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The Tiento: An Iberian Art Form

The tiento can be many things--the title tells the performer nearly everything one needs to know in terms of tempo, registrations, and ornaments

Mark J. Merrill

 

Mark J. Merrill holds a B.M. in church music and an M.A.T. in Spanish from Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He has studied organ with Montserrat Torrent for nearly 30 years, earning his Maestría in Organ from the Conservatory of Music in Barcelona, Spain, as well as his Título de Doctorado from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Spain. He has dedicated the past 30 years to documenting, recording, and analyzing nearly 168 historical instruments in Spain. His dissertation, “The Effects and Implications on the Performance Practices of Early Iberian Keyboard Music,” earned him a special citation of merit from the Spanish Department of Culture.

 

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During my many years of playing and specializing in Iberian repertoire, the most frequently asked question was always: “What IS a tiento?” According to various textbooks, tiento (Portuguese: tento) is a musical genre originating in Spain in the mid-15th century. It is formally analogous to the fantasia (fantasy), found in England, Germany, and the Low Countries, and also the ricercare, first found in Italy. The word derives from the Spanish verb tentar (meaning either to touch, to tempt, or to attempt), and was originally applied to music for various instruments. By the end of the 16th century, the tiento was exclusively a keyboard form, especially organ music. It continued to be the predominant form in the Spanish organ tradition through the time of Cabanilles, and developed many variants. Additionally, many 20th- century composers have written works entitled “tiento.”

So, “What is a tiento?” It is many things: it can be a fast- or slow-moving work; it can be a work with the cantus in the left or right hand; sometimes it is a structured form and sometimes it is very improvisatory in nature. So the real answer is: a tiento is many things!

As an undergraduate, I remember during our organ literature class each student was assigned a genre to present to the class. Having a double major in Spanish, of course I was given the Iberian portion to present. We were using two texts for this course: Corliss Arnold’s Organ Literature: A Comprehensive Survey (The Scarecrow Press, Second Edition, 1984) and Marilou Kratzenstein’s Survey of Organ Literature and Editions (Iowa State University Press, 1980). The two books had a total of 11–14 pages devoted to this repertoire as compared to English repertoire, which had nearly 40 pages! It was clear that Iberian repertoire was very under-represented.  

During my investigation I quickly discovered that the term tiento was a very generic label applied by many composers of the period and that many of these works had no common variables. So the word “tiento” was a broad term.

Keeping that in mind, it was obvious that the full title of the tiento was important. There are many types of tientos and the full title gives the player every bit of information that is required to fully interpret, register, and realize the performance of the work in question—much like French Classical titles tell the organist what registration is required for the particular piece.

 

The title tells all!

Indeed, the title tells the performer nearly everything one needs to know in terms of tempo, registrations, and ornaments (or lack thereof). Let’s learn a few basic terms first. Tiple, mano derecha: both terms refer to the fact that the melody is in the right hand. Bajo, baixo, and mano izquierda all refer to the melody being in the left hand. Tientos de falsas are generally always played on one manual. Some tientos are contrapuntal in nature and will be played on one manual; this must be determined by studying the texture of the selection: is there an obvious melody line, an obvious accompanying line, and so forth. One other notable point: the use of pedals is generally only at cadences or where a pedalpoint is sustained and at 16 pitch on a Bourdon or other flute.

The title will often have a reference to the eight church modes. This ordering of the modes tells the performer many important factors as regards the registrations required for the particular work in question. (See performance guildelines chart.)

 

The 8 Gregorian modes 

The basis for interpretation of any tiento lies in two major observations: the mode in which it is written and the title of the work.In determining the mode or tone the performer must refer to the authentic church modes as defined by Cicero, who codified the modes and attributed their astrological meanings in musical terms such as tempo, dynamics, registrations and especially tonal effects or qualities. The title will further provide the given information as to specific or implied registrations.1

Each mode has particular implications regarding the use of registrations as well as moods. The early modes played a very important role and had a very strong connection to daily life. The classical education consisted of literature, poetry, science, astronomy/astrology, mathematics, and music. The modes indicate the nature or spirit of the work: tempo, tonal colorings, and registrations. This is very similar to the early French Classical school, in which the title dictates the possible registrations and mood of the work. 

 

The most common types of tientos

Tiento de falsas de 2º tono. The name looks daunting, but in fact is relatively easy to understand. Falsas indicates that this work consists of many suspensions: conflict and resolution—simple enough. 2º tono tells us that this work is based upon the second mode (attributed to the moon)—the Hypodorian mode; it is associated with somberness, sadness, and elicits tension. Knowing that, one would use registrations that reflect a somber mood: string tones and celestes at 8 pitch, along with a soft 8 flute, which creates an uneasy feeling of a somber or sad quality. Mystery solved. Tientos de falsas are generally played on one manual for the most part due to the intricate use of suspensions and close harmonies. Pedal is not used, except to emphasize cadences.

Tiento de mano derecha de 3º tono. Again, the title tells all. The mano derecha indicates that the melody is in the right hand, leaving the left hand to accompany with 8 pitches. 3º tono is attributed to Mars and based upon the Phrygian mode, which incites force, energy, and fiery overtones. The registrations possible are: a Cornet in the right hand, or a fiery reed stop such as an 8 Trumpet, or possibly a cluster of trumpets 16, 8, 4 or even a pleno if good reeds are unavailable.

Tiento de bajo de 1º tono tells one that the work is for melody in the left hand (bajo meaning lower voice) and the accompaniment is in the right hand. 1º tono is the Dorian mode, which is associated with the sun. The registration qualities are grave and solemn happiness. The left hand would use a Cornet or wide-scaled reed (Trumpet 8 or possibly a Krummhorn 8).  

So, one can see that the title really does tell a great deal about the registrations. The Spanish seemed to be very specific about their registrations. However, one must also keep in mind that the Spanish favored the “divided” keyboard, which means that one could play the solo (melody) and accompaniment on the same manual.

The important aspect of registrations in regard to this repertoire is found at the core of the associations between astrology and the early modes of the church. The chart shown above outlines, in very basic terms, possible registration solutions. Of course, these are merely suggestions; ultimately the final selection will be determined by the stops available on any given organ. Additionally, one must remember that on most American organs one must use two manuals, as divided manuals are rare in this country. 

The author hopes that readers will take time to investigate this vast and interesting repertoire, which is so seldom heard or explored in this country. I have included a listing of works that will prove of interest, which is by no means comprehensive; however, it is recommended as a starting point to begin your exploration of this vast and vibrant school of organ design and composition.

 

 

Notes

1. Maria A. Ester Sala, La Ornamentacion en la Música de Tecla Iberica Del Siglo XVI, Sociedad Española de Musicologia, Madrid, 1980.

 

Related Content

The Early Iberian Organ: Design and Disposition

Mark J. Merrill
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The development of early Spanish organs

At the beginning of the 16th century, organs in Spain resembled those in the rest of Europe. During the last third of the century, Spanish organs gradually began to take on characteristics of their own, becoming transformed into several local organ types. 

The first noticeable development of the Spanish organ was the gradual differentiation of individual registers from the Blockwerk, which also occurred elsewhere in Europe. Little by little, the keyboard compass expanded to cover more than three octaves and windchests began to be constructed larger, especially towards the bass. Divided registers began to be built on Spanish organs in the 1560s. Two separate lines of evolution existed in regard to the increasing versatility of sonorities, namely, adding more keyboards and dividing registers. 

Three different kingdoms coexisted on the peninsula: Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. Due to the occupation of the Moors (711–1497) the Spanish court was forced to take up residency in Barcelona, Spain, located at the heart of the region of Catalonia. It is for this reason that the development of the early organ in Spain finds its beginnings in Catalonia. 

Generally speaking, the instruments were quite large and were frequently built on a 16 basis (Flautado de 26 = Principal 16). Flautado de 26 (made of metal) was a stop frequently included in Catalonian organs. It was common to have at least two manuals: a Cadira, and the Rückpositiv. In Catalonia, there were no divided registers until the 18th century, and the windchests were large in size and diatonic by arrangement. It is noteworthy that when divided registers appeared later in Catalonian organs, the division was made between b and c1, while the division point in the Castilian organs was between c1 and c1-sharp.1

The high point of the Castilian organ was around 1750, considerably later than that of the Catalonian organs. Castilian organs were commonly built on an 8basis (Flautado de 13 = Principal 8). Flautado de 26 was rarely found in these organs. There was usually only one manual, but there could be as many as three in exceptional cases. (For instance, the Gospel organ of the Segovia Cathedral has three keyboards.) There was usually no Cadereta (Swell). The registers were divided, and the windchests were small and chromatic. The largest pipes were placed in the center of a façade, and there was usually a horizontal trompetería (reed division).2

Gabriel Blancafort describes several features of the Castilian organ, which reveal its close resemblance to the positive organ. First of all, the windchest of the Castilian organ always maintains its chromatic structure, which is the origin for other special characteristics of this organ type.3 The dimensions of the windchest, consisting of one single piece or of two pieces, are often small. There are usually 45 channels (for four octaves, the short octave included), of which 21 are for the left-hand side and 24 for the right-hand side—if the windchest is made of two pieces. The structure of the organ permits a different number of registers for each hand, always more for the right hand. It is necessary in many cases to place the majority of the large bass pipes outside of the windchest, due to its restricted dimensions. This has contributed greatly to the development of the techniques of conducting wind to the façade, and later, to the trompetería de batalla (Battle Trumpets). The tablones (channel boards) distribute wind to different parts of the façade and are one of the ingenious inventions of the Spanish organ builders to cope with the tricky problems of guaranteeing wind to all the pipework. The action is always suspended, creating a touch that, according to Blancafort, is “the most sensitive and subtle that exists.”4 The mechanism of the draw stops is simple.

Although examples of divided stops exist elsewhere in Europe—in Brescia, Italy, in 1580, for example—“Spain certainly seems to be the first country to have used them systematically for colourful solo effects.”5 The principle of the divided registers is simple and ingenious. The keyboard is divided into two halves, both of which possess a variety of stops. Because the descant and bass halves can be registered independently, even rather small one-manual organs offer versatile and rich possibilities for registration. It is common to find a few of the same stops on both halves of the keyboard, but the majority of registers belong exclusively to the descant or to the bass half. The growing popularity of the divided registers gave birth to a new type of organ composition, namely, the tiento de medio registro, in which either one or two solo voices figured in the soprano (tiento de medio registro de tiple/de dos tiples), or in the bass (tiento de medio registro de baxón/de dos baxones), against a softer accompaniment, which was played on the other half of the keyboard. I consider the technique of divided registers to be one manifestation of the Spaniards’ love of fanciful, colorful sounds, contrasts, and variety in sonority.

A variety of surprising special effects could be created by the different toy stops that especially large Baroque organs contained. It is usual to have Tambores or Timbales (drums) in the pedal, providing a timpani effect. Tambores often include D and A. Pajaritos (little birds) produce a twitter resembling the Usignoli (nightingale) of the early Italian organs. There are also a variety of accessories generating sounds of sleigh bells. One is a Zymbelstern-like apparatus.\

 

Characteristics of the early Iberian organ 

The vast majority of Iberian organs are small instruments. In fact, the typical instrument consists of a single manual. Instruments of two or three manuals are the exception and then only found in the largest cathedrals. Early instruments with four manuals simply do not exist. It should also be mentioned that these instruments do not have a highly developed independent pedal division, but rather utilize a minimal octave or pull-downs. 

The organbuilder and writer of many treatises, Mariano Tafall y Miguel, gives the following classifications of early organs based upon their disposition.6 Early builders were accustomed to using the following names to describe their organs based upon the size of the instrument and basis of pitch. Such common names are órgano entero/completo (based upon 16), medio órgano (based upon 8), cuarto de órgano (based upon 4), and octavo de órgano (based upon 2 stopped and sounding at 4). 

The manuals, órgano mayor (Great) and cadereta (Swell), can also be classified into the following five categories, depending on the number of manuals:

 

1 manual 

Órgano Mayor

 

2 manuals

Órgano Mayor

Cadereta

or

Órgano Mayor

Cadereta Interior

 

2½ manuals 

Órgano Mayor

Cadereta

Cadereta Interior (Arca de Ecos: enclosed within a chamber)

 

3 manuals 

Órgano Mayor

Cadereta

Cadereta Interior (Arca de Ecos: enclosed within a chamber)

Órgano de la Espalda (speaking into the side of the nave from rear façade of the organ)

Cadereta de la Espalda (speaking into the side of the nave from rear façade of the organ)

 

The casework of early Iberian organs

The casework, generally speaking, is either very decorative or very plain. Larger instruments found in cathedrals, however, are highly ornate. Two opposing instruments are located above the choir; they are nearly identical and very ornate: one instrument will have two or three manuals and the other possibly just one manual. The casework of early instruments also has a secondary function, that of adding embellishment and aesthetic value to the artistic integrity of the building.  

 

Pipework on early Iberian organs

Early builders used the term caños (pipes) and cañería (pipe building) extensively until the Romantic and Post-Romantic periods, at which time the term tubo came into use, most likely due to the impact of the French school of symphonic organbuilding, which came from the French term tuyau (tube).  

The term tubo is divided into two distinct classifications, as tubos de boca (labials) and tubos de lengua (linguals). Tubos de boca (or labials) can then be divided into two defined families: flautados (principals) and nasardos (nasard as in the Netherlands, nachsatz), which form two distinct choruses of labial pipes: the coro estrecho or claro, and the coro ancho. The terms estrecho or claro refers to cylindrical open pipes with a 1/4 mouth to circumference relationship. The terms estrecho and ancho refers to the diameter of the pipe in relation to the length. Early Iberian instruments measured pipe lengths oddly enough in palmos (palm or hand widths). 

The following stop names are typical of early instruments.

 

Flautado Mayor de 26 Palmos (16)

Flautado de 13 (8)

Octava (4)

Docena (22⁄3)

Quincena (2)

Decinovena (11⁄3)

Veintidosena (1)

Lleno* (mixture)

Cimbala

Sobrecimbala

*lleno general or principal chorus.

 

The nasardos can be open or stopped, conical or cylindrical pipes. Generally there is a 2/9 mouth to circumference relationship.

 

Violon Mayor de 26 Palmos (16)

Violon de 13 (8 stopped)

Nasardo en 8º (4 stopped)

Nasardo en 12º (22⁄3 stopped or open)

Nasardo en 15º (2 open)

Nasardo en 17º (13⁄5 open)

Nasardos

Claron

Corneta

 

Generally speaking, nasardos 4 and above are semi-open or chimney-style pipes. The Swiss-German organbuilders Juan Kiburz y Francisco Otter, who were established in Barcelona, Spain, proposed the addition of several new stops in the organ at the Iglesía de Nostra Senyora del Pi, recommending the inclusion of a Gamba, Quintatón, Fagotto, and Soncional. However, as early as 1587, organbuilder Maese Jorge added a Flautas Tapadas de 14 Palmos, called a Quintaden, deriving its name from the sound that produced a prominent fifth overtone.  

In fact, by the end of the 18th century many early organs in Spain contained such stops as Flauta travesera (traverse flute), Flauta con boca redonda (flute with round mouth), Flauta Alemana (German flute), Salicional, and Gamba.

 

Reeds

Without a doubt, the stops most associated with early Iberian instruments are the lenguas (reeds). The Lengüetería (reed division) makes up the third chorus on a typical Iberian instrument. Reeds are divided into two categories: reales (normal or full length) and cortos (half length) resonators.

Early in the development of the Iberian organ, lenguas cortos (half-length resonator stops) such as Dulzainas, Orlos, and Regalías were introduced. Little by little appeared the Trompetas Bastardas (harmonic trumpets) with half-length resonators, as well as the Trompetas Reales (full-length trumpets). The Trompeta Real (8) is always an interior stop and vertical in its placement. The Obué and the Clarinete (which is the Cromorno for Iberian instruments) can also be found on many early instruments.  

The Trompetas can be further divided into two distinct categories: Trompetas de Batalla (exterior and horizontal) and Trompetas Interior (interior and vertical). Early instruments almost always had at least one, if not two stops en Batalla even in the event that the instrument might not have a single interior reed stop.  

The most frequently found Trompetas de Batalla (exposed and horizontal) are:

Left hand stops

Bajoncillo (4)

Clarin en 15º (2)

Clarin de Bajos (8)

Clarin en 22º (1)

Trompeta Magna (16)

Trompeta de Batalla (8)

 

Right hand stops

Oboe (8)

Chirimia Alta (4)

Trompeta de Batalla (8)

Clarin (8)

Trompeta Magna (16)

Trompeta Imperial (32)

 

It is also common to find Dulzainas, Orlos (regals), Viejos, Viejas (rankets), and Gorrinitos (clarions) mounted horizontally on the exterior of the case: 8, 4, 2 for the left hand and 16and 8 for the right hand. These batteries of reed stops serve two roles within the literature: one as a solo stop and the other as a complement to the reed chorus. The voicing is formidable, harmonic, and richly distinctive in comparison to the interior reeds, which are sweet and broader in scaling. In the largest cathedrals (Zaragoza, Salamanca, Toledo, Málaga, Granada, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla) the organs have Trompetas de Batallas mounted on the front façades (speaking into the choir) as well as the rear façades (speaking into the nave), which allows for dazzling echo effects alternating between exterior and interior reeds.

 

Windchests and distribution of wind on early Iberian organs

Windchests on early instruments are always laid out chromatically, never diatonically or symmetrically. Additionally, each chest is divided between bajos (bass) and tiples (treble). The division occurs between c and cs (c3 and c#3). In Catalonia the division occurs between b and c (b2 and c3), but is the exception to the rule and is very seldom encountered.  

 

Keyboards (Teclados)

Of course, early instruments always utilize mechanical key and stop action.  The action on most early instruments tends to be extremely responsive and light, necessitating a highly developed level of technique. Divided registers (partidos) predominate the peninsula and, as previously stated, allow the organist to have two distinct registrations on a single manual.

Thanks to the divided registers, it is always possible to register a work with contrasting registrations for the right and left hand. This may explain the existence of so many small instruments with only a single manual, however, one which serves as two! When considering the early Iberian repertoire it is important to realize the significance of a title such as Tiento de tiples (melody in the right hand) or Tiento de bajos (melody in the left hand).  

On the earliest of instruments, it is possible to find stops that were enclosed within an Arca de Ecos (echo chamber) foreshadowing the future Caja Expresiva (expressive box; swell box). Initially, these Arcas were open, non-expressive boxes containing a single stop such as a Corneta or Trompeta placed within the Arca, producing a slightly distant sound quality. Over time, a lid was placed on top of the box and a lever, operated by the foot or knee, would open or close the lid. Initially this effect was referred to as suspensión, referring not to a musical structure, but rather the emotion produced in response to the overall effect.

Earliest examples typically affected only one Tiples (right hand) register or stop, usually the Corneta. Later, the Arca de Ecos came to include a variety of stops. The terms Eco and Contraeco seem to be used quite often in early treatises, which describe the effects created by the Arca de Ecos, the sensation of far (lejanía) and near (cerca), not that of loud and soft. These Arcas de Ecos were not utilized to create a “swelling” sound (crescendo). Aristide Cavaillé-Coll incorporated this concept with his organ at Santa María de San Sebastián, in which the third manual operates in the same manner as an Arca de Ecos, which he called an Organo de Ecos, which in France would be called a Récit Expressif.  

The compass of the manuals, as one would expect, increased gradually as newer instruments were being constructed. Bigger is better! Correa de Arauxo makes mention of this fact in his treatise, Facultad Orgánica, 1626: the organbuilders Hernando de Córdoba and Hernando Alonso de Córdoba, father and son from Zaragoza, Spain, were given the task of expanding the compass of the organ for the Parroquia de San Gil de Zaragoza, Spain in 1574.7 In order to amplify the compass from Fa to Do they only had to add one natural key and two keys as if they had been accidentals. It is interesting to discover that the Spanish word for a key on the keyboard is tecla (from the Latin, teja), further supporting the hypothesis that the early Iberian organ is much older than originally thought.

The old manual compass was as indicated below until the mid-15th century:

| Fa | Sol | La | b | Si | Do | # | Re | b | Mi | Fa | etc.

 

The new layout was as follows:

| Do | Fa | Re | Sol | Mi | La | b | Si | Do | # | Re | b | Mi | Fa | etc.

 

This manual layout, which ended on La 4, is the format that was prevalent during the 17th century. It consisted of 42 notes: 21 notes for each hand [divided registers]. In the 18th century, the compass was further enlarged in the right hand up to Do 5 and later enlarged in the left hand to complete the octava grave.  

At the end of the 18th century, Julian de la Orden installed in the Cátedral de Malaga three new manuals of 51 notes (Do 1–Re 5), and in the Cátedral de Toledo he renovated the Organo de Emperador in 1770 with two manuals of 54 notes (Do 1–Fa 5). In 1797 José Verdalonga enlarged the Órgano de evangelio to three manuals of 56 notes (Do 1–Sol 5). These 56-note manuals took on the name teclados de octavas segundas, which meant that all of the octaves were like the second octave. Verdalonga also constructed the organ in the Iglesia del Salvador de Leganés in 1790 with a manual compass of 45 notes (Do 1–Do 5), with a diatonic short octave (octava corta). In 1771 Josep Casas renovated and enlarged the Órgano Prioral at the Escorial, where Antonio Soler was the organist. The outcome was an organ of three manuals: Órgano Mayor of 61 notes (Sol 1–Sol 5); Cadereta of 51 notes (Do 1–Re 5): Ecos of 51 notes (Do 1–Re 5).

The tessitura of the manual is divided and labeled in the following manner:

1º Octava = Grave

2º Octava = Baja

3º Octava = Media

4º Octava = Aguda

5º Octave = Sobreaguda

 

The short octave

The limited pedal division is no doubt due to the use of short octaves in these early instruments. The lowest notes of the keyboard, which would normally be E-F-F#-G-G#, were tuned to pitches below their usual pitches; the C/E short octave (octava corta) keys were tuned as C-F-D-G-E. Since the pedal division was so limited, this allowed the performer to play intervals in the left hand that would otherwise be impossible. The use of the short octave was popular for many reasons:

 

Benefits for the organist

1. It allowed the organist to play the lowest bass note and inner voice with the left hand. The short octave was in a sense the pedal on these instruments. 

2. It extends the lowest octave of the instrument, omitting chromatic notes, since the bass part of the keyboard repertoire was predominantly diatonic. 

3. It allowed the organist’s feet to be free for other tasks:

To operate the Arca de Ecos

To operate foot-activated stops

 

Benefits for the organbuilder

It was more economical,

When space was at a minimum

When cost was a factor

 

The stops are located on either side of the teclado (manual) according to the divided registers, bajos and tiples, left and right, respectively. Stops can be found in the shape of paddles or knobs, ornate or plain. Occasionally, it is possible that the stop knobs can be located beneath the manual and activated by the knees. On organs with a short octave the stops may be located where the pedals ought to be, since on such an instrument, there was no basic need for pedals.

 

The pedals

The use of pedals was limited to emphasizing cadences in early repertoire, so it goes without saying the pedals are very simple in design, usually consisting of wooden pisas (round knobs) or peanas (blocks), but never more than an octave. When the pedals are a pull-down (coupled from the manual) they are called pisas. If, on the other hand, the pedals have their own appropriate pipes, they are called contras. These pedals first appeared diatonically—Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Sib, Si—eight pitches total. Later they were expanded chromatically—Do, Do#, Re, Mib, Mi, Fa, Fa#, Sol, Sol#, La, Sib—twelve pitches total. The usual stop for the Contras is the Flautado 26 palmos (16). In some instances, the pisa being a pull-down works much like a coupler, so the sound will reflect the registration used in the left-hand, lowest octave.

 

 

 

Notes

1. Gabriel Blancafort, “El órgano español del siglo XVII,” in Actas del I Congreso Nacional de Musicología (Zaragoza: Institución “Fernando el Católico,” 1979),  133–142.

2. Ibid., 121.

3. Ibid., 138.

4. Ibid., 138–139.

5. Peter Williams, The European Organ 1450–1850 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978, third impression), 245.

6. See James Wyly, “The Pre-Romantic Spanish Organ: Its Structure, Literature, and Use in Performance.” D.M.A. dissertation, University of Missouri at Kansas City, 1964, 280–283.

7. This is the eleventh (unnumbered) page in Kastner’s preface to his edition of Correa’s Facultad orgánica, first published as volumes VI (1948) and XII (1952) in the series Monumentos de la Música Española (Barcelona: Instituto Español de Musicología).

The Organ Works of Pamela Decker

Edie Johnson
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From saucy tangos to chant-based works, expertly fashioned counterpoint, and everything in between, the organ works of Pamela Decker run the gamut of style and variety. Her compositions and recordings have received high and well-deserved acclaim in recent years. Decker has had a variety of experiences that shape her compositions—from theater organist to Fulbright Scholar. She has been commissioned by regional and national American Guild of Organists conventions, and her works have been performed around the world.

 

Background

I first became acquainted with Decker’s works as a graduate student at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. My professor, Larry Smith, suggested that I learn her three-movement work, Río abajo río (1999, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610004). I became enamored with the excitement and fire in the music, as well as her colorful, yet accessible harmonic language. Since then, I have learned several other Decker works, for both church and concert use. In addition, I had the privilege of premiering her first organ concerto, El Tigre, at the Region IV AGO convention in 2011. 

Music and movement have always had a close connection to Decker. While she did not grow up in a family of musicians, her earliest memories are of a home in which music frequently came from the record player, and she danced and performed living-room gymnastics whenever it was on. As a child, Decker and her family lived in Falls Church, Virginia, where her father was a naval research contractor. They attended a Methodist church there, and Pamela recounts this story:  

 

I recall a Sunday morning when my parents were taking me to church, and we were about to enter the narthex. Someone at that moment opened the big double doors to the sanctuary, and I remember an expanse of white wood and columns and a torrent of organ music pouring down the center aisle. I was entranced, and I thought that I would very much like to play the grand instrument that could produce those sounds.

Her parents thought she might have a specific talent for dance, but when at nine she was given the choice among dance, ice skating, or music, she quickly and without hesitation chose music lessons. She has had formal lessons in piano, organ, and harpsichord. Her first organ teacher was Jean Morgan, a concert organist with a large studio in Alexandria, Virginia.

When Decker was thirteen, her father received a promotion that required the family to move to the San Francisco Bay Area. This move was significant to her development as a composer, as it introduced her to the world of the theater organ. Her first teacher in the Bay Area, Galen Piepenburg, was trained as both a classical and theater organist. The Avenue Theater in the Bay Area hired organists to play half-hour recitals before movies began. By the time she was fifteen, Decker was showcased as one of these performers. She both made her own arrangements of “twenties-style” music and used reputable versions by other performers. The theater also hosted concerts by renowned organists from around the world. One of the recitals she considered memorable was by Korla Pandit, a theater organist from India. Decker’s experience with the theater organ scene greatly influenced her desire to create and “re-create.”

Decker moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Stanford University, where she studied with Herbert Nanney, an experienced concert organist and a published composer. While an undergraduate at Stanford, she had a church position and made the decision to focus on classical training. As she developed, she concentrated equally on both composition and performance practice. Her desire to study performance practice led to a Fulbright scholarship to study in Lübeck, Germany, at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. This experience gave her the opportunity to learn from and perform on many historic instruments. In addition, she was able to travel to Paris and even spent a day with Jean Langlais and Marie Louise Jaquet-Langlais. 

Decker recounts this fond memory of her day with Langlais: 

 

In the early evening, Mr. Langlais had to go to Ste-Clotilde to play for a funeral. He took me with him. On the streetcar, he kept pointing to landmarks and telling me to look at them. Even though he was blind, he knew exactly where everything was and how to tell me important bits of information in connection with what he was pointing out. I realized that I was on a “sightseeing” tour with Jean Langlais! At the church, there was some time before the service, so he allowed me to play several pieces. I recall that I played the Bach 9/8 Prelude and Fugue in C Major, and some of my own music. It is a treasured memory for me that he said very positive things about my work in both areas and encouraged me to continue composing as well as performing.

 

Harmonic style

The music of French organ composers has had a tremendous influence on Decker’s compositional output and her tonal language. She is particularly fond of Olivier Messiaen’s music. His modes of limited transposition have influenced the development of her own individually designed synthetic modes. The most influential of Messiaen’s works for Decker has been La Nativité du Seigneur. In learning and studying this work, she was struck by the lush harmonies and rich chromaticism that the modes yield. This, in turn, inspired Decker to explore and discover her own unique harmonic language. 

Study of Messiaen’s modes has led Decker to transform church modes, adding one or two pitches to the collection of a specific mode. She frequently incorporates a transformed Dorian that adds F-sharp and B-flat to the basic Dorian mode. (See Example 1.) One of her other favorite modes to employ is a Phrygian mode that adds F-sharp and C-sharp. These are just two examples of the synthetic modes that Decker works with, and she believes that each one has its own “pitch-class personality.” She works with the modes both individually and in combination and finds it interesting to use this “modal material within the context of designing original forms.”

Example 2 shows an example of the synthetic Dorian, used in mm. 64–70 of Albarda, the first movement of Flores del Desierto (1998, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610006). Decker’s synthetic Phrygian mode, which adds F-sharp and C-sharp to the basic Phrygian mode, is shown in Example 3. Decker uses this mode in Jesu, dulcis memoria (2011, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL710010), mm. 64–69, as shown in Example 4. 

Decker has also worked with scale types in flamenco patterns (see Example 5). The intervallic patterns of the flamenco modes play a prominent role in her new work, Fanueil Hall (2013, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610014), which was premiered at the 2014 AGO national convention, held in Boston. 

 

Rhythmic influences 

Messiaen’s creative rhythmic structures also have inspired Decker’s compositions. Decker states, “Messiaen also choreographs expressive nuance through additive rhythms and multi-metrical constructions. I have also found this element to be influential; I have used meter changes and shifting accents to place emphasis in my music.” For example, this passage in 2/4 from the final movement of Río abajo río, shown in Example 6, illustrates these shifting accents, which provide a strong syncopated effect. 

The captivating rhythms that Decker employs are also largely influenced by Latin American dances. She first became interested in Spanish and South American music after hearing Alicia de Larrocha perform Iberia by Isaac Albéniz. After this discovery, she began to immerse herself in Spanish and South American literature. She has done much reading and research into Latin American dance forms. She has incorporated many dance rhythms into her works, including the samba, charrada, rondena, tarantella, boliviana, and many others. Example 7 shows an example of a tango rhythm from the third movement of Río abajo río.

 

Other South American Influences

Another influence on Decker has been Ástor Piazzolla, a composer from Argentina who studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger encouraged Piazzolla to compose works that would reflect his native Argentinian culture. Piazzolla was a virtuosic performer on the bandonéon, the main instrument of the South American tangueros (students of tango). Decker states: 

 

This instrument was invented in Germany in 1854 by Heinrich Band, as a substitute for a pipe organ for churches without the financial resources to purchase and install a pipe organ. The instrument gradually made its way to South America, as musicians emigrated from Europe, and after the passage of time, it was adopted by the tangueros and the street musicians. Thus, there is a connection between Piazzolla’s primary instrument (he was a virtuoso-level performer on the bandonéon) and my own primary instrument. I love the fact that there is precedent for performing tango music at the organ.  

 

Registrations

While Decker’s harmonic language and rhythmic energy are progressive, she tends to stay with traditional use of the organ in terms of registration. She uses registrational changes as both a “color and form-defining factor.” Her scores are very clear in calling for specific registrations that are adaptable to most instruments. As a performer, she understands the need to make registration changes work on both electro-pneumatic and mechanical-action instruments, and as a composer takes into account that sometimes a combination action may not be available and that the performer must pull stops by hand. Her registrations might call for combinations such as a voix celeste accompanying a solo reed, a clear plenum, or combinations up to full organ. 

 

Traditional forms

Decker also employs more traditional forms, such as the prelude and fugue. She composes counterpoint as a “procedural basis” and expands the form with contemporary harmonic and formal structures. She also frequently integrates Gregorian chant into her works. Her collection entitled Retablos incorporates the chants Pange lingua, Ubi caritas, and Victimae paschali laudes. Jesu, Dulcis Memoria is a prelude and fugue based on the chant for which it is titled; Example 8 shows a passage from the prelude, and Example 9 a passage from the fugue. 

German chorale and Protestant hymn tunes also play a major role in Decker’s works. She has written a chorale prelude on Herzlich tut mich verlangen, and her collection On This Day (2009, Wayne Leupold Editions, WL610005) features popular Advent and Christmas tunes such as Personent Hodie, Antioch, and Cranham. On This Day would be an excellent collection with which to begin studying Decker’s works; Example 10 shows a passage from her setting of Antioch.

Many of Decker’s works can serve both a concert and a liturgical purpose. Her compositions are both engaging and accessible to a wide audience, especially when the audience is educated about the construction and program behind the piece. Decker states:

 

I believe that music should have intellectual substance, pure emotion, and undeniable communicative ability in equal measure. Even if a passage or section sounds improvisatory, I think that upon analysis, a performer or theorist should be able to discern evidence of substance and “intelligent design,” if I may borrow a phrase from another discipline. I also think that while program notes are fascinating, they should not be necessary for the composition to achieve its goal of making a visceral impact on the listener.

For those who have never explored Decker’s works, I encourage you to investigate her compositions. Pamela Decker has recorded her own works on the following Loft recordings: Decker Plays Decker: Sacred to Secular (Volume 1), LRCD 1053, Decker Plays Decker: Desert Wildflowers (Volume 2), LRCD 1076, and Decker Plays Decker: Suite Dreams and Fantasies (Volume 3), LRCD 1130 (www.gothic-records.com). A complete list of her works may be found at her website, pamela-decker.com.

 

Edie Johnson is music associate and organist at Church Street United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. She also teaches private organ and courses in organ literature and church music at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

 

Das Orgelbüchlein A Bibliographic Overview of Selected Editions

Myron B. Patterson

Myron Patterson is associate librarian and adjunct associate professor of organ at the University of Utah and organist and director of music at Holy Family Catholic Church, Ogden, Utah. He holds a doctorate in sacred music from the Graduate Theological Foundation and degrees in music and library science from the University of British Columbia, Northwestern University, and Trinity College of Music, London, England. Patterson has performed recitals in the United States, Canada, England, and Germany. He has served as an examiner for the American Guild of Organists and is a former dean of the Salt Lake City AGO chapter. He has served on the board of directors of the Association of Anglican Musicians and the Anglican Musicians Foundation. 

 
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No doubt exists about the pedagogical value of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Das Orgelbüchlein. Perhaps the clearest statement of its importance can be found in George B. Stauffer’s notes in the preface to Russell Stinson’s Bach: The Orgelbüchlein (Monuments of Western Music) [New York: Schirmer Books, 1996; reprint, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], xi:

 

No other volume of music is so well known to organists as the Orgelbüchlein of Johann Sebastian Bach. For generations of players it has stood as the first resource for honing manual and pedal skills . . . It is central to the educational process, a pedagogical vade mecum that no student or instructor can be without. 

 

The purpose of the Orgelbüchlein can be viewed as a multifaceted fabric woven together from the following interconnected areas: compositional treatise, liturgical organ music, organ teaching method, and a theological statement.

Although the chronology of the Orgelbüchlein has been a point of question, as Ulrich Leisinger suggests, watermarks and handwriting on the original autograph show that the work was conceived at Weimar, where Bach was primarily court organist, and that these pieces were for the professional organist. This contradicts the title page indication of the collection’s pedagogical nature. Leisinger states that the handwriting on the title page is from about 1720 but that most of the musical content is from a later period. He suggests that Bach may have emphasized the pedagogical nature of the collection around the time of his application to St. Thomas, Leipzig. 

The pedagogical nature of the Orgelbüchlein is certainly substantiated by the number of copies made and used by Bach in his lifetime.1 However, Russell Stinson gives a much fuller and comprehensive assessment of the chronology by citing multiple scholars who have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to authenticate the timeline of this work.2 Stinson himself proposes and gives clear reasons for what may be the most plausible timeline: an early phase from about 1708–12, followed by a second or middle phase from 1712–13, and a late stage from 1715–16.3

 

Pedagogy

By the time he arrived in Weimar, Bach was established as a teacher and no doubt used the Orgelbüchlein as part of his teaching resources. Although the title was added later, it does state the following about the Orgelbüchlein: “guidance is given to a beginning organist . . . and become practiced in the study of pedaling. . . [and] for my neighbor, that he may instruct himself from it.”4 However, it should be noted that the work was not designed as a teaching tool in a graded sense, as most organ method books are today. It does ensure proficiency in the use of the pedals and the coordination connected with that skill, while the individual chorale settings serve as compositional models. The facsimiles of the Orgelbüchlein do not have the pedal line on a separate staff; all of the notation is on two staves. Further evidence for this work having been used as a pedagogical tool is shown by the number of copies made by Johann Tobias Krebs, Bach’s pupil in Weimar.

Because of its pedagogical value, clearly suggested by Bach himself in the title and through his use of it with his own pupils, it is not surprising that numerous teaching editions of the Orgelbüchlein have appeared in the twentieth century. The purpose of this article is to explore several twentieth-century editions of Das Orgelbüchlein as pedagogical and practical editions. The choice of editions is purely my own; the choices are drawn from my experience and perspective as a teacher and a performer. Omission of the Neue Bach Ausgabe volume of Das Orgelbüchlein is deliberate, since the Neue Bach Ausgabe is a scholarly edition and does not contain the added educational materials that are found in the editions I have included in this article. 

 

The Editions

The Liturgical Year: Forty-Five Organ Choral[e]s = Orgelbüchlein. Johann Sebastian Bach; edited by Albert Riemenschneider. Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania: Oliver Ditson, distributed by Theodore Presser, c. 1933. 1 score (xvi, 138 p.); 31 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

The title of this edition, which is based on the Bachgesellschaft edition as stated in the preface, is “The Liturgical Year.” While accurate, this differs from Bach’s original title, more accurately translated as “The Little Organ Book.” Riemenschneider explains his choice of title this way: “The whole was to cover the needs of the Church Year, and it is because of this that the set is known in America as ‘The Liturgical Year.’5 Riemenschneider goes on to explain the interpretation of the organ chorals [sic], which leads to his comments on performance tempo, phrasing, and dynamics coupled with expression. He gives a chart explaining how embellishments are to be interpreted, along with abbreviations and sources consulted. In “Some General Rules for Playing Bach,” Riemenscheider advocates fingering that allows for “perfect legato.” He states that “singing legato is the natural element of the organ. . . [and] remains paramount.”6 Precise attack and release of notes is essential. Repeated notes are addressed, as is the interpretation of voices being played on different keyboards. The organist is cautioned to avoid “buzz” by taking care when playing from white key to white key; black key to black key; white key to black key; and black key to white key. How to play octave leaps is also explained.

A clear outline of the whole plan of the Orgelbüchlein is given, along with an indication of which pieces were actually completed. Each individual chorale prelude is preceded by a four-part harmonization of the chorale melody along with German and English texts of one verse. There is one exception to this model and that is Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar, which lacks the usual four-part harmonization. Instead, a realization of the figured bass is given, along with a lengthy explanation regarding the difficulty finding a suitable choral harmonization. Alternate editions and references are also listed, along with “suggestions for interpretation.” 

Spacing and layout is clear and easy for the player to read at the organ console. Fingering and pedaling suggestions reflect the common practice of Riemenschneider’s time, which was based on a rather Romantic conception of Baroque performance practice. That this edition is still in print reflects the scholarship value of its contents and Riemenschneider’s stature within the organ teaching community, even though the points of view are now dated.

 

Orgelbüchlein: The Little Organ Book. The Organ Works of J. S. Bach, Book XV. Edited by Ivor Atkins, with an introduction by Ernest Newman; revised by Walter Emery. London: Novello, 1957. 

This edition of the Orgelbüchlein reflects numerous editorial hands, all of whom are respected twentieth-century scholars. Under Atkins’ editorship the edition is based on that of the Bachgesellschaft, while Emery’s revision is based on the Berlin autograph. Unlike the Riemenschneider edition, this edition’s educational or pedagogical value (aside from being extremely physically well laid-out, with chorale harmonizations designed for singing and ornamentation interpretations being included in the musical text) lies in the prefatory material dealing with stylistic observations regarding composition. 

Newman’s introduction is thorough. In it, he covers many aspects of the compositional style of the Orgelbüchlein—for example, stating that for “a great number of preludes [in the collection] polyphony is the life and soul; and this polyphony assumes various forms.”7 Newman points out other examples that are more harmonically intense and have some melodic decoration, such as Liebster Jesu wir sind hier, and Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ. A third style Newman refers to is arabesque treatment of the chorale melody. In the third part of the introduction, Newman discusses poeticism, pictorialism, and symbolism as found in the Orgelbüchlein chorales. 

As editor of the original edition, Ivor Atkins presents commentary regarding phrasing, registration, and classification of the preludes. One specification of a Bach organ at the Weimar Castle is given, but registration considerations are minimal and general. Walter Emery, as reviser of this edition, gives more up-to-date insights than Newman and Atkins. However, Emery’s notes are representative of scholarship in 1957. While valuable as a student edition, the Novello edition does not represent later twentieth-century scholarship; its value is in its layout, ease of use, and editorial comments with each of the preludes, including interpretation of ornaments and notes about the chorale. 

 

Orgelbüchlein, Johann Sebastian Bach. With introduction, figured–bass chorales, texts and commentary, edited and prepared by Robert Clark and John David Peterson. St. Louis: Concordia, 1984. 

In their prefatory material, Robert Clark and John David Peterson clearly state that their edition is based on the Berlin manuscript referred to in endnote 7. The educational value of the introduction in this edition is multifaceted. It contains a brief history of the chorale and states that the organ was used minimally in sixteenth-century Lutheran services. Because of the organ’s minimal use, there was a lack of organ chorale collections; these came at a later time, as did more elaborate organ settings of chorale melodies. The pedagogical use of the Orgelbüchlein is clearly explained, indicating that its goal is to teach how to work out a chorale and provide studies in pedaling, while its liturgical use within the Lutheran liturgy is unclear. The editors speculated upon where the organ chorales might have been placed within the liturgy, since Bach gave no indication of this.

The types of organ known to Bach are discussed in general terms, but the specifications of organs at Weimar, Erfurt, Mühlhausen, and Grosshartmannsdorf are given and can help students to understand how to register these chorale settings. Broad guidelines regarding the registration of the individual chorale settings are given. These guidelines include: 1) the expressive character of a piece, in other words, the use of Affekt; 2) historical possibilities for registering a piece based on Bach’s eclectic view of organs; 3) the purely musical possibilities of registration. Examples are provideddemonstrating these concepts.

Ornamentation common to Bach’s time is discussed, noting that the trill and mordent are the primary ornaments used in the Orgelbüchlein. Examples from the chorales are given to illustrate their execution.

Articulation is thoroughly, yet briefly explained. Rhetorical figures are explained in detail, with specific examples from the chorales provided. Discussion of rhetoric is unique to this collection and has great pedagogical value regarding interpretation and performance. Understanding rhetorical figures can prove useful in interpreting other Baroque organ works, especially, but not limited to, those of Bach. A complete list of the chorales in liturgical order, including those that were never composed, is given. Some rather poor facsimiles are included. While not stellar reproductions, they do have some teaching value.

Each of the chorale preludes within the collection is preceded by comments regarding compositional style, possible performance approaches, registration suggestions, and where each setting fits into the church year. A four-part harmonization of the chorale melody, including figured bass, is given. The layout of the music is clear, making the music easy to read. All of these characteristics make it an excellent teaching and learning edition. 

 

J. S. Bach, 1685–1750, Basic Organ Works: Orgelbüchlein, Three Free Works. Edited by Quentin Faulkner. Wayne Leupold Editions WL 500006, 1997.

In 1997 Wayne Leupold Editions published J. S. Bach, Basic Organ Works edited by Quentin Faulkner. Three freely composed works are included in the volume containing the Orgelbüchlein. This edition, which is based on the Berlin autograph and other sources, is an exemplary pedagogical tool in many ways. 

Quentin Faulkner discusses the Orgelbüchlein’s history and the “Bach Organ,” particularly those at Altenburg Court Chapel and St. Wenceslaus Church, Naumburg. Knowing something of the Bach Organ leads to a better understanding of how to register the Orgelbüchlein chorales. Faulkner’s discussion of organ registration includes reference to Agricola’s writings on this topic, since this is the most complete resource coming from the Baroque period. Reflecting on Agricola’s writing, “plenum” and “combinations of the flute stops” are explained, along with reed stops and Bach’s own registrational practices. Two observational statements are made by Faulkner regarding registration: 1) organ registration is a matter of taste as discerned by the ear of the performer; and 2) greater familiarity with the organs of Bach’s time results in more informed performances

Detailed discussion of articulation is given, particularly dealing with the areas of touch, musical phrases, and the doctrine of figures. Meter and tempo are considered and, unlike the Riemenschneider edition, which views meter and tempo in a subjective and emotional context, Faulkner refers to Johann Kirnberger’s theory of musical meter and tempo being comparable to speech. Only three tempo indications are found in the Orgelbüchlein: Largo, Adagio, and Adagio assai.

Posture, hand position and fingerings, pedaling, and ornamention are explained and a rationale for the fingerings used in this edition is given. The enigmatic corona (fermata) is addressed. Hymn tunes and their texts are explained. A very useful teaching and learning aid is the listing of the chorales in order of difficulty, along with the criteria used for creating this list. Also provided are a systematic learning guide and a bibliography of sources in English for further reading. All topics in this preface are illustrated clearly with musical examples, which give clarity to the written text. Black and white illustrations of places, organs, and music facsimiles appear throughout the edition.

The completeness, reference to historical documents, clarity of writing, comprehensiveness of written text illustrated by equally comprehensive musical examples, learning aids, historical fingerings in the musical text, and reference to additional sources make this perhaps the most valuable pedagogical edition of the Orgelbüchlein.

Both of these editions, first that by Clark and Peterson edition and then that by Faulkner, became popular teaching editions and both have much to offer. The Clark edition is clearly printed in oversize format with an excellent preface. As in the other editions covered in this article, a complete list of chorales as Bach planned them is given along with several black and white facsimiles of chorales. A bibliography of articles dealing with the Orgelbüchlein is given at the end of the edition. By contrast the Leupold-Faulkner edition has extensive prefatory material, and fingering representing what is believed to have been the performance practice of Bach’s time. Both of these editions have strengths and value as pedagogical volumes. 

 

An American Bach Edition

Johann Sebastian Bach, The Complete Organ Works. Edited by George B. Stauffer. Series 1A and 1B. Colfax, North Carolina: Wayne Leupold Editions WL 500020 and WL 500021, 2012.

Wayne Leupold has taken on an even more intense project, which Barbara Owen’s review refers to as “an American Bach Edition.” The editorial team used American evaluation techniques that include the testing of each volume by pedagogues and students. The Leupold Edition is in two parts: Series I comprises fifteen volumes that include the music and pedagogical works. Series II comprises monographs dealing with sources of Bach’s organ works; Bach’s organ chorales, that is, tunes, texts and translations; and performance issues. 

Within the first series the Orgelbüchlein appears as both a “Practical Urtext” and a “Standard Urtext.” In the commentary, Stauffer discusses the historical progression or development of the Orgelbüchlein, which he divides into early, middle, and late periods during Bach’s time in Weimar and later revisions linked to Bach’s students Krebs and Kittel in Leipzig. These musical variants are given within the musical text as ossias. Although not from Bach himself, the edition suggests eighteenth-century registrational possibilities based on Kirnberger’s Berlin Circle. New readings and performance suggestions along with detailed historical background are given, along with a generous inclusion of facsimiles, some of them in color. Problematic passages are discussed.

A unique feature of the Orgelbüchlein, in this edition, is its appearance in two urtext versions with the repertoire being almost the same in both. However, there are differences. The standard edition has nine variant readings while only one variant (BWV 634) is included in the practical edition. The chorales appear in both versions; the chorale melodies are harmonized in the practical version. The Orgelbüchlein content from Bach’s autograph is included in the standard edition only, while the practical edition contains two tables of ornaments. A detailed editorial report is given in both versions.

There is a rationale for having two versions of the Orgelbüchlein. In his review of the new Leupold Bach Edition, Lawrence Archbold suggests that with some modification, the standard edition could serve as an organ tutor while the practical edition may be more useful to students because of the explanation of ornaments and the inclusion of fully harmonized chorales. In fact, Archbold asserts that the practical edition most likely will be the choice of students because of the way it draws them to the music. 

Archbold’s final statement is: “one regrets the empty pages in J. S. Bach’s copy of the Orgelbüchlein.” This makes a wonderful segue to an innovative project currently underway and connected to the Orgelbüchlein.

 

The OrgelbЯchlein Project 

Noted British organist William Whitehead has set about a thrilling and imaginative project in which he plans the completion of the Orgelbüchlein. Bach wrote the titles of 164 chorales in the Orgelbüchlein and finished only 46, leaving 118 “ghost” compositions—gaps that Whitehead wants to fill with compositions that will bring to completion Bach’s initial vision. The rules for submission are simple. First, the chorale melody must be one of those inscribed by Bach but never started or finished. Second, the length of each composition should be between one and two-and-a-half minutes, but should not exceed five minutes. Third, any style is encouraged, but the pieces must be for organ solo and have a pedal obbligato as Bach indicated in the full title of the Orgelbüchlein

The project was launched in 2009 at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music with six compositions being played by organ students from Trinity College of Music. The stylistic palette varied in style from jazzy to astringent. A second phase of the project took place in Cambridge, where the whole of Bach’s original Orgelbüchlein compositions and new pieces by British composers Thomas Neal, Jeremy Thurlow, Cecilia McDowall, Robin Holloway, Jeremy Coleman, and Iain Farrington were performed. A web page dedicated to this imaginative project can be accessed at www.orgelbuechlein.co.uk. Here can be found links to various aspects of this project including recordings, composition rules, commissioned chorales, and the Orgelbüchlein community.

 

Conclusion

Bach’s Orgelbüchlein continues to fascinate the creative mind and has proven to be a lasting source of pedagogical interest while serving as a foundational tool in developing the technique and skills of organ students. Because of this ongoing fascination and interest, there have been numerous editions edited by eminent scholars and equally eminent publishers. In this overview, I have shown the strengths of several of these editions and, hopefully, have introduced new insights regarding lesser-known or  infrequently used editions. ν

 

Acknowledgements

Images of pages from Bach’s autograph of the Orgelbüchlein, from the Bärenreiter Faksimile, are courtesy
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv (Mus.ms. Bach P 283).

 

Notes

1. J. S. Bach, Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), Ulrich Leisinger, editor, with notes on interpretation by Ewald Kooiman. Vienna: Universal Edition, ix.

2. Stinson, 12–17.

3. Stinson, 14–17.

4. Peter Williams, Playing the Organ Works of J. S. Bach (Cambridge Studies in Music). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quoted in Stinson, 31.

5. Riemenschneider. p. v.

6. Ibid., x.

7. Atkins, v.

 

Bibliography

Archbold, Lawrence. “Johann Sebastian Bach: the Complete Organ Works,” The American Organist 45, no. 11 (November 2012): 53–54.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599–644: Faksimile der autographen Partitur. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1981

Owen, Barbara. “An American Bach Edition At Last,” The Tracker 55, no. 3 (2011): 24–26.

Roberts, W. Peter. “The Orgelbüchlein Project—Blessing and Curse.” The Organ 91 (2012): 58.

Stauffer, George B. “The Complete Organ Works of J. S. Bach: The Leupold Edition,” The American Organist 44, no .9 (September 2010): 41–43. 

Stinson, Russell. Bach: The Orgelbüchlein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

 

BWV 565: Composer Found?*

Jonathan B. Hall

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

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

 

The problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In another article, Bruce Fox-Lefriche states with finality that 565 was written for violin solo.15 No choice is offered: the essay asserts that there is “no doubt” that the piece cannot have been written either by Bach or for the organ, because it is “unidiomatic” and “far too clumsy.”16 (In fact, it is neither; it is thoroughly idiomatic to the organ, and quite fluid throughout.) It would seem evident that any attempt to ‘reconstruct’ a violin ‘original’ is a prima facie impossibility, because there is nothing to reconstruct it from. Yet the magazine offers two excerpts from his violin arrangement, the editor (not the author) claiming outrageously that it was “reconstructed” from “an 18th-century manuscript that is also the basis of the organ work17 (emphasis mine). This “basis” is, of course, Ringk’s manuscript of the organ work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Cornelius Heinrich Dretzel

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Points of similarity 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Conclusion, performance notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

Notes

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

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

3. Williams, “BWV 565.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. Williams, “BWV 565,” 332.

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

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

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

16. Ibid., 53.

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

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

19. Ibid., 53.

20. Humphreys, “D Minor Toccata.”

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

22. Claus, Zur Echtheit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

37. Williams, Organ Music of Bach, 155.

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

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

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

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

42. Williams, “BWV 565,” 330.

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

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

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

 

 

The American Harmonium and Arthur Bird

Artis Wodehouse

Pianist and harmoniumist Artis Wodehouse has a BM from the Manhattan School of Music, an MM from Yale, and a DMA from Stanford. A National Endowment for the Humanities grant led to her producing CDs and publishing transcriptions of recorded performances and piano rolls made by George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Zez Confrey. In 2000, Wodehouse began performing on antique reed organs and harmoniums that she had painstakingly restored and brought to concert condition. She founded the chamber group MELODEON in 2010 to present little-known but valuable music from 19th- and early 20th-century America, using her antique instrument collection as the basis for repertoire choice. 

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During its prime in the nineteenth-century, the reed organ was the preferred instrument in American homes and also deemed a fit substitute for the more expensive pipe organ. Large reed organs became common in civic gathering halls and smaller churches. Despite the popularity of reed organs in America,1 music for them consisted primarily of simplified arrangements of European art music, easy-to-play popular and sentimental ditties, polkas, marches, and waltzes, or hymns and other service music associated with worship or civic gatherings.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century it became apparent that design variation from company to company and from organ to organ, even within a given company’s fleet of models, was preventing composers from writing idiomatic original music for the American reed organ. The limited market for music crafted for one or another of the competing designs was too small to sustain widespread printing and marketing of scores.2

Without its own literature, such as had been created during the nineteenth century for its European counterpart, the harmonium, the American reed organ had an uncertain future. It would continue to be regarded at best as “a sort of weak substitute for the church organ.”3 Then, in the mid-1890s, at essentially the beginning of the end of the reed organ era, Mason & Hamlin4 began to address the problem by introducing an action design5 whose capabilities would “insure the greatest advantages to the composers, at the same time enable the manufacturer to place his instruments on the market at as low a price as possible.” The new action design was called the “Normal-Harmonium.” This was the action design for which the American composer Arthur Bird (1856–1923) wrote his compelling body of reed organ music. Figure 1 shows the Mason & Hamlin American reed organ, with Normal-Harmonium action design. Two knee levers are above the foot pedals. The right lever controls the internal swell shades; the left lever activates the Grand Jeu.

Mason & Hamlin’s Normal-Harmonium action design and Arthur Bird’s creation of a substantial, idiomatic music for the American reed organ came too late. Piano sales that had roared ahead after the Civil War rapidly displaced the reed organ. In the 1880s, reed organ sales slipped below that of pianos. By World War I, the glory days of the reed organ were over.6

 

Two competing
19th-century instruments: 

The American reed organ
and the European harmonium 

In the 1840s, United States inventors and businessmen founded companies that offered distinctive fleets of reed organ models. Reed organs were built in a bewildering variety of brands, sizes, and stoplist configurations. They ranged from diminutive four-octave home models that traveled to the West in covered wagons, to large, expensive instruments with powerful tone, full pedalboards, and many stops. 

The American reed organ used one or more sets of brass “free reeds” in order to generate tone. The performer’s foot pumping activated suction bellows that generated a stream of moving air, much like a vacuum cleaner. When the performer depressed a key, this moving air passed through a small chamber in which the reed was affixed at one end, but free to vibrate on the other end (hence the designation, “free reed”). The reeds varied in length, and the longer the reed, the lower the tone. Air rushing through the chamber caused the reed to vibrate, and tone to be produced. When a reed organ had more than one set of reeds, a set could be brought into play or silenced by allowing or blocking the moving air via stop pulls. As with the pipe organ, a set of shutters or swell shades located within the action facilitated dynamic contrasts. The performer opened or shut them on a gradient via a knee paddle. 

The largest and most prominent reed organ companies were Mason & Hamlin in Boston and Estey in Brattleboro, Vermont, but scores of others proved successful. As the nineteenth century progressed, American reed organs became increasingly complex. Inventors developed voicing techniques that produced a broad range of distinctive and contrasting timbres, named using terms derived from pipe organ nomenclature.7 Instruments built with multiple sets of differently voiced reeds featured multiple stops and a divided keyboard8 so that the player could choose contrasting timbres in the treble and bass of a single keyboard. Large reed organs were sometimes built with multiple keyboards, like pipe organs. The more reeds in an instrument, the more expensive it would be

Another keyboard instrument employing differently voiced sets of free reeds in airtight chambers arose in Europe during the nineteenth century. A Frenchman, Alexandre Debain, patented this instrument in 1842, naming it a “harmonium.” (See Figure 2.) 

Like the American reed organ, the European harmonium came to offer a broad range of distinctive and contrasting timbres controlled by stop pulls, and a divided keyboard that enabled the choice of different timbres in the treble and bass. (See Figure 3.)

Despite some similarity in design to the American reed organ, the European harmonium did not employ the American-style bellows system (suction) that pulled moving air in and through the reed chamber. Instead, in the European system, air was pushed through and out via pressure, producing sound like a trumpet or an oboe. The different airflow systems require different technical skills of the performer and produce distinctly different tonal characteristics. (See Figure 4.)

Foot pumping on the harmonium manages two important functions because of the way harmonium bellows were designed to work: the performer maintains constant airflow while simultaneously adjusting the relative airflow speed responsible for dynamic contrasts.9 Manipulating airflow velocity to effect dynamic changes was called “expression,” and this function had its own specially assigned stop pull. An additional European innovation for facilitating dynamic contrast was the invention of the so-called “double expression.” It was installed in the more costly European harmoniums. Double expression, a capability arising no doubt from a desire to mimic the piano’s ability to balance melody and accompaniment, allowed the performer to control not only the overall loudness but also the relative volume of the treble and bass on a gradient. Double expression is controlled by two knee levers installed under the keyboard and above the two foot-pump pedals. The skill required to play smoothly and expressively on the harmonium demands much practice.  

Late-speaking reeds, i.e., those with a time lag between the act of depressing a key and the sounding of its corresponding tone, hampered performers on both the American reed organ and the European harmonium.10 Although quick airflow delivery to the reeds was a design priority for both reed organ and harmonium builders, the Americans felt that beyond a certain point, slight lags were an acceptable characteristic of the instrument for which the performer was expected to make appropriate adjustments. The Europeans, however, took a different approach. To mitigate the problem of late speech (and to provide an additional tonal effect) they positioned small felt-covered hammers next to each of the reeds of the set most frequently used in performance. These little hammers were controlled by a stop pull, referred to as “percussion.” When the percussion stop is pulled and a key is depressed, the little hammers simultaneously strike the sounding reed, causing it to speak more quickly and incisively, like a crisp piano attack. The harmonium’s percussion makes performance of rapid passagework more predictable when compared to the American reed organ.

The most far-reaching advantage the harmonium held over the American reed organ was the standardization of stops generally agreed upon by the European companies. Standardization had two benefits: it made it possible to print in music scores commonly understood registration that could be used across instruments built by different companies. Secondly, performers could move from one harmonium to another with a minimum of adjustment.11

It should be noted that the terms “harmonium” and “reed organ” were and continue to be used interchangeably. Lack of a clear and consistent terminology must be laid at the door of the overlapping and competing terms originally used. In their heyday, American reed organs were most frequently referred to as simply “organs,” but other names were used as well. These included Organ-Harmonium and Cabinet Organ, two different terms used by the same company, Mason & Hamlin. There were also fanciful names such as Phonorium, used by Estey.12

 

Harmonium and American reed organ repertoire

The capabilities of the European harmonium and the move towards standardization13 attracted several important nineteenth-century European composers. Elgar, Strauss, Schoenberg, Webern, Mahler, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rossini made good use of the harmonium in some of their orchestral and/or choral works. Berlioz, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Guilmant, Widor, and many others wrote high quality solo and chamber music for it. Finally, the German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933) made it his mission to develop a body of repertoire that would exploit the unique sonic and expressive capabilities of the Art Harmonium. During the early twentieth century Karg-Elert wrote what has proved to be the single most significant body of solo and chamber music for the instrument. The popularity of the European harmonium peaked about 1900, slightly later than the American reed organ’s peak of popularity.

Relatively few harmoniums made it across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century. On the other hand, American reed organs were exported and sold in fair numbers throughout Europe, particularly those built by Mason & Hamlin.14 Also, several European manufacturers such as Lindholm, Mannborg, and Shiedmayer adopted the American suction bellows system for their instruments.15 Nevertheless, despite significant cross-Atlantic distribution of the American reed organ and the availability of native European instruments with some shared characteristics, the American reed organ never established an artistic foothold through a representative body of high-quality music comparable to that written for the harmonium. This cannot be fully explained by the technical differences between the two as outlined above. Although the American instrument may have lacked the harmonium’s more refined control of dynamics and its useful percussion stop, the best American instruments, such as the Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ, have a distinctive tonal beauty and a multiplicity of sounds equal to those of their European counterparts. 

The promotional prominence and enlarged, relatively standardized capabilities of Mason & Hamlin’s flagship Liszt Organ may therefore have been the impetus behind Boston-based American publisher Arthur Schmidt to print a few works for it during the 1890s. Schmidt’s publications for the Liszt Organ included both original compositions as well as arrangements of famous European works for organ solo, duets with piano, and chamber pieces. But apart from Eugene Gigout’s excellent Romanza for the Liszt Organ, unfortunately none of the rest rose to a similarly high quality.

 

Arthur Bird, American expatriate composer (1856–1923) 

Around 1896, Mason & Hamlin likely encouraged and may have actually commissioned the American composer Arthur Bird to write idiomatic art music for the standardized action they introduced during the 1890s, called the Normal-Harmonium. 

No documentation has yet surfaced indicating payment to Bird for his work by the firm. Nevertheless, key musical and personal circumstances link Arthur Bird to the most significant people associated with the Mason & Hamlin Company. Central to the connection between Arthur Bird and Mason & Hamlin was Franz Liszt. A canny seer, Liszt bet correctly on the ability of eager young American pianists and composers to hold high the torch of pianism and to carry forward the music of the future. Liszt welcomed them, offering his inspired pedagogy and worldly professional connections free of charge. Liszt’s generosity forged a well-documented bond among his pupils. Liszt’s first American student was the pianist William Mason (1829–1908). Mason studied with Liszt beginning in 1849, and brought back to the United States Liszt’s pedagogic principles through an extensive career of teaching, performing, and publishing. William Mason also happened to be the brother of Henry Mason, who in 1854 co-founded the Mason & Hamlin Company. Henry and William Mason were in turn sons of Lowell Mason, an important American hymn composer and musical educator during the first half of the nineteenth century. 

Liszt owned and wrote music for numerous keyboard instruments provided for him by both European and American companies.16 Among such instruments in his sizable collection was a Mason & Hamlin cabinet organ that he acquired in the 1870s. Later, Mason & Hamlin’s flagship high-end model came to be named the “Liszt Organ,” a likely outcome of the close connection between Liszt, his pupil William Mason, and the Mason & Hamlin Company.17 The Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ was introduced about 1880. Complex, colorful, powerful, and versatile, the Liszt Organ was designed to compete with the best European harmoniums. While the Liszt Organ shared many tonal and functional features with the Normal-Harmonium design, it had a different tessitura (five octaves, C to C, versus the Normal-Harmonium’s F to F) and a different split point (E–F versus B–C for the Normal-Harmonium).

Arthur Bird was also one of Liszt’s American pupils, coming to him during Liszt’s later years.18 Bird’s musical and personal background strikingly resembled that of William Mason. Born in Belmont, Massachusetts in 1856, Bird’s early musical training came from his father and uncle, who were born-and-bred American church musicians. Arthur’s father, Horace Bird, and his uncle, Joseph Bird, were active in the New England of the 1840s and 1850s as voice teachers, composers of hymns and songs, and editors of singing books written to develop score-reading literacy. Upon the advice of William Mason’s father, Lowell Mason, young Arthur Bird was sent in 1875 to study in Germany at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Returning to North America two years later, he took a church music position in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he began to compose. He returned to Berlin in 1881 to study composition and orchestration. It was during this time that Bird came into the Liszt orbit.  

By his early 30s (in the mid-1880s), Bird had become well established as an organist and pianist. His compositions were published and performed widely in Europe. Bird spent most of his life abroad, mainly in Berlin, where he married a wealthy German widow and apparently lived lavishly. In 1897 Bird returned for some time to the United States in what proved to be a failed attempt to have his comic operetta, Daphne, performed in America. Reading between the lines of William Loring’s biographical work on Arthur Bird, is it possible that Bird wished to forge a closer connection to his native country? Certainly a major production of an opera by a United States-born composer within the United States would be an excellent vehicle for that scenario. During the late 1890s, when the quest for “genuine” American composers was in full swing, Bird may have sensed an opportunity. In any event, in that same year (1897), the first of Bird’s pieces for the Mason & Hamlin “American Harmonium” (op. 37) were published by Breitkopf and Härtel, an important German firm still operating that publishes high-art European music.19

 

Characteristics of Arthur Bird’s “American Harmonium”

The historic trajectory mating Arthur Bird with the Normal-Harmonium came just at the point when the piano had overtaken reed organ sales. Mason & Hamlin realized that in order to survive in the long term, the reed organ needed some good original music. The publication of Arthur Bird’s music for the “American Harmonium” came at a historic crossroad for the American reed organ, largely due to the rise of the American piano. From the 1850s, pianos, and particularly American pianos, started to benefit from standardization and mechanical manufacturing methods of the industrial revolution. Prior to this time, pianos were mainly handcrafted items. Likewise around 1850, the design of the piano, particularly the American piano, moved rapidly toward increased durability and a greater dynamic and pitch range. Piano types coalesced into three categories: square, grand, and finally, upright. Each of these types served a clear purpose. As a result, consumers began to turn to the piano as a viable keyboard alternative to the reed organ, particularly in the home market, where the reed organ had ruled uncontested.20 Sales of pianos grew steadily through the nineteenth century.

In contrast to the piano industry, American reed organ manufacturers from the 1850s to the 1900s offered consumers instruments of a wide variety of sizes, competing capabilities, nomenclature, and above all, case styles.21 After the Civil War, American manufacturers also developed complex instruments of considerable beauty, sophistication, and expense. These large instruments with enhanced performance capabilities were aimed at a smaller “niche” market, for placement in the homes of the wealthy, civic or religious meeting halls, and small churches. But after a sustained growth period lasting about 40 years, sales of the American reed organ began to decline in the 1880s.

The Normal-Harmonium action design of the 1890s for which Bird wrote was conceived to meet these market challenges. Mason & Hamlin worked with and adopted the Normal-Harmonium design in collaboration with two entities associated with the company: their German representative Paul Koeppen and the Bender firm in Leiden, Holland.22 Mason & Hamlin’s goal was to provide a standardized instrument that could compete with the piano and its plentiful repertoire. Their instrument had to be sophisticated enough to attract composers to write good music for it and be of a reasonable cost. 

Mason & Hamlin met both of its goals. First, the cost of an instrument with Normal-Harmonium specifications was indeed lower by half or more than that of the top of the Mason & Hamlin line, the Liszt Organ. The price of the Liszt came in at $700, but instruments with Normal-Harmonium capabilities could be had between $260 and $300.23 Second, the Normal-Harmonium action provided attractive and useful performance capabilities. These included a pitch range of five octaves from F to F and multiple sets of reeds offering an elaborate stoplist. American reed organs with the Normal-Harmonium action design began to be manufactured in the 1890s and continued to be built until the company ceased reed organ production in the early 1920s.

As mentioned previously, inconsistent nomenclature and lack of a simple explanation for actual performance capability plagued the field. Although Mason & Hamlin offered a standardized action design in the Normal-Harmonium, Bird’s music itself was identified on the score as being intended for the “American Harmonium” and/or the “Normal-Harmonium.” Nomenclature had still not jelled. Therefore it must be stressed that the terms “American Harmonium” and Mason & Hamlin “Normal-Harmonium” do not refer to any one specific instrument, but rather to an action design embodying certain specific capabilities. 

Figure 5 shows the overhead view of interior of the Mason & Hamlin American organ with Normal-Harmonium specs. To the upper right is the paddle that is activated to rotate by the Vox Humana stop. The upper left box houses the very large Sub Bass reeds. The specific capabilities of the Normal-Harmonium are as follows. 

 

Stoplist:

Diapason Dolce 8—the Diapason, mechanically softened. 

Sub Bass 16—consists of 13 notes, the chromatic octave upward from low C. This stop uses the largest, longest reeds, producing a deep, rich, and powerful sound.

Eolian Harp 2—two detuned sets of reeds producing a shimmering, ethereal vibrato.

Diapason 8—pure, organ-like tone. 

Viola 4—resembles the sound of the orchestral instrument for which it is named.

Viola Dolce 4—the Viola, mechanically softened.

Vox Humana—adds a vibrato or tremolo. Can be used in combination with any of the other drawn stops in the treble. Activated by the turning of a windmill-like paddle located inside the action.

Seraphone 8—differs from the Diapason in timbre. Focused and slightly nasal.

Flute 4—resembles the sound of the orchestral instrument for which it is named.

Melodia 8—continuation in the treble of the Diapason reeds.

Vox Celeste 8—another stop combining two sets of detuned reeds that creates a vibrato effect. 

Octave Coupler—when pulled, mechanically connects a note to that of one an octave higher.

Melodia Dolce 8—mechanically softened Melodia. 

 

The split point on the keyboard is between B and middle C. Stops from Seraphone 8 up activate the treble, the stops from Viola Dolce, down, the bass.

 

Mechanical devices:

Grand Jeu—activated by a knee paddle located under the keys above the left foot pump pedal. The Grand Jeu causes all the reeds to sound at once, producing the instrument’s fullest and loudest sound.

Swell—activated by a knee paddle located under the keys above the right foot pump pedal. This device controls the internal shutters responsible for dynamic contrasts. (See Figure 6.)

 

Arthur Bird as composer

During his lifetime, Arthur Bird was recognized as an active, widely published, and well-received composer of some stature, particularly in Europe. Incidentally, his successful European career was launched in no small part because of the positive public and private endorsements Bird received from the influential Franz Liszt. 

Bird’s oeuvre is extensive, including opera and theatre works, orchestral music, songs, piano materials, chamber works (particularly those for wind instruments, for which he is best-remembered today), organ, and many other forms. Bird wrote a sizeable number of short solo piano pieces in well-established standard dance forms and topical styles—march, waltz, minuet, gavotte, lullaby, and mazurka. His extensive experience composing in this genre prepared Bird well to write for the American reed organ. Bird’s music is available in score at the Library of Congress through the generous donation of his widow and has been amply documented through the International Music Score Library Project.24

Relatively little of Bird’s music has been recorded.25 What is available tends to confirm the critical reception his work received during his lifetime. Reviewing a performance of [Bird’s] Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 40, the Berliner Borsen Courier said: “It is distinguished for the freshness and spontaneity of its invention, as well as the clever craftsmanship and the clear and compact disposition of its different parts . . .” Another critic comments: “Characteristically his music is pleasing and melodious in composition. It is coherent and well developed in form. It lies easily within the range of the instruments, and displays no little knowledge of their resources.” Of him, [Arthur] Farwell wrote: “Arthur Bird is known as the possessor of a fertile and truly musical imagination and a thorough technique . . .
Bird is a musician of German training and French sympathies and calls himself a conditional modernist.” Mentioning that Bird composed in almost all forms, [Louis] Elson says of him: “He is an excellent contrapuntist, yet uses his skill in this direction as a means rather than as an end, seldom making a display of his knowledge. It is a pleasure to find an American composer who is not anxious to out-Wagner and who goes along the peaceful tenor of recognized and classical ways.”
26 Bird was even described as “the most promising American composer of the middle and late Eighties” by no less than the important conductor,
Arthur Nikisch.27 

The amount and dating of Bird’s production seem to confirm Loring’s supposition28 that after 1900, Bird’s work dwindled, though his reed organ works of 1905 (op. 45) maintain his previously held high standard. On the other hand, his simplified arrangements, American Melodies Specially Adapted and Arranged for Normal-Harmonium of 1907, appear to have been written simply for profit and lack the artistic value of his earlier work for the American Harmonium.

 

Arthur Bird’s music for the American Harmonium

Those who either possessed or might  have considered purchasing an instrument with the Normal-Harmonium action design would likely be individuals of some performance ability and/or a level of musical sophistication high enough to appreciate the artistic features of the instrument. They would also likely appreciate piano music of the better salon variety, up to and including Schumann’s, Chopin’s, or Grieg’s short works for solo piano. Finally, they would most likely be of the social class that would appreciate hearing this music, most likely in the home setting. 

Bird’s conservatism—informed by fine craftsmanship, deft handling of instrumental color, and fluency in miniature forms—may not have been enough to place him into the compositional pantheon of his trailblazing European contemporaries (Mahler, Debussy, etc.), but his abilities ideally suited him for writing salon-oriented character pieces of the type popularized by Mason & Hamlin’s Normal-Harmonium. An already accomplished American composer, Bird’s impeccable, media-worthy credentials and network of connections to Mason & Hamlin were a further plus. Bird was a perfect fit.

Bird published six opus numbers for the Normal-Harmonium.29 All contain interesting and beautiful music, but the best of these was his first, the ten pieces of op. 37.30 In the first printing, the op. 37 pieces were identified directly on the score’s front pages as being intended for the “American Harmonium”31 or for the Mason & Hamlin “Normal-Harmonium.” A page is devoted to an explanation of the stops required and their manner of notation in the score. Bird used circled letters derived from the stop name. For instance, Diapason is D; Viola, V; Voix Celeste, VC; and so forth. Later print runs of op. 37 contain the same explanatory page, but also indicate standard stop numbers, i.e., 1 for Diapason, 3 for Viola, 5 for Eolian Harp, etc., that would correspond to numbers appearing on European suction instruments of equivalent capability.32

While no piece in the op. 37 set lasts more than three minutes, each exhibits a mastery of craft: beautifully spun-out melodies, masterful counterpoint, subtly personalized inflections of nineteenth-century harmonic practice, and traditional formal structures handled with deft assurance. Bird’s forms are not unusual (ABA, sonata, rondo). But because the Normal-Harmonium’s unique instrumental colors are an integral component of Bird’s structural designs, the listener experiences an additional dimension of thematic transformation. In his music for Normal-Harmonium, Bird’s assimilation of instrumental color as a component of structural rhetoric relates his music to that of the nascent French impressionists at the turn-of-the-century. The following briefly describes salient features of each of the pieces in Bird’s op. 37:

1. Meditation—a sarabande. In this mini-Wagnerian contrapuntal ramble, Bird employs kaleidoscopic stop changes that underscore the evolving melodic twists and turns.

2. Preludium—brooding and dramatic four-part writing in an ABA structure. Registration is simple, but Bird uses the octave coupler at the recapitulation, reinforcing and underscoring the harmonic excursions introduced as the piece moves toward an impassioned final cadence.

3. Adagio—elegiac four-part mini-sonata. Development section comprises a series of recitative-like meandering arpeggios over sustained chords. Recapitulation re-registers the opening material over low pedal points. With more recitative-like arpeggios at the coda, the piece concludes with a simple fadeout on the ethereal Eolian Harp stop.

4. Reverie—features a long-breathed, haunting, and tentative treble melody on the flute stop set against slithering countermelodies registered on the atmospheric Eolian Harp stop. In ABA form, the melody’s return is entirely recast in a fuller texture with the foundation 8 and 4 stops. In partnership with a walking bass line, the melody’s tentative first appearance is thereby transformed into an affirmative point of arrival. The coda brings the listener back to the ethereal Eeolian Harp, rounding the piece off as it began.33

5. Postlude—hearkens back to Bird’s American past, a spirited march that suggests a full wind band.34 Bird’s registration indicates that the piece must be played in its entirety using only one setting, the circled G indicating “Grand Jeu.” Because Grand Jeu causes all the stops to sound at once, finger strength and vigorous foot pumping are required throughout. 

6. Improvisato—a fierce, somewhat virtuosic piece. Registration involving the basic 8 and 4 stops is augmented at the recapitulation by use of the Grand Jeu. Rapid, conjunct passagework in the wild coda comes off surprisingly well, despite the lack of a percussion stop. Bird was a hands-on composer and knew what the Mason & Hamlin organ could do.35 

7. Offertoire—This piece would be suitable for use in a church setting. It is an atmospheric sweet/sour composition with change of mode. 

8. Scherzo—This is the most technically demanding of the set, an extended rondo. Rapid sixteenth notes scattered throughout the piece when the octave-coupler is drawn or the Grand Jeu is activated require finger strength and precise articulation. Not only the performer’s skill is tested: Bird takes the instrument itself to the edge of its mechanical ability to sound quick notes on the fly. Registration is extraordinarily full and rich, suggesting an orchestra. 

9. Auf dem Lande—a melancholy, minor “folksong” melody is transformed to a grand, affirmative conclusion in major mode.

10. Pastoral—perhaps the most inventive and idiomatic of the entire set. Bird’s motivic ideas have a symbiotic relationship with the instrumental colors he brings to bear. Set above continuously sustained low pedal points, a flowing conjunct melody in the treble twines about an ostinato pattern in the mid range. In order to keep the pedal points depressed while so much action is occurring that requires two hands, lead weights must be used to hold down the pedal-point notes.

 

The American reed organ, Arthur Bird, and the future

The composition of high-quality, original repertoire for the European harmonium during the nineteenth century has proved to have far-reaching consequences. Once thought lost to history, beginning in the 1980s the harmonium has been going through a steady revival, centering in the Netherlands. It seems likely the harmonium will continue to reestablish the place it once held in the classical repertoire. While there continues to be a small but passionate interest in the American reed organ,36 a revival similar in scope and momentum has not yet begun.

As the rise and fall of the American reed organ demonstrates, the key to an instrument’s survival is not its mechanical capabilities, but rather the repertoire written for it. Not just any music will do. What is needed is music that will continue to offer listeners an aesthetic experience independent from the era in which it was created.

In the case of the European harmonium, the point where form and function met occurred when distribution was growing and the instrument’s capability achieved sufficient standardization. This favorable environment attracted a fair number of composers to write significant music for it. Unfortunately for the American reed organ, standardization arrived at the very point when distribution was falling. 

Nevertheless, we are grateful that one composer, Arthur Bird, stepped in during a brief moment of opportunity in the history of the American reed organ. With his ideal combination of skills, commitment, and inspiration, he provided us with music that stands poised to move into the future. ν

 

Special thanks to Carson Cooman and Whitney Slaten

 

Notes

1. American publishers also churned out a deluge of reed organ method books intended for the large market of rank amateurs in the United States. 

2. Paul Hassenstein, “The Normal Harmonium And Its Literature,” The Music Trade Review 41:3, July 1905, 87. 

3. Ibid., 87.

4. Mason & Hamlin began as a reed organ manufacturer, but in 1883 started making pianos as well. About 1920 the company ceased making reed organs, but continued their piano line. 

5. “Action design” refers to a specific set of performance capabilities contained within the mechanism of an instrument. Action design was independent of case style. The same action could be enclosed in a variety of cases.

6. Robert F. Gellerman, The American Reed Organ (Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1973), 18.

7. Ibid., 97–99. Gellerman’s list of stop names gives some indication of the diversity and lack of standardization among the American reed organ manufacturers.

8. The point of division between bass and treble was called the “split point.”

9. The harmonium did not employ the swell shade of the American system for dynamic contrast because the pressure system made possible quick changes in air speed. Quick control of air speed permits the execution of sharper accents and faster dynamic changes than is typically possible on the American instrument. Simply put, the American instrument is easier to learn how to play, but lacks the degree of potential interpretive refinement offered by the harmonium.

10. The phenomenon is due to inertia. Lowest reeds speak quite slowly: they are the largest reeds, sometimes several inches in length.

11. Gellerman, American Reed Organ, 107.

12. I have consistently used “American Reed Organ” or simply “reed organ” to refer to the suction bellows action design, and “harmonium” to describe the European pressure instrument.

13. Standardized pitch range, split point, sets of stop pulls, shared nomenclature. Nevertheless, as the 19th century progressed, European harmonium manufacturers (like their American counterparts) succumbed to the lure of increased capability that culminated with the celebrated “Art Harmonium.” The Art Harmonium offered a whole new range of attractive colors and capabilities. Music written for the Art Harmonium could not be played on more basic harmonium models.

14. Casey Pratt, e-mail to the author, July 30, 2013. Casey Pratt is a United States reed organ restorer who specializes in the Mason & Hamlin. Exact numbers are not known to date.

15. Ibid. 

16. For instance, Liszt owned a piano-harmonium specially designed for him by Erard and Alexandre and a Chickering grand that was used in his piano master classes. He also collected then “antique” pianos that belonged to Mozart and Beethoven.

17. The Liszt Organ has a set of uniquely voiced, so-called “Liszt” reeds of great tonal beauty. 

18. The main biographical information to date regarding Arthur Bird was amassed by Dr. William Cushing Loring (1914–2002). Loring was a Harvard graduate and an urban sociologist. After retirement, he focused on American art and music, working with Scarecrow Press to develop a series of more than twenty books on various North American composers. 

19. Available at the International Music Score Library Project website: http://imslp.org.

20. Another likely reason piano sales surged ahead of the reed organ resulted from the installment purchase plans offered by piano companies. Once a luxury item of the upper classes, the piano then became affordable to the burgeoning middle class.

21. The flamboyant case styles of American reed organs clearly indicate a function beyond that of simply a musical instrument. In addition to ornate carvings, some reed organ cases featured a façade of non-functional organ “pipes,” mirrors, candle holders, and the like.

22. This information was communicated by Frans Vandergrijn, a Netherlands-based authority on reed organs and harmoniums in a posting on Yahoo’s Reed Organ Restoration newsgroup, August 9, 2013. 

23. Pratt, e-mail to the author, August 10, 2013. To put these prices in perspective, average United States yearly income in 1900 was $438.

24. http://imslp.org/wiki/10_Pieces_for_Harmonium,_Op.37_(Bird,_Arthur_H.)

25. Modern recordings include music for piano 4-hands, op. 23, Vladimir and Nadia Zaitsev, pianists; Introduction and Fugue, op. 16, Tony and Mary Ann Lenti, pianists; Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 40, Suite for Double Wind Quintet, op. 29 (Naxos), and Carnival Scenes for Orchestra, op. 5 (Albany).

26. William C. Loring, Jr., “Arthur Bird, American,” The Musical Quarterly 29:1, January 1943, 87. 

27. Ibid., 88.

28. Ibid., 86.

29. Op. 37, 1897; op. 38, 1901; op. 39, 1903; op. 41, 1906; op. 42, 1905; op. 44, 1903; op. 45, 1905. All are available at the Library of Congress.

30. Not all of the op. 37 pieces scanned and available in IMSLP come from the original 1897 printing, several being from later editions. The only difference is that additional equivalent registration intended for European suction instruments was added. 

31. My supposition is that Breitkopf titled them for the “American Harmonium” in order to alert purchasers that the intended instrument would be one of American design. European suction instruments could have been more or less acceptable alternatives, but only the Mason & Hamlin Normal-Harmonium would have had the subtle specificity of timbres and tonal balances characteristic of the Mason & Hamlin sound.

32. On IMSLP: http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/2d/IMSLP65232-PMLP1327…

33. See performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIC9EwIjmks

34. And Percy Grainger’s later work for the reed organ.

35. See performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi6yjMzjKe.

36. The American Reed Organ Society has been in existence since 1981.

 

References

Archival Sources

Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Music of Arthur Bird. Includes all his published music for reed organ, plus some manuscript scores.

 

Books and Articles

Brown, Andrea Elizabeth. “A Descriptive Analysis of Arthur Bird’s Suite in D.” DMA diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010.

Elson, Louis C. American Music. New York, NY: MacMillan Co., 1904.

Gellerman, Robert F. The American Reed Organ. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press, 1973.

———. The American Reed Organ and the Harmonium. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press, 1996.

Good, Edwin M. Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Hendron, Michael, ed. Manufacturers Music Album Reed Organ Society Anthology Series. Palmer, Massachusetts: The Reed Organ Society Publications Office, 2001.

Hiles, John. A Catechism for the Harmonium. London: Brewer and Company, 1877.

Loring, William C., Jr. “Arthur Bird, American.” Musical Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1943): 78–91.

———. Arthur Bird: His Life and Music. Newton Centre, MA: n.p., 1941.

———. The Music of Arthur Bird: An Explanation of American Composers of the Eighties and Nineties for Bicentenial Americana Programming. Atlanta: n.p., 1974.

Milne, H. F. The Reed Organ: Its Design and Construction. Chancery Lane, England: Office of Musical Opinion, 1930.

 

Recordings

Bird, Arthur. Suite in D. On Bird Songs: Romantic Chamber Music of Arthur Bird, North Texas Chamber Players. Eugene Corporon, conductor. CD (digital disc). Klavier, KCD-11071, 1995.

———. Suite in D. On Collage: A Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Peabody Institute, 1857–2007. Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Harlan Parker, conductor. CD (digital disc). Naxos, 8.570403, 2008.

———. Suite in D. University of Cincinnati Chamber Players. Rodney Winther, conductor. CD (digital disc). Mark Records, 7212, 2007.

———. Amerikanische Weisen, op. 23, Three Characteristic Marches, op. 11,  American Souvenirs Piano Music for Four Hands, Nadia and Vladimir Zaitsev, pianists, CD (digital disc), Gleur De Son-Qualiton/The Orchard, 57928, 2004.

Bird, Arthur; Dussek, Jan Ladislav; Liszt, Franz; Grieg, Edvard; and Onslow, George; Forgotten Piano Duets, Vol. 2, Tony and Mary Ann Lenti, pianists, CD (digital  disc), ACA Digital Recording, B004QEZC2, 2011.

On Teaching

Gavin Black
Default

Velocity I

This month and next I am writing about the quest to play fast: fast enough, faster than before, faster than the next person, fast and secure, fast and yet clear. This important thread runs through all aspects of learning to play music. It can also touch upon all sorts of insecurities and sensitive spots. Can I play fast enough? Will my soloist or the conductor insist on a tempo that is too fast for me—either one that feels wrong musically or one that I just plain can’t do? If I don’t play at least something—anything—fast, will listeners assume that I am not really in command of what I am doing?

No one’s self-esteem as a musician is ever undermined by the inability to play slowly enough. (Well, it rarely is. Perhaps this should happen more. Playing slowly effectively isn’t necessarily particularly easy.) But many of us worry whether we can play fast enough, either for what we want to do musically or for what we think listeners will expect of us. We also worry that if we choose a slower tempo for genuine musical/expressive reasons, people will assume we just can’t play it faster. We rarely worry that our listeners will assume that we can’t play more slowly.

Long ago I heard it recounted that Rachmaninoff had said that Alfred Cortot always decided that the really hard bits had to be played “expressively,” that is, slowed down. This was of course meant to be a withering criticism of Cortot: not only claiming that his keyboard facility was faulty when it came to velocity, but also claiming that his much-admired expressive playing was actually musically arbitrary, and just a way of covering up lack of skill. I have reacted to this by saying that often the hard bits are hard because they are musically involved and complicated, and maybe should be slowed down, for the listener’s sake as much as for the players. But not-fast-enough seems to open us to criticisms of this sort, and we often worry about it.

Fortunately this (like most things) can also be a source of humor. I recall a moment a long time ago when I was in the company of a fine young musician who was about to play in a youth orchestra concert. An older friend who was there clapped him on the back with a hearty “Play louder and faster than everyone else!”

As far as I can tell, conductors are not likely to be subjected to this sort of criticism if they are inclined to slow tempos. The physical gestures of conducting relate to the music and its speed in a different way. Also, keyboard continuo playing usually becomes actually easier as tempo goes up—assuming that the continuo part is being improvised by the player, or at least has been written by the player with the ultimate tempo in mind. This is because in general, the faster the tempo, the fewer notes or chords are needed in the continuo realization. (If the bass line itself is too difficult at a fast tempo, that can reverse this effect.)

 

Tempo and fingering

My decision to write about this subject comes specifically from a reader’s suggestion, in a recent e-mail, that a “discussion of fingerings that will work at faster tempos would probably be interesting.” This indeed seems to me to be a good point of entry into the topic. Is the quest to feel comfortable up-to-tempo—especially at fast tempos—best addressed at the point of choosing fingerings (and pedalings—though I am focusing mostly on manual playing here) or best addressed by process—that is, practicing, and specifically the pacing of work on tempo within practicing? The answer is “both.” But how exactly, and in what sort of proportions? Next month I will look at some specific passages and different fingerings, to try to address this aspect of the question directly.

There are different levels and types of playing “fast.” This is obvious, but worth noting. The act of getting notes right—and its important adjunct, which is having it feel comfortable or even easy—is almost always more likely the more slowly a passage is being played. That’s the fundamental fact of learning pieces: it’s why we start practicing passages slowly and then speed them up. For many pieces, speeding up will not take things past a comfortable level of velocity. For these pieces, that process will always work and is not really within the sphere of this discussion. If, however, the goal is to play a piece at a tempo that seems to tax what the player can do with velocity, then there can be different, perhaps more complicated issues. 

The question is how much continuity there is across these two areas. Is the process that we use to make a “normal” piece comfortable and reliable what we should also use to get something very fast—fast enough that the velocity alone makes it a challenge? How are these two processes related? The point of any normal systematic practice is to create predictability: that is, to make us feel certain, as we play the piece, that we know what is coming up. In “normal” situations, this predictability comes from a blend of things—so-called “muscle memory,” conscious familiarity with what is coming up in the piece (whether we are using notated music or not), and the ability to read ahead and combine memory with newly reviewed information. Fingerings and pedalings that have some logic to them or are simple or that use patterns of some sort can aid in this process.

 

Tempo and fingering

The key to playing fast is predictability. It is natural to believe that if we have trouble playing fast, it is because we just can’t quite move that fast. However, this is rarely the case. Most organ (and harpsichord) music doesn’t tax the physical ability of any player to move quickly. However, above a certain speed—which of course varies from person to person—the conscious elements of “knowing what’s coming next” simply can’t come into play: there isn’t time. The sources of rock-solid predictability that are below the level of conscious thought become more important.

Let’s take this one step at a time. How fast can you move your fingers? The most direct way to explore this is to drum your fingers on the table, the arm of your chair, or wherever is comfortable. That is, “play” five “notes”—away from any instrument—with the fingering 5-4-3-2-1. No beat, no timing: just drum those fingers as quickly and lightly as you can. Make sure that your arm is comfortable and that your wrist and fingers are not turned too much to either side. It is OK—even a good idea—to have your arm resting on whatever surface you are using. 

How fast do your fingers go in this exercise? You don’t need to come up with a number—just a sense of whether the velocity is greater than you are likely to need in playing music. It almost certainly is. See whether there is an appreciable difference between the two hands, either in how this feels overall or how fast you are able to move. There might be, but if one of them is slower, it is also probably still above the threshold of how fast you will ever need to move when playing.

Now try it the other way around: 1-2-3-4-5. This is no longer intuitive drumming on a table. It can feel a bit awkward, and the ceiling on velocity might be just a touch lower, but still comfortably above any real-life musical speed needs. It feels awkward in part because the thumb is more comfortable as a point of arrival than as a starting point: releasing the thumb almost infinitely quickly to go on to 2 is tricky. How does it feel if you just do four notes: 2-3-4-5? With just non-thumb notes, is the difference in feel between one direction or the other less noticeable? How about the difference between the two hands?

(5-4-3-2-1 drumming is basically the same gesture as closing your fist. However, 1-2-3-4-5 does not correspond to any naturally shaped hand gesture.)

Now try the same thing at a keyboard, (ideally an organ or harpsichord), so that you won’t be distracted by thoughts of dynamics. (If you are at a piano, play near the very top of the keyboard where the touch is lighter.) 

 

 

(Or whatever notes you want.)

 

See if you can let the fact that you are actually playing, not just drumming on a surface, not change the feel of what you are doing. Go through the same sequence of directions and hands. Predictability is at 100% through all of these slightly different ways of performing this exercise, but physical naturalness varies a bit. 

One next step in this exploration is to try up and down, or vice versa. That is, play (on the table at first) 5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5. Then do the same, but keep it going for a while, several times back and forth. Then try starting on the thumb: 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-2-3, etc. Is it easier to do this ongoing repeated table-drumming starting on 5 or starting on 1? After the first pass through all of the fingers, they resolve into the same thing, except for perhaps an underlying sense of where the strong beats are—even though in the absence of a musical context there aren’t exactly beats. (For me personally doing this, taking only one pass at the notes, 5-4-3-2-1 is easier, quicker, and more natural than 1-2-3-4-5; the repeated drumming seems easier and faster when I start on 1 rather than on 5. This difference is more pronounced in my right hand than the left. But, again, the fundamental point is that as long as it is utterly predictable, the possible velocity of any of these patterns is greater than the demands of repertoire.)

Another thing to try in exploring predictability and comfort is using the same five fingers, each playing once, but changing the order. You should decide clearly on an order before trying to play and then do so as quickly and lightly as possible. This is meant to be the opposite of improvisation: do not take yourself by surprise. So try, say 1-5-4-2-3, or 2-4-5-1-3—or anything. But again, know before you trigger the five notes exactly what you want them to be. Try this both drumming on a table and poised over five adjacent notes on a keyboard. Try to let those two feel as similar to each other as possible.

As you play around with this, you will probably notice that one time or another through a non-adjacent finger pattern of this sort you will feel a tiny hesitation or notice that the overall speed is less than you thought it would be. If this happens, try to recognize the feeling of whatever it is that is introducing that hesitation. It is probably a split-second of uncertainty about what is supposed to come next. Go back to straight (5-4-3-2-1) drumming for a time or two, then make double-sure of what you want your non-adjacent pattern to be. (Perhaps you will notice a hierarchy of non-adjacent finger patterns as to how easy it is to make them as predictable as scalewise patterns. For me, 5-1-4-2-3 is not appreciably different in feel from 5-4-3-2-1, but I need to think and prepare a bit more to make 2-1-5-3-4, for example, feel that predictable.)  

Another useful variation is to plan and then play non-adjacent note patterns with adjacent fingers, for example:

 

 

(or any note pattern that you like).

 

You can take all of this through the stages described above: each hand, both directions, back and forth once, back and forth repeatedly. Just never do anything that you haven’t mapped out in advance; use predictability to make very high-velocity playing function easily.

So far, predictability has been achieved—and physical ease of movement preserved at the same time—by using patterns in which the hand maintains the same five-finger position throughout. A further step is simple gestures that involve moving the hand. Think of your favorite (for this purpose, easiest) such gesture. For a lot of us that is a scale with the traditional modern fingering: 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5 in one direction and 5-4-3-2-1-3-2-1 in the other. Try playing this—just in one direction for now—with exactly the same feeling that you used for the five-note exercises. Know for certain in advance what you are planning to do and execute it as one very fast unmeasured gesture. 

There are intermediate practice techniques that you can use to prepare for this—for example, drumming on the table with 5-4-3-2-1-3 without changing the position of 3, or drumming 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5, again without changing the position of the fingers on the table. Then 5-4-3-2-1-3, moving 3 over 1 for the last “note.” You can play around with this and invent new permutations, as long as the predictability, quickness, and lightness remain. ν

 

To be continued . . .

 

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