The Complete Organ Works of Francisco Correa de Arauxo: Correa in the New World

Alexander Meszler

Alexander Meszler’s performances and research aim to inspire new perspectives on the organ. He spent 2018–2019 in Versailles, France, on a Fulbright grant to study secularism and the organ. In 2020, he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ at Arizona State University with Kimberly Marshall. He is a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2019.

In December 1516, Pope Leo X revoked Ottaviano Petrucci’s exclusive 1513 privilege to print keyboard intabulations. A lesser-known publisher, Andrea Antico, was awarded rights to the genre. Just one month later, January 1517, Antico delivered Italy its first collection of printed keyboard music, Frottole intabulate da sonare organi, Libro primo (henceforth, Frottole intabulate). This collection is the first known publication of keyboard music in Italy, the second known keyboard publication anywhere (after Arnolt Schlick’s Tabulatur etlicher Lobesang of 1512), and the second extant collection—manuscript or published—of keyboard music in Italy (after the fifteenth-century Codex Faenza, Biblioteca Comunale 117).¹ No other collection is single-genre, and no other similar collection is almost entirely secular in content. Though future Italian keyboard collections continued to include song intabulations, no other publication represents the late-fifteenth, early-sixteenth century frottola genre.

Clearly, Frottole intabulate is special if only based on the merits of its innovative, first-of-its-kind, and in some respects, one-of-a-kind status. Yet in histories and critiques of early keyboard literature, the collection is consistently received coldly. In a textbook on historical performance, Jon Laukvik, without abridgment, writes only,

Frottole intabulate da sonare organi libro primo, published in 1517 by Andrea Antico, are the first Italian keyboard works to appear in print. These frottole, intabulations of simple songs, are in four parts throughout and contain ornamental flourishes (groppi) already familiar to us.²

Even more apathetically, Willi Apel writes: “as the title indicates, it [Frottole intabulate] contains only intabulations of frottole, and is thus of little interest for the history of keyboard music.”³ If Frottole intabulate is so unique, why has it been received unenthusiastically?

While “reevaluate” in the title of this essay might on the surface seem disingenuous given Frottole intabulate’s obscurity to today’s keyboardists, the reality remains that there is a substantial body of writing related to this collection. Reevaluate, then, is to reexamine and perhaps “re-present” the body of scholarship related to the collection, but also to reconsider its value as keyboard music for listeners and performers of today. I begin by presenting a brief overview of Antico’s life and the contents of Frottole intabulate. Next, I contextualize the keyboard collection within the framework of early print culture by considering aspects of economics, reception, genre, authorship, instrumentation, and Frottole intabulate’s famous frontispiece. Finally, I analyze the intabulation technique in Antico’s collection, proving that the difficulty and artistic merit are well-situated with other contemporaneous compositions and arrangements.

Andrea Antico

The most comprehensive secondary source on Andrea Antico, both for his life and music, is Catherine Weeks Chapman’s more than four-hundred-page Harvard University dissertation from 1964.⁴ Though not impossible to obtain a copy, her document is not widely available. Chapman’s work, though significantly dated, is thorough and is still the baseline source for the Grove Music Online encyclopedia entry on Antico by Martin Picker. Figure 1 is compiled from these sources and may serve as a reference point and visual guide to Antico’s life; this chart and the following sketch of Antico’s life and publications serve as an outline, not a comprehensive biography.

It is not uncommon that the lives of sixteenth-century figures be shrouded in a degree of ambiguity, and Antico is no exception. However, since publishers were held in high regard and typically claimed ownership of their work, the level of uncertainty related to Antico’s biography is unusual. Antico began his life sometime around 1480 in Montona, present day Croatia, then governed by Venice. Some editors and authors have confused Montona with Mantua. It is not known why or when he moved, but Antico’s first work surfaced in Rome around 1510. During this early part of his career, Antico was exceptionally prolific. Chapman states,

From 1510 through 1521, Antico actually produced more music books than Petrucci—a great many more if reprints are included. But it is less the volume of Antico’s output than his use of a printing method fundamentally different from Petrucci’s that makes him an important figure in the early history of music printing.⁵

Not only was Antico a prolific printer, but he also worked by using woodcuts instead of movable type, the method used by Petrucci. Antico was Petrucci’s first significant competitor. Although Petrucci produced the first prints of polyphonic music, Antico was the first to do so in Rome in 1510 with Canzoni nove con alcune scelte de varii libri di canto (henceforth, Canzoni nove). It was during his years in Rome that Antico produced Frottole intabulate, his only collection for the keyboard.

Between 1518 and 1520 Antico was in partnership with the Giunta family of printers in Venice. Nothing is known about why he moved north or the circumstances around why he partnered with another printer, but Antico’s name continued to be featured prominently in his work. After this, for more than ten years between 1522 and 1533, references to Antico disappear. It is likely that he continued his work in Venice with the Giunta family or some other publisher. Still in Venice, Antico resurfaces in 1533 working with the Scotto family of publishers. During this time period, he produced what might be considered his magnum opus, Mottetti di Adrian Willaert, libro secondo a Quattro voci (1539). After this publication, little more is known about Antico’s life.

Frottole intabulate da sonare organi, Libro primo (1517)

The frottola (frottole, plural) is a genre of secular Italian song that was popular during the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries. It is widely considered to be a predecessor to the emerging, more complex, and now more well-known madrigal.⁶ The frottola generally contains a text with lighthearted themes and elements of humor. Frequently strophic, any discernible text painting quickly dissolves. Thus, at least in theory, the frottola can be easily accommodated by textless versions like keyboard intabulations. Intabulations are arrangements of vocal pieces for an instrument, particularly keyboard or lute.

Frottole intabulate is a collection of twenty-six frottola intabulations for keyboard. As is the case with most early music, certain aspects of performance practice are and will probably always remain unknown. Maria Luisa Baldassari suggests that there are numerous possible ways to perform the music in Antico’s collection including as an accompaniment for a solo voice or as works for keyboard alone.⁷ Until recently there were two original surviving copies of Frottole intabulate, one in Prague (National Museum, Nostitz Library) and another in Milan (Private Library Polesini), but the Milan copy (originally missing a single folio) has been lost. All but two vocal models survive in other Antico publications that predate Frottole intabulate.⁸ One of the remaining two intabulations exists in a Petrucci publication that also predates Frottole intabulate, and the other has no known vocal model.⁹

Frottole intabulate does not include the original texts other than what is provided in the title, but many of the songs would have been very well known. Even though frottola texts are generally lighthearted, the lyrics are important to a successful interpretation of the pieces because their themes still vary significantly from song to song. Despite access to almost all the texts from the original vocal models, translations are unavailable in all the modern editions of Frottole intabulate; this is most likely due to the problematic nature of translating fifteenth- and sixteenth-century poetic Italian into modern English. I have included tentative translations of the titles in Figure 2 in an effort to increase the accessibility of this music to performers and listeners.

By including partial translations in the liner notes to his Antico recording, Glen Wilson also recognized the importance of these texts. Because he only translated lyrics that he felt particularly influenced his interpretations, some of his translations only include the title while others include significant portions of text. Some of the extended texts significantly change the meaning of the title. For instance, “Fiamma amorosa e bella” (number 13) alone translates to “Flame loving and beautiful,” but with more context from the rest of the poetry, Wilson translates, “Beautiful flame of love, why have you turned to ice?”¹⁰ Still other pieces introduce elements of humor only after the initial title like in “Che farala che dirala” (number 21), which alone becomes “What will she do when she hears?” With additional context, however, it becomes something akin to “what will she do when she hears I have become a monk?”¹¹ Though the translations I provide in Figure 2 are a starting point, a future resource might work with an expert on literature of the Italian renaissance to complete full translations.

Figure 2 is a complete list of the contents of Frottole intabulate. It contains the number, title, tentative English translation of the title, a potential source for the intabulation, and possible original composers.

Contextualizing Antico’s frottole in the print culture of the early-sixteenth century

Very little is known about the culture of early-sixteenth-century music printing, and it is easy to imply inaccurate generalities. Stanley Boorman states,

We can hardly begin to say anything about the general acceptance of music, beyond the assumption that printed editions reached many more readers than did manuscripts.¹²

Boorman suggests that scholars have often arbitrarily considered smaller, less productive companies to be more important than others based on predetermined ideas about value and quality.¹³ Evaluating a print’s significance consists of studying, among numerous other factors, the success or lack of success of individual prints, how they were received, interrelationships of printers and patrons, and profitability. Because of the passing of time, trying to comprehend the cultural background of these prints can seem futile, but not doing so can make the music itself seem distant and irrelevant. Newer research into the early decades of music printing has unlocked many previously inaccessible aspects of the culture and music.

Economics

The printing process was expensive and time consuming; having a print in the early decades of the existence of printing technology brought the owner pride and prestige. Thus, just like the origins of the music that was composed and played in the first place, what was printed was largely controlled by patronage. As machinery and materials later became less expensive, demand for more publications also increased, and publishers needed to compete to stay in business. It is tempting to posit that this caused printing businesses to function within a framework similar to free-market capitalism, but Kate Van Orden maintains this competitiveness comes only from complexifying relationships of patronage.¹⁴ Even late in Antico’s life, but certainly for the publication of Frottole intabulate, privileges that limited the legal printing rights of different publishers were controlled by persons of authority, local governments, and even the pope. These privileges regulated the majority of competition among publishers. Disobeying a papal privilege for exclusive printing rights, for instance, could result in “excommunication, a fine, and confiscation of the offending copies.”¹⁵ The exclusivity of these privileges affected the publication of Frottole intabulate. Not only did Antico obtain a papal privilege in order to print his keyboard intabulations, but doing so also resulted in the inability of other publishers to print something similar, including Petrucci, his rival.

Aside from the complexities and cost of getting permission to print, the cost of carrying out the printing was astronomical; the cost of printing was so high, in fact, that it is difficult to ascertain why someone would venture to do it at all. For Boorman, financial gain could not have been a primary motive. Given these high costs, a print that was successful enough to result in subsequent prints would be one of the only conceivable ways to make a profit.¹⁶ In reprints, materials could be reused, saving the printer the time and money associated with making the materials for the initial print run. Thus, the existence of multiple editions or reprints could be evidence for profit of these early sources.

There are no extant copies from a second printing of Frottole intabulate, and it is unlikely that one ever existed. If nothing else can be said about the economics of Antico’s keyboard collection, it could not have been too successful since its subtitle, Libro primo, implies a future second volume which never came to fruition. While it is likely that economics was a factor in Antico’s failure to produce a second volume, this is far from verifiable and was certainly not the only factor.

Reception

Very little can be said about the reception of Frottole intabulate. As discussed above, multiple reprints can be considered a sign of positive reception and continued appreciation of musical repertoires, but it is unlikely that this occurred for Frottole intabulate. Almost nothing is known about the logistical dissemination of this collection, but there must have been some reason to print an edition of secular song intabulations: an audience, a patron, a desire to do something innovative? Since there was never a second volume, likely no reprints, no similar frottola or other single-genre keyboard publications in sixteenth-century Italy, the print was probably not a wide-ranging success.

Antico’s frontispiece

The publishing rivalry between Petrucci and Antico is apparent in Frottole intabulate. Not only did Antico’s papal privilege to print keyboard intabulations result in the revocation of Petrucci’s ability to do so, Antico flaunted it in the frontispiece to Frottole intabulate (Figure 3). This frontispiece, probably by Antico’s regular collaborator, Giovanni Battista Columba, has been interpreted in numerous ways in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is likely that the monkey holding a lute represents Petrucci because he previously published two sets of frottola arrangements for voice and lute. The woman dismisses the monkey and his lute intabulations in favor of Antico’s superior arrangements for keyboard. Antico’s decision to later publish frottola arrangements for voice and lute, a style he derided in this frontispiece can be interpreted in two chief ways: first, Antico’s Frottole intabulate was unsuccessful since lute was still the primary domestic instrument, which would be further supported by the fact that there was never a second volume of keyboard intabulations. Second, his attack on lute intabulations depicted in the title page was trivial and was of no consequence to the later publication of his own collection for lute and voice. It is probably some combination of the two of these. The important element to consider from this frontispiece is not the debatable specifics of the meaning of each of its characters and features, but rather that the very concept of intabulation for keyboard might have been controversial as a starting point at all. The frontispiece demonstrates that Frottole intabulate’s publisher was self-aware; indeed, it was the first of its kind.

Genre

The frottola was a popular genre in the late-fifteenth, early-sixteenth century. Ottaviano Petrucci, for instance, produced more than ten books of frottole. In addition to the multi-voice original frottola compositions, a tradition of single voice versions accompanied by lute developed, both improvised and in print. The fewer resources needed to execute a performance with just one or two musicians instead of an ensemble of singers allowed for greater versatility and improvisation. Anthony Cummings has examined this performance practice and found evidence that the practice of playing solo versions with self-accompanied improvised lute parts was widespread.¹⁷ Unwritten music (most music in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) influenced publishers. Both Petrucci and Antico produced volumes of frottole for single voice accompanied by lute: Antico’s Frottole de Misser Bortolomio Tromboncino & Misser Marcheto Carra from around 1520 and Petrucci’s two books from 1509 and 1511, Tenori e contrabass intabulate col sopran in canto figurato per cantar e sonar col lauto, arranged by Franciscus Bossinensis.

There is severely limited evidence for a similar improvised tradition of performing frottole on the keyboard. If there was a significant unwritten precedent for Antico’s intabulations, it is difficult to understand why Petrucci would not have printed for the medium while he had held the papal privilege to do so. It is unlikely that there was a significant precedent for Antico’s collection. Nevertheless, as I have already stated, the frottola, which often contains texts deemed “frivolous”¹⁸ and disconnected from the music, lends itself nicely to textless versions.

Authorship

Understanding authorship in the Renaissance is obscured by modern notions of intellectual property and copyright. Van Orden states,

Though the notion clashes with modern definitions of authorship, one could say that it was not composers who authored printed books, but printers, printer-booksellers, and editors.¹⁹

Composers were not able to title their own music in anthology publications and their music was “rebranded” to suit the needs of the publisher. The frontispiece of a different Antico publication, Liber quindecim missarum (1516), visually demonstrates the prominence of the publisher over the composer. While Antico provides the names of the composers in its table of contents (Figure 4), the more prominent title page shows only Antico and his audience with Pope Leo X (Figure 5).²⁰ Given the beauty of the entirety of this Antico anthology (see Figure 6), one can begin to understand the printer’s prominence.

The elevated importance of publisher over composer in the Renaissance can be seen in Frottole intabulate. Van Orden states, “once again, Antico visually claims authorship of the volume, even though it is devoted almost entirely to the Frottole of Bartolomeo Tromboncino.”²¹ In the case of Frottole intabulate, unlike Liber quindecim missarum, there is an added layer: arrangement. Many past scholars have attempted to attribute or unattribute the arrangement of the frottole in this publication to Antico himself. There is not adequate evidence for or against such an attribution. This lack of information regarding who arranged the songs for keyboard can serve as yet more evidence that musical factors were less important than the publications themselves.

Conflicting attributions among different publications with the same content are pervasive in the early decades of music printing. This further illustrates the indifference publishers had for original authorship since correct attributions were clearly a lower priority than the overall quality of the publication. For example, “Fiamma Amorosa e bella,” number 13 in Frottole intabulate, first appears as number 6 in Canzoni sonetti strambotti et frottole, Libro tertio (henceforth, Libro tertio) and is ascribed to Marco Cara (Marchetto Cara).²² In the 1520 reprint in Venice with Giunta it is anonymous and in Frottole intabulate it is attributed to Bartolomeo Tromboncino. Both Christopher Hogwood and Peter Sterzinger, editors of two modern editions of Frottole intabulate, seem to ignore this issue. Sterzinger simply keeps the attributions from Frottole intabulate, while Hogwood does not include attributions, yet provides references to all the vocal sources. Hogwood’s preface seems as though he is aware of the issue but is unsure how to approach it. Maria Luisa Baldassari, the editor of another modern edition, does not dwell on the issue of attribution, but she denotes possibilities above each individual piece.

Another type of borrowing in early print culture involves using the previously printed content of other publishers. It is common to see repeated pieces among competing publishers without noting who published it first. For example, Antico’s Canzoni nove borrowed nearly half of its contents from Petrucci, his direct competitor. A publication like Frottole Intabulate is embedded in the notion of borrowing given the nature of arrangements.

Separately, composers worked to gain their own independent identity in print. Significantly later, in 1554, for instance, Palestrina paid for the publication of a high-quality volume of his own music.²³ Similarly, one can look as far back as Petrucci’s Josquin publication, the first publication dedicated to a single composer. While it is possible that this is a humanistic turn (the rising importance of the singular creative mind associated with the Renaissance), this is likely not the case. Boorman maintains that the publication of single-composer volumes like those by Petrucci (inclusive of Josquin, Obrecht, and Brumel) are probably an attempt to gain the favor of composers or flatter them into taking a position somewhere.²⁴ When composers did finally accomplish the publication of their own oeuvre, the line of authorship remained blurred: another publisher, Valerio Dorico, took inspiration from Antico’s frontispiece to Liber quindecim missarum for the publication of Cristóbal de Morales’s Missarum liber secundus in 1544. Dorico later modified this woodcut yet again to serve as the famous title page of Palestrina’s Missarum liber primus of 1554 (Figure 7). Although Dorico modified the woodcut from the version he used from the Morales publication, the changes were minimal; the music that Palestrina is holding actually belongs to Morales.²⁵ Despite almost forty years of separation, Palestrina’s frontispiece remains strikingly similar to Antico’s (see Figure 5).

The overall lack of information is not the only reason that making an attribution to Antico himself as the arranger of Frottole intabulate is not possible: publishers were not commonly musicians. Van Orden states,

Though many [publishers] had or acquired some musical literacy, none were composers. Rather, they were inventors, printers, engravers, woodcutters, type founders, and booksellers, developers of a new technology.²⁶

Though not frequently musicians themselves, there is no doubt that publishers possessed remarkable talent. Nevertheless, Antico’s musical literacy and abilities remain ambiguous at best. There is not enough biographical evidence to draw any conclusions regarding his abilities as a musician. On the other hand, given that he signed them, it is possible that two of his own frottole appear in Libro tertio.²⁷ Kimberly Marshall summarizes,

Who actually arranged the pieces for keyboard is not known, but in the absence of precise attributions, it has been assumed that the publisher Antico was himself the transcriber.²⁸

While Marshall questions the assumption that Antico arranged the frottole, Glen Wilson, going a step further, categorically denies such an attribution:

[Antico] was also clever in his choice of arranger (it was not Antico himself, as is often thought, any more than the printer/publisher Attaingnant arranged the first lute publications in France around the same time, or than Bennett Cerf wrote Ulysses). This anonymous master, doubtless one of the countless Italian organists whose works have been lost, produced a very early example of a fully-balanced polyphonic keyboard style. In 1517 Josquin still had four years to live, and voice crossings and gothicisms still frequently appear even in frottole. In Antico’s book there is a radical change: generally keeping the all-important melody and bass lines free and intact (except for modest amounts of added ornamentation), the arranger substituted supple, idiomatic inner voices for the spiky originals, which are often mere filler. Once the notational fog is dispersed, his work turns out to deserve a place of high honour in the annals of music history.²⁹

Wilson’s ideas about the need for a skilled and creative arranger to set the idiomatic inner voices in Frottole intabulate are further supported in my analysis below. However, Wilson provides no concrete evidence for his categorical rejection of Antico as arranger. Ultimately though, the focus of who arranged the frottole is probably a misguided question in the first place—one raised by a modern perspective. If anything is to be learned from this discussion of authorship in early print culture, who arranged the frottole was inconsequential.

Instrumentation

Intended instrumentation of early keyboard music is frequently a source of mystery. The frontispiece of Frottole intabulate (Figure 3) shows the collection being performed on a stringed keyboard instrument. However, as is usually the case for early music, the pieces can certainly be performed on other keyboard instruments. In the preface to his edition of Frottole intabulate, Christopher Hogwood states,

Nothing in the style of the intabulations suggests a preference for one type of keyboard instrument over another, and the title-page illustration itself reinforces the interpretation of “organo” as meaning any keyboard instrument—a usage that was normal in Italian for several centuries.³⁰

The shorter compass of sixteenth-century organs (starting on F) that is evidenced by existing organs and treatises not only suits most of the ranges of the frottole, it accounts for the transposition of several of them; numbers 5, 11, 12, 21, 22, and 23 are all transposed up a fourth or fifth.³¹ Modern recordings have generally favored the harpsichord over the organ, but Baldassari’s recording persuasively makes the musical case for using many different instruments. While they are playable on many instruments, there are characteristics of each keyboard that favor different styles. For instance, I find that “Me lasserà tu mo” (number 24), if played slowly, is enhanced by performance on the organ to accommodate the sustained tones. A testament to the instrumentation’s flexibility, Baldassari successfully uses the spinetta for the same piece. If approached creatively and openly, there are a great many possibilities for instrumentation, including the addition of text with a singer.

Intabulation technique: an analysis

An analysis of characteristics in Antico’s keyboard intabulations and the intabulation technique itself reveals that the simplicity of this collection has been overstated. Comparing Antico’s frottole with Marcantonio Cavazzoni’s Recerchari, motetti, canzoni . . . libro primo from 1523 reveals many similarities, both in terms of intabulation technique and performance difficulty. Though the textures are different due to the frottola’s less complex contrapuntal starting structure, the technical difficulty and aesthetic results are comparable.

Through pointing out shared characteristics of Cavazzoni’s “Plus ne regres” and Antico’s “Dolce ire dolci sdegni” (number 18) and “Che farala che dirala” (number 21), Figures 8 and 9 demonstrate similarities between the Antico and Cavazzoni intabulations. In Figure 8, both examples have surface-level ornamentation in the cantus part (circled in yellow). This ornamentation is generally stepwise with few leaps, almost always in the opposite direction than the way the line was previously moving. Both examples also have non-cantus ornamentation and elements of moving counterpoint (circled in blue). While moving inner voices might seem like a given, the reception of the Antico pieces as somehow simpler or completely homophonic is not demonstrated in these excerpts. From a technical perspective, both examples include challenging left-hand position changes (circled in green). While these hand position changes hardly constitute “difficult,” they are markedly active and noticeably similar.

A comparison of different excerpts reveals another similarity. Both Antico’s “Che farala che dirala” (number 21) and Cavazzoni’s “Plus ne regres” demonstrate a consistent use of parallel thirds in one hand (Figure 9, circled in red). In addition to considering the thirds as a musical element, they also present a technical challenge of comparable difficulty.

One significant difference not evidenced by these examples is that these musical elements are almost always present in the Cavazzoni and not always in the Antico (entire Antico pieces not presented here lack these elements). Figure 9, for instance, involved using a different Antico intabulation than Figure 8, while the same Cavazzoni piece could be retained. Antico’s pieces generally mix fewer elements than Cavazzoni’s. While it is possible to attribute this difference to less artistic merit of the Antico, these differences are better explained by the type of pieces they are arranging for keyboard in the first place. The motet is a longer, more complex, and freer form than the frottola. The simplicity of some of Antico’s intabulations is symptomatic of the straightforwardness of the frottola genre as well as specific elements of single pieces. Nevertheless, in isolated examples like those provided in Figures 8 and 9, it is difficult to distinguish between the two genres.

Since there is an extant copy of almost all the original vocal models for the arrangements in Frottole intabulate, it is possible to place the intabulations side-by-side with the vocal originals to illustrate the degree of difference between the two. Using a prototype comparative graphing system, I demonstrate that the intabulations of the original vocal models are less exact than has often been assumed. This approach removes the complexities of musical notation allowing for measure-by-measure comparison between the vocal original and the intabulation. The system is temporally oriented, meaning that each column represents one voice for one measure. Measure numbers are indicated along the x-axis, and the voices from the vocal model as they relate to the intabulation are along the y-axis. Thus, there is one “cell” for each voice per measure. The shading within these “cells” represents differences between the vocal model and the intabulation. There are three degrees of shading: (1) no shading if the voice in the intabulation is identical to the vocal original; (2) light grey if a voice is embellished in an easy-to-categorize manner; and (3) dark grey if the voice is altered in a hard-to-categorize manner or does not resemble the original model. This macro level analysis leaves many details undescribed, and because of this, there is a significant degree of subjectivity. If the analysis system was refined to be more precise, this subjectivity would all but disappear, but the distillation would also necessarily be more complex.

My goal is not to design a complex analysis system, but rather to uncover general characteristics about the Antico intabulations, I have opted to keep the system simpler, sacrificing specificity that would reduce subjectivity. Since there is currently no systematic way to do an analysis of intabulation technique, a refinement of this graphing system could be useful for analyzing intabulation technique across the repertoire. However, in its current state, it gleans only the most basic information about differences between vocal originals and their intabulations.

This system is put into practice to analyze the differences between “Amor Quando fioriva mia speme,” number 1 in Frottole intabulate, with the vocal model from Antico’s second book of frottole (Figure 10).³² The comparative graphic model of “Amor Quando fioriva mia speme” reveals that it is far from a simple note-for-note intabulation of the vocal original. It seems to indicate the opposite: Antico’s setting is as complex and irregular as it is categorical. By calculating the average number of “cells” that contain alterations from the vocal original, this comparative graphic model reveals that slightly over 58% of the piece’s measures include at least one alteration from the vocal original. Because of the system’s need to define temporal units (here, one measure), this percentage indicates the number of measures that contain alterations. In other words, the 58% does not indicate the exact percentage difference between the original and the intabulation because the measure unit does not account for every note. A percentage difference that accounted for every note would result in a significantly lower number.

Out of all of the “cells” that include a difference, only 34% contain easily categorizable alterations. This seems like a very low number, but it is important to note than many of the embellishments that modern ears associate with “easy to categorize” were less common in the renaissance. Some ornamentation and embellishment in the Antico intabulations may be more categorical than this system assumed. Thus, 58% of the overall number of cells is a more useful and accurate number.

As Glen Wilson identifies in his liner notes, the inner voices of the intabulations in Antico’s collection are significantly altered: “the arranger substituted supple, idiomatic inner voices for the spiky originals.”³³ Figure 10 supports Wilson’s claim because around 75% of the interior “cells” in the comparative graphic model contain alterations, and well more than half of these are substantial.

An analysis of only the outer voices, the cantus and bassus, indicates that a much lower percentage of “cells” contain alterations. 42% of the two outer voices include changes, but this time, 63% of that 42% are easily categorizable differences. This indicates two things: (1) keeping the outer voices recognizable, either by having a lower total amount of alterations or using far fewer uncategorizable alterations, is a priority, probably to retain the essential characteristics of the original song; and (2) large amounts of voice crossing in the vocal original make it impossible to set the inner voices with a high degree of accuracy while the outer voices are easier to retain. Another noticeable but predictable element is that the bassus contains significantly fewer alterations than does the more adventurous cantus. This aligns with what was likely the performance practice of embellishing the melody.

Another piece in the collection, “Per Mio Ben te Vederei” (number 2), further demonstrates the high rate at which the cantus is altered while the bassus remains virtually unchanged (Figure 11). Around 71% of the measures in “Per Mio te Vederei” contain alterations in the cantus voice, and 63% of that 71% are not easily categorizable. Meanwhile, only around 10% of the measures contain alterations in the bassus voice.

Based on these prototype analyses, it seems safe to conclude that an experienced musician, beyond someone who has basic musical literacy, would be required to arrange a polyphonic song as skillfully as has been done in Antico’s collection. Significantly more conclusive data could be drawn if this kind of note-for-note comparative analysis was done for the entire collection of intabulations as well as if the system was further refined. However, even in its present state, these analyses demonstrate that Antico’s collection is well situated and comparable in difficulty with other contemporaneous keyboard music.

Editions, recordings, and conclusions

Given the obscurity of this collection, it is surprising that there are several modern editions of Frottole intabulate. The most extensive preface is in Christopher Hogwood’s edition published by Zen-On Music in 1984.³⁴ Although still worthwhile, its editorial practices are less consistent and some of the ideas in its preface are dated. Another modern edition by Peter Sterzinger published by Doblinger is widely available.³⁵ I highly recommend the most recent edition, which is edited by Maria Luisa Baldassari and published by Ut Orpheus.³⁶

There are also several complete recordings of the collection. Fabio Antonio Falcone performs the entire keyboard oeuvre of Marcantonio Cavazzoni and Andrea Antico in The Renaissance Keyboard produced by Brilliant Classics in 2015.³⁷ He uses the organ for the Cavazzoni and the harpsichord for the Antico. As previously mentioned, Glen Wilson has also recorded the complete collection. To affect, his recording, Animoso mio desire: 16th-Century Italian Keyboard Favourites, produced by Naxos in 2015,³⁸ is mixed with dances from manuscript sources. All his performances are on harpsichord or spinetta. My own complete recording is the only to use exclusively the organ. Experimental in nature, my unproduced recording was made in conjunction with a related research project on early secular keyboard music across Europe.³⁹ I most highly recommend Maria Luisa Baldassari’s complete recording, Andrea Antico: Frottole Intabulate, Libro Primo, 1517, produced by Tactus in 2017.⁴⁰ Her recording embraces, to great success, the instrumentation possibilities of the collection. Her performance includes the spinetta, clavichord, clavisimbalum, harpsichord, and organ. Her choices are effective, but there is no reason performers should feel obliged to adhere to her instrumentation decisions. While I generally prefer Baldassari’s interpretations, much can be learned from the varied tempi and stylistic choices of many of the other performances.

There are innumerable recordings that only include several pieces. In many ways these recordings are more successful since listening to twenty-six intabulations in the same style is not particularly captivating. While I do not intend to provide a complete list, two notable recordings of this type are Kimberly Marshall’s Sienese Splendor, produced by Loft in 2002⁴¹ and, though it only includes one of Antico’s frottole, Francesco Cera’s The Organ at European Courts produced by Brilliant Classics in 2016.⁴²

Antico’s frottole, now more than five hundred years old, still sound fresh if given the energy of a thoughtful performer. This short essay revisits two areas, cultural context and musical analysis, to inspire new interpretations of this collection. Though frequently acknowledged, Antico’s collection has been largely ignored for its contents. The only factor that seems to attract attention to Frottole intabulate is that it was innovative, but this was relatively unimportant during its time. If given the chance, the music transcends simple innovation. The song intabulations in Antico’s collection can be charming, fun, serious, emotional, and intensely beautiful. The short duration of almost all its pieces (some can be less than one minute!) make them easily programmable in a variety of modern contexts. With a little creativity and musical imagination, these pieces can come to life.

The research for this project was completed in part thanks to funding from The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Notes

1. The intended instrumentation of the Faenza collection has been debated. See Timothy J. McGee, “Once again, the Faenza Codex: A reply to Roland Eberlein,” Early Music 20:3 (August 1992): 466–68; Roland Eberlein, “The Faenza Codex: music for organ or for lute duet?” Early Music 20:3 (August 1992): 460–66; and Timothy J. McGee, “Instruments and the Faenza Codex,” Early Music 14:4 (November 1986): 480–90.

2. Jon Laukvik, Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing: An Introduction based on selected Organ Works of the 16th–18th Centuries, trans. Brigitte and Michael Harris (Stuttgart: Carus, 1996), 113.

3. Willi Apel, The History of Keyboard Music to 1700, trans. Hans Tischler (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1997), 109.

4. Catherine Weeks Chapman, “Andrea Antico,” microfilm (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1964).

5. Ibid., 1.

6. Grove Music Online, s.v. “Frottola,” accessed January 14, 2019, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/10313.

7. Baldassari, v.

8. Antico’s second book of frottole is of questionable origins. What seems like an existing copy is missing its title page in the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence. This particular copy is probably a reprint from around 1520.

9. Giuseppe Radole cited a manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze as containing the bass part to number 3. However, Baldassari has determined that this was initially incorrect and, despite being an error, has been repeated by editors who had not seen the Florence manuscript. Maria Luisa Baldassari, ed., Frottole intabulate da sonare organi, Libro primo, Andrea Antico, 1517 (Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni, 2016), v. In addition to existing in Petrucci’s eleventh book of frottole, Christopher Hogwood has suggested that number 19 may have been in Antico’s lost fifth book of frottole. This would make number 19 the only intabulation that was published before its vocal model, and there is no reason beyond wild speculation to assume this would be the case. Christopher Hogwood, ed., Frottole da sonare organi, Libro primo, Andrea Antico, 1517 (Tokyo: Zen-On Music, 1984), 6.

10. Glen Wilson, Animoso mio desire: 16th-Century Italian Keyboard Favourites, liner notes, Naxos 8.572983, 2015, 5.

11. Ibid., 6.

12. Ibid., 131.

13. Stanley Boorman, “Thoughts on the Popularity of Printed Music in 16th-Century Italy,” Fontes artis musicae 48:2 (April 2001): 130.

14. Kate Van Orden, “Music Books and Their Authors,” in Music, Authorship, and the Book in the First Century of Print (Berkley, California: University of California Press, 2013), 36.

15. Ibid.

16. Boorman, 132–134.

17. Anthony M. Cummings, “The ‘Great Italian Songbook’ of the early cinquecento: Arrangements of frottole for voice and lute,” Studi musicali 2:1 (2011): 25-48.

18. Grove Music Online, s.v. “Frottola.”

19. Van Orden, 30.

20. Ibid., 31.

21. Ibid., 34.

22. William F. Prizer, “Local Repertories and the Printed Book: Antico’s Third Book of Frottole (1513),” in Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, 347–372, eds. Jessie Ann Owens and Anthony M. Cummings (Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1997), 352.

23. Van Orden, 42.

24. Ibid., 44.

25. Ibid., 58–59.

26. Ibid., 38–39. She says that Gardano (Gardane) is an exception since he was a professional musician first.

27. Grove Music Online, s.v. “Andrea Antico,” accessed January 14, 2019, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/01015. Some have posited that Andrea Antico is the same person as the composer of frottole featured in Petrucci’s publications called A. de Antiquis. Martin Picker, however, posits that Antico never signed his name this way and that it is unlikely that they are the same person.

28. Kimberly Marshall, ed., Historical Organ Techniques and Repertoire: An Historical Survey of Organ Performance Practices and Repertoire, vol. 9, Renaissance 1500–1550 (Colfax, South Carolina: Wayne Leupold Editions, 2004), 9.

29. Wilson, 3.

30. Hogwood, 8.

31. Ibid.

32. These analyses were completed using modern editions except the first book of frottole, which is readily accessible online. Baldassari.; Francesco Luisi, ed. Il Secondo Libro Di Frottole. Andrea Antico (Rome: Pro Musica Studium, 1976).

33. Wilson, 3.

34. Hogwood. See complete citation above.

35. Peter Sterzinger, ed., Frottole intabulate da sonare organi, Libro primo, Andrea Antico, 1517 (Vienna: Doblinger, 1984).

36. Baldassari. See complete citation above.

37. Fabio Antonio Falcone, Andrea Antico & Marc Antonio Cavazzoni: Complete Keyboard Music, Brilliant Classics BC95007, 2015, compact disc.

38. Glen Wilson, Animoso mio desire: 16th-Century Italian Keyboard Favourites, Naxos 8.572983, 2015, compact disc.

39. Alexander Meszler, “Andrea Antico: Frottole intabulate da sonare organi, Libro Primo (1517) (Complete Collection),” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc8LXDy2nGngm1hmp2tNfcS2jYswvHbcT.

40. Maria Luisa Baldassari, Andrea Antico: Frottole intabulate da sonare organi, Book 1, Tactus TC480101, 2015, compact disc.

41. Kimberly Marshall, Sienese Splendor, Loft LRCD-1046, 2002, compact disc.

42. Francesco Cera, The Organ at European Courts, Brilliant Classics BC95240, 2016, compact disc.

Cicely Winter

Cicely Winter grew up in Michigan and studied piano and harpsichord at Smith College and the University of Michigan, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in music and a Master of Arts in European history; she later studied piano performance at Indiana University. Her principal teachers were Fritz Steinegger and Leonard Hokanson (piano), and Lory Wallfisch and Elisabeth Wright (harpsichord). Winter has lived in Oaxaca since 1972 and has presented numerous piano, harpsichord, and organ concerts over the years, many of which have benefitted community service projects in Oaxaca. In 2000, with the support of philanthropist Alfredo Harp Helú, she and organist Edward Pepe co-founded the Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca A.C. (IOHIO), for which she serves as its director. Her professional performances have increasingly focused on historic organs, presenting a broad repertoire of classical, sacred, and folkloric music.

Each IOHIO (Instituto de Órganos Históricos de Oaxaca, A.C.) Festival builds on the success of its predecessors, making this one the best ever. It was also the most extensive, since the restored organ in Jalatlaco could be included in the concert programming.

• More than 120 people from eight countries and seven Mexican states participated in all or part of the scheduled activities. Of these, nearly a third were returnees.

• Eighteen Oaxacan, Mexican, and foreign musicians collaborated in nine concerts on nine restored organs over the course of six days.

• Six young Mexican organ students and one organbuilder received scholarships to participate in the festival, and our own five organists and students were delighted to be their guides.

• The churches were always full for the concerts and hundreds of local people were able to hear the Oaxacan organs in all their glory.

February 14 (Wednesday)

Around twenty organists and organ students met in the San Matías Jalatlaco church for the first event of the festival, a talk by Andres Cea Galán, president of the “Instituto del Órgano Hispano,” entitled “Spanish music: Organs and organists during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.”

That evening Cicely Winter and Valentín Hernandez presented the first concert of the Festival of Oaxacan Folk Music with music transcribed for organ and percussion in the Basilica de la Soledad. This program always serves as an introduction for the events to come, and people sang along exuberantly to some of the best-known Oaxacan regional songs. Videos of this and all succeeding concerts were projected onto a screen in the church, so that the audience could have a better view of the artists and see the action in the choir loft, particularly how pulling the stops changed the organ’s sound. The magnificent decorated case of this monumental 8′ organ bears the earliest date of any Oaxacan organ: 1686. It was restored in 2000 and is played regularly at Mass.

February 15 (Thursday)

Registration took place throughout the day in the Oaxaca Philatelic Museum (MUFI), giving us a chance to finally meet the people we had been corresponding with and greet old friends from past festivals. The inauguration of the festival that afternoon began with a presentation by Cicely Winter, director of the IOHIO, about the activities and goals of the festival. Joel Vásquez, project coordinator of the IOHIO, spoke about our teaching project and our success in having organs played at Mass every Sunday in five Oaxacan churches by our students or by him. In addition, it is most gratifying that people increasingly request that their private Masses for baptisms, Quinceañeras, weddings, etc., be accompanied by the pipe organs rather than an electronic organ or keyboard. We were honored by the presence of Ignacio Toscano, Secretary of Culture for the State of Oaxaca, and Omar Vásquez, director of the Oaxaca Regional Center of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), who commented on the shared goals of their respective institutions and the IOHIO and offered their congratulations for the festival. Winter also expressed special appreciation to Alfredo Harp Helú for his indispensable support of seven organ restoration projects in Oaxaca over the past twenty years, including most recently the organs in Tlacolula and Jalatlaco.

After the welcoming reception, we walked a few blocks to the church of San Matías Jalatlaco. The second concert of the festival was presented by the Dutch organist Jan Willem Jansen. His program had a theme, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and included father and son pairs: Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, and Johann Sebastian Bach and three of his sons. The last piece “Ah, vous dirai-je Maman,” familiar to everyone as the theme of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” elicited a chuckle of recognition from the audience. The mainly eighteenth-century repertoire was perfect for this organ built in 1866.

This year marked the festival debut of the Jalatlaco organ as a playable instrument. One of our regular attendees commented on the evolution of this organ during his last three visits: first as an unrestored instrument (2002–2014) when we discussed our hopes for its restoration, then as a restoration in process by the Gerhard Grenzing firm (2016), and finally as a concert instrument (2018). This elegantly proportioned 8′ organ was built by the Oaxacan organbuilder Pedro Nibra and has a 56-note chromatic keyboard and “almost equal” temperament, unlike the other organs heard during the festival with their 45-note keyboards, short octaves, and meantone tuning. It was painted blue around 1880 when Nibra oversaw various modifications to the organ.

Afterwards in the atrium of the church under a clear night sky, we enjoyed bread and chocolate offered by Chocolate Mayordomo and tamales de frijol prepared by Jalatlaco’s favorite tamalera.

February 16 (Friday)

The day started with a bilingual presentation by Cicely Winter in the Francisco de Burgoa Library within the Santo Domingo Cultural Center titled “The Historic Organs of Oaxaca and the Work of the IOHIO.” Although the title of the talk has not changed over the years, the content is updated every year to publicize the advances of our various projects: protection, conservation, restoration, concerts, archive and manuscript discoveries, recordings, teaching, and publications. This was followed by a tour of the splendid church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, seat of the Dominican order in the Valley of Oaxaca since the sixteenth century, and the Museum of the Cultures of Oaxaca in the former convent, led by guides Pablo Gonzalez and Gabriel Sanchez.

Our next stop has always been San Andrés Huayapam, located on the outskirts of Oaxaca City. This year the plan was complicated by the closing of the church after the tragic earthquakes in September 2017. Luckily it was not severely affected, but religious activities have been celebrated under a temporary roof beside the church until the roof can be repaired. We did not know if the INAH would grant us access, but fortunately the provisional permission came through just days before the visit.

We were received with a customary drink of tejate, traditionally served in colorful painted half gourds. A local specialty of pre-Hispanic origin, this delicious foamy drink is made with ground cacao, corn meal, the seed of the mamey fruit, and the flower of a tree (rosita de cacao), which grows only in or near Huayapam.

This charming church has one of the most beautiful Baroque altarpieces in Oaxaca, whose intricately carved golden columns are referred to as “gilded lace.” Also famous is the collection of antique ex-votos, petitions usually to the Virgin Mary that are painted on small tin plaques. The 4′ organ (1772), large for a table organ, is nearly intact with its original keyboard and pipes. It is simply carved, a style we refer to as a “country organ,” and was probably originally unpainted, then painted bright red, still seen backing the keyboard, and eventually repainted sober maroon in the twentieth century. In Huayapam we savored the first of many local meals, this time mole amarillo, in the atrium of the church.

During free time between the Huayapam comida and the evening concert, some went to see the famous tree in Santa María del Tule, while visiting organists and students had a chance to play a meantone tracker organ with divided registers in the Oaxaca Cathedral.

That night we proceeded to the Oaxaca Cathedral for the third concert of the festival, offered by the eminent Spanish organist and musicologist Andrés Cea Galán with the participation of the Mexican baritone Felipe Espinosa. This is our only concert with a modest admission fee, and the proceeds helped cover the expenses of the Mexican organ students. This monumental instrument was built in 1712 and reconstructed in 1996, having suffered alterations over the centuries that had completely erased its eighteenth-century character. It retains its opulently carved and gilded upper case, although its lower case has been rebuilt several times. Unfortunately no evidence remains of its original appearance, but we know from the contract for its construction that it was once one of the most lavishly decorated organs in Oaxaca.

February 17 (Saturday)

This year more than a hundred people participated in the all-day excursion to the Mixteca Alta. We crossed a river to arrive at the little stone church in Santa María Tinú, and it seemed as though the entire adult population of the town, now reduced to 152 people, was there to greet us. The authorities welcomed us with great ceremony at the entrance of the church, their canes (bastones) of office in hand. During our reconnaissance visit some weeks before, we had suggested that the local women display their handicrafts, which in the Mixteca region means palm weaving (hats, baskets, sleeping mats). But palm has given way to colorful raffia, and what a sight greeted us! Multi-colored woven baskets hung from the trees and lined up atop the walls of the atrium, while the stone cross in the atrium was decorated cucharillas, the white base of maguey leaves. Nearly everyone bought something from the women as we sipped sweet atole.

The Tinú church houses a disproportionately large organ. The date of construction, 1828, and the name of the organbuilder are written inside the case—such luck! Perhaps the organ was originally commissioned for a larger church, then sold to Tinú, or the community simply wanted something grand. The organ, which has not been fully playable in fifty years, is completely intact and still grunts and wheezes when one of the bellows located in the loft above is pumped. Unfortunately because of the reduced population and remote location of the town, a restoration would not be practical.

Our next stop was in the lovely Baroque church of San Andrés Sinaxtla. The case of the organ built in 1791 combines both Baroque and neo-Classic case design elements. The construction is idiosyncratic, since it is the only instrument of this size with direct suspended mechanical action, i.e., no rollerboard. Of particular interest is the inscription across the façade including the name of the donor, the date of construction, and the cost of the organ, but, as is typical, omitting the name of the organbuilder.

Just down the road from Sinaxtla sitting on a promontory overlooking the Yanhuitlán Valley is the church of San Mateo Yucucuí (population 142). This organ built in 1743 is the least altered of all the 8′ eighteenth-century Oaxacan organs and when last played (1930s?), it is said that its sound could be heard for miles around. The organ was never painted or gilded like its counterpart in Teotongo, probably not by choice during that opulent Baroque era, but rather because of the cost. It is richly carved and largely intact, and it is tempting to imagine the pipes and mechanism of the Yucucuí organ inserted into the stunning Teotongo case to make one amazing organ! The floor of the high balcony on which the organ sits is much deteriorated and access to the façade is dangerous, so our efforts to clean and document the organ have been restricted.

The fourth concert of the festival took place in Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán, the sixteenth-century Dominican stronghold in the Mixteca Alta region. With its soaring stone vault supported by lateral flying buttresses and its magnificent altarpieces, it is one of Mexico’s most majestic complexes of Baroque art. Organist David Soteno and clarinetist Lorenzo Meza, both from near Mexico City, thrilled the audience with a program that reverberated throughout the immense nave. This organ, located on a side balcony, was built around 1690–1700 and restored/rebuilt in France in 1998. Its case is one of the most elaborately decorated of all Mexican organs, with Dominican symbols and fantastic swirling imagery, similar to the Soledad organ case, and fierce faces on the façade pipes. Because of earthquake damage to the main altarpiece (retablo), we could sit only in the front half of the church.

The day culminated with the traditional pre-concert festivities in San Andrés Zautla. We were received in the atrium of the church by the local band with fireworks, plenty of mezcal, necklaces of bugambilia, dancing, and finally a delicious meal of estofado de pollo (chicken stewed in almond sauce) served in the municipal library across the street from the church. After dinner, we crowded into the church where many people from the community were already waiting for the fifth concert of the festival. This was the first of three collective concerts, whose goal has been to offer the opportunity to play the organs to as many organists and students as possible. Roberto Ramirez, André Lash, Andres Cea, Willem Jansen, Laura Carrasco, and Christoph Hammer presented wonderfully contrasting pieces to top off such a busy and exciting day. We were honored to have with us José Miguel Quintana from Mexico City whose association “Órganos Históricos de México” financed the restoration of the Zautla organ in 1996.

The case of this 4′ table organ (1726) is exquisitely carved, gilded, and painted with images of saints and angels. A blower was installed in 2017 by Oaxacan organbuilder David Antonio Reyes, and the organ was moved to the other side of the loft away from the stairway. No longer do we have to worry about those startling moments of silence when the bellows pumpers were distracted and lost their rhythm. The registers of table organs are controlled by tabs protruding from the sides of the case, and thanks to the screen projection the audience could appreciate the teamwork involved. Joel Vasquez and David Reyes had to make a detachable music rack to prevent the pages resting against the façade pipes from being blown away. Clearly the organists of past centuries played by memory or improvised, and the position of the keyboard indicates that they stood to play. Thanks to the ongoing support of the Federal Road and Bridge Commission (CAPUFE), a special entrance was opened from the superhighway, allowing us direct access to and from Zautla.

February 18 (Sunday)

In San Jerónimo, Tlacochahuaya, Jan Willem Jansen presented the sixth concert of the festival, “Four European Countries,” featuring repertoire from Italy, Holland, Germany, and Spain. In February 2017 the organ was cleaned, tuned, and voiced by the Grenzing firm and was in perfect condition until the September 7 earthquake jiggled the pipes. Luckily organbuilder Hal Gober was on hand to make the necessary adjustments. The church is one of the loveliest in Mexico with its exuberant interior floral decoration and splendid Baroque altarpieces, all restored in the past twenty years. The 4′ organ was built sometime before 1735 and restored in 1991. The case and pipes are decorated with floral motifs, and the organ harmonizes beautifully, both visually and acoustically, with the architecture of the church.

After a buffet lunch of Oaxacan specialties in the “Donají” Restaurant in Mitla, we ventured on to the small Baroque church with painted ceramic bowls embedded into the bell towers in San Miguel del Valle at the foothills of the Sierra Juarez. The 4′ table organ is unfortunately in poor condition, more typical than not of the unrestored instruments and not such a bad thing for our participants to see. The case is painted blue with neo-Classic decoration; it has only four registers and no accessory (toy) stops. It seems to date from around 1800, making it the last of the Oaxacan table organs. An added attraction of this Zapotec-speaking community is the elaborately embroidered aprons, and once again we were able to support women’s handicrafts with our purchases.

Our friends from “Chocolate Mayordomo” received us with bread and chocolate upon arrival in Santa María de la Asunción Tlacolula. We admired the little 2′ organ, which appears to date from around 1700 as indicated by the style of its remaining painted decoration. Originally located in the choir loft of the Baroque side chapel, it is the smallest Oaxacan organ and has only two registers. Those who needed a break from churches could roam around one of the most famous indigenous markets in Oaxaca and admire the women’s costumes and the stalls piled high with local produce.

The seventh concert of the festival was presented by Andrés Cea Galán featuring sixteenth- and seventeenth-century repertoire that highlighted the beautiful sound of this organ. It was built in Oaxaca in 1792 by Manuel Neri y Carmona, restored by the Gerhard Grenzing firm, and inaugurated during the Tenth IOHIO Festival in 2014. The visual impression of the Baroque-style case, painted red and black and opulently gilded, is striking, and it has the most elaborately painted façade pipes in all of Mexico. Local people began to arrive for Mass following the concert, so by the end the church was packed. It is likely that many were hearing and viewing the organ (on the screen) for the first time, and they must have been amazed by the rich, full sound of the organ.

February 19 (Monday)

Our two-day excursion to the Mixteca Alta began with a stop in Santa María de la Natividad Tamazulapan where we heard the eighth concert of the festival. This second collective event was presented by organ students Greta Baltazar, Alejandro Lemus, Mario Moya, and Zeltzin Perez, who study in university programs in Mexico City, along with Joel Vasquez from the IOHIO. Arnoldo Perez, a young organbuilder apprentice, pumped the bellows. This church had been closed after the second September earthquake, which particularly affected the Mixteca region. Ongoing negotiations with the priest and the INAH allowed us access to the first half of the church and the organ balcony where fortunately no plaster had fallen from the ceiling.

The 2′ table organ dating from approximately 1720–1730 is situated in a high balcony overlooking the soaring nave of the church and is exquisitely decorated with images of saints and angel musicians. The case and bellows are original, but the pipes, keyboard, and interior components were reconstructed in 1996. The church has one of the most magnificent Baroque altarpieces in all Mexico and includes paintings by the renowned sixteenth-century Spanish painter Andrés de Concha. The second organ in this church, an imposing 8′ instrument, faces the small organ from the left balcony. Built in Oaxaca in 1840 by a member of the renowned Martinez Bonavides organbuilding family, it was once a magnificent instrument and is largely intact except for the loss of nearly all its pipes; only the five largest remain in the façade.

We then proceeded to the neighboring church of Santiago Teotongo, rich enough in eighteenth-century Baroque art to stand as a museum in its own right. The magnificent case of this 8′ organ, though empty, is integrated stylistically with the opulent altarpieces, and statues of angels once stood atop its towers, singing through their O-shaped mouths via pipes passing through their bodies. The organ was stripped of its pipes, keyboard, and more during the Mexican Revolution, and its date is unknown, but the organ’s profile closely resembles that of San Mateo Yucucuí (1743). An added attraction was the eighteenth-century painted armoire in the sacristy, decorated with period figures engaged in their daily activities.

The tour continued with a visit to the sixteenth-century church of Santiago Tejupan, which could also stand as a museum of colonial religious art in this culturally rich area of the Mixteca Alta. The luxuriously painted organ case (1776) was the last Oaxacan organ with religious imagery. Portraits of the donor and his wife being blessed by his patron saint, Saint Nicholas, are depicted on one side and Santiago on horseback on the other, both unfortunately obscured by layers of grime. Another special feature is the information painted on two decorative medallions on the façade, which include the name of the donor, the cost of the organ, and the date of construction, although as in Sinaxtla, omitting the name of the organbuilder. Afterward we were treated to a talk about the Mixtec ball game (pelota mixteca).

After lunch in our favorite restaurant “Eunice,” we walked over to the Dominican architectural complex of San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula with its church dwarfed by the enormous sixteenth-century open chapel and atrium. The 8′ organ (ca. 1730–1740) has a similar profile to that of Yanhuitlán. The case was painted white with light green touches sometime after the original construction and, with its delicate carvings, had a graceful look. However, now we refer to it as the King Midas organ, because in 2010 a well-connected architect took the liberty of gilding at great cost all the decorative carvings and moldings, even though it had only been minimally gilded historically, and, in fact, the organ’s overall manufacture is not of the highest quality.

We drove up through the pine forest to Santa María Tlaxiaco. The imposing “fortress church” was the Dominican outpost for this strategic area of the high sierra in the sixteenth century. For the final ninth concert of the festival, Ricardo Ramírez, Laura Carrasco Curintzita, Andrés Cea Galán, Michael Barone, Jan Willem Jansen, and David Furniss offered an eclectic program to close the concert cycle. This monumental 8′ instrument, built around 1800 and restored in 2000, is decorated with typical neo-Classic design elements, painted white and richly gilded; it synchronizes with the altarpieces of the church, all in homogeneous neo-Classic style. We spent the night in the Hotel del Portal on the main plaza and had a chance to wander around the market.

February 20 (Tuesday)

Participants divided into two groups. Many chose to visit the late pre-Classic and Classic (400 BC–800 AD) Mixtec archeological site and the community museum of San Martín Huamelulpan with Marcus Winter of the INAH. Most of the organists and students opted to stay behind to play the Tlaxiaco organ and had great fun trying out their pieces and helping each other with the registers.

Both groups met up in Huamelulpan, then proceeded to the village of San Pedro Mártir Yucuxaco where we were once again formally received by the municipal authorities. The organ here (1740) is complete and in excellent condition, missing only its bellows. It is the least altered of the Oaxacan 4′ table organs, parallel to Yucucui for the 8′ stationary group, and closely resembles the organ in Zautla, although without the painted decoration. The carved pipeshades show two faces in profile, a unique decorative detail, and the keyboard is exquisite.

Our final church and organ visit was in Santa María Tiltepec, for some the crowning visual experience of the field trips. Located in the Dominican sphere of Yanhuitlan and built atop a pre-Hispanic temple, this sixteenth-century church has long been appreciated by art historians for its richly carved asymmetrical façade and stone interior arches. The unrestored 4′ organ, situated on a side balcony, is one of Oaxaca’s oldest (1703) and often elicits a gasp of astonishment when seen for the first time. Unfortunately nothing is known about its history to explain its idiosyncrasies of construction and decoration, and if it did not have the characteristic Oaxacan hips on the sides of the case, we might wonder if it were imported.

We proceeded to the Hacienda Santa Marta in San Sebastian Etla on the outskirts of Oaxaca City for our farewell dinner. A scrumptious buffet awaited us with plenty of mezcal, and a guitar duo serenaded us with numerous Oaxacan folk songs. Toasts and sentimental reminiscences created a special connection with old and new friends who had shared this unique Oaxaca organ adventure.

February 21 (Wednesday)

Around thirty people made the trek up to the archeological site of Monte Albán to enjoy an optional guided three-hour tour with Marcus Winter from the Oaxaca Regional Office of the INAH.

Alexander Meszler

Alexander Meszler is a doctoral student of Kimberly Marshall at Arizona State University. He currently lives in Versailles, France, on a Fulbright award where he is investigating secularism and the organ as well as continuing organ studies with Jean-Baptiste Robin. A strong advocate of music by living composers, he serves as a member of the American Guild of Organists’ Committee on New Music. He is a member of The Diapason’s 20 Under 30 Class of 2019.

Elements of old and new make for fertile ground in organ composition; Klaus Huber (1924–2017) built his organ works on this ground. Although even the most recent organ works can hardly be considered new, they still stand outside of the standard canon of repertoire, and thus, sound refreshing.

Music historians have already begun to specialize in classical music of the last decades of the twentieth century. Varying interpretations of historical periods and styles among musicologists have emerged, but the lasting impact of post-war music is still up for debate. In writing about Huber, I intend to introduce a composer who I believe deserves a place in the organ repertoire.

Apart from his work as a composer, Huber is best known as a teacher. Two of his most significant teaching positions were as professor of composition at the Académie de Musique (1964–1973) in Basel, Switzerland, and later, at the Fribourg Musikhochschule (1973–1990). He won numerous awards and prizes for his work in orchestral and chamber genres. The depth of Huber’s influence as a composition teacher cannot be overstated; his name is found prominently in the biographies of composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Toshio Hosokawa, Michael Jarrell, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Wolfgang Rihm, André Richard, Hans Wüthrich, and Hans-Ola Ericsson. Many of his students went on to write their own organ works.

I became interested in the music of Klaus Huber for three reasons: (1) a desire to explore music of the twentieth century that is underrepresented; (2) Huber’s historically influenced approach to composition for the organ; and (3) the fact that most of his works are relatively short and can be performed on a wide variety of instruments, making them easily programmable. Currently, the only article related directly to Huber’s organ works is a similar introduction from 2010 in La Tribune de l’Orgue, in French, by Guy Bovet.¹ This article combines my observations with Bovet’s and explores aspects of the difficulty, style, and programmability of each of Huber’s organ works. As a supplement, interested readers should consult Bovet’s article, Huber’s Oxford Music Online entry,² the composer’s thorough website (www.klaushuber.com),³ and finally, the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) contemporary music database, “B.R.A.H.M.S.” (Base de documentation sur la musique contemporaine, http://brahms.ircam.fr).⁴

Huber’s style

Huber’s early compositions exhibit a combination of influences that is paradoxically both conservative and progressive—for instance, Franco-Flemish polyphony, harmony and counterpoint of the Baroque and Classical eras, serialism, and non-Western music.⁵ On the one hand, his initial resistance to the progressive (but standardized) serial developments of the Darmstadt School made him seem unadventurous and attached to the past. On the other hand, the application of his unique voice to the music of the past is remarkably postmodern. In many ways, he anticipates some later styles that, early in his life, were yet to emerge.

Des Engels Anredung an die Seele, his 1959 chamber cantata, unified serial structures with consonant intervals that launched him onto the world stage and won him first prize in the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) competition. Huber loved texts, especially old ones, even medieval. Though opera is not a significant genre in his compositional output, the oratorio and other vocal genres are. Later in life, Huber wrote experimental compositions that use unusual techniques such as having multiple temporal planes that differ in tempo. Finally, perhaps an influence from his students, he eventually turned drastically away from traditional Western styles toward non-Western musics where he used non-Western pitch constructions, instruments, and styles.

Organ works

In general, Huber’s organ works date from his early professional decades (after his student years) and are representative of a more conservative aesthetic, not necessarily typical of all his compositions. Metanoia, however, was not composed until 1995. Though he has written only five solo pieces for organ, a significant number of chamber and choir pieces use organ. I will not discuss these, except one, Sonata da chiesa (1953), for which the organ part is particularly prominent and marks his first exploration of the instrument’s capabilities. Since Huber was a proficient violinist, a composition that combines the unfamiliar territory of the organ with the expressive potential of the violin, an instrument Huber was intimately conversant with, seems an appropriate starting point. Guy Bovet has compared it to a better-known piece by the same name and similar instrumentation, Sonata da chiesa (1938) of Frank Martin (1890–1974). Huber’s piece comprises three movements: Poco Allegro, Allegro, and Largo. Until 2004, this piece remained in manuscript, but now that it is available in print, it will hopefully find its way into the repertoire.

It is a strange coincidence (and, to my knowledge, only a coincidence) that the first organ work of György Ligeti (1923–2006), Ricercar (1953), was conceived only one year before Huber’s first solo work, Ciacona per organo (1954). Both works have thin textures and are in relatively antiquated forms. It is notable that despite vast political separation, two significant postwar compositions, for an instrument virtually forgotten to the Second Viennese School, share much in common. Huber’s chaconne is influenced by a repeated figure that is difficult to identify since it appears in so many modified forms. Ciacona’s form is, in loose terms, ABA. The first large section marked Allegro molto starts with an alternation of chromatic passages (Example 1) with sections marked subito tranquillo (Example 2). The same section culminates in a passage marked agitato with a thicker chordal texture (Example 3). The B section is scored as a trio with the first entry in the pedal. Huber’s fascination with the organ’s capability to play trios continues and develops throughout his other compositions. Following this rhythmically challenging trio section, the composer requests a twenty-second pause (Example 4) before returning to the material of the A section presented in quasi-imitation. Registration suggestions are generally limited to pitch levels, but dynamic markings are supplied liberally. Thus, the piece should transfer easily to organs of many styles.

In memoriam Willy Burkhard (1955), Huber’s second piece for the organ, is dedicated to the passing of his former teacher at the Zürich Conservatory. Burkhard, like Huber, had written solo works for the organ and featured it in his other chamber works. The structure of the piece is in two movements, Molto sostenuto and Adagietto. The harmonic content is strongly tertian but includes hints of quartal harmonies. Unfamiliar harmonies in Huber’s early works can usually be accounted for as expressive, dissonant, but resolving, albeit unconventionally, non-chord tones. Bovet compares the singing quality of the first movement (Example 5) to Hindemith’s Trauermusik, but I am inclined to go a step further and argue that this singing quality even extends to parts of Hindemith’s organ sonatas, particularly the slow movements. The second movement is again written as a trio. In the decades surrounding 1950, Huber is not alone in his fascination with the trio texture—Vincent Persichetti’s sonata of 1960 (and his first harpsichord sonata from 1951), or earlier, Distler’s Organ Sonata of 1938/9. Huber’s second movement is technically a chorale trio since it features Vater unser im Himmelreich on a 4′ reed in the pedal. The composer achieves a great deal of harmonic and rhythmic interest though having only two free voices over the chorale (Example 6). It is important that performers, despite the rhythmic complexity, not lose sight of the compound triple meter that is crucial to the gentle, lilting character. Bovet has argued that this piece is suitable for liturgical use as well as concert use. In total, both movements are only around seven minutes long.

After about a ten-year hiatus from writing for solo organ, Huber returned to the instrument with In te Domine speravi (1964). It was around this same time that he composed Des Engels Anredung an die Seele, which, among other pieces, confirmed his fame and solidified his compositional identity. In te Domine speravi was composed for a three-manual Merklin organ in Basel and was awarded first prize in the Kulturwerk Nordhessen composition competition for organ. It is a short fantasy followed by a quieter section in compound meter. Though the piece seems intimidating since it includes irregular and challenging rhythms, prominent double pedal, and four staves, the piece is significantly easier than it appears (Example 7). Bovet humorously writes, “Despite the complicated appearance of the score upon first look, the piece is not difficult (One does not even need to know how to count since the composer indicates ‘senza misura’!).”⁶ The dense beginning may mark a definite change in style from his earlier organ works, but in the second section, Huber returns to a tranquil trio texture in compound meter. The piece concludes with a rapid crescendo returning to the opening material. This work is around six minutes long, making it even shorter than the previous works.

Cantus cancricans (1965) was composed the following year. Though the title seems to indicate the presence of a crab canon, Huber does not provide a strict one. However, the opening is mirrored at the end. Cantus cancricans, unsurprisingly, is scored as a trio. It was composed for “Schweizerischen Arbeitskreises für Evangelische Kirchenmusick,” a church group in Zurich. Originally, it was to be played after the reading of John 3:30 on the feast of Saint John the Baptist. The piece also includes a short congregational song that should be sung at the fermata on page five before continuing. By this point, Huber’s writing style had become much more complex, both harmonically, but especially rhythmically (Example 8). Logistically, to follow Huber’s dynamic markings, it is necessary to either utilize two expression boxes or frequently change registrations. The former is probably preferable since it would allow the colors to remain intact even though operating two boxes can often be cumbersome. Cantus cancricans is only about four minutes in length, yet is likely the hardest of his works, excepting Metanoia.

Following Cantus cancricans, Huber took an even longer hiatus from solo organ but returned in 1995 to write his longest and by far most complex work for the instrument, Metanoia (1995). The work is a meditation that lasts slightly under thirty minutes. The score consistently has five staves that, though difficult to read, accurately and helpfully portrays the intended colors by manual and register. The work has been published only in manuscript facsimile that, although adequately clear, still makes it more challenging to learn. Metanoia I, from the same year, is the same composition reworked for organ, alto trombone, two boy sopranos, and some simple percussion. It received its first performance, despite being written later, earlier than the original score. The Greek title literally means repentance or penitence and is a reference to the fundamentally Christian admittance of sin. The score calls for an organ in a non-equal temperament.

Metanoia begins by alternating stacked harmonies broken up by various colors and rhythms and frequently changing densities (Example 9) with sections of fast polyrhythmic passagework (Example 10). When these passages include a pedal part, they can be dauntingly challenging. At other times, similar passagework is presented over pedal tones. After the third fast passage, the texture returns to broken harmonies as expected (as in Example 9), but the dynamic suddenly changes to fortissimo and it introduces double pedal. Following this, Huber returns to quieter dynamics and presents a new texture. The work then returns to the newly introduced fortissimo section of broken chords with double pedal. At the end of this section, only about halfway through the piece, Huber changes again and does not return to any of the opening material. From here to the end of the piece (around fifteen minutes), Huber presents alternating chords on different manuals. He calls for alterations of pitch by various degrees of a semitone that are not possible when restricted by equal temperament.

Bovet describes the overall aesthetic of Metanoia: From the listeners’ perspective the experience is not truly musical: it is more like a musical-theatrical happening, or a long meditation; in short, the experience is total. Time is abolished; the sonorities inspire dreams. In the end, Metanoia is a large dream: a moment when the listener gives himself or herself the time, where life stops in a sort of parenthetical reflection on eternity. In our time when no one has time for anything, this can be pure happiness.⁷

A harpsichord work

Though not an organ work, readers may be interested in La Chace (1963) for solo harpsichord. The Diapason has enough harpsichord readers that I believe interest in this work is probably self evident. The piece was written for and dedicated to Antoinette Vischer, though she did not premiere it. It is scored in four staves, two for each manual, which, though complicating the notation, displays his specific intentions related to the use of each keyboard. His registration markings are clear and useful. Interested harpsichordists will find this a technically challenging and musically satisfying piece of music.

Conclusion

Huber’s organ works are rarely recorded or performed. Given his influence on the world of twentieth-century composition, it is curious that he seems to have almost no place in the organ literature. Several of his pieces, as Bovet has pointed out, could be used in more exploratory church music programs. Concert organists should take note of the relatively short duration of most of Huber’s pieces, making them programmable. If nothing else, I hope that organists will take note of Huber, not only for his works, but also for the extent of his influence elsewhere. Having passed only recently in 2017, we should take stock and remember the significance and beauty of the music of Klaus Huber.

Notes

1. Guy Bovet, “L’œvre pour et avec orgue de Klaus Huber (né en 1924),” La Tribune de l’Orgue – Revue Suisse romande, 62/3 (2010): 3–11.

2. Max Nyffeler, “Huber, Klaus,” Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001, accessed June 6, 2017, www.oxfordmusiconline.com.

3. “Klaus Huber,” accessed June 6, 2017, www.klaushuber.com.

4. “Klaus Huber: Compositeur Suisse né le 30 novembre 1924 à Berne,” Ircam-Centre Pompidou, accessed June 6, 2017, http://brahms.ircam.fr/klaus-huber.

5. Nyffeler.

6. Bovet, 8.

7. Ibid., 11.

Scores by Klaus Huber

Cantus Cancricans. Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel (5486), 1968.

Ciacona. Kilchberg: Sinus-Verlag (10016), 1954.

In memoriam Willy Burkhard. Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel (4462), 1965.

In te Domine speravi. Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel (4463), 1966.

La Chace. Mainz: Edition Schott (5429), 1965.

Metanoia. München: G. Ricordi & Co., 1995.

Sonata da chiesa. München: G. Ricordi & Co., 2004.

Photo credit: Harald Rehling

Jonathan Hehn

Jonathan Hehn, OSL, is a musician and liturgist currently serving University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana. He is a brother in the Order of Saint Luke, a religious order committed to sacramental renewal and liturgical scholarship, and holds degrees in music from Florida State University (Bachelor of Music, Doctor of Music), Tallahassee, Florida, and theology from University of Notre Dame (Master of Sacred Music, Master of Arts). A passionate practitioner, writer, and thinker, one can find him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @JonathanHehn.

Jean Langlais (1907–1991) was one of the best-known organist-composers of the twentieth century. He rightfully holds a place of prominence in the French school alongside his contemporary and friend, Olivier Messiaen. Langlais, who was blind from the age of two, studied organ first under André Marchal at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children). Later, in the early 1930s, he studied organ with Marcel Dupré and composition with Paul Dukas at the Paris Conservatory.

By 1945 he had been appointed titular organist of the Basilica of Sainte Clotilde in Paris, where he stood in the line of Charles Tournemire and César Franck. Over the course of his lifetime, he performed more than three hundred concerts in the United States and became world renowned as a teacher, especially of the art of improvisation. His published works for organ are numerous, often based on Gregorian chants or hymn tunes.

The suite Cinq Méditations sur l’Apocalypse is an excellent example of the composer’s mature style. It was first published in 1974, and Langlais attested that it was conceived over a more than thirty-year period. Thus this suite represents compositional skills accumulated over a lifetime. It is far more esoteric than some of his other works, even those of the same period. Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais has pointed out that, because Cinq Méditations was not a commissioned work, the composer was able to compose it freely, without limits on style, length, or subject matter.¹

Because of the immensity and density of Cinq Méditations, it took me several years to find an opportune time to perform the work in its entirety in a single sitting. I was fortunate to finally be able to do so on All Saints Day, November 1, 2020, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. The preparation process was intentionally long and careful, and as I prepared each movement, I made note of many instances of errata in the published score, available from Alphonse Leduc/Editions Bornemann. With a work this size, there are bound to be editing errors, and indeed that is the case here. I present here a list of errata in a lightly annotated fashion, along with some simple program notes. My hope, as future organists continue to discover this masterpiece of organ literature, is that those who seek to learn Cinq Méditations can take advantage of that list in their preparations, in order to present the intentions of the composer as accurately as possible.

More than a little gratitude is due to my colleagues Dr. Beverly Howard, professor emerita of music at California Baptist University, and Dr. Marshall Jones, adjunct professor at Flathead Valley Community College and music director at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Kalispell, Montana. Both are music theorists and organists who offered invaluable advice on some of the more ambiguous spots I address in the score, and who provided clarifying language in many instances.

Performing notes

The overall organizing principle for Cinq Méditations is textual more than it is musical. That is, the movements are each musical reflections on a verse or passage from the Book of Revelation, sometimes referred to in both French and English as the “Apocalypse of John.” Langlais reportedly read the Book of Revelation many times, and the profundity of this suite reflects both his deep understanding of and also deep respect for Saint John’s epistle. Langlais also had a timely reason for finishing the composition of a work pondering the end times; in 1973, just one year prior to the suite’s publication, he suffered a severe heart attack that almost killed him. As Mme. Langlais has also said, this may have proved the impetus for Jean finally completing this long-gestated work.

As with much of the organ music of Messiaen, works by Langlais are often meant to be heard in a church replete with visual splendor, intentional architecture, and a substantial acoustic. In the slower movements, Langlais’ music often moves at an incredibly slow pace, a tool that both he and other composers have used to evoke a sense of eternity. When performing this piece in concert, I often encourage listeners to let their eyes wander and peruse the visual offerings of the space in which they find themselves while listening. Gothic and Gothic revival architecture is particularly appropriate to this exercise, since the design of such spaces is meant to draw the eye upward throughout the room, as if transporting its observers into the eternity of heaven. Allowing one’s gaze to wander upward while listening to pieces such as Langlais’ Cinq Méditations can make clear the natural affinity between the form of this music and the form of the building.

At other times, in both slow and fast sections, Langlais inserts long moments of silence between musical phrases. In so doing, he exploits the acoustics of the room by allowing the sound to slowly dissipate into its far reaches, and the mind of the listener to absorb what has just been heard. Again, live performances given in an appropriate space make clear certain aspects of the work that are not fully graspable when listening to recordings or in a concert hall.

Errata and notes for individual movements

Because the published score does not contain measure numbers, the locations of each error will be noted as page (p.#), system (s.#), measure (m.#), and beat (b.#). Erratum 1 in the following list, for example, is listed as “p. 3, s. 1, m. 1, b. 4,” meaning page 3, system 1, measure 1 of that system, beat 4 of that measure. Where there is no fixed meter, the beat numbers are omitted.

I. Celui qui a des oreilles, qu’il Оcoute (He that has ears, let him hear)

A fugue with a wide-ranging subject, this introductory movement features a recurring statement of the fourth Gregorian psalm tone by the pedal. Each statement of the psalm tone presents a different number of syllables, suggesting that this movement was based on a particular chanted text, though Langlais gives no clue as to what that text might be.

• Example 1: p. 3, s. 1, m. 1, b. 4: the stem is missing in the bass voice G-sharp. It should be a quarter note.

• Example 2: p. 3, s. 2, m. 1, b. 1: there is a missing beam in the bass voice. There should be two eighth notes.

II. Il Оtait, Il est, et Il vient (He is, He was, and He is to come)

This movement is divided into five large sections. The first, third, and fifth sections each feature a constant high drone on the note F, perhaps symbolizing the unity and eternity of Christ, underneath which curling, syncopated motives explore various harmonic intervals against the drone. The second and fourth sections each present a different Gregorian chant related to the incarnation. First, there is “Vexilla Regis Prodeunt,” a hymn of triumph of the Cross: “The Banners of the King issue forth, the mystery of the Cross does gleam, where the Creator of flesh, in the flesh, from the cross-bar is hung.” Then, in the fourth section, there is “Lauda Sion,” the Sequence hymn for Feast of Corpus Christi: “Sion, lift up your voice and sing: Praise your Savior and your King, Praise with hymns your shepherd true.”

• Example 3: p. 5, s. 3, m. 2: “Nazard” should read “ – Nazard,” to indicate taking that stop off. The Nazard has already been drawn in the Positif from the beginning of the movement.

• Example 4: p. 5, s. 2, m. 2, b. 3: Pedal G-natural should be A-natural, since in all other places, the pedal doubles the left hand at the octave.

• Example 5a: p. 6, s. 4, m. 2, b. 3: in the right hand, bottom voice, the second D should be D-flat. If a new edition were made, one might also change the C-sharps in system 3, measures 3–4 to D-flats for consistency and also for voice-leading considerations (Example 5b).

(p. 6, s. 4, m. 2, b. 3)

(p. 6, s. 3, m. 3)

• Example 6: p. 6, s. 4, m. 3, b. 1: in the right hand, middle voice, A-flat should be A-natural to match preceding examples.

• Example 7: p. 7, s. 3, m. 2, b. 2: the right hand is marked as a quarter note but should be an eighth note to accommodate the eighth rest immediately following. The flag is simply missing from the notehead.

• Example 8: p. 10, s. 3, m. 5: the left-hand middle voice, G in the final quarter note should probably be A-flat, because of the presence of the tie and given what is happening in the measures around it.

• Example 9: p. 10, s. 4, m. 1: ties are missing in the left hand at the beginning of the measure. They should have carried over from the previous system.

• Example 10: p. 10, s. 4, m. 2: the last chord is missing staccato marks in both hands. Also, the staccato markings are inconsistently applied in the previous two measures.

• Example 11: p. 10, s. 4, mm. 2–3: possible missing ties in the bottom two voices of the left hand between these two measures.

• Example 12: p. 13, s. 3, m. 2: the last note of the right hand (D-flat) should tie to the pedal C-sharp in the next measure. (cf. all other analogous passages in pp. 14–15).

• Example 13: p. 16, s. 1, m. 5: a slur is missing between the right-hand E-flat and pedal E-natural in the next measure. Even though it is not a common tone as in previous analogous spots, the dangling slur in the pedal makes it clear that it should connect from the right hand in the previous measure.

III. Visions prophetiques (Prophetic visions)

“Visions prophetiques” is the only movement of the suite whose title is not a direct quote from Revelation. It is a sort of bombastic scherzo; an initial section played on full organ registration is repeated later after each of several contrasting sections. Because of its clear form and the range of styles present in this single movement, I have often played it as a standalone piece.

• Example 14: p. 17, s. 1, m. 2: the left-hand part is missing three quarter-note rests.

• Example 15: p 19, s. 2, m. 5: top staff, top voice, last D-natural should be a D-flat. Voice leading suggests all parts should have moved down by a whole step (also cf. the first chord in that measure).

• Example 16: p. 21, s. 1, mm. 1–2: no pedal registration has been indicated for this section, so the indication to add the 4′ flute does not make sense. The texture here and the previous instruction at m. 28 suggest that this section should begin with 16′ and 8′ flutes as well as the Positif to Pédale coupler, adding the 4′ flute as indicated at this transition point.

• Example 17: p. 23, s. 2, m. 3: B in the first left-hand chord is erroneously marked as sharp. It should be A-sharp and B-natural as in preceding measure.

IV. Oh oui, viens, Seigneur Jésus (Even so, come, Lord Jesus)

It is odd that Langlais would choose to place this movement fourth in the suite rather than last, since “Oh oui, viens, Seigneur Jésus” is based on the final verse of the book of Revelation. Through his use of slow tempos, simple textures, and pensive melodies, he is here clearly exploring concepts of eternity, in a way reminiscent of Messiaen’s Le banquet céleste.

• Example 18: p. 24, s. 2, mm. 2–3: there should be a breath mark between measures 2 and 3 (cf. the corresponding passage at the top of p. 26).

• Example 19: p. 24, s. 4, m. 3: Sharps are missing from both pedal notes (cf. p. 26, s. 1, mm. 3–4).

• Example 20: p. 25, s. 4, m. 3: registration indications refer to Positif, not Récit. Also, the indication about which manual to play on is missing. Both hands should be on the Récit as at the beginning.

• Example 21: p. 26, s. 1, m. 3: middle C in the left hand should be C-sharp. The note to which it is tied in the next measure is sharp, and there is also an analogous spot with the C-sharp on p. 24, system 2.

• Example 22: p. 26, s. 2, mm. 2–3: it is possible that a tie is missing between the two A-flats in measures 2 and 3 of this system. This could also just be assumed because of the practice of tying common notes in much of the French repertoire.

V. La cinquième trompette (The fifth trumpet)

The final movement of Cinq Méditations brings to bear the full range of Langlais’ compositional techniques. Besides that, it is the movement perhaps most visually evocative of the readings on which it is based. This movement was the one that initially sparked my interest in the Cinq Meditations. Listen for Langlais’ clear imitation of the fifth trumpet (mentioned in the reading) and the “song” of the locusts, presented similarly to Messiaen’s quotations of bird song. The movement, and the suite as a whole, ends in a glorious and yet also terrifying toccata.

• Example 23: p. 27, s. 3, m. 6: a half rest is missing from the top staff.

• Example 24: p. 29, s. 4, m. 1: the right-hand sextuplet marks are missing but can be inferred from left-hand underlay in m. 49 and from markings present at the top of p. 30. There are similar instances of missing sextuplet markings on systems 1 and 2 of p. 29, but these are less consequential since there is a one-voice texture at each of those points.

• Example 25: p. 30, s. 3, m. 1: a tempo change is called for but is missing from the score. It should return to “Allegro” (100 beats per minute) as at p. 27, s. 2.

• Example 26: p. 30 s. 4, m. 1: the right hand should be played on the Récit (cf. p. 28 and other places).

• Example 27: p. 31, s. 1, m. 1 and following: “8va” marking is missing an end point. It would make the most sense if the bracket ended with the middle C-sharp in m. 71. It looks as if that may have been the intent but the registration instructions interfered with the layout in the engraving process.

• Example 28: p. 34, s. 2, m. 3: the right-hand lower voice should be G-natural both times to be consistent with analogous spots. This also gives consistency to the parallel tritone movement, prevalent throughout this section.

• Example 29: p. 34, s. 3, m. 3: the right hand is missing dots on the whole-note chord, which should match the left hand.

• Example 30: p. 34, s. 4, m. 3: the metronome marking is incorrect. Quarter note = 104 is impossible to play, and should be eighth note = 104.

• Example 31: p. 35, s. 1, m. 2: First five notes of the right hand should be beamed together as in the
following beats.

• Example 32: p. 36, s. 1, m. 1: the left-hand bottom voice should be E-natural (see the tie in preceding bar and cf. p. 26, s. 4, m. 3).

• Example 33: p. 37, s. 1, m. 1: the high F-sharp in the right hand should be D-sharp as in all other
surrounding measures.

• Example 34: p. 41, s. 2, m. 2: the right-hand low A-natural is missing a courtesy accidental, since the A is already flat in the left hand, b.1.

• Example 35: p. 41, s. 2, m. 3: there is a wrong number of beats in left-hand and pedal rests at beginning of the measure. There should be a sixteenth followed by a dotted sixteenth to match the right-hand rhythm.

Notes

1. Liner notes by Marie-Louise Langlais, translated by Roger Greaves, for the compact disc Suite Médiévale/Cinq Méditations sur l’Apocalypse, by Jean Langlais, Bruno Matthieu (organist), Naxos Records 8.553190, 1996, p. 3.

Cinq Méditations sur l’Apocalypse, by Jean-François Langlais. Copyright (c) 1974 by Alphonse Leduc Editions Musicales. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard, LLC.

Larry Palmer

Program planning

I write this column just as July is about to give way to August; even as a retired academic, this autumnal month nurtures my urge to begin making plans for musical programs of the fast-approaching fall semester! It was my custom through all fifty-two years of university employment to present my faculty recital on the second Monday of September—one week after Labor Day. Sometimes I played both organ and harpsichord, occasionally only one or the other.

This past summer has been especially full of planning (and playing) organ recitals on two very special instruments. One is the 1762 Caetano-Oldovini single-manual organ housed in the Meadows Museum of Art, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, an instrument originally in Portugal’s Evora Cathedral, and, just incidentally, the oldest playable pipe organ in Texas. My two demonstration concerts for the Organ Historical Society during its first conference to be held in the Lone Star State and my tenth annual organ recital program in the TGIF Concert Series of Santa Fe’s First Presbyterian Church, a program and lecture that concluded the tenth anniversary celebration of the Fisk pipe organ, Opus 133, were two separate events that required differing repertoire to show the capabilities of these two very different instruments.

The choices that were made from the organ repertoire are no different than those I usually make when developing programs for harpsichord concerts. Thus, I hope that my thoughts on planning and audience reactions may be of some interest and use to our readers, no matter which instruments they may utilize.

First and foremost, I would suggest that lengthy programming of music by only one composer is generally best reserved for recordings (which allow the listener to choose from the selected repertoire and use the on/off switch if necessary). It seems to me that only a very few composers (such as J. S. Bach) are able to fill an entire program’s span and keep the audience’s attention without a danger of ensuing boredom. A lengthy work such as Bach’s Goldberg Variations is usually accepted with sincere affection and continued interest, especially if it can be done in my favorite form of performance for this monumental work: dividing the playing with another player, each of the two alternating variations on two different harpsichords. While I have only done this once with a brilliant graduate student, it seemed to me that the somewhat contrasting timbres of the two instruments and the respite it gave to each of us as players was beneficial in many ways.

As I was attempting to decide what I would want to play in Santa Fe this past July, I was inspired by an art exhibit that had been mounted earlier this year by the Meadows Museum, entitled Dali—Poetics of the Small, 1929–1936. It comprised a generous collection of works small in format that surveyed the great artist’s output during those early years of his career. The exhibition did not travel to any other venue, but an illustrated catalog is available from the museum, should one wish to investigate the visual stimulation that I tried to emulate with similarly shorter musical compositions from a wide variety of composers.

Thus Poetics of the Small did provide a program of short pieces in many styles and genres. Variety of this sort and careful attention includes choosing pieces both in major and minor keys (plus, perhaps, an occasional piece that detours to yet another idiom—maybe utilizing a mode), the variety of which may keep the ears free from boredom, open, and listening. Thus my Santa Fe program lasted about forty-five minutes (with the rubric that applause was to be withheld until the final chord was sounded), and it consisted of works by composers Healey Willan, César Franck (the program’s one lengthy piece, Fantaisie in C, which is made up of short sections), J. S. Bach, Herbert Howells, Dame Ethel Smythe, Germaine Tailleferre, Calvin Hampton’s Consonance for Larry (1957)—my first commission to the Oberlin classmate, for whom it was also his first commission—and Maurice Duruflé’s Fugue on the Bells of Soissons Cathedral, which I dared to end with a triumphant final major chord, rather than the repeated minor one.

The demonstrations of the 1762 organ were also presented within stringent time limits and with the necessity of including an audience-sung hymn, a requirement for every OHS convention program. Fortunately fulfilling my expressed desire for variety, it was possible to devise a twenty-five-minute program that did just that: a Tiento by Cabanilles was followed by my SMU colleague Simon Sargon’s Dos Prados (From the Meadows) composed at my suggestion in 1997—a stately pavane with variations that utilized every stop on the organ and showed, with particular beauty, the treble half-stop Sesquialtera that allows a melody to be played using the keys from middle C-sharp to the organ’s top C while playing an accompaniment using the notes from middle C down to the lowest C in a bass short octave. Also included were sonatas by Scarlatti and Seixas, the hymn Pange Lingua, and a rousing frolic by Lidon, using the full organ to give all the volume that one could possibly want.

So, I suggest that a wide-ranging variety of musical ideas can keep an audience interested in our historic instruments (or in the modern replicas thereof).

Another idea that I have been pursuing during my long career is the occasional introduction of quite unexpected works from the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century repertoires. I have mentioned some of these previously in various Diapason articles, but has anyone followed through with this idea? I would be interested in hearing from readers who may have done just that. Do not forget that Chopin composed a short Fugue in A Minor, found in his keyboard works; Schuman’s Fugue III on BACH from the organ works requires only a few pedal passages, all of which may be negotiated with the left hand on the harpsichord. Works by Herbert Howells, particularly his Lambert’s Clavichord, contain a selection of delightful pieces that may be played on any keyboard instrument (as I can attest to words that came directly from the composer’s mouth when I first queried him in his Royal College of Music studio in London), plus two volumes of Howells’s Clavichord that comprise many pages of beautiful music to be explored.

Of the Revivalist works, do not eschew Ferruccio Busoni’s Sonatina for Cembalo—not the easiest piece to adapt to the harpsichord, even though he mentions our instrument in the title, he manages to write as least several notes that do not exist on any harpsichord in my collection of instruments . . . . So rewrite a measure or two if needed, but enjoy the piquant harmonies and the very idea that this well-known musician felt compelled to write for our instrument. Francis Thomé’s Rigodon still ranks as one of the earliest pieces to be designated for harpsichord, as does Mulet’s Petite Lied, which has been published in all its small-format glory in an issue of this very journal.

For more recent works I return often to Duke Ellington’s A Single Petal of a Rose (dedicated to Antoinette Vischer, although it had been written earlier for Queen Elizabeth II). It is a piece that is, to my knowledge, unpublished except for the facsimile in a book about the Swiss patroness. I base my own performance copy on an arrangement sent to me in 1985 by Igor Kipnis, who credited jazz great Dave Brubeck as co-arranger. I make many adjustments to cope with wide hand stretches and to keep the feeling of a jazz improvisation, and I can report that it is always an audience toe-tapping favorite.

Among a host of contemporary composers I have my favorites such as Vincent Persichetti, Gerald Near, Neely Bruce, Glenn Spring, Rudy Davenport, Knight Vernon, Timothy Broege, and William Bolcom—all of whom write beautifully and knowledgeably for the harpsichord. To peruse the literally hundreds of possible twentieth-century works, see Frances Bedford’s magisterial catalog, Harpsichord and Clavichord Music of the Twentieth Century  (Fallen Leaf Press, Berkeley, California, 1993).

The Clavier-Übung Third Part

Michael Radulescu

Michael Radulescu, born in Bucharest, Romania, studied organ and conducting in Vienna at the Academy (now University) of Music and Performing Arts where he taught as professor of organ from 1968 to 2008. His career encompasses work as a composer, organist, and conductor. Since his debut in 1959 he has presented concerts throughout Europe, North America, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. He regularly gives guest lectures and masterclasses in Europe and overseas, focusing mainly on the interpretation and elucidation of Bach’s organ and major choral works.

As a composer, Radulescu has written sacred music, works for organ, voice and organ, choral and chamber music, and orchestral works. He is also in demand as a jury member in international organ and composition competitions and as an editor of early and ancient organ music. Radulescu conducts international vocal and instrumental ensembles in performances of major vocal works. As an organist, he has recorded among other things Bach’s complete works for organ, without any technical manipulation.

For his musical and pedagogical contributions Radulescu was awarded the Goldene Verdienstzeichen des Landes Wien in 2005. In 2007 he received Würdigungspreis für Musik from the Austrian Ministry of Education and Art. In December 2013 Michael Radulescu’s book on J. S. Bach’s spiritual musical language, Bey einer andächtig Musiq . . .,
focusing on the two Passions and the B Minor Mass was published.

When approaching Baroque music in general and spiritual music in particular, it is of greatest importance to take into consideration the fundamental difference between the function and the aims of music in the Roman Catholic rite and the Lutheran conception of music. While Roman Catholic music mainly embellishes and adorns the liturgy, Lutheran music wants to preach, to impress, to move, to convince every single listener. Whereas the mystery of the Canon is at the center of the Roman Catholic Mass, the announcing and the elucidation of the Word of God, spoken by the minister and sung or performed by the church musician, stand at the core of the Lutheran Divine Service.

From this dichotomy results the overwhelming importance of rhetoric, of the musical speech (Klangrede) in Lutheran music. Both the ancient rules of rhetoric and the use of the rhetorical-musical figures determine respectively the overall formal concept of a work as well as the invention of characteristic “speaking motifs.”

In the case of J. S. Bach’s music, however, there also seems to be a more subtle, profound, and hidden means of communicating a message, an interpretation of a text. This happens through the ample use of symbols such as allegories, certain characteristic motifs and specific numerical ratios between different sections of the overall formal concept of a piece, and also, most controversial of all, as numerological entities. The latter aspect has been both heartily emphasized and strongly questioned and even ruled out by scholars and practical performers in recent decades. Nevertheless, a surprising hint at the possibility of Bach’s interest in the use of the “numeric alphabet” seems to be, among others, the theoretical work called Cabbalologia by Johannes Henningius (Johann Henning), published in Leipzig in 1683. This publication is said to have been found also in the famous private library of Bach’s neighbor and colleague Johann Heinrich Ernesti, former rector of Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig.

I

Bach published the Third Part of his Clavier-Übung for the feast of Saint Michael at the end of September 1739 on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Lutheran Reformation in Leipzig. This collection of keyboard compositions is generally known under the titles “The Organ Mass” or “The Dogma Chorales,” neither of which can suggest the complex meaning and the message of the entire opus.

It should be remembered that when Luther introduced his Reformation in Leipzig in 1539 he preached on Pentecost Monday in the Leipzig Pleissenburg Castle on two most crucial themes: the Mystery of the Trinity in the Lutheran Mass and the Lutheran Catechism. Most significantly, Bach takes both these theological categories into consideration and, obviously referring to Luther’s sermon of 1539, treats them consistently in his Third Part of the Clavier-Übung. Of the total of twenty-one chorale settings in the collection, the first nine deal with the Lutheran Missa brevis (which includes only the “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” and the “Gloria”), while the remaining twelve chorales follow exactly, chapter by chapter, Luther’s Catechism of 1529.

Seen as a whole, the entire Clavier-Übung III seems to suggest a most striking resemblance to Bach’s own organ improvisations as described by his first biographer, J. N. Forkel, in 1802:

a) a great prelude and fugue in Organo Pleno as an opening;

b) a long series of different kinds of chorale settings with a varying number of parts;

c) a great fugue in Organo Pleno at the end.

In Bach’s Clavier-Übung III, these correspond to the following sections:

a) the E-flat Preludium in Organo Pleno also containing the two fugal sections;

b) the 21 chorale settings in 3, 4, 5, or 6 parts, as well as four duettos;

c) the E-flat Fugue in Organo Pleno.

Two further allusions to the Trinity are most interesting in the overall plan of the entire collection. These are manifest already in the title, “Third Part of the Clavier-Übung,” and also in the use of the majestic key of E-flat major, with its three flats in the signature, for both the opening Prelude and the closing Fugue. Also striking is the fact that both the Prelude and the Fugue appear to be determined by the number 3 (three main musical ideas in the prelude and three themes in the triple fugue).

Another obvious hint at the Trinity is the fact that the first 9 chorales dealing with the Lutheran Mass are organized in 3 groups of 3 each: 3 “great” settings for Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie, 3 “small” alio modo settings for the same cantus firmi Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie, and 3 settings for the German Gloria, “Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr.”

The remaining 12 chorales, which follow Luther’s Catechism, are arranged by 3 + 3 groups of 2 each, the first group dealing with the 3 main chapters of the Catechism (The Law of the Lord = The Ten Commandments, The Creed, and The Prayer of the Lord = The “Our Father”), and the second with the 3 chapters concerning the Sacraments and the Penitence respectively (Baptism, Penitence as continual renewal of Baptism, and the Communion). Each of these cantus firmi is treated twice, in a “great” version with pedal and in a “small” version without pedal, mostly in another key.

It has often been suggested that these two contrasting versions may allude to Luther’s “Great Catechism” versus its reduced form, the “Small Catechism” for younger and “more modest people.” This double treatment of the “catechism settings,” however, seems also to allude to the double form of liturgy: as the great, official one “in churches,” versus its “small,” intimate, personal form “at home,” within each Christian family. Interestingly enough, this dualism appears also in the original subtitle of the Clavier-Übung III dedicated to both amateurs (Liebhaber) and connoisseurs (Kenner).

II

The opening Praeludium pro Organo pleno, Bach’s largest organ prelude, suggests, in spite of the original slurring of the dotted rhythms of its beginning, the pattern of a French overture:

a) majestic homophonic section with dotted rhythm, measures 1 to 70;

b) Fugato section, measures 71 to 97;

c) majestic homophonic section with dotted rhythm, measures 98 to 129;

d) Fugato section, measures 130 to 173;

e) majestic homophonic section with dotted rhythm, measures 174 to the end.

The three different musical ideas used by Bach seem to illustrate in a marvelous way the three Persons of the Trinity:

1. majestic five-part homophonic section for God the Father (Example 1);

2. transition passage with staccato notes suggesting drops of tears (as in the Passions and in several cantatas) and a plaintive theme in the right hand, full of suspensions and chromaticisms and going to the “extreme” keys B-flat minor and E-flat minor, respectively (musical-rhetorical figure of parrhesia), suggesting the human sufferings, the Passion and Death of God, the Son (Examples 2 and 3);

3. The fugal sections using the most spiritual writing, the fugue, and a theme which by its shape (musical-rhetorical figure of hypotyposis) suggests the movement and the shape of the flames, the fire of God, the Holy Spirit (Example 4).

III

Considering the 9 chorale settings of the Missa brevis, the great “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie,” the small “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie,” and the 3 “Allein Gott” settings, one notes the following characteristics:

• The first three settings of the great “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” are written in the ancient vocal, a cappella style, the stylus gravis, using the so called white notation (breves, whole notes, half notes, quarter and, more rarely, eighth notes as note values). According to Bach’s cousin
J. G. Walther the stylus gravis is “majestic, serious . . . and best appropriate to elevate the human soul to God.”

• The respective cantus firmus descends within this first triad from the soprano in Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit (highest part ~ God Father as the Highest) into the tenor in Christe aller Welt Trost (middle part ~ God the Son as the Mediator) and finally into the pedal-bass in Kyrie, Gott, heiliger Geist (bass part ~ God, the Holy Spirit as the universal Basis). This katabasis, i.e., “descending movement,” suggests the descending of God’s mercy upon us and depicts the “eleison” (“have mercy”).

• The tenor cantus firmus in Christe aller Welt Trost stresses the idea of Christ as the Mediator between God and Man, as strongly emphasized by Luther.

• The bass cantus firmus in Kyrie, Gott, heiliger Geist, on the other hand, represents the fundamental Lutheran idea of Justification through the power of Faith; the text of the chorale also prays for “the reinforcement of our Faith.” The final section of this setting, “eleison,” is excruciatingly dissonant, once again stressing human misery awaiting God’s mercy.

• The total number of measures of all three large chorale-settings is a primary, indivisible number:

Kyrie (42 measures) + Christe (61 measures) + Kyrie (60 measures) = 163 ~ indivisibility of the Holy Trinity!

• The three small settings of “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” strongly contrast with the preceding three works. The cantus firmus is only hinted at by quotation of its first phrase. Their writing is manualiter, without pedal, and in a soft “cantabile clavier style.” This might suggest love and the soft breath of the Holy Spirit by its “cantability.”

• All three small settings end modally on an E-major chord.

• The time signatures of all these 3 chorales also allude to the Trinity, being “progressions” of the number 3: 3/4; 6/8; 9/8 (= 1 x 3/4; 2 x 3/8; 3 x 3/8).

• The three Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr settings fulfill a wonderful anabasis (ascending movement) by the sequence of their keys: following the small “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” settings ending all on E major, they rise up to F major, G major, and finally to A major, thus obviously alluding to Gloria in excelsis (Allein Gott in der Höh’/“Glory to the Lord in the Highest”).

• All three settings are trios and written in an “instrumental keyboard style,” the first and the last in a brilliant, light style, the second à 2 Claviers et Pedale imitating violins or flutes accompanied by a basso continuo in the pedal.

• The G-major trio on “Allein Gott” seems to stress Jesus’s role as Lamb of God, alluding to the third stanza of the chorale, “Lamb of God, holy Lord and God, accept the prayer of our misery,” by citing these two verses in canon, a most simple symbol for “one part following another part:” first between the right hand and pedal in measures 78 to 83, and in measures 87 to 92 between the left hand and pedal, and thus alluding to the Gospel of John, 1:29–30: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. / This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me” (Example 5).

IV

The density and complexity of Bach’s dealing with the theological message through music is most impressively revealed in the settings of chorales treating the main chapters of Luther’s Catechism: the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer.

The large setting of Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot is written in five parts distributed on two manuals and pedal. The cantus firmus is carried out as a canon between the two tenor parts played by the left hand while the right hand plays the two free upper parts. Surprisingly, these free parts never imitate or cite the cantus firmus.

Most interesting is the fact that in Bach’s treatments of this cantus firmus (Orgelbüchlein, the cantata BWV 77 Du sollst Gott, deinen Herrn, lieben, and the two settings in the Clavier-Übung), he uses the same key, Mixolydian on G, the “pure” key without accidentals in its signature. Never does this cantus firmus appear transposed: this obviously suggests the “immutability of the Divine Law.” Most consistently, the treatment of the cantus firmus as a canon also evokes the “severity of God’s Law.”

A further symbolic meaning of the musical texture is the setting of the canonic cantus firmus in the two middle parts, which clearly refers to Luther’s commentary in his Catechism, regarding the way to keep the Divine Law through “Christ’s the Mediator’s Intercession.”

The beginning of the chorale is most serene, diatonic, and calm, and takes place over an organ point in the pedal. After four measures of “complete harmony” the character changes in the fifth measure: the alto plays a “harsh” descending chromatic figure (the figure of parrhaesia) while the soprano plays three times a “sighing figure” consisting of a sixteenth rest followed by three sixteenth notes, and followed by two groups of stepwise descending eighth notes (Example 6).

This seems to be a strong allusion to the Book of Genesis describing the Garden of Eden (= full harmony~4 measures) and Adam’s Fall in the fifth measure (Adam in Hebrew meaning man and being symbolized, according to Andreas Werckmeister, by the number 5 for man’s 5 senses, 5 fingers and toes, and also hinting at Jesus’s 5 wounds on the Cross).

Interestingly enough, this “sighing” figura suspirans is played by the two upper parts during the whole piece exactly 33 times, reminding of the 33 years of Jesus’s earthly life.

From measure 6 on this figure appears also “transformed” into another figure called kyklosis or circulatio and suggesting a “turning around,” an “insecurity” or, as in our case, a great joy.

This “transformation” of suffering (“sighing figure”) into joy (“turning around in joy”) perfectly matches Luther’s commentary about the Commandments, stressing that those who keep the Law apparently suffer in this earthly world, but that through Christ they shall live in joy.

Luther also considers the First Commandment as being the most important of the Decalogue. It is this very commandment that is cited in the second stanza of the cantus firmus, the stanza to which the great chorale setting seems to allude the most: “I alone am your God and Lord. Thou shalt not have other gods; thou shalt love me from the bottom of your heart. Kyrieleis.”

It is when the cantus firmus expounds the phrase “Thou shalt not have other gods” that the pedal plays a “huge” and “exaggerated” interval of two octaves,
C – c′ (the figure of hyperbole = exaggeration) and obviously referring to God’s immensity (Example 7).

Astonishing is the fact that the motif of measures 47 and 48 appears altered in measures 51 and 52, transformed insofar as it is now divided between the two upper parts: one part continuing the other, and thus suggesting the idea of “two parts becoming one” (the figure called heterolepsis = meaning this continuity, the unification of two parts, i.e., love, as described by J. G. Walther). It is striking to note how often Bach makes use of this figure when alluding to love, to unification in and through love. Not surprisingly, this figure appears in our chorale setting only two times, exactly where each of the two canonic cantus firmus parts play the notes for lieben mich (love me); as one can easily see in the “transformed” version, the motive is played by two “unified” parts according to the text line “Thou shall love me” (Example 8).

If we take a look at the pedal part we note that it is divided into several sections either by rests or by the recurring long organ point on A in measure 29. A most intriguing and striking speculation presents itself in this context when considering the number of notes of each of these sections:

a) measure 1 to 10 = 37 notes

b) measure 10 to 20 = 60 notes

c) measure 21 to 28 = 47 notes

d) measure 29 to 55 = 147 notes

e) measure 56 = 5 notes

f) measure 57 = 5 notes

g) measure 58 to 60 = 14 notes

 

a) Could 37 represent the monogram JCHR for Jesus Christ? (the number alphabet with the correspondence between the letters of the alphabet and the natural numerical order: A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, . . ., Z = 24, with I = J and U = V as in old Latin: J (9) + C (3) + H (8) + R (17) = 37);

b) Could 60 allude to the Old Testament, to the 6 Days of God’s Creation, and also to the 10 Commandments = 60?

NB! Bach occasionally uses the number 6 as allegory for the Creation, for the Entire World (also Orgelbüchlein: Christum wir sollen loben schon, measure 6, where the whole range of the organ is encompassed by the lowest C in the pedal and the highest C in the treble part).

NB! Luther always sees and treats the Old Testament considering the New Testament and vice versa.

c) Could 47 recall the 47th Psalm, mentioned by Luther in his Great Catechism: “O, clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. / For the Lord most high is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth”?

NB! This third section of the pedal starts in measure 21 where the cantus firmus plays the phrase “Thou shalt not have other gods.” Also, it is here where the pedal plays the enormous, exaggerated interval of the double octave, which also perfectly matches the second verse of Psalm 47.

d) Could 147 recall the 11th verse of the 147th Psalm: “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy”?

NB! Luther himself quotes Ps. 147, 11 in his Catechism, in the chapter dedicated to the Ten Commandments. This could make the assumption mentioned above quite plausible!

e) & f) Could the number 5 possibly allude in this context to mankind (five senses; the five wounds on Jesus’s crucified body) as “the Old” vs. “the New Man”?

g) 14 might well suggest Bach’s own name (B [2] + A [1] + C [3] + H [8] = 14) as his personal commitment as a believer, as the pro me (= “for me”), a central point in Luther’s theology.

Another interesting symbolic connotation is suggested by the general form of the chorale setting. The total of 60 measures is clearly divided into two unequal sections considering the sort of “recapitulation” of the beginning, in measure 29:

28 measures (= 7 x 4) + 32 measures (= 8 x 4) = 60 measures, or 28 : 32 = 7 : 8.

Could 7 allude to the seven days of the week, of the 6 + 1 days of the Creation of the earthly world and 8 to the eighth day (the day of Messiah)? Could this overall form and its “articulation” transmit the message of Redemption?

The “small,” manualiter version of Dies sind die heiligen zehn Gebot seems to have a more obvious, more straightforward approach to the text. It is a fughetta using the theme in both normal and inverted position. The gigue-like theme is characterized by the strongly repeated notes at its beginning and by strong leaps followed by stepwise passages. It is most interesting to note some aspects of this piece:

1) the title in the original print from 1739 is Dies sind die heiligen zehen Gebot consisting of exactly 10 syllables (Ten Commandments?)

2) the repeated G in the theme appears 14 times (BACH’s commitment? See above).

3) the theme appears 4 times in normal, 4 times in inverted, and again 2 times in its normal forms, i.e., 4 + 4 + 2 = 10 times (see above).

4) there is quite a long interlude without the theme between measures 18 and 31, lasting 14 measures (see above).

V

The large chorale setting dealing with the Creed, Wir gläuben all’an einen Gott (Schöpfer) is striking because of its dynamism, abundant syncopations, “modern” 2/4 time signature, constant movement in sixteenth notes, and lack of organ points in the pedal, by the six times of the pedal ostinato, and the flamboyant movement of the manual parts. The theme treated in the manual is rooted in the first phrase of the cantus firmus, and it is this very phrase that appears literally quoted in the tenor in the last 12 measures of the piece. The overall flamboyant, dynamic character of this setting might be surprising, but it seems in perfect coherence with Luther’s idea of a willful, powerful, and passionate personal commitment of each believer aiming to attain personal justification.

Some characteristics of this composition might elucidate its possible further message:

a) the total of exactly 100 measures of the piece might suggest the idea of the totality of the Creation (Gott Schöpfer = God, the Creator);

b) the 6-fold appearance of the pedal ostinato might hint at the 6 “working” days of God’s Creation (see above);

c) the quotation of the first cantus firmus phrase in the tenor, starting in measure 89 might allude to Christ as the Mediator;

d) the last pedal entry is longer than its other entries and has exactly 43 notes; this may well mean: (C [3] + R [17] + E [5] + D [4] + O [14] = 43: CREDO) “I believe.”

NB! Interestingly enough, the score of the first Credo chorus in the B Minor Mass shows the word “Credo” written 43 times and heard 41 times, i.e., J-S-B-A-C-H’s creed.

The small version of the same chorale is written as a short manualiter fughetta in the style of a brilliant French overture. This surprising setting can be seen as an introduction to the large version of The Lord’s Prayer, Vater unser im Himmelreich, written in the same key of E Dorian. More likely, however, it also seems to have the function of dividing the whole set of 21 chorales into 12 + 9. One should remember that, on the other hand, the 21 chorales are also divided into 9, dealing with the Lutheran Mass, and 12, treating Luther’s Catechism and the Sacraments. A very beautiful parallel, indeed!

VI

The large version of Vater unser im Himmelreich is possibly Bach’s most difficult and intricate organ work. It is written in 5 parts distributed once again among the two manuals and the pedal, with the cantus firmus in canon. Unlike the Ten Commandments however, each hand here plays a free voice and a canonic cantus firmus part.

Some characteristics may help understand and elucidate the enormous complexity of this composition:

a) the slow, majestic tempo in the 3/4 time signature suggests the austere character of a slow sarabande;

b) the pedal is treated as a basso continuo without quoting the cantus firmus;

c) the cantus firmus is treated in canon suggesting our intimately repeating the prayer spoken by Jesus according to Saint Mark and Saint Matthew;

d) the alternating order of the canonic parts at each new entry seems to suggest a still dialogue between the believer and Jesus;

e) the free manual parts are based on a theme quoting the richly embellished first phrase of the cantus firmus (Example 9);

f) each hand expounds this theme 3 times, alluding probably once more to the Trinity;

g) the two free manual parts display an enormous rhythmical richness with frequent use of the “plaintive” Lombard rhythms and the staccato triplets (Example 10);

h) this “plaintive” Lombardian rhythm and the overall rhythmical complexity seem to depict Luther’s comment on The Lord’s Prayer expressing the “multitude of human miseries;”

i) the staccato triplets obviously describe Saint Matthew 7:7: “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” As a matter of fact, this very verse appears quoted in practically all older Lutheran hymn books on the page where the chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich is printed. The staccato triplets may also allude to drops of tears;

j) there is only one spot where the pedal quotes the “plaintive” Lombardian rhythm and this happens in measure 41 (J [9] + S [18] + B [2] + A [1] + C [3] + H [8] = J. S. BACH), alluding to the composer’s personal commitment.

After this extraordinary piece, the alio modo manualiter version of the same cantus firmus is a simple, quiet meditation on the Prayer, devoid of all further speculative symbols.

VII

Following Luther’s Large Catechism exactly, Bach now treats the Sacraments of Baptism in Christ, unser Herr zum Jordan kam, Penitence in Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, the latter considered by Luther as the continuation and constant renewal of baptism, and finally the Sacrament of Communion in Jesus Christus, unser Heiland.

The large version of Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam treats Jesus’s baptism as described in Saint John, Chapter 1. The piece is set for two manuals and pedal with the cantus firmus in the latter, the bass in the left hand and the two upper parts in the right hand. This setting is quite full of important symbolic meanings:

a) the tenor cantus firmus in the pedal suggests, as the middle part of the setting, Christ’s role as Mediator between God Father and mankind;

b) the almost constant movement in sixteenth notes in the left hand bass part seems to allude to the flow of the waters of the Jordan River;

c) the two upper parts of the right hand can be seen as a symbol for the Holy Spirit floating above the scene of Christ’s Baptism by Saint John the Baptist. The beginning four notes in each of the two upper parts seem to depict, as a hypotyposis, a cross motif. Also, the most intricate imitations between the small motives of the two upper parts can be seen as a hint to the Holy Spirit proceeding from the consubstantiality of God Father and God Son, as mentioned in the Nicene Creed (Example 11).

d) NB: the final note of the fifth chorale phrase in the pedal d° seems to generate a “wrong” 6/4-chord d° - g° - b′: This is to be seen as a hint to avoid the wrong harmony by the use of a 4′ reed in the pedal if the left hand were based on 8′, or a 16′ basis for the left hand, should the pedal be played only on an 8′ basis!

e) The total number of measures, 81, equals 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 as a most impressive symbol for the Trinity.

The small manualiter version of the same chorale is quite a short fughetta based on the first phrase of the chorale, combined with an “obbligato” counter-subject, both treated in normal and inverted position. Could the theme itself represent Christ and its inverted form Christ’s descent on Earth? Could the countersubject stand for Saint John the Baptist? Interesting enough is the fact that this fughetta consists of 27 measures (3 x 3 x 3) with exactly 81 quarter notes (see above).

The large version of Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, the German version of Psalm 130, “De profundis,” is an exceptional work, as it is written in the old, solemn, majestic vocal stylus gravis or motet style, which, according to Johann Gottfried Walther’s Musicalisches Lexicon of 1732, is able to “elevate the soul to God.” This setting marks a pinnacle in Bach’s entire organ music insofar as it is written in six parts, four in the manual and two in the pedal, with the augmented cantus firmus of Luther’s chorale melody in the right foot’s part. This obviously seems to be an allusion to the significance of the upper bass part as the voice of the Old Testament psalmist. Most impressive is also the fact that at the beginning of the last verse of the chorale Wer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben? (Who can, Lord, stand before Thee?) in the seventh to last measure, the upper bass part playing the cantus firmus is the highest part in the whole texture (Example 12).

• The registration should be the Organo pleno, i.e., an 8′ based Plenum  in the (coupled) manual(s) and 16′ Plenum in the pedal, without mixtures but with reeds 16′, 8′, and 4′.

• This setting is obviously inspired by the great pleno settings in five parts, with double pedal, in Matthias Weckmann’s great chorale settings with the cantus firmus in the upper pedal part.

NB! In one of the Lüneburg tablatures containing Weckmann’s majestic hymn on O lux, beata Trinitas the opening first movement in five parts with double pedal and the cantus firmus in the upper bass bears the indication that the cantus firmus of the upper bass could be played in the pedal by the right foot, or on the manual by the left hand, or also by both the pedal and the left hand together. This comment seems to confirm the registration mentioned above, with the result that the left foot bass is playing in the reeds-pleno, the manual parts in the mixture-pleno and the cantus firmus in both the reeds- and the mixture-pleno, and thus strengthening the cantus firmus.

The following alio modo manualiter version of the same chorale is written in four parts. Learned contrapuntal imitations in the three lower parts—in normal and inverted form—of each phrase of the chorale, anticipate each phrase of the augmented cantus firmus expounded each time by the treble part.

• Each section of the piece begins with five contrapuntal measures in intricate counterpoint between the three lower parts, followed by eight bars expounding the respective phrase of the chorale in the treble and one supplementary bar concluding each section.

• The overall organization of the piece is quite extraordinary:

Sections a), b), c) & d): 5 + 8 + 1 bars; section e): 5 + 8 + 5

• But 5 + 8 + 1 = 14  [= B-A-C-H = 2 + 1 + 3 + 8] and 8 : 5 stands for the golden ratio.

The large version of Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns den Zorn Gottes wandt is a trio for the two manuals and pedal with the cantus firmus in the latter. It seems quite interesting that the pedal oscillates between playing the tenor and bass parts. Could this hint at Jesus’s double nature, as God and Man?

• The two manual parts seem to actually symbolize the “Wrath of God” by their extremely virtuosic, agitated, and aggressive movements in sixteenth notes and eighth notes.

• The main theme in the manuals starting with big and then diminishing intervals (tenth-octave-sixth) could possibly hint at Man’s approach to God, whereas, on the other hand, these leaps sometimes occur also in the opposite direction, from smaller to larger (sixth-octave-tenth). The message of these patterns seems to be the “struggle” between God and sinful mankind expecting redemption through communion, Luther’s second sacrament.

The following alio modo version of the same chorale is a very complex fugue in F minor, using as a main theme the first phrase of the cantus firmus. The extremely rich counterpoint and the surprisingly daring new motives seem to recall the big, learned fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II.

• The augmented entry of the main-theme in the tenor part in measure 57 might be another symbol for the praise of Christ the Lord, as the mediator between God and Man.

• NB! In order to emphasize this augmented theme in the tenor it should be helpful to use a registration of foundations (principals) 8′ and 4′ and a trumpet 8′.

VIII

Most intriguing and surprising part of the work are the following four duettos preceding the final Fugue in E-flat Major. Some speculations might help justify their presence:

a) Luther adds a “Short Admonition of Confession” after the chapter about Communion. In this short appendix he quotes the various ways of confessing: 1. to the priest/pastor; 2. as an open and common confession in front of the congregation; 3. to the neighbor; and 4. to God;

b) in the first part of his Large Catechism Luther quotes the four elements of the world: 1. Fire; 2. Air; 3. Water; 4. Earth;

c) in his Neu vermehrtes Hamburgisches Gesangbuch (New Hymn Book) from 1739, Vopelius inserts after the Catechism Hymns other hymns for: 1. the morning; 2. the evening; 3. before meals; 4. after meals;

d) taking into consideration the Baroque Theory of Affects one can easily imagine a certain parallel with the four temperaments: 1. choleric; 2. sanguine; 3. phlegmatic; and 4. melancholic temperament;

e) the duettos form a tight unity: their tonal progression ascending from E to F, to G, and finally to A corresponds strikingly to the sequence of keys in the “Trinity chorales” 4 to 9, and thus leading to the first note, B-flat, starting the following fugue;

f) two of the duettos are in a major (II and III) and two in a minor key (I and IV);

g) two are in a ternary (I: 3/8 and III: 12/8) and two in a binary (II: 2/4 and IV: 2/2) time signature.

h) two start with the right hand (I and II) and two with the left hand (II and IV).

It also seems quite remarkable how well the duettos match—by their astonishing variety and by their individual character—both the conception of the four elements (mentioned by Luther in his Great Catechism) and that of the four temperaments and even maybe of the four archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel) as well as the four Evangelists (?).

Duetto I: E-minor key; 3/8 time signature; right hand starts, left hand follows; 73 measures; perfectly symmetrical form based upon the golden ratio (28 measures + 17 measures + 28 measures = 73 measures // 28:17 = ~ 1.64; 45 (= 28 + 17) : 28 = ~ 1.7; 73 (= 28 + 17 + 28) : 45 = ~ 1.62); flamboyant themes and countersubjects suggesting flames of fire; Archangel Michael (with attributes: fire, sword, perfect balance); choleric temperament (?); element Fire (?).

Duetto II: F-major key; 2/4 time signature; right hand starts, left hand follows; 149 measures; perfectly symmetrical form of: 37 + 31 + 13 + 31 + 37 measures. NB! 37 could stand for Christ’s monogram in the Greek alphabet [ChRistos]: X ~ CH (= 20) + P ~ R (= 17); 31 may stand for the Latin “In Nomine Jesu” (In Jesus’s Name): [I (= 9) + N (= 13) + I (= 9) = 31]; 13 could allude to Jesus and his Twelve Apostles at the Last Supper. NB! This section of 13 measures from measures 69 to 78 is the center, the middle of the whole piece in which the measures 74 to 78 are the exact “inversion” of measures 69 to 73; could that maybe hint to Jesus’s death?; element Air (?) (Example 13).

The overall form of the piece is quite complex, insofar as the first section and its da capo recapitulation (both 37 measures) are in major and in a serene, joyous mood, whereas the second and penultimate sections (both 31 measures) are in minor and written as canons; might this “discrepancy” remind one of the sanguine temperament (?); Air; could the three references to Jesus Christ (see above) suggest a link to the Archangel Gabriel, Jesus’s messenger (with the attributes: lily and fish); could the perfect formal symmetry represent the symmetrical beauty of a lily?; could the inversion, the crossing of the parts in measures 69–78 hint at a symbol for Christ’s Cross and Death?

Duetto III: G-major key; 12/8 time signature; left hand starts, right hand follows; 39 measures:

15 + 8 + 15 + 1 = 39 measures; 15 (= 3 x 5) + 24 (= 3 x 8) = 39 (= 3 x 13) = golden ratio (cf. Fibonacci); melancholic temperament (?); could the very serene character of the piece remind of the Archangel Raphael (with attribute: fish)? element Water?

Duetto IV: A-minor key; 2/2 (Alla breve) time signature; left hand starts, right hand follows; two themes are used (a and b); 108 measures arranged as 8 (a) + 8 (a) + 16 (b) + 8 (a) + 8 (a) + 8 (b) + 13 (b) + 8 (a) + 8 (b) + 10 (b) + 13(a); NB! The grouping of measures and themes reveals the scheme of: 9 x 8 (= 72 measures) + 2 x 13 (= 26 measures) + 2 x 5 (= 10 measures), an order once more based upon the progression 5, 8, and 13 as quantities of the Fibonacci progression hinting at the “golden ratio;” the quite robust character of the music seems to allude to the strong phlegmatic temperament, while the very intricate formal scheme of the piece might possibly be a hint to the archangel Uriel (with attribute: fire); element Earth?

IX

The concluding Fuga à 5 Pro Organo pleno in E-flat major perfectly continues the ascending keys movement of the duettos (E-F-G-A) by its starting with a B-flat in the tenor.

The main theme suggests by its shape the form of a cross: connecting on paper the first note with the fourth and the second with the third, respectively the second with the fifth and the third with the fourth, respectively the third with the sixth and the fourth with the fifth, respectively the fourth with the seventh and the fifth with the sixth, one obtains three times (Trinity again!) the Greek letter X = Chi used as a symbol of the Cross, for crossing: cf. also Bach’s original title Da Jesus an dem X stund’ and the English No X-ing or Merry X-mas (Example 14).

This majestic theme dominates the whole first section of the fugue written in the ancient stylus gravis (see above, chorales 1 to 3). The second section of the fugue is in 6/4 meter and based on a strongly contrasting theme characterized by its constant movement representing a lengthy kyklosis (“turning around-figure”), with the main notes E-flat—F—G and thus quoting the first phrase of the first large chorale Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit (Example 15).

Exactly in the middle of this second section, the majestic first theme reappears, rhythmically strengthened by its syncopations, and dividing the whole fugue into two equal parts of 36 + 22½ : 22½ + 36 (Example 16).

Finally, the third and last section of the fugue written in 12/8 time signature, expounds a third theme that will later be combined with the first and with a varied form of the second theme. This third theme seems to use a bass cadence formula of C–F, and B-flat–E-flat (Example 17).

Most impressive is the perfect formal symmetry of the whole fugue organized in: (20 + 16 =) 36 measures + (22½ + 22½ =) 45 measures + (16 + 20 =) 36 measures.

Considering the fugue as a whole and the most natural tempo relationship of its three time signatures (half note = dotted half note = dotted quarter note), one can conclude the following:

a) the first and the third sections of the fugue are equal in length lasting 36 measures each, divided into 20 + 16, respectively, into 16 + 20;

b) applying the tempo relationship “half note = dotted half note = dotted quarter note” and taking as a common unity of measurement the smaller quantity, i.e., the measure length of the second fugue (which has only two beats per measure vs. the four beats of the first and the third sections respectively), one obtains the following measurements for the three sections:

72 (= 36 x 2) half-measures; 45 measures and again 72 (= 36 x 2) half-measures

c) all these numbers being multiples of 9, these ratios can be reduced to:

72 (= 8 x 9); 45 (= 5 x 9); 72 (= 8 x 9), or just 8 + 5 (= 13) + 8 = 21

d) this series of numbers 8, 5, 13, 21 belongs to the famous “Fibonacci progression” starting by 1:1:2:3:5:8:13:21 and reaching the golden ratio or divine proportion (= “proportio divina”) in the infinite.

e) NB! according to the Italian Renaissance mathematician Luca Pacioli the golden ratio might symbolize the Holy Trinity:

A (the greater quantity/God Father) : B (the smaller quantity/God the consubstantial Son) = (A + B) : A, or, theologically speaking:

A (God Father) engenders B (the consubstantial Son) and, out of these two, proceeds A + B (the Holy Spirit);

f) could this majestic, astonishingly built fugue thus represent once more the ultimate Symbol of the Holy Trinity?

g) its perfectly symmetrical construction is most impressive:

First section (40 half measures—cadence—32 half measures),

Second section (22½—22½ measures)

Third section (32 half measures—cadence—40 half measures), or, more simply:

40 – 32 – 22½ – 22½ – 32 – 40 measure lengths of the second section.

X

Taking a more attentive, new look at the Third Part of Bach’s Clavier-Übung, one discovers some interesting facts concerning the overall compositional plan, a plan corresponding also to Bach’s work, the B Minor Mass:

a) both cycles contain a total of 27 movements each.

b) these 27 movements are divided into two groups of: 6 “free” works without a cantus firmus (prelude in E-flat, the four Duettos, and the final fugue) and the 21 chorales; NB! the “Missa” and the “Symbolum Nicenum” in the
B Minor Mass have together 12 + 9 = 21 movements and the last section of the B Minor Mass (“Sanctus,” “Osanna,” “Benedictus,” “Osanna,” “Agnus Dei,” and “Dona nobis pacem”) also contains 6 movements.

c) the 21 chorales in the Clavier-Übung are divided twice into: 9 for the Lutheran Mass (“Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie – Gloria:” Trinity) and 12 dealing with Luther’s Catechism plus Sacraments.

d) The 21 chorales are also divided (“musically”) into 12 and 9 chorales by the 13th chorale written as a French overture and thus opening the rest of 9 chorales.

[NB! All these numbers are multiples of 3 (Trinity again!).]

e) could the total number of 27 pieces possibly recall in both the Clavier-Übung and the B Minor Mass the 27 books of the New Testament?

f) could the number of 21 pieces allude to the “Teaching Books” of the New Testament, the 21 Epistles, and the 6 “free works” to the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the prophetic Apocalypse of John?

g) could one not consider the overall architecture of Bach’s most impressive cycles, Clavier-Übung III and the B Minor Mass, as huge symbols for the New Testament and thereby also for Martin Luther’s Theology?