Johann Sebastian Bach

by Christoph Wolff

  The two principal, fundamentally different textual layers that constitute the libretto of the St. Matthew Passion—madrigal poetry on the one hand, holy Scripture and chorales on the other—are nowhere abruptly juxtaposed. On the contrary, Picander and Bach both set a premium on seamless integration that is already manifest in the opening chorus, in which freely conceived verse and chorale text and melody perfectly blend into each other: the cantus firmus “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig” (O innocent lamb of God) immediately responds to the dialogue “Seht ihn! Wie? Als wie ein Lamm!” (See him! How? Just as a lamb!). The opening chorus thus provides a summation of what the entire Passion oratorio aims to achieve in theological content, literary structure, and musical expression. Picander’s allegorical dialogue and lament “Kommt, ihr Töchter” is set by Bach in the manner of a French tombeau, as a funeral march for the multitude of believers who ascend to Mount Zion and the holy city of Jerusalem. “The Daughters of Zion,” in allegorical personification of Jerusalem, the site of Christ’s suffering, call on “the Faithful,” representing the contemporary believer, to join them in witnessing the Passion of Christ. In the Apocalypse of St. John, the site of Christ’s Passion is counterposed to the vision of the eternal Jerusalem, whose ruler is the Lamb. Here we find the reason for the connection between the aria text “Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen” (Come, you daughters, help me lament), set by Bach in E minor, and the chorale “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig” set in G major: “celestial” major proclaiming Christ’s innocence and “terrestrial” minor accentuating Christ’s suffering are contrasted, yet integrated in one and the same musical setting.

  This theologically meaningful poetic and musical dialectic is placed by Picander and Bach as a kind of vision that precedes the account of the Passion and provides an ultimate goal for the gradual unfolding of the drama. Throughout the musical score, the tension between major and minor modes is never resolved; quite the reverse, it becomes increasingly acute in the course of the Passion story, in the constant oscillation between sharp and flat keys before finally subsiding in the final chorus in C minor. The beginning of the work thus determines its ending: the dual tonality and modality of the opening chorus, E minor and G major, exposes the dramatic tension that the final chorus can only partly resolve. The true resolution will come only when the radiant major mode, enhanced by the triadic fanfares of the trumpets, resonates two days later in the Easter Sunday cantata. Through its reference to the innocent Lamb as the ruler in Zion, which is the celestial Jerusalem, St. Matthew’s opening chorus provides the “Passion set to music” with a mighty visionary or, theologically speaking, eschatological prologue. And when the G-major chorale sung from the swallows’ nest organ loft at St. Thomas’s above the so-called Triumphal Arch—that is, from the altar side—pierced the E minor and thereby forced a modal switch, the music revealed its deep symbolic dimension right from the outset. For the tremendous show of musical force (two choirs and two orchestras on the main west gallery, a distant third choir on the small east gallery) was not meant as a display of powerful and luxuriant sound. The chorale reverberating from the chancel side of the church warned the audience and alerted skeptics at the outset that what awaited them was not “theatrical” music,102 but music that indisputably proclaimed its sacred and liturgical character.

  9

  Musician and Scholar

  COUNTERPOINT OF PRACTICE AND THEORY

  Musicorum et cantorum magna est distantia Isti dicunt, illi sciunt quae componit musica Nam qui facit quod non sapit diffinitur bestia

  Singers and musicians, they are different as night and day. One makes music, one is wise and knows what music can comprise. But those who do what they know least are to be designated beast.

  GUIDO OF AREZZO

  PERFORMER, COMPOSER, TEACHER, SCHOLAR

  By a curious coincidence, Guido’s eleventh-century didactic poem was first published in a 1774 volume of medieval musical treatises, edited by Prince Abbot Martin Gerbert of St. Blasien in the Black Forest, that also contains a passing reference to Bach as “the father of organists in Germany.”1 Had Bach been familiar with the Guidonian poem, he would in his mind have substituted Musicant for the Latin term cantor (singer), because in eighteenth-century German usage Musicant denoted the ordinary music maker of the street-musician and beer-fiddler variety and was the very term that provoked Bach’s reaction to the 1737 attack by Johann Adolph Scheibe.2 At the same time, Bach would not have wanted to pit the musical performer and the musical scholar against each other as mutually exclusive species. On the contrary, for himself and for his educational ideals, he cultivated the concept of the musician-scholar, or performer-composer. Indeed, he proudly claimed the designation “virtuoso” for himself, as M. Birnbaum affirmed in his defense against Scheibe’s assault: “If one of those musical practitioners is an extraordinary artist on an instrument, he is called not a Musicant but a virtuoso.”

  Bach’s early reputation as an instrumental virtuoso prevailed throughout his lifetime and for decades later. Prince Abbot Gerbert’s reference reflects the fact that Bach’s fame was based primarily on the impression he had made not only in numerous virtuosic performances, but also through the wide dissemination of his keyboard works and the dispersion of a large number of pupils. In contrast to the keyboard repertoire, Bach’s vocal and instrumental compositions circulated to a significantly lesser degree outside of Weimar, Cöthen, and Leipzig. Nevertheless, in these places (most notably in Leipzig), the capellmeister Bach left a strong mark, too, as a leader of unusually demanding and complex performances. It is the technical sophistication and depth of substance reflected in the works themselves, whether for keyboard, other instruments, voices, or choir and orchestra, that is invariably stressed from early on in writings about Bach as performer. Scholarly thought and theoretical command in penetrating and shaping the musical material always played a role in Bach’s compositions and always presented a challenge for the performer (not to mention the listener). And the climate of the university town of Leipzig must have had a particularly influential effect on Bach’s daily work, on the development of his musical mind, on his artistic orientation, and on his aesthetic choices. If Guido’s cantor and musicus were antagonistic and incompatible paradigms, Bach deliberately nourished their complementary relationship and, more than that, aimed at the complete integration of practitioner and theorist without compromising quality on either side. That the academic atmosphere of the St. Thomas School and, by extension, Leipzig University fostered such an approach sheds light on the context in which Bach’s Leipzig works originated, on the people involved in their performance, and, not to be ignored, on his primary audience.

  Had Bach not been so aware of his intellectual disposition, of his fascination with musical scholarship and his love for teaching—altogether genuine interests of a learned musician—he would hardly have considered the post as cantor at St. Thomas’s. And what proved to be a strong secondary draw was the chance to arrange for the education of his sons Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Gottfried Bernhard, all of whom attended the St. Thomas School in preparation for university studies. Indeed, all three later enjoyed the benefits of a university education not available to their father or grandfathers: Friedemann studied in Leipzig, Carl in Leipzig and Frankfurt on the Oder, and Bernhard in Jena. There had always been considerable overlap of the St. Thomas senior faculty and Leipzig University, and more often than not the school’s rector and conrector simultaneously held professorships at the university. The palpable effect this connection had on the level of instruction and the atmosphere of learning at the school led a significant number of its graduates to continue their education at one or more of the four faculties of Leipzig University—theology, law, medicine, and philosophy.

  The Faculty of Philosophy, formerly the Faculty of Arts, had a particularly close curricular relationship with the Schola Thomana, as the origins of both institutions were firmly rooted in the seven liberal arts as defined sinc
e medieval times: the trivium, consisting of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and the quadrivium, comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The age of humanism and the spirit of the Lutheran Reformation had brought about changes in the school’s curriculum that led to a more comprehensive study of the classics, a closer study of the Scriptures, and a new respect for scientific knowledge; the educational focus, however, remained religious. The curricular reforms created strong interdisciplinary bonds among all subject areas, including music. Although choir practice, singing lessons, and musical performance clearly dominated at St. Thomas and similar Latin schools, music’s relations with mathematics (as exemplified in the tuning systems, proportions of intervals, and the geometry of organ pipes) were not forgotten and offered many a link with contemporary science. Moreover, the connections with rhetoric and poetics were manifold, in both the choral and instrumental repertoire (for instance, in the prosody of a recitative and the meter and rhyme of an aria). The compositional treatment of sacred texts in motets and cantatas in particular offered numerous entry points for discourse that was both musically and theologically informed. Hence, Bach’s instruction would have closely resembled that of his academic colleagues; at the same time, the pressures of a relentless performing schedule probably forced the cantor to take a pragmatic stand and stress drill and practice over intellectual dialogue.

  Having no patience for theory isolated from practice, that is, detached from composition and performance, nor any inclination to get involved in literary discussion,3 Bach never contributed to the literature of music theory. Yet he owned and studied books such as Friedrich Erhard Niedt’s Musicalische Handleitung of 1710, Johann Joseph Fux’s 1724 counterpoint treatise, Gradus ad Parnassum, and Johann David Heinichen’s 1728 composition manual, Der General-Baß in der Composition. And he had a real interest in theoretical discourse on music, or it would be difficult to understand why so many of his private pupils went on to write theoretical works, including Lorenz Christoph Mizler’s annotated translation of Fux’s treatise, and perhaps also Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s Abhandlung von der Fuge.4 Bach satisfied his own desire to engage in practical theory by designing writing projects that would suit his teaching aims. Those aims, however, could not be separated from his composing and performing goals, as we can see in such works as the Orgel-Büchlein, the Aufrichtige Anleitung, both parts of The Well-Tempered Clavier, the collection of four-part chorales, and The Art of Fugue. The latter—showing no stronger theoretical bent than any of the others but the only one published around Bach’s time, albeit posthumously5—allowed its editors to engage in a retrospective review of the very qualities that meant so much to Bach and that so clearly articulated the philosophy of his approach, while the subject was fresh in their minds. In 1756, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach described The Art of Fugueas “the most perfect practical fugal work,”6 a characterization that complements Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s statement in the preface to the work’s second edition (1752): “No one has surpassed [Bach] in thorough knowledge of the theory and practice of harmony.”7

  “Practical throughout” (that is, composition as theoretical thought translated into communicative musical language), The Art of Fugue “accomplishes what many skillful men have suggested in their writing.” And in this first announcement of the work to be published—placed in the scholarly periodical Critische Nachrichten aus dem Reiche der Gelehrsamkeit (Critical News from the Land of Erudition) in 1751—the second-oldest of Bach’s sons continues to emphasize his father’s method of teaching: “While the rules we were given were good and abundant, the needed examples were lacking. Yet one knows how fruitless instruction is without illustration, and experience shows what unequally greater advantage one draws from practical elaborations rather than from meager theoretical direction.”8 Incidentally, no theoretical work on fugal composition existed before Marpurg’s 1753 treatise, Abhandlung von der Fuge, which is largely based on The Art of Fugue, Bach’s practical “treatise.” There Bach systematically exemplifies the art of fugal counterpoint in exactly the same way that the Orgel-Büchleine xemplifies the art of elaborating a cantus firmus, the Aufrichtige Anleitung the art of inventing and developing musical ideas, The Well-Tempered Clavier the art of exploring the complete range of the tonal system, and the four-part chorales the art of writing with “the natural flow of the inner voices and the bass.”9 Moreover, and notably, none of these works focuses on a single issue; on the contrary, each of them deals with several at once. To mention only a few of them: The Art of Fuguede monstrates the concept of a single theme, the many possibilities for its treatment, and the technique of two-, three-, and four-part counterpoint; The Well-Tempered Clavier is written in free and strict styles, in the form of preludes and fugues; and the Orgel-Büchlein and the four-part chorales pay vital attention to the word-tone relationship. In the end, they all deal also with the challenges of performance, both in a technical sense (“acquiring facility,” playing “correctly”) and in the manner of presentation (“cantabile,” “all parts singable throughout”).10 None of these works is primarily didactic; in fact, they all are conceived, as the title pages of the Clavier-Übung series invariably stipulate, “for music lovers, to refresh their spirits.”

  For Bach, the ultimate rationale for being a musician, that is, a performer-composer, was not to pursue some sort of mental construct but “to make a well-sounding harmony to the honor of God and the permissible delectation of the soul.”11 And whether he wrote a cantata and conducted its performance or composed and played a keyboard piece, the latent counterpoint of theory and practice and the objective of teaching through music formed a distinct backdrop for all his endeavors as a musical scholar. Carl August Thieme, Bach’s student for ten years at the St. Thomas School and later the school’s conrector, took the cantor’s dictation and recorded his Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thorough-Bass or Accompanying in Four Parts…for His Students in Music,12 where Bach offers a definition of thoroughbass as “the most perfect foundation of music.” Bach continues, paraphrasing from Niedt’s Musicalische Handleitung, that “the end and ultimate cause, as of all music, so of the thoroughbass, should be none else but the glory of God and the recreation of the soul/mind [Gemüth]. Where this is not observed, there is no real music but only a devilish blare and hubbub.”13

  At Cöthen or Weimar, Bach would have taken the same position, but in Leipzig his stature as a performer-composer assumed the additional dimension of a musical scholar, whose instruction needed to complement the newer teaching methods of logic informed by philology and science. His language, therefore, reflects a terminology different from Niedt’s,14 in that he speaks of “cause/reason” (causa = Ursache) and also discusses “principles” (Grundsätze) of the thoroughbass as a fundamental element in music, the latter term introduced by Christian Wolff in translating the Greek axiom and the Latin principium.15 Not unlike his philosophical colleagues who explored, probed, and taught the principia of philosophy,16 Bach explored, probed, and taught the principles that govern music—not only its physical, technical side but also its spiritual and emotional dimension. For in order to achieve the ultimate goal, a composer—as Bach’s student Lorenz Christoph Mizler put it—must have “sufficient understanding of the tones and of human emotions.”17 On the one hand, “all effects of music are based on the various ratios of the tones,” and therefore “geometry is necessarily of great benefit to music and the knowledge of the tones.” On the other hand, however, a primary mistake by composers is that they “make insufficient or no effort at imitating nature,” that is, the nature of humans, their thought and emotions/affects/passions. And whoever can “mix the natural tones—that is, the harmonic triad—with words according to their meaning in such a way that they resemble human emotions, is imitating nature in music.”

  Mizler emphasizes that Weltweisheit (wisdom of the world), the term of the German Enlightenment for “philosophy,” is of crucial value “to gain a sufficient knowledge of human emotions.” Hence
, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason, that nothing can be so without there being a reason why it is so, applies to composers, who need to understand the causal interaction between the nature of music and human nature. Philosophy, understood in the broadest sense—ranging from logic, poetics, and philology to mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and theology without sharp disciplinary borders, as the careers of some of Bach’s Leipzig faculty colleagues illustrate—represented the core of the liberal arts curriculum that Bach’s students were exposed to, whether at St. Thomas’s or the university, and that Bach had to mirror in his own teachings. He would, therefore, have found no fault with Mizler’s argument that “a composer must not do anything without cause, and must have a rational intention, that is, a wish to stimulate or calm human emotions.” On the contrary, that is precisely what Bach meant by thoroughbass’s twofold causal interaction, first between the “consonances and dissonances” of thoroughbass and the resulting “well-sounding harmony,” second between music reflecting the glory of God (who ordered everything by number, measure, and weight) and music reflecting and serving the nature of man for the renewal of spirit, mind, and soul.