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

familiar with Marpurg and well versed in Bach’s style.
Much has been written about the ‘difficulty’ Beethoven had writing smooth
counterpoint and the roughness of his harmony:
Beethoven also mystified his passages by a new treatment of the resolution of discords, which can
only be described in words by the term, ‘resolution by ellipsis’, or the omission of the chord upon
which the discordant notes should descend. ...Many of his passages also appear confused and
unintelligible, by a singular freedom in the use of diatonic discords or discords of transition; many
instances appear of passages by contrary motion, each carrying their harmonies with them. In the
obstinate manner in which he drives one passage through and against another, he has no equal,
except Sebastian Bach and our own illustrious countryman Samuel Wesley. 26
This judgement shows considerable critical insight. One of the ways in which the
music of J. S. Bach is most clearly distinguishable from that of his contemporaries is
the extraordinary freedom with which he handles his diatonic voice-leading—a
freedom that had its effect upon Wesley too. There is also no doubt that Beethoven’s
treatment of dissonance—the matter of keeping a suspension, say, out of the way of its
resolution—often shows less finesse and attention to detail than we normally find in
Haydn and Mozart. Partly this was a development which can be seen in early
nineteenth-century music as a whole (in Weber and Rossini as well, for example)
partly it is a consequence of Beethoven’s own stubbornness, his determination to bend
the voices to his will. The line between an original turn of phrase and an
ungrammatical solecism is not always a clear one—questions of musical grammar, like
those of verbal grammar, can be complex and negotiable. As with any attempt to
convince us of a doubtful proposition, much depends upon force of utterance and
strength of personality.
26 Musical World, March 1836, as quoted in An anthology of musical criticism from the 15 th to the 20 th
century, ed. N. Demuth (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1947), pp. 156-57. Samuel Wesley (who
was still alive at the time) would no doubt have been flattered by this comparison to his idol.
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