Musical Rhetoric in Three Praeludia of Dietrich Buxtehude

Paul Collins lectures in music at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. He is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and holds a first class honors MA degree in Performance and Musicology (Organ) from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is currently pursuing doctoral research at the music department of that university, where his supervisor is Professor Gerard Gillen. His dissertation will investigate the stylus phantasticus and its expression in north German organ music of the seventeenth century. Collins studied organ and harpsichord at the Dublin Institute of Technology Conservatory of Music and Drama, where he was awarded the Actors' Church Union Prize for advanced organ playing. He also holds a Fellowship Diploma in organ from Trinity College, London. He has performed in Ireland, the US, and Italy and is director of the Marmion Recital Series at Holy Cross Church in Dundrum, Dublin, where he is resident organist. In addition to his activities as musicologist and performer, he has composed works for keyboard, voice and chamber ensemble.

The music encyclopedist Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), in Part 1, chapter 10, of Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739) mentions the names of  two Italian composers whom he believes to have been exquisite executants of the "fantastic" style, namely Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) and Michelangelo Rossi (1602-1656). Before offering his readers a thumbnail sketch of their work, Mattheson expresses the hope that neither of these "fleissige Fantasten," or "diligent fantasy makers" will ever have their names consigned to oblivion. In choosing this term to describe these Italians and also Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667), Mattheson highlights the inherent tension in the dual r?¥le of performer-composer, that of the "fantastic" spontaneous performer or improviser and the "diligent" composer who must commit structured ideas to paper.

We know, for example, that Rossi, like the later Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) in northern Europe, was renowned as a virtuoso violinist in Rome, so much so that it was recorded in the register of his death in 1656. "Michelangelo il Violino," as he was referred to on occasion, even graced the performance of his single extant opera Erminia sul Giordano (1633) with his own playing, in which he took the part of Apollo in the last act. The Rome-based Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), who first coined the term "fantasy style" or stylus phantasticus in his Musurgia Universalis (1650), was among those who witnessed Rossi's playing at first hand at a private concert given, in Kircher's own words, by "three incomparable musicians, whom I would not be wrong in describing as the Orpheuses of our age."1 The three musicians in question were Rossi, Salvator Mazzella and the lutenist Lelio Colista (1629-1680) and the concert featured music for two violins and the-orbo. Describing the experience in his Itinerarium exstaticum (1656), Kircher leaves us in no doubt that this recital, the exact date of which has been consigned to oblivion, left a deep impression on him. He writes:

. . . though I may avow that I have delved with some distinction in the field of Music I cannot recall having heard anything like it, as they mingled diatonic with chromatic harmonies, and these with enharmonic modulations: it is scarcely possible to express the degree to which the unaccustomed mixing of these styles aroused the emotions of the mind.2

This concert performed before a single auditor--Kircher himself--is significant in itself in terms of the musicians it brought together. Musicologists in recent times have regarded the perspectives of Kircher and Mattheson on the "fantastic" style as being, by and large, mutually exclusive, but it is interesting to note that Kircher chose a sinfonia for four lutes by Colista as one of his five examples of the stylus phantasticus, while Mattheson, eighty-nine years later, considered the works of Rossi--in this context the composer's fourteen toccatas--as examples of the fantastischer Styl. Of further interest is the fact that Mattheson, in his Capellmeister treatise (§92), also mentions the violin and the lute as two of the most appropriate instruments for the realization of this style.

The German theorist's biographical information is not always as accurate as one would wish, however and in the case of Rossi, he can state merely that the composer "lived around 1635, the time of [Giovanni Battista] Doni."3 If we wish to further understand Mattheson's enthusiasm for Rossi's toccatas we must consider these works in the light of the "rules" for would-be "fantasy makers" given by Mattheson in §93 and §94 of his tenth chapter "On the Style of Music." The fantastic style, according to Mattheson, is above all an improvisatory style, with the primary focus on the performer and his extemporary ability. This is underlined by the fact that Mattheson situates his discussion of the fantasy style within the broader context of the genus theatralis, or theatrical style. One is restricted in this a mente non a penna style ("improvised, not written down") only by harmonic considerations, Mattheson making the general comment that "order and constraint" are the antithesis of its aesthetic. The style is to be a vehicle for the spontaneous musical orator, who is exhorted by Mattheson to please, dazzle and astound his listeners. It is characterised by much freedom with respect to "beat and pitch," even though these, as Mattheson notes, may have previously been carefully committed to paper. The fantasist was to avoid developing a "regular" motive or melody and rather incorporate all sorts of strange musical detours and embellishments, the object of which were, to quote another of Mattheson's works, "the movement of the affections and the touching of the heart."4

How then, does a work like Rossi's Toccata prima (measures 1-8 of which are shown in Example 1) realise Mattheson's "rules"? The variety of styles encountered in this and other Rossi toccatas realise Mattheson's aesthetic of immediacy, in which a work's surface features are all-important. Rossi's multi-sectional pieces in the toccata genre constitute, in the words of Erich Valentin, a Mosaikform5, in which many musical patterns and procedures are juxtaposed to form a quasi-improvisatory whole. In the Toccata prima we can see the composer's penchant for distinct, non-interdependent sections, giving the impression of a constantly changing musical landscape in which no one idea is, to paraphrase Mattheson, properly "worked out." It is possible to divide the toccata into four main sections, namely measures 1-8, /9-22, 23-45, /46-53. After the typical chordal incipit, section one comprises an imitative-style passage based on an angular motive. Following this is a section that begins imitatively but quickly becomes much freer, with the introduction of a rising-scale figure in the left hand in measure 10 and the abrupt and almost arbitrary harmonic shift in measures 10-11 (Example 2). Such daring harmonic juxtapositions and rising-scale ideas in fast note values are most often associated with the free or "loosely pulsatile"6 sections of toccatas and in measures 15-16 the full rhetorical import of the section is most clearly captured in the dramatic drop in register from a≤ to d# (Example 3). After the cadence in measure 22 the third, fugato section begins. This is the most "clearly pulsatile"7 of the toccata's sections, there being no dissolution of the texture until measure 42. The fourth and final section, another imitative section, begins on the upbeat to measure 46 and here again there is a necessary constraint on pulse fluctuation.

Mattheson would clearly have been attracted to Rossi's work for many reasons. The division of the toccatas into discrete sections, with little recapitulation of previous material, affords the performer the opportunity to vary the pulse between and frequently even within sections, thus heightening the sense of drama. In the Toccata prima, with the exception of measures 23-42 and 46-52 where we find purely imitative writing, the term con discrezione could be used to describe the manner of playing throughout.8 The idea of not being tied to a pulse in the interest of expression had, of course, been discussed in Italian prefatory writings from the beginning of the seventeenth century, most notably in the preface to Le nuove musiche (1602) by Giulio Caccini (c1545-1618) and in Frescobaldi's preface to his first volume of toccatas (1615). Caccini's concept of sprezzatura, or "artful carelessness," despite its original association with vocal performance, can also be applied to keyboard music, while Frescobaldi's instruction to the player not to be subject to the beat ("non stare soggetto ?† battuta") has its roots in the affetti of the madrigal. To return to Mattheson, we can easily imagine the German theorist praising the Toccata prima of Rossi for its lack of "a regular principal motif and melody" as well as for its textural variety, with two-, three- and four-part writing throughout. Furthermore, he would have favored Rossi's arresting harmonic shifts in measures 7-8 and 10-11, with their potential to "astonish" the listener. Mention of the keyboard works of Rossi in the eleven-paragraph section devoted to a discussion of the fantastischer Styl in Der vollkommene Capellmeister is, therefore, wholly appropriate, given the dramatic nature of the Italian composer's toccatas. These "wordless madrigals" aptly illustrate Mattheson's concept of the stylus phantasticus, with its clear focus on histrionics.

Rossi's importance in the context of a discussion of the stylus phantasticus in the north German organ school is borne out on two main fronts. Firstly, research carried out by Alexander Silbiger and published in 1983 has suggested that we should view Rossi as a contemporary rival of Frescobaldi, rather than as a mere "emulator of the older master."9 The continued esteem in which Rossi's volume of Toccate e Correnti was held is evidenced by the fact that after its initial appearance, probably in the early 1630s, at least three further editions appeared over the next thirty years. Thus, by the beginning of the 1640s in Italy, Rossi's name as a composer of keyboard music was second only to that of Frescobaldi. It seems more than likely that if the older composer's publications were in circulation in the north German region during the seventeenth century that Rossi's keyboard music would have been known there also. Secondly, we know that one of the main bearers of Italian keyboard music to northern Europe, Froberger, was in Rome during the years 1637-1640/1 and in addition to his student-master relationship with Frescobaldi would undoubtedly have had some links with Rossi. Even more than Johann Kaspar Kerll (1627-1693) and Johann Philipp Krieger (1649-1725), two other prominent south German musicians who studied in Italy during the seventeenth century, Froberger was to influence free keyboard writing in north Germany.

As noted earlier, Mattheson praises Froberger as a "diligent fantasy maker" in his Capellmeister treatise, remarking that the Stuttgart-born composer "did much especially in this style of writing."10 He quotes what he believes to be the incipits of two works by Froberger for those of his readers who need written examples of pieces in the fantasy style. Neither of these two incipits appears, however, among Froberger's works. Mattheson's first example, the "beginning of a toccata by Froberger," has been shown by Kerala Snyder to be the opening three bars of Buxtehude's Phrygian praeludium BuxWV 152, as transmitted by the manuscript "E.B.-1688" held at Yale University.11 The second incipit, entitled "beginning of a fantasy by the same person," features a single rhapsodic melodic line as in Mattheson's first example. This, likewise, could not come from the toccatas or fantasias of Froberger, as the former always commence with a sustained chord and the latter with a line in long note values. It is possible, given the similarity of the two incipits, that the second example also originated in the north German region. Of further interest is the fact that the opening motif of the Buxtehude example also appears at the start of Froberger's Capriccio, FbWV 502, from the composer's Libro di Capricci e Ricercate of c1658.12 While it is impossible to ascertain whether or not the Phrygian praeludium of  Buxtehude was influenced by Froberger's capriccio, we have evidence to suggest that north German composers wrote parodies on Italianate works composed by south Germans. For example, Friedrich W. Riedel has pointed to the similarity between a fuga contained in Yale University New Haven manuscript LM 5056 (ascribed in that source to "P. Heidorn ?¢ Crempe") and Kerll's Canzona III.13

Apart from the existence of north German parodies on south German, Italian-influenced works, we know that one important conduit for the transmission of Italian influence to the north German region during the second half of the seventeenth century was the Thuringian-born organist and composer Matthias Weckmann (c1616-1674). Weckmann, appointed organist of the Jacobikirche in Hamburg in 1655 was an admirer of Froberger's music and gained a legendary reputation as both a composer and virtuoso performer. Educated in Dresden and Hamburg, Weckmann studied with, among others, Heinrich Sch?ºtz (1585-1672) and Jacob Praetorius II (1586-1651). While he was most probably introduced to Italian music by Sch?ºtz in Dresden, his later friendship with Froberger was undoubtedly an important factor in his becoming acquainted with Italian keyboard music. The bold and imaginative writing that characterizes Froberger's toccatas is found in Weckmann's works in the same genre, which were probably intended for harpsichord performance. These are among the most remarkable free works to come from seventeenth-century north Germany.

A brief comparison between compositional procedures in the toccatas of Froberger and Weckmann may serve to highlight their similarities. Both composers wrote pieces in each of the two toccata "formats" common in Italy during the seventeenth century, i.e., toccatas in free style throughout and those that contain distinct imitative sections in canzona style. If we examine Froberger's Toccata IV, FbWV104, from the Libro Secondo of 1649 we find an example of the latter toccata type, with free sections framing the fugal material. This work is in four sections (in Rampe's 1993 edition, measures 1-8; 9-15; 16-22; 23-29), section three being a re-working of the preceding fugal material in triple time. The opening "free" section  falls into two halves: measures 1-4 and 5-8 (Example 4). In the first subsection we hear a stepwise rising-fourth idea followed by a falling fourth and thirty-second-note figure. These together comprise the raw material from which this initial eight-measure section is fashioned. The texture of the first four bars has been aptly described by John Butt as that of "imitative homophony,"14 while in the second subsection the imitation (based on the rising fourth idea) and harmonic rhythm become more regular. The section as a whole illustrates Froberger's delight in obfuscating the listener with regard to the "free" and the fugal, in this case within the context of an "improvisatory" section. The two fugal sections that follow form the core of the toccata and each concludes with free material that alludes to the opening section (Examples 5a and 5b). From measure 23 to the end of the work further allusions, this time to material from both free and fugal sections, are heard. The resulting fusion of previously disparate elements achieves a resolution of the work's contrasting free and fugal material, culminating in a cascade of sixteenth-note motion in both hands.

Weckmann's compositional strategy in his Toccata vel praeludium Primi Toni is similar to that in Froberger's toccata. This Weckmann toccata is one of six works in the genre to appear in the 1991 Siegbert Rampe edition of the composer's free keyboard works. Here again we can break the work into four sections: an opening free section (ms.1-10); a fugal section (ms.10-20); a tripla section featuring a variant of the fugal theme (ms.21-27) and a concluding free section (ms.28-40). As in the Froberger toccata, imitation features much throughout the opening section, Weckmann also making use of an up-beat suspirans figure (Example 6). In measure 2, we again hear a stepwise rising fourth idea followed by a downward leap of a fourth, while in the tripla section  (ms. 24-25) and concluding free section, rising and falling fourths constitute much of the motivic fabric. Measures 30-33, in particular, feature figuration very similar to that heard in the second half of Froberger's opening free section (Example 7; cf. Example 4). Common to both pieces also is an unexpected twist to the minor, Froberger, for example, offering the listener what Mattheson might have considered a delightful instance of musical deception at the end of his toccata, where a flattened e# colors the final cadence in C major.

Weckmann's toccata in A minor represents one of the seventeenth-century's most "fantastic" works. It is an example of the toccata type that consisted entirely of free material. During the course of its 78 measures we encounter a kaleidoscopic variety of moods and figuration, yielding a work full of drama and contrasting Affekten. We can see from the outset that this work perfectly fulfils Mattheson's "rules" governing the fantastic style, with its "ingenious turns and embellishments . . . without close observation of the beat . . . without a regular principal motif and melody . . . sometimes fast sometimes slow . . . yet not without a view to pleasing, to dazzling and to astounding" (§92). Weckmann, in short, seeks to delight his listener throughout with the element of surprise and focuses on the toccata as a vehicle for demonstrating performance skill. Chordal passages such as those in measures 8-11, 14-20 and 34-38 alternate with passages featuring scurrying sixteenth notes that are sometimes broken off in mid-flight. These latter abruptio gestures, found in measures 4, 13 and 24, are also part of the musical and rhetorical vocabulary of the composer's toccata in D minor,15 which, again, is in free style throughout. The employment of this rhetorical device in these works was, no doubt, inspired by Froberger's use of similar dramatic gestures in his toccatas (e.g., the end of Toccata III in G, FbWV 103).

One would expect Weckmann's contemporary, Franz Tunder (1614-1667), to have been a key influence on the compositional style of Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707), given that Tunder was the younger composer's predecessor at L?ºbeck's Marienkirche. While Tunder's large-scale chorale fantasias are probably the better known of his fifteen surviving works for organ, his four complete praeludia constitute a significant development of the hitherto short, undemonstrative praeambula of Scheidemann. Each of these four, more extrovert Tunder praeludia begins with a monodic flourish, a new textural device in north German organ music. The concluding free sections of the same works also feature animated writing. Such beginnings and endings sparkle with the brilliance and spontaneity that Mattheson associated with the fantasy style and like similar passages in works by Buxtehude and other later north German composers, would appear to have their origin in improvisational practice. In addition to Tunder's four complete praeludia, there exists a five-and-a-half-measure fragment of a fifth praeludium by the composer, which is of particular interest (Example 8). Here we see perhaps the most striking passage in all of Tunder's praeludia, one that appears to herald a new stylistic departure. This fragment resembles very closely the energetic passages that typically open Buxtehude's works in the same genre. Equally dramatic double flourishes, for example, are heard at the outset of the praeludia in D minor, BuxWV 140 and G minor, BuxWV 148, the latter opening being perhaps the closest Buxtehudian parallel to Tunder's fragment (Example 9).

With the establishment of his "Stock Exchange" concerts around 1646, Tunder began to provide the L?ºbeck merchants with musical entertainment when they gathered at the Marienkirche before the opening of the outdoor Stock Exchange. Central to these concerts, no doubt, was Tunder's playing of his own works, probably in their nascent, improvised form. Just as a praeambulum or praeludium had been used as introductory service music, so the performance of such works at the beginning of one of these concerts would have been entirely appropriate. Tunder can be credited, therefore, with the raising of the praeludium genre to the level of art music, liberating it from its hitherto purely liturgical function.

Given the opportunity to develop Tunder's Marienkirche concert series with his Abendmusiken, it comes as no surprise that Buxtehude, more than any other composer of the period, developed the praeludium into a dramatic monolith. In so doing, he put the genre on an equal footing with chorale-based works, which had been greater in importance during the first half of the seventeenth century. Without doubt, Buxtehude was the most "diligent fantasy maker" of the north German Baroque. Both free and chorale-based organ works share in this accolade, as do the composer's sonatas, which, following the principle of contrasting sections, have formal structures similar to those of his twenty-two pedaliter praeludia. The praeludia may be commented upon from a variety of perspectives, as Kerala Snyder has shown,16 and despite its limited application, Mattheson's concept of the stylus phantasticus constitutes one "lens" through which we can view these works. The exuberance, drama and virtuosity associated with the free sections, as well as the constantly shifting textures, square perfectly with Mattheson's description of the style. Indeed those praeludia that favor free writing above fugal sections, like the F-sharp minor, BuxWV 146 and D major, BuxWV 139 exhibit Mattheson's concept most successfully. As much has been written about the "fantastic" nature of Buxtehude's F-sharp minor praeludium, a comment on the D major work as an expression of Mattheson's stylus phantasticus concept is merited. Containing only one fugue lasting 35 measures, BuxWV 139 has substantial opening and closing free sections of 20 and 41 measures respectively. Like the praeludium in F sharp minor, with its famous "recitative," the D major praeludium contains a decorated chordal interlude (measures 87-94) that introduces much harmonic color (Example 10). Other features shared by these two praeludia include the motoristic rhythms and an extended sequential passage, while the Peroratio of the D major work offers an example of the abruptio gesture (measure 103) typical of many of the praeludia which have a closing free section (Example 11).

Buxtehude's praeludia reveal both a skilled composer and an accomplished performer at work and could be said to represent a synthesis of the ideas of both Kircher and Mattheson regarding the "fantastic style." Most discussions of the concept of stylus phantasticus in relation to the composer's free organ works have nevertheless focused on Mattheson's description of the style in order to account for the inherent drama of these works. By exploring a middle way, however, a concept of "fantastic" that embraces Buxtehude the composer, skilled in learned counterpoint, and Buxtehude the accomplished performer, we can, perhaps, reconcile two concepts with very different emphases in one musical persona. Such a meeting of opposites can only do justice to the composer's multi-faceted praeludia.

It is also possible to discuss the "fantastic" elements in the free works of Buxtehude and other north German composers within the broader context of rhetorical analysis. According to the latter perspective, the late seventeenth-century north German praeludium may be regarded as a tightly organised work and an accomplished example of musical rhetoric in its fulfilment of even the minimal demands of a classical dispositio. An analytical approach to praeludia of the late seventeenth century based on one or more concepts of the stylus phantasticus need not omit a consideration of the structural sophistication and eloquent rhetoric that such works exhibit. The two approaches, that of a stylus phantasticus perspective and one based on rhetorical analysis, are complementary, if individually subjective and limited in their application. An analysis of, for example, Buxtehude's praeludia from the perspective of the stylus phantasticus is impoverished if it fails to draw on musical-rhetorical concepts and figures, using the template of rhetorical analysis to highlight the significance of each of the various sections within the context of a complete praeludium. A rhetorical analysis, on the other hand, which omits a consideration of the chameleon-like concept of stylus phantasticus is in danger of offering an assumed compositional "recipe," or to quote Mattheson, albeit out of context, "something . . . inflexible."17 Both forms of analysis focus on a work in relation to how it "speaks" to the listener, and on the composer's attempts to transform what is, in the case of a praeludium, wordless music into dramatic speech. While the alternating textures of a Buxtehude praeludium may indeed suggest a careful sequence reflecting the traditional parts of a classical oration (i.e., Exordium, Narratio, Confirmatio and Peroratio), we must be wary of assuming that the achievement of such a rhetorical sequence was foremost in the composer's mind. We are not on safe ground if, with reference only to Mattheson's concept, we try to play down the importance of the stylus phantasticus in such free works.

This article has concerned itself with following what could be termed the "fantastic thread" in the toccata genre from Italy, the origin of "diligent fantasy making" for Mattheson, through south Germany to northern Europe. We could say that the following of this thread to north Germany parallels an investigation of the progress of Italian influence in that region during the latter half of the seventeenth century.

Olga Savitskaya was born in Minsk (Belarus) and earned a Ph.D. with a specialty in musicology at the Belarusian State Conservatory, where she is now assistant professor and music theory chair. A member of the Belarusian Union of Composers, she lectures on harmony, form and analysis, and polyphony. Her research interests include instrumental music of baroque period, Belarusian symphonic music, and modern composition techniques. Her publications include many books and articles.

The end of the 17th century through the beginning of the 18th century was a period of development for the trio sonata and its two varieties: sonata da chiesa and sonata da camera. Being formed in the works of Corelli, “the typical form of a church sonata of four contrasting parts: Grave (homophonic or imitative, C), Allegro (treated fugally, C), Adagio (homophonic, 3/2), Allegro or Presto (treated fugally or homophonic, C or 3/2)”1 appeared to be one of the most universal and flexible formulas of musical-logical development of the large instrumental concept in the baroque period. Influenced by the principles of the cyclic organization of the church sonata, the structure of the violin solo sonata and the concerto grosso evolved. Thus, the musical-historical phenomenon of the church sonata appears in the combination of two aspects: 1) as a genre during the 17th and early 18th centuries, moving from the bounds of church music into the sphere of secular concert music; 2) as a type of the baroque large instrumental form whose organizational principles (primarily crystallized in the genre of a church trio sonata) were adapted and developed at the end of the 17th century through the first half of the 18th century.
The highest achievements in this sonata form are connected to the prominent masters—Corelli, Purcell, Couperin, Biber, Buxtehude, Bach, and Handel, etc.—whose works in many aspects have defined both the character of the baroque era as a whole, and the national and regional schools that developed in this period. The Italian sonata, embodied in the sonatas of Corelli, undoubtedly had a great influence on composers throughout Europe. But much more notable is finding the “national appearance” of the sonata in England, France, and Germany.
One of the high points in the history of this genre is seen in the 14 trio sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord of Dieterich Buxtehude, which were quite original when they were published in 1696.
The main features of Buxtehude’s sonatas are their general structure and non-specific number of movements, from three to seven. The sonata movements are mainly differentiated by tempo, style and degree of independence. The fantasy style of composition abounds in unexpected changes of rhythm, contrasted with strict fugues, improvisational interludes, and juxtapositions of different manners of writing. And though the contrast of polyphony and homophony as one of the basic traits of the sonata da chiesa retains its significance, fugues do not always take the central place. All this testifies to the fact that trio sonatas by Buxtehude are oriented not so much to the Corelli pattern, but to the German tradition of violin writing, where the principle of free thematic development and improvisational character of performing fuses with compositional techniques.
The fugues included in each of Buxtehude’s 14 sonatas are very different, ingenious, and exhibit the individual style of the composer, as well as a definite stage of evolution of this polyphonic form prior to the art of Bach.
The instrumental ensemble fugues reveal one of the bright sides of the complex, many-sided Buxtehude fugal style, which includes also his organ and vocal compositions. As V. Protopopov noted, their typical features are “vividness of themes, ease of motion, and a lack of concentrated philosophical musical images . . .”2 As a rule, the fugal subjects of trio sonatas are rather extensive, intonationally expressive, and based on the structure of core-development. The elements of dance music and style-intonation figures representing performing technique of stringed instruments give a special shape to them.
Two-voice fugues predominate, where the theme is expressed by solo instruments; the basso continuo functions as accompaniment (op. 1: no. 1 Presto, no. 3 Allegro, no. 5 Vivace, no. 6 Allegro; op. 2: no. 2 Allegro, no. 4 Allegro I, no. 5 Allegro I). However, three-voice fugues in which the harpsichord participates in concertante alongside the two soloists (op. 1: no. 1 Allegro; op. 2: no. 2 Vivace, no. 6 Vivace, Poco Presto, no. 7 Allegro) are also frequently used. In some cases three-voice fugues are used only in the exposition, subsequently replaced by two-voice fugues with accompaniment (op. 2: no. 1 Allegro).
According to the tradition of pre-Bach fugues, in Buxtehude’s trio sonatas the tonic-dominant alternation of subjects is mainly a result of the interchange of expositions and counter-expositions that becomes the basic structural characteristic. However, even in rather small and “simple” fugues, expansion of the texture and attention to the architectonical aspect of composition is obvious. An essential role belongs to episodes.
As an example we shall give the scheme of the three-voice fugue of the Sonata in F Major, op. 2, no. 7, Allegro I (Example 1). At the same time in trio sonatas of Buxtehude, fugues having two or three parts are also frequent. Such are the two-voice fugues of sonatas in C Major (op. 1, no. 5), E Minor (op. 1, no. 7), and A Minor (op. 1, no. 3).
All these examples show a definite development: from a fugue as the combination of expositions and counter-expositions by means of episodes to three-part fugue with functional differentiation of sections and exceeding the limits of tonic-dominant relations through modulation. Such development, which looks forward toward Bach’s fugues (especially chamber-instrumental), is not, however, the single one for Buxtehude.
The unrestrained imagination of the baroque artist and the aspiration to the new and unusual are manifested also in the interpretation of a fugue, resulting in expansion and complication of its structure and assimilation of the elements of other genres and forms. The structure and organizational logic of these Buxtehude fugues are not repeated, but as a whole one can see a similarity to his organ works, the successive line from which leads to grandiose Bach organ fugues. Let us examine specific examples.

Sonata in G Major (op. 1, no. 2)
Its structure emphasizes a cyclic three-part form, while the weakened role of polyphony and significant role of dance themes testify to the effect of an instrumental concerto. The principle of composition “in mixto genere” (in a mixed form) is in part I, the result of synthesis of two forms: a complex double fugue with a joint exposition and the concerto form.
Lively dance themes do not contrast but supplement each other in free development when complementary rhythms underline the linear independence of the voices, with homophonic duplication of the melodic motives in tenths and thirds. Development of themes in exposition and counter-exposition, which constitute a fugue itself, is divided by the episodes based on the new material in the manner of the homophonic ritornellos of the violin concerto. (Example 2)
In essence, in this work, and in the entire cycle, not only interaction of various musical forms takes place but also the more complicated synthesis of “the old” and “the new” genres: the church sonata, which has reached its full maturity, and the young instrumental concerto, which rapidly developed in Europe at the end of the 17th century.

Sonata in B Major (op. 1, no. 4)
Another combination features the interaction of a fugue and basso ostinato. In the Sonata in B Major (op. 1, no. 4) the element of ostinato seems “to be splashed out” outside of 32 variations of part I by subordinating a final fugue. In its middle section Buxtehude, being the master of musical rhetoric, specially combines two principles of organization—fugue and ostinato. At first the brief fugal subject is stated by the solo instruments. Then it dissolves in figurations, and its function in the thematic process temporarily transfers to the basso ostinato. The final section again affirms the fugue, but a reminiscence of the basso ostinato returns in the last bars of the coda.
The ostinato principle takes a special place in Buxtehude’s compositional technique. The German master’s adherence to ostinato seems to be consistent even against the background of its pervasive occurrence in music of the 17th century (perhaps only Purcell can be compared with him in this respect). Buxtehude makes use of basso ostinato in organ compositions: Chaconnes in C Minor (BuxWV 159), E Minor (BuxWV 160), Passacaglia in D Minor (BuxWV 161), Preludes in C Major (BuxWV 137) and G Minor (BuxWV 149); and in the cantatas Jesu dulcis memoria (BuxWV 57), Laudate pueri (BuxWV 69), Liebster, meine Seele saget (BuxWV 70), etc.
In the 14 trio sonatas, basso ostinato is almost as necessary as fugue (the ostinato is absent only in two sonatas). Its various forms can be divided into two groups—the less numerous so-called arias for basso-ostinato (Strophenbas arie), and the basic group, consisting of basso-ostinato forms of passacaglia type.
Basso ostinato is employed in lively (op. 2, no. 3 Vivace) and slow (op. 2, no. 3 Andante), outside (op. 2, no. 6 Allegro) and middle (op. 1, no. 1 Andante) movements. In some sonatas (op. 1, no. 4; op. 2, no. 5), the basso ostinato principle appears to be the predominant compositional idea and is implemented under different tempo and texture conditions.
A variety of basso ostinato uses derives from the character and structure of ostinato themes and the whole ostinato layer of basso continuo, thematic peculiarities of the high voices, structural-semantic interaction of the ostinato and upper voices, and, lastly, inclination to this or that type of composition—closed, precisely structured or free, and contrasting-compound.
At the same time all of these serve as the concentrated expression of the musical thinking of the composer. Thus, a fugue and a basso ostinato are the dominant constants of Buxtehude’s trio sonatas. The presence of a fugue is proof of observance of the major genre standards of sonata da chiesa, whereas the constancy and skilfulness of use of basso ostinato in the greater extent reflect the individual principles typical of Buxtehude’s style, which was based on the North-German tradition.

Other elements in Buxtehude’s trio sonatas
Other movements illustrate an extremely wide spectrum of genre, composition, and textural-timbral combinations. It is difficult and hardly reasonable to generalize the principles of cyclic organization in Buxtehude’s sonatas. The architectonics of any of them do not repeat exactly in any other, and each composition demands analysis of its individual logic. Besides a fugue and ostinato variations, these are small, without reprise, strophic, general and mixed forms. Among genre prototypes and patterns one finds the jig, chaconne, “echo,” chorale prelude, dialogue, toccata, “signal trumpet,” etc. The “formulas of imagination” acquire special significance, these indispensable attributes of improvisational style—passages, recitatives, arpeggio—creating, according to M. Lobanova, the “illusory, imaginary disorder” or the “intense pathetic development.”3 The sonatas combine genres, styles, affects and rhetorical figures.
In this “game of senses” the important role belongs to the thematic ties within the cycle. Strictly speaking, such ties characterize the sonata da chiesa, with its origins in the mono-thematic, multi-part canzona. But that sequence and ingenuity with which the thematic unity is realized in the sonatas of Buxtehude testifies that its role by no means is restricted to ensuring formal compositional integrity but acquires a distinct symbolic sense. Here it is reasonable to appeal to one of the central concepts of the baroque poetics being defined as the “witty conception.” The delicate, veiled differentiation of the themes in different parts of the cycle acts as a manifestation of baroque “wit,” whose purpose seems to display the obvious or hidden similarity, in what seemed to be on the surface, completely unrelated.

Sonata in C Major (op. 1, no. 5)
One of the instances is the Sonata in C Major, op. 1, no. 5. In this four-part cycle the first and the final fugues symmetrically frame the contrasting middle parts—an aria of a solo violin with a bass, and an ensemble jig (Vivace–Violino Solo; Allegro–Largo; Allegro–Adagio; Allegro).
Fugues are connected tonally. The source of their common material is the initial subject. Their motives and submotives, like the elements of a mosaic, are easily combined and rearranged to form new thematic configurations. The initial sections and the end of the final fugue are especially distinguished, serving to express a rhetorical idea of “connection,” the “concatenation” known under the name of symploce, or repetition (see Example 3).
The middle parts are also connected thematically: the motive of the second strophe of the aria with bass is unexpectedly “recalled” in the theme Allegro (Example 4). Finally, all thematic material of the sonata reveals as its basis a uniform intonational pulse, active, exclamatory (exclamatio) fourth (fifth) interval motion, a sort of the “intonational monad” as an indivisible core encompassing the whole world in it.

Sonata in A Minor (op. 1, no. 3)
The other example of thematic ties is found in the Sonata in A minor, op. 1, no. 3. The general idea is disclosed gradually, from movement to movement, revealing a semantic potential concealed within it.
In the melodic lines of the Adagio gradual downward motion (f-e-d-c-b-a-g#-a) covering a diatonic hexachord with adjoining introductory material is “summarized” by compact expressive formula saltus duriusculus (f-g#-a) (see Example 5a). Both elements are marked also in the themes of the Allegro: in the capacity of one of the motives of the fugue subject (hexachord by parallel sixths) and as the hidden voice of counter-subject (f-e-d-c-g#-a) (Example 5b). Further, the diatonic hexachord (including that which has been expressed by parallel sixths) becomes the thematic basis of the Vivace. Supplemented up to heptatonic, it is continuously exhibited in different voices, like a migrating cantus firmus in a chorale prelude (similar to its textual coincidence with the final phrase of Buxtehude’s organ chorale variations Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223) (Example 5c). Descending scale-like motion is retained in the finale (Presto), but already against a background, not in the parts of melodic instruments but in the basso continuo. The most characteristic baroque style figure—passus duriusculus, appearing in slow modulation binding sections (Lento, Largo) as ascending and descending pieces of a chromatic scale—is brought to the forefront. Only in the final Lento is the semantic orientation of the general thematic process “explained.” The descending chromatic motion, trebled by imitations that embrace all verticals of the ensemble compass and saturated with rhetorical figures of grief (catabasis, passus duriusculus, catachresis, parrhesia), closes the sonata. (Example 5d)

Conclusion
Dieterich Buxtehude’s trio sonatas are among the high points in the history of the genre. Standing out against the background of the rich tradition of ensemble music at the end of the 17th–beginning of the 18th century, they testify to the exclusive originality of the North German model of the baroque sonata. Created in the period of, probably, the greatest “purity” of the style, the sonatas of Buxtehude embody the baroque world image itself—which has lost its Renaissance integrity, being woven of “incongruous combinations” of contrasts opening into infinity by the kaleidoscopic unsteadiness of existence and at the same time blessed by the supreme harmony of all-reconciling unanimity. ■

Gary Verkade is an influential and sought after interpreter of new music throughout Europe and the United States in addition to his established reputation as an analyst and performer of the traditional literature. His extensive experience with music of past eras has led to the publication of essays and articles on a variety of subjects relating to organ performance, early music performance practice, and composition. An organist, composer, and co-founder of the Essen, Germany-based improvisation ensemble SYNTHESE, he has been a leader in bringing forth serious new music for the organ, commissioning new works and working in a collaborative capacity with several well-known composers. He has a particular interest in performing music for organ and electronics. Verkade’s own compositions range among music for organ, electronics, chamber and improvisation ensembles. As a player of improvised music, he has worked together with dancers, photographers and painters, on projects that bring the arts together in a complementary and fructuous manner. Dr. Verkade has been on the faculty of the Musikögskolan i Piteå, Sweden since 2000 as Professor of Organ. He has recorded with the Innova and Mode labels, most recently Winded, an album of works for organ and electronics, and Luciano Berio’s “Fa-Si” on Berio: The Complete Sequenzas, Alternate Sequenzas & Works for Solo Instruments, a collection of performances by the premier contemporary interpreters of new music.

Motto

The noblest desire, the desire to know, imposes on us the duty to investigate.
--Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre (Vienna, 1922)

Beginnings
Composition is the science of putting together consonance and dissonance in such a way that good counterpoint occurs.
Form consists in the artful variety and combination of such consonance and dissonance, in other words in the observation of the general and special rules of counterpoint, so that according to different usage and natural effect it happens that one composition is good, whereas another is better, pleasing the listener more and making its author famous.
--Christoph Bernhard, Tractatus compositionis augmentatus (Dresden, after 1657)

Yes, I readily admit that the rules are to some extent useless and unnecessary. However one sees how carefully they have been used in building harmony. And therefore the ignoramus should not fancy that it makes no difference and one can compose what his fantasy dictates. Oh, no!
--Andreas Werckmeister, Cribrum Musicum (Quedlinburg, 1700)

In sum: the work must be so rich that one must wonder in the extreme, and would have to be an idiot or an atheist (o, the poor, stubborn hearts), who would not be therefore moved to praise the creator.
--Andreas Werckmeister, Harmonologia Musica (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1702)

Music is a heavenly-philosophical science, especially grounded in mathematics, which deals with sonority insofar as it produces concurrence and good and artful harmony.
--Johann Gottfried Walther, Praecepta der Musicalischen Composition (1708)

It must be looked into what art in music actually is. In my opinion it is as follows: through the use of harmony to awaken in the minds (Gemütern) of man a variety of emotions and, at the same time, through such orderly and sensible harmony to delight the understanding of connoisseurs.
--Georg Philipp Telemann

My goal has been to remind those who want to study music that they cannot get very far in this inexhaustible science without great effort.
--Georg Philipp Telemann, Letter to Johann Mattheson (1718)

All sciences and arts are bound together into a circle by a linked chain. Whoever understands only his own craft, understands nothing; rather, he is a pedant . . . .
--Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739)

Introduction
In the Introduction of the new critical edition of Dieterich Buxtehude’s keyboard music, Christoph Wolff writes: “To a considerable extent, Buxtehude’s position in the history of music has been defined by his extraordinary reputation as an organist and by the widespread and continued popularity of his organ compositions.” Wolff continues to explain that Buxtehude’s reputation is based primarily on the free works, the Praeludia, especially those which are pedaliter. I, on the other hand, wish to spend some time with chorale-based works, in particular the chorale prelude Vater unser im Himmelreich, and I will endeavor to demonstrate that Buxtehude’s reputation as a master of organ music could rest on the chorale-based repertoire equally well. I will take as my starting point an historical perspective. I will attempt to listen to this composition with the ears of Buxtehude; in other words, I will keep in mind Baroque, especially German Baroque musical theory and practice.
Peter Reichert, in his article “Musikalische Rhetorik in den Choralvorspielen von Dietrich Buxtehude,” makes the point that our understanding of the chorale-based works by Buxtehude is colored by how much we do not understand about the musical tradition out of which these works arise. He states: “Our pleasure in listening to this music has become, so to speak, a purely culinary one in that we find delight in the beautiful appearance, the surface of the music . . . To the extent that real understanding of the inner content of this music has disappeared, we have devoted ourselves to the sonority of the music, the outer clothing as it were, taking care of the façade of a deserted building.” All those who believe along with the musicians of the Baroque that music is a discipline from which one can both learn and derive pleasure, must ask, along with me: What is there to hear in this composition? In other words: What is there to learn here, what is present here to enrich my experience?
The answers to these questions are, and to a certain extent can only be, personal. However, there is no doubt that some of what I hope to convey here has relevance to others. I would like to concentrate on two specific aspects of the composition, especially: 1) the harmonic and contrapuntal aspect and 2) the relationship of the music to the text and the chorale. It is clear that a composition based on a particular melody and a particular text concerns itself with both that melody and that text. So therefore the two aspects just mentioned are really one. The composition as a whole, the form and the details, will indeed be Buxtehude’s interpretation of that melody and text, expressed harmonically and contrapuntally, musically, which we, in turn, as players, perform at the organ. In order to adequately and appropriately perform we need to hear our way into music which is so far removed from us in time. The fact that this music may in some sense be familiar to us doesn’t necessarily mean that we automatically know what is going on. Familiarity does not necessarily breed understanding. What is it about familiar music, and what is it about unfamiliar music that is unique, unusual? Is there anything in Buxtehude’s composition which awakens our curiosity, strikes us as unexpected? These are the things from which we can learn. What is unusual about Vater unser im Himmelreich, both in the detail and in the form?
The following notes on Vater unser im Himmelreich do not intend to be exhaustive. I have chosen to consider what I deem to be essential to an understanding of the piece as a performer. Many interesting details regarding counterpoint, the handling of dissonance, rhythmic matters, variety in the composition of diminutions and ornaments, etc. have been consciously omitted.
In order to begin, we must attempt to review some history. For learning how to listen to Buxtehude by coming from today and moving back in time to Buxtehude’s day will not reveal to us the interesting and unusual aspects of his compositions. We must start before Buxtehude and move towards him chronologically.

Style
First, let us look at a simple, four-voiced arrangement of the chorale. The harmonization is taken from the chorale prelude itself, distilled out of the richer composition, reduced to the bare essentials. (Example 1) This is one possible harmonization of the chorale, written in a style reminiscent of the chorales found in Samuel Scheidt’s Görlitzer Tabulaturbuch of 1650, though still simpler, in fact positively boring. Yet, it might be suitable as a simple accompaniment to congregational singing.
Buxtehude’s chorale prelude is much more complicated. For example, it has interludes between the chorale phrases that employ imitation. The second example I would like to present consists of the previous simple setting enriched with interludes. However, these interludes are not given as found in Buxtehude, but are likewise distilled out of what is found there. It is again a simplified version—much simplified, though more complex than the preceding example. The harmony is basically the same, but now employs some passing tones and some suspensions in keeping with the simple style. None of the interesting figures, the daring voice leading, or the liberal dissonances of the original are used. In other words, there is no art here. (Example 2)
Playing and listening to these simplified versions of Buxtehude’s work serves to sensitize our ears to hear the art in Vater unser im Himmelreich and to make clear to us why these pieces are so worthy of study. Let us now turn to the chorale prelude itself.

Phrase One (Example 3)
The first thing to notice is that the piece begins with one single voice, a1. The other voices are heard throughout the rest of measure one, but again in the second measure the a1 is heard alone again. This accents those two notes which, significantly, belong to the word Vater, thus accenting that word. We must remember that anyone listening to works of this type in the Baroque knew the chorales they were based upon, not only the melodies, but also the texts. In fact, in chorales such as Vater unser im Himmelreich, i.e., chorales associated with only one particular melody, I think we can be reasonably sure that the melody was 1) recognizable if not too heavily ornamented and 2) the recognized melody automatically called to mind the associated text. That a single note begins this piece is significant for another reason. The single note, the unison, is the unitas, or “one.” In the Baroque, one was not considered to be a number, but was rather the beginning, the source of all number. The unitas was, of course, God, the Father.
The rest in the manuals and pedal is known as an aposiopesis, or abruptio, signifying the more or less abrupt cessation of a musical thought. This is most clearly seen in the pedal, where the typical cadential motive is missing its final note, namely a d on the first beat of measure 2. The motive and the harmony break off suddenly, leaving the a1 in the soprano to carry all of the weight of what is missing on beat one of measure two. In addition, the pedal, when it reenters, late, on beat two, in measure two, still does not bring the expected d, but rather enters on c-sharp. We hear, not the expected d-minor, but an A-major chord in first inversion, a chord that in the Baroque was considered to be particularly expressive.
The pedal continues with a figure known as passus duriusculus, or “a difficult step,” the chromatic sequence of notes: c-sharp, d, c-natural, B-flat. Shortly after the end of the passus duriusculus the alto voice has a quarter note a, which is tied over to the longer half note a in the following measure. This tying of a shorter note to a longer one goes against the rules of counterpoint and is known as a prolongatio. If one hears this note as occurring too soon and sounding too long, it has the effect of slowing down the music. Coupled with the word “Himmelreich” it could be a reference to the concept of eternity, which lasts a longer time than the imagination can fathom.
This happens just before the climax of the first phrase, the second half of measure four. There we find a parrhesia, “liberty of speech,” “candidness,” also known as licentia, “licence.” Traditional theory tells us that the e1 in the soprano is a dissonant note over a g-minor chord. In fact, however, the e1 is definitely consonant: it is the cantus firmus, which is the measure of all things consonant and dissonant. And, indeed, the A-major chord on beat four of that measure acts as a resolution of the preceding dissonance, the c-sharp (tenor) and e1 (soprano) of which, in turn, conclude the cadence on the first beat of the following measure. Before that happens, the tenor note, d, is repeated, emphasized, a reduplicatio: the repetition of a dissonant note. The entire first phrase, beginning with the emphasis on the word Vater, moves towards this goal: the great tension found in measure four and its resolution in measure five. It is indeed a whole phrase and must be played as such.

Phrase Two (Example 4)
With the upbeat to measure six an interlude or, more properly, a prelude to the second phrase of the chorale begins. It is a short fugal introduction, using strict imitation of a motive directly derived from the second chorale phrase, called a fuga realis, of which there are countless examples in Baroque organ literature. This kind of fugal writing is, in other words, the usual case, the norm. The chorale enters with the upbeat to measure eight. With the movement to g1 in measure eight, the chorale leaps up an entire octave to g2. This figure is the hyperbaton, the ascent of a voice out of its normal range. First and foremost, g1 is the chorale tone, not g2. Second, and as important, the leap up of an octave causes a second figure to occur, that of the longinqua distancia, in traditional counterpoint the forbidden separation of upper voices beyond that of an octave, here: d1–g2. Third, the g2 is found outside the staff of the soprano clef, middle c on the bottom line, very often used at this time. J. S. Bach still used the soprano clef for the notation of the Orgelbüchlein. Whether or not Buxtehude used this form of notation in his original manuscript does not change the fact that composers much before him and after him used those clefs in the notation of polyphonic music in Germany and elsewhere. One way or another Buxtehude knew that g2 was out of the traditional range of the soprano voice, which went from b-flat to e2, the range of the soprano clef without the use of ledger lines above or below the staff.
From the high g2 the line descends through the rest of that measure and the next, a catabasis. The pedal line descends also, from the beginning of measure nine through the end of the phrase, a catabasis spanning exactly the interval of an octave. The soprano descends just over the span of the octave. The tenor descends also, beginning in the middle of measure nine to the middle of measure ten. This explains the ellipsis, the lack of something necessary, found in those measures: the alto voice drops out. It is at this point more important for the alto voice to rest than for the polyphony to continue in four voices. Descending music in four voices is awkward to write. It is much more elegant to do it in three voices—which Buxtehude chooses to do here. He draws attention to this fact by allowing the alto to re-enter in measure ten with a dissonance, a cercar della nota, the entrance of a voice one step below the one that is consonant and meant. The soprano and bass voices, descending together in tenths in measure 9, form the figure of the gradatio. Although not defined identically by many authors, the gradatio is understood here to be the parallel movement between two voices.
The hyperbaton in connection with the longinqua distancia and the catabasis in the pedal are the principal carriers of musical meaning in this phrase. The hyperbaton / longinqua distancia, right at the words du and uns, meaning “you” (God) and “us” (mankind), with the emphasis on the great separation (an eleventh), points out with poignancy the space, both spiritual and physical, separating the Godhead from humankind. After the octave leap up, the soprano must descend. The situation is different in the pedal: there is no musical reason for the pedal to descend the octave a to A here. A different pedal line is certainly conceivable just as there is no necessity dictating that the soprano must leap up to g2. These are choices Buxtehude made, recognizable ones. The octave represents the entire gamut of music (the hyperbaton belongs here also): there are no notes that exist that are not found within its confines. The pedal catabasis begins at the word alle, “all,” a fitting representation of that important word. Or better: it is the word Buxtehude has interpreted as important in this phrase, that and the contrast of du and uns.

Phrase Three (Example 5)
Phrase three of the chorale is also introduced by a fuga realis based on the first part of that phrase. The motive is reworked to form a passus duriusculus, which is used throughout the entire chorale phrase. One observes it, somewhat modified in the alto voice in measure 15 and 16 as well as in the pedal in measure 16. The alto in the first part of measure 17 brings the related figure, like an intensification, of the saltus duriusculus, or difficult leap. Interestingly, the chorale itself, in the soprano, appears as a changed version of the fugal theme, as it takes over the chromaticism of the fuga realis motive with the c-sharp2 in measure 14. This is a polyptoton, a changed repetition of a theme, though compositionally the theme or motive has its origin in the chorale melody. Significantly, the chromaticism occurs just at the point the text speaks of being brothers (Brüder sein)—according to the musical interpretation of this (according to Buxtehude, if you will), evidently a difficult undertaking. However, it could also refer to the difficulty of “dich rufen an,” or in general be understood as a reference to prayer as lamentation.
The chorale melody has an extensio, the extension of a note beyond its expected length, on the word dich, “you,” referring to God, giving that word emphasis. Dich ru-fen an now has the rhythm: half note tied to quarter note–quarter note–eighth note–whole note, a syncopatio, or syncopation. The tenor voice is silent throughout most of the phrase, a very long ellipsis. And when the pedal is silent on the third beat of measure 15, the word dich receives an additional accent through the unusual texture, which is suddenly reduced to only two voices. The ellipsis in the tenor allows Buxtehude to make the three remaining voices as like each other as possible while still retaining the melody/accompaniment texture. The phrase ends with a pathopoeia, another chromatically altered note (f-sharp instead of f-natural).

Phrase Four (Example 6)
The prelude to the fourth chorale phrase is not a fuga realis although it utilizes imitation (each entrance an imitatio). The motive, drawn from the last few notes of the chorale phrase, is thrown from voice to voice: bass (m. 17), alto (m. 18), tenor (m. 19), alto (m. 20), tenor (m. 21), soprano (m. 22). However, the organization of this chorale phrase is the strictest yet. The text, und willst das Beten von uns han (literally: and wants prayer from us), expresses the will of God through the word “want,” which in German comes from the same word as “will.” It is God’s will that we pray to him. God’s will is, of course, a command, the law.
This will, this law of God, is expressed, not atypically for the era, through a fuga imaginaria, a specious, fictitious, or imaginary fugue: here, a canon. There is a strict canon between the pedal, which enters first, with the upbeat to measure 19, and the soprano, on the third beat of measure 20. The last notes of the soprano are ornamented using the motive first heard in measure 17. However, there is also a third voice to the canon hidden in the tenor which is unable to quite finish before the end of the chorale phrase. If the imitative motive is reduced to its principal notes, the three-part canon can be clearly seen. (Example 7)
The attention of the listener is drawn particularly to the strong cadence at the end of this phrase. It is the phrase in which the naming of God, through the use of attributes, comes to an end. The actual petition has yet to come. The b-natural1, tied into measure 22, is not properly resolved. Only through licence, catachresis, the leap first to e1, does the dissonance reach a1. The other voices are silent for a moment, aposiopesis, before the cadence on A follows in four voices.

Phrase Five (Example 8)
The next chorale phrase is introduced again by a fuga realis, though here not immediately recognizable due to the mistakenly printed e1 instead of the g1, which is demanded by the conception of the piece. (This realization I owe to Gerd Zacher.) Such mistakes of a third were often made; one needs only to consult the critical apparatus of any number of publications of Baroque keyboard music. The g1 is a dissonance, in fact a saltus duriusculus (a difficult leap, coming from c-sharp1) and a heterolepsis (a note that could come from another voice as passing tone, i.e., coming from the soprano a1). This phrase deals with the petition of the verse, “grant that the mouth not pray alone, help that it come from the depths of the heart.” It begins in this serious manner, the alto voice leaping up close to and sounding a dissonant g1 against the a1 of the cantus firmus in the soprano.
These measures are ruled by the syncopatio in the pedal (mm. 25–26), the ellipsis in the tenor (mm. 27–29), and the catachresis (m. 28). The syncopatio, with its attendant dissonances, encumbers the phrase somewhat, keeping it from getting underway, perhaps pointing out the difficulty of both the petition and the act of petitioning. The first point of relative rest and first real accent after the melody enters is the downbeat of measure 27, on the word bet’ (pray). The words allein der Mund are set in relief in two ways. First the catachresis occurs in conjunction with the passus duriusculus in the pedal: the licence used in handling the dissonances, a1 in the soprano against B-flat in the pedal resolving to the dissonant chord B-natural, e1, g1 on beat two. Second, the ellipsis in the tenor allows Buxtehude to make the cadence on F in three voices, all of which sound the tone F to the exclusion of all else: a musical picture of allein der Mund, “the mouth alone.”

Phrase Six (Example 9)
The prelude to the last chorale phrase is marked by imitation at the fifth between tenor and bass, the normal case in the fuga realis. The alto voice, however, does not participate in the imitation. It begins in parallel thirds (a gradatio) with the tenor and then goes parallel to the bass voice. It is a voice that helps out in the texture. What better picture could there be for the first word of the phrase: hilf’.
The use of musical-rhetorical figures in the music of the North Germans during the Baroque has been established without a doubt, as well as the use of specific forms and compositional techniques based on the expression of text. Connecting specific contrapuntal devices to expression is certainly not unprecedented in Buxtehude. As one example, in Komm, heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BuxWV 200, Buxtehude employs no vorimitation at all, except preceding the sixth phrase: zu dem Glauben versammelt hast (gathered to the faith). Here Buxtehude composes a fuga realis, which, though it is the normal, preferred method of contrapuntal composition in general, plays the role of the unusual at this point, the exceptional, because it is the only case of such imitation in the entire chorale prelude, and thus receives expressive significance. Here, the gathering of the voices in the fuga realis, first one voice, then a second voice, then the third, is a musical picture of the gathering of the believers (German: versammeln).
This sixth phrase has the most ornamented melody of the piece and is governed by the hyperbole (descending into the range of a lower voice) in the soprano, the abruptio in alto, tenor and bass, the parrhesia on beat four of measure 33, and the circulatio (circular figure) in the soprano in measure 34. The word geh’ (go) is expressed by fast notes including the fastest of the piece (32nds) which descend into the alto and tenor range of the voice: Herzensgrund, depths of the heart. The entrance of the unprepared dissonant chord on beat four (parrhesia) underscores the difficulty of the entire procedure. The circulatio is an unambiguous depiction of the heart, the center of the circulatory system, described by William Harvey in 1628 in his famous book “On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals,” a book about which Buxtehude must have known. The phrase ends with a pathopoeia: f-sharp instead of f-natural, a tone filled with passion “which cannot fail to move the listener” (Burmeister, 1599).

Cadences
It is important for the interpretation of this work to note the various ways Buxtehude deals with the cadences. The cadence in four voices at the end of phrase one is marked by the soprano and tenor: e1 makes tenor d dissonant, which moves to c-sharp, then d1 (soprano) and d (tenor). At the end of phrase two we find the a-mi cadence in four voices, i.e., a Phrygian cadence on a1—A is treated as E would be in modes 3 and 4—formed between the soprano and the bass. Phrase three ends with a cadence in three voices on d2 (soprano) with f-sharp instead of f-natural (pathopoeia), by which the bass note d is missing during the first moment. At the end of phrase four the soprano and the tenor again make the cadence in four voices, this time on A: tenor b making soprano a1 dissonant, which moves to g-sharp1, then a1 (soprano) and a (tenor). Phrase five ends with a cadence in three voices on F, supplying the third scale degree in the cadence scheme: d, a, and now f of the d-minor triad. Phrase six ends in four voices with a cadence formed again by soprano and tenor using the same basic scheme as the cadence at the end of phrase one, but this time utilizing more ornamentation. Here, as opposed to phrase one, the pedal has the root of the chord from the beginning and, different from phrase one, the alto voice has f-sharp instead of f-natural (pathopoeia). Each cadence is audibly different and the performance of each demands of the player a sensibility that takes this into account.

Coda (Example 10)
The work ends with one of Buxtehude’s characteristic codas: a florid melody line over a pedal point. This coda is, in effect, an ornamentation of the final chord. It has, however, its own expression not unrelated to the chorale text. In my opinion it is not the leap of an octave in the soprano voice at the beginning of measure 35 that symbolizes the rising of prayer to heaven. Nor is it the rising scale passage in the second half of measure 36, for both figures are followed by descents. One needs to see, and to hear, that the passage as a whole rises (anabasis): in the soprano first from d1 to d2, followed by a descent to f-sharp1, followed by another rise to a2, and followed again by a descent to d2. The ascending passages win over the descending passages: it ends higher than it began. This is, in fact, true of all of the voices except for the pedal. Both alto and tenor voices ascend farther than they descend over the space of those three measures. A number of the musical-rhetorical figures found in this chorale prelude are found in the final three measures including the hyperbaton, the longinqua distancia, the parrhesia, and the passus duriusculus. It is a succinct and effective summary of the work. The pedal anchors all, the low note, the one that hasn’t been heard since measure 5 and has been all but forgotten, perhaps the depths of the heart (from which prayer comes), perhaps simply pedal point and tonic note, the longest note of the composition.

Performance
The purpose here is not to go into basic performance techniques of North German Baroque music or Buxtehude in particular. That is a given regarding playing this music at all. Beyond that, the player must understand that proper Baroque playing technique is not enough. The fact must be taken into consideration that at no level of the composition does Buxtehude simply “write music.” Therefore the player cannot “simply play” the music. Compositional decisions were made on the basis of the chorale text, both on the local level of single notes and words, as well as on a more global level of form and compositional techniques. The text is the source of a great number of the musical ideas found here. Therefore performance decisions must be made with an ear towards the audibility of these musical features.
The registration cannot be simply “melody and accompaniment”, i.e., forte – mezzo piano. The melody must be clearly melody, yet the accompaniment must not be relegated to the background. The alto, tenor and bass voices simply have too much to express. The possibilities are otherwise almost endless, given this basic premise of the equality of importance of melody and accompaniment.
Tempo must be flexible. Buxtehude took the words of the text into careful consideration—the soprano is, in a very real sense, a sung musical line. Or better: it is the spoken oration, the declamation and, at the same time, an exegesis of the text. One must be able to linger on the words (= musical ideas) Buxtehude considers important.
Perhaps performance cannot pay attention to every detail found in this piece or any other. There is so much to which to listen in this very short composition that there is a real danger of becoming bogged down with details. And maybe from day to day one’s ear is drawn to different aspects of the composition. However, a performance that takes no notice at all of any of the richness found here is inadequate. Important aspects of the composition, aspects that can only be approached first rationally through knowledge of the text and not purely aesthetically (i.e., aurally), should not be ignored. In fact, performance in the Baroque belongs to the rational ordering of music in general. The pronunciatio, or delivery, is the final part of musica rhetorica. Without an adequate delivery, even the best music will fail to produce an effect in the listener. Without some rational thought, which I would like to call practice, some passages will not be recognized as unusual, there will be no contour, no shape to the composition, because these passages will never be heard. Frescobaldi admonishes: “ . . . one should endeavor in the first place to discover the character of the passages, the tonal effect intended by the composer, and the desired manner of performance . . . ” (italics are mine).
Performance is perspective, a way of listening. Performance is understanding, not interpretation. And yet, performance is individual. I would like to close with a remark by Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht made at the end of “Mythos Bach,” found in his book Geheimnis Bach. I will only substitute, for the word Bach, the word Buxtehude. “Understanding needs perspective, calls for the Ego. In other words, in speaking about Buxtehude, be it ever so scientific, we speak also about ourselves because understanding cannot exist without the Subject, without the Ego, and concerning Buxtehude we are called again and again to find a perspective, while at the same time attempting to find ourselves.”■

This article was first published as a chapter in the book Horizonte des Hörens Gerd Zacher, ed. Matthias Geuting (ISBN 3-89727-322-5, ISBN 978-3-89727-322-1, PFAU-Verlag, 2006), pp. 245–258.

Enrique Alberto Arias holds a PhD in music history and literature from Northwestern University. He is currently associate professor in the School for New Learning at DePaul University, Chicago. In addition, he is president of Ars Musica Chicago.

Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863-1943), the distinguished organist and composer, is a name found frequently in the earlier issues of The Diapason.1 The present article will consider his Kontrapunktische Symphonie über Themen von Joh. Seb. Bach. In addition to the discussion of this great and complex work, Middelschulte's connections to Ferruccio Busoni and Bernhard Ziehn will be explored as well as Middelschulte's position within the so-called Chicago "Gothic" school.

Biography

Middelschulte was born in Heeren Werve, near Dortmund, Germany on 3 April 1863. He received a good part of his musical education at the Royal Academy of Church Music in Berlin, where he studied with Haupt, Loeschern, Alsleben, Commer (editor of the series of early music entitled Musica Sacra), and Schröder. He also studied with August Knabe in Soest, who considered Middelschulte his most famous student. Knabe also seems to have instilled Middelschulte's profound veneration of Bach. Middelschulte is often said to have been Haupt's last student and to have functioned as his assistant. Carl August Haupt (1810-91) was a distinguished organist who participated in the Bach revival of the 19th century; thus these years of study with Haupt also formed many of the features of Middelschulte's career. Middelschulte became Haupt's assistant and later was the organist and choirmaster of the St. Lucas Church in Berlin.

In 1891, Middelschulte came to Chicago, where he served as the organist at Holy Name Cathedral, a position he held until 1895. During this time he studied with the theorist and composer Bernhard Ziehn (1845-1912), who, as we shall later see, deeply influenced Middelschulte's musical style. In 1893, Middelschulte gave a series of recitals for the Columbian Exposition. He also held organist positions at St. James Catholic Church in Chicago and the K.A.M. Temple. In 1894, Middelschulte became organist for the Theodore Thomas Orchestra (later, Chicago Symphony Orchestra), a position held until 1918, when the anti-German sentiments of the First World War caused him to leave this post. An indication of the honor in which he was held was that he played for both the memorial services of Emperor Frederick III in Germany and for Theodore Thomas.2

During these years he taught at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, the Wisconsin Conservatory, and the Detroit Conservatory of Music (originally known as the Foundation Music School). According to Hans Joachim Moser, Middelschulte was at the American Conservatory from 1891 to 1918, but in fact he was at the Conservatory until 1936.3 He is listed on the faculty of the conservatory until the fall of 1936, and in 1932 he took the place of Adolf Weidig, who had died in 1931, as a leading member of the theory department in addition to his position in the organ department. In 1922, he received an honorary LL.D. degree from Notre Dame University, where he regularly gave summer classes in organ. By this time Middelschulte was Chicago's major organist and an important composer of works for organ. In 1939, Middelschulte returned to Germany, just before the outbreak of World War II. During the last few years of his life, Middelschulte lived in Switzerland and Italy because of declining health. He died in Dortmund, Germany on 4 May 1943 of a heart attack. Among his many students, several went on to have major organ careers, principally Virgil Fox and Arthur C. Becker, about whom I have written previously for The Diapason.4

Thus, although born and educated in Germany, Middelschulte made the United States and, more specifically, Chicago his home. Middelschulte was a scholar and composer, whose works re-flect his intimate knowledge of Bach.5 Middelschulte was, by all accounts, a virtuoso organist of the first order, famous for his performances from memory (he was one of the first organists to do this). His performances of Bach were widely recognized as models of style, thus relating to Ferruccio Busoni's fabled Bach performances on the piano. Middelschulte's repertory was apparently vast. For example, the 1 June 1926 issue of The Diapason announced that Middelschulte would give a series of four recitals at Notre Dame in July of that year. One recital was to be "historical," and included compositions by Palestrina, Frescobaldi, Merulo, Gabrieli, and masters of the Baroque period. The second recital, not unexpectedly, was to be devoted to the organ works of Bach. The third (and this is striking) was to be of American organ music (including a composition by John J. Becker, one of the members of the American experimentalist group and a student of Middelschulte's), while the final recital was to be a potpourri, but including works by Reger and Bach.6 Few organists could equal such a feat. But this series is interesting for its inclusion of works before Bach. His studies with Franz Commer, one of the most important musicologists of the 19th century, would have made him aware of this repertory. His recital of American organ music, despite his conservative German background, shows his interest in promoting the music of his students.

It is impossible to understand Middelschulte's accomplishments without a consideration of his German connections and the German tradition of such Chicago musical institutions as the American Conservatory of Music and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The American Conservatory of Music was founded in 1886 and incorporated in 1887. The founder was John J. Hattstaedt, and by the early 20th century the American Conservatory was considered one of the leading music schools in Chicago. It had strong ties to Germany in that most of its faculty were trained there. Thus, for example, Adolf Weidig (1867-1931), who had studied with such notables as Riemann and Rheinberger, continued this German tradition at the conservatory, where he taught composition and theory. Weidig was also a violinist who played in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and an accomplished composer whose works deserve renewed attention.7 His teachings are summarized in the text that was widely used at this time: Harmonic Material and Its Uses (Chicago: Clayton Summy, 1923).

There were many other important German musicians in Chicago at this time. For example, Emil Liebling (1851-1914), a student of Liszt's and known for his editions of the etudes of Carl Czerny, was an impressive pedagogue who also was an editor for The American History and Encyclopedia of Music. He came to Chicago in 1872 and remained until his death.8 Bernhard Listermann (1841-1917) was the concertmaster of the Thomas Orchestra and continued a distinguished career in Chicago, publishing a violin method and some compositions. This list must include the great Theodore Thomas (1835-1905), born in Essen, Germany, and the founder of what would become the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Thomas was one of the major conductors of his time who permanently left his mark on Chicago.9

Theodore Thomas founded the Chicago Orchestra in 1890, but the name of the orchestra was changed to the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1905 and then the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1912. Thomas conducted the orchestra until his death in 1905, when he was succeeded by Frederick Stock, who conducted the orchestra until 1942 (the year of his death). The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was created in the German tradition, and the rehearsals were conducted in German up to World War I. There was great emphasis placed on German repertory (including the then-modern Richard Strauss), and the orchestra was known for its German sound because of the rich brass, a tradition that continues to the present day. Middelschulte accordingly worked in musical institutions where his German musical heritage was highly valued and where he made significant contributions.

Middelschulte's influences

Middelschulte's compositional style grew out of his studies of Bach, but it was also clearly influenced by the theories of Bernhard Ziehn, with whom he studied in Chicago. Bernhard Ziehn (1845-1912) was born in Erfurt, Germany, but came to Chicago in 1868 to teach mathematics and music theory in the German Lutheran School of Chicago. In addition to his studies of music theory and history, Ziehn was an accomplished mathematician and botanist, whose studies of poison ivy were commended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ziehn had a number of notable students, including the composer John Alden Carpenter and the pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler. It was said that Middelschulte was Ziehn's favorite student, and certainly he was the student who most clearly exemplified Ziehn's theories in his own work.

Ziehn had promulgated a principle of symmetric inversion: that in chromatic music a figure or motive could be inverted exactly without regard to tonal considerations. Ziehn writes in Canonical Studies: A New Technique in Composition: "Experience gained by careful practice is the only means of finding out whether or not a setting is suitable for symmetric inversion. No rules can be given, but with certainty we can say: the more chromatic a setting is the more appropriate it becomes for symmetric inversion, because chromatic progression is the smoothest."10 From this quote it is clear that by using symmetric intervals tonality is obscured; thus Ziehn adumbrates an idea that is also found in Schoenberg's 12-tone serialism. This technique is illustrated in Example 1.

Another influence on the music of Middelschulte was that of Ludwig Thiele (1816-48). Thiele had been a classmate of Mendelssohn's, and, like Haupt (Middelschulte's teacher), had studied with A.W. Bach. Thiele wrote a number of large-scale organ works that evidence the same kinds of canonic techniques, double pedal usage, and chromaticism that are characteristic of Middelschulte's works. It is evident that the Haupt, Thiele, and Rheinberger (just to name a few) were deeply influenced by J. S. Bach and thus prepared the way for Reger and Middelschulte.11 In turn, they were indebted to Mendelsohn's and Schumann's revitalization of Bach performance and scholarship.

Busoni and Middelschulte

Ferruccio Busoni and Middelschulte enjoyed a personal relationship. In 1910, while on tour, Busoni gave some concerts in Chicago. At that time it seems Ziehn suggested to Busoni that he complete Bach's Art of Fugue . Instead of doing so, Busoni took the themes of the incomplete Contrapunctus found at the end of the Art of Fugue  as the basis for what would ultimately become the Fantasia contrappuntistica. As Busoni himself writes referring to the decision to add a new theme to the Contrapunctus:

The fourth subject, on the other hand, had to be a completely new creation; there was no clew as to its character. There was the inevitable stipulation that this fourth subject had to sound simultaneously with the three earlier ones and must also suit them. As the principal theme of the Art of Fugue  (of which the "Fragment" forms the close) was not one of the three subjects already worked out it was easy to guess that this principal theme should step in (as fourth) and thus close the circle of the whole work. Bernhard Ziehn, in Chicago, gave an affirmative and conclusive answer to my question on this point, and I was able to begin this part of my work on sure ground.12

But John J. Becker, who, as previously noted, had studied with Middelschulte, writes:

It was Middelschulte who helped Busoni on the way, by suggesting that he study the theoretical combinations as worked out along the same line by Bernhard Ziehn of Chicago. (Middelschulte is proud to call himself a disciple of Ziehn). Busoni did so, and was convinced by those studies that Bach intended using the theme of the very first Fugue of "Die Kunst der Fuge." He worked along this line and successfully found the solution, thereby solving one of the most difficult aesthetic problems confronting the musical world.13

This implies that it was Middelschulte more than Ziehn who influenced the conception of the Fantasia contrappuntistica. Indeed, Busoni knew about Ziehn through Middelschulte and this opens up the question whether Busoni and Ziehn ever met personally.

As Marc-André Roberge points out, the first version entitled Grosse Fuge was sketched and written between January and March 1910 and was a continuation of the Contrapunctus XV from the Art of Fugue .14 In June 1910 Busoni reworked the Grosse Fuge into the Fantasia contrappuntistica by adding the "Preludio corale" based on the third of the Sechs Elegien for piano (1907). This Elegie is entitled "Meine Seele bangt und hofft zu dir" (My soul is afraid and hopes in you). It is, however, actually based on the chorale Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr'.15 In July 1921, Busoni rewrote the Fantasia for two pianos and somewhat modified its complex structure. It is this two-piano version of the Fantasia contrappuntistica that is the best known. Busoni, however, wrote: "The Fantasia contrappuntistica is thought of neither for pianoforte nor organ, nor orchestra. It is music. The sound-medium which imparts this music to the listener is of secondary importance."16

The relationship between Middelschulte and the Fantasia is striking. In 1911 Middelschulte made an arrangement of the Fantasia for solo organ and, it now seems clear, according to Roberge, that he helped or even composed the organ part for Frederick Stock's arrangement of the Fantasia contrappuntistica for organ and orchestra that was made in the same year. Roberge writes:

Busoni dedicated the edizione definitiva of the Fantasia contrappuntistica "An Wilhelm Middelschulte, Meister des Kontrapunkts." He must have had for Middelschulte a profound admiration, since he chose him to be the dedicatee of one of his most ambitious works. It is obvious that both men discussed some compositional aspects of the work, because sketches for the Grosse Fuge contain contrapuntal studies based on the Art of Fugue  by both Middelschulte and Ziehn. There are also two four-part canons bearing the dedication "Herrn Ferruccio Busoni zur frdl. [freundlichen] Errinerung von W. Middelschulte, Chicago. 16. Januar 1910."17

Chicago Gothic Tradition

It is thus obvious that Middelschulte participated in the conception of the Fantasia and was considered by Busoni to be "a master of counterpoint." Both Ziehn and Middelschulte were, furthermore, the principal members of what Busoni termed the "Chicago Gothic" school. As we shall directly see, Middelschulte ultimately responded to Busoni's Fantasia with a work related in a general way to Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica: the Kontrapunktische Symphonie (1932).

Middelschulte wrote exclusively for the organ, and his style is fairly consistent from his earliest works through those of his later years. The general aura of these works is indeed "Gothic," which is to say that a dark chromatic, contrapuntal style prevails. Textures are thick, and the ear is constantly surprised by the harmonic progressions caused by the chromatic and frequently dissonant counterpoint. Many sections are saturated chromatically, which is to say that all twelve chromatic pitches follow in rapid succession in all the voices of the texture. Because of this, many sections employ a kind of atonality; thus conservative and radical elements are blended in his works. Middelschulte's compositions are difficult to listen to because of their subtle references, complex textures, and extensive designs. The structures and rhythmic language are clearly derived from Bach; thus Middelschulte, like Reger, Busoni, and, later, Hindemith, employs a neoclassicism based on German models.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie über Themen von Joh. Seb. Bach is a culminating work. It is, however, a reworking of his earlier Kanonische Fantasia über B.A.C.H. und Fuge über Themen von J.S. Bach (1906). The Fantasy is based on 43 variations in canon over the BACH theme in the bass. The fugues that follow are based on some of the same themes that Middelschulte would subsequently use in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie: the theme from the Musical Offering , the theme from the "Confiteor" of the Mass in B Minor, the BACH theme from the Art of Fugue , and the theme from the Toccata and Fugue in D minor . Both these compositions are dedicated to August Knabe, Middelschulte's teacher from the Teachers College in Soest, Germany.18 In addition to the use of the same themes, specific sections, such as the fugue based on the theme from the Musical Offering , of the Kontrapunktische Symphonie and the conclusion are derived from the earlier work. Accordingly, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie develops the line of thought present in the Kanonische Fantasie; but, as we shall see, it uses more themes and develops more combinations as a result. The following points reflect an overview of the connections between these two compositions: 1) The concept is the same for both works. 2) The same themes by Bach are chosen though, as we shall see, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie employs 14 themes derived from Bach, while the Kanonische Fantasie employs only four. 3) Specific sections of the later work are derived from the earlier (but often with changes of counterpoint). 4) Both clearly result from Middelschulte's study of Bach.

One can ask why Middelschulte wrote two compositions closely related to each other several decades apart. Perhaps Middelschulte wanted to work out further possibilities in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie not present in the Kanonische Fantasie; thus the Kontrapunktische Symphonie uses more themes and the combinations are more complex. Although the general conception of the two works is the same, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie has an even denser harmonic language and more intricate structure.

Although written later in Middelschulte's career, the Kontrapunkstiche Symphonie also reflects Middelschulte's early association with Ziehn and Busoni. It combines Ziehn's approach to organizing chromaticism through symmetric inversion with Busoni's concept of a series of fugues based on Bach but expanding on the given themes. But it must also be noted that the Kanonische Fantasie, the composition that is reworked and developed for the Kontrapunktische Symphonie, was composed before Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica and may well have impacted Busoni's conception of this stunning work. Thus it seems that a work by Middelschulte perhaps influenced Busoni, whose Fantasia contrappuntistica in turn is mirrored in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie was premiered in 1932, as the following notice from The Diapason dated 1 June 1932 makes clear:

A new work for the organ which is expected to attract much more than ordinary attention is a Symphony in D minor on themes and motives by Johann Sebastian Bach, which has been composed by Wilhelm Middelschulte, Ll. D., and is to receive its initial performance at the summer series of recitals to be played by Dr. Middelschulte at Notre Dame University, South Bend, Ind., and in a recital at Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago, June 5.

This implies that the composition was completed by 1932, although it was not published until 1935. This is also evident from a letter Middelschulte wrote to  John J. Becker, his student, on 28 July 1932 in which he says: ". . . I enclose a program of music which shows you that I have not been idle--wrote a Symphonie on 12 [sic] Bach themes for the organ . . . played it here in Chicago and Detroit--everywhere with great success . . ." Again he writes in another letter of 9 January 1933: "Enclosed is a program of music of my Contrapuntal Symphony--built on 14 Bach themes--wish I had fifteen fingers . . . had great success with it in Detroit and still polishing it--also at work on my 2nd Symphony . . . "19 I believe that Middelschulte forgot for the moment how many Bach themes he actually used, but it is evident from the second quotation that he was still working on the final details in 1933.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie consists of a prelude and five fugues on 14 themes from various compositions by Bach. In the preface, Middelschulte lists these themes as well as their sources:

1. The Musical Offering , BGA, VI, p. 222.

2. Confiteor and Remissionem from the Mass in B Minor, BGA, VI, p. 264.

3. Fugue in D Minor, BGA, XV, p. 269.

4. Fugue in B Minor, BGA, XV, p. 206.

5. Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BGA, XV, p. 218.

6. Art of Fugue , BGA, XXV, 1 and XLVII.

7. Fugue in C Minor, BGA, XV, p. 132.

8. Prelude in A Minor, BGA, XV, p. 198.

9. Fugue in E Minor, BGA, XV, p. 242.

10. BACH theme from the Art of Fugue , BGA, XXV, 1 and XLVII.

11. Chorale prelude Sleepers Awake, BGA, XXV, 2, p. 63.

12. Canon at the Fifth from the Goldberg Variations , BGA, III, p. 282.

13. Fugue in C Major, WTC I, BGA, XIV, p. 4.

14. Fugue in E-flat Minor, WTC I, BGA, XIV, p. 34.

Of these themes, the most important and the one that prevails throughout is that from the Musical Offering . It will be remembered that this theme is actually by Frederick the Great and was used by Bach as the basis for the various musical transformations of the Musical Offering . The theme from the Art of Fugue is given less importance. Some themes are highlighted and become the themes for the fugues, a practice similar to that found in Ziehn's Canonical Studies, while other themes from this group of fourteen play a subsidiary role. Only two vocal works are cited, the Mass in B Minor and the chorale Wachet auf from the Cantata No. 140. Themes are combined and their keys are changed to fit Middelschulte's tonal plan. In addition, the BACH theme and the references to Bach's three great cyclic works (the Goldberg Variations , The Musical Offering , and the Art of Fugue ) are symbolic and link the Kontrapunktische Symphonie to Middelschulte's veneration of Bachian contrapuntal mastery.

Bach's cyclic works, the Art of Fugue  and The Musical Offering , served as paradigms for the Kontrapunktische Symphonie, although Middelschulte's composition is on a smaller scale than the Bach works and, for that matter, the Busoni Fantasia as well. In addition, the contrapuntal quodlibet concept or the combination of themes from disparate sources found in such Renaissance works as Heinrich Isaac's Missa Carminum or Jacob Obrecht's Missa diversorum tenorum is used. Middelschulte also at times presents the same theme at different rates of speed, as does Johannes Ockeghem's Missa prolationum. I am not suggesting that Middelschulte knew these Masses, but the similarities in techniques are striking, and Middelschulte was perhaps aware of the Renaissance tradition of quodlibet and mensuration canon through his studies with Commer and Ziehn.

Middelschulte has furthermore employed his most extreme chromatic style as well as the idea of symmetric inversion derived from Bernhard Ziehn. (Example 2) As a result, Middelschulte's organ works are strikingly similar to those by Reger, who likewise combined chromaticism with the procedures of Bach. In a word, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie summarizes Middelschulte's outlook as a composer and relates to Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica. Both build on the "Gothic" idea of complex fugal procedures.20

For Busoni, Ziehn and Middelschulte were the two members of the Chicago Gothic tradition, a tradition that stretched back to the Flemish and German masters of the Renaissance and epitomized in the music of J.S. Bach. It is found again in the music of César Franck and is notable for its use of counterpoint that creates unusual harmonic progressions. Essentially, Busoni held that Ziehn and Middelschulte created dissonant counterpoint that went beyond the restrictions of tonality, thus employing a concept central to the music of Hindemith as well. Although Ziehn was a composer, his music is not on the level of Middelschulte's organ compositions; thus Middelschulte's works and especially the Kontrapunktische Symphonie manifest Busoni's tenets as does his own Fantasia contrappuntistica.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie does not present the fourteen themes in the order in which they are listed in the preface to the score, but rather treats them in cumulative fashion; thus the introduction presents the B-A-C-H motive to furnish the symbolic context for the entire composition: a celebration of the contrapuntal genius of J.S. Bach.  Emphasis is placed on the B-A-C-H theme as well as the themes from The Musical Offering  and the Art of Fugue . Middelschulte relates these themes in such a way as to show their symbolic implications.

The work begins with an introduction marked recitativo based on the B-A-C-H theme. (Example 3) The dotted rhythms give the impression of a French overture. Toward the end of this section Ziehn's technique of symmetric inversion is evident. This section recurs at the end of the work, creating an arch form. The first fugue uses the theme from The Musical Offering  presented at different rates of speed simultaneously. (Example 4a) This section is derived from the Kanonische Fantasie, where the note values are presented at half the speed and the bass voice is an octave lower. (Example 4b) Fugue No. 2 presents No. 13 from the group of fourteen themes (refer to the list of Bach themes above) as a countermotive. Later, the theme from the Art of Fugue  is combined with the theme from the Toccata and Fugue in D minor . (Example 5)

Fugue No. 3 again emphasizes theme No. 3, derived from the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D minor . The B-A-C-H and No. 9 themes are present as well, combined with the theme from the Toccata. This fugue ends with a cadenza-like passage based on No. 8 that leads into the next fugue. (Example 6) Various combinations of themes ap-pear in this fugue. Nos. 9 and 10 appear as do Nos. 4 and 3. In all, this fugue employs Nos. 3, 9, 10, 4, 6, 7, 2, and 8. Fugue No. 4 begins with references to the B-A-C-H theme (Example 7) as well as the motives from the Goldberg Variations  and Wachet auf. It should be noted that the motive from the Goldberg Variations  is always treated in combination with other ideas. Also striking in this section is the combination of the themes from the D-minor and E-flat-minor fugues. This fugue presents various combinations of themes not found previously: 11 and 13 and, at the end, 3 and 14. Nos. 10, 12, 11, 13, 1, 3, and 14 appear in this fugue. Because of the slow tempo, this fugue functions as an interlude.

The fifth and final fugue combines previous elements, but it leads to a Maestoso section that harmonizes the theme from The Musical Offering  and is derived from a similar episode in the Kanonische Fantasie (where the harmonization is slightly different). This fugue presents themes 10, 3, 1, and 6; and it ends with a grandiose conclusion with trills in the outer voices. The BACH theme and the theme from the Art of Fugue  are here combined and emphasized both musically and symbolically. (Example 8)

In general, the dominating themes are 1, 3, 6, and 10, while the others are subsidiary. Themes are transposed and combined, sometimes at different rates of speed. As is clear from this discussion, the themes are not presented in the order that they appear in the preface; but, later themes in the numeric order are usually found later in the work. The themes are well known and reflect Middelschulte's knowledge of Bach's keyboard literature. At times, themes are only suggested. This is true, for example, of the Fugue subject in C major from WTC I, which is briefly treated as a countermotive in Fugue No. 2. Likewise, the motive from one of the canons from the Goldberg Variations  always is secondary to some other theme.

The following outline lists the order of the themes in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie:

Introduction: No. 10

Fugue 1: No. 1

Fugue 2: Nos. 2, 1, 5

Fugue 3: Nos. 3, 9, 4, 6, 7, 2, 8

Fugue 4: Nos. 10, 11, 13, 12, 3, 14

Fugue 5: 10, 1, 3

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie, however, is more than a series of Bach quotations, for it has a powerful overall unity. This is achieved through the relationships between the fugues and the general tonal plan. Thus the introduction sets the tone for the work and leads into the first fugue. The first three fugues form a longer section and are marked by increasing rhythmic activity. Fugue No. 3 ends with a sustained toccata-like section that leads into Fugue No. 4. This fugue is in a tranquillo tempo and again strongly refers to the B-A-C-H motive; thus it serves as a slow interlude and a preparation for the fifth and final fugue. It is also notable for the largest number of thematic combinations. The fifth and final fugue, because of its return to a quick tempo and the central tonality of D, represents the climax of the work. As the work nears its conclusion, the tempo moves to Maestoso, as mentioned previously, with a harmonization of the theme from The Musical Offering  and references to the B-A-C-H theme, thus relating to the opening. This final section serves as the coda to the final fugue but also to the work as a whole.

The following shows the connections between the fugues:

Introduction--Fugues 1, 2, 3--Tranquillo Fugue with its BACH reference--Fugue 5 that returns to the tempo and figuration of the first three fugues--Maestoso conclusion.

This suggests that the fugues create longer sections and that there are cyclic references to the B-A-C-H motive which regularly punctuate the work. In one sense, it is possible to look at the work as having four sections: the introduction, the first three fugues, the slow interlude, and the concluding fugue with its peroration. Although the harmonic language is densely chromatic and the tonal references at the local level obscure, the use of D as an anchoring tonality at key spots of the work is structurally important. On the other hand, the most tonally ambiguous sections (built on the BACH motive) occur at the beginning and during the slow fugue. The final cadence of the work can be seen as a slow descent from E- flat to D.21

The term Symphonie, it seems to me, is used in two senses: as an indication of the scope of the work but also to imply that the organ is used in its full symphonic grandeur. As has been suggested throughout this article, there are clear connections between Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica and the Kontrapunktische Symphonie. As will be remembered, Middelschulte made an arrangement of the Fantasia and Busoni dedicated the final version of the work to him. In addition, the genesis of the Fantasia occurred during a period when Busoni was in close contact with Middelschulte. Both Busoni and Middelschulte were consummate virtuosi deeply involved with the music of Bach; thus the Fantasia contrappuntistica relates to the Kontrapunktische Symphonie. The parallels between the works can be summarized as follows:

Both reflect Bach's cyclic contrapuntal works: The Musical Offering  and the Art of Fugue .

Both were influenced by the theories of Bernhard Ziehn.

Both use a chromatic language influenced by Bach, Liszt, and Ziehn himself.

Both are based on the cyclic concept of fugues exemplified by the Art of Fugue .

Both use the D dorian mode as a focal tonality.

Both exemplify the aesthetics of the Chicago "Gothic" School.

Conclusion

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie was not Middelschulte's last composition. Middelschulte wrote a set of variations on "The Old 100th" that was completed in Italy before he left for Germany, but is now lost. In addition, he planned or composed a second symphony (probably in the style of the Kontrapunktische Symphonie). There is no indication as to when this work was started or how far it had progressed, though the letter of 1935 mentioned previously refers to it.22

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie is a manifestation of the relationships between and among Ziehn, Busoni, and Middelschulte, but it also reflects the Bach tradition beginning with Mendelssohn and continuing through Thiele and Haupt. It summarizes Middelschulte's lifelong interest in the music of Bach as well as approaches found in his earlier organ compositions. It also mirrors the Chicago-German connection as well as what Busoni termed "Young Classicism," or "the sifting and the turning to account all the gains of previous experiments and their inclusion in strong and beautiful form."23 Furthermore it epitomizes the Chicago "Gothic" tradition, a tradition of exploring recondite chromatic techniques and contrapuntal sophistication. This masterpiece demonstrates Middelschulte's control of the medium of organ composition, but it also suggests his own extraordinary abilities as a performer. It manifests those fascinating techniques evolved by Reger, Busoni, and Middelschulte around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries that combine chromaticism with the contrapuntal rigor of the incomparable J.S. Bach.

Postscript

Middelschulte, although an important figure in his time, and, I believe, a seminal figure in the development of chromaticism at the beginning of the 20th century, has suffered a curious fate: he is little known in Germany and is largely forgotten in Chicago, where he made his home and taught for many years. A small number of Middelschulte devotees, however, are again bringing the music of this fascinating composer to public attention. A CD appeared in 1999 entitled Brink Bush performs Organ Works of Wilhelm Middelschulte (Volume 1). (This is available at  <www.ohscatalog.org&gt;.)

This CD contains the following works:

Perpetuum Mobile from the Konzert für Orgel über ein Thema von Joh. Seb. Bach (1903). This is based on Bach's "Wedge Fugue" (BWV 548) and is an early work that already shows the line of thought present in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie.

Passacaglia für die Orgel (1896). The BACH theme and the chorale Ein Feste Burg are used in this composition. This early work once more shows Middelschulte's consistency of approach.

Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge für Orgel (published 1922). It is based on original themes but is clearly related to Bach's celebrated Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

Drei Studien über den Choral Vater unser im Himmelreich (published 1913)

Kanonische Fantasie über B-A-C-H und Fuge über Themen von Joh. Seb. Bach (published 1906). This, as mentioned in the article, was the model for the Kontrapunktische Symphonie.

Middelschulte consistently used German titles for his compositions and wrote exclusively for organ (with the exception of orchestral accompaniments for the Konzert für Orgel, performed by Middelschulte under Stock with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. These orchestral parts have been lost). He began composing rather late in life, but once he did he employed a complex style that continued to the last of the published works. His entire output can be considered a tribute to J.S. Bach.

At this time Brink Bush is preparing a second CD that will include the Kontrapunktische Symphonie, the full Konzert für Orgel, and the Kanon in F.    

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.

A Performer's Investigation, Part 2

Anomalies I: voice leading

An anomaly here means something unusual, a musical passage that does not conform to contemporary rules of counterpoint or otherwise deviates from the norm. It also entails any incongruities or inconsistencies in melody, harmony, counterpoint, or texture. The concept thus entails interpretation and assumes some knowledge of historical musical practice. In a piece with the rigorous formal construction of the one under consideration, we might expect the voice leading, the treatment of harmony, the handling of texture, etc. to be just as rigorous. Yet there are a number of ambiguities that are noteworthy and curious.

The hexachord theme wanders from voice to voice. This is unusual for the simple reason that the theme is treated as a cantus firmus; cantus firmi, as a rule, do not wander. It is especially peculiar that the wandering takes place in the middle of thematic statements. Only once does it happen at the beginning of the theme (at unit 79) and that is remarkable for another reason. The hexachord theme first begins as the soprano voice. It wanders to the alto voice at unit 10 (see Example 14).

The theme only remains in the alto voice for the duration of nine units before returning to the soprano (see Example 15). Only four units later it wanders again to the alto (see Example 15). The switch in voices takes place on paper at unit 22 where the upper two voices use the same pitch, however it is not audible until unit 23.

The cantus firmus theme returns to the soprano beginning at unit 31, where the ambiguity of which notes represent which of the two upper voices is extended until unit 33 (see Example 16).

Another switch to the alto voice occurs during the space of units 37-38 (see Example 17).

During the first four statements the hexachord theme wanders between the soprano and the alto six times; one hears the theme moving through the fabric of the composition. The return to the soprano, the last until the final section of the piece, is effected at unit 43 (see Example 18).

The shift, at unit 79, of the hexachord theme from the soprano voice to the bass voice, the leap from f1 to A-flat, is one of the more dramatic shifts of the piece, moving very audibly from one outer voice to the other. As we have noted above, the leap occurs as a result of the transposition scheme. After that, the theme continues to wander somewhat. It moves to the tenor at unit 133 (see Example 19). It also moves to the alto voice at unit 163, but that voice crossing is as good as inaudible and is accentuated by Bull in another manner discussed below.

Anomalies II: texture/harmony

Example 20 shows how the hexachord theme, for the space of two and one half whole notes, audibly becomes the highest voice without actually leaving the alto voice on the page. Bull draws attention to this fact by leaving the leading tone, b-natural0 of the cadence on C, hanging without resolution; the soprano voice does not end, but is suddenly abandoned in mid-cadence. This is an abruptio, the sudden cessation of a musical thought. Right at that point, unit 13 of the piece, the effect of being left hanging at the cadence is further emphasized by the open sonority of the fifth, C-G, an anachronism, sounding for an instant in two-voiced texture due to the voice leading of the bass and tenor voices. The effect is one of a hole in the music, and it is one that allows, for a few moments, the theme to sound as if it were the soprano voice.

Example 21 shows another curious passage. One can see that the half-note e-flat1 in the alto at unit 100 is followed by a rest and that the alto proper doesn't reenter until the second half of unit 102. There is, however, right at unit 101, the entrance of an extra voice in the left hand, f0, which sounds for the duration of a whole note only and then disappears. It can only be the alto voice which suddenly plunges down into the tenor area, crossing below the actual tenor at unit 101. The open space between the tenor c1 (which, at unit 101, sounds like the alto voice) and soprano f2 disobeys the rules of counterpoint which stipulate that there be no more than an octave between upper neighboring voices. Not only does the space call attention to itself, but the apparent extra voice, f0, does so as well. The musical-rhetorical figure signified by the space, called longinqua distancia, continues into unit 102 and is found between tenor and soprano (b-flat0 to e-flat2) and then between alto and soprano (c1 to e-flat2).

Example 22 shows, at unit 144, the 12th entrance of the hexachord theme, beginning on f-sharp0. The sonority is unusual, to say the least, and eminently avoidable. First, the natural movement of the soprano voice would be to a1 at unit 144, completing the cadential figure begun around unit 141. The bass voice is expected to drop to A at unit 144 for the same reason, but it does the unexpected also. The alto voice withdraws itself from the affair with a rest, leaving the other voices to form the unusual harmony: octave f-sharps over an e0 in the bass. I have no doubt that Bull knew that the 12th entrance of the theme, using the 12th pitch of the scale, was taking place at the 144th (12 x 12) unit of the piece.

Example 23 illustrates a passage set audibly apart at unit 151 by the manipulation of texture. The four-voiced texture found at the first unit of the example, the alto having first a half-note rest, is thinned out as the soprano drops out at unit 150, while the bass drops out right at unit 151 leaving just a two-voiced texture. This is a unique moment for two reasons. The two-voiced texture is the thinnest used by Bull in this work, and rarely used at that. But that fact alone is not enough. What makes this striking is the open sound of the fifth occurring right at the point where the texture is thinnest. The listener cannot miss the anachronistic sonority; Bull literally diverts our attention away from everything else directly to it as he also did at unit 13 (see Example 20).

Example 24 shows another voice crossing, but one that does not belong to the more audible events of the work.  However, beginning at unit 163, we have an occurrence which acts as an accent and thus draws the ear to it. The alto voice here carries the hexachord theme. One can observe how Bull accentuates this particular event. First, the thematic note, e1, is only a half-note long; this is the only passage in the work which has a thematic note which is not a whole note. Second, the chord played at this point has an added voice in the right hand making it five-voiced; at no other point, excepting the final chord of the work, do more than four voices sound simultaneously. Third, the three inner voices have the same length, a half note, and all are followed by a half-note rest; i.e. the thickest texture is immediately followed by the thinnest texture used by Bull in this piece. Fourth, the five-voiced texture is further emphasized rhythmically by the quarter-note A found in both of the outer voices; the outer voices are the most audible and the A found here presages the cadence on A found across the next bar line. Fifth, the five-voiced texture is restored for the brief period of a half note one unit later. It is an e1 in the right hand, the only tone found both in the A (tonic) and E (dominant) triads which are here forming a cadence--the d1 of the hexachord theme is the seventh of the dominant-seventh chord--though E is conspicuously missing from the a-minor sonority of unit 165.

Order

Hexachord

John Bull uses the hexachord as a cantus firmus. It is not a theme that is developed as the theme of a fugue might be and does not itself undergo transformation. It is a building block with which Bull constructs the framework of his piece. It goes through a number of statements, but each statement is clearly identifiable as a hexachord. The hexachord system reckons with hexachords on G, C, and F although it is clearly a system based on flexible pitch, i.e. it is the relation between each of the hexachord members which remains inviolate; a particular ut may have any G, C, or F pitch. Bull, however, seemingly drawing the consequences of a movable ut, places the hexachord on all 12 chromatic tones, establishing a comprehensive system of relative pitch. Mutation from one hexachord to the next, by way of a pivot tone, a tone which has a function in two successive hexachords and facilitates the transition of one hexachord to the next, does not occur here. Rather, each hexachord stands on its own and demands its unique right to existence independent of the previous hexachord. By setting up his piece in this manner, Bull does away with the entire hexachord theory. The hexachord is used as a tool to dismantle the theory based upon it.

Modulation

Having done away with mutation, Bull employs transposition. Each of the first 12 entrances of the hexachord theme thus demands a harmonic response, a modulation. Bull forces himself to write a music which touches on 12 keys. If we regard major and minor as modes, the entire gamut of keys in the tonal system of the common practice period is utilized--all in one piece of music. And his use of the whole-tone scale in transposing the hexachord theme is truly astounding and sets this piece apart from anything else in the keyboard literature of the time. So, too, did Debussy use the whole-tone scale when, at the turn of the 20th century, traditional tonality was increasingly becoming problematic as a system and composers were experimenting with new systems of harmonic organization.

13

The hexachord theme, used as a cantus firmus in this composition, i.e. unchanged, though transposed, is organized into a 13-unit phrase. The transposition scheme of the piece requires 13 statements of the theme in order to include all of the 12 tones and return to the starting point. The correspondence of the length of the theme and the number of repetitions it undergoes in the transposition scheme represents order on the highest level. This produces a first section of 169 whole-note units (13 x 13).

17

After the transposition scheme has run its course, there are four more statements of the hexachord theme in the soprano voice, bringing the total number of thematic statements to 17. However, the total number of whole-note units which comprise this second section of the work is not 52 (4 x 13). The 13th unit of the last thematic statement is omitted. That leaves us with one unit fewer than anticipated. But 51 = 3 x 17.

11

The two main sections of the work, comprising all of the statements of the hexachord theme, make up the body of the piece. It contains 220 whole-note units of music, instead of the 221 (17 x 13) units it would have had, had the last statement of the hexachord theme contained its 13th unit. 220 (20 x 11 or 2 x 2 x 5 x 11 or 5 x 44) contains no factor of 13 or 17. However, we know that at this period, as part of a very long history, gematria, the theory of numbers and their meanings, was a branch of knowledge in which artists not only dabbled, but used with impunity. One of the common uses of numbers was the representation of names: A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc. ("I" and "J" were considered one letter, as were "U" and "V"). Both "John" and "Bull" are represented by the number 44 (4 x 11). By leaving out the final rest of the final statement of the hexachord theme, Bull changes 52 to 51, thus relating the second section of the work to the number 17, but also changing 221 to 220, bringing the body of the piece into relationship with his own name through the common factor of 11.

Almost as an aside I would also like to mention that the number of anomalies, both of voice-leading and of texture-harmony, is 11. In other words, the entire work is regularly constructed employing the accepted rules of counterpoint/composition except those passages which Bull has given his personal stamp by deviating from the norm. His personal stamp also extends to the number of those stamps.

7

The peroration (or coda) comes last. It is extra, the icing on the cake, the statement that ends the oration. It is fitting that it has its own identity. The number seven has great significance in many cultures of the world. It is traditionally related to the length of the week and thus also to creation and the concept of completeness. It has even been maintained that the number seven is responsible for bringing everything into existence, a thought not necessarily misplaced in this context since Bull is calling a new system of musical order into existence. The seven units of peroration bring the total length of the composition to 227 whole-note units.

Primes

The structural numbers of the composition, 7, 11, 13, 17, 227, are all prime numbers. In addition, most of the anomalies take place at or are centered on whole-note units which are prime (10, 13, 23, 31, 37, 43, 101, 133, 144, 151, 163). The only exceptions are units 10 (example 14) and 144 (example 22). Unit 144 has been related to the fact that the 12th statement of the hexachord theme is taking place using the 12th member of the chromatic scale. The passage at unit 10 is the first one in the series of those that appear unusual. It is in fact the case that the numbers 10, 100 and 1000 have an intimate relationship to the number 1. As beginnings of new orders of numbers (the tens, the hundreds, the thousands) they have the same function as the number 1 itself, the beginning of all numbers. Music theorists/philosophers from all over Europe, from Italy to north-Germany, from Zarlino to Kircher to Descartes, recognize in 1 not a number, but rather the concept of unity from which all numbers, indeed all existence has its origin. Even as late as 1722, Rameau makes the statement that the number 2 is the first number, not the second. Observed from this point of view it is not inappropriate that the first of the anomalies should occur at unit 10. Given the nature of music, both the fact that it occurs in time and that it is context-bound--i.e. a context needs to be established before events can be perceived--unit 10 is the first point at which a unique event could occur "at the beginning" without simply being perceived as the beginning of the music. Though the numbers 10 and 144 are not prime, I don't think that one can deny Bull's interest in prime numbers (see Table 1.)

The whole-tone scale

One additional aspect of the piece remains to be mentioned, one that is for me a particularly savory morsel. The whole-tone scale is made up of just that: whole tones. How does the use of this scale tie in with the order found in the rest of the composition? The whole tone is mathematically represented by the proportion 9:8. We can now answer the question why there are four concluding statements of the hexachordum durum, instead of three or five, bringing the total number of statements of the hexachord theme to 17 (13 + 4). The connection between the overall form of the work, which consists of 17 statements of the hexachord theme, and the transposition scheme is given by the whole-tone scale itself: 9 + 8  = 17.

This composition is not to be disposed of as a mere curiosity. It is a clear statement by a serious composer. Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la: a treatise on a system of music which it methodically, through the organization of its discourse, declares obsolete and actively replaces, utilizing admirable intellectual rigor, with a new order.          n