On an unknown prelude and fugue by Gottfried Kirchhoff: Recovering some lost pages of his output

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

—Ingmar Bergman, 1968

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

The present article therefore aims: 

1) to summarize the existing research on partimento practice;

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

Introduction 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Analysis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Postscript

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

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

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

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

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

The list of German sources, containing samples of thoroughbass fugue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alexander Fiseisky, born in Moscow, graduated with distinction from the Moscow Conservatoire as pianist and organist. He is an organ soloist of the Moscow State Philharmonic Society, head of the organ class at the Russian Gnessins’ Academy of Music in Moscow, and president of the Vladimir Odoyevsky Organ Center. He organized and served as artistic director for organ festivals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Tallinn, among others. In 1997 he was honored by President Yeltsin with the title ‘Honored Artist of the Russian Federation’. Fiseisky has given concerts in more than 30 countries. In the Bach anniversary year of 2000 he played J. S. Bach’s entire organ works, twice in the context of EXPO 2000 in Hannover, and once in a single day in Düsseldorf as a Bach marathon. Sought after as a juror in international competitions, he has directed seminars and masterclasses in Europe and the USA. He is the dedicatee of numerous compositions, including works by Mikhail Kollontai, Vladimir Ryabov, Milena Aroutyunova, and Walther Erbacher. A musicologist, he has edited anthologies of organ music of Russia and of the Baltics (Bärenreiter-Verlag). He has many recordings to his credit, including the complete organ works of J. S. Bach.

It goes without saying that the primary
task of every performer who wishes to convey the meaning of any given musical work must first be to understand the original intention of the composer. And when the works in question are those of Johann Sebastian Bach, where the invisible thread that should link us to the era in which he lived seems to be irretrievably broken, the task takes on Herculean proportions. The aim of this analysis is to attempt a correct reading of the Clavierübung III—one of the most enigmatic works in the whole literature of the organ.
This work, which was composed at the high point of the composer’s creativity (1739), impresses us by its dimensions alone. It is part of a cycle of works, comprising the Six Partitas (Part 1, composed in 1731, BWV 825–830), the French Ouverture and the Italian Concerto (Part 2, composed in 1735, BWV 831, BWV 971), as well as the Goldberg Variations (Part 4, composed in 1742, BWV 988). And the Clavierübung III itself is also a cyclical work—it consists of 21 chorale preludes and four duets framed by a prelude and a fugue in E-flat major.
Bach certainly accorded the Clavierübung III particular importance. It is no coincidence that this was the first work for organ that he had published in Leipzig. What was Bach’s purpose in writing this work, and what means did he choose to fulfil it?

The history of the composition. The intentions and aims of the composer
The Clavierübung III was written to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Luther’s visit to Leipzig and the festal Whitsun service in St. Thomas Church on the 25th of May 1539, which effectively marked the official recognition of the Reformation in Leipzig. The Clavierübung III consists essentially of arrangements of chorales from the Protestant church service, and in its structure it is reminiscent of Luther’s Catechism, which consists of two parts: the Greater Catechism deals with the principles of faith, while the Lesser Catechism is directed more towards children and the less-educated part of the population. Correspondingly, each chorale melody—with the exception of Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’ [Glory be to God alone on high]—is presented in two versions: a greater version which uses all the resources of the organ including the pedals, and a shorter manualiter version.
And indeed, because of its special structure, the Clavierübung III has often in the past been referred to as an “Organ Catechism,” and correspondingly it is usually referred to today as the “Organ Mass.” It is clear that neither of these two names do full justice to the structure of Bach’s composition. Nor do they explain the inclusion of the four duets.
The title of the work is as follows:

Dritter Theil / der / Clavier Übung / bestehend / in / verschiedenen Vorspielen / über die / Catechismus- und andere Gesaenge, / vor die Orgel: / Denen Liebhabern, und besonders denen Kennern / von dergleichen Arbeit, zur Gemüths Ergezung / verfertiget von / Johann Sebastian Bach, / Koenigl[ich] Pohlnischen, und Churfürstl[ich] Saechs[eschen] / Hoff-Compositeur, Capellmeister, und / Directore Chori Musici in Leipzig. / In Verlegung des Authoris.

[Third Part of the Clavierübung consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other Hymns for the organ: for amateurs, and especially for connoisseurs of such work, for the refreshment of their souls, executed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister, and Directore Chori Musici in Leipzig. Published by the author.]

Bach here follows the example of his predecessor at St. Thomas Church, Johann Kuhnau (1660–1722), and modestly calls his work Clavierübung [Keyboard Exercise].2 He thereby encourages us, through diligent practice (Übung in German), to understanding his purpose in writing this work.
Let us accept this invitation.
The first question, even after a cursory look at Bach’s work, is probably “What does it represent in this compositional form? Are we to understand it as a unified dramatic whole or as a collection of diverse pieces for the keyboard?”
Characteristically, the usual concert practice suggests that the Clavierübung III is not seen as an integral work: virtually nobody plays the whole composition in its published form.3 But the question nevertheless remains: Is there really no suggestion of an overall dramatic structure within the work?
An analysis would help us to answer this question. But before we tackle it, we should—even very generally—look at some characteristics of the musical aesthetics and Bach’s particular compositional style during the period when he was working on the Clavierübung III.

The theological and philosophical basis of the work of J. S. Bach
Bach’s personal philosophy was heavily influenced by the philosophical ideas and the personality of Martin Luther (1483–1546). Books written by Luther accounted for a quarter of all the books in Bach’s private library. According to the personal inventory that was made after his death, Bach owned two complete editions of the works of Martin Luther in Latin and German, as well as works of his successors: Abraham Calov, Martin Chemnitz, Johannes Olearius, and others.4 The title page of an earlier version of the Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach5 bears a note giving the title of the work as Anti-Calvinismus by August Pfeiffer, written in Bach’s own hand.
It is well known that Luther was a well-educated musician.6 In contrast to the majority of the reformers in the 16th century, Luther considered music to be a form of divine revelation. In the foreword to Georg Rhau’s anthology Symphoniae iucundae7 he wrote: “In summa: Die edle Musika ist nach Gottes Wort der höchste Schatz auf Erden.“8 [Summing up: Noble music is the greatest treasure on earth next to the Word of God.] He is quoted in the Encomion musices as giving a similar definition: “Musika ist eine schöne, liebliche Gabe Gottes, sie hat mich oft also erweckt und bewegt, daß ich Lust zu predigen gewonnen habe...”9 [One of the finest and noblest gifts of God is music. It has often aroused and moved me so that I have gained a desire to preach . . . ] And in a letter to Ludwig Senfl of 4 October 1530 we find the following lines in his handwriting:
Et plane judico, nec pudet asserere, post theologiam esse nullam artem, quae musicae possit aequari, cum ipsa sola post theologiam id praestet, quod alioqui sola theologia praestat, scilicet quietem et animum laetum…10
[I plainly judge, and do not hesitate to affirm, that except for theology there is no art that could be put on the same level with music, since except for theology, (music) alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely, a calm and joyful disposition.11]
Luther’s views were akin to those of Bach. Like the great reformer, Bach saw the world of music and the world of theology as very closely connected.12 A short handwritten treatise concerning figured bass, which Bach wrote while working on the Clavierübung III, is introduced with the following words:
Der Generalbaß ist das vollkommenste Fundament der Music welcher [auf einem Clavier] mit beyden Händen gespielt wird dergestalt das die lincke Hand die vorgeschriebenen Noten spielet die rechte aber Con- und Dissonantien darzu greift damit dieses eine wohlklingende Harmonie gebe zur Ehre Gottes und zulässiger Ergötzung des Gemüths und soll wie aller Music, also auch des General Basses Finis und End Uhrsache anders nicht, als nur zu Gottes Ehre und Recreation des Gemüths seyn. Wo dieses ists keine eigentliche Music sondern ein Teuflisches Geplerr und Geleyr.13
[The thorough-bass is the most perfect foundation of music. It is played with both hands on a keyboard instrument in such a way that the left hand plays the written notes, while the right hand strikes consonances and dissonances, so that this results in full-sounding Harmonie to the Honor of God and the permissible delight of the soul. The ultimate end or final goal of all music, including the thorough-bass, shall be nothing but for the Honor of God and the renewal of the soul. Where these factors are not taken in consideration, there is no true music, rather, devilish bawling and droning.14]

When Bach at the age of 23 left Mühl-hausen, he declared that the Endzweck [ultimate aim] of his creative work would be the regulirte kirchen music zu Gottes Ehren [regulated church music to the glory of God].15
One can further assess the musical and aesthetic views of the composer with the help of his annotations in the margins of a Bible that was published by Abraham Calov (1681–1682) in Wittenberg.16 These marginalia are quite valuable—they allow us to catch a glimpse of the personal views of their writer and open up his world for us.
Already in Exodus, Chapter 15, where the prophetess Miriam sings of the wonderful deeds of God, we can read in Bach’s own hand: “N.B. Erstes Vorspiel auf 2 Chören zur Ehre Gottes zu musiciren.” [N.B.: First prelude for two choirs to be sung to the glory of God.] As a comment on First Chronicles 29, v. 2117 we find the following statement by the composer:

Ein herrlicher Beweiß, daß neben andern Anstalten des Gottesdienstes, besonders auch die Musica von Gottes Geist durch David mit angeordnet worden.
[Splendid proof that, besides other arrangements for worship, music too was instituted through David by the Spirit of God.]18
First Chronicles 26 describes the choosing of musicians for the temple. Bach’s comment: “Dieses Capitel ist das wahre Fundament aller Gott gefälligen Kirchen Music.” [This chapter is the true foundation of all church music pleasing to God.]
And one final quote: Second Chronicles, chapter 5 contains the passage:

. . . it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the LORD, and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the LORD “For he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever,” the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God. (2 Chronicles 5:13–14)19

Bach annotates this text with a remarkable comment that has programmatic significance and shows not only his relationship to the composing, performing, and hearing of music, but also to the activities of a church musician in general: “Bey einer andächtigen Musique ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden Gegenwart.“ [Where there is devotional music, God with His grace is always present.]
These examples suffice to clarify where we must start if we wish to analyze the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Albert Schweitzer wrote in his masterful fashion: “Music is an act of worship with Bach… For him, art was religion...”20 The orthodox Lutheran Bach, who was born and raised in Eisenach, Luther’s own town, where the façade of the main church of St. George was decorated with the Protestant motto “A mighty fortress is our God,” transcended in his music the boundaries of confession and creed. “In the last resort, however, Bach’s real religion was not orthodox Lutheranism, but mysticism. In his innermost essence he belongs to the history of German mysticism.”21
This mystical sensitivity to the presence of God and the desire to give witness to Him through music, coupled with his dazzling talent, enabled Bach in his later works to develop an astonishing artistic fusion, the likes of which had not been seen in the world’s cultural history.
In 1747 Bach was admitted to the Societät der musikalischen Wissenschaften [Society of the Musical Sciences], which his one-time pupil, the philosopher and music author Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Koloff (1711–1778), had founded.22 Mizler, a friend of Bach’s, was strongly influenced by Pythagorism and the rational philosophy of both G. W. Leibnitz (1646–1716) and Christian Wolff (1679–1754). He saw music as a mathematical science.23
The very fact that Bach accepted Mizler’s invitation to join the Societät der musikalischen Wissenschaften is in itself significant. The composer obviously sympathized with Pythagoras’s ideas concerning the universe and its perfect harmony: a harmony that, according to the teachings of the ancient philosopher and mathematician, was expressed in numbers,24 and shared the convictions of his progenies.
J. S. Bach became the fourteenth member of the Society after G. F. Telemann (6) and G. F. Handel (11), together with other well-known scholars and philosophers. Following the established tradition, upon joining the Society he contributed a mite of his own. In addition to the Canonic variations on “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her” (BWV 769), the composer also donated a portrait of himself to the Society, which had been painted in 1746 by Elias Gottlob Hausmann. A microanalysis of the music manuscript that appears in this painting has been made by Friedrich Smend. The results have thrown light on significant aspects of Bach’s compositional methods, which until the middle of the twentieth century had not attracted much attention by scholars.25
Smend’s publication gave new impetus to investigating numerology in the works of the Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.26 It is not without interest that the researchers first found support in the writings of Christian theologians, but later more and more in the works of the ancient philosophers.27

Features of J. S. Bach’s compositional method
Albert Schweitzer defined Bach as a phenomenon in the history of music: “Bach is . . . a terminal point . . . everything merely leads up to him.”28 Indeed the works of the Cantor of St. Thomas make use not only of the fruits of earlier achievements in composition, but they are also the consummation of the most characteristic tendencies in the music of his own time. He makes use of a plethora of past and present expressive techniques and puts them at the disposal of one single goal: the creation of “devotional music.”
So what exactly were the artistic methods used by J. S. Bach as a composer?
Victor Hugo once described Gothic cathedrals as “symphonies in stone.” If we apply this quotation to the works of Bach, we could say that his larger compositions are “Gothic cathedrals” in music. And when one looks more closely at how Bach approached a new composition we can actually find quite close parallels to architecture. One could contrast, for example, Bach’s methods with the processes current in Viennese Classicism. Whereas in the latter period composition proceeded in a “linear” fashion, beginning from the melody in one of the voices, the methods of Bach’s time started from quite a different point. First of all, the composer laid down a concept of the entire work, or—to use the architectural analogy—he created a “ground-plan.” Then he proceeded to fill in the details. An example of this method is provided by the Orgelbüchlein [Little Organ Book] (BWV 599–644).
This working method gave free rein to the composer’s imagination. The proportions of the composition and its “saturation” with both obvious and more hidden details—factors that played an important role in determining the overall sense of the work—could easily be incorporated in the composition from its very beginning. Great importance was attached to Affektenlehre [Doctrine of the Affections], musical-rhetorical figures, and numerology.
Bach was without a doubt a brilliant “musical architect.” There is no room in his works for anything non-essential. He worked in a similar fashion to the architects of the Middle Ages: every detail has its origin in the concept governing the whole. And as with the medieval builders, much of this work remains, even today, shrouded in mystery. There are always new avenues opening up in these seemingly well-known works for new generations of interpreters to explore.
One can of course only penetrate more deeply into this musical architecture of most of Bach’s works if the connection to the words of the chorales used by the composer is taken into account. Johann Gotthilf Ziegler (1688–1747), a pupil of Bach, wrote in 1746: “Herr Capellmeister Bach, who is still living, instructed me when playing hymns, not to treat the melody as if it alone were important, but to play them taking into account the affect of the words.”29
Johann Mattheson (1681–1764) described music as sounding speech. Naturally this form of speech required its own lexicon in the shape of the definite progressions of musical notes bearing the semantic meaning—the motives, or musical-rhetorical figures, as they are called. These were quoted by Bach’s cousin, Johann Gottfried Walther (1684–1748), in his Musicalisches Lexicon [Music Encyclopaedia] (1732) and in the Praecepta der Musicalischen Composition [Principles of Musical Composition] (1708). Another important compositional aspect was the use of rhetorical laws in the construction of the musical structure, so that the composition began to resemble a religious sermon. As already mentioned, the Affektenlehre [Doctrine of the Affections], which depended upon the use of unequal temperament and the resulting different emotional character of the various keys, played an important role in composition,30 as did, surrounded as it was by an air of mystery, numerology with its different levels of meaning.
One of these levels is to be found in allegorical symbolism. Andreas Werckmeister (1645–1706) gave the following meanings to the first eight numbers in Musikalische Paradoxal-Discourse:31 1 – God, unity; 2 – The Word, God the Son; 3 – The Holy Spirit; 4 – The world of angels; 5 – Symbol of Mankind (“sensual Mankind” [Numerus sensualis]); 6 – Third Person of the Godhead (3×2);32 7 – Symbol of purity and peace; 8 – Symbol of wholeness and perfection.
Another level is that of semantic symbolism. For example, the number 7 symbolises the Seven Last Words on the Cross.
A third level is that of cabbalistic symbolism. Each letter of the alphabet stands for a particular number: a = 1, b = 2, c = 3 and so forth. The letters i and j share the number 9, while u and v are both attributed to the number 20. This means that particular combinations of letters each have a corresponding number. For example, the number 14 is the sum of the numerical values of the letters BACH. Thus the number 14 (or similar numbers, such as 140 or 1.4) would be associated with the composer Bach, whose name was assembled from these individual letters.
Numbers were also used as a constructive element, whereby the harmonic proportions of the ratios of simple numbers, which had been known since Pythagoras’s time, were incorporated into the composition. In addition, the proportio divina, the “Golden mean,” was also used. Naturally Bach was a consummate master of all these creative methods and he used them constantly in his compositions. The most obvious example is the Clavierübung III, which occupies a key position among all Bach’s works for the organ.
Let us examine the structure of this composition more closely.

The chorale preludes
The central part of the work under consideration, as Bach’s title-page suggests, is the collection of chorale preludes. This collection covers not only the essential elements of the Protestant liturgy but also of Luther’s Catechism.
Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit – Christe, aller Welt Trost – Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist [Kyrie, God the Father, eternal – Christ, consolation of all the world – Kyrie, God the Holy Spirit] (BWV 669–674)
The triad of the first chorales creates a sense of unity. The models for these autonomous works were certain verses of the Gregorian chorale Kyrie fons bonitatis (10th century),33 which display the characteristic of a refrain. (Example 1) Such a compositional method is seldom found among Bach’s organ works. In the context of Kyrie – Christe – Kyrie it allowed the composer to establish by means of music the essence of the “one and indivisible” Holy Trinity.34
The first motif of the cantus firmus is characterized by a stepwise progression. In the final statement of the cantus firmus (which is the same in all three compositions), note the upwards leap over a fifth. It is perhaps of interest to note that both the stepwise movement on the one hand and the prominent role of the fifth on the other (elements that determine the mood of the first chorales of the Clavierübung III) play an important part in the dramatic construction of the whole work.
The unity of the initial Kyrie – Christe – Kyrie is underlined by the fact that they are written in a single compositional style—the stile antico. Hermann Keller described them as “Orgelmotetten kunst-vollster Art” [The most highly artistic motets for organ].35 The music suggests greatness and quiet strength. The movement of the accompanying voices working out the motifs of the cantus firmus is linear. The cantus firmus, which is kept in longer note values, appears successively in the soprano (Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit), in the tenor (Christe, aller Welt Trost), and in the bass (Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist), and thus symbolizes in similar fashion the three Persons of the Trinity: God the Father, who is above all, who holds all in being; Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and humankind; and the life-giving Holy Spirit.
The epic element appears organically tied to the inner dynamics of the Kyrie – Christe – Kyrie. The contemplative character of the first chorale gives way to a feeling of emotional turbulence in the second chorale. The third chorale is energy-laden, an effect achieved by the introduction of a fifth voice, the acceleration of the musical structure, and the use of chromatics.
The end of the chorale Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist is quite remarkable: against the backdrop of the final statement of the cantus firmus in the pedals, a tie overflowing with chromatic dissonances appears in the upper voices. These six-and-a-half bars differ quite markedly from all that has gone before. The sound as it were illustrates the text, which at this point contains a plea for mercy. The word eleison is accompanied by an ostinato, which climbs in seconds and by a chromatic figura parrhesia. The music suggests a certain personal involvement. It is significant that one finds the motif BACH in crab motion here (although it appears in other notes), and finally encounters the signature of the composer: CH-BA in the alto of the penultimate bar. (Example 2)
There are altogether 60 bars in the chorale prelude Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist, which matches Werckmeister’s concept well.36 And there is of course the additional association with the creation of the world (the six days of God’s creative work).37 It is worth mentioning that in the first prelude of the Clavierübung III the numerical symbol for the name Bach already occurs more than once. The subsequent statement of the theme in the chorale Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit is not only emphasized by the use of parallel thirds, but also by its extension to 14 notes (the numerical value of the letters BACH).38 And the cantus firmus in the chorale prelude Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist has a total of 41 notes (JSBACH).
The three manualiter Kyries, each in the form of a small fughetta, all elaborate the opening motif of the appropriate verse of the chorale. Each following chorale begins in the soprano with the last note of the preceding chorale, which serves to underline the inner unity of the three manualiter pieces Kyrie – Christe – Kyrie.
An interesting aspect, which is seldom found within Bach’s organ works, is how the keys of the six pieces we have looked at are related. Each of them has at least two tonal centers. We should not let the key signature with three flats of the greater chorale preludes Kyrie – Christe – Kyrie confuse us: the rules of musical notation would certainly have allowed these preludes to have been written with only two flats. It would appear that the composer intentionally adopted three flats in order to strengthen the association with the Holy Trinity.

Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’
[Glory be to God alone on high] (BWV 675–677)
A special feature of the following section of the Clavierübung III is the fact that it has three different preludes on the chorale Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’—the Protestant version of the Gloria in excelsis from the Gregorian Mass for Easter Sunday. An explanation for this phenomenon must be sought in the text of the chorale itself,39 as it sings the praises of the Holy Trinity. Correspondingly, Bach includes three preludes here, each of which is a very individually elaborated piece in three-part texture.
In the first prelude, elegant and rhythmical canon-like outer voices surround the cantus firmus in the alto. The next prelude is executed as a trio sonata with pedal obligato. The cantus firmus appears from time to time in one or other of the voices of this exquisite trio and blends with the natural flow of the music.40 The last chorale prelude is a small fugato in the manner of an Italian versetto, based on the first notes of the cantus firmus.41 All in all, these three versions of the angel’s praise Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’ create a feeling of incorporality and immateriality, convincing us by their clarity and purity, and creating an impression of harmony and perfection.
In this section of the Clavierübung III there is a small, at first glance insignificant, compositional detail that is, however, very interesting when seen from the perspective of the dramatic construction of the whole. The keys of the chorale preludes—F major, G major, and A major—form an ascending motif that is the basis for all three preludes on Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’. The composer must assuredly have chosen this sequence of keys with the aim of thus uniting the whole cycle. Numerology reveals another interesting aspect—the numerical values of F, G, and A (6 +7 + 1) comes to 14, the same value as BACH.

Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’ [These are the holy Ten Commandments] (BWV 678–679)
Following the lead of Luther’s Catechism, Bach now begins an extensive section of the Clavierübung III with arrangements of the Gregorian chorale on an Old Testament theme, Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’.42 This is the last pair of chorales in a major key for the remainder of the cycle and the only time that Bach uses the same key for two consecutive compositions—Mixolydian G major, which is one of the purest keys in unequal temperament. It is significant that in both the Orgelbüchlein and in Cantata 77, the chorale melody Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’ is also written in this key.
The greater chorale prelude is developed as a composition for five voices, with the cantus firmus appearing a total of five times as a canon in the tenor. Thus it appears ten times in all, symbolizing an obedient response to the Law.43
The beginning of the prelude is wonderful: over a pedalpoint we hear, emerging out of the stillness, the motif of three descending notes, which we encountered earlier in the piece, worked out as a canon in the upper voices. The measured diatonic motion, the prepared suspensions, the surrounding motifs, and the ascending triads—these are just some of the musical means the composer has used to create a world of unspoiled purity, order, and harmony, in which the unsullied inhabitants of Paradise were at home before the Fall. (Example 3)
A change in character occurs in the fifth bar44 with the introduction of a figura suspirans45 and a motif of ‘falling seconds’, supplemented by a descending chromatic figura parrhesia motif in the alto. (Example 4)
Now the music is dominated by grief, sorrow, and misfortune.46 A change occurs once more in the sixth bar with the introduction of a figura kyklosis or figura circulatio in the alto47 (Example 5), which enriches the fabric with its new nuances. Thus with the help of symbolic motifs that are organically woven into the very fabric of the music, the composer brings us closer to the meaning of the chorale.
The First Commandment, which Luther in his Great Catechism deems to be the most important, is interpreted in the second verse of the chorale:

Ich bin allein dein Gott, der Herr,
kein Götter sollst du haben mehr,
du sollst mir ganz vertrauen dich,
von Herzens Grund lieben mich,
Kyrieleis.

[I alone am your God, your Lord,
No other Gods shall you have,
You shall put your whole trust in me,
Love me from the depth of your heart.
Kyrieleis.]

There is much evidence that precisely these lines were the starting point for Bach’s plan for the whole composition.
It is interesting to note that where the text speaks of “the love of God that comes out of the depths of the heart,” Bach interrupts the cantus firmus (bars 48–50) and increases the number of repetitions from ten to twelve. The motivation for this change can best be seen as an attempt to create a connection between the Old and New Testaments, whose interpreters in the new Christian congregations were the twelve Apostles. And Bach will follow the same intention to connect, through the symbolic comparison of the numbers ten and twelve, the Mosaic Law and the teachings of Jesus again in the Eucharist part, the conclusion of the chorale prelude section of the Clavierübung III.
It is well known that in the New Testament the Commandment of Love takes on decisive significance: “Jesus answered . . . you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The composer underlines the importance of this commandment with the help of special methods that are introduced at key points. When the word Herz [Heart] appears in the chorale text, Bach highlights it (in bars 46-47) with two groups of 16th notes, and when the words lieben mich [love me] appear in bars 51–52, he uses the heterolepsis, a musical rhetorical figure that creates the effect of two being united in one.48 Thus the composer uses musical means to portray the tangible content of the text. (Example 6)
Numerology plays an especially important role in the chorale prelude Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’.49 The chorale prelude has 60 bars (corresponding to the six days of creation). A pause first appears in the pedal after 37 notes, which can be seen as the Labarum, or Chi-Ro Christogram.50 The next pause comes after 60 further notes (another apparent reference to the creation of the cosmos). The subsequent melodic structure of the pedal line up to the pedalpoint in bar 29, which creates the illusion of a reprise, contains 47 notes. In the first bar, after the pause (bar 21), we encounter a leap of two octaves in the pedal, covering the entire range of the pedal, which is very unusual. (Example 7)
It is well known that Bach often referred to the Psalter, as did Luther in his Catechism. Psalm 47:2 states: “For the LORD, the Most High, is awesome, a great king over all the earth.” The text of the cantus firmus quoted at the point of the two octave leap is: Kein Götter sollst du haben mehr [No other Gods shall you have]. Michael Radulescu suggests that we should see the leap as an original “musical comment” by the composer, which, though hidden behind the abstract numerological symbolism, is to be understood as a distinct statement: “I am larger than life, I am your King.”51
The subsequent phrase in the pedal contains 147 notes. When Luther in his Catechism explains the meaning of the Ten Commandments, he quotes Psalm 147:11: “But the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” By introducing the number 147 into his chorale prelude Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’, Bach is underlining the actuality of the psalmist’s words quoted by Luther for the theme of the Decalogue.
The final notes of the cantus firmus in the second tenor are accompanied by a descending counterpoint in the first tenor, beginning with a chromatic figura parrhesia, which contains 12 notes (bars 57–60). The last phrase in the pedal consists of 14 notes (BACH), which is preceded by two short phrases of five notes each.
After all the above we can concur with those experts who suggest that the basic idea behind this work is love for the Creator.52 Additional confirmation for the correctness of this view is the number 315, which is the sum of all notes in the pedal. Albrecht Clement considers this number to be the numerical expression of the phrase Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben. [Literally: “You should love God, your Lord” as a direct rendering of the Luther Bible’s translation of Mark 12:30.]53
Characteristically, Bach introduces this summons in the title of Cantata 77, whose opening chorus is built upon the theme of the chorale prelude Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’, viz.

Du sollt Gott deinen Herren lieben
24 + 73 + 59 + 49 + 65 + 45 = 315

The manual fughetta on the chorale Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’, written in the form of a gigue, is also dominated by the number 10, although it also contains other interesting numerical allusions.
First of all, it is a four-voice fughetta and the theme is presented ten times (4×10 = 40). The same relationship can be seen in the exposition of the fughetta: ten bars of four dotted eighth notes (10×4 = 40). The theme runs for ten beats. Thus we see the same relationship in the exposition: 10×4 = 40. The theme in the second exposition is presented in inversion and in a shortened form (six beats). The relationship is correspondingly 6×4 = 24. And finally, the last two stretti quotations of the theme (bars 32–35) give us the relationship 8×2 = 16, as the theme here is eight beats long. It is not difficult to see that the addition of 24 and 16 results in the key number 40, which is apparently a reference to the Jewish people’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness before being given the stone tablets with the Decalogue.
The theme has a most interesting structure. It consists of two parts: the main melody of the chorale emerging from a repeated ostinato note and its leaps (six beats), and stepwise motifs over a fifth (four beats). (Example 8) Christoph Albrecht described the theme figuratively as a musical picture of a “raised warning forefinger.”54 But numerology allows us to find deeper connotation in it. The second part of the theme contains 14 notes (BACH). One could consider this as a mere coincidence, were it not that we meet the melody with this numerical symbol again at other central formative points in this little piece.
This second part of the melody occurs as a theme in its own right in the 41st beat of the fughetta (JSBACH), where it fills out the eleventh bar at the junction between the two expositions. Again, this melody is consistently developed in the 14 bars that separate the two concluding quotations of the theme from the second exposition. And we would finally add that the number 14 is underlined by the sum total of all the beats in this chorale prelude: they all add up to 140.
Without a doubt it would be the very height of negligence for a performer who is looking for an authentic interpretation to ignore the manifold recurrence in the composition of the name of its creator. The composer of the manual version of Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’ obviously had definite reasons for weaving his name again and again into the musical fabric of the work.
Let us boldly assume that in this work Bach wishes to embody the idea of the divine Commandments as the cornerstone of his own life. The tenfold repeated theme of the chorale Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot’ and the numerical symbol 40 harbor the idea of the Commandments. Their importance for Bach personally is attested to by the composer’s repeated use of the symbol 14.

This article will be continued.

John Collins has been playing and researching early keyboard music for over 35 years, with special interests in the English, Italian, and Iberian repertoires. He has contributed many articles and reviews to several American and European journals, including The Diapason, and has been organist at St. George’s, Worthing, West Sussex, England for almost 26 years.

This year we commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of Bernardo Pasquini. Although much attention has been given in the past few decades to Pasquini’s dramatic and vocal music, of which the scores for twelve operas and seven oratorios in addition to many cantatas and motets are known to survive, his extensive corpus of keyboard music has only comparatively recently received the attention it deserves. Considered one of the major Italian composers for keyboard between Frescobaldi (d. 1643) and Domenico Scarlatti (b. 1685), Bernardo Pasquini, teacher of Francesco Gasparini (author of the influential L’Armonico Pratico al Cimbalo, Venice 1708), left well over 200 pieces for keyboard.

Sources and early editions
The great majority of Pasquini’s works are preserved in four autograph manuscripts, including 121 in the autograph MS of Landsberg 215. A further partial autograph section is included in British Library MS 31501, I–III; to be found in part I are the 14 sonatas for two bassi continui, 14 sonatas for basso solo, and in parts II and III no fewer than 314 short versi, also in figured-bass format. More substantial works in MS 31501, part I, include a long Tastata, a Passagagli with 24 variations, a set of variations on the Follia and, at the end of the section, numerous short arie, more of which are to be found in part II. A few toccatas are also to be found in British Library MS 36661, which almost certainly predates the autographs by some years.
Very few of his works were published during his lifetime; three pieces entitled Sonata, ascribed to N.N. of Roma, were published in 1697 in a collection by Arresti, two of which were included in an English “abridged” edition, and other pieces were included in a collection of toccatas and suites published in 1698 by Roger of Amsterdam, which also appeared in England in 1719 and 1731. Others were included in assorted manuscripts; see bibliography for further details. In the preface to his edition of MS 964 at Braga, Portugal, Gerhard Doderer has speculated that some of the over 30 Italian (mainly Roman) compositions included therein (on folios 218–230 and 253–259) may well have been composed by the school of Pasquini, if not by Pasquini himself; certainly some of his compositions seem to have been known throughout Europe.
Pasquini’s compositions for keyboard cover all the main genres of his time, embracing some seventeen dance suites (although the term suite is not used in the manuscripts) as well as single movements, fourteen variations on both self-composed arias and stock basses, four passacaglias, sonatas including the 28 figured bass pieces mentioned above, over 30 toccatas and tastatas, about a dozen contrapuntal works, and a large number of versets. His numerous pupils in Rome included Casini, Zipoli, and possibly Durante and Domenico Scarlatti, in addition to J. P. Krieger and Georg Muffat, as well as Della Ciaja, who published a set of mercurial four-movement toccatas and retrospective ricercars and versets. It is highly probable that Handel met Pasquini in Rome in the early 1700s.

Modern editions
In addition to the facsimile edition of the Landsberg MS, there are two modern editions of his pieces. An edition by Maurice Brooks Haynes for the Corpus of Early Keyboard Music (American Institute of Musicology) was issued in seven volumes in 1964; this had the advantage of grouping pieces by genres rather than following the somewhat haphazard order in the manuscripts, but contained many printing errors and a somewhat sketchy approach to sources and evaluation. A new seven-volume edition, under the general editorship of Armando Carideo and Edoardo Bellotti, was issued in 2002; the first volume contains 60 versets and a pastorale from a recently discovered manuscript in Bologna, edited by Francesco Cera. The pieces from the Landsberg manuscript are included in volumes 2–5, with the pieces from MS 31501 in volumes 6 and 7. A further volume containing pieces from other sources, including as yet unpublished fugues in three and four voices as well as pieces of uncertain attribution, is in preparation. This edition is far more accurate but unfortunately much harder to obtain; see the bibliography at the end of this article for full details of these editions.
Below I shall summarize Pasquini’s extant keyboard music by genre; despite its shortcomings, I have used the AIM edition, and all numbers and titles cited are from this edition. Because of their extremely limited interest to the average player, I have not included the fascinating figured-bass sonatas for one and for two players, or the figured-bass versos, in this discussion.

Contrapuntal works
Pasquini is known to have made copies of the works of Palestrina and Frescobaldi, the influence of the latter being identifiable in both the toccatas and the contrapuntal works. Only eleven pieces that fall into this category seem to have survived, and two of these are incomplete. Those that survive are variable in quality, but several of them demonstrate the continuation of the variation technique so prevalent in Frescobaldi—they are included in book 1 of the Haynes edition. The first piece, in D minor, is entitled Capriccio by Haynes (although in the manuscript it is entitled Fantasia); its first section closes in the dominant and second section in the tonic. Both sections move mainly in quarter and eighth notes. In the third section the subject is introduced in 16th notes, followed by a triple-time section in 3/2. The piece concludes with a return to C time, the subject in its original time being accompanied by florid 16th-note writing (see Figures 1a–1d).

The second piece, entitled Capriccio, opens with a ricercar-like subject in 4/2, followed by a triple-time section in 3/2 that moves into 6/4, and a closing section of six bars consisting of half-note chords against 16th-note figures derived from the opening subject. The following short binary form piece is headed “Sigue al capriccio antecedente.” The third piece, regrettably incomplete in the MS, is entitled Fantasia and is another slower-moving, backward-looking work in quarter and eighth notes. The fourth piece, a ricercar in 4/2, is also slow-moving, on an archaic subject that proceeds through its 100 bars in half and quarter notes, with further subjects appearing during the piece.
By far the longest piece at some 345 bars is the Ricercare con fuga in più modi. This piece is in many sections, including the subject in diminution to half and quarter notes from bar 69, a return to original values from bar 123, a section in 6/4 from bar 209 to 246, which includes 16th-note writing, a section in C time that closes in bar 265 followed by a further section in 6/4 to bar 311, after which 12/8 takes over to the close of the piece. There is scope for shortening this piece, which makes considerable demands upon the performer.
Of the three pieces entitled Canzone Francese, the first in C major runs to only 32 bars, the second in F opens with the typical canzona rhythm of quarter note followed by two eighth notes and has a second section in 6/4, and the third piece in A minor opens with six repeated eighth-note Es (the repeated note fugal subject was very common in Germany as well as Italy, with examples by Reincken, Pachelbel, Kerll, and Buttstedt, among others) and soon becomes a moto perpetuo in 16th notes, which slows to eighth and quarter notes briefly in bar 56, the 16th notes taking over again in bar 66. A deceleration achieved via a cadence leads to a section barred in 3/4 (although headed 6/8), which starts in bar 106 and runs to bar 157. Of the next section entitled Alio modo la tripla, only seven bars survive, a great pity since this piece is of a high standard (see Figure 2a–2b). The ninth piece, of 24 bars, entitled Fuga, is an example of very loose imitative writing; the subject in the RH has LH passagework beneath it immediately.
Of the two pieces entitled Sonata, the first is also a loosely fugal work with a subject that opens with an ascending run of six 16th notes followed by an eighth note, another eighth note an octave below, and then returning to the note—now a quarter—before falling a tone, where the sequence is repeated a third below the original opening note. The second sonata opens with a short toccata-like flourish over a pedalpoint, followed by quarter-note chords modulating to the dominant; the second section is imitative, the subject rising a fifth in eighth and 16th notes, and has similarities to a Corellian fugue. Both were included under the name of “N. N. di Roma” in a collection of 18 sonatas for organ by various authors printed in Bologna ca. 1697, of which twelve pieces, including no. 10 here, were included in a London reprint by Walsh & Randall ca. 1710.
The two ricercars, nos. 139 and 140 in volume 7 of the Haynes edition, are both in G minor, the first opening with a canzona rhythm (half note followed by two quarter notes, all at the same pitch, in this case D) and proceeding in mainly quarter-note movement with a few eighth-note runs and two RH runs of 16th notes, bar 25 being repeated an octave higher at bar 34. There is tonal ambiguity at the close of the subject, which covers the minor scale descent from E-flat to G via B-natural followed by B-flat, which lends the piece charm. No. 140 is a longer piece at 83 bars that also proceeds mainly in quarter notes, with a further example of tonal ambiguity in the subject (also between B-flat and B-natural). Of interest are the written-out trill in the treble commencing on the upper note in bar 19 and the written-out alto trill in the penultimate bar with its Lombardic rhythm in the first two beats.

Suites, individual dances, and arias/bizzarrias
Pasquini’s seventeen “suites” for keyboard that are included in volume two of the Haynes edition are probably the first such examples in the Italian keyboard literature that contain several dances grouped together in the same key—the term “suite” is not used in the manuscript. They include Alemanda, Corrente and Giga, based, however, not on the examples of Froberger and the French school, but rather on Italian ensemble music. Several movements are untitled, others carry such terms as Bizzarria; but since the movements are grouped by key, they may well have been intended to form unified groups as presented in this volume. These “suites” comprise two to four movements in various combinations. Also included in this volume are several short pieces in binary form, including four entitled Bizzarria and no fewer than twenty-eight entitled Aria, all of which are attractively tuneful. By their nature the dances, bizzarrias, and arias are more suited to stringed keyboard instruments, although performance on a chamber organ would have been quite probable; for this reason a more detailed account has been omitted here.

Variations
These pieces are to be found in volumes three and four of the Brooks Haynes edition. The twenty-two sets of variations include four based on dance movements with just one or two variations, two sets on the Follia, two on the Bergamasca, with a further one on its Saltarello, and four sets entitled Variationi based on aria/dance-like themes that may well have been by Pasquini himself. Further sets are entitled Capricciose a Inventione (perhaps implying an original theme), Partite diverse sopra Alemanda, and Fioritas, with another set being entitled simply Variationi. Four passagaglie complete this genre.
A Bizzarria has just one variation in which the RH has the 16th-note figuration in the first half, the LH in the second; an untitled piece that is almost certainly an Alemanda has two variations in flowing 16th notes; a Corrente mainly in quarter notes has one variation in eighth notes; and a Sarabanda also mainly in quarter notes, some dotted, has one variation in 16th notes in which parts appear and drop out at will.
The set of variations on Fioritas has only six variations, but the manuscript contains the heading 7th, which clearly implies that Pasquini intended to write more. The Variationi Capricciose, on another tuneful theme that may have been original, is in seven partite. The theme is the first, the second in 3/4 is headed “in corrente”, the fourth is a sarabanda, the fifth in 6/4 is in quarter-note motion, and the sixth in C time makes great demands on the player, with an extended trill in the alto in each half as well as occasional simultaneous trills in the tenor. The final variation is in 3/4, with LH 16th notes against a mainly chordal RH in the first half and at the conclusion of the second half.
Of much greater substance are the remaining three sets: the Variationi a Inventione contains eleven partite; again the theme is considered to be the first variation (its first half has mainly chords in the RH over a moving eighth-note bass; the second half sees more 16th-note movement in the RH over quarter-note chords or moving eighth notes). The third set in 6/4 is in quarter-note movement in one part against dotted half-note chords throughout; the fourth, although headed 12/8, is barred in 3/4 and 6/4, this time with 16th-note passagework formed from a sequential figure against chords. The fifth to seventh sets are headed Corrente and are distinctly backward-looking, being similar to Frescobaldi’s Corrente in his two books of Toccate. Broken chord figures feature in the sixth, and insistent eighth-note movement appears in the seventh. In the eighth and ninth sets there is a further reminder of Frescobaldi in the time signatures: in the eighth the RH is in C time against 6/4 in the LH (see Figures 3a and 3b).
In both hands, eighth notes are grouped in duple as well as triple rhythms, and the figure of dotted quarter followed by two 16ths is passed between the hands. In the ninth partita, the RH is in 12/8 against a LH of 8/12, with the insistent pattern of dotted eighth followed by 16th. The tenth partita is headed 3/4 but barred as 6/4, again a corrente in form, with more broken-chord writing, sometimes in contrary motion between the hands. The final partita is headed Gagliarda and is unusually in C time (examples in C time are also to be found in Pasquini’s Spanish contemporary Juan Batista Cabanilles). Further broken chord figures and figures of ascending or descending thirds with the first note held on occur throughout, and neat syncopations in thirds in the RH appear towards the end of the second part.
The theme of the Partite diverse sopra Alemanda moves in quarter notes, but each half is followed by a written-out repeat in eighth notes, with imitation between the parts, broken chords, and contrary motion. The theme is followed by seven partitas, the first of which is in 16th-note movement, with the by-now usual figuration. The second, in binary form, is another rhythmic conundrum, with the RH in C12/6, and the LH in C6/12; this can be played most successfully as 12/8, much of it being in two parts only. The third, fifth, sixth, and seventh partitas are all headed 3/4 but barred in 6/4, the fourth actually being headed 6/4. In the third, flowing eighth notes soon give way to treble and bass quarter notes, with an alto eighth note after a rest, a figure that becomes wearing when used so relentlessly as here. The fourth partita moves in quarter notes, the second half opening with one bar of eighth-note imitation before a figure of rest followed by two quarter notes is passed between the hands.
The fifth partita has broken-chord writing in the RH over a quarter-note bass, with the LH also having broken chords in the repeats; in most of the piece, the top and bottom notes in figures are held on to produce a tonal build-up, but this is relieved in the middle of the piece by only the bass notes being held, which has the effect of acceleration. The sixth partita is based around a five-note eighth-note figure passed between the hands, while other parts have held half notes or dotted half notes; occasionally a third part in quarter notes is used as well. The final partita has continuous, mainly conjunct eighth-note motion against either full chords or just one other voice, concluding with a veritable virtuoso flourish of eighth notes in contrary motion.
The work entitled Variationi occupies some twenty pages in the Haynes edition, and consists of a theme in C time in mainly two-part texture in quarter and eighth notes followed by thirteen partite. The first is mainly RH eighth notes against LH 16th notes, the second is in 3/4 and, although not headed as such, is a corrente with a preponderance of two-part writing. The third partita is headed altro modo and has far more arpeggiated eighth-note motion. The fourth is headed 3/4, but only two bars are in this rhythm, the rest being in 6/8, again with much arpeggiated figuration beginning on the second eighth note. The fifth is in 16th notes, with frequent rhythmic imitation; the sixth is in 3/4 with eighth notes, sometimes in broken-chord format, against quarter notes; the seventh has mainly conjunct eighth notes against quarter notes in the first section, the second section with eighth notes in arpeggiated figures.
The eighth variation is another Frescobaldian corrente, with mainly quarter-note movement in the RH, against either quarter notes, dotted half notes, or half notes in the LH. The ninth has an oscillating 16th-note figure in the LH, with RH eighth notes. The tenth is constructed entirely around an eighth note in the RH followed by two 16ths in the LH, frequently in octaves. The eleventh is another movement with extended trills—in the first section placed in the alto lasting throughout the section, in the second in the tenor for just the first six beats after which imitative passagework against half notes progresses (see Figure 4).
Although the twelfth partita is headed Sarabanda, it has more in common with a corrente as it progresses in quarter-note motion with several instances in the RH of the figure of dotted quarter bearing a t (for trill) followed by two 16th notes and a quarter. The final partita is in 3/4; after the first bar it is in two parts with eighth-note figuration throughout, sometimes in contrary, sometimes in parallel motion, but also with one hand moving quite differently from the other; this virtuosic movement brings the work to a fine close. It may have been intended as a compendium of compositional techniques for students. There is a precedent in Bernardo Storace’s Passo e Mezzi in his Selva of 1664 for including variations headed corrente and gagliarda.
Together with Buxtehude’s roughly contemporary arias, the four sets of variations based on aria/dance-like themes are some of the earliest examples of keyboard variations on original subjects after Frescobaldi’s Aria detta La Frescobalda; they almost certainly pre-date Pachelbel’s set of six arias with variations published in 1699 as Hexachordum Apollinis; they have six, five, eight, and ten variations respectively (although in the latter there seems to be an error in the Haynes edition: what looks like the second half of the binary form theme is headed variation 1; this would mean that there are actually only nine variations). The first three are in the rhythm of a gavotte. All of the themes are in C time, but the first set contains variations in 3/4 and 6/8; the second has two in 6/8 including the final one; the third has two in 6/8 (one headed as 3/4, which may just be a remnant of the tempo theory mentioned by Frescobaldi in his books that related tempi to time signatures); and the final one has variations in 3/4, 6/8, 3/8 and one that is in 3/8 in the manuscript, although barred as 6/8. Again there is much variety of texture including pseudo-polyphony, violin-like figuration in the RH, and sequential figuration, with several variations requiring an advanced technical ability.
The two sets based on La Follia are very different in character. The first has fourteen variations after the initial statement and displays Pasquini’s mastery in transferring the string idiom to the keyboard in a wide variety of rhythms. Noteworthy are the continuous triplet eighth notes in the RH in variations 5 and 9, and the LH in variation 6, the figure of three quarter notes followed by a burst of 16th notes in the RH of variation 7 (see Figure 5), the virtuoso passagework for both hands in variation 10, the highly chromatic RH in the thirteenth, and the written-out trills and eighth-note figures in the final variation.
The second set has only three variations, which move in eighth notes, with thematic imitation prevalent in the first and second, and rhythmic imitation (quarter note or rest followed by two eighths and a quarter) in the final variation. The Bergamasca sets are similarly varied, with eight and twenty-four in the C time sets, and seventeen in the Saltarello, which is in 3/8 as would be expected. Although in the longer works some of the movements do not rise above the formulaic, there are many variations that carry the melodic freshness and tunefulness of an accomplished composer.
The four passagaglias are in B-flat, with twenty variations on the theme, C with seventeen (with probably more either not transmitted or never completed), D minor with twelve (again almost certainly incomplete), and G minor with twenty-four. All stress the second beat and apart from the C major, which is chordal and in 3/2 and is closer to a ciacona, they are melodic and in 3/4 (see Figures 6a and 6b). The writing in the B-flat and G minor pieces becomes increasingly virtuosic as they develop.

Toccatas and Tastatas
In volumes five and six of the Haynes edition, thirty-four pieces are entitled either Toccata (twenty-five) or Tastata (nine), there is one piece entitled Preludio, one Sonata–Elevazione; one Sonata in two sections, the second headed Pensiero; two further toccatas are included in volume 7. The choice of keys is still very conservative, not exceeding two flats, which is used for no. 83 in C minor, and two sharps used for no. 81 in A major. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of this substantial contribution to the repertoire, therefore comments have been limited to generalizations and to those pieces that are of greater interest.
Most of Pasquini’s pieces are in one movement, but at least five (70, 98–101) are in several sections, of which nos. 98–101 are included in the earlier British Library MS 36661. No. 70 is one of the most ambitious, the sections being in C time, 3/4, C time, concluding with a binary-form corrente-like movement with a variation. No. 71 opens with two bars of chords suitable for arpeggiations (indeed, in no. 94 the instruction “arpeggio” is included, relating to the first two chords) before motives are passed from hand to hand over long-held pedal notes; also featured are passages in parallel tenths (see Figure 7).
There are several toccatas that either open with chords or contain chordal passages within the piece; in some the instruction to arpeggiate is included, in others it is implicit (see Figure 7a). Pedals are also required in no. 101 throughout the first section, which is markedly similar to Frescobaldi’s Toccata Quinta from his second book; the second section is imitative, starting in C time followed by a variation in 3/2 before a short closing section in C time in which 16th-note passagework against quarter-note chords is passed from hand to hand, the final four bars again requiring the pedals for the long-held notes.
Several pieces include the old Frescobaldian written-out accelerating trill commencing on the upper note (two 16th notes followed by four 32nds) (see Figure 7b); in others it is implied via the letter t placed over the first note, normally a dotted eighth followed by a 16th one degree below. Although quite a few of Pasquini’s toccatas do contain passages that remind the player of Frescobaldi’s writing, there is not the same degree of nervous discontinuity and far more reliance on sequential writing.
It would seem unlikely that most of the suggestions on playing toccatas contained in Frescobaldi’s prefaces to his two books are applicable to these examples, although there is scope for shortening those pieces that are presented in sections, and some of Pasquini’s pieces do indeed carry the indication to arpeggiate half-note chords. Certainly there does not seem to be any reason to adopt Frescobaldi’s suggestion of dotting 16th notes in those passages in which eighth notes in one hand are set against 16ths in the other. However, his injunctions to treat the beat freely can be applied cautiously here, as can the eminently sensible comments on pausing before beginning passages in 16th notes in both hands and retarding the tempo at cadences. In the longer sequential passages, there can be a judicious slackening and taking up again of the tempo to allow the music to breathe and not degenerate into mechanistic exercises. Almost certainly, all trills should commence on the main note, this being appropriate also for every compositional genre.
One of the most popular and virtuosic pieces is no. 81, the Toccata con lo scherzo del cucco, which is based on the descending minor third. The cuckoo call is heard in eighth notes against 16th-note passagework, punctuated by sections in half notes marked arpeggio or by the nervous rhythms and modulations by chords of the seventh. At bar 47 the RH breaks briefly into triplets (although printed as 32nd notes they are actually 16th notes), and from bar 79 onwards a long-held A, first in the tenor and then in the alto, is marked trillo continuo, which will pose a most severe test to the player to maintain it against the other part to be played by the same hand. This piece is not too dissimilar to Kerll’s own toccata on the same theme (see Figure 7c).
The Elevazione-Adagio (no. 105) is also included in the Arresti publication, where it is entitled Sonata; after a slow introduction the writing continues in 16th-note figuration based effectively on sequences. The second piece entitled Sonata (no. 106) is in two sections: seventeen bars of 16th-note figures passed from hand to hand are followed by a short chordal link marked arpeggio that leads to further sequential passages. The second section, headed Pensiero—itself in two sections—is nothing like the intricate contrapuntal pieces of that name published in 1714 by Giovanni Casini, but opens with imitative passages based on a rhythmic motive, before its second section opens with passages derived from a further rhythmic motive that leads into passages based on the rhythmic motive of the first section and its inversion.
The one piece entitled Preludio, no. 95, is also in two sections, the first alternating long-held chords with 16th-note passagework against chords passed from hand to hand. The second section is again based on passagework passed between the hands, varying between conjunct movement and from bar 64 arpeggiated figures (see Figure 7d).
The two toccatas included in volume seven (nos. 141 and 142) are each in three sections, an opening and closing one in C time enclosing central sections in 12/8 and 3/2 respectively. In no. 141 much is made of sequential figures and trills, both indicated and implied; the 12/8 section is homophonic and leads to a final section in C time, which makes much of seventh chords, before a brief coda based on two 16th notes followed by an eighth note passed from right hand to left hand; a written-out trill in the left hand against this figure is reminiscent of Frescobaldi. In no. 142 the opening consists of four bars of 16th notes covering from treble G to tenor C, before a passage over a held tenor G moves into a section that includes a further example of a chromatic progression on the third of the scale, prefiguring the imitative triple-time section; the closing C time consists of only two bars—in the penultimate bar the LH consists of a written-out trill, with closing notes on tenor B, the opening two beats being a C–B in reversed dotted rhythms.

Versetti, Pastorale and other works
Francesco Cera has recently published a group of pieces that he discovered in a manuscript in Bologna. Included are an Introduzione e Pastorale, and 60 Versetti. The 27-bar Introduzione leads into a Pastorale of almost 90 bars. Both are in triple time and make much use of a dotted rhythm. Long-held notes in soprano, alto, and bass imitate the droning of bagpipes, and particularly noteworthy is the use of the Neapolitan sixth as well as the false relation (see Figure 8).
The Versetti are mainly short imitative pieces, many not exceeding five bars (they are similar to the short versetti in the 1689 collection from Augsburg known as Wegweiser), but five of them (nos. 33, 34, 42, 43, and 45) are miniature toccatas, with 16th notes against held chords. The first four of these are built on passagework against held chords, but there is some imitative writing in no. 45 (see Figures 9a–9c).
The grouping by keys in the manuscripts implies use as a series (see table). The subjects of the versetti range from archaic subjects in longer note values (nos. 1, 2, 9, and 46, for example) to more lively subjects using eighth and 16th notes (such as nos. 4, 6, 8, 13, and 14, etc,). A canzona-like dactylic rhythm of eighth note followed by two 16ths and two eighths is common, as is the figure of two 16th notes followed by two eighths and a quarter. Also notable is the insistent giga-like rhythm of dotted quarter followed by an eighth and quarter in almost every bar of no. 54. The most lively is no. 49, with its subject in 16th notes treated in inversion at the end.
There is one example in 3/8 and three in 6/8 in equal eighth notes, two in 3/2, and 10 in 3/4, with the majority in C or cut C. The part writing is relatively loose but effective. Keys used cover up to A major and C minor, with the old key signatures of one less accidental than present usage retained (i.e., two sharps and flats respectively).
Also included in Haynes’s volume seven are ten short pieces (from four to fifteen bars) without title, which are tentatively entitled Versi by Armando Carideo in volume seven of the Italian edition. Four of these are in 3/4 and have mainly continuous eighth-note motion in one hand against long chords, while the others in C time are close to the miniature toccata style noted in the versetti above. There are ten Accadenze (or cadences), which again are very short, with either toccata-like figures or based on short rhythmic figures. A different Pastorale opens with a repeated multi-section movement in 3/2 leading to a movement in C time full of dactyl rhythms, which includes the traditional drone bass that disappears and reappears at will.

Performance practice
A few general notes on performance practice relating to 17th-century Italian organ music may be helpful in determining answers to some frequently asked questions.
Ornaments: The only ornament sign found in Pasquini’s pieces is the letter t, which occurs on note values down to a 16th note. It is found frequently over the first note of a dotted eighth-16th pair (and by extension should probably be played in this figure even when not specifically indicated) and indicates a trill, probably better commencing on the main note, especially in the more retrospective pieces. It is worth mentioning, however, that Lorenzo Penna does describe the trill beginning on the upper auxiliary in his Li Primi Albori Musicali of 1656, reprinted in 1672, 1684 and 1696. On short notes only three notes (i.e., C-D-C) can be played; on longer values there can be more repercussions, possibly even pausing on the main note before trilling. It is also possible that an ornament equivalent to the mordent or pincé, with the lower auxiliary (i.e., C-B-C), could be used in ascending passages, particularly in pieces in the French style. In two pieces (Variazioni 11 and Toccata con lo scherzo del cuccu) the comment “Trillo continuo” is found. The instruction “Arpeggio” is found in some of the toccatas. Naturally there are possibilities for adding further ornaments when not expressly marked, although care should be taken not to use anachronisms such as the turn.
Fingering: This was still based on the concept of “good” and “bad” fingers for strong and weak beats, which was described in great detail by Diruta in Il Transilvano in 1593 and 1609, when he proposed using 2 and 4 as strong fingers, in direct contrast to other European treatises of the period; but during the 17th century, more theorists (including Penna, and Bismantova in his Compendio musicale of 1677) were following Ban-
chieri’s use in L’organo suonarino of 1605 of 3-4 in the RH for ascending and 3-2 for descending when beginning on strong beats, and beginning off-the-beat passages with 2 or 4 in the RH for ascending and 4 for descending.
For the LH, 3-2 is recommended for ascending when beginning on strong beats, and beginning off-the-beat passages with 2 or 4 on weak beats, and 3-4 for descending when beginning on strong beats, and beginning off-the-beat passages with 2 or 4 on weak beats. Also used were 1-2-3-4, then either repeated or followed by 3-4 for RH ascending and 4-3-2-1 repeated descending, and in the LH 4-3-2-1 for ascending, then either repeated or followed by 2-1 and 1-2-3-4 descending, then either repeated or followed by 3-4 in LH descending.
Articulation: While non-legato was still the main touch, apart from rapid divisions and passagework, the gaps between notes should be noticeably less on the organ than on the harpsichord, as described by Diruta. Not until well into the eighteenth century did a predominantly legato touch become the norm.
Registration: The Italian organ of the seventeenth century generally showed little advance on the Renaissance model, consisting primarily of a Principale chorus on one manual, from 8′ right up to the 33rd, in separate ranks that could be combined to form a Ripieno. Flute ranks were present at 4′, 22⁄3′ and 2′, but very rarely at 8′, and were not recommended for combining with the Ripieno, and reeds were also rare in most of the country, although the trumpet was very common in Rome. In addition, during the seventeenth century a Flemish influence made an impact on native development, including provision of a second manual allowing dialogues and echo effects. The manual compass was extended from a3 to f3. The Principale, and sometimes the Ottava, flute, and reed stops were divided, usually between middle e and f or f and f-sharp.
There is no evidence that Pasquini adhered to Diruta’s system of registration by mode included in the 1609 volume of Il Transilvano, but the legacy of Antegnati in offering registrations based on the type of piece and its function in his 1608 volume were still followed well into the seventeenth century (e.g., for Canzone alla Francese, the Ottava plus Flauto in ottava [4′ Flute], Principale plus either Ottava or Flauto in ottava plus Flauto in duodecima [Twelfth Flute], or even Principale plus Flauto in duodecima were suggested).
There is plenty of scope for varied and contrasting registration in many of Pasquini’s works in sections or multiple movements, but performers on modern organs need to ensure clarity and to avoid heavy reeds and fat Open Diapasons. It should be noted that pedals, if present, consisted in the main until well into the 18th century and later of pulldowns from the short octave bass in the manual, and covered an octave from C to B, with the only black note being a B-flat; some added the tenor C, and occasionally eleven notes were found, including an E-flat and A-flat. Playable in most cases by toes only, their function was primarily for long-held bass notes or to reinforce cadences. Very few instruments had a 16′ Contrabassi.
Tempi—Proportional notation: There is an interesting description of how to play triple-time (including 6/4 but not 12/8) sections in Frescobaldi’s prefaces to his books of toccatas and capricci, which, contrary to other theorists’ work, are NOT based on exact proportional interpretation but on speed by time signatures, ranging from adagio for 3/1 to allegro in 6/4, but there is no evidence from later theorists as to how proportions were treated. A mathematical rhythmic proportion can be applied successfully in Pasquini’s contrapuntal pieces far more readily than in his toccatas.
The great majority of Pasquini’s works can be performed successfully on harpsichord, organ or clavichord, although the suites and dance movements are clearly better suited to the stringed instruments. Many are not overly difficult, and their melodic charm will provide many hours of pleasure to players, from informed amateurs to professionals. In this anniversary year of his death, the best possible commemoration would be for his pieces to take their place in concerts.