J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

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Like Mozart, Beethoven was a great improviser; like Mozart, his portfolio of techniques included fugal extemporisation (although this seems not to have been demanded of him as often as it had been from Mozart.) In 1796, for example, he visited C. F. C. Fasch and Zelter at the Berlin Singakademie: ‘A chorale, the first three numbers of a mass [by Fasch] and the first six of the 119 th Psalm were sung for him. Hereupon he seated himself at the pianoforte and played an improvisation on the theme of the final fugue: “Meine Zunge rühmt im Wettgesang dein Lob”… the performance must have pleased, for Beethoven repeated it at the next meeting on June 28th.’ 20 It is worth noting that there are no extravagant attestations to the strictness or contrapuntal ingenuity of his improvisation—it is not even absolutely certain that what he improvised was actually a fugue. Likewise, Ries’s account of an improvisation upon a theme from Graun’s Tod Jesu makes no mention of any transcendent learning, although he does describe Beethoven’s transcendent indifference to physical discomfort: ‘I still find it incredible that he managed to endure 20 Thayer-Forbes, Beethoven, p.186; in the Geschichte der Singakademie (Berlin, 1843). 316
so long [‘quite half an hour’] in such an exceedingly uncomfortable position [sitting to one side of Ries at the piano]. His rapt involvement made him totally oblivious to external sensations.’ 21 Only a dubious account by Ignaz von Seyfried emphasises Beethoven’s contrapuntal wizardry, describing how Mozart set him ‘a chromatic fugue motive, in which the countersubject of a double fugue lay concealed, al rovescio.’ Needless to say, ‘Beethoven was not one to be deceived . . . having instantly divined its secret meaning.’ 22 This seems unlikely, not just because the story has a number of demonstrable inaccuracies, 23 but because the few surviving examples of Beethoven’s early fugal writing tell a different tale. BEETHOVEN’S CONTRAPUNTAL EDUCATION Seyfried’s anecdote has to be ascribed to 1787, the only year in which Beethoven could possibly have met Mozart (by the time he returned to Vienna in 1792, Mozart was dead); but the contrapuntal work of this period shows no trace of this sort of contrapuntal wizardry. In the Fugue in C, Hess 64 (?1794), for example, his intuitive sense of harmony 24 enables him to write a reasonably effective (and fugal- sounding) piece of music, but the imitative structure is distinctly loose. The rather odd answer is real where one would expect it to be tonal (b.3), and idiosyncratically altered where we might have expected to be literal (b.4; see Ex.5.3). 21 Kirkendale, Fugue and fugato, p.223. 22 Ibid., p.222. 23 Beethoven’s trip to Vienna was in 1787, not 1790, as Seyfried states, and he came not just to hear Mozart, but to study with him. 24 ‘So far as mistakes are concerned it was never necessary for me to learn thorough-bass; my feelings were so sensitive from childhood that I practiced counterpoint without knowing that it must be so or could be otherwise.’ (Note on a sheet containing directions for the use of fourths in suspensions— probably intended for the instruction of Archduke Rudolph): Beethoven: the man and the artist, as revealed in his own words ed. F. Kerst and H. E. Krebhiel (New York: Dover, 1964), p.27. 317
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WRESTLING WITH THE GERMAN DEVIL: FI
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ABSTRACT ‘After’ can be taken b
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many peo
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INTRODUCTION ‘Every hearer enjoys
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esponse was: ‘the fugue is no lon
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instrumental fugues of Joseph Haydn
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world of their own. The study concl
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facts and the ‘soft technology’
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DEFINING FUGUE But what are they? W
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elow). For how many voices or parts
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indeed a complete counter-expositio
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on two pitches throughout, tonic an
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already become the historicising na
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Catholic tradition, but Albrechtsbe
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the texture as a whole coincides in
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kind experimentalism of Samuel Wesl
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The clearest sign of things to come
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Perhaps a clue can be found in the
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CHAPTER 1 THE CIRCLE OF J. S. BACH
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FINE DISTINCTIONS (1): MISATTRIBUTE
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sounding object, nothing has change
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Mendelssohn, Schumann, Spitta, Wido
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pieces are known from a single copy
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very good; and the ends of both mov
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ever, could have written it?’ 23
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incorrectly prepared suspended four
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has a number of doubtful features.
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einforces them. Its texture is impo
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of thinking over long spans.’ 44
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W. F. Bach and Krebs have always en
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the equitable distribution of his e
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slender volumes, including many pie
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In style (there is no particular th
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and it is the least comfortable bit
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voices inverted, and serve the purp
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each line in a polyphonic texture a
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If its general type is old, however
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thematic material. The subject coul
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Karl Geiringer makes an almost emba
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prolix F minor fugue, the expressiv
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Kittel, and Krebs himself. 76 Inevi
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[that] a keyboard composer can and
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Ex.1.12b shows the start of a fugue
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Egypt) did not prevent him from bei
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The very slow harmonic rhythm, howe
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If not inimitably characteristic, t
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As we saw in the first part of this
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subject is also expansive; it too c
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to expand and elaborate the surface
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The significance of this sort of st
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By the time the halfway point is re
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‘originality’—of historical p
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to follow in his father’s footste
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CHAPTER 2 J. S. BACH IN LONDON: CON
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of the mark. 4 Handel’s influence
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that would perpetuate his oratorios
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—also remained strongly Handelian
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118
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in the Overture to Alcina (1735). A
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Root-movement is quite unpredictabl
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124
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Superficially they have much in com
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situations; but his influence outla
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130
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ounded too closely by early Methodi
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At first the real focus of attentio
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surprisingly grammatical, confirmin
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138
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the subject (where again he seems n
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in Bath) recommended that Charles
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have, to a head-injury sustained in
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146
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The ending is rather curious: he re
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hectic week, he could choose betwee
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152
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even have had an informal agreement
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Unlike Handel, however, there no tu
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Throughout the nineteenth century t
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Here, however (especially once the
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162
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published separately over the next
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166
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Likewise does the fugue subject of
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A little more Bach can be seen, per
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attitudes were representative, or e
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consciously parodying his Methodist
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his nature to be exclusive about an
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elieve) in German, the compleatly w
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no other way one could hear operas,
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a stretto treatment (at one minim
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have had a rich Treat in chewing th
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admirable Musick might be played in
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At this point one might have expect
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This is soon accompanied by quaver
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The C minor entry in b.50 destabili
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WESLEY’S LAST YEARS During this p
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Wilhelm Friedemann (see chapter 1).
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describes it well: ‘The concertan
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with sixteen-part orchestra’ (Car
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would be of interest to a budding c
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wrestling with the problem of integ
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Clearly, Haydn is letting fugal thi
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By contrast, the fugue which closes
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unknown in any other Haydn fugue (a
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around b.54, homophonic quaver figu
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very little to it, which is of cour
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When Haydn wrote string quartets, t
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place, socially and musically; and
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of the minuet, both here and in man
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The distinction that Kirkendale dre
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variety of keys as well: not just I
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detail. As far as the tastes of Pri
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constructed in an entirely new mann
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Note the extent to which Haydn’s
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A clear example of this can be seen
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Haydn would write only one more fug
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At any rate, the effect of later ei
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appears not wholly to satisfy Kirke
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Junker and others were neither part
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sentimental’ (c.1814?), Haydn’s
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intensity of the debate? This is ho
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is an almost perfect instrument for
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CHAPTER 4 MOZART, FINISHED AND UNFI
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as such—at times even creating th
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thought and practice until very rec
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sonata movement sets up certain exp
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organ music: from the death of J. S
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(to us) the direct influence of J.
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and back without a sign that anythi
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is not necessarily at variance with
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conclusion is not perfectly in acco
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Page 268 and 269: to enclose your letter to me?’ 35
Page 270 and 271: The Dean was in a state of great ex
Page 272 and 273: ‘passive’ voices; Ex.4.5 shows
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Page 278 and 279: against itself, augmented and inver
Page 280 and 281: Andante also found favour, but part
Page 282 and 283: enewed application to this task. Wh
Page 284 and 285: for a child of twelve. The subject
Page 286 and 287: These masses mark the two poles of
Page 288 and 289: After this exposition the cadential
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Page 292 and 293: happened, on October 26 1783 at Ben
Page 294 and 295: the voices. There is a single expos
Page 296 and 297: ascending, descending (or both), st
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Page 300 and 301: (apart from particella for wind and
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Page 314 and 315: This ethical approach to music, so
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Page 320 and 321: It is, in part, a question of autho
Page 322 and 323: voice ‘Parthie’, an oboe concer
Page 324 and 325: although it is in a different key;
Page 326 and 327: which had such a similar subject (E
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Page 330 and 331: his early life is there a single re
Page 332 and 333: ‘Metaphorically, Beethoven was al
Page 334 and 335: On the other hand, whilst there is
Page 336 and 337: of a sort that has if anything tend
Page 338 and 339: To thus posit ‘lateness’ about
Page 340 and 341: historical development; 61 all thes
Page 342 and 343: These critics were not necessarily
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Page 346 and 347: hear it more often. Well, once more
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Page 350 and 351: Sometimes, it is just noise, in the
Page 352 and 353: At times, so eccentric are his text
Page 354 and 355: eighteenth century; and however muc
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Page 358 and 359: His opp.1bis, 5, and 6, however, (p
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movement. There is no danger of irr
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time, whereas the glory of many a B
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On the other hand, the tonal range
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It is with some surprise that we he
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A canon at the fourth below, ‘we
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Clementi. In this respect the issue
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turns out to be none other than our
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None of these, in any case, remotel
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traditional form.’ 125 Weber expr
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Arioso into the rest of the movemen
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eturned by b.248. On the other hand
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grise, it nevertheless exerts consi
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century fugal writing more satisfac
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CONCLUSION ‘Like most other disci
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from Fux to Haydn to Bruckner was n
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were written for the organ. 7 While
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prelude/fugue pair. Perhaps rather
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practice is less concerned with the
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Baroque, but did so subtly, without
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periodicity and its fluctuating ton
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eauty with ‘an excess of art.’
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(op.35/1) is a model of textural co
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410
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inhospitable to fugue.’ 30 To the
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W. F. Bach, Fugue in F minor BRA 88
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Exx.2.11-13 S. Wesley, ‘4 Fugues
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Chapter 4 Mozart, finished and unfi
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ed. Joseph Joachim and Andreas Mose
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [anon.] ‘The organ r
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Beethoven, Ludwig van, The letters
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Brown, Clive, ‘Perspectives on Be
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______ Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford Un
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zu Köln 1998, 315-321. ______ and
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Fisk, Josiah, ‘Classical music an
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______ ‘The “Grosse Fuge”: an
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1967). Horowitz, Joseph, ‘Mozart
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______ Fugue and fugato in Rococo a
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und ihrer frühen Rezeption’, Arc
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(1991). MacArdle, Donald W., ‘Bee
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contrappunto sopra il canto fermo (
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Nicolosi, Robert, T. S. Eliot and m
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______ Double counterpoint and cano
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Routh, Francis, Early English organ
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Schwarz, John I. jr, ‘Samuel and
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______ ‘Beethoven’s ninth symph
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Record, 90 (1960), 163-74. ______
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and Baroque’, Church, stage, and
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Winter, Robert S., ‘Of realizatio
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