André Pirro

“ And Johann Sebastian treats a single line of the very calm and too austere chorale. Its robes of sackcloth being somewhat too severe, he bedecks it with simple and suave ornaments, like lilies which would live on a plain and naked altar. So might a learned and holy priest speak those words which at once charm and sanctify; and his hands do not remain crossed upon his breast, but his gesture mounts upwards towards God, scarcely saddened by a separation which soon will cease ... virtue is a joyful thing! ”

“ To cite Jenner in connection with our subject is more than amusing; but consider Frescobaldi—is he not the Jenner of the Fugue?...
But let us avoid the necessity of classifying great men in the order of their merit; it is the evolution of Bach's genius which we wish to study. There is in this field an aspect of psychological analysis which we trust will prove of interest; but it is by no means our wish that any inference shall be drawn from the foregoing which could lead to an undervaluation of the originality of Johann Sebastian Bach. ”

“ Bach is indisputably the mightiest of musicians; one is seized with awe in perusing the extraordinary catalogue of his works, so seemingly impossible are its dimensions; in casually looking over those forty and more folio volumes; in pausing for an instant to examine more closely any one of the pages, where the smallest detail seems to have been long considered and predetermined, while over all soars the essential thought, always profound and original. ”

“ As an artist exhumes the fragments of an ancient reredos, primitive in sculpture, his personality betrays itself in the new connection which he establishes between these relics of a past age, which dictate to him no relationship incapable of alteration. And thus with Bach.... Still more, as the painter who would wrest from every form of human beauty whatever it possesses of the superhuman, seeking absolute beauty as his aim in the selection of a type. ”

“ While the stringed and wind instruments of the orchestra, the pianoforte, and the voice, hold sway only by their instantaneity of accent, by the unexpectedness of their attack, the organ, limited to the confines of its own inherent majesty, speaks with the voice of philosophy. ”

“ In fact, we should declare to be criminals, and hold up to the contempt of the public, those who make an accordeon of the organ; those who arpeggiate, who do not play legato, whose rhythm is but passable.
With the organ, as in the orchestra, precision must rule; the perfect ensemble of feet and hands is absolutely necessary, whether in attacking or leaving the keyboard. All notes placed in the same perpendicular by the composer must be made to speak and to cease speaking at the same time, obedient to the bâton of a single conductor. ”

“ During Bach's first years in Weimar a new factor enters into his evolution, or rather forces itself upon it, quite without seeking on his part; it is simply the result of the experience gained in the fulfilment of his new duties.
Ever since this epoch Weimar has been distinguished among the German courts by a more refined culture, a taste for art which up to the present time has never diminished. ”

“ This intimate nature finds an antithesis in the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, [68] which belongs chronologically to the same period; it is still Buxtehude, but it is conceived throughout in a picturesque style. It lacks only an argument to establish by every right its character as "program music." The two rapid and dazzling flashes, a peal of thunder, rumbling heavily in the reverberations of a chord slowly broken, and above the vibration of the deep pedal, augmented in intensity by its duration; wind, then hail;—we are in the midst of the classic tempest. ”

“ Händel he esteemed highly, Couperin interested him; when accorded three weeks' leave that he might hear Buxtehude, Bach so far forgot himself as to allow three months to go by while listening, from a secluded corner of the church, to the justly celebrated organist of St. Mary's in Lübeck.
Bach was a great and good man; never did a more marvellous mechanism perform the functions of a human brain; never has been known a mind that was sounder, better balanced, contained in a more robust body; never were a musician's nerves better controlled. ”

“ It is only by rhythm that one wins attention. Particularly with the organ, all accents, all effects are dependent upon it. You may bear upon the keyboard with the weight of pounds, with all the strength of your shoulders—you will gain nothing by it. But delay by a tenth of a second the attack of a chord, or prolong this same chord the very least, and judge of the effect produced! Upon a manual not provided with a swell-box one may obtain a crescendo without the aid of a mechanism of any kind: by the simple augmentation of the duration allowed successive chords or detached phrases. ”

“ But such agencies partake rather of an instrumental style, interesting in an organ prelude, where they are more in place; in the cantata these counterpoints are entrusted to a bass voice; while putting the singer out of breath, they impress upon the audience a sort of wearisome anxiety; "without doubt," says Hanslick, "Bach obeys a fine symbolic instinct in entrusting the calm and steadfast melody of the chorale to one voice, while the other, in elaborate design, creeps about it; but not everything of symbolic significance must, for that reason, be beautiful in itself." ”

“ While following the example of Scheidt in announcing or accompanying every melodic phrase by a counterpoint based upon a fragment of the phrase itself, he greatly improved the whole by making the movement more flowing; again, by a more intelligent choice of themes he attained the unity of expression demanded by the true sentiment of the chorale. These counterpoints are often symbolic in nature, as is so often the case with Bach; and the harmony is most expressive of that calm and plenitude which suggests the infinite, the essence of all religious music. ”

“ Cornets and mixtures, and the other registers of the organ of Bach's time—these furnish the proper tone-material for Plain-song, assimilating perfectly with the polyphony of the masters of the sixteenth century.
Distributed to a certain extent over all lands, coming originally from Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome, Plain-chant is our heritage from the Middle Ages, assiduously cultivated within that sunny domain of counterpoint, of which Palestrina was the last custodian. As it has been bequeathed to us by the old masters, so must we preserve it for our descendants. ”

“ The basso continuo of certain organists, who have fallen asleep over their pedals, soon becomes an intolerable nuisance for the audience. We should go wild at a performance of a symphony in which the double-basses played uninterruptedly from the first note to the last. Plain-song itself, thus interpreted, loses its eloquence; although the apparent monotony of its design, closely confined within the limits of an octave, would, above all, seem to be better adapted than any other form of music to a continuous bass. ”

“ Fétis, of Brussels, while teaching me the principles of counterpoint and fugue, often spoke of Rinck, whom he had visited; of Kittel, his musical father, and of their great common ancestor, Sebastian Bach. Rinck, when asked the cause of his neglect of the fugue form, would reply: "Bach is a Colossus, dominating the musical world; one can hope to follow him in his domain only at a distance, for he has exhausted all resources, and is inimitable in what he has done. ”

“ But meanwhile I shall endeavor to establish the affiliation between Buxtehude and Bach through a study of certain characteristics of their works.
And this we will not attempt to achieve through the medium of a general comparison from all points of view, which at best is but vague and indefinite. That Bach was richer in inspiration, that his work in point of breadth and imagination stands upon a relatively higher plane, are facts universally recognized, even though they are difficult to define, to prove specifically; we will concern ourselves only with the matter of structure. ”

“ This fugue (also from the Cöthen period, as well as the prelude, to judge them by the pedal, which extends to e') occupies an entirely individual position among the works of Bach—one which is shared by no other work. One would say that in writing this fugue he had relaxed from the severity which the grandeur of the instrument inspired in him, lending to the work the intimate charm of a somewhat effeminate grace of movement. ”

“ When, at Hamburg, the aged Reinken heard Bach improvise for more than a half-hour upon the chorale An Wasserflüssen Babylons, he cried out, embracing him, "I thought that this art were dead; but I see that in you it still lives." [1]
These traditions he handed down later to his two oldest sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel—two musicians whose merit is universally recognized,—and to a whole galaxy of brilliant pupils:
Johannes Caspar Vogler, a musician whom Mattheson considered more able than Bach himself. Vogler was organist at Weimar. ”

“ The most striking characteristic of the organ is grandeur; that is to say, determination and power. Every illogical variation in the intensity of the sound, every nuance which, graphically, cannot be represented by a right line, is a crime, the offence of artistic lèse-majesté. ”

“ In July of this year at Notre-Dame, whose superb instrument has just been restored by Cavaillé-Coll, we admired the effect produced by different specimens of those mutation stops, producing in the Pedal a fundamental of 32, upon the Bombarde one of 16, and upon the Grand-Chœur one of 8-foot pitch. Indescribable is the effect of-xix- the Chorales of the great Sebastian Bach, reverberating with crystalline sonority under those wonderful arches. ”

“ Pachelbel rarely varied the melody of the chorale. Heralded by the figuration of the accompanying parts, the cantus establishes itself over all, intensifying in its progression in even notes (for the most part diatonic) the exalted seriousness of the sacred text.
The Chorale is charged with having accustomed the German people, for the past three hundred years, to express their sorrows and their rejoicings in the same tone; [44] especially is ascribed to it that heavy rhythm, which has been likened to a "parade step." ”

“ While leaving to Schubert the "Signification of Tonalities," and-30- not without distrusting this hobby—so absurd at times are the results of the analysis of every piece of music by reducing it to its exterior characteristics—still we cannot deny that to a certain extent this fugue is the reflex of everything of indecision in the life of Bach up to this time. The rhythm of the theme is established only at the end of the third measure, and each of its fragments serves to mark the close of a harmonic progression, despite the fact that the general tonality does not make itself plainly felt. ”

“ While the various sections are distinct from each other, it is like a gradation of colors whose harmony arises only from the order of their selection. This series of strokes produces something more than the feeling of continuity, it frees itself of an intensity of expression which is increased at every measure; but the climax is attained with stately chords, in five real parts, the bass emphasizing them by a quarter-note upon each beat. ”

“ But if one may not seek "in a musical work the expression of any condition of the soul, or the narration of any story of the heart," [66] one can hardly deny that music expresses "the being, even the personal will" [67] of psychological phenomena, at least in the sense that the interest of certain works of art, aside from every æsthetic consideration, is correlative to the mental condition in which one receives them. This may explain the position occupied among the works of Bach by this piece, whose many weaknesses are revealed to us by a technical analysis. ”

“ But what the Germans sought was not, let me repeat, within the domain of that expressive instrument; they could not be content with simple melody, they must have complete harmony. And so we learn that Bruhns (the remarkable organ-pupil of Buxtehude, and an exceptionally talented violinist) would seat himself before the pedal of an organ, violin in hand, and would play in four parts—the bass with his feet, the other parts upon his violin. ”

“ Then he would choose some theme and treat it in every form of organ composition, playing without interruption for two hours or more, yet without exhausting his resources. Perhaps he made use of his subject first in a prelude and fugue for all the foundation stops. Then his genius in registration was displayed in a movement in three, or in four, parts, always upon the same theme. Now followed a chorale, and the subject served as a counterpoint to the chorale-melody, in ingenious imitations in three or four voices. ”

“ Fatigued in following their intricacy, powerless to unravel the inextricable network, the mind clings to these threads, though still indefinite—music now superhuman in the swishing of invisible wings as they fold, or rustle like silk in their contact;—or gliding, rather, without conjuring up any special sound, but leaving to the fancy the whole halo of harmonies ”