origin. The sacred concerto was first introduced into Germany by Schütz, who imported it from Italy. Originally a piece of one or more solo parts with an instrumental accompaniment pervaded by intense passionate feeling, it soon adopted the chorus as a means of attaining completeness and variety. The choral, elaborated in various ways was then added and afterwards the aria in its different forms, the text of this new style of concerto being expanded to correspond. While in the beginning this text consisted only of biblical passages or prayers, all kinds of devotional poetry were later employed, in connection with the choral stanzas. After the year 1700 the so-called "madrigal" form of poetry found its way into the concerto and was also very commonly made use of in operatic music. In this way the recitative became a part of the concerto, which had gradually been made to include all the vocal forms then in vogue. The church cantata of Bach is the sacred concerto, in its most perfect form. As a means of blending into a harmonious whole the manifold elements which composed it, Bach had recourse to the style of his organ music, as carefully wrought out by him in the bosom of the church. In this way, while implanting upon the work all the forms which have been enumerated, he imparted to it the truly ecclesiastical character which it had never before possessed. The choral now became the principal musical feature of the concerto (or cantata) and the closest connection was established between the text of the work and the Bible selection which formed the subject of the sermon on the particular Sunday or festival day for which it was composed. The regularly appointed place for the cantata in the church service was just before the sermon, but, on very important occasions, it was sometimes divided into two parts, the second of which came after the sermon. The wealth of creative power revealed by Bach in this musical form, which now unhappily has become unfamiliar to us, transports one with astonishment; above all, his treatment of the choral is simply amazing. Appearing in solo and chorus songs, artistically elaborated or in simple popular form, resounding in a single instrument or in a group of instruments, while the singing voices are occupied with another text, which seems to receive its highest consecration from this interpenetrating melody, it imparts strength and animation to the entire work, and in proportion as Bach advanced in years, he gave greater definiteness to this central feature of the cantata. The texts for such compositions were furnished by Erdmann Neumeister of Hamburg, and after him by Salomo Franck in Weimar, Christian Friedrich Henrici and Mariane von Ziegler in Leipsic. They consisted, in their normal form, of passages from the Bible and stanzas of hymns, which were held together by a free style of versification. But in order that the chorals might acquire still greater influence than was possible under these conditions, Bach sometimes made compositions for each stanza of the poetic text, with an ever-varying employment of his melody, as in Luther's Easter hymn: "Christ lag in Todes Banden" ("Christ lay in bonds of darkness"). Again, since the stanza was not adapted to every kind of music, he occasionally substituted for it the madrigal, but in such a way that the original theme, now approaching nearer and now retreating into the distance, was easily recognized by those among the listeners who were familiar with the hymn. About forty cantatas of this description are still in existence.

Among the evangelical histories should be included, besides Bach's Passion Music, his Christmas and Ascension oratorios. It is probable that this name was given to the works merely for the sake of brevity; the works are not oratorios such as Handel's, but church music, which was performed during the service, the Passions on Good Friday afternoon, before and after the sermon, the others on the respective festal days, before the morning sermon. The term "histories," however, seems appropriate, because in these works the narration of events in the words of the Bible constitutes as it were the thread which joins together the manifold parts. The old church custom of intoning passages from the Bible is the foundation upon which these works have been built up, during successive centuries of development. Since the intoning of long selections, such as the accounts of Christ's sufferings and death, was too fatiguing for a single clergyman, it was usual to distribute them among a number, and in such a way that one delivered the narrative portion, another the words of Christ, a third the utterances of all the other speaking persons introduced. From this custom proceeds the peculiar distribution of the text among the different singers, which is found in the Passion music of Bach. For the rest, their style is precisely the same as that of the church cantatas. Of the five Passions of Bach, only three are preserved. The St. Luke Passion, which has often been considered spurious, but upon insufficient grounds, belongs to his earliest youthful period, and may have been written in Arnstadt, perhaps even in Lüneburg. It can claim nothing more than a historical interest, in comparison with the other two. The St. John Passion was probably produced for the first time on the 17th of April, 1724—the Matthew Passion certainly on the 15th of April, 1729, both performances taking place in the St. Thomas's Church at Leipsic. They are undoubtedly the most comprehensive of the existing works of Bach. Represented without abridgment, the St. Matthew Passion alone occupies about two hours and a half, so that with the sermon and the remaining portions of the liturgy, the afternoon service must have covered a space of four hours. The dress in which these two works are clothed corresponds to their intrinsic value; both belong to the richest, most powerfully conceived and most affecting compositions of all people and all ages. The St. Matthew Passion is smoother in form, more varied, and appeals more directly to the hearer. For want of the assistance of a competent poet, Bach was compelled to make many still perceptible alterations in the earlier work: it is moreover pervaded by a certain severity and gloom. For this reason it is somewhat less dear to the hearts of the German people than the St. Matthew Passion, which has become with the process of time one of the most popular of vocal compositions. Very nearly the same may be said of the Christmas "history," composed in 1734, a bright, joyous and charming production, offering a complete contrast to the Passion Music. It is divided into six sections, from the fact that the twelve days between the 25th of December and the 6th of January form a continuous festival period, in which six days are especially celebrated, namely: the three days of Christmas, New Year's Day, New Year's Sunday and the Epiphany. One part of the work is devoted to each of these days. The shortest of the histories was composed for Ascension Day and has only the length of the ordinary church cantata. Singularly enough, there is no Easter history by Bach; his little Easter "oratorio," which in this case has more right than usual to the name, since it approaches in style the Italian works thus designated, though far from resembling those written by Handel, is not to be reckoned among his important achievements.

In Bach's day, it was the custom in Leipsic to render in Latin the magnificat performed at the afternoon service on the three great festal days. It is owing to this circumstance that Bach composed his splendid composition, which was probably performed for the first time on Christmas day in the year 1723. Certain portions of the Latin mass were moreover still in general use, especially the "Kyrie" and the "Sanctus," the employment of the "Gloria" being confined to Christmas Day. Since the "Kyrie" was a regular part of the service on the first Sunday in Advent, a certain connection was thus established between it and the "Gloria," and this may be one of the reasons why Bach composed a number of so-called short masses, consisting only of those two parts.[2] And as the practice of performing the whole of a Latin mass was not yet entirely given up in the Protestant church, more particularly in Leipsic, it is easily explained how Bach could conceive the project of writing a work of the kind in Latin. In the beginning, he only contemplated writing a "Kyrie" and a "Gloria," and these, being completed on the 27th of July, 1733, were presented to the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. One after another, however, the remaining parts were added and the entire work was finished as early as 1738. To produce it as a whole, under the conditions existing in Leipsic at that time, was utterly impossible, and it is probable that Bach never heard a full public performance of his grandest work. So much the more admirable was the courage displayed by him in undertaking a composition, which frees itself from the limitations of the actual and exists only in the realm of the ideal. In this mass all distinction between Protestant and Catholic is done away with and nothing remains but a universal Christian church, the image of which appears in the gigantic work, for whose creation Bach summoned all his powers and which has no equal in the world. Its only rival is the "Messiah" of Handel, and the difference between the two compositions is a consequence of the difference in the men who produced them. Handel, the oratorio composer, treated his subject historically, while Bach remained in the domain of the church, which, however, he extended far beyond the limits of a narrow belief, a matter of no concern to him when his genius took its loftiest flight.

Bach's vocal church compositions, which, on account of their novelty and difficulty, had seldom been employed in his lifetime, were almost entirely forgotten for a considerable period after his death. The first revival of interest in them took place in North Germany, towards the end of the last century, when Bach was beginning to find proper recognition and was even acknowledged to be Handel's equal in greatness. In 1800, several publishers began an edition of his works, so strongly was the tide turning in his favor. During the time of the Napoleonic campaigns and the German war of independence, Handel was in the ascendancy, but when the long period of political inactivity supervened and the people found leisure for reflection and introspection, Bach's time had come. A decisive manifestation of the popular appreciation of his standing as an artist was afforded by the performance of the St. Matthew Passion, under the auspices of Mendelssohn on the 11th of March, 1829. In 1850 the Bach Society was founded in Leipsic, in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of his death. The object of this society is to promote the publication of carefully revised editions of the master's works. Thus far, forty-eight folio volumes have been issued, and in a few years the task will be completed. A detailed description of the personality and the works of Bach, considered in their relation to his time and the age which preceded him, has been given to the public by the author of this essay. Meantime the most surprising progress has been made in the direction of a proper understanding of Bach's music. From year to year it has steadily grown more familiar in both hemispheres, and the art of the composer has already become so closely identified with the culture, not only of the German people, but of the entire world, that there is no danger of its ever again being forgotten.