It not infrequently happens that talented composers and players are
incapable of imparting their skill to others. Either they have never
troubled to probe the mechanism of their own facility, or, through the
excellence of their instructors, have taken the short cut to proficiency
and allowed their teacher and not their own judgment to decide how a thing
should be done. Such people are useless to instruct beginners. True,
they may succeed in teaching the rudiments of technique, assuming that
they have been properly taught themselves. But they are certainly
unqualified to teach in the full sense of the word. There is, in fact,
only one way to become a good teacher, and that is to have gone through
the discipline of self-instruction, a path along which the beginner may go
astray a thousand times before attaining to perfection. For it is just
this stumbling effort that reveals the dimensions of the art. The man who
has adventured it learns the obstacles that obstruct his path, and how to
surmount them. To be sure, it is a lengthy method. But if a man has
patience to persevere he will reap a sure reward after an alluring
pilgrimage. No musician ever founded a school of his own who has not
followed such a course, and to his experience his teaching has owed its
distinctive character.
This is so with Bach, who, only gradually discovering his full stature,
was thirty years old before unremitting application raised him above the
difficulties of his art. But he reaped his reward. Self-discipline set
him on the fairest and most alluring path that it has ever been given to a
musician to tread.
To teach well a man needs to have a full mind. He must have discovered how
to meet and have overcome the obstacles in his own path before he can be
successful in teaching others how to avoid them. Bach united both
qualities. Hence, as a teacher he was the most instructive, clear, and
definite that has ever been. In every branch of his art he produced a
band of pupils who followed in his footsteps, without, however, equalling
his achievement.
First of all let me show how he taught the Clavier.(173) To begin with,
his pupils were made to acquire the special touch of which I have already
spoken.(174) To that end for months together he made them practise nothing
but simple exercises for the fingers of both hands, at the same time
emphasising the need for clearness and distinctness. He kept them at these
exercises for from six to twelve months, unless he found his pupils losing
heart, in which case he so far met them as to write short studies which
incorporated a particular exercise. Of this kind are the _Six Little
Preludes for Beginners,_(175) and the _Fifteen Two-part Inventions,_(176)
both of which Bach wrote during the lesson for a particular pupil and
afterwards improved into beautiful and expressive compositions. Besides
this finger practice, either in regular exercises or in pieces composed
for the purpose, Bach introduced his pupils to the use of the various
ornaments in both hands.
Not until this stage was reached did Bach allow his pupils to practise his
own larger works, so admirably calculated, as he knew, to develop their
powers. In order to lessen their difficulty, it was his excellent habit
to play over to them the pieces they were to study, with the remark,
“That’s how it ought to sound.”(177) It would be difficult to exaggerate
the helpfulness of this method. The pupil’s interest was roused by hearing
the piece properly played. But that was not the sole result. Without the
help thus given the pupil could only hope to overcome the difficulties of
the piece after considerable effort, and would find it much less easy to
realise a proper rendering of it. As it was, he received at once an ideal
to aim at and was taught how to surmount the difficulties the piece
presented. Many a young performer, still imperfect after a year’s
practice, probably would master his music in a month if he once had it
played over to him.
Bach’s method of teaching composition was equally sure and effective.(178)
He did not begin with the dry details of counterpoint, as was the custom
of other teachers in his day. Still less did he burden his pupils with
the physical properties of sound, which he held to be matter for the
theorist and instrument-maker rather than the composer. He started them
off at once on four-part harmony over a figured Bass, making his pupils
write each part on a separate stave in order to impress on them the need
for accurate harmonic progression. Then he passed to Hymn tunes, setting
the Bass himself and making his pupils write the Tenor and Alto parts. In
time he let them write the Bass also. He insisted on correct harmony and
on each part having a real melodic line. Every musician knows what models
Bach has left us in this form. The inner parts of his four-part
Hymn-tunes are so smooth and melodious that often they might be taken for
the melody. He made his pupils aim at similar tunefulness, and until they
showed a high standard of merit did not permit them to write compositions
of their own. Meanwhile he aimed at cultivating their feeling for pure
harmony and for the order and connection of ideas and parts by
familiarising them with the compositions of others. Until they had
acquired facility in those qualities he neither permitted them nor held
them competent to put pen to paper.
Bach required his pupils in composition to work out their musical ideas
mentally. If any of them lacked this faculty he admonished him not to
compose and discountenanced even his sons from attempting to write until
they had first given evidence of genuine musical gifts. Having completed
their elementary study of harmony, Bach took his pupils on to the theory
of Fugue, beginning with two-part writing. In these and other exercises
he insisted on the pupil composing away from the Clavier.(179) Those who
did otherwise he ridiculed as “Harpsichord Knights.” In the second place
he required rigorous attention to each part and its relation to the
concurrent parts, permitting none, not even an inner one, to break off
before it had finished what it had to say. He insisted upon a correct
relation between each note and its predecessor. If he came upon one whose
derivation or destination was not perfectly clear he struck it out as
faulty. It is, indeed, a meticulous exactitude in each individual part
that makes Bach’s harmony really multiple melody. Confused part-writing,
where a note that belongs to the Tenor is given to the Alto, or vice
versa, or the haphazard addition of extraneous parts to a chord which
suddenly shows an increase of notes as if fallen from the sky, to vanish
as suddenly as they came, are faults found neither in his own nor his
pupils’ writing. He regarded his musical parts as so many persons engaged
in conversation. If there are three, each of them on occasion may be
silent and listen to the others until it finds something relevant to say
itself. But if, at an interesting point of the conversation, an
interloping voice intervened, Bach regarded it as an intruder and let his
pupils understand that it could not be admitted.
Notwithstanding his strictness on this point, Bach allowed his pupils
considerable licence in other respects. In their use of certain
intervals, as in their treatment of harmony and melody, he let them
experiment within the limits of their ability, taking care to
discountenance ugliness and to insist on their giving appropriate
expression to the character of the composition. Beauty of expression, he
postulated, was only attainable on a foundation of pure and accurate
harmony. Having experimented in every form himself, he liked to see his
pupils equally adventurous. Earlier teachers of composition, for instance,
Berardi,(180) Buononcini,(181) and Fux,(182) did not allow such liberty.
They were afraid to trust their pupils to encounter difficulties, and
short-sightedly prevented them from learning how to overcome them. Bach’s
system was wiser, for it took his pupils farther, since he did not limit
their attention, as his predecessors did, to the harmonic structure, but
extended it to the qualities that constitute good writing, namely,
consistency of expression, variety of style, rhythm, and melody. Those
who would acquaint themselves with Bach’s method of teaching composition
will find it fully set forth in Kirnberger’s _Correct Art of
Composition._(183)
As long as his pupils were under his instruction Bach did not allow them
to study any but his own works and the classics. The critical sense,
which permits a man to distinguish good from bad, develops later than the
aesthetic faculty and may be blunted and even destroyed by frequent
contact with bad music. The best way to instruct youth is to accustom it
early to consort with the best models. Time brings experience and an
instructed judgment to confirm the pupil’s early attraction to works of
true art.
Under this admirable method of teaching all Bach’s pupils became
distinguished musicians, some more so than others, according as they came
early or late under his influence, and had opportunity and encouragement
to perfect and apply the instruction they received from him. His two
eldest sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emmanuel, were his most
distinguished pupils, not because he gave them better instruction than the
rest, but because from their earliest youth they were brought up amid good
music at home. Even before they began their lessons they knew what was
good. On the other hand, others, before they became Bach’s pupils, either
had heard no good music or their taste had been already vitiated by
contact with bad. It at least attests the excellence of Bach’s method
that even his pupils thus handicapped took high rank in their profession
and distinguished themselves in one or other of its branches.(184)
Bach’s first pupil was JOHANN CASPAR VOGLER, who received instruction from
him in his early days at Amstadt and Weimar and, on Bach’s testimony, was
an exceedingly able player. He became organist, and later burgomaster, at
Weimar, retaining his professional position. Some Choral Preludes by him
for a two-manualed Organ with pedals were engraved about 1737.(185)
Other pupils of Bach who became famous were:
1. HOMILIUS, of Dresden. He was not only an excellent organist but
a distinguished composer of church music as well.(186)
2. TRANSCHEL, of Dresden. He was a fine musician and performer on
the Clavier. There exist in MS. six Polonaises by him which perhaps
are superior to those of any composer but Wilhelm Friedemann
Bach.(187)
3. GOLDBERG, of Königsberg. He was a very finished player on the
Clavier, but without any marked talent for composition.(188)
4. KREBS, Organist at Altenburg. He was not only a player of the
first rank, but also a prolific composer for the Organ, Clavier, and
of church music. He was fortunate in having Bach’s instruction for
nine years.(189)
5. ALTNIKOL, Organist at Naumburg. He was Bach’s son-in-law and is
said to have been a very competent player and composer.(190)
6. AGRICOLA, Court Composer at Berlin.(191) He is less known as a
composer than as a theorist. He translated Tosi’s(192) _II canto
figurato_ from Italian into German and provided the work with an
instructive commentary.
7. MÜTHEL, of Riga. He was a good Clavier player and wrote for that
instrument. His Sonatas and a Duet for two Claviers attest his
ability as a composer.(193)
8. KIRNBERGER,(194) Court Musician at Berlin to the Princess Amalia
of Prussia.(195) He was one of the most distinguished of Bach’s
pupils, full of genuine enthusiasm for his art and eager to assure
its interests. Besides his exposition of Bach’s system of teaching
composition, we are indebted to him for the first logical treatise
on harmony, in which he sets forth his master’s teaching and
practice. The first work is entitled _Kunst des reinen Satzes,_ and
the second, _Wahre Grundsätze zum Gebrauch der Harmonie._(196) He
served the interests of his art also by other writings and
compositions, and was an excellent teacher. The Princess Amalia was
his pupil.
9. KITTEL, Organist at Erfurt. He is a sound, though not a
finished, player, and is distinguished as a composer by several
Organ Trios, so excellent that Bach himself might have written them.
He is the sole survivor (1802) of Bach’s pupils.(197)
10. VOIGT, of Anspach,(198) and an organist named SCHUBART(199) were
mentioned to me by Carl Philipp Emmanuel as having been Bach’s
pupils. He knew nothing about them except that they entered his
father’s house after he left it.(200)
I have said already that Bach’s sons were his most distinguished pupils.
The eldest, WILHELM FRIEDEMANN BACH, came nearest to his father in the
originality of his genius. His melodies have quite a different character
from those of other composers. They are exceedingly clever, elegant, and
spontaneous. When performed with delicacy, as he played them, they cannot
fail to charm every hearer. It is greatly to be regretted that he
preferred to follow his fancy in extemporisation and to expend his genius
on fugitive thoughts rather than to work them out on paper. The number of
his compositions therefore is small, but all are beautiful.
CARL PHILIPP EMMANUEL BACH, who comes next, went out into the world
sufficiently early to discover that it is a good thing for a composer to
have a large public behind him. Hence, in the clearness and easy
intelligibility of his compositions, he approaches the popular style,
though he scrupulously avoids the commonplace.(201) Both he and his elder
brother admitted that they were driven to adopt a style of their own by
the wish to avoid comparison with their incomparable father.
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH BACH, Concertmeister at the Court of Bückeburg,
imitated Carl Philipp’s style, but was not his equal. According to Wilhelm
Friedemann, he was the best player among the brothers, and the most
effective performer of their father’s Clavier compositions.
JOHANN CHRISTIAN BACH, called “Bach of Milan,” and afterwards “Bach of
London,” was the youngest son of Bach’s second marriage and of too tender
an age when his father died ever to have had lessons from him. Hence,
perhaps, the absence of Bach’s style in his music. He was, in fact, a
popular composer universally admired in his day.(202)