recollect with great pleasure the dainty dances and intermezzi--for
example in the E flat major suite, and especially that in B minor
with overture in French style (Largo--Fuga--Largo) which appeared in
the second part of the Klavierübung as a piece for two manuals. It
presents, among the many intermezzi, a gavotte in the style of the
orchestral Partiten, which links itself with the choicest dances, in
graceful style, of the preceding century. From the clavier-suites we
pass to the clavier-sonatas, which, still in the style of Italian
art, mingled with dances, offer free combinations of different
movements. The melodious andante of the D minor sonata, and its
final allegro-movement rattling off almost in one part, are perfect
pearls. A step further we reach the fantasias with fugues; especially
the polyphonic one in A minor, the recitatival “Chromatische” and
the concerto-like C minor, fugally treated, but still not a fugue.
These three fantasia-pieces were Bach’s direct bequests to the
future. In the polyphony of the brilliantly rushing fantasia in A
minor, rising with endlessly delicate melody, we are reminded of the
“Meistersinger”; in the chromatic fantasia, with its broad narration
and grandiose concluding pedal point, the clavier seems to us to speak
with the freedom of a drama; in the significantly constructed C minor
fantasia rests the whole formal talent of the instrumental composers
of the expiring eighteenth century.
The three “brilliant” fantasias incline naturally to the concerto
style, which partly abandoned counterpoint in favour of a mere
accompaniment, and partly subordinated it to the careful elaboration
of a single voice-part. The problem of committing a whole concerto
to the clavier alone, Bach has solved in his famous “Italian
Concerto”--Italian in the conception of the style of execution
proper to concertos, which in Italy developed itself specially on
the violin--Italian in the form of a slow movement enclosed by two
quicker movements, which had emerged as the most practical method
for the violin (half in rivalry with the Tutti, half in the interest
of solo virtuosity). Bach has in the Italian concerto perfectly
attained the object of writing in several movements a clavier piece
fit for execution. The grand sonatas of a later time have been able
to add nothing essential to it. The first movement is an ingenious
combination of pregnant motives, which reminds us of tutti-effects,
of running semiquaver figures, and melodious passages on moving
quaver accompaniment, which correspond to the second lyrical theme
of sonatas. The slow movement is a great recitative song with a
berceuse-like accompaniment, of a structure so delicate that we are
irresistibly reminded of the contours of old primitive pictures.
It has the dainty grace of archaic outline, just like that in the
two-part interwoven arioso[80] of the B minor Prelude, or in the crisp
melody of the E flat Prelude (Wohltemperiertes Klavier I.). The third
movement, which is quicker, unravels the whole into the cheerful
linked play of floating parts, unsurpassed in elegant construction by
any of the great formalists. Floating passages run up and down among
chords, falling like drops of rain, and the voices combine in pleasant
unity.
[Illustration: Facsimile of Title-page of Bach’s Manuscript of the
Wohltemperiertes Klavier. In the Royal Musikbibliothek, Berlin.]
The entire multiformity of music at the beginning of the eighteenth
century is expressed in the clavier-works of Bach. As yet the
sonata-form with its two themes, and its “free” section in the middle
of the movement, has not become the consecrated scheme;[81] and
all the forces which had gradually worked towards this form exert
themselves unfettered, in order to make themselves effective now in
this, now in that combination of movements and parts of movements.
“Thematic” is not neglected. To a series of suite-movements similar
commencing motives are given, and the motives of earlier parts are
taken up in the later. But this tendency to unity does not act as
a restraint upon form, and does not reduce everything to one stiff
mould. There is a fugue with a prelude, by Bach, that in E flat major
(Wohltemp. Kl. i.), which offers perhaps the most delicate example of
this unrestrained unity of motive. The Prelude, which is much longer
than the fugue, begins with semiquaver figures, whose characteristic
is melodious sustained passages advancing by sixths and sevenths;
after this introduction, begins in toccata-fashion a kind of slow
fugue, which unfolds the just heard motive in a terser form; and
finally, in a third part, mingles itself with the former semiquaver
figure. The fourth part is so to speak moulded in the fugue form,
which in its “subject” makes use of the characteristic leap of a
seventh, found in the Prelude, as a main feature, and brings the play
to a conclusion in a busy and lively manner. The relations of motive
are only to be _felt_, not seen; but they are _there_, and give to
the formal freedom of this piece a vigour of its own. Thus, in many
of Bach’s pieces, apart from the direct thematic motives, we shall
find this indirect assonance, which, springing from a general feeling
of unity, is, in fact, a more dainty framework for the piece than any
unity that could be impressed on it from outside.
So also is it with the construction of the pieces. We find everywhere
traces of the later sonata-style; and not less in the dance-forms
than in free movements. It was too natural to repeat the beginning of
the piece at the end, then to transpose a second theme into the main
key, and in the centre to work out the main motive in a kind of free
fantasia. But so long as the author held fast to the binary form of
the piece, and to the Da capo of each half, as was the case at this
time, so long did the parts of the “developments” and repetitions fail
to concentrate themselves so completely as not to leave a rich field
of varied forms in which fancy could move at ease. Bach’s imagination
was keen enough to give to every one of these forms, as they developed
themselves each moment, a natural and elemental strength. A toccata by
him, although they are all very various in form, or a fantasia, like
the C minor, which is of sonata-character, is built up so firmly and
self-evidently that the later uniformity of the sonata seems rather to
betray a weakening than a strengthening of style.
[That the severe forms of Prelude and Fugue are abundantly capable of
expressing poetical ideas is easily shown. Turn only to the D minor
Prelude and Fugue in the second part of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier.
Although the casual reader perceives in the one movement merely an
exercise in two parts, in the other, one in three parts, it requires
only a slight exercise of imagination to see that the work really
pictures some such feelings as the following: In the Prelude, a man
suddenly realises himself in the true “out-of-doors” of this life,
with the rain and hail of difficulties and troubles sensibly battering
him. Bravely, but ineffectually, he tries to push through the tempest,
and sinks wearily into half-sleep, is awakened by a renewed riot of
the elements around, tries harder than before, and longer too, to
impress himself on his circumstances, and be master of things, and
succeeds in a sorrowful kind of way, for the storm passes, sighs
itself out, and he at last can rest. In the Fugue, he tries to begin
his work in the world. His efforts are strong in their intention, but
die down as weakly as the devil himself could wish, one after another.
But though these messengers of his will return to him empty again and
again, he still goes on. “It is the best I can do, and something may
come of it in the end,” he seems to say. And there is in the final
bars, where the subject occurs for the last time, a certain expression
of savage pleasure at the thought of not having given in, mingled with
the abiding knowledge of an abundant measure of continual failure,
such as is no imagination to any man who cares about his work, and has
arrived at the sorrowful conviction that most of his walking must be
done in the dark.][82]
Perhaps the Bach Preludes show this freedom on the most liberal scale.
For the Prelude is not so much a kind of form, like the Toccata, but
a mere Piece before a Piece; it lays down the lines to be followed,
but in itself is uncertain, unfixed in form. The Prelude may be a
Toccata or a Sonata, a Symphony or an Invention; it can let its upper
part, in arioso style, wander over the continuo, or it may burst forth
in fullest polyphony. It may have the rhythm and regularity of beat
of the dances, or may speak with the freedom of recitative without
thought of a repetition. The abundance of possibilities which Bach
found at his disposal in the working out of themes, construction,
and style, are mirrored in the Preludes, from the real fugue to the
playful method of the court-musicians.[83] Anyone who undertakes
the pleasant task of simply running through the Preludes of the
“Wohltemperiertes Klavier” (vol. ii.), will be able to appreciate
the full spring-like freshness in which the free music of this time,
so rich in promise for the future, lived out its life. And, like the
discriminating observer of nature, he will admire, in just these yet
unspoilt forms, the great harmony and natural unity which is exhibited
by the young life of the creation. The Prelude in E major will always
seem to me a blossom of this spring-time (“Wohlt. Kl.” i.)--one of
the daintiest pieces ever written for the clavier. In an easy 12/8
time the poem begins with an allegretto theme, ingeniously invented,
and playful in style. It is supported by two voices; but they soon
take part canonically in the delightful movement. We have, in the
play of cheerful thought, come to the dominant of the dominant[84]
(F sharp), and from this F sharp we rest, in a humorous change, a
moment on D, and even G, till, just as rapidly, we emerge through
a chromatic maze at B natural once more (Bar 8). The repose of the
succeeding dominant passage is gently stirred by ravishing transient
modulations, on which the very spirit of happiness seems to rest. A
beautiful chain of syncopations leads us through F sharp minor, and a
jubilant run of semiquavers, built on a dominant chord on E, brings us
to the recapitulation of the opening subject in the key of A (Bar 15),
starting from which the movement repeats itself accurately (for eight
bars) in its eternal cheerfulness, the piece closing with a couple
of bars in Schumann’s ingenious manner, still sweetly suggesting the
spring-song of its earlier strains.
We find, then, that nothing essentially new in “form” has been used
by later artists, of which the germ did not already exist in Bach.
Nay, even in programme-music (supposed by many to be an invention of
modern times) for the clavier, which Kuhnau so quaintly worked out
in his Biblical Stories,[85] Bach has entered the field in a youthful
composition. He is singing the departure of his brother. The first
adagio movement in anapæstic rhythms represents the flattery of the
friends, who are trying to dissuade the traveller from his journey. It
is time for the fugue, and this is the picture of various misfortunes
which may befall him in foreign parts. A mournful arioso passage on
a ground bass,[86] chromatic in character, is a universal lament
of his friends. In a full-chorded Intermezzo they come and bid him
good-bye, seeing that it cannot be otherwise. Now the postillion sings
his air, broken with octave passages, representing the smacks of his
whip; and since a fugue is the end of all good things, we hear one in
four parts raise itself above the post-horn, with whip episodes to
increase the realism. The young Bach did not go as far as Frohberger,
who represented the assaults of robbers, crossings of the Rhine, and
even forcible ejectments with violence, on the clavier; or as Kuhnau,
who had given the cheating of Laban in “deceptive” cadences,[87] and
Hezekiah’s doubtings in the rehearsal of a choral; yet this kind of
programme-music declined in the eighteenth century precisely as it has
grown up again in the nineteenth.
If we believe Spitta, Bach also left behind him one of those
anagram-pieces which were so in the taste of his time--the fugue
on the letters B A C H. But the composition seems too leathern and
insipid for us to be able to express a decided opinion. There is in
literary criticism a well-known false method--the wish utterly to deny
insipidity to the great. But since Bach’s authorship of the “B A C H”
fugue is not vouched for, and since he never elsewhere put together
so many dull pages, we are not compelled to load his memory with its
weight.
[Illustration: John Mattheson, at the age of 37.]
As we find in Bach the possibilities of all the great forms of the
succeeding centuries, so we find in him also all the germs of future
expression, rhythm, harmony, and melody. Nothing is more perverse than
to regard this music as academic and expressionless. Expression is
never absent from counterpoint except when it sacrifices impressionism
to the mere display of technical mastery. We shall even to-day seek
in vain for piano compositions more full of expression than some
of the preludes contained in the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. In the
remarkably decadent C sharp minor, in the B minor, so full of gentle
mournfulness, in the E flat minor with its grandiose solemnity, in
the B flat minor with its organ-like seriousness, or in the F major
with its Meister-singer melody[88] (in Part II. Wohlt. Kl.), there
is an unsurpassed depth of expression. Nowhere is there a greater
variety of characters than would be presented by a comparison of the
fugal themes in this work. Merely to turn over a few of its pages is
to see before us an abundance of content which no other music-book
would easily conceal in so narrow a space. It is in the service of
expression that the motives for the architecture of the fugues are
unfolded; in the service of expression the rhythms are developed,
whose skilful planning is only clearly seen in a piece like the G
major Prelude (Wohlt. Kl. i.); in the service of expression are formed
the harmonies, from their simple successions, as in the C major
Prelude (W. Kl. i.) or of the C sharp major Prelude (W. Kl. ii.)
to the complicated retardations and tied notes of the B flat minor
Prelude (Wohl. Kl. i.), or in the B minor fugue (W. Kl. i.) on a theme
so wonderfully sad that no bolder chords can be found in the days of
the most furious chords of the seventh. In Bach, says Marpurg, the
different talents of a hundred other musicians were united.
Bach played very quietly. In his time technique began to change its
principles. The hand was no longer to be held out flat, but curved, so
as to provide a series of hammers rather than levers. The passing of
the fingers over each other, as practised by Mattheson, a player of
distinction almost equal to Bach and Handel, gave way to a systematic
_under_-passing; and the thumb, which Bach had seen applied by former
generations only to wide stretches, began its important part as the
“linking” finger. The remains of Bach’s finger-exercises, and the
directions which stand in the lesson-book of his son Philip Emanuel,
have been usefully compared[89] by Spitta, who has drawn a picture
of the technique of John Sebastian, which in its grandeur well fits
with his work. “It was a system of under-moving fingers, worked out by
unparalleled practice and talent, applying not merely to the thumb
but to the middle fingers, and usually so arranged that only a longer
finger can pass over a shorter.[90] This produced a technique which,
like Bach’s work, united past and future in one classic method. Our
thumb-technique, which in essentials goes back to Philip Emanuel, is a
mere fragment of Bach’s method, just as the whole succeeding art was,
compared with Bach, but a fragment on a large scale.” But it is hard
to be clear on these matters. Before the time of “schools” technique
was a matter of personality; and reconstruction to us of a later age
is utterly out of the question.
Should a diligent scholar try to reconstruct from Bach’s pieces his
technique, so far as it had influenced musical form, he would soon be
brought to a pause. For when we examine this literature, we see that
to the master everything was possible, and that he never gave form
to a conception for the sake of technique. He is a stupendous genius
who does not write for everybody, and therefore his compositions are
often difficult; but the difficulties are never against the genius of
the clavier, and can be conquered by anything but idleness. He has,
again, written some taking show-pieces, like the Prelude and Fugues
in A minor (Steingräber, vii. 29), which, as “paying” salon pieces,
sound much harder than they are; and, alongside of these again, are
pieces which spring from the very joy in the abundance of possible
techniques and of new conceptions. To this class belongs, if genuine,
the Fantasia in A minor (Steingräber, vii. 8), in which pure technical
fireworks are let off, of short scale passages for both hands,
swinging chords and octaves, running motives with astonishing passage
effects, passages of sixths with over and under accompaniments, and
melodious phrases with embellishing harmonies. But here the first rank
is taken by the famous “Goldberg” variations, already printed by Bach,
partly set for two manuals, an album of thirty technical conceptions,
in which everything possible in tone-material is contained, from
arioso to canon, from _grave_ to _presto_; everything, in fact, which
Bach ever adopted for the setting of his ideas. The twenty-ninth
variation, which can also be played on one manual, brings before us
chords and passages of interwoven beauty which prepare beforehand the
way for Liszt. Even in technique, then, the genius of Bach stretches
over centuries.
It cannot be exactly maintained that Bach treated the clavier wholly
individually, but he nevertheless has helped to individualise it.
At the beginning of last century, when the clavier was still for
the most part an accompanying instrument, when it sustained in the
orchestra the foundation-harmonies, even if at the same time another
clavier entered in concerto-wise, genius itself could not release the
instrument from this corporate conception without running against
the whole spirit of the time. It is remarkable how Bach left it the
character of a thorough-bass instrument, and yet allowed it so much
independence. It has at one time the divided nature of the unifying
organ, as organ-pieces were then regarded still as practically ready
for the clavier; at another the pizzicato and running character of
the lute. Bach could entitle his formally interesting E flat major
piece, Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro (Steingräber, vii. 30) as Prélude
pour le luth _ò çembal_.[91] From the traditions of the lute and organ
the peculiar nature of the clavier comes into existence, and it was
in the maintenance of the _via media_ between these less delicately
expressive extremes that its future lay. How _individually_ Bach
regarded the clavier is seen in the pieces in which it is combined
with flute and viol da gamba or violin, or in the concertos with
one, two, three, or even four claviers. Among these the C major and
D minor concertos with three claviers, now combined, now isolated,
represent the highest points of this older form of the concerto, as
yet not adapted for solo-virtuosity. But yet plainer is his insight
in the direct transcriptions which he has made of violin pieces for
the clavier. He interpolates in the freest fashion middle voices,
which are kept together by “pedals;” ornamentations which draw out
the air of the melody in clavier-style; or rapid vibrating over-parts
which make up for the loss of the long-drawn violin tones. And by
this insight into the peculiar character of the clavier, he makes
it more capable not only of speaking with its own voice, but also
of spreading over wider circles the literature of other instruments
by means of suitable and self-intelligible transcriptions. Bach’s
extreme love of this instrument, which so often gave him the means of
expression for his musical conceptions, contributed not the least to
such an interpretative mission. Slowly the world accustomed itself to
understand music, not _per chorum_, but _per instrumentum_.
It is at this point that the great need is felt. A mechanical advance
is required to bring the expressive capacity of the clavier into a
line with the demands of genius upon it. The rivalry between the
clavicymbal and the clavichord[92] was not yet quite decided. In
Romance lands the former was the favourite; in Germany the latter.
On the former great effects could be better produced; on the latter
the more soulful tone, and the unique embellishment called “Bebung.”
Bach wrote much, including the Wohltemperiertes Klavier, for the
clavichord, which even his son Philip Emanuel still preferred to
the clavicymbal. But he was so unable to disguise from himself the
counter advantages of the fuller and broader quill-instrument, that
he published pieces for “Kiel-flügel”[93], with two manuals and
registers for forte and piano. These registers were the only means
for giving light and shade to the monotonous note of the “cymbal”;
to give light and shade by turns, as in the organ, so that on the
upper manual a melody could be played loud, and on the lower the
accompaniment could be played soft. In Kuhnau we see the forte and
piano, which he aimed at by simply striking on the clavichord, used
as a means of expression. In the Biblical Stories Jacob has just
been cheated by Laban, in receiving Leah for Rachel. “The bridegroom
is contented,” as a minuet shows us; but “his heart prophesies
misfortune,” and the measure rushes on, becomes piano and più-piano;
suddenly Jacob takes heart again--forte; after a bar or two he goes to
sleep--piano; he wakes--forte; falls into deep slumber--piano. In his
“Italian Concerto” Bach had made a much more specialised use of this
by the register. He had mingled loud and soft parts, and each hand
alternately is marked forte or piano. In these, and similarly in the
echo-movement of the suite with “Ouverture à la manière française,”
we are led to think of a splendid clavicymbal, such as the one
preserved ostensibly as Bach’s in the Berlin Museum of Instruments.
In that, every one of the combinations of four strings can be altered
by pulling a register: the manuals admit of coupling, and a soft
lute-stop is provided.
[Illustration:
Pedal-clavichord. Consisting of two manual clavichords, with
two strings to each note, of (8 ft. and) 4 ft. tone, and a
pedal-clavichord with four strings to each note, two 16 ft. and two 8
ft. Inscribed “Johann David Herstenberg, Organ-builder at Geringswald,
made us, 1760.” De Wit collection. ]
We know of a hundred attempts to improve the sound of the clavier,
and make it more expressive. Here, too, the eighteenth century is the
experimental preparation for the happy successes of the nineteenth.
Now the string-choruses were tuned in octaves, now pedals were added
for low notes, now the sound-boards were strengthened, now the lower
strings were made of copper, and the higher of steel; and throughout
a rich experience was acquired as to the best way of constructing the
separate parts. Leather plectrums appear everywhere in order to make
the tone softer and less metallic. The clavier, in fact, was made to
imitate all possible orchestral instruments, and even such natural
phenomena as thunder and lightning, by means of register-stops. Or,
the forte and piano stops were combined, ever more artistically, into
as many as two hundred and fifty permutations, so that an endless
number of shades was possible.