To a certain extent the music of Sebastian Bach suffers from the same lack. On the other hand, the spirit of his music is perennial and it holds a rank in the modern ear far above that held by any other harpsichord music. Apart from indefinable reasons of æsthetic worth there are other reasons why Bach’s music, at any rate a considerable part of it, is still with us.
In the first place, the style of its texture is solid. Instead of being crushed, as Couperin’s music is, by the heavy, rich tone of the modern pianoforte, it seems to grow stronger by speaking through the stronger instrument. Bach’s style is nearly always an organ style, whether he is writing for clavichord, for chorus, for bands or strings. It is very possible that a certain mystical, intimate sentiment which is innate in most of his clavichord music cannot find expression through the heavy strings of the pianoforte. This may be far dearer than the added depth and richness which the pianoforte has, as it were, hauled up from the great reservoirs of music he has left us. But it is none the less true that the high-tensioned heavy strings on their gaunt frame of cast iron need not call in vain on the music of Bach to set the heart of them vibrating.
In the second place, the two-and three-part ‘Inventions,’ and the preludes and fugues in the ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord’ have proved themselves to be, as Bach himself hoped, the very best of teaching or practice pieces. It is not that your conventional Mr. Dry-as-dust teacher has power to inflict Bach upon every tender, rebellious generation. It is rather that the pieces themselves cannot be excelled as exercises, not only for the fingers but for the brain. One need not delve here into the matter of their musical beauty, but one must pause in amazement before their sturdiness, which can stand up, still resilient, under the ceaseless hammering of ten million sets of fingers. Clementi and Czerny are being pounded into insensibility; Cramer, despite the recommendations of Beethoven, is breathing his last; Moscheles, Dohler, Kalkbrenner, and a host of others are laid to rest. But here comes Bach bobbing up in our midst seeming to say: ‘Hit me! Hit me as hard as you like and still I’ll sing. And when you know me as well as I know you, you’ll know how to play the piano.’ So Bach has been, is, and will be introduced to young people. He inspires love, or hate, or fear—a triple claim to remembrance.
In the third place, there is an intellectual complexity in his music which, as a triumph of human skill over the masses of sound, deserves and has won an altar with perpetual flame. And the marvel is that this skill is rarely used as an end in itself, but as a means of expressing very genuine and frank emotion. Here we come upon perhaps the great reason of Bach’s immortality—the warmth of his music. It is almost uniquely personal and subjective. In it he poured forth his whole soul with a lack of self-consciousness and a complete concentration. His was a powerful soul, always afire with enthusiasm; and his emotion seems to have clarified and crystallized his music as heat and pressure have made diamonds out of carbon.
Bach was a lovable man, but a stern and somewhat bellicose one as well. He was shrewd enough to respect social rank quite in the manner of his day, as the dedication of the Brandenburg concertos plainly shows; but the records of his various quarrels with the municipal authorities of Leipzig prove how quick he was to unrestrained wrath whenever his rights either as man or artist were infringed upon. A great deal of independence marked him. The same can hardly be said either of Scarlatti or of Couperin, the one of whom was lazy and good-natured, the other gently romantic and extremely polite. Scarlatti rather enjoyed his indifference to accepted rules of composition; and there was nothing either of self-abasement or of self-depreciation in Couperin; but both lacked the stalwart vigor of Bach. Scarlatti aimed, confessedly, to startle and to amuse by his harpsichord pieces. He cautioned his friends not to look for anything particularly serious in them. It is hard to dissociate an ideal of pure and only faintly colored beauty from Couperin. But in the music of Bach one seldom misses the ring of a strong and even an impetuous need of self-expression. In the mighty organ works, and in the vocal works, one may believe with him that he sang his soul out to the glory of his Maker; but in the smaller keyboard pieces sheer delight in expressing himself is unmistakable.
It is this that makes Bach a romanticist, while Couperin, with all his fanciful titles, is classic. It is this that made Bach write in nearly the same style for all instruments, drawing upon his personal inspiration without consideration of the instrument for which he wrote; while Couperin, exquisitely sensitive to all external impressions, forced his fine art to conformity with the special and limited qualities of the instrument for which he wrote the great part of his music. And, finally, it is this which produced utterance of so many varied moods and emotions in the music of Bach; while in the music of Couperin we find all moods and emotions tempered to one distinctly normal cast of thought.
Bach has been the subject of so much profound and special study that there is little to be added to the explanation of his character or of his works. In considering him as a composer for the harpsichord or clavichord, one has to bear two facts in mind: that he was a great player and a great teacher.
There is much evidence from his son and from prominent musicians who knew him, that the technical dexterity of his fingers was amazing. He played with great spirit and, when the music called for it, at a great speed. Perhaps the oft-repeated story of his triumph over the famous French player, Marchand, who, it will be remembered, defaulted at the appointed hour of contest, has been given undue significance. As we have had occasion to remark, in speaking of the contest between Handel and D. Scarlatti, such tourneys at the harpsichord were tests of wits, not of fingers. Bach was first of all an organist and it may be suggested, with no disloyalty to the great man among musicians, that he played the harpsichord with more warmth than glitter. We find little evidence in his harpsichord music of the sort of virtuosity which makes D. Scarlatti’s music astonish even today; or, it may be added, of the special flexible charm which gives Couperin’s its inimitable grace.
Bach is overwhelming as a virtuoso in his organ music, especially in passages for the pedals. In his harpsichord music he achieves a rushing, vigorous style. It must not be overlooked that Bach wrote also for the clavichord, quite explicitly, too. Most of the Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues are distinctly clavichord, not harpsichord, music. That is to say, they require a fine shading which is impossible on the harpsichord. When he wrote for the harpsichord he had other effects in mind. The prelude of the English suite in G minor or the last movement of the Italian concerto may be taken as representative of his most vigorous and effective harpsichord style. They are different not only in range and breadth, but in spirit as well, from practically all of the ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord.’ Nevertheless, though these may be taken fairly as examples of his harpsichord style at its best and strongest, they are not especially effective as virtuoso music. There is sheer virtuosity only in the Goldberg Variations.
To Bach as a teacher we owe the Inventions and the ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord,’ both written expressly for the use and practice of young people who wished to learn about music and to acquire a taste for the best music. Volumes might well be filled with praise of them. It will suffice us only to note, however, that to master the technical difficulties of the keyboard was always for Bach only a step toward the art of playing, which is the art of expressing emotion in music. These two sets of pieces are all-powerful evidence of this—his creed—in accordance with which he always nobly lived and worked. They have but one parallel in pianoforte music: the Études of Chopin. The ‘Well-Tempered Clavichord’ is, and always will be, essentially a study in expression.