Johann Sebastian Bach

“ Four more of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons grew to manhood and became musicians. The eldest of them, Wilhelm Friedermann Bach (1710–1784) was by common repute the most gifted; a famous organist, a famous improvisor and a complete master of counterpoint. But, unlike the rest of the family, he was a man of idle and dissolute habits, whose career was little more than a series of wasted opportunities. Educated at Leipzig, he was appointed in 1733 organist of the Sophienkirche at Dresden, and in 1747 became musical director of the Liebfrauenkirche at Halle. ”

“ But these light-hearted Thuringians, and even those of their family who treated their art more seriously and worthily, would not have escaped oblivion had there not emerged in the fulness of time one whose genius and renown reflected their splendour and brilliancy on his forbears. This man, the glory of his family, pride of his countrymen, most gifted favourite of the Muse of Music, was Johann Sebastian Bach. ”

“ It was, in fact, the artist temperament that led Bach to make the great and sublime his goal. For that reason his music is not merely agreeable, like other composers', but transports us to the regions of the ideal. It does not arrest our attention momentarily but grips us the stronger the oftener we listen to it, so that after a thousand hearings its treasures are still unexhausted and yield fresh beauties to excite our wonder. Even the beginner who knows but the A B C of his art warms with pleasure when he hears Bach's music and can open his ear and heart to it. ”

“ With him the descendants of Johann Sebastian Bach became extinct. He was a good pianoforte and violin player, but his modesty prevented him from often appearing, and although he wrote much, in many styles, very little of his music is published.
Carl Philipp Emanuel [25] , third son of Sebastian, often styled the Berlin or Hamburg Bach, born at Weimar March 14, 1714. His general precocity, quickness, and openness to impressions, induced his father to bring him up to the study of philosophy. ”

“ In his instrumental works he lets himself go. As he never courted popularity, but always pursued his ideal, Bach had no reason to suppress the nobility of his inspirations, or to lower their standard for public consumption. Nor did he ever do so. Therefore every modulation in his instrumental work is a new thought, a constantly progressive creation in the plane of the chosen keys and those related to them. He holds fast to the essentials of harmony, but with every modulation introduces a new suggestion and glides so smoothly to the end of a piece that no creaking of machinery is perceptible ”

“ No one who is familiar with the work of other centuries will contradict or hold my statement exaggerated, that Bach cannot be named except in tones of rapture, and even of devout awe, by those who have learnt to know him. We may discover and lay bare the secrets of his technique. But his power to inspire into it the breath of genius, the perfection of life and charm that moves us so powerfully, even in his slightest works, must always remain extraordinary and insoluble. ”

“ The most fertile fancy, invention inexhaustible, a judgment so nice as to reject intuitively every irrelevant and jarring detail, unerring ingenuity in employing the most delicate and minute resources of his art, along with an unrivalled technique—these qualities, whose expression demands the outpouring of a man's whole soul, are the signboards of genius. The man who cannot find them in Bach's music either is not acquainted with it at all or knows it imperfectly. ”

“ After a whispered consultation the eldest voiced the final decision: “We have agreed, dear Johann Sebastian, to let you go the way you have chosen, hoping and praying it may end well; we have the utmost confidence in the sincerity of your purpose, and as for the rest we leave you in the Almighty’s hands. Forget not, among strangers, who you are and where you belong. We, the elders, will remain here, and when you return to the dear Thuringian land, come as a true Bach, as an able and pious musician, as a worthy son of your brave, faithful father.” ”

“ A further training in instrumental music was afforded by the post which Bach held for some months after leaving Lueneburg, in 1703, in the band of Prince Johann Ernst at Weimar. But he could not long be content with the limited scope of a court violinist; and a chance visit to Arnstadt, where his grand-uncle Heinrich had founded a tradition of organ playing, but, dying eleven years before, had left no worthy successor, offered to Bach the opportunity of following out his special bent. ”

“ At any rate, if music is really an art, and not a mere pastime, its masterpieces must be more widely known and performed than in fact they are. And here Bach, prince of classic composers, can render yeoman service.11 For his music is so well calculated to educate the student to distinguish what is trivial from what is good, and to comport himself as an artist in whatever branch of the art he makes his own. Moreover, Bach, whose influence pervades every musical form, can be relied on more than any other composer to correct the superficiality which is the bane of modern taste. ”

“ Apart from his musical activities and the house in which he lived there is little that permits us to picture Bach's life at Leipzig. Association with his friends Johann Christian Hoffmann, Musical Instrument Maker to the Court, Marianne von Ziegler, J. C. Gottsched and his musical wife, Johann Abraham Birnbaum, among the Professoriate, Picander and Christian Weiss, Bach's regular librettists, suggests the amenities of an academic and literary circle. But the claims of [pg 46] his art and the care of his large family had the first call upon Bach's interest. And few men had a happier home life. ”

“ No one excelled Bach in this knowledge. Not only is his rich harmony and melody singularly adapted to the instrument, but he gave the pedal a part of its own, even in his early compositions. Yet it was only gradually that he mastered its technique; for his Organ masterpieces belong to the period in which those for the Clavier began to be classics. His early and immature Organ works are widely dispersed; for as soon as a composer begins to be distinguished everybody is anxious to possess a specimen of his art. ”

“ 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.
[pg 73] 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. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS Distinguished as a player, composer, and teacher, Bach was also an indulgent father, a good friend, and a loyal citizen. His paternal devotion is shown by his care for his children's education, and he was equally assiduous in the performance of his civil and social duties. His acquaintance was agreeable to everybody. Every lover of music, whatever his nationality, was sure of a friendly reception at his house, and his sociability and reputation caused him to be seldom without visitors. ”

“ To serve that end a simple accompaniment will not suffice. True harmony is the interweaving of several melodies, which [pg 74] 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 constitute 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. ”

“ Vivaldi and his Concertos were the first from whom he sought counsel. From them he turned to the principal Organ and Clavier composers of the period. Nothing is more intellectually stimulating than counterpoint, and the composers Bach studied were distinguished by their mastery of it, as their fugal writing attests. Hence Bach's diligent study and imitation of them pointed his taste and imagination to perceive wherein himself was lacking and what steps were needed to take him farther in his art.
A second rock upon which genius often comes to grief is the public's undiscriminating applause. ”

“ 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, snatching handfuls of notes, assaulting the instrument in wild frenzy, in hope that something may result from it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They appealed vividly and powerfully to Bach's spiritual nature, and profoundly influenced his musical utterance. His whole career, as Sir Hubert Parry points out,453 was an effort to widen his means for self-expression. And the Choral Cantata, in effect, was the reconciliation or blending of this self-discipline. It was the supreme achievement of Bach's genius to assert the faith and idealism of Lutheran hymnody with the fullest resources of his technique.
It is not our task to consider the hymn libretto in its relation to the structure of Bach's latest Cantatas. ”

“ He could count on the applause of all who understood good music, and never failed to receive it. Under what other conditions can sound works of art emerge? The composer who debases his muse to the popular mood either lacks real genius or, having it, abuses it. For to catch the ear of the public is not a difficult task and merely connotes an agreeable facility. Composers of that class are like artisans who frankly fashion their goods to suit their market. But Bach never condescended to such artifices. The artist, in his judgment, is the dictator of public taste, not its slave. ”

“ 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 altitude 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. ”

“ Now bethink you, if Bach’s skilful feet deserved such bounty what gift must the prince have offered to reward his hands as well?” Other stories of his miraculous playing had long circulated throughout the country. People said it was a habit of his to climb into the organ loft of an inconspicuous rural church and so astound people with his improvisations that the cry would go up: “That must be Bach or the Devil!” The tale, one can depend on it, is a myth.
Another trip was to Halle, birthplace of Handel. ”

“ Carl Philipp Emmanuel, in the preface to his father's Vierstimmige Choralgesänge (“Four-part Hymn-tunes”) , which he edited,159 says that [pg 86] the world was accustomed to look for nothing but masterpieces from Bach. Some reviewers thought this praise exaggerated. But if the term “masterpiece” is restricted to works written during the years of Bach's maturity160 it is nothing less than the truth. Others have produced masterpieces in various forms which may be placed honourably by the side of his. ”

“ But Bach's works unfortunately are rarely heard nowadays; for the number of persons capable of playing them adequately is at best inconsiderable. It would have been otherwise had Bach given touring performances of his music,9 a labour for which he had neither time nor liking. Many of his pupils did so, and though their skill was inferior to their master's, the admiration [pg xxvii] and astonishment they excited revealed the grandeur of his compositions. ”

“ Lately it has become the fashion to do so in vocal music as well. That Bach shared this disposition may be inferred from certain pieces that he wrote in this style. An instance is the Prelude in E minor in the first part of the Well-tempered Clavier. But he soon returned to his natural better taste, and altered the movement to the form in which it is engraved.325
Every decade has its own style of melody, distinctive of itself and evanescent. A composer must carefully avoid it if he hopes to be listened to by posterity. In his young days even Bach ran upon this rock. ”

“ CHAPTER IX. BACH'S COMPOSITIONS To have produced so many great works in all forms of musical expression Bach necessarily must have been a prolific writer. For if a composer be the greatest genius in the world, unless he constantly exercises his art he cannot hope to produce real masterpieces. Superlative excellence is the fruit of indefatigable application. Yet in Bach's case we should be wrong to acclaim as masterpieces all the products of his great activity just because masterpieces at length were the fruit of it. Already in his early compositions we find undeniable evidence of genius. ”