Bach turned forty in the year
1725. By then, he was in his third year as Kapellmeister of the Thomaskirche
in Leipzig, his last official post. He had already served as organist in
Arnstadt (1703-07), Mühlhausen (1707-08), as court organist and Cammer
Musicus in Weimar (1708-17) and as Kappelmeister in Köthen (1717-23).
By 1725, he had had ten children, of whom two (twins) had died in infancy. He
had been married for thirteen years to his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, who
died in 1720, and four years to Anna Magdalena Wülken. In 1725, his son
Wilhelm Friedemann was fifteen years old, and Karl Philipp Emanuel, eleven.
Another ten years would go by before the birth of Johann Christian. The
St. John Passion was being given its second performance at the
Thomaskirche in 1725; still in the future were the St. Matthew Passion,
the Klavierübung collection, the Mass in B minor, the
Christmas Oratorio, most of the cantatas, and, of course, the Musical
Offering for Frederick the Great and The Art of the Fugue. Also
in the future were Bach’s appointments as director of the Collegium
Musicum in Leipzig and the many concerts written for that organization. By
1725, he had already written the majority of his organ music, although he was
to continue to write and revise organ works until the very end of his life.
Bach’s earliest musical training was as a keyboard player,
not as a composer. The composers who influenced him earliest in his life (as
listed in the obituary written by K. P. E. Bach for his father) were Froberger,
Kerll, Pachelbel, Frescobaldi, Fischer, Strungk, certain French composers,
Bruhns, Buxtehude, Reinken and Böhm. K. P. E. Bach then went on to
state that his father had formed his style through his own efforts and
developed his fugal technique through private study and reflection. This is
interesting, indeed heartening, since in looking at “early works of
Bach”, one seeks in vain for clear stylistic influences or a single path
of development. Alongside a German fugue, one finds French ornamentation;
in the middle of something recognizable, one finds something stunningly
original. This is called genius, and it cannot be reduced to a neat formula
for the purpose of study or even description. In the end, one must simply
listen to the music, and let it speak.
This program is devoted to early organ works of Johann
Sebastian Bach. Both the Prelude and Fugue in g minor and the
Toccata in (C) Major (which also appears in E Major, hence the parentheses
around the C) show Bach playing homage to Buxtehude and other north
German organists. The Toccata is, in fact, formally arranged exactly
like a Buxtehude toccata or praeludium – it is in five parts, mixing free
and fugal sections, with brilliant figuration – but there are some hints
of Bach’s performing virtuosity and harmonic audacity that transcend
many of Buxtehude’s compositions. The Prelude and Fugue in g minor,
in two separate movements, follows late structural developments while retaining
the spirit and fire of Bach’s earliest compositions; the Prelude
contains one of the longest sequences of unrelieved figuration to be found in
keyboard music, while on a contemporary copy of the Fugue, in a margin,
is written “In this Fugue, one must kick one’s feet around quite
a bit.” (!)
The Prelude and Fugue in d minor stands as an exercise in
transcription – the Fugue is a keyboard transcription of the
second movement of Bach’s g minor sonata for solo violin, thus the
moniker “Fiddle” for this piece – and the Prelude is
the only one by Bach for manuals alone, without a pedal part.
The Partita on “O Gott, du frommer Gott”
presents the chorale with a following set of variations (in this case, eight)
in the mold of German composers such as Böhm or Pachelbel, in which
manipulation of the musical material of the chorale takes precedence over a
portrayal of any affectual relationship with the sense of the text (as in the
manner of Buxtehude). Somewhat in the form of a dance suite, this set of
variations therefore shows not so much an expressive as a decorative intent,
showing different registrational combinations as well as different musical
styles. This piece does not call for the use of the pedal, although the last
variation demands two manuals for an echo effect. I notice a great similarity
between the figuration of certain variations in this partita and the variations
of another, more famous Bach early work, also in c minor – the great
Passacaglia.
The Pastorale is a sort of catch-all piece, in form something
between a suite and a sonata, conforming to nothing else in Bach’s output.
The name most probably refers to the first movement, which in both key and
effect recalls similar pastoral movements written for either keyboard or
orchestra. The other movements recall either suite ideas (the second and
fourth movements) or sonata ideas (the expressive and violinistic third
movement).
The other chorale settings show Bach’s great grasp of
harmony and its expressive capabilities, even at an early stage of development
– the first “O Liebster Jesu” setting is hardly more than a
harmonization, but what exquisite harmonies – and, in the second, his
ability to learn (for example, from Böhm, and perhaps d’Anglebert)
the expressiveness of an ornamented solo line incorporating French-style
ornamentation.
The three “O Allein Gott” preludes are not a
compositional set, but are simply assembled here tonight as a group in homage
to the larger, later, “three Allein Gotts” of the Leipzig chorale
collection. The first is a gentle three-part setting with the two lower voices
in free imitation (quite reminiscent of the Prelude in E-flat Major from
The Well-Tempered Klavier, Book II), with the top line carrying the cantus
firmus. The second is a two-part bicinium, with the bottom line spinning out a
cello-like ostinato under the cantus firmus presented simply in the soprano.
The last setting shows Bach’s audacity in all of its confrontational
glory – perhaps it was pieces like this one that earned him the ire of his
superiors’ claiming that his “strange harmonies confused the
congregation,” for its harmonies ae indeed strange. At one point, close
to the end, a chain of unresolved diminshed seventh chords harmonize the chorale
tune just at the point at which the text (in the first verse, anyway) speaks of
heavenly joy – Bach in youthful play, perhaps, but in complete control of
his art.
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Peter Sykes is one of the most
distinguished and versatile keyboard artists performing today.
He has appeared in recital at conventions of the American Guild of
Organists, the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society, the Organ Historical
Society, the American Institute of Organbuilders, and the International Society
of Organbuilders; at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Aston Magna Festival,
and the New England Bach Festival. He has also appeared with Ensemble Project
Ars Nova, The King’s Noyse, Musica Antiqua Köln, and throughout the
United States, including an appearance as a featured soloist in Bank of
Boston’s Emerging Artists’ Celebrity Series in Jordan Hall, Boston,
where he performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
Among his many solo recordings, his best-selling recording of his
organ transcription of Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets
was named Best of 1996 by Audio Review magazine. He was the 1993 laureate of
the Erwin Bodky Award for excellence in early music performance. In May 2005,
he received the Outstanding Alumni award from the New England Conservatory of
Music for career achievement since graduation.
Mr. Sykes is Assistant Professor of Music and Chair of the
Historical Performance Department at Boston University, Director of Music at
First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, and a member of the faculties of
Longy School of Music and New England Conservatory of Music. He is a founding
board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society.
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