It has become almost a fashion to discuss the work and style of Johann Sebastian Bach. The ample and splendid research work carried on in this respect by American scholars reflects the intense desire on the part of conscientious musicians to re-evaluate Bach’s multifaceted genius.

Indeed, dissatisfaction with the average Bach performance of today is only too justified. The interpretation of both the master’s vocal and instrumental works offers a garbled picture.

For a meeting such as ours, problems dealing with Bach must be of an especial interest. I was, therefore, very much honored indeed when my good friend Professor Hoelty-Nickel asked me to speak on this subject, probably without knowing that through previous work I was well prepared to do so. I have had the great pleasure of giving, some two weeks ago, six lectures on Bach here at this university, and the organists and choir directors of the Lutheran churches who were present seemed to be interested in the discussions, so much so that I found their inquisitiveness characteristic of the general awakening to Bach which we can witness today in the Lutheran Church. Within the American scene there can be but little question that a more intense cultivation of Bach, a general Bach culture, must primarily rely—at the present state of affairs—on the support of the church musicians. Here again no church musician has a greater obligation toward Bach than has the Lutheran. No music is as much rooted in the Lutheran religion as Bach’s. It is for that reason that one can assume a general interest in Bach problems on the part also of such a venerable assembly as the present one. To be sure, I know that some members of this assembly have objections, often raised, to an intellectual analysis, or to a scholarly approach, and even to a discussion of Bach, or Lutheran church music, or perhaps any music; these gentlemen I must ask for patience, but from the beginning I will also give them the assurance that our discussions of style are not meant to replace our obligation to relive Bach as a Christian, as a Lutheran, as a German, or as a man. On the contrary, no intellectual analysis can be of value if it is not borne by the love of music-making and if it is not nurtured by the same Christian spirit which has been the inspiration and the motivating factor behind all Bach wrote.

Interpretation of a genius is subjected to the ever-changing philosophy of successive generations: each period views the great with its own eyes. Thus portraits of composers change and develop. The perception of one period is, however, not lost to the following; on the contrary, it adds new traits to those existing. In the case of Bach, the "evolutionary conception of his interpretation"[1] appears to be most fascinating. Only recently has a New York scholar, in outlining its growth, tried to show that the rationalists ignored the emotional contents of Bach as much as the romanticists forgot about the architectural features of his gigantic works. He concludes that only today, after the complete edition of his works, we begin to see the real Bach. Though the latter part of this statement must be fully acknowledged, I feel it necessary to revise the information, regarding the evaluation of Bach by his contemporaries and the classicists up to Beethoven; until recently I myself have believed that Bach was completely unappreciated in his own time.[2] Today, I must confess that the popular fiction that no truly great artist receives legitimate recognition for his work during his lifetime, simply because he is ahead of his generation, finds, in the case of Bach, little nourishment. Consequently, Ernest Newman’s [3] elaboration on this theory: Even if the work of Bach had been printed more generously during his lifetime, it would have "received less than its due recognition because his own ideal in music was largely alien to the spirit of the new age," can scarcely be maintained. The same author’s emphasis upon the "fact" that but a small provincial circle (students, churchgoers, and the "society" of Leipzig) was acquainted with Bach’s works, is also misleading. A study of the acts of the city of Leipzig and the evaluation of important treatises on music, some written in Bach’s period, some shortly after his death, reveal that the sentimentality of the musicographers of the last generations has surrounded Bach’s life with too much of the glamor of solitude. It seems that Leipzig was Germany’s foremost musical center between 1730 and 1750, rivaled only by Hamburg; that, as Bach was recognized as a celebrity in Leipzig, this recognition was fairly identical with acknowledgment at least throughout Germany. Undoubtedly he lived in the consciousness of the professionals, if not in the hearts of the people, a fact which is testified by Scheibe,[4] who, in 1737, severely criticizes his influence, and later by Mizler,[5] who defends Bach’s conservative art against Graupner and Telemann. Bach’s son, Philipp Emanuel, who, because of the new homophonic style shaping itself in his era, disagreed with his father’s technique and even called him an old wig, nevertheless makes the following statement in his autobiography: "Not easily traveled a master of music through Leipzig without meeting my father and playing for him. Father’s greatness in composition, in organ and piano playing, was so well known that no musician of reputation would have failed to contact this great man and to know him better, whenever possible."[6]

In a previously written article,[7] I have already attempted to correct some misinterpretations regarding the romanticists’ relationship to Bach. Almost without exception, Bach biographers make Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy responsible for having brought the master to the consciousness of the nineteenth century and pass over discussions of Mendelssohn’s predecessors. However, Mendelssohn’s re-performance of the St. Matthew’s Passion after its hundred years’ slumber was a cultural deed of such dimensions that his position as Bach discoverer is by no means weakened if we give credit to those who eagerly studied Bach before and concurrently with him. Such study was necessarily confined to but a few standard compositions, for the epoch was not concerned with collection of autographs or printings and was still less interested in reediting musical documents. Beethoven expresses his desire to do some charitable work for the daughter of Bach, "the immortal god of harmony."[8] This is, of course, but an indication of the Bach-awareness so conspicuously reflected in his last quartets and also coming to the fore in the last works of Mozart, particularly in the concluding movement of the Jupiter Symphony. In Goethe’s encyclopaedic art philosophy, Bach plays a decisive role, which the Olympian master himself once epitomized in the classical words: "In Bach’s works eternal harmony carries on a dialog with itself on what God felt in his bosom shortly before the creation of the world."[9] Goethe’s clear-cut conception of the genius of Eisenach is revealed in his correspondence, not as yet musicologically evaluated, especially in the letters to his friend Zelter. This Goethe composer, one of the most dynamic personalities at the beginning of the last century, frequently discussed the "problem" Bach with Goethe. I refer to the following quotation from one of his letters: "Bach’s works are partly vocal, partly instrumental, and both. In the vocal music there is a frequent discrepancy between music and words, and he has often enough been criticized for it. He is not strict in the observation of melodic or harmonic rules which he applies with greatest daring. In his settings of Biblical texts, however, I am inclined to admire him: what holy freedom, what apostlelike irony, what unexepected things come up which, in spite of the foregoing, do not awaken doubt in regard to his sense and taste. . . . Yet he is dependent upon some task, and one should understand him from his organ compositions. This is his real soul . . ." [10]

In spite of Zelter, his teacher and intimate friend, who saw in a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion insurmountable obstacles, Mendelssohn re-performed the work on Good Friday, 1829. The deed has always seemed surprising, but an analysis of Mendelssohn’s early church music, a neglected field of even Mendelssohn monographers (due to the fact that a great number of these works have never been printed [11]), reveals the composer’s previous close study of Bach’s organ works and cantatas. His deep penetration into Bach’s spirit is the more admirable as his elegant, unproblematical personality was little akin to the transcendental loftiness and mystic inwardness of the old master. How far-reaching Bach’s influence on Mendelssohn is might be ascertained from this one example out of many: his organ Passacaglia in C minor, composed in 1823 and reminiscent of both the B-flat minor Prelude of the Well-Tempered Keyboard and Bach’s organ Passacaglia in C minor, shows strongest resemblance with these works in construction and thematic conception, in rhythmic order and technique of variation. That in spite of this resemblance it has decided original traits speaks in favor of the boy then fourteen years old. In this and in many following works lies the nucleus for his later championship of Bach.

Instead of showing the result of such championship on Mendelssohn’s contemporaries and followers, I shall say one word about the Bach-approach of a representative of postromantic composition, Max Reger. He appears to have imbibed Bach’s polyphony more deeply than any other composer. When Reger, at an early age, dedicated his Opus 16 to the manes of Bach, he could rightly do so, for herein he proved himself, as a polyphonist, no less spontaneous than his idol. Brahms recognized such unusual talent and exchanged photographs with the young composer. Proudly could Reger say: "Others make fugues, I can only think in fugues." Declaring the organ as the basis of all church music, he writes: [12] "Only a compositional technique growing from Bach will bring us the true progress of music." Today we are able to recognize the aptness of this statement, for the works of those who have pressed the stamp of their personality upon the musical situation of our day, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Hindemith, and some others, can scarcely be dissociated from Bach and polyphony. A study of Reger simultaneously reveals the relationship of baroque and modern counterpoint. To no lesser degree, it indicates polyphonic crisis in romantic conception.

Why, in spite of the fact that the great composers of the nineteenth century have taken Bach to heart, has that century, on the whole, misunderstood his style? An abundance of published transcriptions and arrangements proclaim this misconception; had the post-romantic virtuosi enjoyed the inventions of Edison and Berliner, we would have, in addition, acoustic testimony convincing us of their misunderstanding of Bach’s stylistic features.

Musicology did not become effective on the subject of Bach until 1850. Then the Bach Society was formed with the aim of collecting the scattered works of the master. In 1873 and 1879 Spitta’s basic biography appeared. Scholars then turned to the investigation of the historic fundaments on which every correct rendition must rely, and analyzed the thought of Bach and his period in order to find a closer relationship to his style. With more original versions reinstated, the problems of performance became more conspicuous. One realizes how little the sound pictures of the romanticists corresponded to Bach’s means and intentions. Andre Pirro [13] and Albert Schweitzer [14] interpreted the pictorial and poetic elements of Bach’s vocal works and found that he used identical or similar motives for the portrayal of identical or similar ideas and emotions. The knowledge of melodic motion, rhythm, and harmony as involved in these vocal works helped them toward interpretation of the instrumental compositions which, in exchange, revealed the relationship of melodic directions and rhythmic formations to contrapuntal workmanship, instrumentation, orchestral accompaniment. What Spitta had already outlined was now confirmed: a thousand threads run from Bach to his forerunners in Germany, Italy, and France. Hermann Kretzschmar [15] and Alfred Heuss [16] viewed Bach’s style partly phenomenologically, partly hermeneutically, and Ernst Kurth [17] was the first to investigate thoroughly the architectural aspects of Bach’s work and, as a result, came to a full evaluation of the master’s polyphony. Spitta had stressed the absolute musician,[18] Kretzschmar had confirmed his Affektenlehre [19] by means of him, Werker [20] proceeded to the scrutiny of the smallest mathematical proportions of the works. But, in spite of all these painstaking investigations and thorough aesthetic interpretations, we must realize that the phase of Bach-research from Spitta to Schering [21] represents a period of musicology with little or no influence on music life. Here lies the reason why the concertgoer of today thinks of Bach in terms of Stokowski’s transcriptions, why the piano student approaches the Well-Tempered Keyboard through romantic "editions," why the St. Matthew’s Passion is sung with subjective dynamics and fluctuation of tempi, why the organ works are played with refined effects of quasi-exotic color and exuberant timbre. Singers, instead of considering voice and instrument in Bach’s arias and duets as two equal factors, treat them as though they were primitive forerunners of Schubert’s songs; instrumentalists sacrifice plastic design, the accuracy of the fabric and the purity of form to coloristic "beauty" and romantic "expression" and replace sentiment with sentimentality. To quote Woodworth: "The unsuspecting public is treated to exaggerated dynamics, improper harmonic effects, rubato, misshapen phraseology, bad voice-leading, and such a thickening of texture of the music as to make it nothing less than a travesty."

Today there is no longer excuse for such discrepancy between historic truth and practical performance. Not only Bach’s works, but thousands of compositions from the fifteenth through the eighteenth century are available in scholarly editions and furnish a secure basis for correct performances. Consequently, we need no longer see Bach through the eyes of composers who, naturally interested in creative work, each studied "their" Bach and extracted from his style whatever they considered most appropriate for their own composition. Turning from the composer’s approach to Bach to that of the scholar simply means adopting a conception which, in the history of our sister arts, has long been taken for granted. This point is aptly stated in H. B. Alexander’s preface to Pijoan’s An Outline History of Art: "The artist’s place in the world of beauty must be discovered not by himself, but by another who is endowed with a broad perception of the pathways of time as well as with a faculty for seizing the work of the hour in all its present intensities."[22]

The romantic composers, both as composers and romanticists, necessarily did not have the proper view of Bach. Their music is a reflection of personal adventure, a mirror of their emotions, their suffering, their thinking. Bach’s music is a reflection of the cosmos, a mirror of his religion and of the "pre-stabilized" harmony of the world. Aesthetically speaking, all romantic music is development and evolution, whereas Bach’s is achievement, static principle. Thus the romanticists failed to see that Bach’s work is inflexible and unchangeable, the emanation of essentia dei. Their own music, characteristic of non-tonic harmony and chord formations weakening centralized key feeling, prevents them from sensing Bach’s concentration upon tonality, his relativeness to the cadence as basis of chord succession, the discipline of his ordering cadential effects. They, absorbed in loosened, softened chords for the sake of color and clang, for chromatic penetration of inner voices, for alterations and enharmonic changes, cannot possibly be sympathetic to Bach’s never-resting rhythm, his economy of ideas, his concentration of melodic energies and objective projection of sound. Thus, even Reger, notwithstanding his healthy, musical, unliterary intellect, succumbed to the flow of melody and color to which he sacrificed logical chord-formation and concentrated form. He sinks from fff into ppp and weds the polyphony of Bach with the chromatic expressiveness of the modern orchestra and the bombastic armament of modern organ registration. Just as subjectively as Reger transposed Bach’s piano pieces for the organ, with his creative phantasy overpowering the aesthetic ingredients of eighteenth-century style, Busoni, in transposing Bach’s organ works for the piano, wavered between seriousness as a Bach scholar and ambitions as an impression-making performer. This is clearly stated by Pannain: "Busoni finds his goal in the personality of Bach as the poet finds his goal in nature. It is a past world . . . which he develops and transforms as if by magic. . . . Magic for Busoni is the artist’s power of transmuting the meaning of the letter, of impregnating all existence with the new essence. . . . Certainly Busoni’s aesthetic ideas are entirely personal, bounded by certain conditions, and to be taken in a personal sense."[23]

Though Bach knew no rubato which, since Liszt and Chopin, became the romanticists’ second nature; did not know our crescendo and diminuendo, which, since the Mannheim School, no composer, classic or romantic, could disassociate from music; was unaware of clang in which the nineteenth century saw the magic power of music, the element which made music, as an art, superior to poetry and painting; utilized no such nuances as result from the separation of composition and interpretation (which began with Beethoven), the aesthetic foundations of his art were, and are still today, confused with those of a later time, in particular with those of the period from Beethoven to Richard Strauss.

As the protest against superficial transcriptions and unorthodox arrangements, subjective performances and distortions, is not a matter of pedantry, but simply an insistence on the doctrine that "style is a reality in music,"[24] musicologists would be going too far if they, in their endeavor to reinstate Bach’s style in its deserved rights, would scornfully shrug their shoulders at interpretations through mediums other than those customary in Bach’s day. It should be clear that we champion a performance of Bach representing all the spiritual and material elements involved in his work, no less, no more. The question as to what Bach would have done if he had had modern singers and instrumentalists is increasingly futile the more we comprehend that the great artist creates according to the laws of his inner voice. With this point of view in mind, we are safe in saying that no measure of Bach would have become better, i.e., more Bach-like, if he had had better media. Thus, to my mind, we should repeat what can be repeated and not bother about the things which, owing to changed situations, cannot be materialized. As too little time is left for going into the details of a Bach approach on this basis, a few principal ideas might be stated to illustrate its spirit.

First: The playing of Bach’s piano works cannot be made dependent upon the number of harpsichords and clavichords available. To insist, as some German scholars have done, on the exclusive use of reconstructed instruments is questionable counsel in Europe, and more so in this country. It is superfluous to say that the release of recordings of old music played on old instruments is no less desirable than the New York Bach Circle’s similar pursuit in regard to concerts. However, the production of old keyboard instruments is, and will always be, limited. This does not entitle the old-fashioned piano teacher—or, I should rather say—it entitles only the old-fashioned piano teacher, to argue that, as we perform on an instrument different from Bach’s, we might just as well endow his style with "modern" feeling. Such performances as Serkin’s Departure of the Beloved Brother or the piano team Vronsky and Babin’s C Minor Concerto are as good Bach as we can have today, indicative of proper shading, dynamics, tempi, phrasing.

Second: More important for our purposes than a discussion of what should be played on harpsichords, clavichords, and pianos are the problems arising from the "discovery" of the properties of the baroque organ. When some twenty years ago the Schnitger organ of the Jakobikirche of Hamburg as well as some other organs initiated animated discussion of organ problems, a campaign against the modern organ was organized. Some musicologists took a very aggressive viewpoint toward the modern organ as a suitable vehicle for Bach’s church music. Nevertheless, the hostility against the modern organ as a Bach instrument, still existing in some parts of Europe and now finding echo in this country, is of little use. To be sure, when an organist changes from a modern instrument to the old one, he begins to see everything more correct and genuine, and his support of the movement: "Back to the Old Organ" is understandable. The organ tone of the old instrument is much fresher, the registers often possess more individual life, etc.; nor can it be denied that the old masters sound more characteristic in style on the old organ. Also, it always is a joy to hear how modern organ builders have learned from the wisdom of their precursors and do much to make our modern instruments more capable media of old music.

However, we must not lose sight of the problem in its practical application. Where capable musicians with a knowledge of and a conscience for style sit at modern consoles, genuine Bach music can be heard despite the modern features of the organ. The main issue remains: How great is the organizing power of the interpreter? Is he responsive to stylistic situations? Does he have enough sense for the differentia of color and timbre? Granted that pneumatics and electricity have been a detriment to Bach’s church music, a greater is lack of Bach conception, and it is the duty of every Lutheran organist to acquire a feeling for authentic registrations and for the Bach idiom. Wherever the mechanics of the organ are precise and the sonorities are fundamentally usable, nothing stands in the way of a good Bach rendition.

Besides, we know that the heaviness of the action on the older instruments, particularly at extensive use, is a handicap. The beauty of the old organs, as regards my personal musical feeling, is often reduced by the mechanics of the traktur reduced not only for the player, but also for the worshiper. The old temperature of the organs, even of the "modern" Silbermann’s, proved to be a major difficulty when decades ago in Germany old organs were utilized for church concerts and services with old sacred music. It is probably well known that the so-called "non-tempered tuning" often is the very element which gives the old organ its particular effect, one which is immediately lost when they are tuned in the well-tempered system.

As I see it: All the advances which the old instruments have in favor of a stylistically and coloristically better rendition of Bach’s music are compensated for in the modern instruments by the great opportunities to which they lend themselves as vehicles of all good Christian organ music—old or modern.

I have heard music by Reger played on the baroque organ. Surely Reger, as other nineteenth-century masters, cannot be adequately expressed on such an instrument, for their more compact idiom is alien to the extreme dispositions of the old instruments.

Fritz Heitmann once said: "Selbst die monumentalen Bachschen Werke, wie man sie z. B. auf der Freiberger Silbermannorgel gehört hat, konnten dart über ein gewisses Mass an Mixturen-Helle und Schärfe nicht vertragen, wenn ihr Anhören auf die Dauer nicht zur Anstrengung statt zu musikalischer Erhebung werden sollte. Hierher gehört auch die Beobachtung, dass ausgezeichnete, aber organistisch nicht geschulte Musiker interessante Registermischungen, die dem Organistenohr immer noch möglich sind, ‘herausstechender’ Obertöne wegen als ‘unmusikalisch’ und unschön ablehnen, gerade auch bei der älteren Literatur. Wenn wir also von den Dispositionen der Alten lernen wollen, seien wir uns dessen bewusst, dass die Charakteristik des Orgelmässigen ihre Grenze finden muss in der Linie des musikalisch Schönen. Dass diese Grenze nur schwer festzulegen sein wird, schliesst nicht aus, dass wir sie im Auge behalten müssen, soIl die Orgel als musikalisches Instrument ferner eine Rolle spielen und nicht die Angelegenheit einer orgelklanglich extrem eingestellten Minderheit bleiben."

To be sure, in the discussion of the organ problem in connection with Bach, I am taking the practical view of the Lutheran church organist and of the Church without intending to minimize the valuable discoveries of fellow musicologists who have given us most informative facts about the old instruments. All I want to state is that while the baroque organ such as Mr. Biggs plays (the baroque organ at the Germanic Museum at Harvard University) is warmly welcomed for musicological purposes, such as historical concerts, etc., a modern organ which can do justice to all styles is at this time a more desirable instrument for the churches. The stylistic problems must be solved by the musician who on one instrument should be capable of presenting the entire literature from Paumann to the moderns, by using his discrimination for the different stylistic epochs of organ music. Heinrich Reimann said many years ago: "Only in the conscious or unconscious disregard of the artistic viewpoint lies the explanation for the many mistakes and misconceptions made in the building of organs for concert or church purposes. . . . The reason for these misconceptions is lack of experience, arbitrariness, temper, and vanity, even the incapability or commercialness of organists and organ builders. . . . The main task, however, is always an artistic approach to the instrument. Provided that certain elementary conditions are taken care of, this approach lies in the heart of the player."

Third: The singing of Bach’s works must be subjected to revision in general. More expression than technique is fundamentally required, always bel canto plus declamation. The governing idea for the study of solos as well as for the training of the chorus must be the consideration that Bach is just as much a poetic musician as Wagner and Hugo Wolf are musical poets. In regard to the Evangelist parts in the Passions, we must not forget that the Apostles report, live the events; in order to sing these recitativi, one must first learn to speak them. Bach thought of a dramatic interpreter gifted with power of characterization rather than of a bel canto singer. The principle of the vocal concerti can and must be reinstated if we want to regain beautiful balance between the concerto, the quartet, and the ripieno choir. There is no reason why, instead of amplified performances with a thousand and more singers (as I recently heard), the St. Matthew’s Passion could not be presented with a chamber choir,[25] for one can prove that Bach had, for each of the two choruses, only twelve singers. The use of boys’ voices in the cantatas is another ingredient which could reflect Bach’s timbre more precisely, for the ease in their high registers and the homogeneity of soprano and alto is by far superior to women’s voices. In fact, the use of a boys’ choir seems the more satisfactory since the art of falsetto, which determined the sound picture of Bach’s vocal performances, is now practically a lost art.

In all his vocal writing there lives something of Bach the organ composer. His vocal compositions are the ultimate expression and transfiguration of organ style. Spitta says that Bach’s church music, so to speak, calls for a great organ with registers that are sensitized, flexible, and individualized to the degree of speech. Schweitzer shows that many a vocal melody was directly born from the spirit of the organ. In the range no difference can be found between the solo passages and the chorus. The maximum range for the soprano is from C^l to B², for the alto from F^# to E², for the tenor from C to B¹, and for the bass from F^# to F^#l. The difficulty lies in the intervals, in the frequency of figuration, in the high tessitura, and in the free entrance of exposed tones. Bach, for instance, makes it, as a rule, impossible for the singer to draw a deep breath before a long tone—by preceding that tone with a number of shorter beats. There are many coloraturas which cannot be sung on one breath without becoming ugly. In those cases the singer must analyze his melodies, excerpt the motives, and phrase them according to logic. Generally speaking, the solo cantatas demand even more from both the technical and the expressive power of the singer than the choral cantatas within which those written for the holidays almost throughout require more than the others.

An interesting study is the comparison of the passages which Bach writes for women’s voices—strictly lyrical and often subjective—with those for men’s voices which sing always the objective, more contemplative and narrating parts. Whenever a situation reaches its climax, be it a joyous or a doleful one, Bach uses the alto voice, whereas passionateness, vividly manifested, is expressed by the high register of the soprano whose flexibility again and again Bach exploits for these purposes. Just as the tenor always is the narrator, Bach’s basses always are the symbols of brilliance and majesty.

Fourth: The orchestral parts in the cantatas and Passions as well as the instrumental works can be performed in the style of the old collegia musica by confining the number of participants to from 32 to 38 players, the maximum ever at Bach’s disposal. However, such confinement means, in reality, not as much insistence upon the limited number as upon the spirit of music-making involved. Comparing the orchestra with the chorus, we must never forget that Bach wanted more orchestra players than singers. We usually hear more vocalists than instrumentalists. Therein practically all Bach performances of cantatas and Passions fail. We are used to Bach choruses that are twice and three times the number of instruments: at once that equal partnership of instrumental and vocal forces which characterizes Bach’s sound picture is destroyed. Albert Schweitzer, both magnificent scholar and a practical musician, suggests a happy medium between the limited resources which Bach had at his avail at the St. Thomas Church and those suggested by the amplitude of the churches and concert halls in which Bach’s sacred works are given today. For a chorus of from 50 to 80 voices he suggests an orchestra of 28, namely, 6 first and 6 second violins, 6 violas, 4 cellos, 2 basses, 2 flutes, and 2 oboes. And while he suggests also, for larger groups, choral forces which outnumber the orchestra, he emphasizes the leading role which he feels the instrumental parts should play. Disapproving of "the practice of thrusting the orchestra like a wedge into the choir," he proposes, for the sake of better effects, the placement of strings and wood winds in front of the choir. Dorian in his book The History of Music in Performance advises as follows: "If there is no room in present-day Bach practice for orthodox adherence to the master’s customs, the least one may ask for is an arrangement in which the modern apparatus re-emphasizes all the structural ideas of Bach’s setup. This can best be accomplished by studying the original features of the historical renditions. We cite the St. Matthew’s Passion as the most typical. In this work, Bach uses two orchestras, with at least 12 players in each. Normally, however, his orchestra comprised from 18 to 20 players, corresponding exactly to the grosse Cantorei of his singers which performed the Sunday cantatas and sometimes concert music as well."

Let us not forget that though the coloristic interest of the beginning eighteenth century was remarkable, it exhausted itself in experiments with the harmonica, with the mandora and colazione plucked by young girls and art-loving students, with the musette and flageolet blown by adventurers in a new style. Thus Bach’s distinction between clavichord- and harpsichord-coloring was then pretentious, and what he considered coloristic effect might well be studied from a comparison of the St. John’s Passion aria "Betrachte, meine Seele" for viola d'amore, lute, and continuo, with "Komm, suesses Kreuz" from St. Matthew’s Passion with obbligato viola da gamba. It can also be noted in the varying orchestration of the Brandenburg Concerti. These were daring experiments to which the noise-accustomed ear of the twentieth century might not always respond with sufficient sensitiveness.

Fifth: Such economy of coloristic effects reminds us of the necessity of evaluating the ensemble works as community music. In all his compositions there is one aesthetic idea inherent: The Church makes creator and listener one, its dome embraces music "producers" and "consumers." This idea of the Church is extended to music-making in other environments as well. With such a conception in mind, the vocal and instrumental interpreter of Bach will bury the remainder of sheer virtuoso allure.

Sixth: In thinking of Bach’s orchestra and chorus and its limitations, we must be aware that, though the master never had a perfect ensemble, he had one versed in all styles, steadily in session, capable of acclimating itself to any condition, obeying exactly the enforced ideas of its master. The singers of St. Thomas were no singing angels, and the students of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum scarcely had the brilliancy of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and though their performances may not have been acoustic models, they were clear-cut, concrete, intelligent, and—humble. If only a ray of such reverence in performance could shine into every Bach rendition in our day!

Seventh: A good Bach performance often depends upon the degree of perfection in the projection of polyphony. Meetings of the last years have evidenced that, on the part of progressive educators, there is today an emphasis upon the polyphonic idiom as an essential element in music education. Not only does an ear early trained in polyphony make for better performers, but it produces better, because more observant, listeners. The cultivation of polyphony in the school system is of greatest importance not only for Bach, but for Palestrina and for the best in modern music as well. It reflects our desire for building communal feeling, it seems a pedagogical postulate indicative of democratic music culture, for, as stylistic expression, polyphony doubtlessly can be correlated to that co-operation of individuals for the sake of humane ideals which democracy has written on its flag.

Eighth: No less should the so-called "intellectualism" of this polyphony be re-approached in our time. It is curious indeed to think that the greatest work of polyphonic-canonic writing, The Art of the Fugue, had its first Chicago performance in 1939.[26] One can visualize this composition as a standard work in music education. I doubt very much, however, that its available arrangements suit pedagogical purposes and, therefore, some years ago, suggested a clear-cut condensation to twelve movements (this permissible especially under the aspect that the whole work is fragmentary) in an orchestration for strings alone. The idea has been tried, I believe, with success,[27] for the youngsters can perceive the work in this sober version in its original greatness as thought, as abstract idea.

Ninth: So much has been written about the problem of time in Bach and other old masters that here we can only summarize the situation in brief. There are sufficient treatises on hand which can give us the basic explanation on Bach tempi in such a way that we are afforded an approximate notion of the tempo rules. The assertions of so-called authorities that the old music was always played slower is definitely proved wrong no matter whether we draw information from Quantz or St. Lambert, who, in his Principles of the Keyboard (Paris, 1702), has given us, in a pianoforte treatise, much enlightening information as to the time signatures and their function as indicators of tempo. The author says in the eighth chapter of his book: "From all this I conclude that, since in Music one is so little exact in observing the rules of Signs and Movements, the Reader who is studying here the principles of the Harpsichord, should not hold himself up very much for all that I have said on this matter; that he may make use of the privilege of the Musicians, and give to Pieces any movement he pleases, in paying only very little attention to the Sign, provided he does not choose for a piece a movement directly the contrary of that demanded by the Sign, since that can destroy the grace of a piece, and if the movement chosen be appropriate to it and bring it to life."

Although the author justifies a subjective music approach, this work and other treatises suggest the necessity for all organists and choral directors to achieve a true feeling for the Bach tempo. Leopold Mozart in his Violin Method of 1756 once suggests that a good musician must be able not only to beat time accurately and evenly, but also to recognize from a piece whether it has a slow or a somewhat faster tempo. "Even when the composer seeks to explain the character of the movement more clearly by means of additional words," Mozart says, "it is, nevertheless, impossible for him to specify exactly this character." The ability to deduce this character from the piece he calls the real strength of the musician. "Every melodic piece has at least one part from which one can be quite sure of recognizing the natural tempo of the piece . . . but this recognition requires long experience and good judgment. You will not contradict me, when I count this as one of the highest perfections of music."

With all good approaches, little will be gained, however, if teacher and student fail to comprehend the man behind the work. Underlying the fertility of Bach’s compositions is the endurance of the boy who, with greatest industriousness, absorbed the musical scores of preceding generations; the energy of a man who, notwithstanding narrow confines and insufficient means, produced timeless art works with indefatigable vitality; the aged genius whose soul was moved to deepest depth not by love, the great inspiration of all romantic music, but by the awareness of death. Death, to him, the Lutheran, was the redemption from narrowness and insufficiency of earthly life. This conception produced the ethical power and the cosmic significance of his work which cause personal features to fade. In its omnivalidity lies the secret whereby he will appear to all generations in eternal youth, or, as the Swedish Archbishop Soederblom said to his disciples: "He was the fifth evangelist: Go and work also for him."[28]

It is regrettable that in the twenties of this century there began a general movement—if one can call it that—which endeavored to "absolutize" Bach’s music, which wanted to deprive Bach of his best human values by applying to his muse a theory which, after the first World War, became indicative of much of the German attitude toward music. To quote just one example: It was said that little of Bach’s music had associations with emotions and general human elements, and that his music should be understood from a sheer musical viewpoint. Such an approach to Bach, of course, would ultimately land at a complete disregard of the religious values even of his church music. It was propagated by certain modern composers who analyzed all music, their own and others, without considering its mental and emotional background, and it was unfortunately supported by well-known musicologists who held up high the banner of the absolute. Alfred Heuss in the Zeitschrift fuer Musik, May, 1927, wrote an essay about the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden, in which he proved that the seven stanzas of the chorale which constitute the different parts of this cantata for Easter Sunday, together with a strictly programmatic sinfonia, were written in the way in which they are conceived, as a result of the influence of the text upon music. He went into the details of explaining why. "It lies in the essence of Bach that the old, medieval poem in the Luther version and the melody, Easterlike gay but intelligible only from the standpoint of the Middle Ages, influenced Bach to quasi-archaic moods," he exclaimed. He showed that the tonalities which Bach chose in order to portray the "strange war of life and death" ("Es war ein wunderlicher Krieg") were chosen consciously. In short, he gave a lengthy analysis of the cantata for the sole purpose of showing that Bach derived his inspiration from the text, that thought and religious conscience had ignited the flame of his artistry. The very fact that Heuss felt the necessity for writing such articles—as incidentally had some other writers—indicates that he was concerned about a musicological attitude which investigating the details of musical technique failed to give consideration of the most important, the religious-human, in other words, the extra-musical values of Bach’s art.

Friedrich Blume, in the program book to the Bach Festival of Berlin in 1927, had written, analyzing the same cantata: "It is almost strange that the text speaking of the war between life and death has failed to inspire Bach to a more vivid projection, unless one wants to see such a tendency in the powerful movement of concerted voices. The frequency with which such phenomena appear in Bach’s cantatas shows that it is wrong to look for inspiration of the musician through associations conditioned by the lyrics; many passages, particularly of the earlier Bach works, can be understood only through its absolute musical qualities."

A statement of this order would mean that we can understand Bach without the religious impact, the motive behind the work. I feel that Bach is not an artist who played with music just as with tones. Behind his writings I feel the artist and the human being. Separating his music from Bach’s mental and emotional existence, seeing it just as manufactured musical merchandise is, I believe, missing the understanding of its significance. If the Lutheran Church in this hour is encouraged to sing and play more Bach, if our Lutheran musicians are called upon to engage themselves with the problems which this music presents to us of today, it is so only because we believe that in this music we find the mirror of a human being with imagination, with a strong heart, with a fresh mind, a great character.

In the arts, Luther exercised two important influences: One is in the prose. The entire literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is influenced by Luther’s sermons, pamphlets, and translations, whether we think of Sebastian Frank, Johannes Fischart, or even Christian F. Gellert. Similarly, the chorale was given its impetus by Luther whether we think of Nicolaus Herman or the 131 hymns of Paul Gerhardt. These chorales, as we have said last year, are the weapon of the Lutheran Church. The German Lutheran soul is expressed in them as it sang, as it was moved by religious spirit. Then Master Bach came along. In his Passions and cantatas as well as in his chorale harmonizations there is, once more and for the last time, the Lutheran spirit summarized in its musical expression: Bach is a cantor, a singer in the true sense of the word.

1 Comp. abstract of Gerhard Herz’s paper in Bulletin of the American Musicological Society, April, 1939, p. 9.
2 Comp. Hans H. Rosenwald’s Bach im Wandel der Zeit, special print of Berliner Bachverein, 1927.
3 Article "Bach" in The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, edited by Oscar Thompson, New York, 1939.
4 Magazine Der Critische Musikus, Hamburg 1737–40.
5 Neueröffnete Musik Bibliothek,1739 ff.
6 Quoted in Hennan Unger’s Musikgeschichte in Selbstzeugnissen, Munich, 1929, p. 141.
7 Comp. footnote 2.
8 Letter to Breitkopf and Haertel, 1801.
9 Goethe’s Werke, Bong and Company, Berlin, Leipsic, Vienna, Stuttgart.
10 Correspondence Goethe-Zelter, edited by Will Vesper, Deutsche Bibliothek, Berlin, p. 210 ff.
11 Manuscripts in Preussische Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, Berliner Singakademie, Caecilienverein, Frankfort.
12 Letter to G. Beckmann of Essen, 1900; comp. H. J. Moser’s Geschichte der deutschen Musik, Stuttgart, 1928, vol. 3, p. 441.
13 L’esthetique de Jean Sebastian Bach, 1907.
14 Johann Sebastian Bach, 1905, French; 1908, German.
15 Bachkolleg, edited 1922.
16 Articles in Bach Yearbook, in particular 1913, p. 128 ff.
17 Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunktes, 1912.
18 Comp. in addition to his biography Graf Waldersee’s collection No. 1.
19 Comp. footnote 15.
20 Bach studies of 1922, 1923. Comp. also Frotscher’s "Affektenlehre," etc. in Bach Yearbook, 1926.
21 J. S. Bach’s Leipziger Kirchenmusik, Leipsic, 1936.
22 University of Knowledge, Chicago, 1938.
23 Modern Composers, translated by M. R. Bonavia, London, 1932.
24 Woodworth.
25 It was heard in that fashion in 14 out of the 27 performances in which this writer sang the Jesus part.
26 Concert of the University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra on December 10, 1939, under the baton of Dr. Siegmund Levarie.
27 The author performed it for the first time in 1933 with his Collegium Musicum in the Lessing-Hochschu1e, Berlin.
28 Quoted by H. J. Moser, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 239.

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume II (Valparaiso, Ind.: Valparaiso University, 1946). Reprinted by permission of Valparaiso University.

For personal use only.