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Reger's Toccata and Fugue in d/D, op. 59

The Straube Tradition

by William Eifrig
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A manner of performance depends upon at least one of three possible means for its continuation. First, the originator of the performance tradition leaves to posterity an edited or annotated edition of the musical work in question. Second, that originator engenders a progeny of students who continue the tradition and may be expected to pass on to their students the manner of performance they have learned from "the master." Or, third, the means I undertake here, one of those students provides the annotations and commentary which represent  the original ideas once or twice removed from their origination.

 

I am a student of two organists who were pupils of Karl Straube, the academic colleague of Max Reger at the Leipzig Conservatory and performer of most premieres of Reger's organ music.  In 1951-55 at Valparaiso University my teacher was Heinrich Fleischer, who had been one of Straube's last students.  In a Fulbright year 1957-58 I studied in Detmold, West Germany, with Michael Schneider, perhaps Straube's most renowned successor. It was as student of the former that I studied the Reger Toccata and Fugue in d/D.

Straube made Reger's music famous and established a tradition of playing Reger's organ music that had the composer's approval. I understood the changes to the printed score in the Peters edition Nr. 3008a made by Fleischer when instructing me to be "in the   Straube tradition." Had Fleischer been the only organ teacher to have made these changes, claiming "the tradition" as his authority, we might think it merely idiosyncratic. However, when I studied with Schneider I again encountered the "Straube tradition," for  Schneider's students, too, altered the printed edition in matters of tempo, dynamics, and registration--in the same details that I had learned. Schneider's students agreed that the alterations to the printed score represented to German organists in the later 20th century the way in which Reger, influenced by Straube's recommendations, intended the Toccata and Fugue to be performed.

To my knowledge Straube never published an edited or annotated edition of the Toccata and Fugue, though he made heavily annotated editions of 17th and 18th century organ music in the series Alte Meister. While I taught my students many of the works of Bach, Reger, and David as I had learned them with Fleischer and Schneider, I realize now, in retirement, that I never taught op. 59, nr. 5 & 6. Recently a student at Valparaiso University, a student of one of my colleagues, performed the Toccata and Fugue exactly according to the printed Peters edition, and I resolved, with no intention of faulting a quite musical performance or questioning in any way collegial pedagogy, that I would take the third mode of communicating the tradition to the student and her teacher as well as to others at Valparaiso University. Their reception of my communication went beyond courtesy, encouraging me to make this commentary more widely known. Thus  I present it here in the hope that knowledge of the Straube tradition for performing these Reger works will have value for New World musicians who, perhaps schooled in other traditions, may be unaware that the printed page in at least this instance is insufficient evidence of the composer's intentions.

At least I shall rest easier in retirement having made an attempt to hand on a tradition that was in turn handed to me early in my life. If Straube is the father of the tradition, and Fleischer is the son, then I am a grandson and you may become a great-grandchild!

                  In my commentary I refer to Edition Peters Nr. 3008a, the first volume of the Zwölf Stücke, op. 59, pp. 20-30. Since Heinrich Fleischer was always a meticulous annotator of printed scores, his own as well as those belonging to his students, I am confident that I have accurately described the "son's" instructions still clearly visible in my undergraduate copy.

Toccata in d, op. 59, no. 5

Vivacissimo stands but a crescendo with boxes followed by a quick diminuendo happens in the first measure.  Before the change to Man. I the boxes open. The first note A of the scale at the end of measure 1 is changed from 32nd rest to a 16th A to make this like the scales at the ends of measures 5 & 6.

At the fourth beat of measure 3 a ritenuto begins and the (kurz!) on the third beat of measure 4 is eliminated.

The fourth beat of measure 4 is a tempo and the dynamics of measure 5 parallel those of measure 1.

The first three beats of measure 7 are rall.

Beat 4 of measure 7 is a tempo and the ff is modified by beginning with closed boxes; the crescendo then happens before the pedal entrance in measure 9.

The last 8th of measure 9 begins a rit. to the third 8th of measure 10.

The 32nd run up to G# has the marking Sostenuto and the first chord of beat 3 is played as if a 16th followed by a 16th rest.  This articulation is imitated at the downbeat of measure 11 when only the tied As and the pedal G are held while the other notes are lifted before the downbeat.

Measure 11, fourth beat is ritenuto through beat 2 of measure 12.

Beat 3 of measure 12 is Vivace, boxes closed then opened. This passage begins on Swell moving to Great on the third triplet 16th A of beat 4, measure 13.

Measure 14 beat 4 is rit. and beat 2 of measure 15 is a tempo, boxes closed beginning on Swell moving to Great on the last note of measure 15 (F#).  The boxes open and the Crescendo pedal is used to complete the crescendo in measure 19.

The slurs printed for measures 16 & 17 are countermanded by strong articulations of the sixth and eighth 8th notes of measure 16 and the second, fifth and seventh 8ths in measure 17 right hand; fourth, sixth and eighth 8ths in left hand measure 17. The brillante passage is legato through the ritenuto that begins beat 2 measure 19.

Measure 21 is, of course, a new registration but piano so that the ppp of measure 23 is audible.  The Un poco mosso of the printed score is not cancelled but the Straube instruction Tranquillo is added.  My memory is that the tempo here is very moderate!

The fermata and rit. as well as (kurz!) in measure 25 are operative.

Vivacissimo stands and again the boxes start closed, open for the crescendo as well as the change of manual, the Great entering left hand sixth 8th measure 26, right hand first 8th measure 27.

Measure 28 second 8th begins a ritard. until measure 29.

Measure 29 is Sostenuto and the rolled chords are played as if notated in equal 64ths, the final top note leading metrically evenly to the next pedal tone. Stringendo applies with no slowing until the high B-flat of measure 30.

In measure 30 the fermata remains while the (sehr kurz) is cancelled.  The effect is that of a rush to the B-flat, a poising aloft and then an extremely fast rush downward (quasi Prestissimo assai) to the pedal G-flat.

                  Measure 30 beat 4 is again Sostenuto and the chord tones are rolled evenly as 32nds, holding the harmonic tones while releasing the non-harmonic.

The Straube alterations of page 24 are the boldest, departing from the printed instructions radically.

The sempre stringendo that is printed becomes ritenuto molto, beginning especially with the high B-natural.  Beat 2 measure 33 has an implied fermata.

The tempo marking for measure 33 beat 3 is no longer a tempo but Adagio and  meno ff is changed to a piano registration of soft Swell in the left hand and a Great solo flute (probably coupled to Swell) for the right hand.  This quite slow passage begins with the boxes closed.  They open a little at beat 4 measure 34 and close down again beats 3 & 4 measure 35.

The last beat of measure 35 is ritenuto and dim.

The downbeat of measure 36 is yet in the ritarded Adagio, but the C# (second note in the right hand) begins the Più Andante of the last measures.  The registration change to begin the crescendo is made during a slight break between measures 35 & 36, but the tempo change waits for the second note of measure 36.

Measures 36 & 37 observe the printed stringendo e sempre crescendo until the molto rit. beat 3 measure 37, by which time the Crescendo pedal has been opened wide.  These measures are strongly articulated by breaks alternating between pedal and hands.  In the pedal every G# is separated from the preceding A with an easily audible break.  In the hands beats 3 measure 36 and 1 & 3 measure 37 are similarly articulated.

Straube calls for the final measure to be played Grave.

NB.  The Adagio/piano of measure 33ff. balances and answers the Tranquillo  moment of measures 21-25. The Più Andante of measure 36 restores faster motion but never returns to the Vivacissimo of the beginning.

Fugue in D, op. 59, no. 6

Straube made fewer changes to the printed score of the Fugue, mostly refinements of printed tempo markings.  The continuous crescendo of the piece and its increasing tempo are not altered in any way. The printed score indicates that by the augmentation of the theme at the bottom of page 29 the tempo has almost doubled. The effect is that the augmented theme on page 29 is in the same tempo as the beginning of the Fugue on page 25.  To control the increasing tempo from the beginning it is better to hear/think the quarter-note motion rather than the half-note beat implied by the metric signature and the metronomic markings. My memory again is that the tempos are appreciatively slower than our later 20th-century sense of motion; when I revisited this piece at the rededication of the Reddel Memorial Organ at Valparaiso in 1997 I found that setting the metronome two to four numbers lower than the printed score seemed appropriate.

The beginning according to Straube is Andante Tranquillo (half-note equals approximately 52).

Fleischer called for added stops with each entrance of the theme on the first page, boxes opening after the soprano entrance in measure 11 and closing back before the pedal entrance in measure 17. The addition of stops continues where appropriate and the left hand changes manuals beat 2 measure 22, the right hand joining it on the sixth 8th of measure 26.

Boxes open during measures 29 & 30 making a creascendo to measure 31 which Straube characterizes as Più Tranquillo. The inverted theme in measure 34 can be soloed by the right hand while the left maintains alto and tenor on the secondary manual. With the pedal entrance measure 37 the alto and tenor remain there. The theme in measure 40 3rd beat can again be soloed (a trio!).

Measure 44 Straube calls Un poco più mosso and both hands come to the Great.

The bass notes of measures 46 & 47 are taken by the left hand--a bit of stretch, but it can be done;  the thematic entrance in the pedal is then clearer.

Measure 54 according to Straube is played Allegro Moderato. Fleischer soloed the theme in the left hand on the Great, returning to the secondary manual beat 2 measure 57. The left hand again solos beat 3 measure 60 and the right hand joins it on the Great beat 3 measure 63.

Because the Valparaiso University organ in 1952/53 was quite inadequate to the task of creating a continuing crescendo, Fleischer had me return to the secondary manual beats 3 & 4 measure 66 so that the theme in measure 67 could again be on the Great. The                              right hand returned to the Great at measure 71 with the alto theme and soprano counterpoint and the Crescendo pedal was used measures 74-78 (Crescendo Pleno).

The thematic entrance in the soprano, beat 2 measure 77 is marked by a caesura before D, violating the printed slur.

Caesurae can be used effectively in measures 82 & 83 between soprano and alto/tenor.  Caesurae can also effectively mark the sequences in the soprano of measures 85 & 86.

The approach to the downbeat of measure 87 is intensified by added notes.  The tenor D in measure 86 is held throughout (and ties into the alto D of measure 87) and to the final 8th G is added a B, so that the final 8th in the left hand is a full G major triad, which resolves to the F# of measure 87 with an added A. Meanwhile the final 8th of the alto in measure 86 continues the G of beat 4 while E is sounding and the downbeat of measure 87 adds both F# and A making a complete D major chord in the right hand.                

In measure 87 a strong articulation of the pedal low A is made the more emphatic if the soprano and tenor ignore the dot of their first notes and play as if written: quarter (printed and added notes) followed by an 8th rest.  This allows the alto theme to get our attention and marks at the same time the stretto entrance in the soprano on beat 3.

The printed assai stringendo, molto rit., Org. Pl., and Adagio/sempre Org. Pl. are operative.  It is imperative, however, that the player control the tempo so that the deceleration beginning measure 92, working against 90 measures of acceleration, leads continuously into the Adagio lest the final chords seem to the listener half-notes rather than the prescribed (albeit ritarded) quarter-notes.

 

The coupling of the Toccata and Fugue has become standard performance practice, but the player does this remembering that Reger's score treats them separately as Stücke 5 & 6 of op. 59. The Straube tradition joins them as a pair in what the 19th and 20th centuries have imagined to be a classical baroque manner.  An 18th-century performer, though, was probably never constrained to perform as pairs pieces that were published as pairs.  Bach's great G minor Fantasia need not always be followed by that energetic but less profound fugue.  Reger's Toccata in d is also probably greater than the Fugue in D and can stand alone quite successfully.        n

 

William Eifrig is Professor Emeritus of Music at Valparaiso University. He studied with Marjorie Jackson Rasche, Heinrich Fleischer, Robert Noehren, Michael Schneider, and Marilyn Mason. After 38 years of teaching at Valparaiso he has retired to desert quiet in the Southwest.

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Creative Continuo: or

Examples of Enlivening a Figured Bass on the Harpsichord

by J. Bunker Clark
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Nothing is more dull in a performance of Baroque music than a continuo harpsichordist who mechanically plays a chord for every bass note in the score. Or who reverently plays a printed realization, which usually follows the same practice. Only rarely one hears a realization exhibiting some element of spark and imagination.

 

This "essay" consists of ten examples demonstrating various ways of treating a figured bass in a creative manner. The intended instrument is the harpsichord, not the organ, for the harpsichord is capable not only of furnishing chords, melodies, and polyphony, but is also--due to the noisy jacks--a percussive instrument, which quality may as well be exploited from time to time. Sometimes only jack-noise can be heard in an orchestral situation.

The most important advice is a) to be imaginative and do something different than a printed realization, and b) to be sensitive to the performance situation. These examples are intended for an orchestral continuo player, but some of the principles can be applied to chamber groups. (Continuo on the organ demands a different treatment.) All but the last example are from Handel's  Messiah, and include the printed realization available from Kalmus. I originally intended this article to be unencumbered with scholarly apparatus, but consultation with several colleagues prompted an annotated bibliography.

 

Bibliography/Notes

 

Arnold, Franck Thomas. The Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-Bass, as Practised in the XVIIth & XVIIIth Centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931; reprint, with introduction by Denis Stevens, in 2 vols., New York: Dover, 1965.  The title to ch. 4, "On Certain Niceties of the Accompaniment," is borrowed from C. P. E. Bach's chapter "Von gewissen Zierlichkeiten des Accompagnements" (Versuch, part 2, 1762, ch. 32; Mitchell trans., pp. 386-403). Arnold's book is the grand-daddy on the subject. Much of it, however, is about how to realize specific figures.

Ashworth, Jack. "How to Improve a Continuo Realization." American Recorder 26, no. 2 (May 1985): 62-65. P. 62: "The first axiom of playing continuo accompaniment from an editorially supplied part is that one must never hesitate to change it" (p. 62). Tips (p. 65): "1. Be sensitive to the frequent necessity of reducing the texture from four to three--or occasionally even to two--parts, depending on the volume of the solo instrument, the range in which it is playing, and the nature of the piece. 2. Do not feel compelled to play a chord on every bass note provided by the composer. In fact, don't even be tempted to. 3. Avoid doubling or going above the soloist's part in the realization. 4. Avoid playing full chords on bass notes taking the weak part of a beat unit. 5. Be sparing with ornamentation. 6. Above all, remain sensitive to the needs of the soloist, and accommodate those needs insofar as you can. Good continuo players must be as supportive as they are unobtrusive."

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen. Berlin, 1759, 1762. Trans. William J. Mitchell as Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. New York: Norton, 1949. Ch. 6, "Accompaniment," is the most relevant, especially the section "Some Refinements of Accompaniment," pp. 386--403, a "must read" primary-source primer on the subject. There are many cross-references to Arnold's 1931 book in Mitchell's notes. Several valuable quotes: "Of all the instruments that are used in the playing of thorough bass the single-manual harpsichord is the most perplexing with regard to forte and piano.  To make amends for the imperfection of the instrument in this respect the number of parts must be increased or reduced" (p. 368). "It is often necessary to strike chords over short rests in advance of their bass notes, as a means of retaining order and winning variety" (p. 418, in a section "Chords that precede their bass notes"). For recitatives, see pp. 420--25, which includes, for the organ: "In recitatives with sustained accompanying instruments, the organ holds only the bass, the chords being quitted soon after they are struck."

Borgir, Tharald. The Performance of the Basso Continuo in Italian Baroque Music. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987.  Ch. 19, "Neapolitan Continuo Practice: The Partimenti," 141--47, is the most important for this purpose. The term "partimenti" represents a bass needing realization in the treble, resulting in a piece that can serve as a keyboard solo. First developed by Gaetano Greco (ca. 1657--ca. 1728), it was further developed by Francesco Durante in a manuscript titled Partimenti, ossia intero studio di numerati, per ben suonare il cembalo. Durante's exercises consist of harmonizing ascending and descending scales (later called regola dell'ottave, rule of the octave). The advanced ones have written-out passages in the treble: scales or other motives in one hand imitating the other. Indeed, the third (and last) group of exercises is of fugues. Ch. 20 includes excerpts of written-out accompaniments, mostly in solo cantatas, by Francesco Gasparini (1695), Benedetto Marcello, Alessandro Scarlatti, and a sonata attributed to Handel for viola da gamba and "cembalo concertato."

Bötticher, Jörg-Andreas. "'Regeln des Generalbasses': Eine Berliner Handschrift des späten 18. Jahrhunderts." Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis 18 (1994): 87--114. This concerns a manuscript by "Herrn Musico Heering," dated 1771, which includes a realized edition of Largo and Vivace movements from a C-major sonata for two flutes by Johann Gottlieb Graun (pp. 111--13), with some examples of a right-hand chord on a beat where the bass part has a short rest. The issue also has these articles: Graham Sadler and Shirley Thompson, "Marc-Antoine Charpentier and the Basse Continue," 9--30; Arnaldo Morelli, "Basso Continuo on the Organ in Seventeenth-Century Italian Music," 31--45; George J. Buelow, "The Italian Influence in Heinichen's Der General-Bass in der Composition (1728)," 47--66; Regula Rapp, "Was der späte General-Baß?," 115--27; and see notes to the last item, below.

Buelow, George J. Thorough-Bass Accompaniment According to Johann David Heinichen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Rev. ed., Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986. An excellent guide to continuo playing by a highly respected scholar, based on the most important writer of the early 18th century (1711, 1728) on the subject. Heinichen took advantage of the publication of Gasparini (1708; see below). The most valuable section is ch. 6, "The 'Art' of Accompaniment: Specific Aspects of Style," pp. 175--218. Includes examples of changing right-hand realization in quarters or 8ths to 16th figuration; and even break up 8ths or quarters in the bass (pp. 194--202). But the reverse (pp. 202--03): change 16ths in bass to quarters or 8ths. There is a section (pp. 205--08) on imitating a solo voice in the right hand. Ch. 9 is a practical demonstration of realizing Alessandro Scarlatti cantata Lascia deh lascia al fine di tormentarmi più.

Daube, Johann Friedrich (1756), quoted in The Bach Reader, ed. Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, rev. ed. (New York: Norton, 1966), 256:

For the complete practical application of thorough bass it is necessary to know three species: (1) the simple or common; (2) the natural, or that which comes closest to the character of a melody or a piece; (3) the intricate or compound.

The excellent Bach possessed this third species in the highest degree; when he played, the upper voice had to shine. By his exceedingly adroit accompaniment he gave it life when it had none. He knew how to imitate it so cleverly, with either the right hand or the left, and how to introduce an unexpected counter-theme against it, so that the listener would have sworn that everything had been conscientiously written out. At the same time, the regular accompaniment was very little curtailed. In general his accompanying was always like a concertante part most conscientiously worked out and added as a companion to the upper voice so that at the appropriate time the upper voice would shine. This right was even given at times to the bass, without slighting the upper voice. Suffice it to say that anyone who missed hearing him missed a great deal.

Daw, Brian A. "Alessandro Scarlatti's Continuo Realization of Da sventura a sventura (1690): An Analysis and Observations Relating to Late Seventeenth-Century Keyboard Practices." Early Keyboard Journal 4 (1985-86): 51--60. Shows (pp. 54--55) how Scarlatti anticipates or imitates motives in the solo voice; also keyboard textures a 3--7 (not necessarily the usual 4 parts), and distributing realization in both hands. Leaves out the 3rd in a cadence when it's sung by the voice. Main point: the continuo complements, not doubles, the voice.

Derr, Ellwood. "Concertante Passages in Keyboard Realizations in Handel: Some Guidelines." The Diapason, September 1985, 9--12. Liberally quotes Heinichen/Buelow. Subjects: arpeggiation; furnishing imitations, as explained by Heinichen, and with example from J. S. Bach; examples from Handel's "O thou tellest" (the descending scale, imitations by Handel). "What eighteenth-century writers have not commented upon is the matter of necessity, as occasions arise, for the treatment of the concerting harpsichord part to complete the musical surface. It is then the task of analysis to ferret out these details. While realizations of certain passages may be undertaken on the basis of examples in treatises, those made on the basis of contextual settings in real pieces by composers of stature are likely to be more successful still, especially in the hands of a capable continuo harpsichordist" (p. 12).

Donington, Robert. The Interpretation of Early Music. Rev. ed. New York: Norton, 1992. The section "Going Beyond the Figures," especially pp. 306--07, 313--15, is valuable, relevant, and includes quotes from 17--18th-century authors.

Dreyfus, Arthur. Bach's Continuo Group: Players and Practices in His Vocal Works. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. " . . . manuscripts . . . provide no evidence to indicate how keyboard players voiced the chords of the continuo realization. For this reason I have not discussed styles of continuo realization."

Gasparini, Francesco. L'armonico pratico al cimbalo: Regole, osservazione, ed avvertimenti per ben suonare il basso, e accompagnare sopra il cimbalo, spinetta, ed organo. Venice, 1708. Facsimile, New York: Broude Bros., 1967. Trans. Frank S. Stillings, ed. David L. Burrows, as The Practical Harmonist at the Harpsichord. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963. Ch. 10, "Del diminuire, abbellire, or risiorire gli accompagnamenti" (diminution, embellishment, and adornment of the accompaniment) has examples of right-hand counter-melodies; ch. 11, "Del diminuire, ò risiorire il fondamento" (diminution, or adornment of the bass), has examples of breaking up or arpeggiating the continuo line.

Gudger, William D. "Playing Organ Continuo in Handel's Messiah." The American Organist 19, no. 2 (February 1985): 91--92. On use of organ vs. harpsichord, and how the organ was often used only to double bass line and imitative entries of the chorus. Handel normally had two harpsichords for oratorios--the first played by himself until the late 1730s, when he had a claviorganum (combination organ/harpsichord).

J. S. Bach's Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thorough-Bass or Accompanying in Four Parts. Trans. Pamela L. Poulin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Dated 1738, much is adapted from Friederich Erhardt Niedt, Musicalische Handleitung oder Gründlicher Unterricht (Musical guide or fundamental instruction; Hamburg, 1700/10). How to realize the figures; nothing more creative.

Keller, Hermann. Thoroughbass Method: With Excerpts from the Theoretical Works of Praetorius, Niedt, Telemann, Mattheson, Heinichen, J. S. & C. P. E. Bach, Quantz, and Padre Mattei, and Numerous Examples from the Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Trans. and ed. Carl Parrish. New York: Norton, 1965. From Mattheson, Grosse Generalbaß-Schule (Hamburg, 1731): break up right-hand chords like a pleasing toccata (p. 47). From Heinichen, Der Generalbass in der Composition (Dresden, 1728): instead of "poor kind of accompaniment" or "very plainly accompanied," "either 1) divide the accompaniment between both hands . . . or 2) undertake the full-voiced accompaniment with the left hand alone and thereby enable to the right hand with more ease to invent a separate song or melody to the bass, as far as our ideas, taste, and talent will allow" (p. 48).

Ledbetter, David, ed. Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Dated from 1724 and mid-30s, when he was teacher to daughters of George II, especially Princess Anne. Root, 6 chord, 6/4 chords, 6/5 chords, 2 chords, &c.; exercises in fugue, with models. Nothing especially creative.

Rogers, Patrick J. Continuo Realization in Handel's Vocal Music. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989. The first part deals with figuring in the sources; it's the second part, "Realization Problems," that is of more use: unison textures (play realized or unrealized?), and problems of realization in recitatives. Ch. 8, "Short Rests in the Bass," deals with whether to play a chord over a bass rest, and supports doing so from examples. Theorists of the time also describe the practice--for example, see quote from C. P. E. Bach, above. Mattheson's Grosse General-Baß Schule (Hamburg, 1731): ". . . it must be observed that the right hand must necessarily sound first when a sixteenth rest occurs . . . because the empty space offends the ear, which wishes most of all that everything be orderly and continuous, complete, and not broken up. Striking first with the right hand can be used with such rests throughout in accompanying, except for a few instances where the composer's intentions must be regarded" (quoted p. 148). Cites Telemann's Singe-, Spiel- und Generalbass-Übungen (Hamburg, 1733--34)--of 48 short songs, figured rests are used in six. Ch. 9, on pedal points, concludes, backed up by Heinichen, Telemann, and C. P. E. Bach, that figured pedal points generally should be harmonized, but unfigured ones not. Includes (pp. 186--87) detailed figuring of the Messiah's Pifa, meas. 1--11.

Rogers, Patrick J. "A Neglected Source of Ornamentation and Continuo Realization in a Handel Aria." Early Music 18, no. 1 (February 1990): 83--89. 1st: 2-part arrangement Ms. (ca. 1725) at the Fitzwilliam Museum of "Molto voglio" from Rinaldo, is included in Chrysander's 2nd ed. (1894) of the opera. 2nd: "Sventurato, godi o core abbandonato" from Floridante. 3rd: "Cara sposa" from Radamisto. These arrangements: 1) frequently contain at least part of the aria text; 2) usually are not literal transcriptions, and segments are recomposed and improved; 3) they are effective idiomatic keyboard pieces; 4) either are simple 2-part versions, which may relate to Handel's teaching duties, or more elaborate arrangements in 3 or more parts; 5) some have extensive ornamentation of the original vocal line. "Cara sposa" is a continuo aria, with complete text between staves. Rogers concludes that it's really a keyboard piece, perhaps freely based on pre-existing vocal ornamentation--best example of such ornamentation--and includes a complete edition in the article.

Thieme, C. A. Treatise, "Some Most Necessary Rules of Thorough Bass by J. S. B." [1725], once owned by Johann Peter Kellner, trans. in Bach Reader, 390--98. Basically how to realize chords from the figures.

Towe, Teri Noel. "Messiah: Reduplication without Redundancy: Editions and Recordings Past and Present." The American Organist 19, no. 2 (February 1985): 74--90. Occasional references to continuo playing in recordings.

Williams, Peter. Figured Bass Accompaniment. 2 vols. Edinburgh University Press, 1970. The best modern book on the subject, with many quotes and examples from the treatises, and vol. 2 has many unrealized examples, with interspersed suggestions for completing them. "When the bass rests on the beat, play the chord in the right hand" (p. 31, from Bologna Ms., ca. 1730; C. P. E. Bach, ch. 37; Manfredini 1775, 59). "Not all quick repeated bass notes have to be played; they may be omitted or broken" (Türk 1822, 293).

Williams, Peter. "Johann Sebastian Bach and the Basso Continuo." Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis 18 (1994): 67--86. Includes (pp. 77--78) a realization by Heinrich Nikolaus Gerber (Bach's pupil) of Sonata no. 6 from Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, Trattenimenti armonici per camera, op. 6 (Amsterdam, ca. 1712)--the realization (ca. 1724--25), according to Gerber, "durchcorrigirt von Sebastian Bach." Williams: ". . . at least a few ties between the upper parts are beginning to suggest an articulated part-writing." Also cites Bach's written-out accompaniment for the Largo of the Flute Sonata in B minor, BWV 1030, from the autograph score. "There is some evidence in Germany that players were sometimes encouraged to work towards a more 'künstlerisches' accompaniment than can easily be produced from a merely 'schulmeisterlich' harmonization in four parts" (p. 81). Bibliography, pp. 85--86.

 

Interpretive Suggestions for Modern Swedish Organ Works, Part 2

by Earl Holt
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Part 1 was published in the January, 1996 issue of The Diapason.

es ist genug... by Sten Hanson
Background

Sten Hanson, born in 1936 in Klövsjö, Sweden, has been chairman of the Society of Swedish Composers since 1984. Although self-taught as a composer, he has been chairman of the Fylkingen language group, and an executive committee member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), and Electronic Music Studio (EMS). For the last thirty years he has worked in experimental music, literature, and art, producing instrumental, vocal, and electro-acoustic music for radio and television performances. The premiere of Hanson's Wiener-Lieder for soprano, piano, and recorded tape, took place at the 1987 Swedish Music Spring Festival. Hanson tours internationally as a lecturer and artist.30

Music journalist Göran Bergendal writes that "the initial point of departure for Sten Hanson's art is literature--with underlying associations with popular and oral traditions of poetry."31 Hanson has treated historical and political subjects in his compositions, and even used the science fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs in a 1982 work, The John Carter Song Book.

Hanson has composed two organ works: Extrasensory Conceptions III for organ solo (1964) and es ist genug... for organ solo (1985), the work selected for this article.32 Extrasensory Conceptions III, however, was written for the late organ virtuoso Karl-Erik Welin, who was recognized for creativity in graphic score interpretation. Hanson writes that the work is "so closely related to this now deceased performer that it hardly can be used again." Hanson is currently composing a new work for organ and tape, "with the loudspeaker placed in the opposite side of the room in relation to the organ," for well-known Swedish organ virtuoso Hans-Ola Ericsson.33

Swedish National Radio produced a live broadcast of the premiere of es ist genug... (it is enough...) on February 8, 1986, as performed by Ericsson at the Jacob's Church in Stockholm. The piece, which is dedicated to Ericsson, has received approximately 150 European performances and has been broadcast in several countries, according to the composer. It was published in 1988, al-though the score lists no publication date. The title of the piece is correctly written in lower-case letters and is followed by three ellipsis points.34

Although es ist genug... is based on J.S. Bach's setting of the Lutheran chorale, the piece is not the expected chorale prelude, intended for a church service. Moreover, Hanson has always expressed extreme criticism of the Church and its tenets. Ericsson writes: "In this scherzandolike piece he [Hanson] drives his own criticism in absurdum, and the end gesture, a great cluster in diminuendo which concludes in major/minor tonality, says 'Enough of that now!'"35 es ist genug... is therefore Hanson's commentary by double entendre on religious dogma, and is not a church work based on the chorale text.

Structure

As a musical allusion to the four-syllable title of es ist genug..., the primary motivic material is taken from three four-pitch fragments of the chorale melody: (1) A, B, C-sharp, D-sharp--the distinctive, ascending whole-tone phrase that begins the chorale; (2) C-sharp, B, D, C-sharp--taken from the penultimate phrase of the chorale; and (3) E, C-sharp, B, A--the descending final notes of the chorale. The three fragments are treated individually in sections linked by clusters or extended rests. As pointed out by Ericsson, the rapid repetition in absurdum of the motivic fragments is the predominant compositional technique used in the piece. Table 3 shows the structural organization of es ist genug... .

es ist genug... is primarily a tonal piece, since it is based on the original Bach harmonization of the chorale in the key of A major. Non-tonal elements do occur, however: (1) dissonant harmonizations of the chorale in mm. 14, 20-21, and 50-56; (2) clusters, which serve to accompany the figuration in mm. 57-64, and to punctuate areas of rapidly repeated motives throughout the piece; and (3) the graphic notation and A-major/minor chord at the end of the piece (m. 71).

Registration

A three-manual instrument is necessary to perform the piece, since extended sections of rapid changes are divided among three different manuals. It is not feasible to make quick registration changes on a two-manual instrument, even with the help of a console assistant. Also, since these changes contribute greatly to timbral variety, and occur at irregular intervals, it is unacceptable merely to alternate between two manuals.

Dynamic changes in the piece require significant use of the Swell expression pedal, although stop changes can be made by an assistant if the instrument has no expressive divisions. The piece requires 56-key manuals and a 29-key pedal clavier, and thus can be performed on instruments with short upper octaves or limited pedal ranges.

Registration is outlined in the score. Table 4 lists the individual registrations specifically indicated for each manual.

Interpretation

As outlined in Table 3, note values of the motivic figuration decrease steadily throughout the piece, from eighth notes to sixteenth notes to thirty-second notes. Therefore, the beginning tempo must be slow enough to accommodate both the accelerando in mm. 51-56 and the thirty-second notes in the final pages. No tempo is printed in the score. The tempos in Ericsson's compact disc recording are useful as a guideline, however: the initial quarter note tempo of 44 has increased to 68 by the end of the accelerando in mm. 51-56.

With the exception of the final arm cluster in m. 71, all manual clusters are played as chromatic palm clusters, performed by playing as many black and white keys as possible within the range outlined. Each palm cluster is held the length of a quarter note, unless tied to another cluster. Tied clusters occur in mm. 47, 49, and 65; they follow the customary rules for tied notes.

Although the left hand can sustain both black and white keys in the long palm cluster in mm. 57-64, the feet will be able to cover only the white pedal keys in the accompanying pedal cluster. A console assistant, if available, can play the lower part of the pedal cluster and the left-hand palm cluster on the Swell manual. This assistance makes it possible for the performer to position one hand on each manual for the quick changes. It will also enable the performer to close the Swell expression pedal with the right foot. If the pedal dynamic has to be reduced to balance the manuals, the assistant can remove stops. As the cluster sound diminishes, the manual figuration emerges gradually from the cacophony.

During each section of rapid motive repetition, a form of staccato articulation is printed in the score: (1) stacc., mm. 24-34; (2) molto stacc., mm. 36-46; and (3) staccatissimo, mm. 50-64. The increasingly detached articulation maintains clarity as the note values decrease throughout the piece.

Almost all dynamic changes in the piece are accomplished by stop changes. Nevertheless, the Swell expression pedal is used in mm. 14-15, 21, 51-64, 67-69, and 71. These dynamic changes made with the Swell pedal are structural and must not be arbitrarily omitted if the instrument has no expressive divisions. A console assistant can make the changes by gradually adding or removing stops.

The first recording of es ist genug... was a compact disc recording by Ericsson on January 19, 1986, three weeks before the premiere, at the Jacob's Church in Stockholm. In 1989, a Russian organist, Alexander Fiseisky, made another recording on the Melodya label. Hanson writes: "I have heard his [Fiseisky's] version in a concert in the chapel of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, but I have never received a copy of the record, not even before the present Russian chaos."36

On the Ericsson recording, the final ffff cluster (m. 71) takes sixty seconds for the resolution to the A major/minor chord and for the diminuendo to ppp. The cluster is struck initially with both arms, reduced gradually to palm clusters, and then resolved poco a poco to the final A-major/minor chord. For the diminuendo, the expression pedal is gradually closed, or stops are removed by an assistant.

The Ericsson recording, made from a preliminary version of the score, differs somewhat from the 1988 published score, as shown in Table 5.

In mm. 1-12 and 16-19, Ericsson plays five repeated notes per measure, instead of six, taking advantage of the vast tonal resources of the five-manual instrument in the Jacob's Church in Stockholm. He plays each of the five notes on a separate manual, using five different timbres in the process.

Ericsson's omission of m. 9 is logical, since the measure appears to be an erroneously printed duplicate of the preceding two measures. Because the pitch b' occurs twice at this point in the original chorale melody, only two corresponding measures are correct in the score, and not three. Measure 9 is therefore included in the list of errors in Table 6.

In a recent letter, Hanson explained the difference between Ericsson's recorded version and the 1988 score:

After this [Ericsson's] first performance I was a little unhappy with the beginning of the piece, where the desired quality of "boredom" does not come out properly. I have later corrected that by adding a sixth note in each of the bars where a single note is played, as well as by rejecting the performers' frequent jumps from one registration to another in the beginning of the piece. Ericsson's recording follows correctly the first version of the score and the changes in the score vis-a-vis the record[ing] are the results of the later revision. The recording was made in connection with the first performance without my presence or assistance, [otherwise] I would have asked the performer to wait for my revised score.37

The 1988 published score, not the recorded version, is therefore definitive. The score has a number of errors, however. (See Table 6.) Hanson has reviewed the errata and writes that they are identical to the errors he has found. A forthcoming reprint of the score will have the necessary corrections.

The performance time on Ericsson's compact disc recording is five minutes and nineteen seconds. As indicated in Table 5, however, the early version of the score used for the recording omits mm. 27-34 and 38-46, thus shortening its length. If the 1988 printed version is performed in its entirety, therefore, the piece will be approximately forty-five seconds longer, or six minutes and four seconds.

Gesänge der Toten by Hans-Ola Ericsson
Background

Hans-Ola Ericsson was born in 1958 in Stockholm where, as a child, he sang in the Stockholm Boys' Choir. His first counterpoint, composition, and organ performance teacher was innovative Swedish composer Torsten Nilsson (b. 1920), to whom Gesänge der Toten is dedicated. Ericsson's first public organ recitals began in 1974, the same year his first organ compositions were written. In 1977 he was admitted to the State Academy of Music in Freiburg, Germany, where he studied composition with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough, and organ with Zsigmond Szathmáry. Further composition study was with Luigi Nono in Venice in 1984.38

Ericsson has performed at many European festivals, and on French, Japanese, and American radio. Since 1986 Ericsson has been principal instructor of organ performance at Piteå College in Piteå, Sweden. At present, he also teaches solo organ performance and courses in interpretation of modern organ music at the State Colleges of Music in Stockholm, Malmö, and Göteborg. As a virtuoso organist, he is well-known from tours of Europe and the United States, and from recordings for radio and compact disc. He has recently recorded the complete works of Olivier Messiaen on seven compact discs for the BIS label.39

Ericsson's works for organ are Gesänge der Toten for organ and percussion (1977), J'Ecris Ton Nom for organ, percussion and electronic tape, Niemandsland for organ and electronic tape, Orgelsymphonie in tre Satzer for organ solo (1975-76), Via Dolorosa for organ solo, and Melody to the Memory of a Lost Friend XIII for organ and electronic tape (1985).40

The work selected for this article, Gesänge der Toten (Songs of the Dead), was composed in January 1977 and published the same year. The score is a legible photocopy of the manuscript.

Structure

Gesänge der Toten is based on a chorale of unknown origin that occurs monophonically (mm. 10-16), as a jazz variation (mm. 23-40), as the pedal line during the climax (m. 51), and in a four-voice harmonization (mm. 53-62). The chorale is present sporadically; thematically unrelated sections of arpeggios, improvisation, and graphically notated clusters constitute most of the piece. Meter is either 3/4 or 4/4, except for four instances of free meter (mm. 8-9, 41-44, 51, and 68-69), measured in clock seconds. Although the piece contains areas of chromaticism and extreme dissonance, it centers on the key of the chorale, F minor.

Despite areas of tonality and the presence of the chorale, the piece has no conventional form. The chorale serves chiefly to unify the piece by providing a recurring theme; its treatment and occurrences, however, are irregular. Table 7 is a structural outline of the work.

Registration

The manual compass for Gesänge der Toten is C to g''' and the pedal compass is C to f'. The manuals must therefore have at least fifty-six keys. The note g''' only occurs four times, however, in ten-voice dissonant arpeggios over triple pedal (m. 7); it can be omitted, virtually unnoticed, on fifty-four-key manuals.

The score specifies a three-manual instrument, but the piece can be performed on two manuals. Only one instance of rapid interplay among all three manuals occurs--improvisatory figuration and a sequence of twenty-four palm clusters in mm. 8-9; a console assistant can alternate stops to produce the three distinct timbres. An assistant is necessary, anyway, to manipulate percussion stops: the Röhrenglockenton (tubular bells), Xylophon 4', and Cymbelstern. The assistant must add and remove the Röhrenglockenton at specific points indicated in the score in mm. 60-65, and must stop the Cymbelstern in m. 64. If an adjustable combination action is unavailable, an assistant will also be indispensable for stop changes.

Besides the organ percussion stops, a bass drum ostinato occurs in mm. 51-63; the drum can be played by a second assistant or by a percussionist. The ostinato is simple and does not require a trained drummer. If the available organ does not have the necessary percussion stops, a percussionist can produce most of the percussive timbres--the Cymbelstern in mm. 51-63 and the tubular bells in mm. 60-65, for example. To heighten the dramatic intensity, the organist screams ffff in m. 8, before beginning a "wild outburst" on the manuals--an improvisatory section with palm clusters.41

The Swell expression pedal is used in mm. 2-7, 9-16, 39-40, and 51, although the console assistant can make gradual stop changes if no expression pedal is available. Table 8 lists a complete registration, based on the score, for a three-manual instrument.

Interpretation

Gesänge der Toten is a dramatic, violent, macabre work, characterized by extremes in dynamics, pitch, note values, and dissonance. A number of similarities--coincidental or not--to American composer William Bolcom's Black Host (1967) suggest his influence: (1) the use of percussion, including tubular chimes and bass drum; (2) a centrally placed dirge, accompanied by a jazz background at a slow tempo; (3) the use of a chorale, or psalm tune, especially at the end of the work; (4) graphically notated arm clusters used at the climax; and (5) a deliberate, brutal style. Obvious differences exist, too; Ericsson's piece is much shorter and does not incorporate an electronic tape. As illustrated in Table 8, the quarter note tempo increases steadily at major structural posts--from quarter note = 46 at the beginning of the piece to 112-126 at the end. That the piece is a kind of procession is emphasized in the score at the outset: "In the tempo of a very slow march."42

At the beginning, twenty-eight successive, ascending arpeggios--one per beat--are played in exact rhythm. Each hand must play and sustain five notes from each ten-voice arpeggio, spanning intervals of a ninth or tenth. Because of the difficulty in spanning these wide intervals, it will be impossible for some performers to play the piece. The arpeggios increase dynamically and rise in pitch until m. 8, where the performer suddenly screams ffff (using the vowel A, as in "father"). The scream appears on a separate staff with a speaking clef (talklav); it begins as loudly and as high in pitch as possible, and then slides downward in pitch. A footnote in Swedish in the score allows a substitute screamer: "A scream, executed by the performer or by someone in his place."43

Before the scream ends, a "wild outburst" of graphically notated improvisation in free meter begins. The first six seconds of improvisation have swirling figuration and occasional clusters that are distributed among three manuals (m. 8). In a commentary at the end of the piece, Ericsson describes the figuration as "rapidly vibrating movements of the fingers and the palm within the indicated range."44

In m. 9 the improvisation continues with ten seconds of palm clusters divided at random among the manuals. The first six palm clusters are notated as 2048th notes (with nine ligatures); the note values then increase gradually to eighth notes. This exaggerated notation produces, in effect, the indicated ritardando. The improvisation concludes with an eleven-voice chord that becomes arm clusters, and then gradually decreases in texture and dynamic over twenty seconds.

The monophonic statement of the chorale in mm. 10-16 begins tranquilly and ends with a crescendo to fff. A section of ascending arpeggios, similar to those at the beginning of the piece, begins in m. 16. This time, however, the arpeggios in the last measure of the section (m. 21) are changed to two cluster arpeggios and a cluster glissando that embellishes an arm cluster. Those clusters and the three arm clusters in m. 22 are played precisely in the march rhythm; both black and white keys are struck.

The jazz section in mm. 23-40 is loosely based on the chorale theme, which is treated as a highly embellished solo against a blues accompaniment; the section contains two tremolos (mm. 27-28), two tied trills (mm. 26 and 29), and a few other basic licks. The subsequent pedal solo begins with a low-register cluster glissando (m. 41) that can be played by the right foot on the black keys and by the left foot on the white ones. The graphic notation in m. 44 represents a fast improvisation, with toes and heels rapidly striking pedal notes at random within the range indicated. The 32' reed, added at the beginning of the measure, is unlikely to speak during the random figuration because of the fast tempo; the stop is probably added in anticipation of the three long notes that follow the improvisation. The pedal solo ends with a white-key glissando played by the left foot (m. 47).

The rhythm of the pedal solo in mm. 45-47 is repeated for the palm clusters in mm. 48-50. Then the Cymbelstern sounds, unaccompanied, for four seconds at the beginning of m. 51, before the organist and drummer begin the climactic crescendo. The bass drummer begins a five-note ostinato, accenting the note-heads that have an "X" superimposed on them. At the same time, the organist begins a slow, eighteen-second crescendo by using both arms in a cluster glissando that covers the entire Great manual. The glissando starts with the left elbow sustaining a few low notes. Gradually the entire left forearm is lowered onto the manual; the right wrist is added near the center of the manual and the right forearm is gradually lowered onto the manual until the elbow is completely down. Meanwhile, the Swell expression pedal, if available, has been opened halfway at this point; alternatively, the console assistant could have gradually added stops. The manuals are silent for four seconds while two more notes of the chorale are played in the pedal. The organist then improvises rapid manual figuration with fingers, palms, and elbows for eighteen seconds more--until maximum cacophony is reached, the expression pedal is fully opened, and the chorale in the pedal has been completed.

After the climax, the manuals are silent and the pedal sustains a perfect fourth, C-F, on soft 32' and 16' flues; the Cymbelstern continues to sound, and the bass drum begins a diminuendo. The organist plays the first seven measures of the harmonized chorale (mm. 53-59); when m. 60 is reached, the console assistant begins to add and remove the Röhrenglockenton stop four times, at locations in mm. 60-65. The Cymbelstern and bass drum are tacet at the first beat of m. 64, where the pedal takes over the ostinato from the bass drum. Stops and couplers are added at m. 67 for the end of the piece. In m. 68 the half notes with arrows through the stems are sustained while the unstemmed notes are played during a fifteen-second period of free meter.

The score contains several errors. (See Table 9.) No commercial recording of the work was located. The performance time is approximately six minutes.

Notes

                  30.           Peterson, s.v. "Hanson, Sten." by Stig Jacobson.

                  31.           Roth, 52.

                  32.           Sten Hanson, es ist genug . . . (Stockholm: Svensk Musik, [1988]).

                  33.           Hanson, Letter to this writer, October 18, 1993.

                  34.           Ibid.

                  35.           Ericsson, brochure notes for Organo con Forza, 4.

                  36.           Hanson, Letter to this writer, October 18, 1993.

                  37.           Ibid.

                  38.           Anders Ekenberg, brochure notes for Olivier Messiaen: the Complete Organ Music, vol.1, BIS CD 409,26.

                  39.           Ibid.

                  40.           Walter A. Frankel and Nancy K. Nardone, eds., Organ Music in Print; 2d ed. (Philadelphia: Musicdata, 1984), 89; Ericsson, Organo con Forza.

                  41.           Hans-Ola Ericsson, Gesänge der Toten, (Munich: Edition Modern, 1977), 4.

                  42.           Ibid., 2.

                  43.           Ibid., 4.

                  44.           Ibid., 12.

John Bull: Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la

A Performer’s Investigation, Part 1

by Gary Verkade
Default

Knowledge

In order to acquire knowledge about John Bull’s work, it is important to know a little bit about what knowledge actually meant at the time the work was created. Here we are dealing with the late Renaissance–early Baroque, the exact date of the composition itself, as far as I have been able to determine, being unknown. Michel Foucault in his book, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, states:

Up to the end of the sixteenth century, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. It was resemblance that largely guided exegesis and the interpretation of texts; it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols, made possible knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them. The universe was folded in upon itself: the earth echoing the sky, faces seeing themselves reflected in the stars, and plants holding within their stems the secrets that were of use to man (p. 17) . . . To search for a meaning is to bring to light a resemblance (p. 29) . . . There is no difference between the visible marks that God has stamped upon the surface of the earth, so that we may know its inner secrets, and the legible words that the Scriptures, or the sages of Antiquity, have set down in the books preserved for us by tradition. The relation to these texts is of the same nature as the relation to things: in both cases these are signs that must be discovered (p. 33) . . . Knowledge therefore consisted in relating one form of language to another form of language; in restoring the great, unbroken plain of words and things; in making everything speak. That is, in bringing into being, at a level above that of all marks, the secondary discourse of commentary. The function proper to knowledge is not seeing or demonstrating; it is interpreting (p. 40).

If knowledge in the Renaissance and Baroque is interpretation and uncovering order, then knowledge about a work of art created in this transition time at the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque can only be about discovering an order and an interpretation. I do not believe that the impossibility of total certainty of the results of such inquiry should deter one from the attempt to understand a work in the sense the maker might have understood that concept of “understanding.” One thing is certainly true. Understanding, in this sense, for a musician cannot simply mean hearing and/or playing a work and responding with “like” or “dislike.” Our response must go deeper. “It is not enough to feel the effects of a science or an art. One must conceptualize these effects in order to render them intelligible” (Rameau, p. xxxv). We must dig in order to uncover what might be hidden from cursory view. We must, as Frescobaldi demands, “endeavour in the first place to discover the character of the passages, the tonal effect intended by the composer  . . . ”(Notes).

John Bull

 

John Bull (1562–1628) had his feet in the Renaissance and his head in the Baroque. In other words, he was a child of the Renaissance and experienced the beginnings of the new era as a grown man. He was the student of John  Blitheman. John is known as William in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, which contains an In nomine of his immediately preceding the Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la of Bull’s which is the subject of the present essay. Blitheman was known for his cantus firmus compositions, which occasionally demanded great virtuosity of the player. Bull’s education, grounded in Renaissance teaching as it must have been, certainly did not end with his formal studies. He was elected first Public Reader in Music at Gresham College, London in March of 1597 where he remained, except for a year’s leave of absence, until 1607, the year which saw his necessary marriage to one Elizabeth Walter, who was pregnant with his child. During his period at Gresham, the College was a hotbed of discussion of new ideas, inventions and discoveries from all over Europe.

For example, during the last quarter of the sixteenth century the ideas of Copernicus became more widely disseminated among the general public, the world view which stood the previous view of the universe on its head. What was formerly immovable, the earth, now was realized to be hurtling through space at unheard-of speeds. Bull must have been well-informed as to the revolutions in scientific thought in which learned men all across Europe were engaged. He was part of the established intellectual community; the universities did not ignore these new, ground-breaking ideas. He must have known about the fierce debates between the followers of Copernicus and those of Aristotle at Cambridge during the 1580s. For “we find Gresham College was, throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, a general clearinghouse for information concerning the latest scientific discoveries. Its professors of astronomy and geometry were among the ablest scientists of their day, and the college’s central location in London made their rooms a convenient rendezvous for all those who were actually contributing to the advancement of science in England” (Johnson, p. 263).

There is no need to go into the relevance of science to music in either the Renaissance or Baroque eras. That relationship has been amply discussed in a plethora of publications. What is important to note here is that the age in which Bull lived and worked was one of adventurous discovery, one in which science was revolutionizing the view of the world, as well as one in which, first in Italy and then in the rest of Europe, music, too, was undergoing revolutionary change. It is important to note that revolution, new ways of thinking, were part and parcel of Elizabethan life. Bull was no stranger to the new.

The hexachord

The hexachord was first described, but not named, in Guido of Arezzo’s treatise Micrologus of 1025–28. There are three hexachords, all of which have the same intervallic structure: the hexachordum naturale (C - D - E - F - G - A); the hexachordum molle, so-called because it included b molle, i.e., b-flat (F - G - A - B-flat - C - D); and the hexachordum durum, so-called because it included b durum, i.e. b-natural (G - A - B - C - D - E). Since medieval theory did not consider pitches of higher or lower octaves to be identical, seven hexachords were differentiated in the scale from G to e2, all of them beginning on C, F, or G. There was no concept of modulation. A melody exceeding the compass of a single hexachord was considered to be in transition from one hexachord to another. This movement was referred to as mutation. Tonal centers were not established by such movement, but rather the compass of a particular melody simply shifted from one area to another by making use of a pivot tone, a tone which belonged to both hexachords. Thus, for example, the tone sol in one hexachord could at the same time function as the tone ut in another. Yet, because the hexachord has the same construction whether based on C, F, or G, it has one interesting similarity to the major-minor tonal system: it has the potential to form the basis of a relative pitch system.

Guido’s treatise was referred to throughout the ensuing centuries, though the term “hexachord” itself apparently does not appear until about the 16th century. Although Masses based on the hexachord were composed, keyboard composers of the late Renaissance and the early Baroque seem to have been particularly fascinated by the musical possibilities offered by this theme. Pieces based on the hexachord were written by such important composers as Girolamo Frescobaldi (2) and Gregorio Strozzi in Italy, Johann Jakob Froberger in Austria, Pieter Cornet (the piece survives only as a fragment) and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck in the Low Countries, Samuel Scheidt in North Germany, Pablo Bruna in Spain, and William Byrd (2), Thomas Tomkins (7!), John Lugge, and John Bull (3) in England.

John Bull and the hexachord

Thomas Morley, as Master Gnorimus in A Plaine and Easie Introdvction to Practicall Mvsick (1597) which is organized in dialogue form, spends at the beginning of that treatise a considerable amount of time explaining musical notation to Philomathes, a student in the dialogue. He does this by using the hexachord and the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. Morley’s art of teaching music was not unique in England and musicians must have been familiar with this system.

 The adventurous John Bull composed three very different pieces on the hexachord. One, Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la [II], is an extended composition (292 measures in the Musica Brittanica edition, 237 irregularly-barred measures in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) in which, after the second statement, the hexachord theme is treated principally as a cantus firmus in the soprano in long notes accompanied by figurations which become in the course of the piece quite virtuosic. Beginning with a long section in two voices, Bull introduces a third voice for a similarly long section, and then a fourth voice, the piece remaining four-voiced to the end. The subdivision of the beat changes a number of times in the course of this work and in addition to the metric two-against-three which occurs in the juxtaposition of duple and triple times, rhythmic two-against-three is also found in this composition, a favorite Bull device.

Another is the more contrapuntal, 188-measure Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la [III] (not found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book) composition. The more sustained polyphonic nature of the five-part texture and the avoidance of metric and rhythmic variety (the piece moves principally in halves, quarters and eighths with some dotting of values) starkly differentiate this piece from the preceding one. In addition, the hexachord theme itself is found in several rhythmic forms, principally varying combinations of halves and quarters with some tied notes, dotted values and an occasional eighth-note.

The piece which is the subject of this essay is the shortest of the three hexachord compositions by Bull.

Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la [I]

Editions

I made the decision to use the version of the piece found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book since it is clearly closer to the actual score of the piece as Bull himself might have written it. The version found in the Musica Brittanica edition, with its regularly-barred measures and its conformity to 20th-century notational practices, leads one to think that the piece may be in common time. Whereas I would like, as much as is possible for a musician living very much with both feet planted in the 21st century, to get into the musical mind of Bull as it manifests itself in this composition. One must assume that whoever copied the music in the 17th century had an understanding of the music he was copying and, especially, was closer to the manner in which it was notated than editors in the mid-20th century could have been. And it is the notation which provides the only clues we have directly from the composer, clues we need in order to reach some understanding of the work, without which appropriate interpretive decisions cannot be made. The importance of the manuscript and the collection in general speaks for going to the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book as primary source.

The theme

The theme (see Example 1) has two parts, which mirror each other, consisting of the ascending and descending hexachord. The highest note (at the first appearance of the theme an e1) is always repeated.

As do the other two compositions on this theme, the present work begins not only with the hexachordum durum, but also with the very same note: g0, although it is the soprano voice (not bass or tenor as in the other pieces) which here begins the work in this low register.

Meter

Since the irregular measures of 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 5/1, 9/2, and 12/2 do not seem to indicate any regular occurrence of accent, my attention was brought to the consideration of meter in terms of the theme as a whole. The whole note is the value at which the regular occurrence of the tactus takes place. The piece floats in an unaccentuated flow of regular beats of that tactus. The entrance of the hexachord theme every 13 whole-note units is the important, regularly occurring event in the work. The unit of measure is not the bar line, wherever it is drawn, but rather the whole note itself and we will subsequently refer to whole-note units rather than any measure numbers. The six ascending and six descending notes give us the duration of twelve whole-notes. Except for the first three statements and one curious half note during the 13th statement, the entire theme consists of 12 unvaried note values throughout.  The final pitches of the first two statements consist of two whole notes: two g0’s and two a0’s respectively. The final pitch of the third statement is one b0 whole note tied to another. After that, the final pitch of the theme is always a whole note separated from the following thematic statement by a whole-note rest. This makes the entire theme, the ascending and descending hexachord and the unit of rest, one phrase measuring 13 units (whole notes).

We can think of the hexachord theme as beginning with a downbeat and spanning the duration of 13 whole notes. A secondary accent occurs, perhaps, at the repetition of the highest note of the theme, which results in two units of six whole notes each. The 13th whole note of the first statement repeats the final note, that of the second statement repeats the final note with an ornament, that of the third is tied to the previous whole note. After that, the 13th whole note is a rest. The 13th unit of the hexachord theme functions, especially beginning with the fourth statement, as a breath, a metrical breath if you will, a moment of rest, of gathering energy, before continuing with the next statement. This music breathes in 13-unit phrases with a consistency unbroken until the end.

Transposition

The second statement of the hexachord theme begins a whole-step higher than the first statement; and the third statement begins another whole step higher. This transposition of the theme upwards by whole step is pursued rigorously up to f1, at which point the next statement would appear again on a G (g1, an octave above the first note of the piece). This Bull does not do, but rather jumps down almost two octaves to A-flat and begins the process of transposition by whole step upwards all over again, using the remaining pitches of the twelve-note chromatic scale.

Example 2 gives the initial notes of all 17 statements of the hexachord theme, the last 4 statements of which are all on the same pitch, g1. Thus we see that the cycle of whole-step transposition, beginning on g0, interrupted once at f1 and leaping down to A-flat instead and then continuing the cycle in order to return to g0, involves 13 statements of the hexachord theme.

Modulation

With the transposition of the hexachord theme Bull is forced to modulate to new keys at every single entrance of the theme. The composition manifests remarkable instances of modulatory prowess and enharmonic ambivalence. Consider Example 3.

The E-major chord at the beginning of Example 3 includes b0, the last note of the previous statement of the theme.  D-flat1 is the first note of the fourth entrance of the theme and it appears here immediately as D-flat and not as C-sharp, as might be expected from the previous harmony. The enharmonic modulation must take place somewhere and Bull chooses to do it here. Apparently, in spite of what the Musica Brittanica edition has done here (namely first spell c-sharp1, then tie to d-flat1), Bull is not interested in making a smooth, a plausible, enharmonic modulation (see Example 4).

We can see that Bull has not written a piece concerned with modulating to as many keys as possible, thereby enabling the hexachord theme to appear in those keys. The plan of his work is to transpose, to shift the hexachord theme; he shifts the theme and afterwards draws the harmonic consequences. The transposition of the hexachord theme is the given, leading to necessary modulation—not modulation leading to transposition of the theme. The transposition of the hexachord theme is the postulate which implies the stipulation of key, not vice versa.  In other words: the form is a priori and precipitates the harmony; the harmony does not precipitate the form.

Form

We have noted above that after 12 shifts or transpositions of the hexachord theme, i.e. with the 13th transposition, Bull returns, comes full circle transpositionally, to the g0 with which he started the piece, though here it is the bass voice and not the soprano as at the beginning. Here Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la could conceivably end. Bull has traversed the entire gamut of pitches available to him in the chromatic scale and returned back to where he had started. This disregards, however, the psychological strain through which he has put his listener. Bull must draw the consequences of going so far afield harmonically. He must first establish conclusively for the listener that one has arrived “home.” And that is not achieved by a single statement on G.

There follow four more statements of the hexachord theme, all on G, all on the same g1, all in the soprano voice. However, just as Bull begins to anchor the listener in the hexachordum durum, he changes what has up to that point been a duple to a triple division of the beat. Now this is a common device found at the ends of many compositions of this period and others: triple subdivision as ecstatic conclusion. Statement 14 consists of three half notes per whole note. Occasionally the half notes are subdivided into duple quarters which sound against the (now dotted) whole notes. Statement 15 contains both duple and triple subdivisions of the beat; the quarter notes here are ambiguously either triple subdivisions of the duple half notes or duple subdivisions of the triplet half notes. This rhythmic ambiguity occurs exactly at the point where Bull is interested in being unambiguous harmonically, i.e., he can now afford to be ambiguous on the rhythmic level now that the harmonic level has become more stable. Statements 16 and 17 return to duple subdivisions on all levels, as had been the case from statements 1 to 13.

So at the end of the composition there are five statements of the hexachordum durum. The first of these five statements (on g0) occurs at the end of the transposition process begun at the outset of the piece and belongs to that process. It rounds off that section of the piece. The final four statements (on g1) are no longer part of that process, but provide the necessary anchoring in G in order for the piece to come to a satisfactory close.

Counterpoint I: beginning and end

The hexachord appears as a cantus firmus, it does not take part in any imitative counterpoint. Three of the four voices are, then, not predetermined by the form. The opening of Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la is instructive (see Example 5) and merits a close look. It is not marked by strict imitation carried through the three free voices.

The soprano begins, opening with the hexachordum durum on g0. The bass enters one half note later on the same g0, before the soprano moves to its second note. The two voices sound together for the duration of one half note with the same pitch, thus obscuring the two-voiced texture. The bass continues stepwise downwards through the fourth unit. At unit three the alto enters with a motive different from both the hexachord in the soprano and the descending motive in the bass. It enters on the only available note between soprano and bass: g0. The tenor enters one unit later with the descending motive first heard at the bass entrance. However, the entrance of the tenor is obscured by the fact that at that same moment the alto and the soprano sound the same note together: c1. In other words, at the entrance of the fourth voice one hears only three voices. This obscures not only the texture again, but the imitation between bass and tenor as well. Significant, and genial, about the beginning of the work is that all four voices start from exactly the same point, exactly the same pitch: the final of the hexachordum durum, g0.

The descending fifth motive, found in the bass and tenor voices, does not reappear as such throughout the rest of the work until the very last measures. The motive is given one prefix note and is found here in all three free voices. This reminiscence of the beginning provides a fitting and appropriate close to the work (see Example 6).

Counterpoint II: alto motive

At the beginning of the work (see example 5) the soprano has the hexachord as cantus firmus and the bass and tenor voices imitate each other, in fact the first five pitches are exactly the same. The alto voice is here unique, free. It proves to have a more productive motive than that shared by tenor and bass, and, indeed, we find that it is not imitation which is most significant here or in the work as a whole. There are scattered passages which employ imitation in one form or another, more or less strictly, between two or three voices. There seems to be no overall formal principle which dictates when and where imitation between the voices takes place. It is one of the compositional means at Bull’s disposal and he uses it without ever losing the prevailing sense of freedom which the three voices have in the face of the strict formal construction of the transposition scheme of the hexachord.

The emphasis is not on imitative counterpoint, but rather on a free development of the concept of imitation. One can see this on the freedom with which Bull treats the alto motive, heard at the outset (see Example 7) and referred to henceforth as the alto motive no matter in which voice it is found.

During the course of the second statement of the hexachord theme, we hear this motive in different guises in three of the four voices (see Example 8).

Rhythm and intervals are altered, and inversion is heard in the alto and bass as well as retrograde in the bass voice. Just a few units later, during the third statement of the hexachord theme, the alto motive is found using a passing tone (see Example 9).

The part of the motive which is found at units 33–34, using the quarter-note passing tone, is one that is found in all the three free voices at that point and plays a role through the fourth entrance of the hexachord theme. The alteration of the alto motive thus generates a further motive that is used contrapuntally in these passages.

In Example 10, taken from the fourth statement of the hexachord theme, we find an interesting canon, interesting in the fact that it is not strict. The bass voice leads, followed by the alto voice one whole note later with a rhythmically enlivened version of the bass voice. Also noteworthy is how the same note takes on different harmonic functions. This is due, of course, to the fact that one of the voices is the bass and the other the alto. It also has to do with the fact that, although the entrance of the d-flat1 in the alto is rhythmically analogous to the entrance of the d-flat0 in the bass, namely mid-unit, the d-flat1 enters with the length of a whole note and obscures the fact that the alto voice is, contrary to the bass, placed on the unit (beat). Thus the g-flat0 in the bass becomes dissonant at unit 44, whereas the g-flat1 in the alto at unit 45 is consonant for its entire duration. So, too, the e-flat0 in the bass is consonant for its duration, but, the e-flat1 in the alto at unit 47 becomes dissonant.

This last example demonstrates the developmental possibilities of the alto motive. Given its construction (see Example 7), the small ambitus of a perfect fourth, the prominent interval of the third, and the half step at the end, it is a motive that is related to any other motive using those intervals. It is possible to recognize in example 10 that the alto line is directly derived from the alto motive in the bass voice. In other cases it is more difficult to assert that other motives with similar constructions were consciously fashioned from the alto motive. Nevertheless, many of the passages contain motives constructed with thirds and fourths, or often end with a half step, which fact is not surprising in music that is articulated with cadences.

From units 86–93 (see Example 11), the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth statement of the hexachord theme, we find the alto motive used in free imitative fashion between soprano, alto and tenor. Interesting is the alto voice which mirrors itself beginning at unit 89 and then tacks on a cadential e-flat1 - d1 - e-flat1.

Example 12, from the tenth statement of the hexachord theme, demonstrates a still freer treatment of the alto motive or, if you will, those primary intervals of which the alto motive is constructed. The passage does not illustrate imitative counterpoint, but rather a free development of the alto motive. Notice particularly the alto voice which, as in the previous example, mirrors itself and pivots around f-sharp1.

Immediately following this passage, at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh statement of the hexachord theme, the soprano states two versions of the alto motive successively, the first descending (i.e, inverted), the second ascending (see Example 13).

There are further passages in which the alto motive or fragments thereof play a role in the contrapuntal texture of the work. Often, just as is the case in a number of the above examples, they are worked into phrases which are much longer. The motive shines forth suddenly from within the context of something larger than itself and contributes to the unity of the work.          

Gary Verkade was born in Chicago and grew up in the south suburbs. He studied music at Calvin College and the University of Iowa in the United States, and in 1978 he received a Fulbright grant to study at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen, Germany, and lived in Germany for 17 years. He has performed much new music throughout Europe and the United States and is the composer of music for organ, electronics, chamber and improvisational ensembles.Verkade has been a guest professor/lecturer/performer at universities in Europe and the United States; he served on the music faculty of Carthage College, Kenosha, Wisconsin, from 1995–2000. He is presently on the faculty of the Musikhögskolan i Pitea, Sweden, where he continues to teach, perform, compose, record, and write about music.

Bach and Die Kunst der Fuge

by Jan Overduin
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Jan Overduin is Professor of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, where he teaches organ and church music. He began studies in The Netherlands, where he was born, and continued in Canada at the University of Western Ontario, where he received the Masters degree in performance. The list of his teachers includes Marie-Claire Alain, Peter Hurford, and Jean Langlais. He has directed many choirs including the Wilfrid Laurier University Choir and Chapel Choir, the Niagara Chamber Choir (which he founded), the Menno Singers, the Mennonite Mass Choir. He has been actively involved in church music for over 40 years, most recently as director of music at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Kitchener, Ontario from 1985 to 1997. As organ soloist, he has recorded numerous broadcasts for radio and has played concerts in Europe, North America, and the Far East. His discography includes nine CDs with trumpeter Eric Schultz (on the German labels 'ebs' and 'Arte Nova Classics'), a solo album recorded at Ottobeuren, Germany (on 'ebs'), and a recent CD with recorder virtuoso Matthew Jones. Forthcoming is a book on improvisation for organists, published by Oxford University Press, and a new organ edition of the Art of Fugue. Jan Overduin may be contacted at [email protected] and welcomes visitors at his website http://info.wlu.ca/ ~wwwmusic/overduin/index.htm

The Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080, a work consisting of 14 fugues and 4 canons all on one theme, is Bach's farewell, his testament. It is a very solemn and personal work, and ends with Bach's only fugue on his name, the notes B-flat, A, C, and B-natural (B, A, C, and H in German). Never before did he use this chromatic theme on such a grand scale or with such clarity as here at the end of Contrapunctus XIV. It is as if he puts his signature not only to the KdF, but also to his life's work. In fact it is uncanny, this very clear reference to his own name. The aural effect is almost dizzying, as is the visual appearance of the last page, with C.P.E. Bach's handwritten note about his father's death: "In this fugue, where the name BACH appears as a countersubject, the composer died." Like Shakespeare in the character of Prospero in The Tempest, Bach himself appears on stage, but it is to say "good-bye."

It is fitting that Bach reserved the 14th fugue for the use of the plain theme in clearest form, because of the relationship between the number 14 and his name. By allowing each letter of the alphabet a number (a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4 and so on), Bach's name adds up to 14 (2 + 1 + 3 + 8). Moreover, the name J.S. Bach adds up to its retrograde 41 (9 + 18 + 14). Though Bach's familiarity with numbers is not documented, the cabalistic numerical ideas were common knowledge.1 The work may have been intended as his third and final offering to the Mizler Society, which he had joined in June 1747, waiting until he was the 14th member to join. He also had his portrait painted for this society with 14 buttons on his jacket. Perhaps his aim was to finish the KdF by June 1749, as his third and final offering, since a condition of membership obliged him to submit a published "scientific" work every year until the age of 65.2

The more I play this work, the more aware I become of how saturated it is with personal references or "signatures." The B-A-C-H theme in the obvious four-note form or more subtly through the use of themes that contain 14 or 41 notes permeates the entire KdF. A casual listener or player is not likely to be conscious of some of these allusions, but the fact that they are there in such abundance imbues the work with a personal intensity and warmth that can easily be felt. While some or even many of the "B-A-C-H's" may occur spontaneously as a result of Bach's use of chromatic language, there are reasons to suspect that their incorporation is part of the overall design of the work and intention of the composer. Bach is not merely scribbling his name all over the score or playing numerological games. The chromatic language itself, the use of the key of D minor, the shape of theme and its inversion with its hymn-tunes analogies, the dramatic use of silence, various other motifs--it is all these and more, together with the "signatures," that give the work its deeply personal flavor.

The following examples include only appearances of the B-A-C-H theme that use the four actual notes B-flat, A, C, and B-natural. Excluded are all transpositions of the motif, e.g. E-flat, D, F, E etc., of which there are numerous examples. All examples have the four notes in the same octave.  Again, by relaxing this restriction, the list could be greatly expanded. Included however are those statements of the motif that are decorated with unessential notes, especially between the second and third notes; the unessential notes may serve to hide the visual but usually do not obscure the aural impact of the motif. These observations do not pretend to be profound, but are merely the result of a growing familiarity with and fondness for this stupendous work. If they have any validity, it is in underlining the deeply personal nature of the KdF.

Immediately in Contrapunctus I, in the most obvious voice, i.e. the soprano, in measures 10-12 Bach features the four-note name theme. Bach "hides" the eighth-note E by having it dip below the alto note G, so that even though the soprano part by itself really spells B-E-A-C-H (not a word in German), the ear perceives it as B-A-C-H. (Example 1)

The B-A-C-H motif is more hidden in Contrapunctus II, though increasing chromaticism causes it to occur more frequently. It appears twice in measures 35 to 37, both times in the dotted note motif that dominates this fugue. Though the first two notes are separated from the third and fourth by a complete measure, they occur in adjacent statements of the dotted note motif, and therefore appear related and connected. (Example 2)

Measures 22-23 of Contrapunctus III contain a very clear statement of B-A-C-H, shared between the upper two voices (B-A in the soprano, C-H in the alto).  While this sharing serves on the one hand to hide the motif, it also underlines it, since the effect is that of an ornamented version: the B-A-C-H motif beautified in a flowery way. (Example 3)

One of the most poignant of all references to the name of Bach occurs in Contrapunctus IV. The shape of the regular inverted theme is such that there is a noticeable high point on the notes B-flat and its "resolution" to the semitone below. There is also a marked similarity to the hymn-tune "Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir," a hymn paraphrase of Psalm 130 (De profundis). The resemblance in fact is too obvious to ignore.3 In Contrapunctus IV, and only here, Bach transposes the second half of the theme up a whole tone, so that the high point of the theme now is C-H (C and B-natural) instead of B-A (B-flat and A). This causes a sudden modulation to another key, the dominant of the dominant, a rather wrenching and quite dramatic shift of key. It happens first in bar 61, and thereafter four more times (in other words, not every time the theme is heard). The change from the expected high point B-A to C-H may not be exactly an obvious reference to Bach's name, but certainly for the player, the alteration of the climax of the theme is all the more dramatic and personal, especially when the personal nature of the hymn "Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir" is taken into consideration as well. Not only the personal pronoun is emphasized by this veiled reference to B-A-C-H, but also the idea of "calling" (schreien).   (Examples 4a and 4b) 

"Calling" is also happening constantly throughout this fugue through the use of the pervading "call-motif" of the descending minor third. Towards the end of Contrapunctus IV occurs another and much more traditional example of the use of the B-A-C-H motif: in bars 135-136 it is slipped in once into the tenor voice, like a hardly noticeable signature. (Example 4c)

In Contrapunctus V, the KdF theme appears consistently in 14-note form, as it will continue to do in much of the rest of the KdF, with the two descending thirds smoothed out with passing notes. Thus the theme itself is being identified with the name of Bach. Moreover, it is especially interesting that the B-A-C-H motif is heard quite plainly and in the most obvious voice (soprano) exactly in bar 41. (Examples 5a and 5b)

Contrapunctus VI states the B-A-C-H motif near the beginning, in measures 4 and 5 in the soprano. Again the first two notes are separated by a measure from the third and fourth, but they are perceived to be related to each other through their rhythmic emphasis. (Example 6)

Contrapunctus VII features the B-A-C-H motif in much the same way, for example in the tenor part of measures 17-19. Within the context of a statement of the KdF theme in 14-note form (and in diminution), the notes B-A are again separated from C-H by a measure, but each pair of notes comes at a similar point, i.e. the end of two parallel phrases. (Example 7)

With the introduction of a new theme that is rather chromatic, numerous instances of B-A-C-H occur in Contrapunctus VIII. In measure 11 a very clear statement of B-A-C-H is shared between the two lower voices (Example 8a). In measures 85-86, the motif is featured in the soprano and in measure 112 in the bass (Examples 8b and 8c). The main KdF theme (inverted), which occurs as theme III in this fugue (beginning in measure 95, in the alto), consists always of exactly 14 notes. More noticeably, each measure begins with a quarter rest (Example 8d). The use of silence on the downbeat is a technique often used by Bach to symbolize eternity and/or death.4 Thus the form of the theme in this fugue forms associations not only with the name "Bach" (14 notes), but also with "death" (silence on the downbeats). A convincing example of this technique to express longing for death is often encountered in Bach's chorales, such as at the end of Cantata #56 (Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen). (Example 8e)

In Contrapunctus IX, in bars 84-85, the B-A-C-H motif is shared between the soprano (B-flat, A) and alto (C, B-natural), but because the voices cross, the motif appears to remain in the same voice, the alto. (Example 9)

In Contrapunctus X, again exactly in bar 40-41, the B-A-C-H motif makes an appearance in the two upper voices. (Example 10)

The 14-note version of the main KdF theme, with rests on every downbeat, now  "rectus," boldly opens Contrapunctus XI (Example 11a). The inversion of the second theme of Contrapunctus VIII, which in this fugue appears as theme III, very clearly spells B-A-C-H. Donald Tovey rejects this allusion to the name of Bach, since strictly speaking the theme misspells his name as B-A-C-C-C-H, yet to a listener (as opposed to a mere score-reader) this is almost as obvious an allusion to the name of Bach as in the final fugue.  (Example 11b) The B-A-C-H motif occurs frequently, not only in connection with the third theme, but elsewhere as well. An example is found in measure 144, with the motif shared between the alto (B-flat, A) and the soprano (C, B-natural).  (Example 11c)     

Contrapunctus XII and XIII, the two completely invertible "mirror" fugues, leave the composer with very little room to maneuver.  The listener has no idea of the strict rules behind these wonderful pieces, especially the playful Contrapunctus XIII. Even here the B-A-C-H motif pervades everything, though not as overtly as elsewhere in the KdF. The descending semitones B-A and C-H permeate the texture, but the four notes never occur together, and seldom within the same octave. One reason that Bach chose D minor as the key for this work may well have been that it allowed him to "season" fugues like Contrapunctus XII and XIII with these notes.  For example, C-H (the more unusual of the two pairs of notes) is used six times in measures 25-26 of Contrapunctus XIIb, just after several highly exposed B-A's. Appearances of the motif within one voice and within the compass of a minor third also occur (though somewhat more separated than usual) in measures 14-16 of Contrapunctus XIIa (bass) and measures 46-47 of Contrapunctus XIIb (bass). Similar concentrations of B-A and C-H occur in Contrapunctus XIII, imbuing the whole with the flavor of the BACH motif (e.g. in Contrapunctus XIIIa: eight times B-A in measures 32-35, followed by eight times C-H in measures 37-41).

Theme II of Contrapunctus XIV consists of exactly 41 notes, as if in direct preparation for the next theme, that of B-A-C-H itself (Example 12). There are also numerous examples of the B-A-C-H motif in the earlier part(s) of this fugue, again as if to prepare us for the plain statement of Theme III in measure 183. To list just three examples: measures 16-17 (tenor), 59-60 (alto/soprano), and 133-134 (alto).  (Examples 13, 14, and 15)

The evolution of the B-A-C-H motif is but one of many marvels of the KdF.  A constant companion in the background, like a quietly-flowing underground stream,5 in Contrapunctus XIV it finally appears quite alone and "naked," like a new-born babe. It is a paradoxical moment of loneliness and pity, sadness and comfort, weakness and strength. Almost immediately it is used in stretto and inversion, and "with the boldest and most mysterious harmonies"6 that are wrenching in their effect on us. It is at this point that this great composer, for whom nothing seemed impossible, especially in this work, leaves us forever. But the unfinished ending in which the composer is "called by name" also contains the promise of what "eye has not seen, nor ear heard." (I Cor. 2:9)

Notes

                        1.                  William Wright, The Organ--The Instrument and Its Literature (University of Toronto: private publ., 1994) 96.

                        2.                  J.S. Bach, Die Kunst der Fuge, ed. Davitt Moroney (Muenchen: G. Henle, 1989) vii.

                        3.                  The main theme in "rectus" form vaguely hints at "Vater unser" (Lord's Prayer). The descending thirds in Contrapunctus IV are also striking characteristics in some chorales, e.g., "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" (How lovely shines the morning star) and "Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende" (Who knows how near is my life's end). The most ornamented of all versions of the theme, as found in the Canon per Augmentationem in contrario Motu shows a striking resemblance to the "Agnus Dei" from the Mass in B minor.

                        4.                  Many of the more ornate chorale settings such as those in Schemelli's Gesangbuch illustrate this, e.g., "Lasset uns mit Jesu ziehen," "Es ist vollbracht," and "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben?"  Examples in Das Orgelbüchlein include "Alle Menschen müssen sterben," and "Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ, dass du für uns gestorben bist" (BWV 623 and 643).

                        5.                  In other words, like a Bach (German: brook).

                        6.                  Donald Francis Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis: Chamber Music (first published in 1944; London: O.U.P., 1972) 88.

Interpretive Suggestions for Four American Organ Works, Part 1

by Earl Holt
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Earl Holt is a graduate of Elon College, the University of Michigan, and Arizona State University, where he recently completed the D.M.A. degree in organ performance with Robert Clark. Dr. Holt served on the music faculty of San Jacinto College North in Houston from 1982-90, and is currently Director of Music at the First United Methodist Church of Gilbert, Arizona.

Introduction

In Organ Technique: Modern and Early, George Ritchie and George Stauffer summarize the contribution of American composers to organ music of this century:

If the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries belonged to Europe as far as organ building and composition are concerned, the twentieth century belongs to the United States. For it has been America, with its extraordinarily eclectic culture, that has set the standard for the Modern Era.1

Organ building in the United States since the late 1960s has returned, more and more, to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century principles of design and construction; the interest in the tonal resources of these instruments may account, in part, for some American composers' renewed interest in the organ. Another contributory reason for interest in organ scoring is the possibility of early public performances, in comparison to the relative improbability of having large-scale modern orchestral works performed. Logistical difficulty and expense of paying multiple performers, combined with a lack of acceptance of modern art music by aging concert audiences, make orchestral conductors reluctant to program such works. In contrast, compositions for solo instruments or small ensembles are more likely to receive an early hearing. Some composers have written works for organ in combination with other instruments, particularly percussion; an important example of the genre is William Bolcom's 1967 work, Black Host for organ, percussion, and electronic tape.

In her book, Survey of Organ Literature and Editions, Marilou Kratzenstein attributes renewed interest in American organ composition to the Hartt College Annual Contemporary Organ Music Festival, held during the 1970s and early 1980s. She writes that "it is at least partly due to the efforts of this festival that an impressive number of composers not formerly associated with the organ have begun to view the organ as a viable vehicle for expressing contemporary ideas."2 Commissions have undoubtedly played a major role in the creation of new organ works, too. In particular, all four of the American compositions examined in this article resulted from commissions.

Viktor Lukas writes in A Guide to Organ Music that modern American composers "have recognized and been encouraged by the organ's diversity today, but that diversity along with, in the minds of some, the instrument's association with liturgical functions seems to have discouraged many gifted composers from writing on a scale similar to their output for other instruments."3 Lukas cites only Igor Stravinsky and Norman Dello Joio as examples, however, and his observation is more characteristic of the first sixty years of this century than of the last several decades. Lukas's comment has validity, nevertheless; it is questionable, for example, whether the sole organ works of George Crumb or Ellen Taaffe Zwilich would have been composed without commissions.

Major American organ composers of the past two decades have turned increasingly to programmatic, secular subjects. They have also incorporated modern performance techniques into their writing (tone clusters and cluster glissandos, for example), most of which are unassociated with past or present church usage. As a result, works that display these techniques are often inappropriate for church services. Even Bolcom's Gospel Preludes, based on church hymns, are at present more suitable for concerts than for church services. If western-European trends in organ composition are a paradigm, the secularization of the organ is likely to continue in the United States.

This article surveys four selected secular organ works by modern American composers and compiles relevant performance information in an attempt to make the compositions more comprehensible and accessible to recitalists, teachers, and students.

Mysteries by William Bolcom

Background

William Bolcom, born in Seattle, Washington in 1938, attended Mills College, the University of Washington, and Stanford University. At Stanford, he studied composition with Leland Smith; Bolcom also studied composition at the Paris Conservatory with Olivier Messiaen, Darius Milhaud, and Jean Rivier in the 1960s. Bolcom's career has included piano performance and composition; he has written organ, piano, choral, vocal, and orchestral works. In the 1980s he completed his fifth symphony and a violin concerto. The premiere of his first opera, McTeague, was at Chicago's Lyric Opera in October, 1992. Since 1973 Bolcom has taught at the University of Michigan, where he is a professor of music composition.4

Bolcom's organ works are Black Host for organ, percussion, and tape (1967), Praeludium for vibraphone and organ (1969), Chorale Prelude on "Abide with Me" for organ solo (1970), Hydraulis for organ solo (1971), Mysteries for organ solo (1976-77), Humoresque for organ and orchestra (1979), Three Gospel Preludes for organ solo (1979), Gospel Preludes, Book Two for organ solo (1980-81), Gospel Preludes, Book Three for organ solo (1981), and Gospel Preludes, Book Four for organ solo (1984). In all, the Gospel Preludes comprise four books of three pieces each. The third and fourth books, previously available only in manuscript, were published in 1994. The publication of the third book of Gospel Preludes also includes the 1970 Chorale Prelude on "Abide with Me" as an extra piece.5

The work selected for this article is Mysteries.6 Organist and composer William Albright, professor of music composition and associate director of the electronic music studio at the University of Michigan, played the premiere. The performance took place at the University of Hartford's Hartt International Contemporary Organ Music Festival, held July 21-25, 1980.7 Walter Holtkamp Jr. commissioned the work for the festival; it was subsequently published in 1981.8

Structure

Mysteries is a suite of four through-composed movements that are unrelated in motivic material. The movements are "The Endless Corridor," "Eternal Flight," "La lugubre gondola," and "Dying Star." In a note to the player, Bolcom states his preference that "the four movements be played together as a set, for cumulative effect."9

"The Endless Corridor" is a trio, and is the only movement with changing meters. Little stepwise motion occurs in the three voices of the trio, which move almost entirely by leaps of fourths, fifths, sixths, or sevenths. The voices are not imitative and the rhythm of individual beats is varied, so the same rhythm rarely appears simultaneously in two voices. This compositional technique makes each voice appear to move independently. Although the form of the movement is not ABA in the traditional sense of repeated motivic material, the registration does create that impression; one registration in mm. 1-9 and 20-32 flanks a differently colored registration in mm. 10-19, the central one-third of the movement.

"Eternal Flight" is a pointillistic movement with spatial rhythmic notation. It is in three continuous sections: (1) staccato figures and clusters that increase in frequency, tempo, and dynamic; (2) whole-note clusters that increase in texture and dynamic to full organ, and then reverse the process; and (3) staccato chords and short figures that decrease in frequency, tempo, and dynamic.

Viktor Lukas writes that the third movement, "La lugubre gondola," "suggests a gently rocking gondola through soft dynamics and an emphasis on lower registers and gently moving chord changes."10 Except for one short section (11/2-11/3), the movement is unmetered; that section is marked "all values relative," however.11 As in "Eternal Flight," this movement has three continuous sections: (1) low-pitched arpeggios with long note values; (2) overlapping, ascending melodic figures that lead to a few seconds of eighth-note figuration; and (3) another (abbreviated) section of long note values to end the work. Characteristic of this movement is the frequent use of pauses of various lengths that serve as sound objects.

"Dying Star" begins with rapid, scherzo-like figuration in spatial rhythmic notation. A pedal citation of the chorale melody An Wasserflüssen Babylon then joins the texture. Later, a fragmented version of J.S. Bach's harmonization of the same chorale, in 3/4 meter, alternates with the spatially notated figuration, which gradually becomes more widely dispersed. To heighten the effect of disintegration, which Bolcom describes as "floating in and out, like a radio signal from a distant star," he uses dramatic pauses ranging from seven to thirteen seconds.12 The movement ends with a pppp chorale fragment, and a final pause.

Registration

In a note to the player, Bolcom writes about the desired instrument for Mysteries: "The object is that this music should be equally effective on any type of organ, large or small, Romantic or Baroque--even on electronic organs."13 Each movement can be performed on a two-manual instrument, although a three-manual instrument is optimum. Because the score rarely indicates crescendos or diminuendos that require expression shades, the work can be performed adequately on an instrument without expressive divisions.

Although a large list of specific stops is not required, two movements recommend registrations that are often unavailable on small instruments. First, "La lugubre gondola" requires a 32' pedal Bourdon, but a footnote indicates that a 16' stop may be substituted if a suitable 32' stop is unavailable. Second, "Dying Star" requires a pp 16' and 2'  stop combination for the Bach chorale harmonization.

Bolcom writes that "registration is largely left to the organist, except for a few suggestions here and there."14 Because of the wide latitude given to the performer, and the variety of acceptable instruments, there are many possible registrations. Table 1 has an appropriate registration for a three-manual instrument.

The beginning of "The Endless Corridor" requires a "cool-sounding" 8' pp stop for each manual and a pp 16' pedal stop.15 The upper voice (right hand) requires a "different color" in m. 10 and the middle voice (left hand) requires a similar substitution in m. 14. The change in timbre can result from substituting a different 8' stop, adding a soft mutation, or substituting a 4' stop and playing an octave lower. It is important to maintain the pp dynamic; therefore stops of significant dynamic contrast should be avoided. The two manual voices return to their original registrations in mm. 18-19, and continue to the end of the movement.

No specific stops are indicated in "Eternal Flight." The opening section (5/1-7/2) requires at least two manuals, one with a pp registration, and the other somewhat louder for the sf material. If three manuals are available, the pp material is divided at random between two of the manuals, as indicated in the score.16 The pedal has to alternate between pp and sf dynamics in the opening section; this switch can be accomplished by quickly coupling soft pedal stops to the Great manual for the sf spots only. The middle section (7/2-8/2) is played on the Great manual alone. For the crescendo to fff and the subsequent diminuendo to pp, the crescendo pedal and other expression pedals may be used; if neither is available, a console assistant can add or remove stops. Registration for the final section (8/2-9/4) is the same as at the beginning, with the exception that the Great manual is not used.

The registration shown in Table 1 for "La lugubre gondola" is specified in the score. For the two manuals, Bolcom wants stops of "different but related color."17 In the pedal, a 32' flue is best, although the piece can be performed with a 16' pedal stop.

"Dying Star" requires an "8' soft flute with much 'chiff'''  for the flute figuration that continues throughout the movement.18 On a large instrument, a combination of 8' flute stops, instead of a single stop, is often necessary for sufficient dynamic. Registration for the harmonization of An Wasserflüssen Babylon (16/1), is "2' and 16' only--with a distant, otherworldly registration."19 Because of the ppp dynamic, there is often little choice of stops, however. On a large instrument it may be possible to couple manuals together for the desired pitch combination and timbre. The same chorale registration is coupled to the pedal, because the chorale cannot be played on manuals alone. The 4' pedal stop that was added for the "subliminal" chorale melody at the beginning of the movement (13/1-15/1) is removed before the chorale harmonization begins.

Double pedal technique is necessary for all movements except the first. In addition, pedal clusters are in "Eternal Flight" and "La lugubre gondola." Because of the slow tempos, however, the clusters are easy to play. The pedal clusters in "Eternal Flight" have to be carefully practiced, nevertheless; some require awkward positions--the C to E-flat interval played by the left foot in 8/4, for example.

Interpretation

Because of the programmatic theme of Mysteries, each movement should be interpreted in a way that is consistent with the text associations. For example, in the trio "The Endless Corridor," Bolcom creates the aural impression of three slowly moving, endlessly drifting voices. No tonal, motivic, or rhythmic relationships exist between the voices, no suggestion of cadence or phrase structure occurs, and the angularity of the voices discourages melodic perception.

The rhythm of "The Endless Corridor" is played precisely as written; because the irregular motion of the voices has been created rhythmically, further rubato is unnecessary and contrary to the character of the movement. Legato articulation further enhances the intentional monotony. Selection of thinly voiced, distant-sounding stops is consistent with the "cool-sounding" stops mentioned in the score. Slight shading with expression pedals is appropriate at locations indicated in the score.

In contrast to the precisely notated rhythm of the first movement, the spatial rhythmic notation in "Eternal Flight" allows considerable freedom in rhythmic interpretation. Creating a sense of immense space is important at the beginning, with a certain unpredictability when the pointillistic staccato clusters are played. Near the end of the opening section (6/3-7/1), the clusters and figuration become more densely packed, as if drifting closer and closer in space; the increased density should not be perceived by the listener as an increase in tempo, however. Bolcom indicates short accelerandos at irregular intervals by using arrows (----> ).

A series of ritardando arrows ( <----) reduce the tempo at the beginning of the middle section of "Eternal Flight" (7/2). The middle section has the broadest tempo, the thickest texture, the longest note values, and the loudest dynamic of the movement. The legato, parallel clusters in this section require a considerable amount of finger substitution, but the long note values allow sufficient time.

The third section of the movement (8/2-9/4) reverses the motion of the first section in a gradual process of disintegration: (1) clusters that are at first close together become spaced farther and farther apart; (2) the dynamic decreases; (3) pitch becomes gradually lower; and (4) texture thins to single notes. The performer helps to communicate the disintegration by allowing playing gestures to become gradually slower, to the point that notes in the final few systems are gently pressed down. If the console is in view of the audience, it is vital that the performer not relax his/her body posture, so that intensity is maintained during the increasingly longer periods of silence between the final notes.

"La lugubre gondola" has a stifling, airless quality created by the long note values, low pitches, and pauses of various lengths. Although the movement is almost entirely unmetered, the note values are relative, and must be played precisely in rhythm. Because of the difficulty in counting the long note values, the performer can count quarter notes, at the rate of one per second, as a basic pulse, and write the number of quarter-note pulses over each note in the score as listed in Table 2.20

The comma symbols used for the long pauses of varying lengths are unexplained in the score. The same symbols appear, however, in a previous Bolcom work, Hydraulis, and are defined in a foreword as "pauses, ranging from long to very short, depending mainly on context of the passage." In a recent letter, Bolcom confirmed that the Hydraulis pauses also apply to Mysteries.21

The eighth-note figuration that appears in the metered middle section of the movement (11/2-11/3) is played with light, elegant articulation. In the unmetered final section (11/3-11/4), playing gestures become increasingly slower; intensity must be maintained during the pauses, though.

The title "La lugubre gondola" is from an 1882 piano piece of the same name by Franz Liszt. Liszt had the inspiration for the piece while watching funeral processions by gondola through the Venetian canals, when he was staying with Richard Wagner and Cosima (Liszt's daughter, who had married Wagner) in Venice. Anecdotally, Liszt abruptly quit working on his final oratorio and wrote two versions of La lugubre gondola in December 1882, after he had a strange presentiment--presumably of Wagner's impending death. Irrespectively, Wag-ner died in Venice two months later, and his body was borne by gondola in the funeral procession.22 Although not widely performed, several pianists have recorded the piano piece La lugubre gondola, No. 1; listening to such recordings is helpful in establishing the mood of the Bolcom movement, because the central, metered section of the Bolcom movement quotes the Liszt work.

"Dying Star" begins with thirty-second-note flute figuration marked "legato, even throughout."23 A more detached articulation is appropriate, however, if the room is acoustically live or if the selected flute does not have enough chiff for articulative clarity. Nevertheless, the articulation should not be a mechanical staccato.

The thirty-second-note figuration in the right-hand part continues to the end of the movement, and it is impossible to play all four voices of the An Wasserflüssen Babylon chorale fragments (beginning at 16/1) in the left hand alone. It is therefore necessary for the pedal, coupled to the manual, to play the tenor and bass voices of the chorale. Articulation for the chorale is molto legato for both manual and pedal parts. Bolcom commented on the significance of An Wasserflüssen Babylon to this movement: "That chorale prelude always gave a chilling intimation of eternity; I could imagine a dead Earth with some eternal record[ing] of it [An Wasserflüssen Babylon] playing (or a ghostly organist)."24

During the long blocks of silence (beginning at 16/4 and continuing to the end of the movement) it is important to follow Bolcom's instructions: "These pauses are exactly timed--be sure to remain physically suspended during them so that the tension is not lost."25 As in the second and third movements, the fourth also ends with a gradual disintegration of musical texture in space and time.

No errata were discovered in the score, and Bolcom confirms that he knows of none. Mysteries has not been commercially recorded. Bolcom lists a performance time of seventeen minutes and ten seconds for the entire work, broken down by movement as follows:

The Endless Corridor  [3:35]

Eternal Flight   [2:40]

La lugubre gondola     [5:45]

Dying Star       [5:10]26

Pastoral Drone by George Crumb

Background

George Crumb, born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1929, studied composition at Mason College of Music and Fine Arts (B.M., 1950), the University of Illinois (M.M., 1953), and the University of Michigan (D.M.A., 1959), where his principal composition teacher was Ross Lee Finney. His compositions include chamber, orchestral, vocal, and instrumental works, and he has received many honors, including the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for the orchestral work Echoes of Time and the River. Since 1965 Crumb has been professor of music and composer-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania.27

The work selected for this article, Pastoral Drone, is Crumb's only solo organ work.28 David Craighead, professor emeritus of organ at the Eastman School of Music, played the official premiere at First Unitarian Church in San Francisco on June 27, 1984, at the national convention of the American Guild of Organists, which had commissioned the work for the occasion.29

Structure

Crumb wrote the following notes about Pastoral Drone in Don Gillespie's book, George Crumb: Profile of a Composer:

Pastoral Drone, commissioned by the American Guild of Organists and composed in the summer of 1982, represents my first essay in the solo organ genre (my Star Child of 1977 included organ as an addition to the orchestral resources).

Pastoral Drone, cast in one continuous movement, was conceived as an evocation of an ancient "open-air" music. The underpinning of the work is provided by relentless drones executed on the organ pedals. The periodical "bending" of the basic drone sound (a lower D-sharp and a higher G-sharp, spaced as an interval of the 11th) announces the principal structural articulations of the work. The drone is overlaid by strident, sharply etched rhythms in the manual parts and the dynamic throughout is sempre fortissimo ("boldly resounding"). The characteristic sound of Pastoral Drone will suggest a kind of colossal musette.30

In the Gillespie book, theorist David Cope writes about Crumb's works from the early 1980s, including Pastoral Drone:

These later works show a progressively more inclusive use of tonality and interesting new approaches to formal organization. Although Crumb's stylistic "fingerprints" are indelibly impressed on every page, one also perceives an ongoing tendency toward new modes of expression.31

Two drones are in Pastoral Drone: a pedal drone based on a perfect eleventh (D-sharp to g-sharp), and a manual drone based on the perfect fifth. The pedal drone continues from beginning to end, interrupted at times by chromatic movement, but always returning to the same interval. The manual drone changes pitch six times, however. These pitch changes delineate the seven main sections of the work.

Each section contains the same three parts: (1) simultaneous pedal and manual drones with ff chromatic clusters constructed from neighboring tones to the drone; (2) a double pedal solo during which the feet move chromatically; and (3) a freely composed part, consisting of rapid manual figuration over the drone bass in the pedal. In sections 2-6 the three parts are presented exactly in that order. In section 1, however, the pedal solo is delayed, occurring in the middle of the manual figuration part. Section 7 is differently ordered, too; it begins with alternating pedal solos and manual figuration, and then concludes with a ff chromatic cluster in both manuals and pedal. Table 3 is a structural outline of the work.

As shown in Table 3, the manual drones, built on the pitches G-sharp, B, D, and F, outline a diminished-seventh chord. The symmetrical structure outlined by these tonal areas forms an arched rondo, with the distinctive manual drone, punctuated by clusters, serving as a ritornello. Besides using the tonal shifts of the manual drone, Crumb emphasizes the symmetrical structure in other ways: (1) quasi danza triplets in sections 3 and 5 flank the central section; (2) the parallel pedal movement from the first section returns, expanded, in the last section; and (3) the order of the parts is skewed in sections 1 and 7, as noted above.

The freely composed parts of each section are improvisatory in character. Each part is based on a unifying rhythm, headmotive, or harmony, and the end of each phrase is dovetailed. For structural material, Crumb uses tritones, perfect fourths in parallel motion, pentatonic sequences and clusters, and both whole-tone scales in simultaneous parallel motion.

The work is in changing compound meter, with only two exceptions to regular compound beats: (1) a single simple beat at m. 44, beat 2; and (2) pedal stop additions that occur on the second half of the simple beat in m. 72, beats 2 and 3, and m. 75, beats 2 and 3. Crumb uses traditional notation for the work, except in mm. 68-69, where a single enlarged accidental affects all five notes of each pentatonic cluster.

Registration

A three-manual instrument is necessary to perform Pastoral Drone. Because the manual compass is F-sharp to c'''', 61-key manuals are recommended. The score indicates three ossia passages (mm. 40-48, 56-58, and 78-84), marked come sopra, that are intended to make the work playable on an instrument with 56-key manuals by playing the passages an octave lower. A 56-key instrument's top key is g''', however, and the pitch a'''--requiring a 58-key compass--occurs in m. 66. In a recent letter, Crumb acknowledges that the pitch a''' was overlooked. He writes: "I was unaware that one note was outside the 56-key range. Perhaps the 56-key notion should be abandoned!"32 Although less common than 56-key instruments, 58-key organs can encompass all pitches, if the performer follows the octave displacement directions in the score.

The same ff registration, listed in the score at the beginning of the work, is needed each time the manual drone ritornello occurs:

            Gt.--full

            Sw.--full with 16'

            Pos.--full

            Ped.--32'16' 8'4'

            No couplers--Sw., Pos./Gt.

At the ritornello, a 16' reed plenum with mixtures is appropriate for the Great manual, with full registrations on the Swell and Positive manuals, too. The pedal drone is marked f sempre. Because the same pedal registration sounds, unaltered, through the first seventy-one measures, it should balance the Swell and Positive manuals, and must not be oppressively loud.

The registration direction "No couplers--Sw., Pos./Gt." is ambiguous at first glance, but apparently refers to the continuous alternation between coupled and uncoupled manuals: the Swell and Positive manuals are coupled to the Great manual during the ff introduction to each section, and then uncoupled for the rest of the time.

Manual changes are clearly marked and should be followed exactly. Additions to the pedal in mm. 72 and 75 are on simple divisions of the compound beat. Table 4 lists an appropriate registration for each section.

If the ossia passages are taken (on an instrument with manuals of fewer than sixty-one keys), the registration must be adjusted to mask the jump to one octave lower (mm. 40-48, 56-58, and 78-84). A footnote in the score that gives directions for this adjustment is unclear, however: "Ossia: play this passage (concluding at *) down one octave without 16' or 8' (come sopra)."33 What it should state is that (1) if 16' stops and couplers are the lowest-pitched stops used in the measure before the ossia, those 16' stops and couplers are removed for the duration of the ossia; or (2) if 8' stops and couplers are the lowest-pitched stops used in the measure before the ossia, those 8' stops and couplers are removed for the duration of the ossia.

Because of the large number of registration changes within the work, an instrument with an adjustable combination action is optimal. Otherwise, the performer will need a console assistant for stop changes.

Interpretation

Clean articulation clearly aids the "precise and sharply etched rhythm" that Crumb prescribes.34 Crisp articulation is particularly necessary in the rapid thirty-second-note figuration that occurs throughout the work. Furthermore, the dynamic, which is never less than f, creates a level of sound that takes time to disperse, particularly in a room that is acoustically live.

Except for the quasi danza parts, the freely composed parts are always introduced by an articulative element that imitates the percussive attack of bagpipes or musettes. Grace notes serve this purpose in sections 1 and 4, mordents in section 2, quintuplets in section 6, and arpeggios in section 7. The grace notes are played before the beat of the principal note; all other figures are played as written. In section 3, a distinction exists, and should be observed, between the dotted and triplet rhythms.

In the final cluster that ends the work, the right thumb has to play three notes at once: f-double-sharp, g-sharp, and a. The tip of the thumb plays the g-sharp, and the base of the thumb plays the two white keys. This maneuver is made more difficult by the position of the hand that is necessary to play seven notes at once.

A tenuto marking occurs at the pentatonic clusters in section 6 (mm. 68-69) and at the arpeggios in section 7 (mm. 73, 76, and 78). The tenuto causes a temporary broadening, and not a dramatic slowing, of the tempo; the passages that flank the tenuto passages are a tempo.

The pedal part is simple; throughout most of the piece, the organist merely holds down the two-note drone. Nevertheless, because of the wide distance between the two notes (a perfect eleventh), the length of time that they must be sounded, and the fact that they must be played by the toes, it is imperative that the organ bench be low enough that relaxed leg weight can be used to maintain the drone. Chromatic movement in the pedal part is marked legatiss. sempre, as opposed to the articulative clarity that is necessary in the manual parts.

C.F. Peters has published two versions of Pastoral Drone. The earlier version is an excellent-quality manuscript reproduction and the later version is typeset. Both are dated 1984, and both have the same cover, title page, and catalog number. Nevertheless, minor revisions in pitch, notation, registration, performance directions, dynamics, and scoring were made for the typeset version.35 Asked about the differences in the two versions, Crumb writes: "The typeset version is the definitive version. I checked the typesetting very carefully (I prepared it myself!)--so I hope there are no errata."36 Table 5 contains a comparison of differences in the two versions.

At the beginning of the manuscript version there are also two short instructions that are not in the typeset version: (1) the beginning registration has the direction "Sw. and Pos. balanced dynamically;" and (2) a footnote on the first page states "All long notes should be full value!"37

Pastoral Drone has not been commercially recorded. Gillespie lists a performance time of eight minutes, but the work is actually only six minutes and twenty seconds in length when played at the tempo indicated in the score.38

Praeludium by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Background

Violinist and composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, born in Miami, Florida in 1939, graduated from Florida State University and the Juilliard School. Her composition teachers were John Boda, Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions. Besides becoming the first woman to take a composition D.M.A. degree at Juilliard, Zwilich was also the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in music, which was awarded in 1983 for Symphony No. 1. Most of her compositions are chamber and orchestral works, including two symphonies. She has accepted numerous commissions from major orchestras.39

The work selected for this article, Praeludium, is Zwilich's only solo organ work.40 It was commissioned by the Boston chapter of the American Guild of Organists and published in 1987. Organist James David Christie played the premiere at the Church of the Advent in Boston, Massachusetts on May 1, 1988.

Asked in 1993 if she were planning any other organ compositions, Zwilich wrote: "YES! I will be writing a work for chorus and organ for next season, and I'd love to write more--I love the instrument."41 The work, A Simple Magnificat for SATB chorus and organ (1994), has now been completed and published. The premiere was recently performed at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, which commissioned the work.42

Structure

In the preface to the score of her first symphony, Zwilich describes her approach to composition:

First, I have long been interested in the elaboration of large-scale works from the initial material. This "organic" approach to musical form fascinates me both in the development of the material and in the fashioning of a musical idea that contains the "seeds" of the work to follow.

Second, in my recent works I have been developing techniques that combine modern principles of continuous variation with older (but still immensely satisfying) principles, such as melodic recurrence and clearly defined areas of contrast.43

This organic approach to the composition of Symphony No.1, whose premiere was in 1982, is similar to the organization of Praeludium, published five years later. The opening Maestoso of Praeludium contains the compositional techniques that shape the work: (1) complex harmonies and dense textures that result from piling up thirds; (2) distinctive articulative elements, or headmotives, used to begin melodic lines; and (3) frequent changes in texture.

Brochure notes in a 1986 recording of Zwilich's Symphony No.1 describe the first movement of the symphony, but they also accurately describe the genesis of Praeludium:

Everything in the work arises from the melodic and harmonic implications of the first fifteen bars, music Zwilich says she felt compelled to write. These [evolutions] work up to a sustained allegro that ultimately subsides into an ending as quiet as the beginning. All the most complex harmonies come from piling third upon third upon third.44

Praeludium develops according to the same construct. It contains four continuous sections: Maestoso, Più mosso, Allegro moderato, and Tempo I. Material from the Maestoso is later developed in both the Più mosso and the Allegro moderato. Both the tempo and dynamic increase gradually until the climax (mm. 168-73). The final section, Tempo I, has the tempo and dynamic of the Maestoso. The structural organization of the four sections of Praeludium is illustrated in Table 6.

Registration

In a note to the player, Bolcom writes about the desired instrument for Mysteries: "The object is that this music should be equally effective on any type of organ, large or small, Romantic or Baroque--even on electronic organs."13 Each movement can be performed on a two-manual instrument, although a three-manual instrument is optimum. Because the score rarely indicates crescendos or diminuendos that require expression shades, the work can be performed adequately on an instrument without expressive divisions.

Although a large list of specific stops is not required, two movements recommend registrations that are often unavailable on small instruments. First, "La lugubre gondola" requires a 32' pedal Bourdon, but a footnote indicates that a 16' stop may be substituted if a suitable 32' stop is unavailable. Second, "Dying Star" requires a pp 16' and 2'  stop combination for the Bach chorale harmonization.

Bolcom writes that "registration is largely left to the organist, except for a few suggestions here and there."14 Because of the wide latitude given to the performer, and the variety of acceptable instruments, there are many possible registrations. Table 1 has an appropriate registration for a three-manual instrument.

The beginning of "The Endless Corridor" requires a "cool-sounding" 8' pp stop for each manual and a pp 16' pedal stop.15 The upper voice (right hand) requires a "different color" in m. 10 and the middle voice (left hand) requires a similar substitution in m. 14. The change in timbre can result from substituting a different 8' stop, adding a soft mutation, or substituting a 4' stop and playing an octave lower. It is important to maintain the pp dynamic; therefore stops of significant dynamic contrast should be avoided. The two manual voices return to their original registrations in mm. 18-19, and continue to the end of the movement.

No specific stops are indicated in "Eternal Flight." The opening section (5/1-7/2) requires at least two manuals, one with a pp registration, and the other somewhat louder for the sf material. If three manuals are available, the pp material is divided at random between two of the manuals, as indicated in the score.16 The pedal has to alternate between pp and sf dynamics in the opening section; this switch can be accomplished by quickly coupling soft pedal stops to the Great manual for the sf spots only. The middle section (7/2-8/2) is played on the Great manual alone. For the crescendo to fff and the subsequent diminuendo to pp, the crescendo pedal and other expression pedals may be used; if neither is available, a console assistant can add or remove stops. Registration for the final section (8/2-9/4) is the same as at the beginning, with the exception that the Great manual is not used.

The registration shown in Table 1 for "La lugubre gondola" is specified in the score. For the two manuals, Bolcom wants stops of "different but related color."17 In the pedal, a 32' flue is best, although the piece can be performed with a 16' pedal stop.

"Dying Star" requires an "8' soft flute with much 'chiff' for the flute figuration that continues throughout the movement.18 On a large instrument, a combination of 8' flute stops, instead of a single stop, is often necessary for sufficient dynamic. Registration for the harmonization of An Wasserflüssen Babylon (16/1), is "2' and 16' only--with a distant, otherworldly registration."19 Because of the ppp dynamic, there is often little choice of stops, however. On a large instrument it may be possible to couple manuals together for the desired pitch combination and timbre. The same chorale registration is coupled to the pedal, because the chorale cannot be played on manuals alone. The 4' pedal stop that was added for the "subliminal" chorale melody at the beginning of the movement (13/1-15/1) is removed before the chorale harmonization begins.

Double pedal technique is necessary for all movements except the first. In addition, pedal clusters are in "Eternal Flight" and "La lugubre gondola." Because of the slow tempos, however, the clusters are easy to play. The pedal clusters in "Eternal Flight" have to be carefully practiced, nevertheless; some require awkward positions--the C to E-flat interval played by the left foot in 8/4, for example.

Interpretation

Because of the programmatic theme of Mysteries, each movement should be interpreted in a way that is consistent with the text associations. For example, in the trio "The Endless Corridor," Bolcom creates the aural impression of three slowly moving, endlessly drifting voices. No tonal, motivic, or rhythmic relationships exist between the voices, no suggestion of cadence or phrase structure occurs, and the angularity of the voices discourages melodic perception.

The rhythm of "The Endless Corridor" is played precisely as written; because the irregular motion of the voices has been created rhythmically, further rubato is unnecessary and contrary to the character of the movement. Legato articulation further enhances the intentional monotony. Selection of thinly voiced, distant-sounding stops is consistent with the "cool-sounding" stops mentioned in the score. Slight shading with expression pedals is appropriate at locations indicated in the score.

In contrast to the precisely notated rhythm of the first movement, the spatial rhythmic notation in "Eternal Flight" allows considerable freedom in rhythmic interpretation. Creating a sense of immense space is important at the beginning, with a certain unpredictability when the pointillistic staccato clusters are played. Near the end of the opening section (6/3-7/1), the clusters and figuration become more densely packed, as if drifting closer and closer in space; the increased density should not be perceived by the listener as an increase in tempo, however. Bolcom indicates short accelerandos at irregular intervals by using arrows (----> ).

A series of ritardando arrows ( <----) reduce the tempo at the beginning of the middle section of "Eternal Flight" (7/2). The middle section has the broadest tempo, the thickest texture, the longest note values, and the loudest dynamic of the movement. The legato, parallel clusters in this section require a considerable amount of finger substitution, but the long note values allow sufficient time.

The third section of the movement (8/2-9/4) reverses the motion of the first section in a gradual process of disintegration: (1) clusters that are at first close together become spaced farther and farther apart; (2) the dynamic decreases; (3) pitch becomes gradually lower; and (4) texture thins to single notes. The performer helps to communicate the disintegration by allowing playing gestures to become gradually slower, to the point that notes in the final few systems are gently pressed down. If the console is in view of the audience, it is vital that the performer not relax his/her body posture, so that intensity is maintained during the increasingly longer periods of silence between the final notes.

"La lugubre gondola" has a stifling, airless quality created by the long note values, low pitches, and pauses of various lengths. Although the movement is almost entirely unmetered, the note values are relative, and must be played precisely in rhythm. Because of the difficulty in counting the long note values, the performer can count quarter notes, at the rate of one per second, as a basic pulse, and write the number of quarter-note pulses over each note in the score as listed in Table 2.20

The comma symbols used for the long pauses of varying lengths are unexplained in the score. The same symbols appear, however, in a previous Bolcom work, Hydraulis, and are defined in a foreword as "pauses, ranging from long to very short, depending mainly on context of the passage." In a recent letter, Bolcom confirmed that the Hydraulis pauses also apply to Mysteries.21

The eighth-note figuration that appears in the metered middle section of the movement (11/2-11/3) is played with light, elegant articulation. In the unmetered final section (11/3-11/4), playing gestures become increasingly slower; intensity must be maintained during the pauses, though.

The title "La lugubre gondola" is from an 1882 piano piece of the same name by Franz Liszt. Liszt had the inspiration for the piece while watching funeral processions by gondola through the Venetian canals, when he was staying with Richard Wagner and Cosima (Liszt's daughter, who had married Wagner) in Venice. Anecdotally, Liszt abruptly quit working on his final oratorio and wrote two versions of La lugubre gondola in December 1882, after he had a strange presentiment--presumably of Wagner's impending death. Irrespectively, Wag-ner died in Venice two months later, and his body was borne by gondola in the funeral procession.22 Although not widely performed, several pianists have recorded the piano piece La lugubre gondola, No. 1; listening to such recordings is helpful in establishing the mood of the Bolcom movement, because the central, metered section of the Bolcom movement quotes the Liszt work.

"Dying Star" begins with thirty-second-note flute figuration marked "legato, even throughout."23 A more detached articulation is appropriate, however, if the room is acoustically live or if the selected flute does not have enough chiff for articulative clarity. Nevertheless, the articulation should not be a mechanical staccato.

The thirty-second-note figuration in the right-hand part continues to the end of the movement, and it is impossible to play all four voices of the An Wasserflüssen Babylon chorale fragments (beginning at 16/1) in the left hand alone. It is therefore necessary for the pedal, coupled to the manual, to play the tenor and bass voices of the chorale. Articulation for the chorale is molto legato for both manual and pedal parts. Bolcom commented on the significance of An Wasserflüssen Babylon to this movement: "That chorale prelude always gave a chilling intimation of eternity; I could imagine a dead Earth with some eternal record[ing] of it [An Wasserflüssen Babylon] playing (or a ghostly organist)."24

During the long blocks of silence (beginning at 16/4 and continuing to the end of the movement) it is important to follow Bolcom's instructions: "These pauses are exactly timed--be sure to remain physically suspended during them so that the tension is not lost."25 As in the second and third movements, the fourth also ends with a gradual disintegration of musical texture in space and time.

No errata were discovered in the score, and Bolcom confirms that he knows of none. Mysteries has not been commercially recorded. Bolcom lists a performance time of seventeen minutes and ten seconds for the entire work, broken down by movement as follows:

The Endless Corridor  [3:35]

Eternal Flight   [2:40]

La lugubre gondola     [5:45]

Dying Star       [5:10]26

lists stops suggested in the score for a three-manual organ.

Because the Trompette en chamade 8' is used as a solo stop against the full Great manual, the stop is most convenient on a secondary manual or floating division. If a chamade is unavailable, another loud trumpet or combination of reeds can be substituted. For the last pedal notes in the work, a 32' Bourdon is effective, although a footnote in the score indicates that a 16' Bourdon may be substituted, if necessary.46

Interpretation

 

In the preface to the score, Christie writes: "Praeludium was conceived in the spirit of the 17th-century North German 'Stylus phantasticus' and is to be performed as a fantasia with interpretive spontaneity and much freedom. The articulations are indicated to encourage clarity in all lines and textures."47 Besides working for clarity, the performer should observe the tempo markings in the score. As illustrated in Table 6, the tempo increases at major structural posts until the climax of the work (mm. 168-72).

A vocal 16' principal is specified in the score for the short pedal solo at the beginning of the Maestoso; if the principal is unavailable, 16' and 8' flutes are substituted. The pedal voices should be articulated cleanly, with attention paid to agogic accents that are marked above or below some of the notes. The molto legato marking in m. 3 applies to stepwise movement in m. 3 and mm. 8-10. Because of the wide leaps in double- and triple-pedal textures, an entirely legato articulation is impossible.

The pedal solo is followed by a section of densely textured harmonies that arise gradually out of piled-up thirds. The aural effect of piling up thirds is one of individual melodic lines coalescing into a chord; this recurrent compositional technique serves as a unifying characteristic of the work. During the process, the gradual change from Choir manual to Great manual in mm. 15-18 requires the left hand to "thumb up" to the Great manual while simultaneously holding three notes on the Choir manual. Depending on the instrument and the location of the manuals, it may be possible during this section to "thumb down" to the Great manual from the manual above, thus making this manual change less difficult.

The pedal motive at the beginning of the Più mosso is marked non legato, but the sixteenth notes should be given sufficient length for the pedal reeds to speak. The low pedal thirds in mm. 34-47 can be played by the left foot alone. In mm. 50-55, the accel. poco a poco increases the tempo to 112; restraint is necessary, however, because of a natural tendency to accelerate too much during the long note values. The right-hand part in mm. 62-64 is played one octave lower if the instrument has a short upper octave.

The climactic section, Allegro moderato, is a fugato that contrapuntally combines its subject with motives from the first two sections of Praeludium. Articulation of the staccatos and slurs in this section should be observed exactly as marked in the score. At m. 153 the Trompette en chamade may be coupled to the Great manual to achieve the fff dynamic. Alternatively, additional intramanual couplers or a sfz mechanism can be used.

Three short passages in the third section (mm. 131-34, 153-56, and 160-63) are marked: "Omit upper notes if not available."48 Even if the upper notes are available, though, it may be necessary to omit them if the sound is too overbearing. The extreme dissonance, in combination with full organ and high register, is excessively loud on some instruments.

At the climax in mm. 168-72 it is necessary for the left thumb to take the top two notes of the left-hand chord, because of the thirteen-voice texture at that point. Also, a meter change from 4/2 to 4/4 occurs in mm. 171-74; the note values remain constant, however. At m. 174 the pedal has to be reduced quickly from fff to subito mp.

Finally, the short closing section, Tempo I, serves as a soft codetta to Praeludium. In m. 185 the final pedal interval, a perfect octave, has the instruction: "32' Bd. alone or play the lowest 'A' on Bd. 16' only."49 Another possibility, however, is to play the pitches A and e on the 16' Bourdon; the resultant harmonic produces the desired 32' tone.

The score has one error: Page 6, Measure 81, Beat 2: the sharp in the bass clef should precede the F, not the A.

Praeludium has not been commercially recorded. The performance time is approximately eight minutes, if played at the score tempos.   

Notes

 

            1.         George Ritchie and George Stauffer, Organ Technique: Modern and Early (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1992), 304.

            2.         Marilou Kratzenstein, Survey of Organ Literature and Editions (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 190.

            3.         Viktor Lukas, A Guide to Organ Music, 5th ed., ed. Reinhard G. Pauly, trans. Anne Wyburd (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1989), 229.

            4.         John Woodford, "His Night at the Opera," Michigan Today 24, no. 4 (December 1992): 1-3.

            5.         Michael Lawrence Mazzatenta, "The Gospel Preludes of William Bolcom" (D.M.A. diss., Arizona State University, 1991), 95; William Bolcom, Letter to this writer, October 20, 1993; Id., Gospel Preludes, Book Three (New York: Edward B. Marks, 1994).

            6.         William Bolcom, Mysteries (New York: Edward B. Marks, 1981).

            7.         "Hartt Contemporary Organ Music Festival," The American Organist 14, no. 7 (July 1980): 22.

            8.         Bolcom, Mysteries, 1.

            9.         Ibid., 2.

            10.       Lukas, 238.

            11.       The symbol 11/2-11/3 refers to page 11, system 2 and page 11, system 3 of the score. All score references to movements 2, 3, and 4 of Mysteries, which are unmetered, will use this system.

            12.       Bolcom, Mysteries, 16.

            13.       Ibid., 2.

            14.       Ibid.

            15.       Ibid.

            16.       Ibid., 5-6.

            17.       Ibid, 10.

            18.       Ibid., 12.

            19.       Ibid., 15.

            20.       A footnote on page ten of the score defines a stemmed double whole note as two times as long as a double whole note.

            21.       William Bolcom, Hydraulis (New York: Edward B. Marks, 1976), 2; Id., Letter to this writer, October 20, 1993.

            22.       Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan and Co., 1980), s.v. "Liszt, Franz," §4: Rome and the last years, by Humphrey Searle.

            23.       Bolcom, Mysteries, 12.

            24.       Bolcom, Letter to this writer, October 20, 1993.

            25.       Bolcom, Mysteries, 16.

            26.       Ibid., 2.

            27.       H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie, eds., The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (London: Macmillan Press, 1986), s.v. "Crumb, George," by Edith Borroff.

            28.       George Crumb, Pastoral Drone (New York: C.F. Peters, 1984).

            29.       Byron Belt, "AGO National Convention San Francisco 1984," TAO 18, no. 8 (August 1984): 29.

            30.       George Crumb, "Annotated Chronological List of Works," in George Crumb: Profile of a Composer, ed. Don Gillespie (New York: C. F. Peters, 1986), 112.

            31.       David Cope, "Biography," in George Crumb: Profile of a Composer, 14-15.

            32.       Crumb, Letter to this writer, Oct. 14, 1993.

            33.       Crumb, Pastoral Drone, 9.

            34.       Crumb, Pastoral Drone, 4.

            35.       References to the score in the text of this article are to the later, typeset version.

            36.       Crumb, Letter to this writer, Oct. 14, 1993.

            37.       Crumb, Pastoral Drone (manuscript version), 3.

            38.       George Crumb, "Annotated Chronological List of Works," in George Crumb: Profile of a Composer, 112; Two hundred seventy-nine total beats divided by forty-four beats per minute equals 6.34 minutes.

            39.       Hitchcock, s.v. "Zwilich, Ellen Taaffe."

            40.       Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Praeludium (Hillsdale, New York: Mobart Music Publications, 1987).

            41.       Zwilich, Letter to this writer, October 21, 1993.          

            42.       Zwilich, Telephone conversation with this writer, April 24, 1995.

            43.       Richard Dyer, brochure notes for Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Symphony No. 1, New World Records NW336-2, 4.

            44.       Ibid., 5.

            45.       Zwilich, Praeludium, 2.

            46.       Ibid., 11.

            47.       Ibid., 2.

            48.       Ibid., 9-10.

            49.       Ibid., 11.

This article will be continued.

Bruhns’s “Little” E-minor: A Guide Towards Performance

Jan-Piet Knijff

Jan-Piet Knijff teaches organ and chamber music and is organist-in-residence at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College/CUNY. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The City University of New York as well as the Artist’s Diploma from the Conservatory of Amsterdam and is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists. He won both first prize and the Audience Prize at the International Bach Competition Lausanne, Switzerland. His organ teachers have included Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, and Christoph Wolff. Visit his website at <www.jpkmusic.com&gt;.

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Introduction

Although only a handful of his organ works survive, Nicolaus Bruhns was undoubtedly one of the most important organists of his generation; the famous Bach Obituary mentions him as one of the composers Johann Sebastian took “as a model” for his own work.1 Bruhns was born less than twenty years before Bach, in December 1665, to a family of musicians in Schwabstedt in North Frisia. At the age of 16 he went to Lübeck to study violin with his uncle Peter Bruhns and organ and composition with Dieterich Buxtehude. On the latter’s recommendation, Bruhns worked in Copenhagen for a few years, but in 1689 he returned to the land of his birth to become organist at the Stadtkirche in Husum. He declined an offer from the city of Kiel to become organist there, accepting a 25% raise in Husum instead. After almost exactly eight years in the position, Bruhns died on March 29, 1697, only 31 years old. He was succeeded by his brother Georg, who had succeeded their father in Schwabstedt at the time Nicolaus was appointed in Husum. Georg stayed in Husum until his death in 1742.

Nicolaus must have been an equally virtuoso organist and violinist, and the story that he sometimes accompanied himself on the organ pedals while playing the violin rings true (Harald Vogel was apparently the first to suggest that the arpeggio passage in the “Great” E-minor Preludium may reflect this practice). Although Bruhns’s organ in Husum was not particularly large, it must have been a very fine instrument, as it was built by Gottfried Fritzsche (1629–32), one of the foremost builders of the time. After various alterations, it had 24 stops on three manuals (Hauptwerk, Rückpositiv, and Brustwerk) and pedal in 1723. In addition to a number of sacred cantatas, Bruhns’s works for organ include two preludia in E minor, one in G major, the chorale fantasy on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, and an Adagio in D major (surely a fragment from a larger preludium in that key, the Adagio was first published by Carus Verlag in the Husumer Orgelbuch, Stuttgart 2001). The authorship of the Preludium in G Minor, first published by Martin Geck in 1967, remains uncertain: its only source mentions a “Mons: Prunth” as the composer, and even if the last name is to be read as Bruhns, it is possible that the work is Georg’s, not Nicolaus’s, as Barbara Ann Raedeke has suggested;2 the piece is definitely much less convincing than Bruhns’s other organ works.3

Editions

Three editions of Bruhns’s organ works are currently available in print:

• Doblinger (Vienna & Munich, 1993), edited by Michael Radulescu. Vol. 1 contains the preludia in G major and E minor, vol. 2 the preludium in G minor and two versions of the chorale fantasy Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.

• Breitkopf & Härtel (Wiesbaden 1972), edited by Klaus Beckmann. Contains the four preludia and the chorale fantasy. A revision of this edition that will include the Adagio in D Major is scheduled for publication.

• C.F. Peters (Frankfurt & New York, 1967), originally edited by Fritz Stein for the series Das Erbe deutscher Musik in 1937–9, revised by Martin Geck. Contains the four preludia and the chorale fantasy.
Although no longer in print, the following edition can still be found in libraries and sometimes turns up in book sales:

• Kistner & Siegel (Organum series IV, vol. 8), edited by Max Seiffert. Contains only the preludia in E minor and G major.

Although all four editions can be considered scholarly “urtext” editions in their own right, there are vast differences among them. As welcome and “modern” as Seiffert’s editions in the Organum series were at the time of their publication, they are now mostly outdated, sometimes because new sources have turned up, sometimes because eighty years of scholarship (and performance) have led to new conclusions. Important to know is that Seiffert generally supplied tempo indications; he also generously added ties without telling you. The Peters edition, too, is now outdated.

Klaus Beckmann’s editions of the North German organ repertoire (his complete Buxtehude edition is best known, but he also did Böhm, Lübeck, Tunder, and many others) have often been criticized. Given the absence of autographs (manuscripts in the hand of the composer), Beckmann feels it is his task to establish as best a text as he can. In practice this often leads to changes that are arbitrary at best in the eyes of many scholars and performers. While Beckmann mentions everything (or most everything) in his critical commentary, the format he uses is not particularly inviting, to say the least; and if you don’t read German, the abbreviations are practically undecipherable. Although Beckmann’s Bruhns edition is certainly usable, you have to watch out, and better spend a couple of hours figuring out all the changes he made if you want to know what’s actually in the source.

The edition by Michael Radulescu stays much closer to the original: corrections are noted in an accessible commentary; editorial ties are dotted and editorial rests and ornaments put in brackets. The result is an edition that is very trustworthy but at the same time looks a little pedantic. An interesting feature is that Radulescu offers most pieces on two staves, with the pedal notes on the lower staff with the stems down. This is how an organist of Bruhns’s (and even Bach’s) time would have read virtually every organ work (assuming they used staff notation), but it is probably a little unpractical for most organists today, and there is hardly ever any doubt as to which bass notes belong in the pedal in Bruhns.

Most organists may prefer to play from the Beckmann edition after correcting the text on the basis of Radulescu’s edition. As an alternative, I have prepared an edition on three staves in which I have made suggestions for hand division by assigning right-hand notes to the top staff and left-hand notes to the middle staff. Since the source is written in German organ tablature (a kind of letter notation), any hand division is editorial anyway. The practice of indicating hand division however is widely used elsewhere in seventeenth-century keyboard music, and there are very few places open for serious discussion in the “Little” E-minor. The edition will be made available on-line, but for now, simply contact me by e-mail if you want a copy ([email protected]).

Overview

Let’s start off with getting an idea of the whole piece. Don’t start playing right away; just take a look at the score and see what’s going on. At the very beginning, you will notice the pedals rushing in with a dazzling solo, resulting in a “drum roll” (m. 5 ff.), supported by strong off-beat manual chords. This section is followed by a short Adagio (mm. 10–16). Then follows an Allegro in 12/8 with extensive use of the echo effect. Notice how at the end (mm. 33 ff.) the roles are inverted: the echo comes first this time!

Another short Adagio (mm. 39–46) leads to a fugue, marked Vivace (mm. 47–84). Take a look at the pedal and notice how the fugue can be divided in three short sections: mm. 47–67; 67–76; and 76–84. Once again a short Adagio, and we arrive at the final Allegro (mm. 90–105), a dialogue between soprano and pedal, ending in a playful series of arpeggiated chords.

The concluding Adagio begins with off-beat repeated chords in the hands (mm. 106–110), followed by a pedal point supporting expressive harmonies. A diminished-seventh chord is emphasized by a rhetorical pause before it resolves into the final cadence.

Beginning to play

Now that you have an idea of the piece as a whole, it’s time to start playing. But, unless you’re an experienced player and a good sight reader, don’t try to sight-read the whole piece at once. Why not start with the opening pedal solo, clearly conceived for alternating toes and really not very hard to play at all. Play the first four measures (finishing of with the first notes of m. 5) and notice how Bruhns already has told you a whole story! To get an even better idea of the expressive writing, try playing the pedal solo as “solid” chords, either with a hand (or both hands) or actually in the pedal (Example 1).
Now that you have the opening measures under your belt, let’s take a look at the very end of the piece: simply sight-read the last three measures—no big deal. Now, why not connect the beginning four measures and the last three: after the first note in m. 5, simply jump to m. 117. Play this combination of beginning and end a few times; it gives you a sort of “summary” of the piece, a “framework” to fill in the rest of the music. It’s a good idea to return to your little “summary” regularly when working on the piece; it helps you to bear in mind the end-goal of your journey.

For now, continue with the opening section, trying the pedal “drum roll.” This works best when played mildly staccato (as if repeating the note at the same pitch). Forget whatever you may have learned about keeping your knees together when playing the pedals: that doesn’t help very much in this kind of situation. Instead, think of your right knee moving out over your right foot when playing that high b. Once the pedal part feels comfortable, try adding those off-beat manual chords. You want them to be strong and expressive, sure, but since they come on light beats, try not to give them their exact full length (rather something like a dotted eighth note).

In m. 8, there is a mistake in the manuscript; the most logical solution may be to play quarter-note chords (as in Radulescu’s edition), but many organists have become used to hearing eighth-note chords here (as in Beckmann), which does give a little change of pace. See what you like best; it doesn’t really matter too much, and from the point of view of the source, you could argue either way.
When arriving at the Adagio in m. 11, be sure to keep (approximately) the same tempo by “thinking” sixteenths in that measure.

The 12/8 echo section

Think of the eighths in the right hand as triplets; you can maintain the same tempo for this section. It’s easiest to reserve the right hand for the “triplets” and take all the other manual notes in the left hand. Here are some fingering suggestions for the first two measures (Example 2).
Using the same finger for neighboring notes helps creating a clear, slightly detached sound. Make sure not to overdo it: you don’t want the music to sound too jumpy (at least, I don’t). If you feel really uncomfortable using this kind of fingering, you can easily change it, for example by using a thumb on the e'' before the d#'' in m. 18; just try to avoid a “Romantic” legato. For the left hand, you may find it easiest to start with the index finger on the first two notes. The pedal won’t give you much trouble; I would avoid heels, simply playing right-right-left-right in m. 27. In m. 36, simply stick with the right toe; “lean” a little into every note so that they don’t become too short, but you still want them to be clearly articulated.

Take your time for the manual changes to the “echo” manual and back (no matter which manual you use for the echo); the little bit of time it takes to get from one manual to another (and vice versa) actually helps making the echo effect clearer. In general, try to make your movements easy and pleasant; when it feels that way, there’s a good chance the music will also sound that way.

The fugue

Again, resist the temptation to sight-read the whole fugue. Instead, pick out the entries of the theme first and then play them in the appropriate hand or feet. Here’s how it works:

m. 47: theme in soprano, played in the right hand;

m. 50: theme in alto, left hand;

m. 53: theme in tenor, left;

m. 56: theme in bass, pedals.

Those four entries constitute the exposition of the fugue. After an “episode,” a kind of development of the motive from m. 48, we’re back to business:

m. 67: theme in alto, left hand;

m. 70: theme in tenor, left;

m. 73: theme in bass, pedals.

Finally, there are two incomplete entries of the theme:

m. 76: in alto, right hand (but put the left index finger on the long g' in m. 77);

m. 77: in soprano, right hand (with the thumb going under the left index finger on the first beat of m. 78).

This gives you the outline for the fugue. Here, by the way, is my fingering for the theme (Example 3). In the pedal, once again try to avoid the heels (Example 4).

While we’re at it: what is the reason for avoiding the heels in this kind of music? Well, first off, it makes you look good in historically informed organ circles, where the general assumption is that the heel was not (or very rarely) used in organ music up to (and including) Bach. Although we have no idea what virtuoso performers like Bruhns (and Bach) did in real life, most if not all of their music can be comfortably played without using the heel. More importantly, it’s usually easier to get a good sound and the “right” kind of touch that way. It is not true that it was (or is) impossible to use heels on seventeenth-century pedals, although it’s generally more difficult at the center (around c) than at the extremes. If you find it hard to imagine that an inventive virtuoso like Bruhns never ever in his lifetime hit on the idea of using the other part of his foot, you may want to support your theory by pointing out m. 60 in the G-major preludium, where the left foot plays two neighboring sixteenths (B–c) while the right foot is otherwise engaged. However, using the heel does not make this spot particularly easy to play either! In the end it’s not so much what you do in those exceptional cases that matters but your general approach.

Here are some more fingering suggestions for the fugue (Examples 5a and 5b). In mm. 59–61, reserve the right hand for the top voice only, combining alto and tenor in the left hand. In mm. 65–67, I recommend taking the three middle voices in the left hand, again reserving the right hand for the top line. It’s nice to have all of your right hand to shape this nice melodic line as well as possible, and to play a trill on the dotted quarter b¢ in m. 66 (see below).

The section ends with the same two measures three times (Bruhns did that more often, see the end of the second fugue of the “Great” E-minor). What to do? Well, unless you want to be boring, I wouldn’t play them the same three times. Here are some options:

• Change manuals, perhaps playing forte, piano, and pianissimo. On Buxtehude’s organ, the manuals would probably have been Hauptwerk, Rückpositiv, and Brustwerk, respectively. The problem with this is the pedal: you will probably need to adjust the pedal registration at least once (or even twice). It is possible, of course, to play the pedal part in the left hand (combining the three upper parts in the right) when going to a quieter manual (even though Bruhns’s writing does not seem to suggest it).

• Add a few ornaments the second time, and perhaps some more (or different ones) the third time.

• Play on the same manual throughout but “think” different dynamics: really strong the first time, milder the second, as light as you can the third time; or: loud at first, then more quietly, and loud again. Don’t worry too much about how the difference in sound happens; if you have a clear concept and communicate it to the organ the best you can, the result will be noticeable somehow to a sensitive listener.

Finally, a combination of two or all of the above may be even more effective. Whatever you do, if you use pedals, again reserve the right hand for the soprano and make sure to play the left hand pick-up chord really light (and short) in order to make place for the right-hand f#¢. Radulescu’s edition has a half-note chord at the beginning of m. 83; this certainly needs to be shortened to a quarter to make the soprano clear (you find this kind of thing frequently in chorale preludes by Buxtehude, for example).

The Allegro

Since this section is essentially a dialogue between right hand and pedals (think of it as the first violins on the one hand and the cellos and double basses on the other), why not begin with playing just that dialogue, without the supporting chords. To get an idea of how things sound, you can even start off with playing the pedal part in the left hand. However you do it, try to get a smooth dialogue going without “waiting for the bus” at every barline. The fingering is pretty obvious; the pedaling is a little more challenging, although there are really not that many options. Here is my suggestion (Example 6).


Yes, the left foot has to leap around a bit. And yes, you have to be a little careful to make the left-foot notes sound not too hacked (particularly the first g#). But using heels (and, for my part, silent substitution) doesn’t make things much easier either. In my experience, as long as the bench is at the right height and if you let go of the idea of keeping your knees together at all costs, the toe-only solution is easiest and sounds best. Here are some ways to play around with this spot in order to get the music “into your feet” (Example 7).

Make up your own variations! Much better to play around and have fun with a little tune like this than banging out the notes in the score a zillion times. While you’re playing around, try to make things feel as comfortable as possible. If things don’t feel quite right, try to adjust the height of the bench just a little or to move it back or forward a bit; small things can make a huge difference. Become sensitive to the way you move and try to find ways to make it easier for you.

One finger is crucial to keep you going: no matter what finger you’re using right before it (chances are it’s a thumb or else the index), put your little pinky on the third beat in m. 97.

When adding the chords to the soprano-bass dialogue, make sure not to make the quarter notes too long. The eighth-note pick-ups can be nice and short (without making them too jumpy, of course).
In m. 104, the manuscript has g¢¢ followed by f#¢. Clearly, the two notes must be in the same register. It’s really up to what you think sounds best and/or makes most sense here (Beckmann goes for high, Radulescu for low).

At the beginning of the last Adagio, imagine the repeated chords as played on one bow by a group of string players, and remember they’re off-beat, and therefore light (Example 8).

Ornaments

In a number of places, this music needs ornamentation to be at its best, either simple or more elaborate. The soprano d in m. 10 needs a trill which would probably best start with the main note, although starting with the upper note e is certainly a possibility (see below). In m. 39, the long d in the pedal followed by the written-out turn cries out for a virtuoso, long trill, something like Example 9, or perhaps Example 10. In mm. 66 and 75 of the fugue, the dotted quarter in the soprano sounds best with a simple trill, starting with the main note, something like this (Example 11).

The suggested fingering helps to create a nice, clear trill; the articulation before the turn actually sounds good and suggests a bit of a diminuendo. But if you don’t like putting the middle finger over the index, simply put a thumb on the last note of the trill.

Most of the trills I have suggested here start with the main note. But isn’t there some kind of rule that trills in Baroque music always start with the upper note? Well, yes, but that’s one of those gross oversimplifications of popularized historically informed performance practice. In the seventeenth century, main-note trills seem to be the rule, although upper-note trills certainly exist, and apparently became quite fashionable in France in the second half of the century. A rule of thumb: if the note with the trill is itself consonant, start with the upper note; but if the note itself is dissonant, then start with the main note. In both cases, the first note of the trill is dissonant, creating that nice little bit of friction. Also, if the note immediately before the trill is already the upper note, you may not want to repeat it as the beginning note of the trill.

If you want to add a trill on the soprano d#'' in m. 85 (which would sound very nice), consider starting with the upper note. A trill on the soprano b¢ on the second beat of m. 97 could go either way, as long is the trill is short. The soprano c'' on the last beat of m. 100 could also go either way, depending on whether you want to emphasize the c'' (start with the main note) or whether you want to incorporate the preceding sixteenths in the trill (start with the upper note).

More ornamentation: the Adagios

The four Adagio sections, with almost exclusively whole notes and half notes, may sound lovely the way they are written—they would probably be considered an opportunity for (quite) extensive ornamentation by any performer of Bruhns’s time. How much and what exactly you want to do is ultimately up to you, but here are some ideas for mm. 10–16 (Example 12).

With these ideas as a basis, try to work something out for the other sections. Bear in mind that the ornamentation is supposed to make the music more expressive, not to show off your virtuosity or to emulate the composer. Try not to write your ornaments down, but instead play around with as many different ideas as you can come up with. Ideally, your ornamentation is going to be different from performance to performance! In the final Adagio, Bruhns uses imitation: the chromatic line a–g#–g–f# appears in the soprano (m. 111), tenor (m. 113) and, sort of, in the bass (m. 115). In order to bring out the imitation, you may want to use similar ornaments for both the soprano and the tenor line.

Registration

Large-scale pieces like preludes and toccatas are played with an organo pleno registration: principals 8', 4', 2', mixtures, the Quint 22?3' if there is one, and perhaps a flue stop 16' in the manuals (Bruhns might have used his Quintadena 16¢), and the same plus reeds in the pedals (use at least a Posaune 16' if you have one). You can add an 8' flute stop in the hands to make the sound a bit fuller, but avoid throwing in tons of 8' and 4' stops; that tends to make the sound muddy. You probably want a really big pedal registration for the solo at the beginning; if the pedal is not loud enough by itself, couple to one (or more) of the manuals.


The question is to what extent you want to vary registration for the various sections of a piece like this. Obviously, you will need an echo manual for the 12/8 section. You sometimes hear this section with a “small” registration (8+4+2, or 8+4+1, or something like that) and something like flutes 8+2 for the echo. As always, much depends on the organ and the particular situation, but I like to use at least a small pleno for this section with a few stops for the echo (which could effectively be played on the Brustwerk on an organ similar to Bruhns’s).
It could be nice if the fugue is a little quieter than the first and last sections; you could use a slightly lighter pleno or even principals 8+4+2, for example; of course, you would have to lighten the pedal, probably by taking off the reed(s) and perhaps the mixture. M. 85 could be a place to go back to a bigger registration, with further opportunities for a crescendo in m. 90 (marking the beginning of the Allegro), m. 106, and m. 117.

Tempo

The tempo of any performance of any piece of music depends on many factors including the acoustics of the hall, the time of the day, and without a doubt the mood of the performer. Many compositions can sound surprisingly convincing at very different tempi; the most important thing is that the tempo feels right to you! Nonetheless, here are some metronome markings for the piece; take them for what they are: a ballpark indication.

Beginning: ~66

12/8: ~60–66

Fugue: ~60

Allegro: ~96

Discography

Finally, for CD collectors, the following recordings of Bruhns’s complete organ works may be worth considering:

• Piet Kee: Bruhns and Buxtehude. Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark. Chandos CHAN0539.

• Lorenzo Ghielmi: Bruhns, Buxtehude, and Brunckhorst. Basilica San Simpliciano, Milan, Italy. Winter & Winter 910 070-2.

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