The audience at the Bach recital last Saturday afternoon included a high concentration of Berkshire organists, organ enthusiasts, Bach lovers, and music lovers in general, who gathered to hear a well-played program of mostly familiar works, some transcribed from cantatas by Bach and others, some originally composed for organ. The program was framed by three blockbusters originally for organ and designed for concert performance: the great Prelude and Fugue in G major, the “Little” Fugue in G minor, and the notorious Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Interspersed among them were six transcriptions from cantatas, four incorporating Lutheran hymns, or chorales, including the very familiar “Wachet auf” (“Sleepers Awake”) and “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” (“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”). Historical background commentary supplied by George Stauffer suggested ways to think about the music through amusing comparisons to our contemporary culture, but one subject was not addressed: the religious practice which this church music represented and expressed. Listening once more to Bach’s endlessly resourceful and expressive settings of these church melodies got me wondering about why so many of us non-Lutherans find them so compelling.
German baroque repertory, particularly of chorale settings, has been a favorite of mine since my piano teacher gave me the music to some of Busoni’s piano transcriptions when I was a teenager. Later, I fell for the music of Johann Hermann Schein, who had been Bach’s predecessor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig a century earlier. It was through the Chorale Beargeitungen as practiced by generations of musicians, including earlier generations of the Bach family, that the amazing techniques of tonal organization and rich counterpoint were developed. But what seems so valuable is not only the technical complexity and compositional virtuosity of the form, but perhaps more importantly the ways in which it offers its listeners a common core for their individual spiritual and social experiences; the form is above all reassuring. It tells us that for all the diversity our private responses to the (unheard) words and religious imagery, the essence, a communal hymn, is one shared by a community of listeners and singers.
From an outsider’s position, watching that epitome of contemporary popular culture, the Super Bowl halftime show, I found the contrast to my experience of Bach’s organ works heightened. The lyrics and cultural signals sent by Kendrick Lamar, brilliant as they were, and to the delight of his fans and to a broad public, were opaque to me. The Super Bowl as national ritual (including commercials) seemed hyperbolic, hyped up by the full apparatus of contemporary electronic media. In contrast, Bach’s chorale-based works, absent the lyrics and their specific Lutheran connotations, can address an inclusive listening community which spans time and space and is capable of perceiving the simple melodies that form their core. Such a shared experience is made possible by the balance of communal and individual gestures, including Bach’s interpretation as expressed in the mood woven by the setting, particularly in the surrounding contrapuntal materials and the listener’s subjective response to them. For example, the “Wachet auf” setting consists of three layers: The two original parts are a famous flowing melody and its stately accompanying bassline which offers a full statement of new, non-chorale material. Stauffer described the theme as a “jazzy” improvisation à la Thelonious Monk, but I have to disagree; there is nothing eccentric or surprising in the logic and organization with which it unfolds, one reason why it can so easily seem familiar. (It was also adapted by pop culture many decades ago for the mega-hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum.) Its full melody is stated with bass prior to the entrance of the third voice, the chorale itself, which moves more slowly, while the flowing melody is repeated. The juxtaposition of these three contrasting lines, each moving at their own pace and fitting together in perfect harmony, carries the message of the music, the chorale a vessel floating calmly upon the flowing waters of the tune, supported by a sturdy bassline that could represent the faith of the community or an ultimate source of harmonious stability. The melody does develop tensions in its increasingly large intervallic leaps (perhaps foreshadowing a bit of Thelonious Monk after all), but its peaks and valleys are eventually “made plain” (to quote the lyrics of Handel’s “Messiah”). Such ultimately satisfying resolutions are not achieved in the realm of human affairs but rather in a shared idealistic imagination.
The same could be said of almost everything on the program, even the non-chorale works. The Prelude and Fugue in G major is one of Bach’s greatest works (if not greatest hits)—I was delighted that it was included in the program. Stauffer pointed out that, unlike the preludes and fugues of “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” which were designed for music students (keyboard players and composers), these organ works were designed for public performance and mass appeal. They are highly dramatic and offer the performer a chance, in the preludes, to exhibit virtuosity, including at the pedal board (as seen on the video screen positioned next to the organ). The G major fugue exhibits a different kind virtuosity: that of the composer. It is organized in a systematic, symmetrical manner. In the opening exposition, the four voices enter one by one in the order of: alto, tenor, bass, soprano. This is followed by a regular alternation of episodes based on subject fragments and reappearances of the full subject in each of the voices following the same order. The fugue culminates in a pair of two-voiced “strettos” (overlapping subjects) leading to a very crunchy collision of all the voices (with one added for greater “crunch”), a suspenseful pause, and satisfying conclusion. The satisfaction expressed here lies in beholding a well-organized musical “machine,” one that has no meaning beyond its own combination of symmetry, beauty, surprise, and power, devised by a supremely organized and talented human mind, one that seems to have been reliably inspired.
Similar virtues were exhibited in the better-known “Little” Fugue in G minor. The contrasting Toccata and Fugue in D minor occupies a niche in popular culture thanks initially to Leopold Stokowski and Walt Disney, followed by its adoption as a signifier of gothic horror in movies and TV. This is a uniquely wild piece that Bach may have composed at the age of 18 and suppressed (or reserved for himself); for years it was questioned as to whether it was authentic since a manuscript or copy stemming from the composer’s own circle has never been found. It contains many unique and eccentric features, including a loose and improvisatory organization that contrasts starkly with the rigor and logic of the G major Fugue. Stauffer pointed out that the high degree of its thematic organization points to Bach, but it could point as well to others in his milieu, such as his teacher, Georg Böhm. It is even possible that Johannes Ringk, the copyist who notated it, might have written it down after hearing it improvised (my own speculation). As Peter Williams writes, in his magisterial account of Bach’s organ music, “Being unique, the work is a puzzle.” However, the notoriety of the piece has welded it in the popular mind to Bach, and it formed an apt conclusion to the program. The renditions by Renée Anne Louprette and the Johnson organ were uniformly steady, lucid, judiciously paced, and colorfully registered. The capacity of the organ’s tracker action to modify attacks and releases added variety and expression to the rhythmic flow, which tended toward rhythmic uniformity and perhaps a bit of inflexibility. In particular, the highly rhetorical (not to say “over the top”) style of the concluding Toccata and Fugue seemed to be a bit underplayed, perhaps in response to the more intimate acoustics of the space which has a shorter reverberation period than the larger churches of baroque Germany, where the pauses between the sonorous chords would have echoed more dramatically. Otherwise, the intimacy of the space served the rest of the program very well.
It was the end of a week that produced a tsunami of horrors flowing from Washington and with it an unending supply of angst, evidence of our fractured national psyche. In his own time, Bach took on burdensome tasks as wage-earner, father, performer, and teacher. He never suffered fools, stood up for his convictions, and often paid the consequences: He was jailed for a month by a duke who refused to allow him to seek employment elsewhere; he was in a constant struggle with the rector of his church and the town fathers to receive adequate funding for his vision of “a properly ordered church music”; and he had to advocate for an reasonable livelihood for his family. Several of his children died young, and he lost his beloved first wife when they were both 35. In addition, he cultivated a coterie of students and colleagues dedicated to upholding the highest standards of “musical science.” He made extra money as an instrument dealer and oversaw the publication of selected works. He collaborated with Telemann in creating a venue for secular music, the Zimmerman coffeehouse, which served as an early version of a concert hall before such things existed. He was fully engaged in the world and often had to struggle to achieve some recognition and support for his artistry. A fuller appreciation only started to develop 80 years after his death. Yet even so, he continued to plumb the depths of a musical imagination of unprecedented complexity and spiritual depth to produce an unprecedented body of monumental musical treasures. Perhaps the great reassurance that we feel in listening to his music is a reflection of the strength of his own character and convictions, his affirmation of what humanity is capable of achieving…
