J. L. Krebs: Borrower Extraordinaire

Robert August

Robert August is director of music/organist at First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, Texas. Previously he was assistant university organist and choirmaster at The Memorial Church at Harvard University, during doctoral studies at the New England Conservatory of Music. A native of the Netherlands, he has an extensive background in historical performance. August has served as carillonneur at Brigham Young University, and as organist and conductor at churches in the Netherlands and the United States. In addition to collaboration with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Christopher Hogwood, and Simon Carrington, he has performed in Europe and the United States as a solo artist and accompanist, including tours and CD recordings with the Harvard University Choir and the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra. Robert and his wife, flutist Dolores August, often collaborate on modern and period instruments.

This is a work that has occupied
me for the whole of the previous year in an effort to make it worthy of the lofty name it bears. It is also a work which, I believe, is likely to outlive my other creations the longest.”1 This was Schumann’s description of the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH, op. 60, in a letter to his publisher, after completion of the final fugue. Schumann took great care and pride in the six fugues, but his prediction could not have been more off target as the fugues are rarely performed anymore. Rather, they have become the topic of ongoing discussions about Schumann’s mental state in relation to the quality of his output.
The notion that the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH are of lesser quality than the majority of Schumann’s oeuvre seems to be based on largely subjective analyses. Such subjectivism is not uncommon in art and music, as is evident in Albert Schweitzer’s discussion of J.S. Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582: “He [Bach] saw clearly, however, that on the whole the incoherency of this kind of work was not suitable to the greatest organ music, and he ventures upon the experiment only with this colossal theme.”2 In Schweitzer’s opinion, the Passacaglia was a compositional failure that did not compare to Bach’s other organ works.
Robert Schumann was of a different opinion: “After a pause, these [organ compositions] were followed by the Passecaille in C Minor (with 21 variations, intertwined so ingeniously that one can never cease to be amazed) admirably handled in the choice of registers by Mendelssohn.”3 Schweitzer’s and Schumann’s remarks, published roughly sixty years apart, could not be more contradictory.
Why is it that the Passacaglia can render such opposing views, especially by two men known for their deep respect and understanding of Bach’s music?4 With regard to Schweitzer, we cannot be sure if his comments were the result of a somewhat subjective analysis, but he undoubtedly would not have published his findings unless he believed them to be correct.5 Schumann’s opposing remarks are fascinating as well. They not only provide us with his opinion of the Passacaglia but also unveil his often-overlooked understanding of the organ.
Tragically, Schumann’s organ works, the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH, op. 60, have often been deemed ‘unworthy’ and are repeatedly criticized or, perhaps worse, omitted from Schumann biographies. Op. 60 is systematically neglected and misinterpreted, often as a result of careless research. It is undoubtedly the most disputed cycle Schumann ever composed. Despite a number of favorable articles, a flow of negative writings remains consistent.6 Numerous articles on the six fugues are based on flawed research and, in some cases, pre-existing articles. Biographers often use Schumann’s mental condition to explain the lack of quality in the six fugues, conveniently ignoring the fact that Schumann produced some of his best works during the same period, including the Symphony in C Major and the Piano Concerto in A Minor.7

A musical cure
A general misconception of Schumann’s organ works seems to have carried well into the 20th and 21st centuries, as several of even the most recent Schumann biographers merely reference the fugues rather than opening up a dialogue or deeper discussion. Schumann’s organ works are neglected in several “comprehensive” Schumann biographies. Alan Walker, e.g., speaks favorably of the 1845/46 compositions in general, but omits op. 60 altogether.8 George Dadelsen describes the six fugues as “appallingly monotonous” while trying to compete with Bach’s Art of Fugue.9 Other biographers carelessly mislabel op. 60; Marcel Brion describes the Four Fugues on the name of Bach, op. 72,10 while John Worthen writes: “In April he began writing his Six Fugues for Organ on B-A-C-H (op. 60), a sequence interrupted only by the arrival of a rented pedal-piano which allowed him to write works for keyboard and pedal which did not require an organ.”11 Schumann, in fact, did not interrupt his fugal writing. Instead, a pedal attachment for the piano was hired to practice organ.12 Eric Jensen makes a similar mistake: “Schumann rented a pedal piano—a piano fitted with pedals for the feet like an organ—in order to become familiar with the technique involved.”13
Although Schumann was by no means an accomplished organist like Mendelssohn, he did have a deep understanding of the instrument, as is evident in numerous sources.14 Robert Schauffler claims that the fugues were mere play: “To Schumann at the height of his career, such exercises [contrapuntal studies] were mere play. While diverting him, they used up so little of his true creative power that, with the approach of warm weather, he was able to throw himself into making two of his chief masterpieces: the Piano Concerto and the C Major Symphony.”15 Schauffler continues:

Schumann must have felt in his bones that fugal writing was not in his line; for not until 1839 did he compose his first published attempt, that unsuccessful experiment, the Fughette, op. 32, no. 4. He gave out nothing more of the sort until the nervous collapse of 1845, during which he wrote works that look passing strange in a catalogue of his music.16

After a short description of Schumann’s contrapuntal works of 1845, Schauffler writes:

The composer’s nervous collapse had been aggravated by the too intense labor and excitement of his years of song, symphony, and chamber music. One suspects that when, as he wrote Mendelssohn on July 17th, 1845, ‘an onslaught of terrifying thoughts’ had brought him to try his hand at fugal writing, very much as we of today would cajole a nervous invalid into doing crossword puzzles, to take his mind from his troubles. The very fact that Schumann’s intensely subjective nature made it almost impossible for him to give of his best in this formal, objective style allowed him to play with these contrapuntal forms without expending too much energy.17
Peter Ostwald too, believes that the contrapuntal works of 1845 were exercises to improve the composer’s mental condition:

Despite his physical and psychological complaints, Schumann was beginning to do some composing again, but it was mainly the sort of counterpoint exercises he had relied on, as a way of settling his mind, during earlier depressive episodes. He rented a special musical instrument, called a pedal piano, that “has an extra set of strings and hammers, making it easier to play fugues, and worked on Bach for a while.”18

While Ostwald does not stand alone in his opinion of Schumann’s mental state in relation to the compositions of the contrapuntal year of 1845, one cannot but wonder why they, in particular the organ works, have methodically been deemed inferior. Ostwald also writes:

Before the trip with Clara, in August 1845, Schumann had composed several fugues based on the name BACH, and he published an impressive amount of contrapuntal work later that year and the next. The six BACH Fugues in particular must have required enormous concentration, since not only are they based on a musical relationship between Bach’s name and the notes of each fugue subject, but they also incorporate an intricate mathematical system, the so-called Bach numbers, which Bach himself had used to provide cohesion in his contrapuntal work.19

With all due respect to Mr. Ostwald, his findings are based on pre-existing, flawed research. Though Schumann indeed incorporated certain Baroque principles in his organ works, Peterson’s attempt to attribute “Bach numbers” to the fugues holds no ground. Similar misguided assumptions have been applied to Bach’s music as well, claiming for example, that Bach had left clues in his music in regards to his own date of death.20 Despite his intrigue with Bach numbers, Peterson’s opinion of the fugues as a whole is less than favorable: “Schumann’s fugal writing seems, in spite of his studies, to have been a contrivance which he discarded when he felt hampered by it, even in a work entitled ‘fugue’.”21 Stephen Walsh provides us with a similar statement: “Even in the finest passages of op. 60 one is aware of a certain impersonal quality about the writing.”22
A recent biography by John Worthen reads: “This [study of counterpoint] was, after all, a musical cure; one that involved creating music on the page, after the enforced dry period of the autumn of 1844.”23 Worthen continues with some blatant assumptions:
Such music insisted on structure and pattern, rather than on the harnessing and expression of emotion and melody which had made the work on Faust so exhausting. The fugal music could be worked out logically and tunefully, within its own very narrow confines. Its very limitations offered freedom from excitement.24
What Worthen exactly means by ‘tunefully’ remains uncertain. As an analysis of the fugues will demonstrate, his claim that the fugues are confined or free from excitement could not be farther removed from the truth. Worthen’s next statement too, is completely false: “At any rate, the ‘quiet’ neo-Baroque music that engaged Schumann in the spring and early summer of 1845 may have been a rather narrowly focused sequence of works to occupy the composer of the Finale zu Faust, but it had served the purpose of getting him back into composing.”25 As we will see in the following discussion, the perception of Schumann’s contrapuntal studies as mere therapeutic tools has remained a common yet flawed assumption for over a century.

Schumann and Bach
An aversion to the organ works is routinely linked to Schumann’s mental illness, while some scholars maintain that Schumann simply was not a real contrapuntist, and that his knowledge of counterpoint was quite moderate. Though the number of unfavorable commentaries seems perhaps overwhelming, it is interesting to make the comparison with—at least as many—complimentary testimonials. Schumann’s studies in counterpoint commenced well before composing the six fugues. The numerous entries in the diaries and household books depict Schumann as a prodigious student of Bach works and contrapuntal techniques (see Appendix 1). Schumann seems to have taken a natural liking to Bach’s music, perhaps enhanced by the Bach revival of the early 19th century. Leon Plantinga writes:
He [Schumann] subscribed to a rather deterministic view of history in which a central tradition in music could be expected to develop in certain orderly and predictable ways. For him this tradition, for all practical purposes, had its beginning in Bach, the first in a series of monumental composers whose personal contributions comprised the locus of an inevitable line of progress leading to his own time. This line extended through Beethoven and Schubert to Schumann’s own contemporaries.26
This ‘extended line’ manifests itself in the organ fugues as Schumann reaches back to older forms while engaging in a new kind of fugal writing. Though Schumann was not the first composer to incorporate the famous BACH theme, the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH comprise the first significant cycle of organ works of its kind, soon to be followed by Liszt, Reger, and many more. For Schumann, studies in the Art of Fugue were crucial in the genesis of the organ fugues. As Gerhard Weinberger writes:
The overall conception, the thematic material and the extremely high quality of the writing all derive from Bach; this fugue cycle represents the end of a developmental phase which culminated in Schumann’s study of Bach’s music (the six fugues may be viewed directly as modeled in the Art of Fugue) and of the fugue per se.27
Weinberger continues: “Nevertheless, the fugues are by no means derivative stylistic copies, but effective ‘character fugues’ in the romantic vein.”28 An interesting detail is the fact that Schumann, despite his admiration of Bach, deemed the Art of Fugue too intellectual. His view in this matter may be explained by his famous quote:
The best fugue will always be the one that the public takes for a Strauss waltz; in other words, a fugue where the structural underpinnings are no more visible than the roots that nourish the flower. Thus a reasonably knowledgeable music-lover once took a Bach fugue for a Chopin etude—to the credit of both! Thus, too, one could play for many a maiden the last part of one of the Mendelssohn fugues and call it one of the Lieder ohne Worte. The charm and tenderness of the figures are such that she would never be reminded of churches and fugues.29
This last comment is fascinating. “Never be reminded of churches” is a telling statement that says a lot about the Zeitgeist, since churches and fugues are so strongly connected here, and in such a harsh way.
Schumann’s interest in the organ was steeped in a deep admiration for Bach. In the April 1842 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik he wrote: “ . . . At our next meeting, a volume of well-executed fugues would please us more than another one full of sketches. At this royal instrument, the composer must have learned the value of clearly defined artistic form, such as that given to us by Bach in the largest as well as smallest works.”30 Three years earlier Schumann wrote: “But it is only at his organ that he [Bach] appears to be at his most sublime, most audacious, in his own element. Here he knows neither limits nor goal and works for centuries to come.”31 Schumann’s organ fugues, thus, are not a byproduct of mental exercises. They are carefully crafted works, based on a long tradition.
Approaching fugal composition from a new (Romantic) perspective, Schumann felt that he had created works that were truly unique. Like Bach himself, Schumann united the old and new, resulting in six spectacular character pieces. After all, according to Schumann, “Most of Bach’s fugues are character pieces of the highest kind; in part truly poetic creations,”32 and Schumann’s fugues were no different. In the diaries Schumann refers to Bach’s compositions repeatedly. He seemed to be concerned with preserving and reviving Bach’s legacy, which, according to Hans T. David, “. . . by invoking the name of Bach again and again, helped gain for Bach’s work a secure place in the minds of educated musicians.”33 In addition to the Bach legacy, Schumann was concerned with preserving his own legacy. His preferred medium in this—the fugue—is easily explained by his lifelong admiration of Bach’s keyboard fugues. Charles Rosen gives a second reason for Schumann’s choice: “In the nineteenth century, the fugue had become a demonstration of conventional mastery, a proof of craftsmanship. Besides competing with Beethoven, Schumann conforms to the standard pattern of fugue laid down by Cherubini.”34
In addition to Bach’s keyboard fugues, at least two more sources play an important role in Schumann’s contrapuntal output: Marpurg’s Abhandlung von der Fuge (1753) and Cherubini’s Cours de Contrepoint et de Fugue (1835). Federhofer and Nauhaus write:

The composer’s concern with counterpoint began during his ‘apprenticeship’ with Heinrich Dorn (1804-1892) in the years 1831/32, and bore its first fruits in his exercise books. Schumann subsequently turned his attention to F.W. Marpurg’s Abhandlung von der Fuge [Treatise on Fugue], parts of which he studied again, albeit reluctantly, in the autumn of 1837, along with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. This independent study is reflected, in an artistically transmuted form, in the book of Fugengeschichten [Fugal matters] (November 1837) which is at present held at the Robert Schumann Haus in Zwickau.35
According to the Haushaltbücher, the Schumanns’ studies of Cherubini’s treatise commenced April 6, 1845, the same month Robert finished the first two organ fugues. Cours de Contrepoint et de Fugue is largely based on Bach works and clearly serves as a point of departure for Schumann’s organ fugues. Two and a half weeks later, on April 24, Clara describes the rented pedal board for their piano: “. . . we obtained on hire a pedal to be attached below the pianoforte, and from this we received great pleasure. Our chief object was to practice organ playing.”36 Both Robert and Clara enjoyed the organ, but it seems that the intent was to study organ rather than becoming concert organists like Mendelssohn. Clara by then was a renowned concert pianist, while Robert had given up keyboard playing some fifteen years earlier, due to his numb finger.
A combination of counterpoint studies, a deep admiration for Bach, and a great appreciation for the organ finally resulted in the counterpoint episodes of 1845. In regards to Schumann’s organ compositions, Joachim Draheim writes, “The exceptional importance and originality of these fugues were long insufficiently appreciated, although they belong to the very few truly distinctive organ compositions from the first half of the 19th century, together with Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonatas, op. 65, to which they owe certain impulses.”37 Besides generating an artistic legacy, Schumann may have anticipated commercial success from his contrapuntal output; works for pedal piano were hardly available, and Schumann made sure he was among the first to write for the instrument, ensuring a ‘head start’ in any possible financial gain. The six fugues were, like Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas, among the very few serious organ compositions of their time, and the first large cycle of organ fugues on the name of BACH. And as Schumann himself points out, the organ fugues can also easily be performed on piano (four hands). Schumann cleverly published opp. 56, 58 and 60 as works for pedal piano or organ, most likely to enhance sales. However, the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH lacked (financial) success, and remain Schumann’s only attempt at organ composition. Schumann, however, was very pleased with his contrapuntal endeavors. A letter of 8 February 1847 to his friend Carl Ferdinand Becker illustrates Schumann’s satisfaction with the six fugues: “I have never polished and worked so long on any composition of mine as on this one in order to make it worthy of the illustrious name which it bears.”38

Mendelssohn
Like Mendelssohn, Schumann favored a modern fugal type steeped in the Bach tradition, yet combined with a poetic flavor. As Plantinga points out: “It was the particular genius of Mendelssohn, Schumann said, to show that successful fugues could still be written in a style that was fresh and yet faithful to its Bachian and Handelian models; these fugues hold to the form of Bach, he felt, though their melody marks them as modern.”39 Already a famous conductor, composer and organist, Mendelssohn wrote his Three Preludes and Fugues, op. 37 in 1836–37. Later, in 1844–45, he wrote the Six Sonatas, op. 65. As Klaus-Peter Richter points out, the motivic resemblances between Mendelssohn’s and Schumann’s organ works are more than obvious.40 In reference to Mendelssohn’s fugues of the six sonatas,41 Schumann writes: “I do not wish to indulge in blind praise, and I know perfectly well that Bach made fugues of quite a different sort. But if he were to rise from the grave today, he would, I am sure—having delivered himself of some opinions about the state of music in general—rejoice to find at least flowers where he had planted giant-limbed oak forests.”42
Mendelssohn’s organ works were well received by critics43 and may have generated Schumann’s contrapuntal aspirations, though Schumann may have chosen a slightly different path to avoid comparison with Mendelssohn’s compositions; in addition to writing the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH he wrote a set of canons and sketches for the pedal piano.44 Schumann hoped to be among the first to publish works for this relatively new instrument, ensuring financial and artistic gain. Including the piano as an optional instrument for performance of the fugues, sketches, and canons aided Schumann in several ways; it bypassed the archaic reputation of the organ while marketing the music for the most widely used keyboard instrument of that time. An advertisement in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik states:

Some Studies and Sketches for the pianoforte with pedal will shortly be published from Robert Schumann. We would like to remind our readers that in our opinion, when once this combining of instruments finds general acceptance, performers will have the opportunity not only to return to the earlier art and bring classical organ works into private homes, but also discover many different uses for the pedal piano and accomplish new effects.45

Alas, the pedal piano never became the widely used instrument Schumann was hoping for, and none of the contrapuntal studies of 1845 were a financial success.

Schumann and the organ
The rise of the Enlightenment caused a great shift in the use of instruments in churches, the court, and at home. The new, galant style called for instruments capable of immediate and subtle changes in timbre and dynamics; hence, the piano became the new keyboard instrument of choice. The organ, as Schumann wrote, reminded people of “churches and fugues,” and was considered an archaic and static instrument. Despite its tainted status, Schumann proceeded to compose for the instrument, a decision that may be partially attributed to a long tradition; many post-Renaissance composers wrote larger works to preserve their name in history. Several of Bach’s sacred compositions, for example, were simply too long to be included in church services.46 Similarly, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Schumann were not employed by the church, yet their output includes a large quantity of sacred works.47
Scholars have often blamed Schumann’s limited knowledge of the organ for the so-called poor quality of the organ works. However, Schumann knew the organ well, and his understanding of the instrument was in fact greater than most of his contemporaries. Russell Stinson recently uncovered an important document in regards to Schumann’s perception of Bach, as well as the organ. The Clara Schumann Bach Book offers a detailed list of Bach keyboard works from Schumann’s library and contains numerous detailed markings (corrections, registrations, etc.) in Schumann’s hand (see Appendices 2 and 3 on page 26).
The source is very specific and provides us with a list of Bach’s keyboard works that Schumann owned before the contrapuntal year of 1845. In one particular example Stinson points out: “In the case of the Clavierübung setting of ‘Vater unser, im Himmelreich,’ Schumann bracketed every phrase of the canon on the chorale melody, similar to how he analyzed fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier.”48 The Vater unser chorale prelude is a compositional tour de force and one of Bach’s most complex organ works. Based on the many markings, this work must have had a great impact on Schumann. Schumann also corrected typographical errors and gave detailed descriptions about the use of stops, manual changes, as well as pitch designation, all of which demonstrate more than basic knowledge of the organ.49 As Stinson points out:
Just consider how Schumann annotated, from Part 3 of the Clavierübung, the manualiter setting of “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir,” a work in which Bach subjects each phrase of the chorale tune to a complex fugal exposition before stating the melody in augmentation in the soprano voice. Following Bach’s constant use of inversion and stretto, Schumann bracketed, in addition to each phrase of the chorale proper, every one of the roughly forty fugal statements.50

The Clara Schumann Bach Book is an invaluable source, and for once and for all does away with the general misconception of Schumann’s limited knowledge of the organ. The evidence in Schumann’s personal library discloses both his interest and knowledge of Bach, the organ and counterpoint.

A new approach
Schumann was known to compose rather fast, but it took him from April to November to write the fugues. In the Diaries, Schumann writes:

I used to write most, practically all of my shorter pieces in [the heat of] inspiration; many compositions [were completed] with unbelievable swiftness, for instance, my First Symphony in B-flat Major [was written] in four days, as was a Liederkreis of twenty pieces [Dichterliebe]; the Peri too was composed in a relatively short time. Only from the year 1845 on, when I began to invent and work out everything in my head, did a completely new manner of composing begin to develop.51

This new manner of composing resulted in works that were based on a thorough, perhaps more intellectual approach. Schumann’s keyboard compositions of 1845 are often said to be more objective than his earlier compositions.52 That in itself is a subjective statement, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Traits of the younger Schumann can be found in any of the collections written in 1845, but they also expose a maturing composer. These are indeed contrapuntal works based on models by Bach, Marpurg, and Cherubini, but Schumann remained true to himself as a person and artist by combining the new with the old. The fugues exhibit a blend of sentiment (third fugue), restriction (fifth fugue), and excitement (second and sixth fugues). Schumann, as Weinberger says, “demonstrates the highest skill in contrapuntal writing, using all sorts of complicated polyphony culminating in the concluding double fugue. But at the same time he produced expressive compositions which he himself termed character pieces, but in the strict style.”53 Charles Rosen was right when he wrote, “Throughout his short musical life, Schumann produced his most striking works not by developing and extending Classical procedures and forms, but by subverting them, sometimes undermining their functions and even making them momentarily unintelligible.”54
The six fugues remain among the most unique works in the organ repertoire, and Schumann was well aware that these compositions differed from his earlier output. Having given up his old habit of composing at the piano, Schumann felt liberated. Daverio sheds more light on Schumann’s new manner of composing: “. . . it is perhaps better understood as a logical outgrowth of his approach to large-scale instrumental composition in the earlier 1840s rather than as a radical break.”55 Scholars have maintained the notion that Schumann’s oeuvre reflects several distinctly different compositional periods. Daverio’s opposing view, however, “explains” the six fugues in a nutshell:

Perhaps Schumann intermingled ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ qualities throughout his career, but with varying degrees of emphasis, a hypothesis implying that the passage from a ‘subjective’ to an ‘objective’ phase was hardly abrupt. To insist on a hard and fast demarcation of style-periods in time is to miss the point, namely, that Schumann’s oeuvre unfolds in a series of sometimes parallel and sometimes overlapping phases. The products of his imagination may thus be viewed as points where divergent or complementary trends intersect.56

Von Wasilewski agrees with this view, pointing out the combination of strict form and a Romantic, poetic spirit:
Of the two sets of fugues (ops. 72 and 60), the latter, consisting of six fugues on the name of Bach, is of extraordinary merit. The first five fugues especially display so firm and masterly a treatment of the most difficult forms of art, that Schumann might from these alone lay claim to the title of a profound contrapuntist. They show variety of plastic power with four notes only. The tone of feeling varies in all six pieces, and is always poetic, which, in connection with a command of form, is the main point in composition. These are serious character pieces.57
Though the Canons and Sketches display a more intimate, subjective side of Schumann, the six fugues demonstrate a stronger balance between head (Eusebius) and heart (Florestan). Daverio’s and Von Wasilewski’s points of view are supported by the great variety of character in Schumann’s mid-1840s compositions.

Six Fugues on the Name of BACH
Schumann’s Six Fugues on the Name of BACH are the product of a carefully planned blueprint. Modeled after Bach’s examples, one might expect various Baroque elements in these pieces. Indeed, the fugues were conceived as a set of six, similar to many of Bach’s cycles (including many of his organ works).58 Such systematic arrangement of cycles containing six pieces was common in the Baroque era and, as Piet Kee points out, is rooted in numerology that goes back as far as Pythagoras.59 The use of number symbolism in music diminished substantially after the rise of the age of the Enlightenment, and despite Schumann’s use of ciphers (on several occasions) there is no evidence that points to the composer’s knowledge or intentional use of number symbolism. Schumann’s fugues, however, do reveal a consistent observance of the Golden Ratio. This number (0.6180339887…) is found in nature, music and art.60 Schumann’s knowledge of the Golden Ratio is not recorded anywhere, but based on the many examples found in his and his contemporaries’ music, it seems plausible that he was familiar with the concept. The use of the Golden Ratio though, so closely related to nature, seems to have prevailed through the Romantic period into our time.61 A close examination of the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH unveils Golden Ratio (G.R.) proportions (often multiple times) in each of the six fugues. These examples are often found within a measure of the exact G.R. When applying the G.R. to the number of measures in each fugue we see the following outcome:
Fugue I. The first fugue totals 64 measures. When we apply the G.R. to these 64 measures, we come to 64 x 0.61 = 39, or measure 39. This measure contains two consecutive subject entries in the pedals. A ‘reversed’ G.R. (counting 39 measures from the end) is found in m. 25, located between two more subject entries (the second being a false entry) in the pedals. NB: this fugue only contains two such double-pedal entries, each clearly defined by the Golden Ratio. In addition, the apex (c3) is reached first in m. 40 (one measure after G.R measure 39).62
Fugue II. The second fugue is 174 measures long; 174 x 0.61 = 106. In m. 106 new material is presented (ascending octaves/scales). A reversed G.R. leads us to m. 68, where the subject appears in the pedals (in its entirety) for the first time. Like several Bach compositions, this fugue contains Golden Ratios within Golden Ratios. The second fugue can be separated into three separate divisions: At m. 74 we see a clear separation in the music; there is a sudden dynamic change (from forte to piano), while the texture changes from chordal homophony to strict polyphony with the BACH motive in stretto. An inverted G.R. within that section highlights m. 29, where the exposition is stirred up by a repeat of the subject in the alto voice. This entry starts on B-flat, similar to the very first entry (slightly modified for harmonic purposes), but then suddenly shifts from a dux to a comes entity; the first four notes of the subject appear in dux form, while the remainder of the entry is presented in comes fashion. It is the only fugue in the cycle where Schumann applied (uniform) dynamic markings to each voice entry in the exposition, as to point out the exposition’s irregularity. Federhofer and Nauhaus point out that “. . . Schumann probably regarded the treatment of the ‘comes’ (different in each case) as depending on the character of the subject.”63 Mm. 75–121 mark the second division of the fugue, totaling 47 measures; 47 x 0.61 = 29 = m. 102, which is marked marcato while presenting new material. The fugue’s third division comprises mm. 123–174, totaling 53 measures. This section contains a reversed G.R. (counting 32 backwards) at m. 143. The score reveals a significant change in m. 143 as the music changes from a thin, three-part polyphonic to a full, chordal and homophonic texture.
Fugue III. The third fugue is the shortest one of the cycle, counting only 59 measures; 59 x 0.61 = 36. The G.R. is found in m. 36, where the music moves to the sub-mediant, E-flat major. A reversed G.R. points to m. 23; the end of the exposition. This five-voice fugue does not combine all five voices until close to the end, after the third (and final) pedal entry. Schumann uses the pedals to single out the Golden Ratio.
Fugue IV. The fourth fugue is 116 measures long; 116 x 0.61 = 71. M. 72 is marked fortissimo, the loudest dynamic marking in the fugue. Here the music also has a strong sense of forward motion (see endnote 64). The drastic change at m. 72 divides the piece into two sections. The second division, totaling 45 measures, unveils one more reversed G.R. at m. 92, where the music changes from a homophonic to a polyphonic texture.
Fugue V. The fifth fugue in the cycle totals 124 measures; 124 x 0.61 = 76, the beginning of the pedal tone F. When looking at that first section separately (mm. 1–76), we find yet another striking place; 76 x 0.61 = 46; in m. 46 the subject appears in the middle voice, while the BACH theme (in sustained note values) are presented—in stretto—in the bass and soprano voices. NB: this is the only time the BACH theme is played in the pedals. The fugue’s second part (mm. 76–124) contains one more G.R.; 49 (number of remaining measures) x 0.61 = 30, which appears exactly at the pedal point in m. 104. Additionally, the original subject appears in retrograde.
Fugue VI. 155 x 0.61 = 95. Measure 95 presents a clear statement of the subject in the pedals. A reversed Golden Ratio (95 from the end, rather than the beginning) leads us to m. 60. Schumann writes a clear break in the music at measure 59, immediately before introducing the second subject of this double fugue; the fugue’s two sections are separated by a quarter note rest and a double bar line, as well as a dynamic increase (più f). In addition, Schumann writes lebhafter (livelier). When we apply the G.R. formula to the first part of the fugue (the first 58 measures) we come to 58 x 0.61 = 35. One measure earlier the subject is first introduced in the relative minor key (G minor). Similar Golden Ratio divisions are found in the second part of the fugue (97 measures long): 97 x 0.61 = 59 (m. 117). In m. 116, just one measure earlier, Schumann clearly defines the break in the music after two (!) four-measure pedal points, when the BACH motive is re-introduced—this time in block chords. A reversed G.R. is found at mm. 95/96. In m. 95, after a three-measure pedal point, the fugue’s first subject appears first in the second part of the (double) fugue. Other changes involve a dynamic increase and the introduction of both subjects simultaneously.
The number of Golden Ratios in Schumann’s fugues is overwhelming, yet the question remains if they were intentionally ‘placed’ or if they are a mere compositional byproduct. Schumann’s organ compositions are an unusual blend of styles, which could easily generate an over-analytical approach. Peterson’s and van Houten’s previously mentioned findings are prime examples of such “determined research,” and one needs to be careful not to attribute music’s every single detail to a genius mind. In regards to Golden Ratio, perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Regardless of Schumann’s intentions, the number of G.R.s is remarkable and cannot be denied.

Styles
Schumann’s organization of the cycle reveals a fascinating blend of Baroque and Romantic principles. Burkhard Meischein points out the cycle’s sonata-like layout:
Fugue 1: Slow introduction
Fugue 2: Faster section
Fugues 3 and 4: Cantabile, slower section
Fugue 5: Scherzo
Fugue 6: Exciting, intensely growing finale64

Interestingly, Schumann’s Classic outline is not unlike Bach’s symmetrical organization of larger collections.65 Notice, for example, the symmetry in time signature, tempo, dynamics and texture (see Appendix 4).
The six fugues are based on the famous BACH theme that Bach himself had used in the final (incomplete) fugue of The Art of Fugue. As Daverio points out, “Though all the fugues incorporate the BACH theme, some of them use this theme merely as a starting point for a larger subject (see the subject of the second and fifth fugues).”66 Stinson discusses the many motivic similarities between Schumann’s opp. 56 and 60 and Bach’s organ works. The second fugue on BACH, for example, has occasionally been ridiculed for its elongated subject, but is analogous to BWV 575, which was published by Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in February 1839.67 In Abhandlung von der Fuge, Marpurg discusses the proper treatment of fugue subjects:
I myself once heard him [Bach], when during my stay in Leipzig I was discussing with him certain matters concerning the fugue, pronounce the works of an old and hardworking contrapuntist dry and wooden, and certain fugues by a more modern and no less great contrapuntist—that is the form in which they are arranged for clavier—pedantic; the first because the composer stuck continuously to his principal subject, without any change; and the second because, at least in the fugues under discussion, he had not shown enough fire to reanimate the theme by interludes.68
While some of the subjects are indeed rather lengthy, Schumann seems to adhere to Bach’s examples, avoiding redundant (complete) repeats of fugue subjects. Similarly, rather than following conventional compositional techniques, Schumann used existing forms as a starting point for a more modern idiom. Thus, the amalgamation of old and new techniques generated compositions that were (and still are) anomalies in the organ repertoire, and may in part explain their unfortunate fate. A closer examination of the fugues reveals some very interesting patterns:
Fugue I. The first fugue initially follows the conventional exposition pattern, as each of the voices is introduced in the right order. However, when the fifth voice is introduced in m.12 (in the pedals), the alto part drops out, leaving a four-part texture before finishing the exposition. In fact, the five voices never appear together in contrapuntal passages. Schumann, undoubtedly aware of this atypical approach, applied the idiosyncrasy in five of the six fugues (the fifth being the exception). Throughout the cycle, both the core subject (the BACH motive) and the complete subjects appear in many different forms. Klaus Jürgen Sachs points out the repeatedly changing order of emphasized notes of the BACH motive.69 In the first fugue, for example, the motive appears straightforward in four half notes, with B-flat and C being the emphasized notes (B-flat and C appear on beats one and three in a 4/2 time signature). In m. 5 the same motive is presented in the alto voice, starting on the second beat rather than the first. This metrical displacement is typical of Schumann and is employed throughout the cycle.
Fugue II. In the second fugue we see a continuation of metrical shifts; starting in m. 3, the running sixteenth notes suggest a duple (2/4) rhythm in a 3/4 time signature. In m. 48 the first fugue’s subject is introduced in the pedals, combined with the second fugue’s main subject in the manuals. Schumann takes great liberty in the intervallic relationship between the first and second parts of the subject. The first part of the subject (BACH) starts on B-flat, while the second part (continuous sixteenth notes) follows at the sixth, on G.
This relationship remains consistent until m. 30, where Schumann separates the two motives by abandoning the intervallic connection. The two motives still appear together throughout the fugue, but the second part of the subject (its starting pitch) is modified for harmonic purposes.70
Fugue III. The third fugue appears to be a double fugue, but the second subject is never fully developed. Derived from the main subject, it might be conceived as a melodically and rhythmically weak countersubject. ‘Undermining’ the second subject may have been intentional, as Schumann’s focus seems to be mainly on the principal subject. Whereas the first two fugues were written in the key of B-flat major, the third is written in G minor. Bound by the initial BACH motive (centered around B-flat), Schumann may have used the countersubject as a means to establish the fugue’s tonality. This thought also explains the countersubject’s lack of development, as Schumann’s focus is on the principal subject. Of the six fugues, the third maintains the strictest counterpoint throughout, and never resorts to a homophonic texture.Fugue IV. In the fourth fugue Schumann for the first time deviates from the established BACH motive. Though still citing the same motive, the notes are ordered in a new manner, incorporating the interval of a sixth. There are a number of similarities between the fourth fugue and Schumann’s second symphony, which was written 1845–1846. The symphony’s Adagio exhibits chromatic elements similar to the BACH motive used in the six fugues,71 and even incorporates a (semi) exposition, starting at m. 62, using two subjects. The Adagio’s harmonic progression of m. 82 also appears in m. 100 of the fugue. Schumann must have been fond of the chord progression, repeating it several times (consecutively) in both pieces. Like the fugue, the Adagio reveals a striking G.R. (130 measures x 0.61 = 80) at m. 82, where the music—marked by a double bar line—suddenly shifts from C minor to C major.
Fugue V. The fifth fugue, the scherzo of the cycle, maintains a strictly polyphonic texture. The independent voice leading, combined with fast-moving eighth notes, makes for some daring harmonies. Similar writing is found in the second Duetto of Bach’s Clavierübung III, of which Schumann owned a copy. Schumann again takes some liberties in the exposition, as the fourth entry of the exposition starts on E-flat rather than F. In addition, the pedal entry consists of two short, repeated motives rather than the entire subject.
Fugue VI. Schumann ends the cycle with a majestic, five-part double fugue. Simultaneous use of duple and triple meter, combined with a gradual buildup of tension and grandeur, creates a strong sense of completion. Stinson claims that the fugue is based on Bach’s Fugue in E-flat Major, BWV 552, pointing out the similarities between the two fugues.72 Schumann, however, once again deviates from the Bach models and moves towards a thinner texture before the end of the exposition. In the second exposition (starting at m. 59), Schumann’s approach is unconventional too, but not without reason. As the second theme is introduced, Schumann holds off on the expected pedal entry of m. 67. Instead, he omits the pedals until much later, in m. 92, where a three-measure pedal point adds gradual tension, leading to the first pedal statement of the fugue’s first subject. As the pedals introduce the first subject, the second subject is played in the manuals, thus combining the fugue’s two themes. Towards the end of the fugue, starting at m. 116, the fugue shifts suddenly from a polyphonic to a homophonic texture. Daverio points out the motivic resemblance in Schumann’s second symphony: “Culminating in a chordal peroration on the B-A-C-H theme, the fugue’s coda at the same time prefigures a climactic passage in the Final (mm. 343ff.) of the second symphony.”73 Just like the first fugue, the final fugue concludes with a coda. In the first fugue, at m. 34, Schumann indicated: “gradually faster and louder.” In the final fugue he specified: “Moderate, gradually faster.” While a thinning in the texture of the first fugue’s coda seems to suggest a sudden quieting down of the music, the sixth fugue’s coda undoubtedly calls for full organ, ending the cycle in a grand, majestic manner.

Schumann and the pedal piano
As discussed earlier, Schumann’s main purpose for hiring a pedalboard was to practice playing the organ. He found, however, that the pedal piano had much potential and that it might develop as an independent instrument. It seems plausible, then, that Schumann’s output of 1845 was conceived for pedal piano, organ, or both. Though opp. 56 and 58 are clearly written for the pedal piano (Studies for the Pedal Piano and Sketches for the Pedal Piano, respectively), there seems to be a discrepancy in regards to op. 60, which is labeled Six Fugues on the Name of B-A-C-H without any further specification in regards to the instrument of choice. The cover of the 1986 Henle Urtext edition of opp. 56, 58 and 60 reads Works for Organ or Pedal Piano without any further specification. In its preface, Gerhard Weinberger explains that in the first publication op. 60 is referred to as an organ work.
Interestingly, in the 2006 Schott edition the three cycles are published as Schumann Organ Works. In the preface, the editor, internationally renowned organist Jean Guillou, writes: “Schumann composed these masterpieces as a pianist and he wrote them for the piano, allowing for the possibility that they might be performed on the organ, but not really envisaging the precise manner in which an organist might ‘translate’ them for the instrument.”74 Guillou’s edition provides the performer with registration and tempo markings that go well beyond the original. As useful as a performer’s edition may seem, one needs to keep in mind that such is the interpretation of one person, and one needs to be mindful of the composer’s intentions. Notwithstanding the usefulness of such an edition, Guillou seems to have overlooked a most important issue; unlike the Studies and Sketches, the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH were written for the organ, not for the piano.
In the preface of the Henle edition Weinberger explains that the first edition refers to the six fugues as organ works.75 As we will see, the fugues are stylistically quite different than the other cycles. They lack, for example, the very pianistic approach, as found in the second and third canonic studies. Also, there is a drastic difference in the use of dynamics. Rather than the pianistic crescendos and decrescendos of opp. 56 and 58 (see the beginning of the fourth sketch), Schumann employs practical dynamic changes, easily realized through registration or manual changes.76 A compelling piece of evidence lies in the treatment of pedal points; Schumann frequently employs pedal points in both the piano and organ cycles. In the piano cycles Schumann repeats the pedal points every so often to ensure a continuous sounding of the bass note. Pedal points are never sustained longer than two measures.77 In the organ fugues Schumann writes pedal points for as long as twelve measures.78 Also, unlike opp. 56 and 58, op. 60 never exceeds the compass of the typical German Baroque organ, which may give us an idea of Schumann’s favored organ type. Hermann J. Busch points out that Mendelssohn preferred older organ types. For his first performance of the Six Sonatas for Organ, Mendelssohn chose an older instrument (Franz and Johann Michael II Stumm, 1779), while a modern instrument (a large Walcker organ) was available.79 Mendelssohn’s influence on Schumann as a composer and organist suggests that Schumann too may have favored older organ types, as is evidenced in Schumann’s comments in the diaries.80 Busch also points out that the majority of the organs known to Schumann were from the 18th century. These instruments were generally not equipped with a swell box. Crescendos therefore were realized by manual changes and/or adding stops.

Schumann the organist
It is obvious that Schumann took great pride in the six fugues. Rooted in a long tradition, stemming from his primary example, Bach, Schumann felt that he had contributed an important work that could stand the test of time. As Larry Todd points out: “Thus, Bach was memorialized in Schumann’s penchant for learned counterpoint, culminating in that erudite fugal compendium for organ, the Six Fugues on BACH, Op. 60 (1845).”81 How ironic then, that the cycle he had worked on for so long was received with such little approval. Perhaps Schumann would have been more successful if he, like Mendelssohn, had written organ sonatas rather than fugues. Rejcha perhaps explains the early 19th-century Zeitgeist best, saying “Since Handel and Corelli’s time, everything in music has changed two or three times, both in inner, as well as outer form. Only the fugue remains unaltered; and therefore—nobody wants to hear one.”82 Schumann, who “maintained with equal conviction that slavish imitation of older models was to be avoided,”83 must have thought that his organ works were indeed a breath of fresh air, as he expected them to outlive his other creations the longest.84 Notwithstanding their unfortunate fate, Schumann masterfully combined the old with the new. As Heinrich Reimann writes:

. . . the best proof of how deeply Schumann had penetrated, in thought and feeling, into the spirit of the Old Master. Everywhere the fundamental contrapuntal principles of Sebastian Bach are recognizable. They rise up like mighty pillars; but the luxuriant tendrils, leaves, and blossoms of a romantic spirit twine about them, partly concealing the mighty edifice, partly enlivening it by splendour of colour and varied contrast and bringing it nearer to modern taste. The most obvious proofs of this are:—The second fugue with the characteristic Schumann rhythmic displacement (2/4 time in triple rhythm); the fifth, with its subject on quite modern lines; and the last, with its romantically treated counter-subject.85

Though Schumann is perhaps remembered foremost as a composer of homophonic music, it is no coincidence that, as Nauhaus and Federhofer point out, Werner Krützfeld used two examples of Schumann’s Kreisleriana in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart as examples of counterpoint.86 The Six Fugues on the Name of BACH mark an artistic high point in Schumann’s career, and one can only hope that these erudite compositions will eventually become part of the standard repertoire. A deeper understanding will perhaps spark a renewed interest in these wonderful pieces.

Jan-Piet Knijff

Jan-Piet Knijff teaches organ, historical keyboard instruments, and chamber music and is organist-in-residence at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College/CUNY. He holds the DMA from The City University of New York as well as the Artist Diploma from the Conservatory of Amsterdam and is an Associate of the AGO. He won both the Grand Prix Bach de Lausanne and the Audience Prize at the Concours Bach de Lausanne 1997. His organ teachers have included Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, and Christoph Wolff. Visit JP’s website at or contact him at .

The crayfish in his brook

Like so many musicians—including organists—old Sebastian Bach liked jokes and puns. And it was, presumably, the Thomas Cantor himself who came up with the famous one-liner stating his student Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713–1780) was “the only crayfish (Krebs) caught in this great brook (Bach).” Strictly speaking, this was actually not true: Johann Ludwig’s father, Johann Tobias Krebs, had been a Bach student in Weimar in the 1710s, and, having married into an affluent family in 1723, he was able to send not only Johann Ludwig but also his two other sons to school in Leipzig. One of them, Tobias Jr., had, at age 13, “a good strong voice” according to the Thomas Cantor. The other, Johann Carl, was at St. Thomas in the 1740s and eventually succeeded Tobias Sr. as organist at Buttstädt. Johann Ludwig studied with Bach for no fewer than nine years, from 1726 till 1735. The reference letter that Bach wrote for him in August of that year is very good indeed: We learn that Krebs was not only an able organist and harpsichord player, but also excelled as a violinist, lute player, and composer. Earlier, Krebs had applied (along with his father and C.P.E. Bach) for the position of organist at St. Wenzel’s Church in Naumburg. Krebs Sr. withdrew, but neither Jr. nor Carl Philipp got the job. Johann Ludwig stayed in Leipzig for a few more years, completing his education by attending lectures in philosophy and law at Leipzig University until he got his first position as organist in Zwickau in 1737. In 1742, Krebs applied successfully for the position at the Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche in Dresden, but apparently didn’t accept the post, perhaps because the compensation package left something to be desired. Instead, he took a position at the castle in Zeitz in 1744. From there, he twice applied—unsuccessfully—for the Leipzig Thomas cantorate: first after Bach’s death in 1750 and again five years later when Bach’s successor Harrer had died. Finally, in 1756, Krebs became organist at the Altenburg castle, where he played the fine, large two-manual Trost organ still extant today. Although Krebs had been an avowed admirer of Silbermann organs, he loved the Trost organ very much and looked after it “like a father” (as one organ builder Schramm complained after being denied access to the instrument by the organist). Krebs stayed in Altenburg till his death, though—like his father—he had to pass on his responsibilities to his son Christian Traugott in 1776 due to health trouble.

Krebs’s music

Krebs’s impressive corpus of organ music is so high in quality that it has long been uncertain whether, for example, the famous Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott with double pedal was actually written by him or his venerable teacher. (I think Krebs is the more likely candidate.) But he was also a fine composer of other instrumental music, including concertos for the lute and a “duo for two keyboards” that received such high acclaim in Dresden that it evoked the envy of all the court musicians. Eighteenth-century writers describe Krebs as a virtuoso organist and his organ music as the best of his œuvre. Though Krebs was never really forgotten (a first “complete” edition of the organ works appeared in 1847–49), it seems to me that both the “free works” and chorale preludes are performed less than they deserve to be these days. One reason may be that the works are available in a fine though fairly expensive complete edition: the four volumes edited by German organist Gerhard Weinberger and published as Sämtliche Orgelwerke by Breitkopf. But the nice thing with Krebs is that there are quite a few small-scale pieces that are ideally suited for students but are equally attractive to seasoned professionals. (In fact, both Johann Ludwig and his dad have been considered candidates for the authorship of the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, though this seems somewhat unlikely for stylistic reasons.) One of those little gems, a Prelude in F Major, is the subject of this article.

Prelude in F Major

This piece is found in Vol. 2 of the Sämtliche Orgelwerke on pp. 16–17. In addition, I have prepared an edition of this and a few other short preludes, which will be available from me (e-mail me at ). The piece opens with a simple chord progression over a repeated bass notes in the pedal (mm. 1–4). The broken chords in the right hand are essentially the same as the “solid” chords in the left. In mm. 5–8, the two hands are inverted (note how mm. 3 and 7 differ in detail). Mm. 1–4 return as a kind of recapitulation at the end of the piece (mm. 22–25), followed by a dramatic coda. In mm. 9–15, both hands move in eighths and sixteenths. Mm. 11–14 look a bit boring on paper, but they’re actually not so bad: the thing is to recognize the inner voices hidden among all these sixteenths. Krebs hints at this in m. 9: the eighth notes in the right hand are “accompanied” in lower sixths and thirds in the left hand; in turn, the left hand is accompanied in thirds by the pedal in the second half of the measure (Example 1). What you hear is really a soprano/alto duet followed by a tenor/bass duet, as is so common in choral music. The bass now drops out of the game; but soprano and tenor continue to move in thirds in m. 10–14 (Example 2). The two hands get more and more excited in m. 15 (it helps that the harmonies move per beat instead of per measure!). This culminates in the free imitation in mm. 16–17 (with the very brief “modulation” to C major) and in the quasi-canonic mm. 18–21 (over a “circle of fifths” and a characteristic pedalpoint on the subdominant in the pedal), leading back to the above-mentioned mini-recapitulation.

Beginning to play

The opening measures (mm. 1–4) will pose no problem to beginning organists with a reasonable keyboard background, yet there is one little trick that will make these measures sound much better right away: the quarter-note chords (pedal and left hand) are best played a little bit shorter—something like dotted eighths or even generous eighth notes, depending on the acoustics. In any event, avoid full-length quarter notes. The broken chords in the right hand are best played slightly non-legato. Before embarking on the slightly trickier middle section, try playing the beginning and the end: mm. 1–4 and 26–28 (or, in fact, mm. 22–28!). It is important to get the hand division right; in my edition, I have done this for you, but if you use the Breitkopf edition, make sure to mark the Cs in m. 1/22 and the Ds in m. 2/23 in the left hand; it will make life much easier. In the middle of m. 4/25, play the first f’ light and relatively short to allow for the left hand to take over; you may even want to take a bit of extra time here to make things clearer (and easier). The shape of the figure in m. 4 is happily different from the broken chords in mm. 1–3; I think it sounds nice if you underline that by playing the sixteenths f’’-e’’-f’’ (and later f’-e’-f’) a little more legato. You could also consider lingering a little on the downbeat a’ (just be careful not to do this always in the same way). The dramatic chords in the last few measures can be divided between the hands in different ways; my suggestion is to add a nice cadential trill on the e’’ in m. 27 (Example 3).

A few fingerings

Nothing in this piece will create major problems for the beginning organist with a decent keyboard background. Yet there is one fingering, in m. 15, that people seem to miss out on, but which, I believe, will make life easier for you (and, as a bonus, it will sound better too). Every student with whom I worked on this piece chose the fingering in Example 4a; Example 4b offers my own suggestion. First, the two pinkies on a’’–g’’ ensure that these two notes are nicely articulated (after all, the g’’ is part of a new chord, and that relatively fast harmonic rhythm is one of the exciting things in this measure). My fingering avoids the slight turn of the hand necessary to put your thumb on the b-flat’ (and then turning back to put the thumb on the a’ again) and the awkward and unnecessary silent substitution on the b-flat’. Using the 5-2 option on the eighth notes means that the two consecutive sixths c’’–a’’ (“hidden” in the group of sixteenths) and b-flat’–g’’ are played with the same fingering, which somehow feels natural. Finally, putting a little finger on the g’’ fits nicely with the left hand, which undoubtedly uses a little finger at the same moment (the index finger on b-flat’ also coincides with the index in the left hand). Not that this is a “proof” of any kind for my suggested fingering; I just find it nice how these fingerings seem to “rhyme,” particularly in a piece that is obviously meant for beginning organists. Even a beginner on the pedals should be able to deal with the pedal part in our piece: the repeated F constitutes the pedal part for almost half the piece, and for what is left, you don’t need much wizardry either. While some teachers may recommend a heel in m. 9, it sounds just as good (and is just as easy to play) with toes only, as shown in Example 5. In mm. 11–14, make sure that your left foot is guided by your (left) knee; as in walking, the knee moves out, as it were, over the foot. (I know this is the complete opposite of the “knees-together doctrine” that so many of us have grown up with; I will deal with this in a separate article.) In m. 15, some teachers might recommend silent substitution on the cs, but in the overall non-legato style of playing this is hardly necessary. Leap with whatever foot you like; it doesn’t really matter. Example 6 offers my pedaling suggestion for mm. 16–17. I personally like putting a left foot on the strong, long B-flat in mm. 20–21, but this may be a matter of taste.

The tricky part

Mm. 16–19 are undoubtedly the trickiest part of the piece. Here’s how I would deal with them. First, get comfortable with the pedals. The best thing is to sing along as you’re playing. (If this embarrasses you too much, you can always “sing in your head,” but I do find that singing aloud works better.) Then, add one hand; perhaps the left and keep singing (it doesn’t really matter whether you still sing the pedal part or the left hand, as long as you’re singing). Next, pedal and the other hand (keep singing!). Finally, try both hands and pedals together and keep singing. Very important: Try not to stop for mistakes. Play the fragment at a speed that sounds reasonable to you (or a little slower) and simply get as many as the notes as you get—don’t worry if half of them are wrong. Try another time, and you’ll probably do better already. As you get to know the music better (and singing helps a lot with that), you’ll make fewer and fewer mistakes. If there’s a spot that keeps bothering you, consider different fingering options. Even when playing slowly, try to find a tempo that makes musical sense. Avoid losing track of the music and getting lost in learning “just notes.”

Ornaments

To my mind, there are basically three ways to perform the trill in m. 21, as I have shown in Example 7. I don’t see too many opportunities in the piece for adding extra ornaments, except perhaps at the very end: The rests between those dramatic chords over the chromatically descending bass could be filled out a bit. I’m not sure that I would do this or necessarily recommend it to students, but many people seem to like this kind of thing, and it’s always good to have as many arrows on your bow as possible. So Example 8 shows what I might do in a concert after a good glass of German wine (or after a service with lots of incense).

Tempo and Registration

The piece is intended for organo pleno, as indicated in the title. A big pleno registration—Principals 16’, 8’, 4’, 22⁄3’, 2’, Mixtures and optional Sesquialtera on all manuals, reinforced in the Pedal by Posaune 16’ and Trompete 8’—will work very well, but a smaller registration—say, Principals 8’, 4’, 2’, with a 16’ in the Pedal—can be equally fitting, depending on the situation. One may be inclined to take the tempo a little slower with the big pleno sound and a touch faster with a smaller registration; likewise, one will probably take a bit more time in a big church with cathedral acoustics than in a small hall with little reverberation. Try to find a tempo that works well for all “sections” of the piece: the broken chords in the beginning, the “canonic” section in the middle, and the dramatic chords of the coda.

 

Jonathan B. Hall

Jonathan B. Hall, FAGO, ChM, is the author of Calvin Hampton: A Musician Without Borders and of many articles on the organ and sacred music. He is past dean of the Brooklyn AGO chapter, director of music at Central Presbyterian Church, Montclair, New Jersey, and teaches music theory at the Steinhardt School of New York University.

The debate over the authenticity of BWV 565, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, has continued for thirty years. This article summarizes and critiques key points of that debate, taking the position that J. S. Bach is not the composer. A candidate composer is presented, Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel of Nuremberg (1697–1775). A stylistic comparison of his Divertimento Armonico to BWV565 reveals a very high level of congruity, arguing for his authorship.

 

The problem

For about thirty years, the question of the authorship of BWV 565—the famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, long attributed to J. S. Bach—has been raised civilly but persistently. Broached in 1981 by Peter Williams,¹ the question has spawned a variety of imaginative answers: that the piece is definitely by Bach, from his earliest youth;² that it is possibly a transcribed violin work;³ that it is certainly a transcribed violin work;⁴ that it may have been intended for five-string ‘cello;⁵ or even better, for lute;⁶ or that it may have been written for harpsichord;⁷ that it may have been written by Kellner;⁸ that we may, one day, figure out who wrote it;⁹ and so forth. Everyone agrees that the piece is wonderful. While all of these are interesting, none is convincing, save the last, which admits no argument.

The young-Bach or pre-Weimar theory is based, in essence, upon the multipartite nature of the piece, its extensive use of passagework, and its perceived emotionalism; yet the open-ended, improvisatory structure is not clearly akin to the five-part präludia of Buxtehude or his ilk. It is also too distinctive, too fluently assured, to be the early effort of a student, even a brilliant one. One also notes the clear Italian influence in harmony and style, the absence of internal sectional cadences, and the simplicity of the counterpoint: all atypical of North German practice. (Surely, given the work’s famous final cadence, a young Bach would have noticed opportunities for internal cadences as well.)

Also, we have a specimen of Bach’s youthful writing, his Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo, BWV 992; the keyboard idiom and harmonic language are both dissimilar to those of 565, the fugal writing in particular. We possess as well a number of chromatic, high-strung, ‘Arnstadt’ chorale settings, such as BWV 715; very possibly the infamous variationes so displeasing to the Arnstadt consistory in 1706.¹⁰ One cannot realistically imagine their composition after a very early stage, certainly not as teaching pieces. In any case, they are a far cry from the fluid idiom and transparent harmonies of 565, even if they display a predilection for fully diminished harmonies. Their harmonic language and keyboard idiom are too opaque, and for all their off-putting audacity lack anything like the genuine dramatic import of 565.

It would seem, in any case, that Bach’s formation as an organist is more the work of north German composers such as Böhm and Buxtehude, not to mention the transplanted Bohemian Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor in Leipzig. Bach’s early fascination with (and perhaps moonlight copying of) works like the Fiori Musicali would not have exposed him to the seconda prattica represented in 565. The Toccata and Fugue is assigned to Bach’s teenage years, ultimately, because it is least out of place there. 

Christoph Wolff states firmly that 565 is indeed an early work of Bach; he relates it to Forkel’s description of the undisciplined enthusiasm of Bach’s earliest work.¹¹ However, for this writer, Forkel’s description does not suit the Toccata and Fugue, though it applies well to the chorales just mentioned. One notes again the economy of the toccata and the fluency of the fugue, which strikes one as the work not of immature genius but of mature ingenuity—neither undisciplined nor early. Like Gandalf, it arrives (complete with magical fireworks!) neither early nor late, but precisely when it means to.

As to the work’s purported violinistic roots, due note is taken of the bariolage technique that is emulated in much of the work, including the fugue subject; but no candidate composer comes forth, nor any evidence for the conjectured A-minor original. Williams’s seminal article rests, at least in part, on a reversal of the burden of proof: the work cannot be proven to be for the organ.¹² The balance of his argument relies on the work’s evocation of string idiom, and thus the comparative ease with which the work may be paraphrased on violin—albeit transposed and thinned out!

Johann Paul von Westhoff is mentioned, even though his music bears no trenchant similarity to the work in question. He is chiefly useful as an example of ending a violin piece with an open fifth, a common enough occurrence and one which, here, helps beg the question of the inconvenient final minor chord. (Also avoided in this violin ‘reconstruction’ is the poor 4–1 resolution in the bass line in the final cadence in the organ work—it simply disappears, replaced by a leading tone that resolves quite properly.) Meanwhile, a touchier question—why a pedal solo in the middle of a violin piece?—is not raised, because it cannot be answered. What else could that passage be? What other raison d’être can it have, how can it even avoid risibility, if it is not there to display pedaliter pyrotechnics?

In several recent studies, Williams is willing to leave the question open. In the earlier, he mentions in particular the cello theory; in the later, he hews to agnosticism.¹³ Here and elsewhere, he remains undecided whether the work is a transcription, or by someone else.¹⁴

In another article, Bruce Fox-Lefriche states with finality that 565 was written for violin solo.¹⁵ No choice is offered: the essay asserts that there is “no doubt” that the piece cannot have been written either by Bach or for the organ, because it is “unidiomatic” and “far too clumsy.”¹⁶ (In fact, it is neither; it is thoroughly idiomatic to the organ, and quite fluid throughout.) It would seem evident that any attempt to ‘reconstruct’ a violin ‘original’ is a prima facie impossibility, because there is nothing to reconstruct it from. Yet the magazine offers two excerpts from his violin arrangement, the editor (not the author) claiming outrageously that it was “reconstructed” from “an 18th-century manuscript that is also the basis of the organ work”¹⁷ (emphasis mine). This “basis” is, of course, Ringk’s manuscript of the organ work.

To his credit, Fox-Lefriche recognizes the problems with the early-Bach theory, for some of the same stylistic reasons I shall mention below. He rightly notes the unisons and solos, the odd abruptness of the arpeggio in bar 3, the long stretches of unvaried harmony, and the apparent disregard of basic rules—all signally foreign to Bach’s style.¹⁸ I believe he is certainly correct when he says that “Bach had nothing whatsoever to do with the piece, either for violin or for organ,”¹⁹ at least insofar as authorship is concerned.

Similar problems accrue to the ‘cello and lute theories. Both take note of idioms familiar to their instruments of choice, and wish to claim the work as their own. However, neither of these theories is presented dogmatically. (Mark Argent, in particular, advances the ‘cello hypothesis with welcome caution.) Certainly, this writer has no trouble whatsoever with transcriptions or arrangements of the work: nay, the more the merrier: come fiddle, come xylophone. But they must be acknowledged as transcriptions or arrangements, and never as paths to an imagined Urtext.

The harpsichord theory cannot explain the sustained chords over a prolonged tonic pedal in bar 3 of the toccata; or the sustained and untrillable dominant pedal tone in the left hand during the fugue (bars 105 and following); or the adagissimo section towards the end. All of these depend on the unique sustaining power of the organ; I cannot imagine any application of style brisé that could do them justice. (And again: why a pedal solo? The piece is equally unsuited to a pedal harpsichord.)

I find that the piece is conceived in and saturated in organ idiom, so that no degree of arrangement or copyist intervention can be conjured to account for the received text. This idiom does not demonstrate anything more than stylish feints at string technique. Its antinomian pretensions, such as the long unisons, “trivial” part writing, ambient plagality and final chords, must be dealt with; they cannot be solved by subtracting the pipe organ from the equation. In fact, the organ is not the source of discomfort, but rather Bach himself.

As far as a different organ composer is concerned, 565 is closer to Kellner’s style than to Bach’s, but it is also not Kellner’s style. This conjecture, advanced by David Humphreys, cites two examples of Kellner’s organ writing.²⁰ They are striking, displaying both facility and drama. Still, they do not altogether convince, because the style, though facile and dramatic, is not convincingly similar to that of 565. Still, it is easy to see the attraction of this hypothesis, especially if a closer match is not forthcoming. Meanwhile, a computer-based, quantitative study by van Kranenburg (2007) is fittingly inconclusive; he will not award the piece to either Kellner or Bach.²¹

The exhaustive study on the authenticity of 565, by Rolf Dietrich Claus, concludes that the piece is not by Bach. This conclusion comes after considering the transmission of sources, the style and form of the work, and in short every aspect of the problem imaginable. It is a fascinating book, even though Claus does not propose a likely composer. He does, however, conclude that the chances of finding one are “not bad.”²²

The question thus remains open. On the one hand, serious doubt has been growing regarding Bach’s authorship, and there are strong reasons both to share it and to decide in the negative. The structural and stylistic reasons are many: the extensive use of octaves is unheard of in the free works, as are the harmonies of the final cadence; the counterpoint in the fugue is light and the voice-leading inconsistent. The subdominant answer, though logical and necessary, is atypical, and Bach nowhere (else) uses a theme of this nature. The work is also not found in autograph, but only in the hand of Johannes Ringk, via Kellner (would he really not claim authorship?); and so on. But on the other hand, if the question has gained traction, a proposed answer has not.

 

Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel

Recently, in studying some of the re-attributed keyboard works in the Bach catalogue, I encountered BWV 897, a Prelude and Fugue in A Minor. The prelude is now attributed to Cornelius
Heinrich Dretzel (1697–1775), an organist highly respected in his native Nuremberg and a student of Bach.²³ I was forcefully struck by clear parallels to 565, in particular the Toccata, and investigated the piece more closely. 

Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel came from a long line of musicians in his native city of Nuremberg. The most famous member of the family was his forebear Valentin (1578–1658). He almost certainly studied with J. S. Bach around the end of the latter’s time in Weimar, probably in 1716–1717. He is mentioned twice in the Bach-Dokumente as a student of Bach. In one of these passages, C. D. F. Schubart writes:

 

In Nuremberg . . . in the churches I heard students of the German Arion, the immortal Sebastian Bach, which made me feel in the first place how rare a good organist is. The names of Drezel, Bachhelbel, Löffeloth, Agrell, assuredly deserve more thanks and fame than the annals of music history have accorded them.²⁴

Dretzel’s career was discussed at length by Georg A. Will in 1802, who ended with this impassioned tribute:

 

[He is] recognized as one of the greatest virtuosos of his time in performance and composition, so that his name and fame are very great even outside his fatherland. His compositions, especially in church music, will forever be accounted as treasures.²⁵

The article in MGG (which calls him Georg) also quotes Schubart’s commentary on him:

 

. . . Drexel, a student of the great Sebastian Bach and indeed one of his best. He played the organ with great force, and especially understood registration, and composed with spirit for his instrument . . . he chose fugue themes for their songfulness, and handled them gracefully throughout . . . he understood counterpoint thoroughly . . . ²⁶

 

Dretzel served in the most famous churches of his native city, his career culminating in the prime position, that of St. Sebald. In two churches, St. Egidius and St. Sebald, he followed Wilhelm Hieronymous Pachelbel, scion of another family of Nuremberg musicians and prime representatives of the so-called Nuremberg School of organists. Nuremberg itself needs no introduction as a city devoted, not only to music, but to the arts of rhetoric and singing as well. Known for centuries as a cultural and commercial crossroads, its culture remains cosmopolitan, with an Italian influence, and its churches are both Lutheran and Catholic. Dretzel worked for churches of both confessions during his long career.

C. H. Dretzel died on May 7, 1775, and it is needless to add that his name and fame have not endured, even within his fatherland. Biographical entries shorten in every successive encyclopedia. In 1883, Fétis called him an ‘organiste habile,’ but had little else to say, even approximating his birth year.²⁷ Dretzel is forgotten today, probably because he published so little music. For years, he was remembered chiefly as the editor of a large collection of hymns, Des evangelischen Zions musicalische Harmonie.²⁸ Another composition, a brief alla breve, was published in Christoph Gottlieb von Murr’s magazine Der Zufriedene in March, 1763.²⁹ (Murr was also a collector of Bach manuscripts.) A divertimento for keyboard was sometimes mentioned but believed lost.

Then, in 1969, the harpsichordist and scholar Isolde Ahlgrimm published an article dealing with a unique score in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest.³⁰ The work turned out to be Dretzel’s lost keyboard work, titled both Divertimento Armonico and Harmonische Ergözung³¹ [sic]. Its catalog number is Z 41.618; the score once belonged to Franz Joseph Haydn, and came to the library through the Esterházy family. The bilingual title page, and use of the word Concerto/Concert, led Ahlgrimm to suspect publication after Bach’s Italian Concerto in 1735. (The title page may, if anything, refer to the Musikalische Ergötzung, published in 1695 by the most famous Nuremberger organist, Johann Pachelbel.) The work is only certainly datable to between 1719 and 1743, when Dretzel (as he states on the title page) was organist of St. Egidius.³²

The second of the Divertimento’s three movements, titled adagiosissimo in the original and molto adagio in Schmieder, was the same piece as BWV 897.1. Ahlgrimm’s conclusion is that Dretzel did not appropriate the prelude from Bach, but composed it himself; and she ascribes “glory” to Dretzel for having written a work worthy of being attributed to Bach. The reader is advised to make a mental note of this last point: Dretzel has fooled us before.

On examining this readily available Dretzel piece, BWV 897.1, I was struck by features I associate with BWV 565, and with no other piece ascribed to Bach, or to anyone else. The feeling grew swiftly that this unlikely composer is the likeliest, by far, to have composed the famous work in question. Certainly, he offers us a far closer stylistic match than those previously suggested. Ahlgrimm is right in deducting this prelude from the Bach corpus. I suggest that, once deducted, it takes 565 with it.

The feeling continued to grow upon examining the balance of the Divertimento; first, the excerpts in the Ahlgrimm article, and then a digital scan of the entire composition, provided by the staff of the National Széchényi Library. If there is any influence at all from Bach’s Italian Concerto, it is limited to the linguistic affectations of the title page—which are matched by a bilingual preface to the Cortesissimo Lettore/Geneigter Leser.³³ (Bach uses the phrase Gemüths-Ergötzung in his subtitle as well.) This preface refers to the score as “this first attempt” in publication (questa prima prova/dieser erste Versuch). Turning to the score, which is elegantly engraved, one notices first that the right-hand part is written in soprano clef throughout—like Ringk’s manuscript of 565 and, according to Russell Stinson, interesting although not a definitive indicator of date of composition.³⁴ The suggested time frame would include the year of Dretzel’s study in Weimar, and is also consistent with his identification of the Divertimento as his “prima prova.” Perhaps it also argues for an earlier, rather than later, date for the composition of 565; Wolff notes other “archaic” features in Ringk’s manuscript.³⁵

The Divertimento Armonico consists of three movements: allegro, adagiosissimo [sic], and fuga. All three display significant stylistic congruence and closely parallel passages—one might say intertextuality—with 565. The most compelling resemblances come in the second and third movements, which form an adagio-fuga pair quite like 565 itself. Meanwhile, the difference in medium—organ versus harpsichord—is not particularly important in this context, as certain elements of keyboard idiom and many of style easily cross over.

 

Points of similarity 

I believe that noting points of similarity between the two pieces—making concrete comparisons—is an appropriate method of demonstration. After all, it is the basis of Humphrey’s article, cited above; and it is a straightforward way to synthesize a view both of the unfamiliar Divertimento, and the perhaps too-familiar 565.

I cannot offer a theory of provenance; I do not know how the manuscript came to Kellner, an indefatigable collector and traveler. Possibly von Murr, also a collector, was involved. Possibly the work was an early thunderbolt. Perhaps it postdates the Divertimento (on stylistic grounds, I believe this is likelier). We know we have no autograph of 565, but only a copied text that has engendered perplexity. The evidence for my thesis is drawn from the two works in question; with the additional notandum that all other known circumstances of time and place are, at least, not opposed to my thesis. In other words, I am aware of no specific evidence to the contrary of my idea, no adverse circumstances to account for; frankly, this is an advantage over the other arguments heretofore adduced. I believe that the composer of the Divertimento Armonico is also the composer of 565.

1. The opening of the Divertimento is quite unlike anything Bach ever wrote, in that the first phrase is repeated verbatim. Bach always varies his antecedent and consequent phrases, either harmonically or melodically. Never—even once, as far as I can see—does he simply say the same thing twice. It is still odder to find the second of three repetitions varied by diminution. [Example 1] It is needless to adduce examples of Bach’s own practice. I might mention the opening of the Italian Concerto, the aforementioned Capriccio, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, among many others for examples of balanced, but not simply reiterated, phrase structure.

2. Throughout this first movement Dretzel shows a strong predilection for simple harmonizations in thirds and sixths; he will also do this in the fugue. Also, he often makes use of solo passages, including one that is virtually identical to an episode in the fugue of 565. [Examples 2, 3, and 4] Commentators have long used words like “trivial” to describe the similar harmonizations found in 565/ii.

3. The second movement, remarkably, is marked adagiosissimo. This peculiar word is best known to organists from the conclusion of BWV 622, “O Mensch, bewein,” in Orgelbüchlein. The term is also found at the third movement of Bach’s early Capriccio. MGG takes note of this occurrence by following it with an exclamation point in parentheses.³⁶ This strange tempo designation occurs in early Bach, somewhat less-early Bach,
C. H. Dretzel, and (to my knowledge) nowhere else.

4. Triple gestures: three mordents in 565, three large, full chords in adagiosissimo. In both cases, the commanding opening triplicate is followed by repetitious passagework and arpeggiation; and tension is introduced with a dominant harmony over a tonic bass. Basic to the style of both is a penchant for nearly obsessive, non-sequential, naive repetitions of a simple idea: compare bars 4 ff. in 565, toccata. [Example 5]

5. Frequent use of large chords of a widely varying number of notes. In Dretzel, up to ten notes in a chord (adagiosissimo, measure 16). In the Toccata, chordal structures of five through nine notes. Where else does Bach simply “lay on” in the manner found in the Toccata—regardless of instrument? (He certainly minds his voice-leading in the Toccata in F, in the French Overture, and in the Italian Concerto.) In Bach, a particularly thick sonority generally signals a beginning or ending, like the gong in a gamelan; in general, one can account for all voice parts. Both the Divertimento and 565 demur from the principle that neatness counts. The allegro and fuga have passages where, for dramatic purposes, handfuls of notes are called for—frequently set off with fermate. A prominent feature of the Divertimento is its frequent use of these, both as prolongations of chords and rests, and to mark the end of movements. Williams notes the presence of these in the Ringk ms. as raising questions of authenticity.³⁷

It is true that thick sonorities of different size are found in the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. However, that is virtually the sole similarity between the two pieces (see previous heading), and an uncommonly thick texture is more justifiable in harpsichord than in organ performance.

In these two examples, the “drama” chord is also in the third inversion. Compare the Toccata, bar 21. (This device occurs quite a bit more frequently in the Divertimento than it does in 565.) [Examples 6 and 7]

6. In both the Divertimento and 565, there is a marked preference for diminished harmonies; for diminished harmonies followed by their simple dominant-seventh versions; for third-inversion dominant harmonies, presented emphatically for rhetorical purposes; and for dominant harmonies over a tonic pedal or bass note.

7. There is a very strong resemblance between a run of diminished triplets in adagiosissimo, measure 6–7, and those in the Toccata, measure 22 ff. The figuration is for all practical purposes identical; in the Toccata, it is “harmonized” in two voices, but the pattern is virtually the same, including the occasional reversing of direction. [Example 8]

8. Several of the above examples also show Dretzel’s pervasive use of bariolage: string idiom as a basic style feature. In both works, the fugue subject is nothing but bariolage (but see also Toccata, 12 ff.) The bariolage style is never quite so expressly invoked in the Bach canon (nor the public quite so overtly courted.)

The theme of the fugue, and its extremely simple handling (Example 3), may well strike the reader as reminiscent of the famous theme in D minor. Ahlgrimm’s commentary on the Divertimento fugue is resonant:

 

One sees . . . that Dretzel’s music is composed after the taste of his day, aimed chiefly at the amateur; Italian influence is clearly discernible . . . It seems that Dretzel strove to show that a fugue can be accessible and joyous, so that it is not just for the amusement of the connoisseur.³⁸

Note that the Divertimento fugue begins with an upward arpeggio, tonic to tonic. This device, though not particularly interesting in itself, allows for a real answer in the dominant. This is essential in order to preserve the punchiness of the repetitions of the fifth scale degree. In 565, however, the fugue subject begins directly on 5, a dramatic and effective choice, which also requires an unusual solution if it is to be maintained. Hence, the highly unusual subdominant solution. (This subdominant argument is appropriately echoed in the final plagal cadence.)

On the grounds that the fugue of 565 dramatically dispenses with the setup needed for a real answer, I incline to the theory that Dretzel composed it later than his Divertimento. I might adduce other stylistic grounds for my inclination, including the tightness of the Toccata versus the diffuse nature of the adagiosissimo; as well as the greater variety of treatment in the D-minor Fugue. Of course, the piece could have been a “bolt from the blue,” composed in a fit of inspiration conferred by the ambience of Weimar and the proximity of Bach.

9. The use of a surprising cadence to set up a virtuosic passage or especially a coda: Dretzel, 21; Fugue, aforementioned recitativo, and the link from adagiosissimo to presto, 132–133. In both situations—one following immediately after another—an unexpected resolution hangs in the air, then dissolves into a shower of notes. [Example 9]

10. Final cadences. The cadence ending the adagiosissimo cannot simply be called a Phrygian or “Corelli” cadence, because the leading tone occurs, and there is a strong tritonic resolution in context of a “French Sixth” sonority. Nothing in the literature, of course, is quite comparable to the cadence of the fugue of 565. [Example 10]

One could, of course, continue to argue that 565 is a very unusual work by Bach, or accept (as I do) that it is a characteristic specimen of Dretzel. I do not think it is an immature work by a great composer, but rather a mature work by a very good composer.

There are some specific issues with 565 that raise further doubt. One is the troubling first episode in the fugue—measures 34–39—uniquely atypical of Bach in its strangely-approached unisons and fifths, and the frequent noticeable fourths, fifths, and octaves. [Example 11]

Dretzel is similarly unconcerned when an empty unison or fifth, or a perfect fourth, falls on a strong beat. Refer to Example 3 for an example. There is also the following passage in the allegro. [Example 12]

Also, there are rules concerning resolution of a tritone, and these are egregiously broken by the C–G movement in the pedal in measure 140–141. This is the problem alluded to earlier that “disappears” in the Williams violin arrangement. Note also the inconsistent number of voices and the questionable movement in the alto from B-flat to C-sharp. [Example 13]

These minor solecisms are unlikely to trouble the modern ear, but they are telling. I believe we are dealing with a composer to whom the grand gesture matters more than the fine points. Bach never trades one of these off for the other; he need not.

The Fugue of 565 is of tighter construction than its Toccata, but its peculiarities have also long been noted. Among these are a theme that prominently features the fifth scale degree; a solo annunciation of the theme in the pedal in the middle of the piece; a statement of the theme in the subtonic minor key; and in general the driven, almost monomaniacal character found throughout. Meanwhile, there are no signs of advanced counterpoint, such as stretto, augmentation, or the like. Where Bach is inclined to pile on artifice as he reaches a conclusion, this piece devolves into passagework, linking it back to the toccata.³⁹ (The work, overall, seems to bear the hallmark of the classic threefold rhetorical plan of introitus, centrum, and exitus.) All of these features—save the pedal solo!—are to be found in the third movement of the Divertimento. The theme is always harmonized in thirds and sixths; the counterpoint is minimal; the episodes are either a solo line or a simple harmonic sequence. As to strange keys, the fuga of the Divertimento wanders (albeit very briefly) into B-flat minor.

 

Conclusion, performance notes

I alluded earlier to Williams’ recent
J. S. Bach: A Life in Music. His comments on 565 hit a double bull’s-eye with the Divertimento: he points to “a few rhetorical gestures, thin harmonies, simple shape, much repetition and virtually no counterpoint.”⁴⁰ This “thin” work also evokes universal delight; people who know nothing else about the organ know and thoroughly enjoy that piece. It must be admitted that this is not the usual reaction to the magnificently intelligent and often arcane Bach.

In a review of Williams’s The Life of Bach, Jan-Piet Knijff speaks for many when he asks “ . . . who on earth could have been the composer?”⁴¹ It is precisely because this question is daunting—who on earth could have been the composer?—that an answer is delayed. We have had to choose: to remain faithful to an unhappy marriage, or to start all over again in the treacherous world of dating. Finding a likely candidate is as much a matter of good luck as anything else.

Still, we knew what we were looking for. We sought a German composer with some Italian blood, strong technique, and a recognizable, facile voice; someone from a rhetorical community other than the North German. We sought someone who composed to a popular, gentlemanly taste; no fatiguing artifice of counterpoint, please, and arresting cadences are a plus. We needed someone who is not Bach: early Bach, late Bach, or Bach with a few bits left over. We needed someone who was a lesser and different composer, and probably younger; possessing an audience, an organ bench of note, and a finished identity in his own right. The work is neither early nor late; it is right on schedule. Whose schedule is the only question.

Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel fills these criteria remarkably neatly, and what we possess of his music is cut from the very same cloth as 565. Once we see the possibility that a now-forgotten organist from Nuremberg is the likely composer, the pieces show a striking inclination to fall into place. Perhaps all that stands in the way is our own surprise.

A note on performance. If 565 is southern German in origin, as I believe it is, it may best be realized with less grandeur and Angst than has been typical. One might seek smaller and lighter South-German organs; not a “little village church in Saxony” per Williams,⁴² but an exquisite city church in Bavaria, with a silver-toned organ, few reeds, and an Italian inflection. Playing the Toccata and Fugue in a dignified, lyrical, and fluent way lightens and clarifies the piece in a way that works for this writer.⁴³ Fox-Lafriche is on the right track when he argues for the piece’s “brilliance, lightness, intimacy, and grace.”⁴⁴

It may help to visualize some of the more remarkable organ cases from this region: gleaming in white rococo splendor, toothsome as a dessert; but offering a modest, simple, clear, tonal design. Like 565, these organs make a magnificent show but contain surprisingly few ingredients—the equivalent of egg whites and sugar. Dessert, in fact, is probably the perfect gustatory metaphor for the composition in question.

If one is prepared to entertain the idea that a once-famous and now-forgotten composer wrote the greatest “hit” the organ has ever known, a door opens to a more egalitarian, less Bach-centric view of German organ culture. We might examine a successful popular approach to the instrument and the musical public that is not entirely attributable to a learned Bach, or to the Bach of hagiography. Pierre Boulez reminds us: “History is not a well-oiled machine that advances smoothly along rails composed of masterpieces . . . ”⁴⁵ The masterpieces themselves, and the posthumous careers of their creators, do not always advance smoothly on rails of due attribution.

Perhaps C. H. Dretzel was, in popular terms, a “one-hit wonder.” Perhaps more of his compositions await rediscovery. I am left wondering about what we may have lost. In any case, it could well be that Nuremberg is home to another, and marvelously unanticipated, Preislied. ν

 

*The author thanks the Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, as well as the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Budapest, for their prompt and professional assistance. Otto Krämer of Straelen and Leonardo Ciampa of Boston assisted with German and Italian languages. Bill Powers assisted with research.

 

Notes

1. Peter Williams, “BWV 565: A Toccata in D Minor for Organ by J. S. Bach?” Early Music (July 1981), 330–337.

2. Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York:
W. W. Norton, 2000), 169. “Bach’s Toccata in D Minor and the Issue of Its Authenticity,” Perspectives in Organ Playing and Musical Interpretation (New Ulm, MN: Heinrich Fleischer Festschrift Committee, Martin Luther College, for the Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde, 2002), 85–107.

3. Williams, “BWV 565.”

4. Bruce Fox-Lefriche, “The Greatest Violin Sonata that J. S. Bach Never Wrote,” Strings (October 2004), 44–55.

5. Mark Argent, “Stringing Along,” The Musical Times, 141/1872 (Autumn 2000), 16–20, 22–23. (Also available as “J. S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BWV 565) Revisited,” from www.markargent.com.)

6. Eric Lewin Altschuler, “Were Bach’s Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 and the Ciacona from BWV 1004 Lute Pieces?” The Musical Times (Winter 2005), 77–86.

7. Bernhard Billeter, “Bachs Toccata und Fuge d-moll für Orgel BWV 565: ein Cembalowerk?” Die Musikforschung 50/1 (1997), 77–80.

8. David Humphreys, “The D Minor Toccata BWV 565,” Early Music 10/2 (April 1982), 216–217.

9. Rolf Dietrich Claus, Zur Echtheit von Toccata und Fugue d-moll BWV 565 (Cologne: Verlag Dohr, 1998), 123.

10. Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J. S. Bach (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 454.

11. Wolff, Learned Musician and Perspectives on Organ Playing.

12. Williams, “BWV 565,” 332.

13. Peter Williams, The Life of Bach, “Musical Lives” series (Cambridge, 2004), footnote 11, 161. J. S. Bach: A Life in Music (Cambridge, 2007), 82.

14. William, Organ Music of Bach, 155 ff.

15. Fox-Lefriche, “Greatest Violin Sonata,” 53.

16. Ibid., 53.

17. Note by Elisa M. Welch, Fox-Lefriche, “Greatest Violin Sonata,” 54.

18. Fox-Lafriche, “Greatest Violin Sonata,” 50.

19. Ibid., 53.

20. Humphreys, “D Minor Toccata.”

21. Peter van Kranenburg, “On Measuring Musical Style: The Case of Some Disputed Organ Fugues in the J. S. Bach (BWV) Catalog.” Online, author-preferred version via author’s website, http://www.lodebar.nl/pvk/. Originally published as “Assessing Disputed Attributions for Organ Fugues in the J. S. Bach (BWV) Catalog,” Computing in Musicology 15 (2007–9).

22. Claus, Zur Echtheit.

23. There are several references to Dretzel in connection with Bach in Bach-Dokumente (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1972), volume 3, and in other sources, albeit displaying variants of his name. Dretzel is also usually included in lists of Bach’s students during the latter’s final year at Weimar.

24. Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, “Bach-Schüler in Nürnberg,” Bach-Dokumente, vol. 3, article 837, 330.

25. Georg Andreas Will, Nürnbergisches Gelehrte-Lexicon, ed. Christian C. Nopitsch (Altdorf, 1802), 251–252.

26. Schubart, Ideen zu einer Ästhetik, 1806, quoted in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001), Personenteil 5, 1411. See also Bach-Dokumente (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1972), volume 3, article 903a, 411. Schubart refers to Dretzel as ‘Drexel,’ leading some to confuse him with the Drexel who was organist in Augsburg–even though this man was born in 1758.

27. F-J Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens (Paris, 1883), 58. He can only give Dretzel’s birth as “au commencement du dix-huitième siècle.”

28. See, inter alia, Johann Georg Meusel, Lexicon der vom Jahr 1750 bis 1800 verstorbenen teutschen Schriftsteller (Leipzig, 1803), 426–427.

29. The final page of the March 17, 1763 issue of this little magazine contains a short piece called “Alla Breve dal S^re. D.” It is a light, forgettable work in two voices; even here, though, elements of style such as facile dialogue and perfect intervals on strong beats can be seen.

30. Isolde Ahlgrimm, “Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel, der Autor des J. S. Bach
zugeschribenen Klavierwerkes BWV 897,” Bach-Jahrbuch 1969, 67–77.

31. Ergötzung: from ergötzen, to regale or feast (someone).

32. I am grateful to the eminent Bach scholar Daniel Melamed of Indiana University for his feedback on my research. In particular, he has pointed out a number of occurrences of the word Ergötzung in musical publications of this period. Its use seems to be linked to the Liebhaber side of the Kenner/Liebhaber divide: indicating a piece written for general enjoyment, rather than for the delectation of the connoisseur.

33. It is also true that the allegro movement uses a ritornello form, and thus is to that extent superficially similar to the first movement of the Italian Concerto.

34. Russell Stinson, “Toward a Chronology of Bach’s Instrumental Music: Observations on Three Keyboard Works,” Journal of Musicology, Volume 7, Number 4 (Autumn 1989), 443.

35. Christoph Wolff, “Bach’s Toccata in D Minor and the Issue of Its Authenticity,” Perspectives in Organ Playing and Musical Interpretation (New Ulm, MN: Heinrich Fleischer Festschrift Committee, Martin Luther College, for the Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde, 2002), 90.

36. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG), Personenteil 5, 1411.

37. Williams, Organ Music of Bach, 155.

38. Ahlgrimm, Bach-Jahrbuch, 72, 73, translated by the author.

39. It is true that Bach’s youthful work often places passagework at the end of a fugue; those works, however, invariably display hallmarks of North German style and less polish.

40. Williams, J. S. Bach: A Life in Music, 82. 

41. Jan-Piet Knijff, review of The Life of Bach, Bach Notes, number 3 (spring 2005), 8. 

42. Williams, “BWV 565,” 330.

43. In this connection, it is useful to mention that the issue of short bottom octaves (without low C-sharp) would not have come up, in particular at the Egidienkirche, which was rebuilt around the time Dretzel took up his post there, succeeding the younger Pachelbel.

44. Fox-Lafriche, “Greatest Violin Sonata,” 53.

45. Pierre Boulez, “Aesthetics and the Fetishists,” Orientations, tr. Martin Cooper (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 35.

 

 

Maxim Serebrennikov

Maxim Serebrennikov is a doctoral student at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, where he is currently completing his thesis, “Solo Keyboard Thoroughbass Fugue of the Baroque Era.” His research interests lie in the history and theory of Baroque music, in particular discovering, studying, and publishing unknown sources of keyboard and organ music. His recent articles in Musicus, The Organ, and Harpsichord & Fortepiano focus on rarities of harpsichord and organ music of the 18th century. He is also active as a professional music typesetter and score and book designer, working with various publishing houses.

Introduction
In 2010 J. S. Bach, G. F. Handel, and D. Scarlatti, who were born 325 years ago, once again were the main figures of the musical calendar. Once again thousands of performers and scholars strove to express their reverence for the genius of these artists. Once again millions of listeners and readers were eager to enjoy their great works.
How often, though, in celebrating these masters, we forget their contemporaries, possibly having no less sacrificially served their art. Alas, the names of these other musicians are frequently lost among the pages of history or altogether disappear without a trace. But it is precisely their activity that laid the solid foundation on which the masters constructed their monuments.
Until recent times, the name of Gott-fried Kirchhoff (1685–1746) was known only to a small circle of specialists. Meanwhile his contemporaries highly valued his output and enthusiastically praised his skill on the clavier and organ. German organist and theoretician Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann (1669–1745), recalling Kirchhoff’s playing, wrote: “I later heard the well-known Mr. Kirchhof play the organ in Halle, and his fingers so mastered the charms of music that I cried out, ‘What a shame that the hands of these two keyboard players in Leipzig and Halle must some day turn to dust!’”2 And further: “In my time, when in 1692 I was studying in Halle, Zachow was flourishing there, whom I heard on Sundays with a true hunger and thirst; and if I had to travel there again, and there were no bridge over the [river] Saale, and I could not reach the city, then truly I would swim across the river like Leander for his Hero, even to hear renowned pupils of his such as Mr. Kirchhoff.”3
The unexpected discovery of L’A.B.C. Musical in 2002 served as a new impulse for studying Kirchhoff’s life and works.4 The first monograph on Kirchhoff was published in 2004, along with the new edition of L’A.B.C. Musical.5 In 2005 and 2006, L’A.B.C. Musical became the subject of two master’s theses, which were defended at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and at the Kiev Conservatory, respectively.6 In 2008 one more unknown prelude and fugue by Kirchhoff was discovered in the manuscript Mus. Ms. 11605, which is housed in the music department of the State Library in Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung).7 Additionally, in 2009 the composer was honored through the naming of a music school in Bitterfeld, not far from his birthplace.
This is not to say that researchers have answered all regarding the life and work of Kirchhoff; quite the opposite—many questions remain. The greatest mystery at present is the fate of the composer’s oeuvre. Kirchhoff dedicated his entire life to music: from 1693 to 1709, he studied organ and composition in Halle under Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663–1712); from 1709 to 1711, he was Kapellmeister at the court of the Duke of Holstein-Glücksburg; from 1711 to 1714, he served as organist at the church of St. Benedict in Quedlinburg; and, from 1714 to his death, Kirchhoff held the position of Director Musices and organist at Our Lady’s Church in Halle. Even if Kirchhoff was not remarkable for the rate at which he produced works (such as, for example, Georg Philipp Telemann), his long period of professional activity must have produced an imposing quantity of works. Despite this, all Kirchhoff’s compositions known at present can be counted on the fingers of one hand. What has happened to all the rest?
Possibly, the passage of time did not spare Kirchhoff’s manuscripts, and a large portion was lost to natural calamities (fire, flooding, etc.). Possibly, the composer had little regard for his own creations and did not attempt to save them for later generations. Possibly, the fault for the loss of certain of these compositions falls on Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who succeeded Kirchhoff as Director Musices and organist at Our Lady’s Church in Halle.8
Nevertheless, hope remains for the restoration of at least some portion of Kirchhoff’s oeuvre. This is confirmed by unexpected discoveries of recent years, one of which we shall discuss here.

The Mylau Tablature Book
In 1910, Georg Schünemann (1884–1945), German musicologist and member of the commission for the revelation and studying of Monuments of German Musical Art (Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst), uncovered in the Mylau church archives a rich collection of organ works composed by the old German masters. The value of this find was difficult to overestimate: the manuscript contained not only works of composers to that time unknown, but also unknown works by well-known composers.9
Today this collection is still housed in the Mylau church archives, listed as MS H 3a. The manuscript is a book of considerable thickness (101 leaves) in upright format (c. 21 × 33 cm) and hard cardboard binding, covered with colored paper. The front cover of the binding carries the inscription “TABLATURE | Book | 1750” (“TABULATUR | Buch | 1750”), which is at the very least a misleading identifier. In fact, the Mylau Tablature Book does not contain a single example of tablature notation. The date “1750” also does not correspond to the real time of the manuscript’s creation.
In 1984 the Mylau Tablature Book was sent for expert appraisal to the German Book and Writing Museum (Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum, Leipzig), where museum staff member Gertraude Spoer determined that in the eighteenth century the manuscript had undergone restoration, during which the original binding was replaced by the current one. Subsequently, the inscription “TABULATUR | Buch | 1750” belongs to a later time than the manuscript itself. More than likely, this misleading title was added shortly following the change of binding. Furthermore, based on study of the paper’s watermarks, Spoer concluded that manuscript MS H 3a was made around the year 1725.10 Unfortunately, the copyist has never been identified.
The contents of the Mylau Tablature Book are truly impressive with respect to volume: the manuscript contains 176 pieces, dominated by preludes and fugues. The composers include such names as Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706), Johann Krieger (1652–1735), Johann Kuhnau (1660–1722), Andreas Kniller (1649–1724), Nikolaus Vetter (1666–1734), Andreas Werckmeister (1645–1706), Christian Friedrich Witt (1660–1717), and Gottfried Pestel (1654–1732). It is, however, these names alone that are noted in the manuscript. Many pieces were written anonymously, and the majority of these remain unattributed.11 Furthermore, those attributions that are given in the manuscript are not always credible.

Praelud: ex. C. dis â Monsieur Bach.
As has been mentioned, the Mylau Tablature Book was a valuable contribution to Baroque literature for organ. To date, this manuscript remains the single known source for many of the pieces that it contains. Among these is the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, recorded on pages 40–41. (See Example 1.)
According to the Mylau Tablature Book, Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) is the author of this work. The name of the composer is indicated in the heading of the composition: “Praelud: ex. C. dis â Monsieur Bach.”12 At that time, “Bach.” and “J. Bach.” were common abbreviations for Pachelbel’s name, which was said and written in some South German dialects as “Bachelbel”. The period at the end of “Bach.” is a sign of abbreviation, enabling us to distinguish Pachelbel’s name from the names of members of Bach family.
The Prelude and Fugue in C Minor was first published in 1977 in the 39th volume of Corpus of Early Keyboard Music—the series founded by the American Institute of Musicology.13 Since then the pieces have been reproduced multiple times in other editions.14 Thanks to these publications, the cycle became accessible not only to musicians worldwide, but also strengthened its position as being a work by Pachelbel.
Recently, however, Pachelbel’s authorship of this polyphonic cycle has come under growing suspicion, given how strongly the style of writing in the pieces differs from that of other preludes and fugues by the composer. Thus, in the 2004 publication of The Thematic Catalogue of the Musical Works of Johann Pachelbel, these two pieces received the cautionary note “Ascription Questioned,” and in the new edition of the composer’s Complete Works for Keyboard Instruments they are shifted to the appendix as “dubious.”15
As it turns out, the doubts of the researchers were not without basis. In March 2008 we discovered a forcible argument in F. W. Marpurg’s Treatise on Fugue (1753–1754), which disclaims Pachelbel’s authorship of the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor located in MS H 3a.

F. W. Marpurg’s Treatise on Fugue as a key to ascription
F. W. Marpurg’s two-part Treatise on Fugue was, in its time, truly an extraordinary theoretical work. It was the first paper to be dedicated entirely to fugue. At the same time, it was the most fundamental work on fugue, which generalized and summed up all the knowledge of fugue acquired by musical theory and practice to the middle of the eighteenth century. Lastly, it was the richest treatise with respect to the amount and breadth of musical material ever collected into one resource. The quantity of music examples used by Marpurg to illustrate his theses is so great that they constituted the whole two-volume appendices for each part of the treatise. Marpurg’s erudition defies imagination even today: the appended musical examples include, beyond those samples composed by Marpurg himself, close to 500 excerpts from the works of more than 50 composers.16
In the score appendix for the second part of the treatise (Tab. III, Fig. 1), Marpurg several times quotes a theme, which is surprisingly similar to the theme of the C-minor fugue from the Mylau manuscript. The ascription here, however, is not to Pachelbel, but to his younger contemporary, Kirchhoff. The name of this once-celebrated German organist and composer, fellow student of G. F. Handel and a good acquaintance of J. S. Bach, is indicated at the beginning of the example: “1st theme of Kirchhoff” (“1. th[ema] Kirchoffii.”).17 (See Example 2.)
One cannot, of course, fully rule out the possibility that Pachelbel and Kirchhoff, each independently of the other, composed practically identical subjects. Formularity was one of the most characteristic features of Baroque music. The study of fugue assumed, in part, the mastery of an entire series of stereotypical, standard subjects and possible devices for their treatment. For this reason, correspondences were unavoidable (especially when one considers how in church practice, fugue subjects were often based on the initial phrases of plainchant melodies). Yet, despite a single intonational vocabulary, exact correspondence was rare, even for music of that time. Working from one and the same intonation formula, each musician materialized it in his own way. By way of example, we offer a fugue subject from the 2nd mode of Prototypon longo-breve organicum (1703) by Franz Xaver Murschhauser. (See Example 3.)
In comparing the three subjects, it is clear that they share a single intonational impulse: a descending minor triad, intensified by a leap to the leading tone. Although in Murschhauser’s subject this formula holds to a different rhythmic pattern and melodic continuation, it, most importantly, does not stand apart as an independent syntactic unit.
In light of this example, the similarity of the “Pachelbel” and “Kirchhoff” subjects to each other is made all the more clear. It is undoubtedly worth considering them variants of a single idea thought up by a single author. Indeed, there is undeniable correspondence between those elements and parameters of the subject that secure its individuality, specifically: motivic head, syntactic structure, melodic skeleton, rhythmic pattern, and harmonic plan. The primary divergences, excluding tonality, come down to figuration of the harmonies and to cadencing of the theme.
It is difficult to say today with certainty from whom these differences have arisen. Possibly, Marpurg himself made the changes in order to make the sample more relevant to his didactic intentions. It is more than likely, however, that he simply had a different version of the fugue at his disposal, one that today remains unknown or has been lost.
In any case, this question remains: who is the true author of the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor found in the Mylau manuscript—Pachelbel or Kirchhoff? We believe that testimony from the treatise of an authoritative theorist and well-informed musician deserves more confidence than testimony from a manuscript completed by an unknown copyist using unknown sources. Furthermore, the stylistic attributes of the music do much on their own to confirm that this work conforms to Kirchhoff’s creative signature.

L’A.B.C. Musical as one more
argument in favor of Kirchhoff’s
authorship
Kirchhoff’s name appears not only in the score appendix, but also in the body of the text of Marpurg’s treatise:

If the late Musikdirektor Kirchhof of Halle denoted the counterparts of his well-known fugues in all twenty-four keys with figures alone, he did this because he wanted to instruct his students in the various possibilities of thematic entrances and in the technique of figured bass at the same time.18
Marpurg quotes six various Kirchhoff themes in total. Although he never gives the title of those pieces that he quotes as musical examples (rather noting only the author of each piece!), it is natural to suggest that those themes he indicates as Kirchhoff’s come from those very same fugues he refers to in the text.
Earlier we stated the hypothesis that by “well-known fugues in all twenty-four keys” Marpurg meant the unpublished version of L’A.B.C. Musical (c. 1734) by Kirchhoff.19 First, this is the only known composition by Kirchhoff to contain, as the title page asserts, “preludes and fugues in all keys.” Second, one of the themes cited by Marpurg in the treatise’s appendix is identical to the theme of the A-minor fugue from L’A.B.C. Musical (Examples 4a, 4b). Third, the texture of every piece in the collection, including the fugues, is notated as thoroughbass, i.e., on one staff using various clefs and thoroughbass signatures.
Within a comment in his own edition of the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor from the Mylau Tablature Book, Michael Belotti rightly notes that the texture of the pieces is nothing other than a realized thoroughbass.20 Indeed, for the style of Pachelbel, who was trained in the contrapuntal tradition, this type of texture is atypical. However, for the style of Kirchhoff, whose emergence as a professional coincides with the blossoming of thoroughbass technique in Germany, this manner of writing is completely natural and consistent. All the known clavier and organ fugues by Kirchhoff can be included in the genre of the so-called thoroughbass fugue.21 It is highly likely that the original version of the C-minor Prelude and Fugue from MS H 3a was also recorded in codified form, and the variant that has reached us is someone’s realization. In any case, the texture of both pieces can be easily expressed in thoroughbass notation with no damage done to the musical material (see Appendix: Version 1).

Conclusion
These arguments clearly point to Kirchhoff’s authorship of the C-minor Prelude and Fugue from manuscript MS H 3a. In identifying the true author of these pieces, we not only restore historical justice, we also reveal one more previously lost page of Kirchhoff’s
oeuvre. It would be wonderful if this page were not the last to be revealed, if there were new finds ahead, which allow us to expand our understanding of the creative output of one of the forgotten composers from J. S. Bach’s circle and to objectively evaluate his role in the compositional style of his epoch. 

H. Joseph Butler

H. Joseph Butler is Professor of Music and University Organist at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, where he also serves as Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts. He holds a DMA and Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, an MM from the New England Conservatory, and a BA from Bowdoin College. He has studied organ with Russell Saunders, Yuko Hayashi, Harald Vogel, Bernard Lagacé, and Marion R. Anderson, and harpsichord with Colin Tilney and Arthur Haas. An active scholar in the area of early keyboard music, he has published articles in The New Grove Dictionary, Organ Yearbook, The American Organist, Bach, Early Keyboard Journal, and The Diapason. His book, The Peter Pelham Manuscript of 1744: An Early American Keyboard Tutor, is published by Wayne Leupold Editions. Dr. Butler has performed widely in the United States, England, and Hong Kong. His latest CD, the first-ever recording of the complete keyboard works of Julius Reubke, in collaboration with John Owings, pianist, is available from Pro Organo Records.

It is well known that Bach aggressively
studied the music of his contemporaries and predecessors as he developed his own personal and unique style. In particular, his work transcribing Vivaldi’s string concertos is often cited as a watershed in Bach’s education. However, a closer look at the concerto transcriptions and their genesis will encourage us to re-evaluate their role in Bach’s stylistic development.
The transcriptions stem from Bach’s Weimar years, probably between 1713 and 1717. It is believed that much of the source material was provided by his patron, Prince Johann Ernst. In 1713, Ernst visited Amsterdam and purchased a large quantity of music, likely including Vivaldi’s newly published Opus 3, L’estro armonico.1 The chart to the right shows the extant concerto transcriptions made by Bach; there are 23 transcriptions from 21 originals.2 Bach was not alone in making concerto transcriptions; from Johann Gottfried Walther, his colleague in Weimar, we have 14 surviving transcriptions.3
The purpose of Bach’s concerto transcriptions has been debated and probed at length. At first, scholars were inclined to believe the words of Johann Nikolaus Forkel, who wrote in 1802 that Bach undertook the transcriptions for the purpose of education.4 However, the extent of Bach’s activity in this area seems to exceed the needs of self-improvement; one does not need to make dozens of idiomatic keyboard arrangements of concertos to learn how to write one for strings. And of course, if the purpose of the exercise were purely educational, there would have been no need to transcribe the works of the teenage Prince Johann, who was himself a student of Walther and Bach. Therefore, it is now widely believed that the transcriptions were actually commissioned by the prince, a theory first advanced by Hans-Joachim Schulze.5
Also difficult to discern is what Bach actually learned from Vivaldi. Forkel wrote that from Vivaldi, Bach learned “musical thinking” and the concepts of “order, continuity, and proportion.”6 As Christoph Wolff has asserted, this statement may be reliable precisely, and ironically, because Forkel had no knowledge of Vivaldi’s music and no way to know what Bach learned from it; therefore, the statement could well originate from Bach’s sons who were in contact with Forkel in the late 18th century.7 Nevertheless, there were many other Italian models at Bach’s disposal, not to mention the works of Telemann, an established master who was close at hand. And it has been observed that Bach was able to create a coherent ritornello form as early as 1708, in the opening movement of Cantata 196.8 Taking all that into account, perhaps it is more interesting to observe what Bach did not learn from Vivaldi: that is, what musical elements did he alter in Vivaldi and subsequently avoid in his own works?
The concertos Bach transcribed from Vivaldi’s Op. 3 provide the best avenue for this study. These works are the most elaborate of Bach’s transcriptions, and they were based on outstanding originals available to Bach in an authoritative published edition. His other Vivaldi transcriptions were made from manuscript sources of varying integrity.9

The source
Op. 3 was Vivaldi’s first publication of orchestral music, an ambitious offering with the brazen title L’estro armonico, “harmonic inspiration.” Vivaldi chose the Amsterdam publisher Etienne Roger for this collection for two reasons: the superiority of Roger’s work and the opportunity to exploit the strong demand for Italian music in Northern Europe. Initial publication in Amsterdam was in 1711; soon thereafter, it was published by Walsh in London (1715 and 1717). Several French editions followed, beginning in the 1730s. Roger reissued the collection no less than twenty times, finally ending production in 1743. Its popularity only rivaled by Corelli’s Op. 6, L’estro armonico established Vivaldi’s reputation throughout Europe.
The publication was exceptional in that it consisted of eight part books: four violin parts, two viola parts, one cello part, and one part for double bass, which included the figures. A more typical concerto publication would be in just five parts, the solo part plus the usual quartet of string parts. In fact, Vivaldi’s later concerto publications were generally à cinque; none are in eight parts. In all cases, production of a score was left to the purchaser.
The eight-part presentation of Op. 3 allowed for considerable variety in solo groups: there are concertos for one, two, or four soloists. In addition, the cello is often emancipated from the continuo and is able to join the soloists in virtuoso passagework. One player per part is sufficient to perform a concerto; solo and tutti contrasts are provided by the doubling in the part writing, not by the use of a large ensemble. The bass part is fully and carefully figured, even in Vivaldi’s frequent unison passages (Illustration 1).
The structure of Op. 3 is ingenious. There are twelve concertos in four groups of three: the first of each three is for solo violin, the second for two violins, and the third for four violins. Superimposed on this scheme is a tonal arrangement in pairs, alternating major and minor keys, with the last pair reversed to end in major. Unfortunately, Vivaldi’s elegant concept is violated by most modern editions10 and obscured by the commonly used Ryom catalogue.11
There is also an intriguing logic to Bach’s approach to the source material. From the twelve concertos of Op. 3, he arranged three solo violin concertos for keyboard without pedal, two double violin concertos for organ with two manuals and pedals, and one concerto for four violins is transcribed for four harpsichords and orchestra. Although there may have been more transcriptions made and subsequently lost, these six arrangements seem to comprise an orderly exploration of the original material.
Manualiter transcriptions
The manualiter concertos are probably the most neglected works in this genre. Robert Marshall makes the case that the classification of these as harpsichord works in the Bach index, and in editions of the keyboard works, is arbitrary, and that they are equally likely to be organ works.12 Various factors support this theory: One, there was a tradition of composing organ pieces both pedaliter and manualiter, sometimes in complementary fashion, as we find in Clavierübung III. Two, performing concertos at the keyboard was especially fashionable on the organ; in fact, the practice may have been first popularized by an organist in Amsterdam, Jan Jacob de Graaf, whose proficiency performing concertos at the organ was praised by Mattheson.13 Three, Bach’s primary role at Weimar was organist, not harpsichordist. Four, the manualiter transcriptions were transposed and adapted to fit the range of the organs played by Bach in the Weimar region, which was four octaves, from C to c′′′. In general, there is a modern tendency to overlook the need for 18th-century musicians to play organ music without pedals; such pieces would have been attractive to gentlemen amateurs, ladies, and young people, as well as professional organists in smaller churches. While there is certainly no reason to exclude one instrument or the other, organists should be aware that the manualiter transcriptions contain some excellent material rarely heard on their instrument.
We can study many of the traits of the manualiter transcriptions by looking at BWV 978 (Example 1).14 The transposition by Bach to F major avoids the note d′′′, which is prevalent in the original. More interesting is Bach’s complete reworking of the bass line; the left hand does not wait for the opening theme to be stated, but enters early with a closely related countermelody. Throughout the manualiter transcriptions, Bach adds passagework in the left hand, leaving the treble mostly unchanged. In mm. 7–11, Vivaldi’s homophonic eighth-note accompaniment is replaced by broken-chord sixteenth-note figuration in the left hand (Example 2). Perhaps a better solution to this problem would be found by a later generation with the Alberti bass.
Another trend in the manualiter transcriptions is Bach’s avoidance of manual changes and dynamic contrast. Note that the original’s echo is gone and the added counterpoint makes a manual change impossible (Example 1, m. 3–4). Throughout the manualiter transcriptions there is no attempt to render solo and tutti contrast with manual changes. There are only occasional dynamic effects requiring two keyboards, and these are for echo gestures within the tutti ritornello, as in Op. 3, No. 12 and BWV 976, m. 2.

Organ transcriptions
The two best-known concerto transcriptions are those for organ with two manuals and pedals, in A minor (BWV 593) and D minor (BWV 596); these are part of the standard concert repertoire for organists and are on a higher level of virtuosity and complexity than the manualiter concertos. In the organ transcriptions, two manuals are consistently and effectively used for dynamics, solo with accompaniment, and solo-tutti contrast. The manual changes are clearly notated and the voice leading and beaming designed to accommodate them. Despite this successful experience adapting Vivaldi’s dynamic effects to the organ, Bach almost universally avoided manual changes and dynamics in his own organ works, the exceptions being the Toccata in D Minor, BWV 538, and the Prelude in E-flat, BWV 552/1. In other organ works, even those that are concerto-inspired, no manual changes are indicated and the counterpoint makes changes awkward.15
Again in the organ transcriptions we see Bach’s tendency to fill in the rests and longer note values with continuous 16ths, perhaps with a bit more finesse than in the manualiter transcriptions. In Example 3, he not only filled in the rests in Vivaldi’s original but also created a quasi-imitative sequence. The challenging sixteenth-note pedal passages Bach added in BWV 593/3, mm. 59–63, lend further weight to the argument that the transcriptions were intended for virtuoso performance rather than theoretical study.
Mm. 51–54 in the first movement of BWV 593 are peculiar for their use of octaves where Vivaldi’s original is fully harmonized, a rare instance where Bach is less full in texture than his model.16 Another oddity is the indication “Organo pleno” in m. 51; most likely, this is a copyist’s error for “Oberwerk.” It does not signal a registration change, but simply a return to the main keyboard with its plenum.
Sometimes exceptional means are used to create a solo and accompaniment (Example 4). It is strange, and perhaps disappointing, that Bach never used this kind of multi-layered symphonic texture in his own organ works.
BWV 596 in D minor is the only keyboard concerto that survives in autograph (Illustration 2, on page 21). It was long thought to be a work of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach because of the inscription “di W. F. Bach” followed by “in manu mei Patris descript” (“written in the hand of my father”). However, in this case “di” means “of” or “owned by”; Wilhelm
Friedemann was claiming ownership of the manuscript, not authorship of the piece. As a result of this misunderstanding, BWV 596 is missing from the Bach Gesellschaft, Peters, and Widor-
Schweitzer editions of the organ works.
The D-minor concerto is perhaps the most interesting of all the Weimar era transcriptions, and if the survival of an autograph is any indication, it may have been Bach’s favorite as well. One remarkable characteristic of the original is Vivaldi’s rigorous and energetic fugue, which exhibits ingenious invertible counterpoint as well as solo/tutti contrast. Surely, this piece served as inspiration for Bach’s concerto movements that synthesize fugue and concerto (e.g., final movements of Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 4 and 5).
The beginning of the concerto has attracted considerable attention for Bach’s unusual registration instructions: Oberwerk Octave 4′, Brustpositiv Octave 4′, and Pedal Principal 8′.17 This registration was not an aesthetic choice, but was contrived for a purely practical reason, to avoid the d′′′ prevalent in the original. Since transposition of the concerto to C minor would have made the fugue, with its fast parallel thirds and sixths, very awkward to play, Bach used 4′ stops and played the opening section an octave lower. This registration should not be considered a model for registering other concerto movements and playing entire movements on a single principal stop. It is a unique exception to the normal registration for concerto fast movements, which is organo pleno.
Bach made an interesting change in this opening passage, rewriting the two solo violin lines to make a strict canon and adding an extra measure where the canon winds down (m. 10).18 This change is unique in Bach’s transcriptions; normally, he maintained the dimensions of the original, neither adding nor subtracting measures. The addition of a canon to this concerto conflicts with the traditional view, stated by Forkel, that Bach used Vivaldi as a guide away from improvised “finger music” toward a more intellectual and organized approach to composition. In this passage, BWV 596 is clearly more cerebral than the model.
At the end of the fugue, Bach made a significant change (Example 5); in order to effect a stronger conclusion, he added more harmonic interest, rhythmic drive, and a Picardy third ending.
Another interesting change is found at the end of the last movement (Example 6). Vivaldi’s tremolo string writing is fruitless on the organ, so Bach used sustained chords in conjunction with a newly added tenor line. The added line is sufficiently violinistic that few organists suspect it is not original to Vivaldi. Bach used nearly the same tenor figuration to replace a tremolo passage in another Vivaldi concerto; see Op. 7, Bk. 2, No. 5 and BWV 594/1, mm. 26–27, 32, 34, etc.

Tonal considerations
That these two movements were altered to end with a major chord is revealing. Such a change is unnecessary in the context of a transcription, and thus represents a purely aesthetic choice made by the arranger. Comparing how each composer ends minor key movements leads to some striking differences. In Op. 3, there are 24 minor-mode movements; none ends with a Picardy third. Further, in the Op. 4, 7, and 8 concertos one searches in vain for a Picardy ending. Bach did not publish any large sets of concertos; nevertheless, we can observe that all six Brandenburg concertos are in major keys—which may be significant in and of itself. Of the minor-key slow movements, only one ends on a minor chord. One ends Picardy and another two end with a Phrygian cadence, more in the manner of Corelli than Vivaldi. Looking at some other organized sets of Bach works from Weimar or soon thereafter, we see that in the Orgelbüchlein and Well-Tempered Clavier I every minor-key piece ends with a major chord, except one (BWV 863/2).
There are other significant tonal differences one could explore; Vivaldi often tends to have all three movements in the same key, and in some cases will have the slow movement of a minor-key concerto in the subdominant, also minor. On the other hand, Bach will more typically use a mediant relationship for the middle movement, exploiting the relative minor or major. Ending a major-key movement, Vivaldi will stay in tonic, without hint of other keys; Bach will usually tonicize the subdominant just before closing. All of this leads to the conclusion that Bach did not emulate Vivaldi in some crucial matters of harmony and tonality.

Orchestral transcription
The last concerto Bach transcribed from Vivaldi’s Op. 3 was the Concerto for Four Harpsichords and Strings in A Minor, BWV 1065, based on concerto No. 10 for 4 violins in B minor. This transcription is much later than those for keyboard solo. Stemming from around 1730, it is a Leipzig work destined for performance by Bach’s Collegium Musicum. Here we find little trace of Bach the learner, as he takes a fine Vivaldi original and puts his own stamp of genius upon it, enriching the texture and harmony throughout. Of particular interest is the poignant chromaticism added to Vivaldi’s diatonic sequence in mm. 82–85, and the 32nd-note keyboard flourish in mm. 90–91, the latter similar to some passages in Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.

Conclusion
In conclusion, there can be no doubt that Bach learned certain elements of composition from working with Vivaldi’s models; indeed, Op. 3 was a musical landmark that influenced most composers in the early 18th century. However, there is sufficient musical evidence in the transcriptions to suggest that Bach was a mature, confident, and highly original composer in the early Weimar years, before he made the concerto arrangements. 

 

Maxim Serebrennikov

But the basis for all improvisation must be preparation. If I haven’t prepared, I can’t improvise. If I’ve made careful preparations I can always improvise. 

—Ingmar Bergman, 1968

 

The question of fugal improvisation in the Baroque era has been raised in the pages of musicology literature more than once.² It still remains topical today; yet in the practice of Baroque improvisation, the improvisation of fugue has rarely become an object of independent study. Besides William Renwick’s book, The Langloz Manuscript: Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass (2001), it is difficult to name any widely known work that is specifically dedicated to the art of fugal improvisation in the Baroque era.³ Much valuable and interesting information about this performance practice of baroque musicians is scattered throughout various books and articles, whose subject matter is not even directly related to improvisation.

The present article therefore aims: 

1) to summarize the existing research on partimento practice;

2) to describe all the stages of fugal improvisation, beginning with the mastery of separate elements and finishing with an organization of the whole, as recorded in German sources of the first half of the 18th century.

 

Introduction 

Today the ability of an academically trained musician to create “on-the-fly” is thought of as exceptional—for the gifted only. Yet it is well known that in the Baroque era every professional musician was expected to possess this “gift.” Within the rich diversity of improvisational genres and forms that made up the standard set for which a Baroque improviser was to be prepared, fugue held the greatest place of honor.

At that time it was not just the great musicians who were skilled at improvisation; every church organist had to be able to improvise a fugue on a given theme. . . . The ability to improvise fugue was considered a requirement for every serious musician to such a degree then that the lack of that skill could serve as reason for ridicule. . . . And, although the testing of organists did not always include fugue improvisation, both Mattheson and Adlung think that no one should be taken as an organist who has not proved his right to such a post through the improvisation of fugue.⁴

In the 18th century if you couldn’t improvise you couldn’t call yourself a keyboard player. Worse than that, you couldn’t get a job, since all organist auditions required extemporaneous performance of a fugue on a given subject.⁵

Truly, the ability to improvise fugue was a necessary skill for organists, because a fugal statement of musical material was stipulated by the very program of the liturgical service. Beginning in the second half of the 17th century, the role of the organist, on whose shoulders rested the burden of the musical life of the church, grew remarkably.⁶ The organ, which had at one time humbly accompanied church ritual, became a most important attribute of the church service—almost its main participant. This was especially true in the northern regions of Germany, where the organ gained such acoustic strength and richness of register that it became like “a second minister,” and the musical compositions that it “delivered” were self-contained “texts” addressed to the congregants. Mattheson emphasized that fugal presentation of the chorale subject on the organ helped “to arouse reverence within the listeners.”⁷

For musicians in the secular sphere, fugal improvisation as a skill was not as necessary as it was for church organists, but the ability, nevertheless, was always appreciated. In the circle of experts and enlightened amateurs, fugal improvisation on a subject proposed by someone among those present could become one of the most intriguing and entertaining elements of a musical program. Success in such improvisation provided the performer with the established reputation of master of the highest order (a reputation that could help in a further promotion).

Although fugal improvisation was a widespread practice among Baroque musicians, we are forced to gather information on its technique literally in bits and pieces. As early as 1702, Andreas Werckmeister, in his treatise Harmonologia musica, points out the reason: “many musicians are secretive and reticent with their knowledge.”⁸ Possibly, musicians divulged their knowledge about improvisation very unwillingly because they considered it a unique commodity, providing a constant supply of students. Perhaps they did not wish to destroy the myth of the divine origin of the gift of improvisation. In any case, even in treatises that are dedicated specifically to improvisation and fantasieren, there are no concrete instructions that would allow us today to understand how fugue was improvised.⁹

Nonetheless, some secrets of Baroque fugal improvisation have already been revealed by scholars. David Ledbetter writes about one of them:

By the early eighteenth century, instruction in fugue in Bach’s tradition grew out of the figured bass, rather than contrapuntal treatises, and so was approached as an improvised genre. The technique of this was practised by using fugato movements expressed as figured basses, called in Italian partimento fugues.¹⁰

To the uninitiated musician such a statement may seem paradoxical, since according to our notion fugue and figured bass represent distinct types of musical thinking and observe a different tradition of notation. However, the discovery during the last decade of a large number of examples of so-called partimento fugue or thoroughbass fugue shows that improvisation of fugue during the Baroque epoch—just like the improvisation of homophonic forms—actually had its foundation in the practice of figured bass.¹¹ The detailed study and comparison of these examples, strengthened by the testimony of contemporary treatises, allow us to take another step forward on the path to understanding the Baroque technique of fugue ex tempore.

That the overwhelming majority of improvised fugues during the Baroque epoch were thoroughbass fugues can be explained from the point of view of psychology. The texture of a “contrapuntal fugue” (i.e., polyphonic texture) is formed by combining individualized melodic lines, each vying for our attention. In contrast, the texture of thoroughbass fugue is predominantly two-dimensional—that is, it can be clearly divided into the leading voice and a complex of accompanying voices. Consequently, improvisation of a multi-part “contrapuntal fugue” necessitates the division of attention into three or more channels, whereas performance of a multi-part thoroughbass fugue demands division into just two. Experience shows that the attention of even a well-prepared musician is capable of maintaining control over only two (a maximum of three) simultaneously proceeding streams of information.¹² As such, for objective (psycho-physiological) reasons, improvisation of thoroughbass fugue is attainable for a broad mass of musicians, whereas improvisation of a multi-part “contrapuntal fugue” is negotiable to a rare few.¹³ 

Having touched on the issue of the limits of human attention, which is so relevant to musical improvisation, it would be remiss to ignore the opportunity to quote Sergey Prokofiev, in an interview published by the New York Times in 1930:

Three melodies remain about the limit that the average ear can grasp and follow at one time. This can be done when the melodies are clearly sounded and contrasted in pitch and tone color. For a short time the ear may perceive and assimilate the effect of four different parts, but this will not be long continued, if the four parts, or melodies, are of equal importance. Listening to a four or five or even six-part fugue, the ear is conscious, possibly, of the presence of all the voices, but it only perceives and follows precisely the most important of the melodies being sounded. The other parts fill in, enrich the musical background and harmony, but they become as blurred lines of the picture. They are not clearly recorded in the listener’s consciousness as separate melodic strands in the tonal fabric. This being true, it behooves the composer to realize that in the polyphonic as well as in the structural sense he must keep within certain bounds.¹⁴

Such is the point of view of a professional musician who possessed extraordinary musical faculties. As for specialists in the fields of psychology and physiology, they have yet to come to a single opinion concerning the volume and capabilities of human attention.

Analysis

The modern theory of improvisation is based on these principles: 1) “improvisation is based on memory” and “the improviser does not create the material, but builds it from prepared blocks, from long-memorized musical segments”;¹⁵ and 2) the improviser always works from a given model.¹⁶ 

What were the building blocks that Baroque performers utilized in the process of fugue improvisation? In what sequence could they combine them? To answer these questions, let us turn to concrete musical material.¹⁷

The overwhelming majority of German samples of thoroughbass fugue follow strophic form in their composition.¹⁸ In addition, organization of the musical material inside the strophes is very often based on the typical Baroque-era structure of “head and tail,” where the role of the “head” is played by a group of statements (more rarely by a single statement) of the subject and the role of the “tail” by sequence based on standard harmonic formulae of thoroughbass. The conclusion of each strophe is marked by a cadence. Such is the method used by Kirchhoff, for example, in his C-major fugue from L’A.B.C. Musical (c. 1734), which clearly presents three strophes (Example 1):

Strophe 1 includes five statements of the subject (bars 1–9), a 2–6 sequence (bars 9–11), and a 7–6 cadence (bar 12);

Strophe 2 includes two statements of the subject in the upper part in immediate succession (bars 12–15), a statement in the bass (bars 16–17) and the 2–6 sequence already used in strophe I (bars 18–20), and a 7–6 cadence (bars 20–21);

Strophe 3 contains a statement of the subject in the bass (bars 21–22), a 2–6 sequence that shifts to 7–7 (bars 22–25), and the more explicit 5–6/4–5/3 cadence (bars 25–26).

The structural similarity among the strophes is evidence of the improvisatory nature of thoroughbass fugue, the result of work that uses a single model. It was specifically the strophe that served as the universal compositional unit, by which through duplication the improviser assembled his fugue. The number of strophes was varied, according to how long the improvisation should last. The structure of the strophe, though, did not vary. In this way the improviser’s task was to quickly and neatly fill out this preassembled structure with concrete musical material.

Obviously, the improvisation of a fugue had as its starting point the harmonization of the chosen or suggested subject. A harmony, as a rule, was kept for all multi-part statements of the subject, becoming, might we say, a retained “counter-harmony” (Gegenharmonie).¹⁹ Changes to the harmonization were made only in cases where a tonal answer was necessary. Frequently, even the counterpoint to the answer (the first countersubject) was drawn out of this same “counter-harmony.” This is easily affirmed by noting the numeral for the harmonic intervals between the answer and countersubject and then comparing the result to the author’s own figures for analogous multi-part statements (Example 2).²⁰ 

In many samples of thoroughbass fugue, all entries of the subject are concentrated at the beginning of a strophe. Following one after another without dividing episodes, the statements form a compact thematic group that serves as an entire syntactic unit larger than just a single statement. The tendency toward an increase in the hierarchical degree of unit complexity is another specific quality of improvisatory technique. The combination of smaller syntactic units into larger ones helps to expand the general volume of information accessible within short-term memory.²¹

The similarity among the strophes of thoroughbass fugue is also increased by the uniformity of the order of entries. In all strophes, a descending order of entries of the parts predominates as the most convenient and intrinsic with respect to technical considerations and notation of thoroughbass.²²

The next syntactic unit of the strophe, following the group of statements, is the episode. This section of the fugue was the most comfortable for the improviser, since here he could use patterns that he had learned. Judging from extant samples of thoroughbass fugue, episodes most often consisted of sequential repetition of one, more rarely two, harmonic formulae stereotypical to thoroughbass. This observation is supported by the theoretical works of that time. As such, to attain success in the improvisation of fugue, Philipp Christoph Hartung, in Musicus Theoretico-Practicus (1749), recommends learning entire musical progressions, which one should be able to freely and confidently play from memory, and not just read from sheet-music.²³ Many of the fragments he suggests are nothing more than textural elaborations of standard thoroughbass sequences. The thoroughbass nature of Hartung’s sequences appears especially clear if we extract their harmonic scheme and supply it by figures (Example 3).

Playing sequences had to become an automatic skill, something that was simply “in the hands” of the performer. The automation of playing skills allowed the improviser to free his attention considerably so as to be directed instead to solving upcoming tasks. In other words, while the hands played out the episode, the mind could be planning out the next set of operations. Given this, the hands had to be able to play for as long as was necessary for thinking out. For this reason, the inert nature of sequential development was not a detriment to fugue played ex tempore. The existing unspoken rule in musical practice that the number of segments in a sequence (in the case of exact repetition) should not exceed three was not observed too strictly during the fugue improvisation. Theoretically, there could be any number of segments in a sequence, as it was defined less by artistic needs than by technical ones. In practice, episodes, composed of sequences made of four to five segments, were the norm for thoroughbass fugue.

The unity of thematic material was not also a problem for thoroughbass fugue. The episode could smoothly continue the subject, but could also introduce  new musical material. In any case, the primary task of the improviser in moving from one syntactic unit to another was to transition as naturally as possible. It follows then that the greater the active memory capacity of the performer and the more formulae he could recall and have “in his hands,” then the higher the likelihood of attaining agreement of intonation between the suggested subject and episodes selected from among those prepared during the process of his musical training. The ability to competently use these preparations from “homework assignments” was very likely a basic craft known to the improviser.

The degree to which the improviser relied upon such materials prepared in advance can be judged by examining, for example, the B-flat-major fugue from Johann Caspar Simon’s collection Leichte Præludia und Fugen (1746). Of its total 37 bars, 20.5 bars (i.e., more than half) are based on material connected neither with the fugue subject, nor with its countersubject. The especially obvious “home preparations” reveal themselves in the second half of the fugue, which is made up of four autonomous sections resembling, in their function, additions in the tonic key (Example 4). At first, Simon builds a sequence on the harmonic formula 7–7, embellishing the bass line with melodic figuration. He then builds a second sequence on the harmonic formula 2–6 in strict chordal texture. Further, he inserts a toccata-like fragment pulled from the fugue’s preceding prelude, a fragment that is also in its nature a sequence. Finally, he concludes the piece with a decisive cadence in solid chordal presentation (Grave). Comparing the “specific gravity” of thematic and non-thematic material in Simon’s fugue, the conclusion suggests itself. Essentially, if the improviser were not restricted by concrete devices of thematic work, then the entire fugue, excepting statements within the exposition, could be designed from elements prepared in advance.

Judging by some samples of thoroughbass fugue, the “stock” material could penetrate straight into the group of statements, replacing separate statements or pulling them out. For example, in Fugue no. 21 (F major) from the Langlo(t)z Manuscript, the second strophe begins not with the restatement of the subject, but with non-thematic counterpoint, and only the bass part enters with the theme (Example 5).

In the D-minor Fantasy from the Mylau Tabulaturbuch, a straightforward “home preparation” in the form of a typical sequence 6/5–5/3 appears in the first strophe between the fourth and fifth statements (Example 6a). Viewed separately, this fragment appears optional—since the other statements work successfully without it (Example 6b).

The energy expended by a performer for fugue improvisation could be conserved by using the same episode for various strophes. This repetition could be identical, but it could also be modified by means of various textural clichés. For example, the second and third episodes of the anonymous G-major Prelude (which is in fugue form) from the Mylau Tabulaturbuch are based on a single harmonic formula, the 7–7 progression, though the shapes of their texture are distinct. In the first case, the lower voice is diminished; in the second, the pair of upper voices (in regular imitative counterpoint). Incidentally, this prelude demonstrates direct application of Hartung’s aforementioned recommendations: the prelude’s second episode (Example 7a) differs from his sequence shown in Example 3a only by key.

The existence of a single stockpile of thoroughbass harmonic formulae inevitably led to the appearance of universal sequences that traverse the pages of thoroughbass literature from one composition to the next, regardless of authorship. Comparison of the episode sections of numerous thoroughbass fugues makes clear that of the great variety of harmonic formulae offered in contemporary thoroughbass treatises and manuals, a precious few sequential patterns predominate: 7–7, 6/5–5, 6–6, 4/2–6.

The manner of sequential motion also deserves special comment. In many samples of thoroughbass fugue, the episodes are based on diatonic sequences that descend stepwise down the scale. On one hand, descending motion step-by-step possesses a certain inertness, which under the conditions of improvisation (i.e., mental and psychological tension and temporal deficit) just plays into performer’s hands. On the other hand, diatonic motion step-by-step provides the sequence freedom in the selection of the target tonality. In reality, the great tonal mobility is hidden in diatonic sequence; a trajectory of such a sequence could be easily and organically turned at any moment into one of closely related keys. Here is a small experiment: the test of the key possibilities of a 2–6 sequence from the second strophe of the C-major fugue from Kirchhoff’s L’A.B.C. Musical (Example 8).

As these examples demonstrate, it is possible to conclude the sequence in any closely related key without applying much effort. Understandably, the target key will influence the length of the sequence. Here it is very important not to lose a sense of balance and good measure. Although the versions represented in Examples 8e and 8f are technically no different than the remaining ones, these two are much less suited to actual artistic use due to their extended monotony. Should Kirchhoff have needed, in the process of improvisation, to expand the fugue by adding another strophe, he likely would have followed version c) or d) in place of the cadence on the C-major tonic.²⁴

Once the fugue’s continuation took a concrete shape in the mind of the improviser, he could stop the potentially endless development of a sequence via the most convenient cadential formula. The playing of cadences (as well as sequences) in any key of the instrument—literally, with closed eyes—was also a necessary skill for every professional keyboardist of the Baroque era. In the opinion of many 18th-century musicians, cadential formulae are the basis, the foundation of thoroughbass; it is specifically this skill that forms the starting point for practical study of the trade. The number and types of cadential formulae varies with each source. The Precepts and Principals (1738) attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, count seventeen patterns among the most frequently used (Example 9).

Immediately following the cadence, occasionally commencing upon its final tones, the new strophe begins and all events of the described process are repeated. The similarity of the strophes imparts to the unfolding of the fugue’s form a character of repeated expositions. The formal approach to realization of the strophic scheme inevitably aroused the feeling of monotony, which, naturally, stirred up criticism from contemporaries. Mattheson, who regularly attended testing of organists, wrote:

One should restrict oneself even less to the practice of some organists, who first quite respectably, without the slightest embellishment, perform the theme four times through on the entire keyboard in nothing but consonances and pastoral thirds; then begin again just as circumspectly with the consequent from its beginning; always producing the same tune; interposing nothing imitative or syncopating; but constantly only playing the naked chord, as if it were a thoroughbass.³⁰

Here are the impressions produced on Marpurg by a certain organist who attempted to play fugue ex tempore:

Someone often has the good intention to make it better. But what does he do? He slams out the figured bass, and this is terrible to hear. There are no suspensions which make the harmony pleasant, fluent and coherent. It is a jolting harmony. One hears no stretto, no motivic development of the theme. There is no order, and the number of voices one can only surmise at the end, when as, per forma, it ought to be clear directly after the first exposition of the theme through different voices of the fugue. The theme is will never be wisely advised in the middle voices. You only ever hear it above or below—as one hand accompanies another as in an aria. One never hears the theme as comfortable, nor at the appropriate time, expressively and sensitively for the mind and the ear in a sustained and affecting way. It is but a senseless din and tumult—not to mention the discord within the harmony.³¹

The picture described by Mattheson and Marpurg was characteristic of improvisations by mediocre organists. The more talented and gifted performers avoided precise repetition of strophes and brought to each new strophe a certain degree of newness, to which extant samples of thoroughbass fugue eloquently testify. In addition to the aforementioned tonal reinvention of strophes, one can quite often find such methods of refashioning as introducing a new counterpoint to the subject, “register leap” (i.e., a skipping of two or more register pitches where the subject can enter), and the use of stretto in the final strophe.

Although the opinion does exist that “the part of the fugue related to statements of the subject was created during improvisation,”²⁵ there is reason to suggest that even during these sections the performer could sometimes refer to prepared material. Judging from extant samples of thoroughbass fugue, the study of fugal improvisation included not just the regular practice of sequential progressions and cadences, but the development of a definite set of concrete approaches to working with the most common types of subjects. Describing the demands placed on candidates for the vacancy of organist at the Hamburg cathedral, Mattheson noted: 

I don’t consider it art to concern people [organists] with unknown themes; rather, it is better to take something well-known and flowing in order to work it out even better. That is what matters, and the listener will like it better than some chromatic piddling about.²⁶

If one allows for the possibility that Mattheson was not alone in this opinion, then the chances of being tested on a subject built of familiar melodic patterns, or even on a known subject, were not so small, and thus the entire improvisation could come down to a combination of prepared materials.

Let us recall, for example, the subject that King Frederick the Great suggested to J. S. Bach for an improvised fugue in Potsdam (Example 10). It is not known with certainty whether Frederick himself composed this subject or borrowed it, but judging by its melodic profile, the monarch had chosen to demonstrate to Bach his knowledge in the “learned style” (gelehrter Stil).²⁷ It must be noted that the subject contains four thematic elements, and all of them are conventional within Baroque style: a) movement in the tonic triad, b) a jump of a seventh (saltus duriusculus), c) descending chromatic movement (passus duriusculus), and d) melodic cadence. Any Baroque musician would certainly know these melodic patterns, along with the methods of their elaboration within a fugue. The elements listed here are well represented both in didactic and artistic samples of thoroughbass fugues, and what is especially important is that their musical realization (counterpoint, harmonization) often coincides.

Depending on the conditions of improvisation, “home preparations” could have various degrees of concretization. In those cases where a fugue was improvised on the occasion of a public challenge or competitive auditions, the performer had to hold his prepared materials in his memory. In everyday practice, however, it was acceptable to use the preparations written out on paper. We find examples of such preparations in a Daniel Magnus Gronau manuscript, which is held today in the Library of Polish Academy of the Sciences (Gdansk) as MS. Akc. 4125.²⁸ This manuscript contains 517 (!) sets of preparatory sketches for fugue improvisation in all twenty-four keys. Each set holds three thematic records, written one below the next on individual staves (Example 11). On the upper staff in soprano clef, the subject with figures is written out, and the beginning of the answer with countersubject is outlined in small notes.²⁹ On the second staff in bass clef, the counterpoint to the subject with figures is recorded. On the third staff, also in bass clef, the answer with figures is fixed. In this way, every set encompasses all necessary material for planning any statement of the subject, whether alone or with multiple voices, whether in the tonic or in the dominant.

Thanks to such preparations, the process of fugue improvisation is considerably simplified, since the need to search for a harmonization of the subject, a counterpoint to it, and a suitable answer is taken care of. Essentially, the performer must only care for the episode material, and the fugue, necessary for the church service, is ready.

In summary, the improvisation of fugue during the Baroque epoch was not necessarily the spontaneous nor extemporaneous fruit of inspired fancy. Much more often it was soundly prepared and planned on all levels: from the syntactic to the compositional. Even before the start of improvisation, the performer could clearly imagine the compositional structure that he must fill out using his musical material, the bulk of which could be prepared during “home” practice. One of the most widespread compositional models was strophic form, where the structure of each strophe had identical organization and included three syntactic units: the group of statements, the sequential unfolding, and the cadence. As a result, the entire improvisation could be boiled down to finding the right harmonization for the given subject and thinking up a tonal structure for the strophes; all the rest—textural formulae, cadences, sequences—the performer took from his memory practically in ready form.

 

Postscript

It stands to reason that the strophic form described in this article was not the only compositional model used for fugal improvisation during the Baroque. The discovery of this model, though, in other improvisatory genres of the Baroque era gives reason to consider it as universal within the improvisation practice of that time.

There is reliable evidence that the strophic form was purposefully worked out in the process of musical training. For example, Precepts and Principles contains a set of fourteen keyboard exercises for mastering the harmonic formulae most common to thoroughbass. Surprisingly, all these exercises are precisely identical in form—all are strophic (Example 12).

The outer strophes are in the tonic, while the central ones are in the closely related keys (in dominant and parallel). It is not difficult to imagine how many distinct figuration preludes could be created on the basis of only one model, varying merely harmonic content and textural formulae.³² If one involves methods of structural transformation (extension or compression of strophe), then the number of variants is multiplied.

Examples of such preludes can be found among the sources discussed in this article. Thus, in analyzing some pieces from the Langlo(t)z Manuscript or Kirchhoff’s L’A.B.C. Musical, one gets the impression that the authors had the structure of Bach’s exercises specifically in mind while they composed, so strong are the similarities. The C-minor Prelude from the Langlo(t)z Manuscript, for example, differs from Bach’s exercises due only to one additional strophe and short melodic links between the strophes (Example 13). The F-major Prelude from Kirchhoff’s L’A.B.C. Musical also contains an additional strophe, but the development within the third and fourth strophes is dynamicized thanks to structural transformations: the sequential development is truncated in the third, and the “head” motive is withdrawn in the fourth (Example 14).

The list of works of an improvisatory character that have strophic form with variations of its solutions can be further extended, but this would be a topic for a separate article. ν

 

The list of German sources, containing samples of thoroughbass fugue

“39. PRAELUDIA et FUGEN del Signor Johann Sebastian Bach” (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung; shelf mark: Mus. ms. Bach P 296). Published in The Langloz Manuscript: Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass, With Introductionary Essay and Performance Notes by William Renwick. (New York: 2001), pp. 35–187.

“Des König[lichen] Hoff-Compositeurs und Capellmeisters ingleichen Directoris Musices wie auch Cantoris der Thomas-Schule Herrn Johann Sebastian Bach zu Leipzig Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen spielen des General-Bass oder Accompagnement. für seine Scholaren in der Music. 1738” (Brussels: Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal; shelf mark: mr. FRW 27.244). Published in J. S. Bach’s Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thorough-Bass or Accompanying in Four Parts, Leipzig, 1738, translation with facsimile, introduction, and explanatory notes by Pamela L. Poulin. (Oxford, 1994), pp. 41–45.

Händel, Georg Friedrich. Aufzeichnungen zur Kompositionslehre: aus den Handschriften im Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge (Composition Lessons: from the Autograph Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge), Hrsg. von Alfred Mann. Leipzig: Veb Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1978. S. 53–70 (Hallische Händel-Ausgabe: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Suppl. Bd. 1). Republished in Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises, With a Commentary by David Ledbetter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 44–61.

Heinichen, Johann David. Der General-Bass in der Composition. Dresden, 1728, S. 516–520.

Kellner, Johann Christoph. Grundriss des Generalbasses. Op. XVI. Erster Theil. Cassel, [1783], S. 41–45.

Kirchhoff, Gottfried. L’A.B.C. Musical (Amsterdam [c. 1734]), 34 S. Republished as Kirchhoff, Gottfried, L’A.B.C. Musical, Hrsg., kommentiert und Generalbaß realiziert von Anatoly Milka (St. Petersburg: Musikverlag “Compozitor,” 2004), XXVIII, 104 S.

Niedt, Friedrich Erhardt. Musicalische Handleitung. Erster Theil. Handelt vom General-Bass, denselben schlecht weg zu spielen (Hamburg, 1700), Cap. X. Republished as Niedt, Friedrich Erhardt, The Musical Guide, Parts 1 (1700/10), 2 (1721), and 3 (1717), translated by Pamela L. Poulin and Irmgard C. Taylor; introduction and explanatory notes by Pamela L. Poulin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 48–49.

“Pral: Kirchhoff” (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Mus. ms. 11605), published in Kirchhoff, Gottfried, Prelude and fugue for organ from the manuscript Mus. ms. 11605: first edition, edited and with a preface and commentaries by Maxim Serebrennikov (St. Petersburg: Polytechnical University Publishing House, 2009), 16 p.

Simon, Johann Caspar. Leichte Praeludia und Fugen durch die Tone: C. D. E. F. G. A. B. dur (Augsburg [1746]), 14 S.

Simon, Johann Caspar. Leichte und wohlklingende Praeludia und Fugen durch die Tone: C. D. E. F. G. A. H. moll (Augsburg [1747]), 14 S.

Simon, Johann Caspar. Musicalisches A. B. C. in kleinen und leichten Fugetten (Augsburg, 1749), 24 S.

“TABULATUR Buch 1750” (Mylau, Archiv der Evangelisch-lutherischen Kirchgemeinde; shelf mark: MS H 3a). Transcribed in Shannon, John R., The Mylauer Tabulaturbuch: a Study of the Preludial and Fugal Forms in the Hands of Bach’s Middle-German Precursors. Ph.D., Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1961. Vol. 2, iii, 184 p.

 

Notes

1. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Prof. David Ledbetter (Royal Northern College of Music), who read the final draft of this article and kindly provided me with helpful comments and constructive suggestions.

2. The topic has been actively discussed especially in the last two decades in connection with awakened interest in the Italian improvisational practice of partimento, which spread throughout Europe in the 18th century. Currently the study of partimento is gaining incredible momentum. The most comprehensive study of this field at the moment is Giorgio Sanguinetti’s book The Art of Partimento: History, Theory, and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

3. Although Renwick’s book contains a special subheading, Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass, he does not treat the actual process of improvisation. His work is not a theoretical study about fugal improvisation, but an anthology of authentic musical samples for practical mastery of this skill. In fairness, the article “On the fugue improvisation” by the Russian musicologist Sergey Maltsev also should be mentioned: Sergey Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii i improvizacionnosti fugi,” in Teoriya fugi: sbornik nauchnish trudov, otv. red. A.P. Milka (Leningrad: Izd-vo LOLGR, 1986), pp. 59–60. Unfortunately, this work containing many valuable observations about the process of fugal improvisation, because of a language barrier, did not gain wide circulation.

4. Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii i improvizacionnosti fugi,” pp. 59–60.

5. David Yearsley, “Spontaneous fugue,” in Early Music, 2001, Vol. XXIX (3), p. 452.

6. See Marina Nasonova, “Prakticheskaya deyatelnost severonemetskogo organista XVII veka,” in Starinnaya muzyka: praktika, aranzhirovka, rekonstrukciya: Materialy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferencii (Moscow: Prest. 1999), pp. 117–128.

7. Johann Mattheson, Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (Hamburg, 1740), S. XXXIII, § 48. Based on the study of ecclesiastical protocols, Reinhard Schäfertöns concluded that the free prelude and the organ chorale prelude and fugue were central points of organ playing at the time of worship (Reinhard Schäfertöns, “Die Organistenprobe— Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Orgelmusik im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert,” in Die Musikforschung, 1996, 49, Jg. Hf. 2, S. 143).

8. “Denn viel Musici sind heimlich und rahr mit ihren Wissenschaften,” Andreas Werckmeister, Harmonologia musica (Franckfurth und Leipzig, 1702), S. 95.

9. In Part I of his Musicalische Handleitung (1700), F. E. Niedt promises to give a “proper instruction on how Fugues are to be improvised” in the next parts (Cap. X). Unfortunately, his death prevented him from fulfilling his intention.

10. David Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 99.

11. For more details about the difference between the terms partimento fugue and thoroughbass fugue, see Maxim Serebrennikov, “From Partimento Fugue to Thoroughbass Fugue: New Perspectives,” in BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, vol. XL, no. 2 (2009), pp. 22–44.

12. It is also important to realize that there is a notable difference between the resources demanded for perception of information as opposed to its creation (which is precisely what improvisation requires). The latter takes much more energy, and therefore, resources for attention are more quickly expended.

13. One musician alive today who possesses a phenomenal gift for improvising in any style and genre is Richard Grayson. Some of his improvisations (including fugue) on a subject proposed by an audience can be viewed on YouTube.

14. From an interview with Olin Downes, in New York Times, February 2, 1930, Arts & Leisure, p. 112.

15. Mikhail Saponov, Iskusstvo improvizatsii: Improvizatsionnye vidy tvorchestva v zapadnoevropejskoj muzyke srednikh vekov i Vozrozhdeniya (Moscow, 1982), p. 57 [in Russian]. Similar statements can be found also in Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii i improvizacionnosti fugi,” p. 6; David Schulenberg, “Composition and Improvisation in the School of J. S. Bach,” in Bach Perspectives I, 1995, p. 5; William Renwick, Analyzing Fugue: A Schenkerian Approach (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), p. 17; Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, “J. S. Bach and Improvisation Pedagogy: Extemporaneous Composition,” in Keyboard Perspectives II (2009), ed. by Annette Richards, p. 43; Michael Richard Callahan, Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation in the German Baroque and their Implications for Today’s Pedagogy (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 2010), p. 10.

16. “The improviser, let us hypothesize, always has something given to work from—certain things that are at the base of the performance, that he uses as the ground on which he builds. We may call it his model.” Bruno Nettl, “Thoughts on Improvisation: A Comparative Approach,” in The Musical Quarterly, 1974, Vol. LX, No. 1, p. 11.

17. A list of German sources, containing samples of thoroughbass fugue, appears at the end of the article.

18. The strophic form of the thoroughbass fugue has roots in the verset fugues tradition and to the sectional structure of motets and ricercar. What we say about strophes of thoroughbass fugue is closely related to Joel Lester’s “parallel sections” and David Ledbetter’s “series of expositions.” See Joel Lester, “Heightening levels of activity in J. S. Bach’s parallel-section constructions,” in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Spring 2001), p. 49–96; and Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, p. 100.

19. The term “Gegenharmonie” first appeared in Abhandlung von der Fuge by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, where it is given the following definition: “Counterharmony. Thus is named the material in the remaining parts which is set against the subject.” (“Die Gegenharmonie. So heißt diejenige Komposition, die dem Fugensatze in den übrigen Stimmen entgegengesetzt wird.”) Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge (Berlin, 1753), S. 18.

20. Since all standard harmonic structures in thoroughbass are noted in shorthand, we have added to the original figuring (where necessary) those signatures within brackets, which were implied by default.

21. By way of numerous experiments, it has been shown that the capacity of short-term (active) memory, without which the process of improvisation is simply impossible, is limited to 7 ± 2 units of information (the so-called Miller’s number). This can be increased only by uniting disparate elements into groups. We refer to a very illustrative example from Maltsev’s article in order to demonstrate the activity of this mechanism: “For example, short-term memory can retain around seven different letters (perhaps, X, J, D, B, G, U, S), but the number of letters drastically increases if we try to remember seven words, and will increase even more drastically if we try to remember seven sentences.” (Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii,” p. 69.) As Michael Callahan emphasizes: “Experts recognize relevant patterns, and therefore perceive stimuli in larger and more meaningful units than novices do; expert improvisers notice patterns in music and conceive of musical units in large spans (e.g., entire voice-leading structures and phrases, rather than individual notes).” (Callahan, Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation, p. 22.)

22. We remind the reader that the harmonic vertical in thoroughbass is constructed upwards from a given note, therefore the part entering with the subject must always be the lowest one.

23. “Alle in bissherigen Numern muessen nicht nur vom Papier, sondern auch auswendig auf das fertigste und deutlichste gelernt werden,” in Philipp Christoph Hartung, Musicus Theoretico-Practicus, Zweyter Theil (Nuremberg, 1749), S. 12, § 42).

24. Sometimes the tasks that were given to organists for the purpose of testing were limited by a time-frame. For example, the testing of organists for the post at the Hamburg Cathedral (24 October 1725) included the presentation of an entire fugue “created for four minutes,” a prelude of “about two minutes,” a chaconne of “about six minutes,” etc. See Johann Mattheson, Grosse General-Baß-Schule (Hamburg, 1731), S. 33. It is very difficult to improvise a piece with continuous development and at the same time fit everything within a given time-frame. It is much easier to fill the established time limits with standard-size strophes, adding a necessary number.

25. Anatoliy Milka, Muzikalnoye prinosheniye I. S. Basha: k rekonstrukzii I interpretazii (Moscow, 1999), p. 151 [in Russian].

26. “Denn mit fremden Sätzen die Leute zu scheeren, halte ich für keine Kunst; lieber was bekanntes und fliessendes genommen, damit es desto besser bearbeitet werden möge. Darauf kommt es an, und es gefällt dem Zuhörer besser, als ein chromatisches Gezerre” in Mattheson, Grosse General-Baß-Schule, S. 34–35.

27. For more details on the authorship of Thema Regium see Milka, Muzikalnoye prinosheniye I. S. Basha, pp. 153–167.

28. For more details about the manuscript MS. Akc. 4125 see Andrzej Szadejko, “Daniel Magnus Gronau (1700–1747)—didaktische Aspekte in Orgelwerken am Beispiel der Signatur MS. Akc. 4125 aus der Danziger Bibliothek der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,” in Musica Baltica (Gdansk, 2010), S. 351–361. It is interesting that Szadejko views the given source solely from a didactic perspective: as exercises in counterpoint. In my opinion, considering its intended purpose, MS. Akc. 4125 has more in common with such collections as the Langlo(t)z Manuscript and the Mylau Tabulaturbuch; it is also an anthology containing musical material necessary for the church organist’s everyday activity.

29. Indeed, the written-out figures concern themselves not with the single-part statement at the beginning of a fugue, but to the latter (multi-part) statements.

30. “Vielweniger darff man sich an den Gebrauch einiger Organisten binden, die das Thema erst, ohne die geringste Verblümung, fein ehrbar und viermahl durchs gantze Clavier in lauter Consonantzien und Lämmer-Tertzien hören lassen; hernach wieder mit dem Gefährten eben so bescheidentlich von oben anfangen; immer einerley Leier treiben; nichts nachahmendes oder rückendes dazwischen bringen; sondern nur stets den blossen Accord, als ob es ein General-Baß wäre, dazu greiffen” in Johann Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739), S. 388, § 97.

31. “Ein anderer hat öfters den guten Willen, es besser zu machen. Aber was thun er? Er dreschet den Generalbaß, und dieses ist sehr erbaulich anzuhören. Da sind keine Bindungen, die die Harmonie angenehm, fliessend und zusammenhängend machen. Es ist eine holperichte Harmonie. Da höret man keine enge Nachahmung, keine Zergliederung des Satzes. Da ist keine Ordnung, und die Anzahl der Stimmen erfähret man zur Noth am Ende, da man solche gleich nach der ersten Durchführung des Satzes durch die verschiedenen Stimmen hätte empfinden sollen. Dieser Satz wird niemahls in den Mittelstimmen klüglich angebracht. Man höret ihn nur immer oben oder unten wozu beständig die eine Hand die andere, so wie eine Arie, accompagnirt. Man hört das Thema niemahls bequem und zur rechten Zeit auf eine den Verstand und das Ohr nachdrücklich rührende Art eintreten. Es ist ein hanbüchenes Gelärme und Gepolter; der unharmonischen Gänge nicht zu gedenken” in Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge, Theil II (Berlin, 1754), S. XXIII–XXIV).

32. About the use of ars combinatoria techniques in the 18th-century, see Leonard G. Ratner, “Ars Combinatoria: Chance and Choice in Eighteenth-Century music,” in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Music: A Tribute to Karl Geiringer on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. by H. C. Robbins Landon and Roger E. Chapman (New York: Da Capo Press), pp. 343–363.