Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Famous Piano Works The career of Johann Sebastian Bach, the most illustrious of a prolific musical family, falls neatly...
Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
Famous Piano Works
The career of Johann Sebastian Bach, the most illustrious of a prolific
musical family, falls neatly into three unequal parts. Born in 1685 in
Eisenach, from the age of ten Bach lived and studied music with his elder
brother in Ohrdruf, after the death of both his parents. After a series of
appointments as organist and briefly as a court musician, he became, in 1708,
court organist and chamber musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar, the elder
of the two brothers who jointly ruled the duchy. In 1714 he was promoted to the
position of Konzertmeister to the Duke, but in 1717, after a brief period of
imprisonment for his temerity in seeking to leave the Duke's service, he
abandoned Weimar to become Court Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of
Anhalt-Cothen, a position he held until 1723. From then until his death in 1750
he lived in Leipzig, where he was Thomaskantor, with responsibility for the
music of the five principal city churches, in 1729 assuming direction of the
university Collegium musicum, founded by Telemann in 1702.
At Weimar Bach had been principally employed as an organist, and his
compositions of the period include a considerable amount written for the
instrument on which he was recognised as a virtuoso performer. At Cothen, where
Pietist traditions dominated the court, he had no church duties, and was
responsible rather for court music. The period saw the composition of a number
of instrumental works. The final 27 years of Bach's life brought a variety of
preoccupations, and while his official employment necessitated the provision of
church music, he was able to provide music for the university Collegium musicum
and to write or re-arrange a number of important works for the keyboard.
The piano as it exists today was unknown to Bach, who had at his
disposal, in addition to organs of various degrees of sophistication, the
harpsichord, with its plucked strings, and the clavichord, with its relatively
gentle hammer-action. The piano, under the name gravicembalo col piano e
forte (harpsichord with soft and loud) was invented by Bartolommeo
Cristofori of Padua in 1709. The development was the result of dissatisfaction
with the fixed dynamics of the harpsichord, which played either loud or soft,
but was unable to provide shades of dynamic. Bach himself saw two instruments
by the German maker Silbermann in the 1730s, but objected to the weakness of
touch and sound of the treble register. He took a kinder view of a Silbermann
instrument that he saw in 1747. Nevertheless the developing instrument, whether
pianoforte or fortepiano, lacked the strength and possibilities of the later
piano, with its iron frame and improved metal strings. Whatever it may lack in
historical accuracy, the modem piano must be recognised as a viable instrument
for the performance of earlier music, although searches for some degree of
authenticity have led even pianists to adopt techniques of playing that reflect
in some measure the earlier techniques of performance on harpsichord or clavichord.
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring may claim immediate pianistic relevance. The
piano piece of this name is a transcription of a chorale-prelude from Bach's Cantata
No. 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben ('Heart and Mouth and Deed
and Life') by the pianist Myra Hess. A pupil of Tobias Matthay, Myra Hess made
her concert debut in 1907 under Thomas Beecham, going on to a distinguished
career as a recitalist and soloist, in particular in the war-time concerts in
London's National Gallery. Her transcription has made Jesu, Joy of Man's
Desiring one of the best known of all Bach's compositions.
The Italian Concerto holds a particular place in the affections
of every pianist. In three movements, it has the original title Concerto
nach italienischen Gusto (Concerto in the Italian Taste) and was included
by Bach in the second volume of his Clavierübungen (Keyboard Exercises),
published in 1735. Here it forms a contrast to the Ouvertüre nach
franzosischer Art (Overture in the French Manner). The Italian Concerto reflects
the form of the solo Venetian concertos of Vivaldi. Designed for a two-manual
harpsichord, it allows for contrasts between solo and tutti, the full
orchestra of strings, with one manual serving as a solo keyboard and the other,
perhaps coupled, providing the fuller sound. The piano has no need of such
mechanical devices to reproduce the necessary contrasts of dynamic level.
Programme music was nothing new to composers of Bach's generation. His
most obvious excursion into this field was with his Capriccio sopra la
lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo (Capriccio on the Departure of his
Most Beloved Brother). Here each short movement suggests a further element in
his brother's departure, or, more accurately, a further reflection on his
absence. In 1704 Bach's brother Johann Jakob left to enlist in the guard of
Charles XII of Sweden as an oboist. His later career took him to Turkey, where
he had flute lessons from Buffardin. The Capriccio reflects the attempts
of his friends and family to prevent Johann Jakob's departure, their sadness
and apprehensions. The sound of the post-horn is heard, as the carriage
prepares to leave, which it does to the sound of a lively post-horn fugue.
Bach's Minuet in G major enjoys some notoriety as apiece
for beginners. It was included in the collection of keyboard pieces that Bach
put together for the use of his second wife, Anna Magdalena, whom he married in
1721, sixteen months after the death of his first wife. The Anna Magdalena
Clavierbüchlein (Anna Magdalena Little Keyboard Book) gives some idea of
the kind of music to be heard in the Bach household, initially in Cothen, where
Anna Magdalena took immediate responsibility for her four surviving
step-children, to be followed by thirteen children of her own, of whom seven
survived childhood.
The first five of the six French Suites of Bach are included in
the first little book for Anna Magdalena, compiled in 1722. Suite No. 5
in G major, the additional title 'French' added by later musicians, to
distinguish these from Bach's other keyboard suites, follows the set pattern of
French dances that had become customary, although without any prelude. The
French German dance, the Allemande, of moderate speed, is followed by an
after-dance, a Courante, leading to a solemn Sarabande. The next
three dances, not obligatory in the sequence, are an elegant Gavotte, a Bourree
that is decorous rather than boisterous, a French Loure and the
usual final Gigue.
Bach's Fantasia in C minor has been dated to about 1738,
the year in which his second son Carl Philipp Emanuel was appointed
harpsichordist to Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia, the later Frederick the
Great, and in which his third son, Johann Gottfried Bernhard, left Sangerhausen
in a hurry. He had served as organist at the Marienkirche in Mühlhausen, but
had abandoned that position, leaving debts that his father had to settle. Now
he had caused further embarrassment, for the same reason, leaving his position
as organist at the Jakobikirche in Sangerhausen to study in at the University
in Jena, where he died the following year. The Fantasia, designed as an
extended prelude to a fugue, is an impressive work, with its arpeggios and
elaborate figuration, and antiphonal use of right and left hand.
The six Partitas, published singly between 1726 and 1731, form
part of the first book of Bach's collected Clavierübungen (Keyboard
Exercises). The title chosen for these suites echoes the title used by Bach's
predecessor in Leipzig, Kuhnau, as does the title chosen for the whole
collection. Partita No. 2 in C minor starts with a Sinfonia, a
dramatic slow introduction, an ornamented aria and a lively final fugal
section. There then follow the expected dances, Allemande, Courante and Sarabande,
with a less usual final Rondeaux and a Capriccio that
replaces the customary Gigue.