BACH AND HÄNDEL.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH.
Born March 21, 1685, at Eisenach.
Died July 28, 1750, in Leipsic.
Johann Sebastian Bach was the son of the city musician of Eisenach, and
a descendant of about ten generations of musical Bachs. His father
having died when the boy was young, the latter's brother, Johann
Christoph, gave him lessons for some time, after which he studied with
other masters of considerable celebrity, and at the age of seventeen he
was engaged as violinist in the private orchestra of Prince John Ernst,
of Saxe-Weimar. He held this place, however, for but a few months,
leaving it to accept a more desirable one as organist in the new church
at Arnstadt. During the time he held this position he made several
journeys on foot to Lübeck to hear the famous Buxtehude play, and later
paid the same compliment to another eminent organist. The most
important of the early positions which Bach held was that of director
of chamber music, and organist to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and here,
after seven years' service, he was made chief concertmeister. In 1717
he left Weimar to accept a position as musical director at Köthen,
where he had a better opportunity to express himself with orchestra.
In 1723 be became cantor of the St. Thomas School at Leipsic and music
director of the university, as the successor of Johannes Kuhnau. In
this position he had the direction of the music in the St. Thomas
Church, where he had at his disposal an orchestra, organ, and two
choirs, besides which he trained the school-children. He here wrote an
enormous amount of church music, consisting of a very large number of
cantatas for church service, of which first and last he seems to have
produced five entire series for every festival Sunday in the year.
These cantatas were short oratorios consisting of choruses, solos,
recitatives, instrumental movements, and were frequently of
considerable elaboration. Many of them are now lost, but a very
considerable number remain. He also composed five oratorios for the
Good Friday season--Passion music--of which three yet remain, the most
famous one being the "St. Matthew's Passion."
[Illustration: Joh. Sebastian Bach, Geo. Fred. Händel]
Bach was married twice, and had, in all, eleven sons and nine
daughters, of whom six sons and four daughters survived him. As a
practical musician Bach excelled upon the violin, the organ, and the
clavier, and he left a very large number of works in all three of these
departments, works which still remain the admiration of musicians the
world over. His genius was unquestioned in his own lifetime, and the
memory of it remained lively even during the fifty years following his
death when very few of his works were accessible.
The most complete biography of Bach is the large work by Spitta, in
three volumes, in which the entire life-history of this great master,
and all the circumstances amid which he worked, his discouragements,
and what he accomplished, have been traced with most patient and loving
care.
The list of Bach's compositions includes three sonatas and three
partitas (generally classed as six sonatas) for violin alone; six
sonatas for violin and piano, a large quantity of chamber music of one
sort and another, a few orchestral suites, and about ten large volumes
of music for the clavier and for the organ.
GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL.
Born February 23, 1685, at Halle.
Died April 14, 1759, in London.
Händel was the son of a surgeon and it was the wish of his father to
educate him to his own profession, but the inclination to music was so
strong that it was impossible to prevent him from following it, and,
accordingly, he had the best training it was possible to get in the
vicinity. When the boy was eleven years old he was taken to Berlin and
placed under the instruction of Bononcini and Ariosti, Italian music
being then the style at the Prussian court. At the age of sixteen
young Händel had obtained a position as organist, and he was also a
fine clavecin player and a good violinist. A few years later we find
him at Hamburg, where he played the clavecin in the orchestra and was
sometimes conductor. Here he produced several operas--"Nero,"
"Daphne," "Florindo," "Almira"--with so much success that in 1707 he
made a journey to Italy for further perfecting himself in the Italian
style. Accordingly he spent some months in Florence, three months in
Rome, thence back to Florence to produce a new opera, and by the new
year of 1708 he was in Venice, where his second Italian opera,
"Agrippina," was produced. From Venice he went again to Rome, where he
wrote two short oratorios for Cardinal Ottoboni.
He had already made the acquaintance in Venice of Scarlatti, Corelli,
and of Antonio Lotti. He accompanied the Scarlattis to Naples and
remained with them about a year, and there was great rivalry in regard
to the harpsichord playing of Händel and Domenico Scarlatti. This
success made Händel's name so celebrated that it led to his being
invited to London, where he went in 1712 to bring out some operas. He
liked London so well that he remained there all the rest of his life.
During a part of this time he was himself the manager of the opera,
importing his principal singers from Italy, producing his own operas as
well, occasionally, as those by other composers, and experiencing in
the vocation of manager the vicissitudes well known to attend it. He
made and lost several fortunes; but finally, at his death, had paid up
all claims against him and left to charity a very handsome estate.
In London he produced a large number of operas, and then, about 1733,
he began to compose oratorios, and in 1741 produced the "Messiah,"
which had a great success. He also composed a large amount of
instrumental music, and was very famous as an organist. He composed a
large number of concertos for organ with orchestra, and he was in the
habit of playing a new organ concerto in the intermission of an
oratorio.
The number of Händel's works is extremely large. All his operas are
now forgotten. Nevertheless individual fragments remain, such as the
famous alto air, "Lascio Pianga," and many others. From his
instrumental works also many charming bits have survived and still
please the public, such, for instance, as the famous "Largo." Of the
oratorios, his greatest are the "Messiah" and "Israel in Egypt." The
most complete biography of Händel is that by Chrysander.
* * * * *
In order to appreciate the importance of Bach and Händel in the history
of music, it is necessary to know something of the condition of the
world of music when they commenced to work in it. The music-making of
the world at that time had come from three original sources, and, in
spite of the vast increase in the number of composers and in the volume
of musical production, these streams had been kept, and still remained,
almost entirely distinct from each other.
At the foundation of all the art of music lies the folk-song--simple
melodies which spring up in every country and are easily learned, and
pass from one to another until they become current over large extents
of territory. The folk-song had its origin, most likely, in the dance;
and the dance, in turn, was an artistic evolution from the cadenced
chant, accompanied by a measured march, with which the early religious
services were performed. The folk-song of the nation naturally
disposed itself in the tonality most esteemed by the people, and,
accordingly, we find in some countries that most of the folk-songs are
in major tonality, while in others minor tonality prevails; the rhythm
being determined by the favorite dancing step of the people. Thus, in
Germany, many of the folk-songs are waltzes; in Spain, seguidillas; and
in Italy, tarantellas. The making of folk-songs must have gone on
continually through the spontaneous creation of new melodies by gifted
but untaught musicians in all parts of the musical world. These
melodies were seldom written down, but were passed from one to another
orally; and down to the time of Händel and Bach very little recognition
of the folk-song as a possible element in art had been accorded by any
trained musician. This is not the place to trace the evolution of the
folk-song into more and more symmetrically disposed phrases and
agreeable relations of tonality. Enough to say that from the rather
slow and minor songs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, folk-song
had blossomed out until, in the time of Bach, it had come to express
very much of the simple delights and sorrows of the natural people.
At the opposite extreme from the folk-song were the operations of the
thoroughly trained composer. While the folk-song developed itself
entirely by ear,--and the ear and feeling of the untaught musician were
his sole guide in the production of an agreeable melody,--the trained
composer for many centuries entirely disregarded the testimony of the
ear, or admitted it in only a slight degree. His principal care was to
carry out the rules which he had been taught; and in following this
tradition,--the operation of which was almost entirely unchecked by the
musical sense properly so called,--the tendency was constantly toward
greater and greater elaboration, since only in elaboration could the
mastery of the composer be shown. The art of combining tones had been
handed down for some centuries almost entirely in the form of what is
known as counterpoint, in which the relation of each voice melody to
the others was more considered than the chords resulting as the voices
moved from one tone to another. This art had its origin apparently in
France, and the most promising of the early compositions we know were
those produced at the Sorbonne about the eleventh century. By the
thirteenth or fourteenth century the pre-eminence had been transferred
to the Low Countries, and the Netherlands became the great hothouse of
contrapuntal development.
This tendency to extravagant display of learning manifested itself in
the Netherlanders in almost every department; and whoever will read the
accounts of their receptions and festivals, with the elaborate Latin
poems and processions which attended the ceremonies, will find in the
music of those times the same qualities brought to expression.
Nevertheless, the ear could not be entirely ignored, and now and then a
master arose with genius and musical intuition necessitating his
pruning his compositions more or less in accordance with the dictates
of the ear; and thus there were such masters as Adrian Willaert, who
founded a school in Venice somewhere about 1500, and Orlando di Lasso,
who founded that in Munich at about the same time. Among the
multitudinous works of these men are many which are simple, or at least
musical in the proper sense. Nevertheless, as yet, simplicity in this
so-called high art was accidental and momentary, and complication was
the rule of its being and the measure of its power.
The complication of the works of the contrapuntal school almost passes
belief. All kinds of imitations, canons, and fugal devices; inversions
of motives, so that an ascending melody was transformed into a
descending melody and vice versa; the enlargement or augmentation of a
motive by doubling or quadrupling the length of each one of its tones;
the diminution of a motive by shortening its tones to a quarter of
their original value; modification by repeating its rhythm in the
chromatic scale in place of the melodic intervals of the original
figure, and even to the extent of reversing motives, so that the
melodic steps were made in reversed order from the end to the
beginning;--and in the midst of all this elaboration the composer or
the trained listener of the time was supposed to enjoy not alone the
music as such, but all these complicated devices of the composer.
When these things had been carried out in movements having as many as
sixteen voice parts, which was not a phenomenally large number at that
time, two results unexpected by the composer almost necessarily came
about. The first of these was the production of chord successions
which could be felt by the hearer only as such, since sixteen real
parts moving within the three octaves of choral compass were
necessarily obliged to cross each other continually, whereby the
contour of the different voice melodies became lost in the mixture, and
only the chords and chord successions came to realization. In this
way, perhaps, the perception of harmonic good and evil was very much
forwarded where nothing of the kind had been intended. The other
result was the practical exhaustion of all these artificial resources
for conveying an impression of power in a composer. When everything
had been done that could be done, the new composer necessarily had to
take a different path and arrive in some other way; otherwise he became
merely a repeater of what had been done before.
All the scientific composition up to about the middle of the sixteenth
century had been designed for voices, and the great bulk of it for the
service of the Church. Presently, however, a distinctly secular music
began to be developed, in which, very naturally, lighter principles of
composition prevailed. Thus arose a great literature of madrigals,
which generally were love-songs or glees, containing many of the
devices of the extremely well-taught composer already mentioned, but
also having in them a lively rhythm and a pleasant quality which, even
after the lapse of three centuries and more, still has power to impress
and please our ears. A little later an instrumental music of the
cultivated kind began to be developed. The two Gabriellis, in Venice,
wrote various kinds of organ pieces of a semi-secular flavor; the
violin found its form, and, by the beginning of the sixteenth century,
had become an instrument somewhat highly esteemed. The principal
instrument still in use among the people, however, was the lute, which
had taken the place of the harp, and both these instruments naturally
tended to develop a taste for chords, since chords were what might be
called their "natural product."
About the year 1600 a new department of musical creation was opened in
the discovery of opera. This great form of art, which has now attained
so much importance, was an accidental evolution from the effort to
recover the Greek drama, in which, owing to the size of the theaters,
the lines were chanted or intoned rather than spoken, in order that the
voice might carry farther. The first operatic composers sought only a
clear expression of the declamation, and intended to give their written
notes similar effects to those which a speaker's voice would produce in
the emphatic delivery of the sentiments and words of the text.
Accordingly, the first opera had no melody, properly so called; but
almost immediately, in 1608, there appeared a genius in this new form
of composition, Monteverde, who not only introduced melodies, but also
made a very intelligent use of harmony, and, above all, showed himself
the founder of modern instrumentation by placing the violin at the head
of the orchestra. Then ensued in Italy a century of the most animated
musical productivity the world has ever seen. Operas followed each
other from a great variety of composers, and opera-houses were erected
in all the principal cities; opera was played everywhere, sometimes by
the support of princes and sometimes by the support of the people
themselves.
The development of opera was the most important creative inspiration
which had ever come into the art of music, since, in the nature of the
case, everything was new. What the music sought to do almost
immediately, beginning with Monteverde himself in his opera "Tancred,"
was to represent the feeling of the dramatic moment. Almost at the
very first they began to use music in the melodramatic way for
accompanying the critical moments of the action, when the performers
were not singing, and the forms of the singing utterance differentiated
themselves into recitatives for the explanatory parts and arias for the
more impassioned moments; and then, very soon, there came ensemble
pieces, in which several performers sang together.
Thus all kinds of emotional situations were presented to music for
representation and comment, and thus, upon the expressive side, music
received the highest possible stimulation. At the same time, through
the competition of composers for pleasing the ear, there was an ever
increasing tendency toward symmetry and graceful forms. And so the
aria became, after a little, a piece of vocal display, often entirely
opposed to the action, and sometimes foreign to the genius of the
scene; still, it was heard for the sake of the pleasure which people
have in a skilfully managed voice. Toward the end of this century,
somebody, whose name I do not at this moment recall, began to introduce
into opera occasional moments of which the people's song was the type;
short movements which did not aim at display or at immense dramatic
expression, but sought to please by simplicity alone. In this way,
through the desire of the operatic composers to avail themselves as far
as possible of the technical resources of composition acquired by the
learned musicians of the contrapuntal schools, and to please their
hearers and to astonish them in various ways, all the different forces
in music began to exercise themselves and come to expression in opera;
but as yet nothing of the sort had made any great progress in
instrumental music.
Thus we come to the period of Bach and Händel, both of whom began to
write shortly after 1700. In the working out of their respective
talents, both these composers show their well-schooled musicianship,
according to all the learning of the contrapuntal schools--but with
very important differences. Händel had all his life a predilection for
diatonic tonality, and it is very rarely indeed that he deals with the
chromatic at all, and never with the enharmonic. All the music in
which he best expressed himself was written for voices, and as a master
of vocal effect he still holds a distinguished position, particularly
in the creation of compositions in which a large number of voices can
be effectively massed. He also had a distinct flavor of the folk-song
in many of his melodies, and in some instances the folk-song is the
entire work. Such, for instance, is the case in "See, the Conquering
Hero Comes," in "Joshua," and in several of the short instrumental
movements in "Joshua," "Solomon," and his other oratorios.
Bach, on the other hand, was of a much more intensely organized musical
temperament. His genius was of the greatest possible character. As a
virtuoso he not only played upon the organ, the clavecin, and the
violin better than most of his contemporaries, and upon the organ
probably better than any; he also created works in these three
departments which held the attention of his own time to an astonishing
degree, considering the meager means of communication among men, works
which still remain, in our time, the indispensable corner-stones of the
literature of these three instruments. The violinist gets a large part
of his mastery through the sonatas of Bach for violin solo, the
organist learns his art from Bach, and the pianist finds "The
Well-tempered Clavier," and many other works of Bach written for the
clavecin of indispensable importance for the development of intelligent
playing.
The peculiar importance of Bach to modern music lies in the delicacy of
his sense upon the harmonic side and upon his intuition of the
emotional value of musical combinations. In the form of his work he
always more or less resembled his predecessors, the fugue underlying,
probably, something more than half of all the music he wrote. But he
also showed a strong tendency to impart to his work the vivacity of the
folk-song and the expressive melodic quality which he had already found
in the violin. Owing to his intensely sensitive harmonic perceptions,
he was never able to confine himself for long to the more obvious
chords of the key. The diatonic chords and combinations in which
Händel found an ever complete satisfaction are not sufficient for Bach,
and we find continually new chords, evasive cadences, and a flowing
continuity of thought belonging to the master mind.
Hence to the ordinary student there are two difficulties in the way of
appreciating and enjoying Bach. The first one is the somewhat antique
flavor of much that he wrote, for it is now almost two hundred years
since many of Bach's compositions were completed; and the second is
this sensitive and evasive harmonic fancy, which surpasses the capacity
of untrained hearers. Hence, such works as the recitatives in the
"Chromatic Fantasia," the beautiful modulations and changes in the
organ Fantasia in G minor, and scores of other passages that might be
mentioned in the larger works of Bach, are the legitimate pleasure of
advanced musicians or of those especially gifted; but there is a whole
world of Bach which lies nearer, within our reach, and it is this more
accessible part of the land of Beulah that the present program will
approach.
The importance of Bach in the world of art is further attested by the
inspiration which he has been to all great composers since his time.
In this respect he is the musician's musician _par excellence_. There
has never yet appeared a master so advanced as not to find delight in
the works of Bach, and in the opinion of many, all things considered,
he was the most richly endowed genius who has ever adorned the art of
music.
PROGRAM.
Invention in C major. From the Two-part Inventions. No. 1.
Invention in F major. From the Two-part Inventions. No. 8.
Saraband in D minor. Fifth English Suite.
Loure in G major. Heinze. Third 'Cello Suite.
Song, "My Heart Ever Faithful."
Preamble in E major. Sixth Violin Sonata. Heinze.
Saraband in E minor. Fifth English Suite.
Gavotte in E major. Tours. Sixth Violin Sonata.
Cradle song, from the Christmas Oratorio.
Prelude and Fugue in C minor. Clavier. Book I, No. 2.
"Hope in the Lord." Arranged by William Mason from the celebrated
Largo. Händel.
Menuet in D major. First 'Cello Suite. Heinze.
Gavotte in B minor. Saint-Saëns.
(All the instrumental pieces of this program except the two inventions
and the Tours arrangement of the Gavotte in E are in the "Bach Album,"
Peters edition, No. 1820, fifty cents. The inventions are in the
Peters edition, fifty cents. The prelude and fugue in C minor may be
had separately, as also the two songs.)
The conditions of being pleased with this program are that it be played
in a melodious and expressive manner upon a good-toned piano, and that
the songs are reasonably well done.
The selections from Bach in this program are intended to illustrate the
lighter and, so to say, more superficial characteristics of Bach's
music. Accordingly, the inventions are taken to show his manner of
developing a piece from a single motive, which by many repetitions
remains as a text all through the movement. The same principle carried
much farther will be found later in Schumann.
The sarabands illustrate Bach's method in slow movements. These being
written for the clavier, which in Bach's time had little tonal value,
are rather meager in their development, but when played with a very
sincere, melodic quality of tone, and treated exactly like expressive
singing, with the necessary rise and fall of the phrase (varying
intensity, as the idea advances or retrogrades), will always please.
Moreover, while very short, such is the cleverness of their
construction that they interest a musician very much.
The gavottes, being arranged from pieces which Bach wrote for clavier
with other instruments, are naturally more free; both because Bach had
the benefit of a stringed instrument--violin or 'cello--for
intensifying the melody, and because they have been recently arranged
for piano solo, and hence manifest more of the modern treatment of the
piano.
The song, "My Heart Ever Faithful," is really instrumental in its
character. In the second part the melody lies very badly for the
voice. It is practically an instrumental piece in which the voice is
the sole instrument.
Owing to the length of the program and the relatively greater
importance of Bach in the development of music, only one selection is
given from Händel--Dr. William Mason's adaptation of the words, "Hope
in the Lord," to the Händel largo. This melody is so well known as not
to require further comment. In later programs other selections from
Bach will be given which will illustrate the larger aspects of his
style, and, above all, his intense emotionality. This quality, which
was once popularly denied concerning Bach, is now recognized by all
musical hearers, and it should be brought out in the playing. Another
essential characteristic of a successful Bach interpretation is the due
observance of the rhythm, which is always admirably organized in Bach's
works. Rubato must be introduced in a very sparing manner, and always
in such a way as not to destroy the rhythm of the period as a whole.
If the student is disposed to undertake this work seriously, it will be
advantageous to enter into an analysis of one or more of the Bach
selections (or better, perhaps, assign each selection to one member for
study and report), in order to ascertain exactly in what manner he uses
motives to answer each other, when he continues upon the same motive,
and when he branches off with other material. The inventions will be
easiest for this purpose. It would be an advantageous exercise to play
the inventions while the hearers note the number of times the leading
idea occurs in each one. The object of this exercise is to lead
unaccustomed hearers to note the actual musical idea--motive--instead
of remaining passively attentive, taking in the music by contemplation.
The latter attitude of hearing is the one best adapted for receiving
whatever emotional movement there may be in the music; but since the
larger works depend upon the development of musical ideas as such, it
is desirable to acquire the habit of attending to them. The passive
contemplation may be applied later to more emotional works. With Bach
the purely musical is the first object of his work.