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Music History 1 > Bach Keyboard 2 > Flashcards

Bach Keyboard 2 Flashcards

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1
Q

Scheibe

A

Praises Bach as ‘most eminent of the musicanten’ (derogatory term)

‘This great man would be the admiration of whole nations if he had more amenity [Annehmlichkeit], if he did not take away the natural element in his pieces by giving them a turgid [schwülstig] and confused style, and if he did not darken their beauty by an excess of art. ‘

Turgid = swollen/congested; tediously pompous/bombastic

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2
Q

Birnbaum

A
  1. Artifice is in the very nature of music; the more artifice, the more beauty

 true Annehmlichkeit is found in the alternation of consonance and dissonance, i.e. harmony

 ‘the idea that melody must always be in the upper voice…is one for which I have been able to find no sufficient grounds…the exact opposite flows from the very nature of music. For music consists of harmony’

 cites older composers – very possibly at Bach’s suggestion – in support of his argument

  1. Takes great exception to Musikant, referring to Bach as ‘the Honorary Court Composer’ after his (new) Dresden title
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3
Q

Mizler

A

Bach can compose ‘entirely in accordance with the latest taste’ when required

o Admitted that Bach often took music from 20-25 years earlier as models

o [Mizler unreliable: Bach’s friend; represented small strain of musical thought (Musical Society) already predisposed towards Bach’s style]

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4
Q

Bach’s 1730 memorandum to Leipzig town council

A

‘taste has changed astonishingly, and accordingly the former style of music no longer seems to please our ears’

[Shows awareness of taste]

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5
Q

Forkel 1802 biography

A

The main tendency of his genius [was] to the great and sublime

  1. Sublime creates conditions for reassessment of Bach’s music

 Difficulty/artifice (schwulstig) become most celebrated characteristics (from lectures)

  1. Links to Dreyfus’s point about late Enlightenment hermeneutic model for art
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6
Q

Spitta’s 1880 biography

A

labelled Bach ‘culmination of an era’ and ‘beyond history’

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7
Q

Bach’s Inventions & Sinfonias

A

Title page 1722-3

‘Straightforward Instruction, in which amateurs of the keyboard, and especially the eager ones, are shown a clear way not only

(1) of learning to play cleanly in two voices, but also, after further progress,
(2) of dealing correctly and satisfactorily with three obbligato parts; at the same time not only getting good inventions, but developing the same satisfactorily, and above all arriving at a cantabile manner in playing, all the while acquiring a strong foretaste of composition’

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8
Q

Bach’s Leipzig context

A
  1. Trade centre: cosmopolitan
  2. Three annual trade fairs
  3. Leading centre for German book industry: new ideas on music would have been familiar
  4. Vibrant culture of musical criticism

o Journals produced by Scheibe (1737-) and Mizler (1739-)

o Success of music based on reception by galant homme in journals

o Bach’s music became ‘entangled in the aesthetic debates of the day’ (Yearsley 2002)

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9
Q

Yearsley 2002

A

Bach’s music became ‘entangled in the aesthetic debates of the day’

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10
Q

Bach 1713-4

A
  1. Assimilation of Venetian concerto style via Vivaldi transcription effected decisive stylistic change

2, Characteristics of Venetian concerto style:

 Unifying motifs

 Motoric rhythmic character (driving)

 Modulation schemes

 Form articulated by solo-tutti contrast

  1. Influence on Bach
     Some preludes and fugues have quasi-ritornello form
     Soloistic figuration of episodes
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11
Q

Bach 1717-23

A
  1. Moved to Cothen: revised and organised pieces due to growing family’s pedagogical needs
  2. 6 English Suites (possibly begun at Weimar, revised/grouped at Cöthen)

 Earliest group of Bach-assembled keyboard suites

 Preludes adopt Venetian concerto style (Vivaldi influence)

 Other movs show French influence (Bach copied out Grigny/Dieupart at Weimar)

 Imitative counterpoint of gigues shows German influence (Froberger/Reinken)

 Invertible counterpoint

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12
Q

Bach after 1723

A
  1. Move to Leipsig in 1723
  2. Change of style: French suites and CU I/II (Partitas, Italian concerto/French ouverture)
  3. French suite 6 prelude uses WTC1 E maj Prelude
  4. Abandoned English suites’ prominent invertible counterpoint
  5. Adopted galant style elements; prominence of
    • Sigh figures
    • Singing melodies with parallel third/sixth accompaniment
    • Long appoggiatura ornamentation
    • Stile brisé (broken chords)
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13
Q

Clavier-Übung

A
  1. Clavier-Übung [keyboard-practice] series
  2. First amalgamation of published works
  3. Shows deliberate lightening of touch and appeal to popular taste

o ‘for music lovers, to delight their spirits’

  1. More technically challenging than works by contemporaries
  2. In 4 parts (1731, 1735, 1739, 1741-2)
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14
Q

CU1

A
  1. CU1 = collection of 6 partitas in 1731
  2. Originally appeared in instalments between 1726-30
  3. Tribute to Kuhnau’s CU volumes (1689, 1692) comprised of suites
  4. Keys in “wedge” [increasing-interval] pattern: (Bb-c-a-D-G-e)
  5. Continuation: Kuhnau covered diatonic maj/min keys respectively
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15
Q

CU1 Partita 1

A
  1. Prelude
  2. Jones: violinistic figuration of Praeludium encapsulates emphasis on smooth cantabile melody throughout
  3. Published first, despite 3 and 6 appearing in Anna Magdalena book
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16
Q

CU1 Partita 2

A
  1. (more French) Allemande
  2. Subject alludes to Handel’s Suite 3 (1720)
    Handel’s suites were international bestsellers
  3. Bach’s version differs:
    • Uses 2/4 bar units (unconventional for allemande)
    • Opening: canon at the octave
17
Q

CU1 Partita 3

A
  1. Altered exemplars of 1731 print make inversions more literal, but no changes in Bach’s Handexemplar
  2. Jones: composition exercises
  3. Me: betrays Bach’s private contrapuntal rigour. Kuhnau CU2 preface (1692): if he had been completely strict in the voice leading as for a sonata/concerto, the Annehmlichkeit of the Suite would have suffered and much that was forced or unnatural (gezwungen) would have slipped in
18
Q

CU1 Partita 6

A
  1. Williams 2001: returns to ‘distancing thoroughness’ of English suites due to contrapuntal rigor/austerity
  2. [Placed last despite being conceived first]
    collection of 6 partitas
19
Q

CU2

A
  1. Italian concerto (for keyboard solo), French overture in 1735
  2. More prominent/fashionable styles
  3. F-b key scheme
    o Represents cliche dichotomy between Italian/French styles
    o Continues wedge
  4. French and Italian influence overlaps both pieces
    o French influence: precise ornament indication and requirement of double-manual harpsichord
    o Italian influence: fire/impetuosity; ritornello form
20
Q

WTC1

A

1722 Mixing of free (improvisatory) and strict (composed at desk) forms, first attempted in toccatas.

Variety of Styles

  1. Relatively archaic five-part alia breve style: C# min, Bb min
  2. Stile francese: D maj
  3. Modern Italianate manner: G maj
21
Q

CU3

A
  1. (1739): comprehensive/varied group of organ works, comprised primarily of chorale settings
  2. Title-page adds: ‘and especially for connoisseurs of such work’ to customary music-lovers
  3. Full of Trinitarian symbolism
  4. Works paired in Pedaliter and Manualiter (Prelude-Fugue/duetti, Missa/catchetism chorales)
  5. ‘Encyclopaedic intentions’
    o Coupled large and small pieces (representative of large church vs small home organs
    o Variety of contrapuntal methods
  6. Work is book-ended by prelude and fugue representing opposite stylistic extremes

Prelude:
Ouverture-infused ritornello opening: blending of styles.
Galant elements
• First episode is particularly galant: repeated V7b-I with trilled melodic appoggiaturas and simple chordal accompaniment
• #7/4—8/3 ending appoggiatura

Second episode is effectively a 3-part fugue

Triple fugue in 3 sections (Trinitarian symbolism)
 Stile antico opening
 Uses stretto and inversion
•

22
Q

Schulenberg on CU3

A

Marked stylistic change away from galant:

  1. Canon
  2. Avoidance of sequence/periodic phrasing
  3. Modal cadences
23
Q

Butler 1990 on CU3

A

Demonstrates CU3 was originally just mass and manualiter catchetism chorales (both are difficult/complex)

24
Q

Jones on CU3

A

Expansion of work in interests of accessibility: easier to play and in more modern ‘natural’ style

25
Q

Mizler on CU3

A

‘a powerful refutation of those who have made bold to criticize the compositions of the Honourable Court Composer’ (1740)

CU3 as provocative critique of new aesthetic

26
Q

John Butt: Bach’s Metaphysics of Music 1997

A

Bach’s Metaphysics of Music

  1. Explores hypothesis that Bach viewed ’the very substance of music as constituting a religious reality’, where the more perfectly composition/performance is realised, ‘the more God is immanent in music’
  2. Rationalist philosophers Leibniz/Wolff/Spinoza illuminate Bach’s compositional mind
  3. Tension between intrinsic God-given properties of music and necessity music be put to good use by setting good text
  4. Contemporary conceptions of music were several and conflicting
    o Pythagorean
    o Styles had connotative significance for certain audiences
    o Theological view: unable to express anything without suitable text
  5. Mattheson’s 1739 treatise: all styles can serve all levels of public/private devotion
  6. Butt argues Bach’s valued music independently for its craftmanship and specifically musical qualities

This contrasts with writings of traditional theologians, theorists (Kuhnau, Buttsett, Fuhrmann) and new breed Enlightenment aestheticians

27
Q

Butt: Bach’s conception of music 1997

A
  1. ‘Few writers, even those comparatively close to Bach, seem adequately
    to account for his creative personality’
  2. ‘well-sounding harmony results for the glory of God and the permissible delight of the soul’
  3. ‘the final purpose of all music and therefore also of the thorough-bass is nothing other than the praise of God and the recreation of the soul. When this is not taken into account, then there is no true music, only a devilish bawling and droning’
  4. Secularist title-pages of Clavier-Ubung
  5. Butt argues Bach had ‘musico-centric’ viewpoint: ‘the view that the very substance of music both reflects and embodies the ultimate reality of God and the Universe’
  6. Examines Bach’s annotated bible, which shows music as a medium through which God becomes imminent
    o Controversial among Pietists and Orthodox Christians who believed in supremacy of scripture
28
Q

Scheibe’s criticisms 1737

A
  1. an excess of art’
  2. Extremely difficult to perform
  3. Every conceivable ornament is present in the notation
  4. Voices are equal in partnership, difficulty and hierarchy
  5. Uses schwulst (turgidity), deriving from Gottsched’s critique of 17thC literary bombast
  6. Calls Bach ‘Musikant’
  7. Underlying principles: no awareness of differentiations of style and proprieties of taste
29
Q

Günther Wagner:

A
  1. Scheibe is primarily concerned with Bach’s vocal music
  2. Downplays scale of Scheibe’s attacks: vocal music comprised large part of Bach’s output
  3. Butt: attacks nonetheless significant
30
Q

Birnbaum

A
  1. reveals Bach’s attitudes
  2. Bach: anyone could match his achievements ‘if one industriously strives to convert natural abilities, by untiring zeal, into perfected skills’
  3. Music as timeless art which Bach saw as his responsibility to pass on to all those who were not merely concerned with the contingencies of fashion and taste’
  4. Perfections/completeness (vollkommenheiten) is recurring theme in Birnbaum’s essay
    Relies on satisfaction of entire potential of musical idea
  5. Birnbaum modifies imitation of nature principle: art brings out beauty in imperfect nature
  6. Bach’s art for connoisseurs
    o Its difficulty/impropriety testimony to its greater significance
    o Universal/timeless
31
Q

Wolff

A
  1. Bach can only incompletely be appreciated according to aesthetics of his own day
  2. Music anticipates early-19thC ‘absolute’ music
  3. Bach’s compositional style ‘partly generated by the frictions within his environment and career’
32
Q

WTC2

A
  1. Completed around 1742
  2. Less unified than book 1: assembled from pre-existing fugues (sometimes transposed)
  3. New works likely composed late-1730s
  4. Several fugues show retrospective tendencies
33
Q

CU4

A

1741-2): ‘Goldberg’ Variations
o Cyclical architectonic organisation: 30 variations grouped in 10x3:
1: stylistic diversity (Aria, stretto, giga, fughetta, cantabile, ouverture, etc.

2: keyboard virtuosity (studies increasing in brilliance/virtuosity)
• Possible influence of Scarlatti’s Essercizi 1738

3: strict counterpoint (canons in rising intervals)

o Monothematic/contrapuntal conception anticipates Musical Offering and Art of Fugue)

o Witty anticlimactic Quadlibit ending: melodies from 2 bawdy folk tunes about cabbage and sex are integrated into original bass line

o Based on 32-bar Ruggerio-esque ground bass

 Within Romanesca tradition?

o Virtuosity shows Scarlatti influence

34
Q

Dreyfus Invention

A
  1. Rhetoric was modelling science
  2. Late-18th C Enlightenment: critical theory abandoned rhetoric in favour of aesthetics, replacing the perfectible art of invention with the godlike realm of creativity
  3. Gerard Essay on taste (1759): ‘the first and leading quality of genius is invention’
  4. Invention: conventional metaphor for the idea behind a piece, a musical subject whose discovery precedes full-scale composition
    o Bach choosing genre of Inventions and the title-page places him square in this tradition
5.  Traditional usage:
o	Subject matter of oration
o	Mechanism for discovering good ideas
	Inventions developed through studying 
works of reputable authors
  1. Development is key: successful invention is mechanism that triggers further elaborative thought from which a whole piece is shaped
  2. Teaching
    o One of Germany’s greatest 18thC music teachers
    o Bach’s pupils had to master thoroughbass and four-part chorales
    o Rigorous musical skills developed through studying Bach, with no book learning
  3. Dreyfus takes Mattheson’s 1739 5-part model of invention as revealing what Bach might have thought
    o Fuses Cicero with 17thC music theorist Bernhard
    o 5-part model (not necessarily chronological, but in hierarchy of most to least important)

 Invention (discovery of ideas)
• Functional segments and their transformations
• Not just first subject

 Disposition (form [Mattheson uses architectonic metaphor])

 Elaboration (filling in methods of amplifying basic ideas)

Detail of Bach’s elaborations distinguish him from contemporaries
 Decoration (ornamentation)
 Execution (performance)

  1. Mattheson’s conception is strictly analogical, Bach’s is more metaphorical
  2. Dreyfus methodology: analysing inventions as structured repetitions
    o Work as residue of human thoughts/actions rather than static work
    o Favours ‘mechanist’ over ‘organicist’ analysis
    o Analytic indifference to ‘inventions’ tends to sanction methods that in fundamental ways are grossly anachronistic
     Favouring of form over invention
    o Example: first invention (C maj)
  3. Bach and invention

o Invention crystallizes deeply held views about high art

o Invention depends on genre
 Concerto/fugue: inventions used to formulate complex mechanism for crafting large-scale movements
 Hybrid genres

o Refers to Bach’s tendencies as ‘patterns of invention’ rather than ‘style’
o Invention as philosophical/theological position
 Nature of musical meaning, ability of music to interpret and change world rather than merely represent it

35
Q

Dreyfus ‘Bach as Critic of Enlightenment’

A

Suggests Bach’s music was neither archaically conservative nor assertively progressive, but simply a critical response to contemporary aesthetic trends (Enlightenment). Argues ‘the preoccupation with progress’ in 1730s and late-20thC historiography ‘has failed to grasp the complex ways in which Bach responded to his contemporaries.

Contextualising debate
• Bach paradoxically had highly distinctive, idiosyncratic style, yet fits with contemporary trends
• Bach’s idiosyncratic approach
o Argues it derives from Bach’s staunch Lutheran faith (which viewed human works as ultimately fallible) and astounding powers of invention
o Challenged Enlightenment ideology (primitive Enlightenment, not Kant)
o New conception of music (affecting composition as well as reception)

Bach traditionally seen pseudo-politically as either reactionary/conservative or modern/progressive
• Conservative
o German Enlightenment belief that composer should accommodate to audience by following latest taste
 Scheibe Critical Musician 1737:

Music History 1 (3 decks)

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