Johann Sebastian Bach, his Life, Art, and Work Part 3

CHAPTER III. BACH AS A CLAVIER PLAYER

As a Clavier player Bach was admired by all who had the good fortune to hear him and was the envy of the virtuosi of his day. His method greatly differed from that of his contemporaries and predecessors, but so far no one has attempted to explain in what the difference consisted. The same piece of music played by ten different performers equally intelligent and competent will produce a different effect in each case. Each player will emphasise this or that detail. This or that note will stand out with differing emphasis, and the general effect will vary consequently. And yet, if all the players are equally competent, ought not their performances to be uniform? The fact that they are not so is due to difference of touch, a quality which to the Clavier stands as enunciation to human speech. Distinctness is essential for the enunciation of vowels and consonants, and not less so for the articulation of a musical phrase.

But there are gradations of distinctness. If a sound is emitted indistinctly it is comprehensible only with effort, which occasions us to lose much of the pleasure we should otherwise experience. On the other hand, over-emphasis of words or notes is to be avoided. Otherwise the hearer's attention will be diverted from the tout ensemble. To permit the general effect to be appreciated every note and every vowel must be sounded with balanced distinctness.

I have often wondered why Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach's _Essay on the Right Manner of playing the Clavier_(117) does not elucidate the qualities that const.i.tute a good touch. For he possessed in high degree the technique that made his father pre-eminent as a player. True, in his chapter on "Style in Performance," he writes, "Some persons play as if their fingers were glued together; their touch is so deliberate, and they keep the keys down too long; while others, attempting to avoid this defect, play too crisply, as if the keys burnt their fingers. The right method lies between the two extremes." But it would have been more useful had he told us how to reach this middle path. As he has not done so, I must try to make the matter as clear as is possible in words.

Bach placed his hand on the finger-board so that his fingers were bent and their extremities poised perpendicularly over the keys in a plane parallel to them.(118) Consequently none of his fingers was remote from the note it was intended to strike, and was ready instantly to execute every command.

Observe the consequences of this position. First of all, the fingers cannot _fall_ or (as so often happens) be _thrown_ upon the notes, but are _placed_ upon them in full control of the force they may be called on to exert. In the second place, since the force communicated to the note needs to be maintained with uniform pressure, the finger should not be released perpendicularly from the key, but can be withdrawn gently and gradually towards the palm of the hand. In the third place, when pa.s.sing from one note to another, a sliding action instinctively instructs the next finger regarding the amount of force exerted by its predecessor, so that the tone is equally regulated and the notes are equally distinct. In other words, the touch is neither too long nor too short, as Carl Philipp Emmanuel complains, but is just what it ought to be.(119) Many advantages arise from holding the hand in Bach's position and from adopting his touch, on the Clavichord and Harpsichord,(120) and on the Organ as well.

I point out merely the most important of them. To begin with, if the fingers are bent, their movements are free. The notes are struck without effort and with less risk of missing or hitting too hard, a frequent fault with people who play with their fingers elongated or insufficiently bent.

In the second place, the sliding finger-tip, and the consequently rapid transmission of regulated force from one finger to another, tend to bring out each note clearly and to make every pa.s.sage sound uniformly brilliant and distinct to the hearer without exertion. In the third place, stroking the note with uniform pressure permits the string to vibrate freely, improves and prolongs the tone, and though the Clavichord is poor in quality, allows the player to sustain long notes upon it. And the method has this advantage: it prevents over-expenditure of strength and excessive movement of the hand. We gather that the action of Bach's fingers was so slight as to be barely perceptible. Only the top joint seemed to move.

His hand preserved its rounded shape even in the most intricate pa.s.sages.

His fingers rested closely upon the keys, very much in the position required for a "shake." An unemployed finger remained in a position of repose. It is hardly necessary to say that that other limbs of his body took no part in his performance, as is the case with many whose hands lack the requisite agility.(121)

A man may possess all these qualities, however, and remain an indifferent performer on the Clavier, just as clear and agreeable enunciation does not necessarily make a good speaker. To be a first-rate performer many other qualities are needed, and Bach possessed them all in a notable degree.

Some fingers are longer and stronger than others. Hence players are frequently seduced to use the stronger whenever they can readily do so.

Consequently successive notes become unequal in tone, and pa.s.sages which leave no choice as to the finger to be used may become impossible to play.

Bach recognised this fact very early in his career. To get over the difficulty he invented exercises for his own use in which the fingers of both hands were made to practise pa.s.sages in every conceivable position.

By this means every finger on both hands equally became strong and serviceable, so that he could play a rapid succession of chords, single and double "shakes," and running pa.s.sages with the utmost finish and delicacy, and was equally fluent in pa.s.sages where some fingers play a "shake" while the others on the same hand continue the melody.

Besides these improvements, Bach invented a new system of fingering.(122) Before his time, and even in his early years, it was usual for the player to pay attention to harmony rather than counterpoint. Even so it was not customary to use every one of the twenty-four major and minor keys. The Clavichord was still what we term "gebunden"; that is, several keys struck the same string, which, therefore, could not be accurately tuned.(123) Consequently it was usual to employ only those keys whose notes were tuned with some approximation to accuracy. Again, good players in those days hardly ever used the thumb, except when a large interval had to be stretched. But when Bach began to melodise harmony so that his middle parts not merely filled in but had a tune of their own, when, too, he began to deviate from the Church modes then in general vogue in secular music, using the diatonic and chromatic scales indifferently, and tuning the Clavier in all the twenty-four keys, he found himself compelled to introduce a system of fingering better adapted to his innovations than that in use, and in particular, to challenge the convention which condemned the thumb to inactivity. It is held by some writers that Couperin forestalled Bach's method of fingering, in his _L'Art de toucher le Clavecin,_ published in 1716. But that is not the case. In the first place, Bach was above thirty years old in 1716, and had already developed a distinctive method of his own. And in the second place, Couperin's system differs materially from Bach's, though both made more frequent use of the thumb than was so far customary. When I say "more frequent use" I do so advisedly; for whereas in Bach's system the thumb is the princ.i.p.al finger-for the difficult keys, as they are called, are unplayable without it-it is not equally indispensable with Couperin, whose thematic material was not so intricate as Bach's, nor did he compose or play in such difficult keys. Consequently Couperin had not an equally urgent need to use the thumb. We need only compare Couperin's with Bach's system of fingering, as Carl Philipp Emmanuel explains it,(124) to discover that Bach's permits every pa.s.sage, however intricate and polyphonic, to be played with ease, whereas Couperin's is hardly effective even for his own compositions. Bach was acquainted with Couperin's works and highly esteemed them,(125) as he did those of other French Clavier composers, for their finish and brilliance. But he considered them affected in their excessive use of ornaments, scarcely a single note being free from them.

He held them, also, superficial in matter.

Bach's easy, unconstrained use of the fingers, his musical touch, the clearness and precision of every note he struck, the resourcefulness of his fingering, his thorough training of every finger of both hands, the luxuriance of his thematic material and his original method of stating it, all contributed to give him almost unlimited power over his instrument, so easily did he surmount the difficulties of its keyboard. Whether he improvised or played his compositions from notes, he systematically employed every finger of each hand, and his fingering was as uncommon as the compositions themselves, yet so accurate that he never missed a note.

Moreover, he read at sight other people's compositions (which, to be sure, were much easier than his own) with the utmost facility. Indeed, he once boasted to a friend at Weimar that he could play at sight and without a mistake anything put before him. But he was mistaken, as his friend convinced him before the week was out. Having invited Bach to breakfast one morning, he placed on the Clavier, among other music, a piece which, at a first glance, seemed perfectly easy. On his arrival, Bach, as was his custom, sat down at the Clavier to play or look through the music.

Meanwhile his friend was in the next room preparing breakfast. In a short time Bach took up the piece of music destined to change his opinion and began to play it. He had not proceeded far before he came to a pa.s.sage at which he stopped. After a look at it he began again, only to stop at the same place. "No," he called out to his friend, who was laughing heartily in the next room, "the man does not exist who can play everything at sight. It can't be done." With that he got up from the Clavier in some annoyance.(126)

Bach also could read scores with remarkable facility and play them on the Clavier. He found no more difficulty in piecing together the separate parts when laid side by side before him.(127) He often did so when a friend brought him a new Trio or Quartet for Strings and wished to hear how it sounded. If a Continuo part, however badly figured, was put before him he could improvise a Trio or Quartet upon it. Nay, when he was in the mood and at the height of his powers, he would convert a Trio into a Quartet by extemporising a fourth part. On such occasions he used a Harpsichord with two manuals and pedal attachment.

Bach preferred the Clavichord to the Harpsichord, which, though susceptible of great variety of tone, seemed to him lacking in soul. The Pianoforte was still in its infancy and too coa.r.s.e.(128) Both for practice and intimate use he regarded the Clavichord as the best instrument and preferred to express on it his finest thoughts. He held the Harpsichord, or Clavicembalo, incapable of the gradations of tone obtainable on the Clavichord, an instrument which, though feeble in quality, is extremely flexible.

No one could adjust the quill plectrums of his Harpsichord to Bach's satisfaction; he always did it himself. He tuned his Harpsichord and Clavichord, and was so skilful in the operation that it never took him more than a quarter of an hour. It enabled him to play in any key he preferred, and placed the whole twenty-four of them at his disposal, so that he could modulate into the remoter as easily and naturally as into the more nearly related keys. Those who heard him frequently could hardly detect the fact that he had modulated into a distant key, so smooth were his transitions. In chromatic movements his modulation was as easy and sequent as in diatonic. His _Chromatic Fantasia,_ which is now published,(129) bears out my statement. In his extemporisation he was even freer, more brilliant and expressive.

When he played his own music Bach usually adopted a brisk pace. He contrived to introduce so much variety that every piece became a sort of conversation between its parts. If he wished to express deep emotion he did not strike the notes with great force, as many do, but expressed his feeling in simple melodic and harmonic figures,(130) relying rather on the internal resources of his art than external dynamics. Therein he was right. True emotion is not suggested by hammering the Clavier. All that results is that the notes cannot be heard distinctly, much less be connected coherently.

CHAPTER IV. BACH THE ORGANIST

What has been said regarding Bach's admirable Clavier playing applies generally to his skill as an organist. The Clavier and Organ have points in common, but in style and touch are as different as their respective uses. What sounds well on the Clavier is ineffective on the Organ, and vice versa. The most accomplished Clavier player may be, and usually is, a bad organist unless he realises the differing natures of the two instruments and the uses they serve. I have come across only two men who can be regarded as exceptions to this general rule-Bach and his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. Both were finished Clavier performers, but no trace of the Clavier style was apparent when they played the Organ.

Melody, harmony, and pace were carefully selected with due regard to the nature and distinctive use of each instrument. When Wilhelm Friedemann played the Clavier his touch was elegant, delicate, agreeable. When he played the Organ he inspired a feeling of reverent awe. On the one he was charming. On the other he was solemn, impressive. So also was his father, and to an even greater degree. Wilhelm Friedemann was a mere child to him as an organist, and frankly admitted the fact.(131) The music that extraordinary man wrote for the Organ is full of dignity, awe-inspiring, saturated with the atmosphere of devotion. His improvisation was even more inspired, dignified, and impressive: for then his imagination was untrammelled by the irksomeness of expressing himself on paper. What is the essence of this art? Let me, though imperfectly, attempt an answer.

When we compare Bach's Clavier compositions with those written for the Organ it is at once apparent that they differ essentially in melodic and harmonic structure. Hence we conclude that a good organist must select fitting themes for his instrument, and let himself be guided by its character and that of the place in which it stands and by the objects of its use. Its great body of tone renders the Organ ill-adapted to light and jaunty music. Its echoes must have liberty to rise and fall in the dim s.p.a.ces of the church, otherwise the sound becomes confused, blurred, and unintelligible. What is played upon it must be suited to the place and the instrument, in other words, must be congruous to a solemn and majestic fabric. Occasionally and exceptionally a solo stop may be used in a Trio, etc. But the proper function of the Organ is to support church singing and to stimulate devotional feeling. The composer therefore must not write music for it which is congruous to secular surroundings. What is commonplace and trite can neither impress the hearer nor excite devotional feeling. It must therefore be banished from the Organ-loft.

How clearly Bach grasped that fact! Even his secular music disdained trivialities. Much more so his Organ music, in which he seems to soar as a spirit above this mortal planet.

Of the means by which Bach attained to such an alt.i.tude as a composer for the Organ we may notice his harmonic treatment of the old Church modes, his use of the obbligato pedal, and his original registration. The remoteness of the ecclesiastical modes from our twenty-four major and minor keys renders them particularly appropriate to the service of religion. Any one who looks at Bach's simple four-part Hymn tunes (Choralgesange) will at once convince himself of the fact. But no one can realise how the Organ sounds under a similar system of harmonic treatment unless he has heard it. It becomes a choir of four or five parts, each in its natural compa.s.s. Compare the following chords in divided harmony:

[Divided Harmony, Bach treatment]

with these:

[Divided Harmony, conventional treatment]

which is the more usual form organists employ. We realise instantly the effect when music in four or more parts is played in the same manner. Bach always played the Organ so, adding the obbligato pedal, which few organists know how to use properly. He employed it not only to sound the low notes which organists usually play with the left hand, but he gave it a regular part of its own, often so complicated that many organists would find it difficult to play with their five fingers.

To these qualities must be added the exquisite art Bach displayed in combining the stops of the Organ. His registration frequently astonished organists and Organ builders, who ridiculed it at first, but were obliged in the end to admit its admirable results and to confess that the Organ gained in richness and sonority.(132)

Bach's peculiar registration was based on his intimate knowledge of Organ building and of the properties of each individual stop. Very early in his career he made a point of giving to each part of the Organ the utterance best suited to its qualities, and this led him to seek unusual combinations of stops which otherwise would not have occurred to him.

Nothing escaped his notice which had the slightest bearing on his art or promised to advance it. For instance, he made a point of observing the effect of large musical compositions in different surroundings. The practised ear, which enabled him to detect the slightest error in music even of the fullest and richest texture, and the art and rapidity with which he tuned his instrument, alike attest his intuitive skill and many-sidedness. When he was at Berlin in 1747 he was shown the new Opera House. He took in its good and bad qualities at a glance, whereas others had done so only after experience. He was shown the large adjoining Saloon and went up into the gallery that runs round it. Merely glancing at the roof he remarked, "The architect has secured a novel effect which, probably, neither himself nor any one else suspected." The Saloon, in fact, is a parallelogram. If a person puts his face to the wall in one corner of it and whispers a few words, another person at the corner diagonally opposite can hear them distinctly, though to others between them the words are inaudible. The effect arises from the span of the arches in the roof, as Bach saw at a glance. These and similar observations suggested to him striking and unusual combinations of Organ stops.

Bach brought the methods I have indicated to bear upon Church music, and they help to explain his extraordinarily dignified and inspired playing, which was at once so appropriate and filled the listener with deep awe and admiration. His profound knowledge of harmony, unfailing originality, freedom from a secular style, his complete command of the instrument, both manuals and pedals, whence flowed a generous stream of the richest and most abundant fancy, the infallible and swift judgment which allowed him always to select from the treasury of his mind precisely the musical ideas best suited to the occasion immediately before him, his intuitive grasp of every detail, and his power to make it serve his artistic ends-in a word, his transcendent genius brought the art of Organ playing to a degree of perfection which, till then, it had never attained and hardly will attain again. Quantz(133) has expressed the same opinion. "The admirable Johann Sebastian Bach," he writes, "brought the art of Organ playing to its highest perfection. It is to be hoped that when he dies it will not be suffered to decline or be lost, as is to be feared from the small number of people who nowadays bestow pains upon it."(134)

Strangers often asked Bach to play to them between the hours of divine service. On those occasions he was wont to select and treat a theme in various ways, making it the subject of each extemporisation even if he continued playing for two hours. As a beginning he played a Prelude and Fugue on the Great Organ. Then he developed it with solo stops in a Trio or Quartet. A Hymn-tune followed, whose melody he interrupted in the subtlest fashion with fragments of the theme in three or four parts. Last came a Fugue, with full Organ, in which he treated the subject alone or in a.s.sociation with one or more accessory themes. Here we have the art which old Reinken of Hamburg considered to be lost, but which, as he afterwards found, not only survived but attained its greatest perfection in Bach.

Bach's pre-eminent position and his high reputation often caused him to be invited to examine candidates for vacant organistships, and to report on new Organs. In both cases he acted so conscientiously and impartially that he generally made enemies. Scheibe, late Director of Music at the Danish Court, who as a young man was examined by Bach on such an occasion, was so incensed by Bach's unfavourable verdict that he afterwards avenged himself in his "Critical Musician" by violently attacking his examiner.(135) In his examination of Organs Bach equally exposed himself to trouble. He could as little prevail on himself to praise a bad instrument as to recommend a bad organist. He was, therefore, severe, though always fair, in the tests he applied, and as he was thoroughly acquainted with the construction of the instrument it was hopeless to attempt to deceive him. First of all he drew out all the stops, to hear the Full Organ. He used to say jokingly, that he wanted to find out whether the instrument had good lungs! Then he gave every part of it a most searching test. But his sense of fairness was so strong that, if he found the work really well done, and the builder's remuneration too small, so that he was likely to be a loser, Bach endeavoured, and often successfully, to procure for him an adequate addition to the purchase price.

When the examination was over, especially if the instrument pleased him, Bach liked to exhibit his splendid talent, both for his own pleasure and the gratification of those who were present. Such demonstrations of his powers invariably invited the verdict, that he was conclusively "the prince of Clavier and Organ players," a t.i.tle which Sorge, the late highly-esteemed organist at Lobenstein,(136) once gave him in a dedicatory Preface.

CHAPTER V. BACH THE COMPOSER

Bach's first attempts at composition, like all early efforts, were unsatisfactory. Lacking special instruction to direct him towards his goal, he was compelled to do what he could in his own way, like others who have set out upon a career without a guide. Most youthful composers let their fingers run riot up and down the keyboard, s.n.a.t.c.hing handfuls of notes, a.s.saulting the instrument in wild frenzy, in hope that something may result from it. Such people are merely Finger Composers-in his riper years Bach used to call them Harpsichord Knights-that is to say, their fingers tell them what to write instead of being instructed by the brain what to play.(137) Bach abandoned that method of composition when he observed that brilliant flourishes lead nowhere. He realised that musical ideas need to be subordinated to a plan and that the young composer's first need is a model to instruct his efforts. Opportunely Vivaldi's Concertos for the Violin,(138) then recently published, gave him the guidance he needed. He had often heard them praised as admirable works of art, and conceived the happy idea of arranging them for the Clavier.(139) Hence he was led to study their structure, the musical ideas on which they are built, the variety of their modulations, and other characteristics.

Moreover, in adapting to the Clavier ideas and phrases originally written for the Violin Bach was compelled to put his brain to work, and so freed his inspiration from dependence on his fingers. Henceforth he was able to draw ideas out of his own storehouse, and having placed himself on the right road, needed only perseverance and hard work to succeed. And how persevering he was! He even robbed himself of sleep to practise in the night what he had written during the day! But the diligence he bestowed upon his own compositions did not hinder him from studying the works of Frescobaldi,(140) Froberger, Kerl, Pachelbel, Fischer, Strungk,(141) Buxtehude, Reinken, Bruhns, Bohm, and certain French organists who were famed in those days as masters of harmony and fugue.(142)

The models he selected-Church musicians for the most part-and his own disposition inclined him to serious and exalted subjects. But in that kind of music little can be accomplished with inadequate technique.

Bach's first object, therefore, was to develop his power of expressing himself before he attempted to realise the ideal that beckoned him. Music to him was a language, and the composer a poet who, whatever the idiom he affects, must first of all have at his disposal the means of making himself intelligible to others. But the technique of his period Bach found limited in variety and insufficiently pliable. Therefore he set himself at the outset to refashion the accepted harmonic system. He did so in a manner characteristically individual and bearing the impress of his personality.

If the language of music is merely the utterance of a melodic line, a simple sequence of musical notes, it can justly be accused of poverty.

The addition of a Ba.s.s puts it upon a harmonic foundation and clarifies it, but defines rather than gives it added richness. A melody so accompanied-even though all the notes are not those of the true Ba.s.s-or treated with simple embellishments in the upper parts, or with simple chords, used to be called "h.o.m.ophony." But it is a very different thing when two melodies are so interwoven that they converse together like two persons upon a footing of pleasant equality. In the first case the accompaniment is subordinate, and serves merely to support the first or princ.i.p.al part. In the second case the two parts are not similarly related. New melodic combinations spring from their interweaving, out of which new forms of musical expression emerge. If more parts are interwoven in the same free and independent manner, the apparatus of language is correspondingly enlarged, and becomes practically inexhaustible if, in addition, varieties of form and rhythm are introduced. Hence harmony becomes no longer a mere accompaniment of melody, but rather a potent agency for augmenting the richness and expressiveness of musical conversation. To serve that end a simple accompaniment will not suffice. True harmony is the interweaving of several melodies, which emerge now in the upper, now in the middle, and now in the lower parts.

From about the year 1720, when he was thirty-five, until his death in 1750, Bach's harmony consists in this melodic interweaving of independent melodies, so perfect in their union that each part seems to const.i.tute the true melody. Herein Bach excels all the composers in the world.(143) At least, I have found no one to equal him in music known to me. Even in his four-part writing we can, not infrequently, leave out the upper and lower parts and still find the middle parts melodious and agreeable.

But in harmony of this kind each part must be highly plastic; otherwise it cannot play its role as an actual melody and at the same time combine with the other parts. To produce it Bach followed a course of his own, upon which the textbooks of his day were silent, but which his genius suggested to him. Its originality consists in the freedom of his part writing, in which he transgresses, seemingly, at any rate, rules long established and to his contemporaries almost sacred. Bach, however, realised their object, which was simply to facilitate the flow of pure melody on a sound harmonic basis, in other words, successive and coexistent euphony, and he succeeded with singular success though by unfamiliar means. Let me explain my meaning more closely.

Between simple intervals there is little difficulty in deciding whether the second note must rise or fall. And in regard to phrases, or sections of a phrase, if we a.n.a.lyse their structure and follow out their harmonic tendency, their resolution is equally clear. But this sense of destination may be provoked in each part by different intervals. As we have observed already, every one of the four parts must flow melodically and freely. But to secure that result it will be necessary to introduce between the notes which begin a phrase and establish its general atmosphere other notes which often are not consonant with those employed in the other parts and whose incidence is governed by the accent. This is what we call a transitus regularis et irregularis.(144) Each part starts from a fixed point, and returns to it, but travels freely between them.

No one has made more use of such progressions than Bach in order to colour his parts and give them a characteristic melodic line. Hence, unless his music is played with perfect fluency, occasional pa.s.sages will sound harshly and we may be tempted to accuse him of exaggeration. But the charge is ill founded. Once we play them as Bach intended them, such pa.s.sages reveal their full beauty and their attractive though bizarre dissonance opens up new vistas in the realm of sound.

But, to speak in detail of Bach's transgression of recognised rules. To begin with, he admitted octaves and fifths provided they sounded well; that is, when the cause of their being forbidden did not arise.(145) Everybody knows that there are positions in which they sound well, and others when they should be avoided, owing to the harsh effect or thin harmony they produce. Bach's octaves and fifths never produce bad or thin harmony, and he was very definite as to when they could and could not be used. In certain circ.u.mstances he would not permit hidden fifths and octaves even between the middle parts, though we exclude them only between the outer parts. Yet, on occasion he used them in such a barefaced manner as to puzzle the beginner in composition. But their use very soon commends itself. Even in the last revision of his early compositions we find him altering pa.s.sages, which at first sight appear impeccable, with the object of enriching their harmony and without scrupling to use hidden octaves. A remarkable instance occurs in the first part of the _Well-tempered Clavier,_ in the E major Fugue, between the fifth and fourth bars from the end.(146) I regret to this hour that, on looking over the later text, from which Hoffmeister and Kuhnel's edition of that work is printed,(147) I was so foolish as to reject Bach's amended reading there, merely because the harmony is unorthodox though more pleasing. I stupidly preferred the older, more correct, and harsher reading, though in the later text the three parts run easily and smoothly. And what more can one demand?

Again, there is a rule that every note raised by an accidental cannot be doubled in the chord, because the raised note must, from its nature, resolve on the note above. If it is doubled, it must rise doubled in both parts and, consequently, form consecutive octaves. Such is the rule. But Bach frequently doubles not only notes accidentally raised elsewhere in the scale but actually the semitonium modi or leading-note itself. Yet he avoids consecutive octaves. His finest works yield examples of this.