support of public credit, on the usual terms of 15 pounds per cent.
deposit, 3 pounds per cent. premium, and 5 pounds per cent. interest. So
great was the concourse of people in the early part of the morning, all
eagerly bringing their money, that it was thought the subscription would
be filled that day; but before noon the tide turned. In spite of all
that could be done to prevent it, the South Sea Company's stock fell
rapidly. Its bonds were in such discredit that a run commenced upon the
most eminent goldsmiths and bankers, some of whom, having lent out great
sums upon South Sea stock, were obliged to shut up their shops and
abscond. The Sword-blade Company, which had hitherto been the chief
casher of the South Sea Company, stopped payment. This, being looked
upon as but the beginning of evil, occasioned a great run upon the bank,
which was now obliged to pay out money much faster than it had received
it upon the subscription in the morning. The day succeeding was a
holiday (September 29th), and the bank had a little breathing-time. It
bore up against the storm; but its former rival, the South Sea Company,
was wrecked upon it. Its stock fell to 150, and gradually, after various
fluctuations, to 135.
The bank, finding it was not able to restore public confidence and stem
the tide of ruin, without running the risk of being swept away, with
those it intended to save, declined to carry out the agreement into
which it had partially entered. "And thus," to use the words of the
_Parliamentary History_, "were seen, in the space of eight months, the
rise, progress, and fall of that mighty fabric, which, being wound up by
mysterious springs to a wonderful height, had fixed the eyes and
expectations of all Europe, but whose foundations, being fraud,
illusion, credulity, and infatuation, fell to the ground as soon as the
artful management of its directors was discovered."
BACH LAYS THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN MUSIC
A.D. 1723
HENRY TIPPER
Our first recognized triumph in the marvellous modern development of
music, the first great masterpiece which taught the world the beauty
of which the art is capable, was Bach's _Das Wohltemperirte
Clavier_. The production marks, therefore, "the first great climax
of musical art."
Like the other arts and sciences, the story of music is that of a
slow building up. Music "divinest of arts, exactest of
sciences"--for music is both an art and a science--has developed
from the crude two-or three-note scale melody, without semitones, to
the elaborate, ornate lucubrations of the modern oratorio, opera, or
symphony. From the beginning the "half-sister of Poetry" has been
the handmaid of Religion. The ancients ascribed miraculous
properties to music. Of the actual system of the Egyptians our
information is very scant; but we learn from the monuments depicting
the number and variety of their instruments that they had advanced
from childish practice to orchestration and harmony. According to
Plato, "In their possession are songs having the power to exalt and
ennoble mankind." The harp is undoubtedly of Egyptian origin.
In Israel plastic art was discouraged; the natural emotion of the
people was, therefore, expressed in poetry and music. Miriam, the
daughter of Jephthah, Deborah, and later the Virgin, whose grand
chant, the _Magnificat_, is ever being upraised from Christendom's
heart, portray the deep emotional temperament of this great
religious race.
The artistic standard of the music of the Greeks was far behind that
of their observation and intelligence in other matters. Their
theories on the combinations, of which they never made use, and
analysis of their scales show much ingenuity, but their accounts are
so vague that one cannot get any clear idea of what these were
really like. When art is mature, people do not tell of city walls
being overthrown, of savage animals being tamed--as run the stories
of Orpheus and Amphion. One Greek there was, Pythagoras, who
discerned the association between the distant music of the spheres
with the seven notes of the scale. "He discovered the numerical
relation of one tone to another."[28] It was about the time of
Pythagoras that a scheme of tetrachords which did not overlap was
adopted.
In Persia and Arabia was obtained a perfect system of intonation.
The Chinese system is minutely exact in theory, bombastic in fancy.
The Hindus sedulously avoided applying mathematics to their scales.
The development of the scale is shown in the construction of the
ancient Greek scale, the modern Japanese, and the aboriginal
Australian scale, and the phonographed tunes of some of the Red
Indians of North America. Here a reference must be made to the scale
of the Scotch bagpipe, a highly artificial product, without
historical materials available to assist in unravelling its
development. It comprises a whole diatonic series of notes, and
modes may be selected therefrom.
But it is to Rome that we owe the seed of our modern methods of
treatment. The Netherland school had been highly developed there by
a long line of distinguished masters, who paved the way for the
gifted Palestrina, who exalted polyphony to a secure eminence equal
to that attained by the arts of painting and architecture. He
brought forth a perception of the needs which music suffered, adding
an earnestness and science to a profound quality of simpleness and
grace. It was between 1561 and 1571 that his genius mellowed and his
style took on those characteristics upon which was based the future
music of the Catholic Church. It was while he was Maestro at the
Vatican that he submitted to the Church the famed _Missa Papæ
Marcelli_, which determined the future of church music.
The culmination of art in music is strikingly shown in the subjoined
article from the pen of that great authority, Mr. H. Tipper.
The first tonal prophet and poet of the modern era, the era in which
reason made tremendous protest against mere dogma, and the best
religious instincts of human nature called imperatively for emancipation
and for nearer individual contact with God, is Johann Sebastian Bach. We
look dazzled at the brilliant victories of the Italian Renaissance, and
amid tumultuous beauty run riot with imagination we hear the voice of
Savonarola at the close of the period uttering his lamentations. The
great Italian reformer saw and felt that in his own day and in his own
country the glory and beauty of the movement had vanished in sensuality;
that hardness of heart and indifference to primary human needs had
diverted the waters of the Renaissance from their main fertilizing
channel.
The deep need of the epoch was social, not mental, sociality in its
widest sense: the right of the individual; his inherent majesty, which
the accident of birth should not be able to impair--this and this only
was the natural outcome of the new birth which came to humanity; this
and this only was the sequel which German profundity and integrity, not
Italian brilliancy and carelessness, placed before the mind of Europe.
The Reformation, then, this Protestantism, is distinctive of the new
era. It was a protest, not only religious, as the word is usually
applied, but scientific. It is the basis in the modern Western world of
those laws of criticism which have submitted, or will submit, everything
to searching analytical investigation, and as in the case of the natural
world, so in the moral and ethical, men, by the light of revealed truth,
or by those higher instincts of nobility which emanate from the Eternal
Love, seek to apply to the reformation of society those principles of
love, justice, and recompense which each would wish applied individually
to self.
As an inspirer of thought and man of action, the world has seen few such
men as Luther. His genius, as it were, discovered and laid bare the
inexhaustible treasures of the German language; his sympathy and genial
humanity sent a thrill of song, poetical and tonal, throughout the
fatherland. He was the great awakener of German emotion. To Luther, a
man who cared not for song was without the pale of humanity. But his
enthusiasm was practical. In the church, as we have seen, he gathered
from all sources whatever was of the best, and gave it to the people. In
the schools he advocated the cause of song. In the streets the people
needed not advocacy. Wherever two or three gathered together, song was
in the midst of them, and it is not too much to say that the Lutheran
hymn was the saviour of German poetry and a font of German song. In the
seventeenth century there was in Germany little poetry worthy of the
name save that inspired by the devotional character of Luther's genius.
His heir and successor in the realm of tone was Sebastian Bach.
True, two centuries had elapsed between the death of the great reformer
in morals and the birth of the great reformer in tone; but the work of
the latter could not have been without the former. The chorale was
introduced by Luther; it was perfected by Bach. To what other influence
than the Lutheran can we attribute the growth of Bach? Are there any
other resources of German art and thought which can account for the
advent of the great musician? In art Duerer stood by the side of
Luther. In him again we find a man. Thought, thought! help me to
express my native thought. Teach me to express in my art the reality of
Nature, its wonderful beauty, thrice beautiful to me an artist; the
pathos of life, its realism, far apparently from the ideal, yet most
precious to me as a man. This was the aim of Duerer, and he seems a man
after the Lutheran mould.
The aim of Duerer may be found in some respects in Bach's work, because
both men were men of integrity, great and patient in soul. This, of
course, is not to say that Bach was affected by Duerer, but is merely an
endeavor to find what was noblest in Germany preceding Bach. One more
allusion. In Bach's art we trace the mystic; not shadowy outpourings of
hysterical emotion, but beauties of eternal verities disclosed in
vision--faint, it is true--to none save the noblest of mortals.
One such kindred spirit preceding Bach was Boehme, the father of German
mysticism, the poor cobbler, whose soul lay far away in the regions of
celestial love, and whose utterance is of the realities thereof. These
three men, Luther, Duerer, Boehme, are those to whom the great musician
Bach is akin, but he is truly the child of the former, and the father of
the highest aspirations in instrumental music.
For confirmatory evidence we have only to trace the growth of the Bach
family. The progenitor, Veit Bach, was born at Wechmar, near Gotha, in
1550, and, following his trade as a baker, settled, after considerable
wanderings, near the Hungarian frontier. Veit Bach was a stanch
Lutheran. Whether the Lutheran services had given him a love of music,
or whether they had only quickened a constitutional sympathy, it is
impossible to say. Certain it is that he was passionately fond of music,
and, cast for a period among a population whose emotions found constant
and ready utterance in tone, he brought back to Wechmar, whither he had
returned on account of religious persecution, his beloved cythringa and
the art of playing it. There is evidence that this knowledge afforded
him consolation and enjoyment in the quiet monotony of his life. While
the mill was working, Veit Bach was often playing; and doubtless the
peculiar charm and rhythm of old Hungarian melodies, songs of the
people, which he had learned from the wandering gypsies, recurred to
him, as well as those grand devotional hymns on which he had been
nourished from childhood. We have said that Veit Bach was a stanch
Lutheran. From father to son through generations, the Lutheran doctrine,
pure and undefiled, had been handed down, accompanied by the musical
gift, until both, uniting in Sebastian Bach, born at Eisenach in 1685,
served to glorify the Lutheran chorale and the art which perfected it.
Again, the traditions of the great reformer must have been imbibed by
Sebastian Bach from infancy. Surrounding his native town lay a circle of
wooded heights, from one of which arose the Wartburg, that illustrious
shrine of the German nation whither in mediæval and modern times her
sons have repaired to exhibit and replenish their lamp of genius. There
the minnesingers had gathered in contest a song; thither as a modern
Elijah came the great monk, weary of soul, yet whose immortal genius
unfolded the page of Sacred Writ; and down the wood-clad slope came
issuing the melody of the Hebrew psalmist, translated into German speech
and entering into German hearts, mingled with the narrative of the
Redeemer's passion lit by awful and solemn glory of Eternal Love. Who
shall say that young Bach knew not of these things? Who will contend
that, when his genius matured and ripened, the immortal tones in which
the eternal passion was portrayed owed nothing to this sympathy of
association, this spiritual life with the great reformer born two
centuries before?
Yet once more. The Bach family was full of affection and sympathy one
toward the other. Each year witnessed a reunion of the various members
of the family scattered throughout Thuringia, and each came bearing the
gift of music. As a child among the elders we can imagine how the young
Sebastian revered his uncles, Johann Christopher and Michael Sebastian,
in whom were conserved and developed the Lutheran tonal principles and
traditions; how he somewhat feared the austere character of his elder
brother, Johann Christopher, to whose charge he was intrusted upon the
death of his father.
But we need not imagine how the soul of the young boy was filled with
inexpressible yearning for the art of music. We know that it was so. His
brother, who instructed him, gauged not the nature of the lad. Often and
often did the boy's wistful eyes and loving heart covet the possession
of a manuscript book kept by his brother in strict reserve, containing a
priceless collection of compositions by the great German masters and
mediators. The boy extracted them from their resting-place, and we see
the young tone-prophet striving to master the art-forms of Reinken,
Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Kerl, Froberger, and Pachelbel, endeavoring to
wrest from them their style and inmost meaning by the light of the
moon's pale rays, which led, alas! in after-years to blindness.
What revelations came to the soul of the young musician we know not. But
his genius thus directed knew no pause until it had won forever the
freedom of the tonal art, until the last fetter of conventionality had
been removed, until in all dignity and beauty music came forth,
henceforth to comfort and solace the human heart. But of this anon. We
trace the young boy to school; we see him a chorister in the choir of
St. Michael's, Lueneburg. Here he entered the gymnasium, studying Greek
and Latin, organ-and violin-playing. Here, too, he exhausted the
treasures of the musical library. But at Hamburg the great Reinken was
giving a series of organ recitals. Thither young Bach repaired. At Celle
he became acquainted with several suites and other compositions of
celebrated French masters. In 1703 he became violinist in the
Saxe-Weimar orchestra, and in the same year, aged eighteen, he was
appointed organist at the new church at Arnstadt, where other members of
his family had held similar positions. Thus already we have ample
evidence both of intense activity and catholicity of taste, and now, a
mere youth, he enters upon his life-work: the perfecting of church
music, especially the chorale form, and the emancipation of the art from
any influence whatsoever other than derives from contact with nature and
emotion. If we ask what equipment he had for his task, we answer:
enthusiasm, so deep, so tempered in all its qualities, that, though in a
few years he became the ablest performer of his time upon the
harpsichord and organ, yet never once is the term "virtuoso" associated
in our thought with the purity of aspiration which characterized him.
His enthusiasm was religious, deep-seated, his vision far and wide, and
no temporary triumph, no sunlit cloud of fame, could satisfy the
imperative needs of his inmost nature. And this nature was calm, with
the calmness of strength and with that tender purity and homely virtue
which characterized the surroundings of his boyhood.
This enthusiasm, this religious instinct, for what was noblest and best,
led him early, as we have seen, to seek inspiration from the works of
men who combined in their compositions all that the great previously
existing schools had taught. Bach was never weary of learning if
perchance he could attain a more lucid or more beautiful expression of
his thought. We have, then, this enthusiasm, this capacity for at once
discerning what was best. Add to it one more quality--the religious, in
its best sense, which young Bach possessed to the uttermost, the feeling
that his art was but the medium of expression for the deep things of
God--and we have the equipment with which the young musician started on
his quest.
Young Bach had received no great instruction in the schools of
composition. That which he had he gathered with a catholicity of taste
from all the renowned masters. Not one of his immediate ancestors had
stirred beyond the confines of their simple home. Well for him was it
so. No late meretricious Neapolitan tinsel could exist in the quiet,
calm beauty of his Thuringian dwelling-place. Nature lay before him.
"Come," she said, "seek to understand me. I have treasures that ye know
not of, treasures that can only be gathered by the pure in heart and
patient in spirit. Here around you, in your quiet German home, are the
elements of all your strength. Here there is no distraction. Riches
shall not allure you. Honorable poverty shall minister to your purity";
and young Bach knew that the voice was true, and, heeding it, there came
to him likewise an inner voice, relating spiritual things, even as the
voice of Nature related natural things.
Comprehending, then, his character, we pass on. His work at this period
was formal. He felt, but could not express. But at Lubeck the
noble-hearted Buxtehude was endeavoring to bring home to the hearts of
the people the mission of music. Bach went thither. Fascinated by the
grand organ-playing of the Lubeck master, and listening with heart-felt
love to those memorable concerts of which we have previously spoken,
Bach forgot both time and engagements. When he returned to Arnstadt,
the spirit of Buxtehude was upon him. Henceforth the quiet people of
Arnstadt knew no rest. Variations, subtle, beautiful, a refined and
fuller contrapuntal treatment, mingled with the chorale. The
conservatism of Arnstadt received a severe shock--a dreadful experience,
doubtless, to the quiet German town. Such genius could come to no good
end, and so the consistory and Bach agreed to part.
Bach had married in October, 1707. In 1708, while at Muehlhausen, his
first considerable work, composed for the municipal elector, appeared.
His election at Saxe-Weimar was undoubtedly owing to his playing before
the Duke Wilhelm Ernst, and we can imagine with what pleasure the young
musician, conscious of great power, looked forward to the intellectual
and cultured life for which Weimar was renowned. In the course of a few
years Bach was appointed orchestral and concert director to the Duke.
The liberal atmosphere of Weimar, the appreciation of men whose opinion
was of worth, could but stimulate the mental faculties and widen the
range of thought, and there is a breadth of conception and majesty in
Bach at this period unknown before. With the assiduity of genius he
labored for the realization of his ideal. Palestrina, Lotti, and Caldara
were laid under contribution. The master transcribed the works of these
composers with his own hands, and arranged the violin concertos of
Vivaldi for the harpsichord and organ. It is ever with the greatest
artists. They assimulate all the forms of kindred art, yet never
sacrifice their individuality. The means enabling them to express their
inmost soul must be found, but their soul will alone dictate the form
which its expression will assume.
But Bach is approaching the close of the first period of his career. An
invitation has been given him (1717) to become conductor of the
orchestra at the court of Leopold of Anhalt-Koethen, a prince remarkable
for his benevolence and cultured attainments. Here his duties were
comparatively slight and his leisure abundant. Hitherto he had been
engaged, as it were, in the temple service. At Weimar he had developed
into a great tone-poet of sacred song. With refined strength and
exquisite perception he had gathered up the related parts of song,
weaving them into a unity of impassioned and majestic utterance.
But the great poet must have a wider experience. He must enter, as it
were, into the great deeps of sacred emotion in things natural; he must
perceive in the universe a deeper, a more majestic beauty even than in
the temple. Then he will become a great prophet among his fellows, and
illumine for all time the pathway of life, giving strength to the weak,
consolation to the weary, and song to the blithe and pure of heart. This
is what Bach became in tone. His attention at Koethen was directed
mainly to instrumental music.
We have previously remarked upon the endeavors which certain German
masters made to bring home to their countrymen an appreciation of
instrumental music. How long the seed lay germinating in Bach's mind we
know not. A new idea had taken possession of him, or, rather, he
contemplated the application of the principle of his former labors in
polyphony to instrumental music pure and simple.
At Koethen he supplemented his labors at Weimar. At Leipsic, whither we
shall presently follow him, he brought them to completion.
But we are anticipating. We have seen how patiently, how toilsomely,
Music has broken one by one the fetters of conventionality; how she has
grown in strength and beauty, anticipating the moment of her final
deliverance. It has come at last. With the patience and impatience of
genius Bach strikes in twain the last fetter of conventionality. He has
realized his quest. The boy who, far away in future thought, studied the
art-forms of his great predecessors and contemporaries in the lowly
chamber or by the light of the silent moon, has found his beloved, the
Tonal Muse. She stands free before him to serve his will--his will
purified by conception and incessant effort--and he will lead her in her
new-found freedom and place her in the path of progress.
Bach's compositions at this time include the early part of one of the
greatest of his works, the _Wohltemperirte Clavier_. In this work--the
second part of which was composed at Leipsic--Bach attained the full
mastery of form. The strivings and efforts of the great Netherland
masters found completion in this work of Bach. In it are compressed the
labors of centuries. The works of the masters, Okeghem, Dufay, Josquin
des Pres, and others, are but prophecies in tone, announcing a
realization of their ideal in the centuries yet to come, that ideal
which they felt so particularly, yet could not express. The
_Wohltemperirte Clavier_ then marks the first great climax of musical
art.
The evolution was certain, and it consummated in a kindred mind. The
deepest expression of human feeling, the agony of the dire distress and
conflict of life, the calm majesty of faith which enables the soul to
overcome every obstacle, its pathetic appeal to God for rest and
comfort, the strength of victory, are possible in music, are expressed
in music as no other art can express them, because of Bach.
True to his trust, he extracted all that was best in the works of his
predecessors and, vivifying it by his genius, created forms of
expression which the greatest that have followed him have utilized and
extolled.