The most remarkable feature of the career of Bach is his productivity in the line of choral works. As leader of the music in the St. Thomas church, he had under his control two organs, two choirs, the children of the school and an orchestra. For these resources he composed a succession of cantatas, every feast day in the ecclesiastical year being represented by from one to five separate works. The total number of these cantatas reaches more than 230. Some of them are short, ten or fifteen minutes long, but most of them are from thirty to forty minutes, and some of them reach an hour. Their treasures have been but imperfectly explored, although most of them are now in print. In the course of his ministrations at Leipsic he produced five great Passion oratorios for Good Friday in Holy Week. The greatest of these was the Passion of St. Matthew, so named from the source of its text. This work occupies about two hours in performance. It is in two parts, and the sermon was supposed to intervene. It consists of recitative, arias and choruses, some of which are extremely elaborate and highly dramatic. The other Passions are less fortunate. Nevertheless they contain many beautiful and highly dramatic moments. Bach's oratorios belong to the category of church works, as distinguished from those intended for concert purposes. This is seen especially in the treatment of the chorale, in which he expects the congregation to co-operate. In one direction Bach was subject to serious limitation. His knowledge of the voice, and his consideration for its convenience, were far below the standard of composers of the same time educated in Italy. In his works, while many passages are very impressive, and while the melody and harmony are always appropriate to the matter in hand, the intervals and especially the convenience of the different registers of the voice are very imperfectly considered, for which reason his works have not been performed to anything like the extent to which their musical interest would otherwise have carried them. This is especially true of the greatest of all, the Passion according to St. Matthew. It was first performed on Good Friday, 1729, in the St. Thomas church at Leipsic, and it does not appear to have been given again until 1829, when Mendelssohn brought it out. Since that time it has been given almost every year in Leipsic, and more or less frequently in all the musical centers of the world, but its elaboration is very great and its vocal treatment unsatisfactory to solo voices, for which reason it succeeds only under the inspiration of an artistic and enthusiastic leader. In fact, all the great works of Bach are more or less in the category of classics, which are well spoken of and seldom consulted. While, in Beethoven's time, the whole of the "Well Tempered Clavier" was not thought too much for an ambitious youngster, at the present time there are few pianists who play half a dozen of these pieces. The easier inventions for two parts, some of the suites, several gavottes, modernized from his violin and chamber music, and a very few of his other pieces for the clavier, are habitually played.
It would be unjust to close the account of this great artist without mentioning what we might call the prophetic element in his works. The great bulk of Bach's compositions are in two forms, the Prelude and the Fugue. The fugue came to perfection in his hands. It was an application of the Netherlandish art of canonic imitation, combined with modern tonality. In a fugue the first voice gives the subject in the tonic, the second voice answers in the dominant, the third voice comes again in the tonic, and the fourth voice, if there be one, again in the dominant. Then ensues a digression into some key upon what theorists call the dominant side, when one or two voices give out the subject and answer it again, always in the tonic and dominant of the new key. Then more or less modulating matter, thematically developed out of some leading motive of the subject, and again the principal material of the theme, with one or more answers. The final close is preceded by a more or less elaborate pedal point upon the dominant of the principal key, after which the subject comes in. With very few exceptions the fugues of Bach are in modern tonality, the major key or the modern minor, with their usual relatives.
The prelude is a less closely organized composition. Sometimes it is purely harmonic in its interest, like the first of the "Well Tempered Clavier." At other times it is highly melodic, like the preludes in C sharp major and minor of the first book of the Clavier, and, as a rule, the prelude either treats its motives in a somewhat lyric manner or dispenses with the melodic material altogether. Thus the prelude and fugue mutually complete each other. But it is a great mistake to regard Bach as a writer of fugues alone. He was also very free in fantasies, and one of his pianoforte works, concerning the origin of which nothing whatever is known, the "Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue," is one of the four or five greatest compositions that exist for this instrument. The remarkable thing about this fantasia is the freedom of its treatment and the facility with which it lends itself to virtuoso handling, as distinguished from the rather limited treatment of the piano usual in Bach's works. The second part of the fantasia is occupied by a succession of recitatives of an extremely graphic and poetic character. Melodically and harmonically these recitatives are thoroughly modern and dramatic, the latter element being very forcibly represented by the succession of diminished sevenths on which the phrases of the recitative end. The fugue following is long, highly diversified and extremely climactic in its interest. In other parts of his work Bach has left fantasies of a more descriptive character. He has, for instance, a hunting scene with various incidents of a realistic character, and in general he shows himself in his piano works a man of wide range of mind and extremely vigorous musical fantasy.
In the department of concertos for solo instruments and orchestra, his works are very rich. There are a large number for piano, quite a number for organ, several for two and three pianos, with orchestra, and various other combinations of instruments, such as two violins and 'cellos, and so on. In these each solo player has an equal chance with the other, and solos and accompaniment work together understandingly for mutual ends. The most noticeable feature of his elaborate works is the rhythm, which is vigorous, highly organized and extremely effective. In the department of harmony, it is believed by almost all close observers that no combination of tones since made by any writer is without a precedent in the works of Bach; the strange chords of Schumann and Wagner find their prototypes in the works of this great Leipsic master. Melodically considered, Bach was a genius of the highest order. Not only did he make this impression upon his own time and upon the great masters of the next two generations, but many of his airs have attained genuine popularity within the present generation, and are played with more real satisfaction than most other works that we have. This is the more remarkable because from the time of his first residence in Leipsic when he was only twenty-four years old he went out of that city but a few times, and heard very little music but his own. He was three times married, and had twenty-one children, many of whom were musical. Three of his sons became eminent, and the principal episode of his later life was his visit to Potsdam, where his son, Carl Phillip Emanuel, was musician to Frederick the Great. Here he was received with the utmost informality by the king and made to play and improvise upon all the pianos and organs in the palace and the adjacent churches. As a reminiscence of this visit he produced a fugue upon a subject given by Frederick himself, written for six real parts. This work was called the "Musical Offering," and was dedicated to Frederick the Great. In his later years Bach became blind from having over-exerted his eyes in childhood and in later life. He died on Good Friday in 1750.
CHAPTER XXIV.
GEO. FREDERICK HÄNDEL.
