A fortnight of Bach

Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity: For the three Sundays in this period, I must play either Bach or Messiaen; nothing less will suffice. Last year I played three of the movements from Messiaen’s Ascension Suite, as Evensong fell on the Sunday after Ascension Day. This year, with Evensong on Trinity Sunday, the choice falls with Bach.

Having thus committed myself to a fortnight of Bach, I decided to further immerse myself by reading a biography: “Bach,” by Malcolm Boyd (Vintage Books: 1987). It is a delightful little volume (290 pages), intended primarily for the general reader.

“I must be about my Father’s business.” That would be a suitable epigraph for Bach; from his childhood, he worked diligently at the craft of Music. One sees this in an appendix of this biography: a list of Bach’s works by BWV number -- over a thousand of them. Many of these works are small of stature, but not all -- e.g.: the B Minor Mass (BWV 232), the St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), the Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Much, also, has been lost, especially in the church music: we have only two of the five Passion settings and slightly over half of the Cantatas.

Looking at this list, I am reminded of a project I would like to undertake before I die: a performance of all four books of the Clavierübung. I have played much of it over the years, but most of it would need a lot of work to prepare for a performance, especially all in one season. Crucially, almost none of it would have even a tangential relationship to my church duties.

Part I: Six Partitas for Clavier. I have played only one of these, back when I was an undergraduate student. They are thoroughly delightful, the equal in stature of the more famous Partitas for Solo Violin and Solo Violoncello. Quite aside from any larger project, it would benefit me to learn these.

Part II: Overture, and Italian Concerto. I have played the latter, when I was in my twenties, but not the former.

Part III (the only part for Organ): “St. Anne” Prelude and Fugue, which I have played often (and which is coming up for this Trinity Sunday); nine settings of the Lutheran Kyrie and Gloria (three of these will be the prelude for Trinity Sunday Evensong: Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit; Christe, alle Welt Trost; Kyrie Gott Heiliger Geist); six “catechism” chorales, each in a large setting plus a small manuals-only setting, corresponding (perhaps) to Luther’s Greater and Lesser Catechisms (Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, baptism, penitence, Communion); four enigmatic (and rarely-played) Duets. At one time or another, I have played almost all of this, lacking only a couple of the chorale settings and one of the Duets. Some of them are quite challenging.

Part IV: the “Goldberg” Variations. Some twenty years ago, there was a year when the church I served was getting a new pipe organ. In those days, I played an annual recital, and with no organ at hand, I decided to play the Variations, and did so in concert at a nearby college chapel. They are a thoroughgoing delight to study and play. But they are not properly fingered, and I am not sure that I have the keyboard facility to play them nowadays. I will add that I played them on the pianoforte, and much prefer this instrument for them because of its expressive possibilities.

It would be magnificent to program this over a series of recitals. But I have become less ambitious about undertaking such a project as the years have passed; it would be a lot of work, perhaps more than I can do while performing my appointed duties. I often feel that I cannot even perform those at a reasonable standard, much less attempt something beyond them.

Yet it was precisely when he was my age, in his late fifties, that Bach undertook some of his most extensive projects: Parts Three and Four of the Clavierübung date from this period; the Musical Offering, the B Minor Mass, and the Art of Fugue lay ahead. And he did this work in the midst of numerous duties, all of which he discharged faithfully, and a household full of young children -- the last of them, Regina Susanna Bach, was born only in 1742, when Bach was fifty-seven, and at that point there were three other children under the age of ten still at home, plus two teenagers, one of them “feeble-minded” and needing significant care. [Anna Magdalena bore him thirteen children between 1723 and 1742, but seven of them had died in infancy or childhood. This is besides the seven children of Maria Barbara Bach, three of them still living by 1742.]

Throughout his life, Bach always did much more than was required or expected, in quantity but most especially in quality. Moreover, he continued to develop as a composer over his lifetime. If one compares some of his early preludes and fugues for the organ with the great contrapuntal works of his final years, one sees this clearly.

This Sunday, I must play the Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 547, “which, if not the finest of all Bach’s organ works, is certainly one of the most original.... Even among Bach’s organ fugues, it is difficult to find one that surpasses this [fugue] in contrapuntal resource, or one that is better ‘orchestrated’ for the instrument.” (Boyd, p. 61)

Next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost, I am to play the two settings of the chorale Komm, heiliger Geist (BWV 651-2) with which Bach began his final collection, generally called the “Eighteen Chorales.” Most of these were substantial expansions of works he had composed years ago at Weimar, and represent “[Bach] as a master of chorale settings on the grandest scale” (Boyd, p. 55).

This collection, like the Clavierübung, would make a magnificent organ programme, or (more likely) two or three programmes on successive evenings. One would begin with the exuberant organo pleno Fantasy on Komm, heiliger Geist, and the quiet and expansive second setting of the same tune, and finish at last with Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich (BWV 668). This would be a more manageable project than the Clavierübung, but still perhaps beyond my capacity.

Finally, Trinity Sunday brings the Prelude and Fugue in E flat from the Clavierübung, as mentioned above. Both the Prelude and the Fugue are thoroughly Trinitarian in their symbolism -- in a key signature of three flats, with three thematic groups, and many less obvious connections. If pressed to describe the doctrine of the Trinity, I would play this Fugue, perhaps with some explanatory comments.

And, as mentioned, I will play the three large settings of the Kyrie for the Evensong prelude.

Often, Bach wrote the superscription “J.J.” over the first page of his manuscripts -- “Jesu, juva.” It was a prayer not just for himself, I think, but for those of us who attempt to play his music. It cannot be done without the help of our Lord, and when one makes it to the end, the only response is his, likewise written into most of his scores: “S.D.G.” -- Soli Deo Gloria. These are my prayers as I undertake this work over the next few weeks.