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

from Fux to Haydn to Bruckner was nearly seamless. 2 Most of Mozart’s liturgical
works had a similar relationship with the Salzburg tradition of Eberlin, Adlgasser, and
Leopold Mozart, into which they were born. As we have seen, his post-Salzburg
music took a somewhat more distanced, reflective approach to this tradition, 3
absorbing the influence of Bach and Handel; but this only increased the contrapuntal
saturation of Mozart’s liturgical style.
ORGAN MUSIC
Stylistically, much of this was true for organ music as well. Although the
activities of Georg Joseph Vogler and Justin Heinrich Knecht prefigured those of
nineteenth- and twentieth-century concert organists, for the most part the instrument
was associated with the church, and heard in the context of the liturgy. Just as the
corporate nature of the choir lent itself to counterpoint, so to did the sustained, level
tone of the organ. Attempts were made to simulate the effect of an orchestral tutti and
the labile, minute distinctions of the empfindsamer style, 4 but the dynamic flexibility
of most contemporary music was difficult to achieve without desperate expedients like
Vogler’s Orchestrion or Maelzel’s Panharmonicon. 5
There is, however, one important difference between organ music and other
church music. The composers of church music were, by and large, the composers of
opera. Apart from the relatively small number who concentrated exclusively on
2 Simon Sechter (1788-1867), Bruckner’s teacher, was instrumental in transmitting the legacy of Fux
and Albrechtsberger to the nineteenth century.
3 Salzburg influences have, however, been sought and found in the Requiem: see M. Schuler, ‘Mozarts
Requiem in der Tradition gattungsgeschichtlicher Topoi’, Studien zur Musikgeschichte: Eine
Festschrift fur Ludwig Finscher (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1995), pp. 317-327, and A. I. Maitland, ‘The
development of form and style in eighteenth century Salzburg church music’, (PhD Diss.: University
of Aberdeen, 1972), pp.230-49.
4 The swell pedal was invented in England in 1712 and became widespread there during the middle
years of the century; only later was it adopted on the continent.
5 Vogler’s Orchestrion (1790) was a transportable organ designed by Vogler for his concert tours.
Entirely enclosed, it had a wide and flexible dynamic range, but exercised little immediate influence
upon organ design. Maelzel’s Panharmonicon (1804) was a mechanical instrument intended to
imitate the sound of the orchestra, best known for its association with Beethoven’s ‘Battle
Symphony’, Wellingtons Sieg (1815).
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