JS BACH: MASTER OF COUNTERPOINT
By Sue Talley
Have you ever been so angry at someone that you wanted to throw something at them, or perhaps did so? J.S. Bach, perhaps the greatest composer of the Baroque period, if not of all time, did that once. He got so mad at an incompetent musician that he threw his wig at him, yelling, “You should have been a shoemaker!” (Schonberg, The Great Conductors, 29)
You’ve only to look at a picture of JS in his wig to note that he was a rather serious fellow. He had a tough life, and yet the music he shared with the world was glorious. He took himself so seriously that as a youth, he actually drew a dagger on a student, but apparently that was as far as it got, thanks be to God.
He was born in 1685. His early training was from his father. His parents, however, died when he was quite young, and his older brothers apparently were not, for a time, interested in his musical development. He eventually received training in organ and violin.
He seems to have had a rather lonely childhood, but he compensated for the loss of companionship by having 20 children. Although he was a strict musician and disciplinarian (he must have been, for he was a math teacher and the principal of a high school), he shared his music generously with his family, writing a notebook of easily accessible compositions for his wife, Anna Magdalena, and training his sons in the art of counterpoint through the use of what he called “inventions” and “Sinfonia.” He wrote in many styles, suiting the composition to the needs of the particular environment in which he lived (Grout and Palisca, 386). When he was employed as an organist, he wrote for organ; when he was not, he wrote for harpsichord and clavichord, as well as instrumental ensembles. His output was extraordinarily large. In fact, he died while he was in the middle of composing one of his great organ fugues. (The end of that fugue is often realized by the organist, but one great organist of the last century used to simply stop and raise his hands for a moment off the keys at the point it really ended.)
His employment at the organ began in a rather interesting way. He was taken to an audition of his brother, and asked to hold the horses while his brother auditioned. Apparently he could not resist trying out the organ, however, because at an unguarded moment, he got to the bench and started playing so beautifully that he, not his brother, was hired on the spot! Apparently the daughter of the composer, Buxtehude, was part of the payment for one of the jobs he considered. Odd, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the lady was not attractive, so he did not take that position.
Bach’s brother, Johann Cristoph, who also helped train him, was himself the student of Pachelbel, whose canon is one of the most beloved pieces of Baroque music. Throughout his life, Bach copied or arranged the scores of other composers; that enriched his composition greatly. He was such a fine reader that it was said that he could take in a full score at a glance and would immediately notice if any of the musicians struck a wrong note, no matter how insignificant it seemed (Schonberg).
There wasn’t much of an orchestra available to Bach, and with his sensitive ear, life must have been hard until he could fix the tuning of the instruments to suit him. It was a revolutionary era for the development of musical instruments, also: the viols were being replaced with violins, sackbutts with trombones, hunting-horns with French horns, and so on. Bach evidently had the use of very high trumpets; they are known today as “Bach trumpets” or “Baroque trumpets,” and they are characteristically very high in register. Schonberg points out that in Bach’s time, the orchestra normally consisted of “two flutes or recorders, two oboes, one or two bassoons, a trumpet, drums, and four string parts, of which the bass was generally ‘realized’ by cellos (or gambas), basses, keyboard instruments and lute. Often Bach…did not specify instrumentation, and he would use whatever was at hand” (The Great Conductors, 29). Because of his own expertise, JS evidently had little patience with bad playing.
Bach never saw a piano (or fortepiano, as it was then called) until his later years, and at first, he was appalled by it. Later, he expressed some satisfaction with the possibilities of the instrument. His vehicles were, besides the organ, the harpsichord and the clavichord. The quiet clavichord is seldom seen, but the harpsichord has, in this century, enjoyed a fitting revival. Though it has neither the power nor the expressive possibilities of the grand piano, it has a crisp quality which is perfectly suited for Baroque and Early Classical music. Of course the recorder, or “flauto dolce”, gave way to the more powerful modern “transverse” flute. But it has also enjoyed a revival in the 20th century…and the 21st will probably continue to increase its popularity.
The polyphonic style of composition was perfect for small ensembles. To demonstrate the flexibility of this wonderful style, you have only to play a two-part invention upon a synthesizer or using two instruments. In fact, some of Bach’s inventions are so rhythmically driving that they sound great with two drums! Schonberg points out that although the style of the conductor was very different during the Baroque period, the leader of the pack had to be someone of genuine authority. At one time, Bach had to write a new Cantata for each Sunday of the church year. Imagine having the musicians who could sing a newly-composed selection, week after week! While singers were sweating out their parts, you can imagine how hard the individual worked who was realizing the figured bass! Bach, with his perfectionist attitudes and rather hasty temper, must have been an interesting person to work for. Apparently, he could be irascible with the church authorities as well, for he had repeated squabbles with them. After one of his glorious cantatas, he would drop out of sight during the sermon and turn up in his favorite pub, with a pint. I guess he felt he’d thought about God’s Word enough as he committed it to music. But he was a devout Lutheran, for all that. Lutherans were not strict about beer…
Bach was a mathematician. His music is uncannily mathematical—incredibly so. Studies have been made to show how perfectly it was composed and how mathematically it was achieved.
MORE ABOUT J.S. BACH AND ABOUT PERFORMING
This afternoon I visited Tower Records and found that in the Classical Music section (upstairs and behind closed doors, at the midtown branch), they were selling a release called A Portrait of Bach for 99 cents. So I bought three of them, one for me and two for our listening library.
I understand why the CD was 99 cents—not because there was anything wrong with the music—I am enjoying it as I speak, on the CD player—but because of its failure to run, as promised, on the CD Rom drive. It is extremely interesting because you will hear pieces you have learned or heard played by many different instruments. I hope that each of you will obtain this fine recording, which contains so many of Bach’s great and very enjoyable masterpieces.
It also urges us to visit the SONY CLASSICAL CELEBRATES BACH website at http://bach.sonyclassical.com, which is quite interesting. On it, there is a fine biography of JS and an interesting article about how he frequently recycled his music for different instruments, even rewriting so that it would “fit.” There are some humorous and interesting comments about his life and music which you will not find in your Music History textbook. Of course, it is promotional, so you can hear some samples of Sony’s latest recordings of Bach as well.
In the article about recycling, the author made the observation that in the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was an attitude of “purism” about the music of Bach, so that it would have been unfashionable in the classical music world to transcribe his music (as he did himself) from one instrument to another. Fortunately, the author adds, that attitude has changed. I’m glad, too, because I like playing such things as the Prelude in C minor, heard on the theorbo (did you ever hear a theorbo? I never did, to know it), and some of you will probably play the Bouree from the Lute Suite in E minor, also. By listening to the music on the original instruments, though, you can understand one thing very important: Bach’s phrasing.
I’m very convinced that phrasing is a very under-valued study in music. A phrase in music is just as important as it is in speaking; we pause (as you did just now) to acknowledge a comma or a semi colon. If we do not, we do not understand punctuation, and if we do not understand literary punctuation, no wonder we do not understand musical punctuation.
A phrase is, essentially, what you sing or play “in one breath,” before you pause for an answer or to continue the thought (as you did just now at the comma). Instrumental fingering is planned with the thought that everything under the phrase mark or before the pause is going to be fingered as consecutively as possible, then you may pick up your hand and perhaps reposition it for the next phrase. Believe me, this makes life easier as you try to sight read. When you know what the author is doing, by virtue of the fingering, you will find the right notes. However, a wrong fingering almost guarantees a wrong note. You can apply this to many things, including reading the top lines of hymns. Try it. (You music majors will be asked to sight-read (and play scales and chords) on your juries, which will be coming up around finals time, so practice for them now.)
You cannot give too much study, love, and attention to the music of J. S. Bach. It is a refreshment to the spirit. Like many people of genius, Bach had his moments of not getting along with others. He could be very impatient with those who were not up to his musical abilities, but he also was a fine educator whose music was meant to teach and edify as well as to glorify God.
Classical music is going through an interesting phase. As you know, the Musicians’ Union looks out for American musicians and makes hiring them a rather expensive matter. Not only is their per-hour rate rather high (and deservedly so, I like to think) but if they go even one minute overtime, they are paid time-and-a-half. That is why the curtain MUST fall by a certain time at the Metropolitan Opera, for example. That is also why if the singers or other musicians arrive even five minutes late to an opera, they are fired—no questions asked. It’s just too expensive to “hold the curtain” for a latecomer. Believe me, someone takes attendance very promptly. One of the Assistant Conductors whom I shall not identify was teaching us one evening when she suddenly realized she was “on.” Horrified, she asked Dana to grab a taxi while she got ready. Later, she said that by the time she got to the “House,” she had developed a full-blown cold from anxiety! (You will never see them onstage, but assistant conductors are always there; they are the indispensable people who, in the prompter’s box, must conduct and mouth the words ahead for the singers, so they don’t get lost. Without a second conductor, with a stage that large, you can find yourself behind the orchestra. You will see the words, “Musical preparation by…” and then the name of the prompter or assistant conductor, at the end of every opera.)
To continue this little aside…Overseas, certain countries, newly emerging from the shroud of communism, are full of fine musicians who will work for very little pay. So, when a symphony is needed, the orchestra which is hired may be the Albanian State Orchestra or the Czech Orchestra. These are full of gifted musicians, by the way, although many have found their way to other countries (such as ours) in search of better pay. Even the London Symphony, which has always recorded at lower rates than are available here. Next time you are at Tower Records, notice what that has done for the recording industry. Suddenly, the market overflows with fine but “cheap” classical music. Now, this is interesting: You will hear both artists and composers whom you have never heard of before. Their names may be unpronounceable to the average American, but the fact that we are in ignorance of them only reveals how profoundly political differences have affected our world in the past, and how much we have to learn from one another now.
J.S. Bach not only rearranged his songs for other instruments, but he quite freely used the tunes of other composers in his works. That is much less possible now, with ever more stringent copyright laws governing what we do. But it is an honor for someone of great talent to transform a tune into a remarkable piece of music. Let us not forget that many composers owe their fame to the great arrangements of J. S. Bach.