Download J. S. Bach and the meaning of learned counterpoint

J. S. Bach and the meaning of
learned counterpoint
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (c.
1740; pub. 1741)
‘For the refreshment of the spirits of
lovers of the keyboard’
Keyboard Practice, consisting of an Aria with
diverse variations for the harpsichord with two
manuals. Composed for the refreshment of
the spirits of amateurs [or: lovers of the
keyboard] by J. S. Bach, Royal Polish and
Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Director of
Music and Choir Master in Leipzig
(Nuremberg: Schmid, [1741])
Origin of the nickname ‘Goldberg
Variations’
Johann Nikolaus Forkel, On the life, art and works of
J. S. Bach (Leipzig, 1802): commissioned by Count
Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk (Russian
ambassador to the Dresden court) for his
harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg.* Some
connection is plausible (Goldberg was Bach’s
pupil, and Bach stayed with Keyserlingk in
November 1741), but the work is not dedicated
on its title page. An aspect of reception and
posthumous framing, not commission?
Engraved on copper plates
Aria + 30 variations + Aria
-- corresponds to the 32 bars of the aria itself.
-- variations grouped as 10 X 3.
-- last movement of each group is a two-voice
canon, with the interval between the two
canonic voices increasing stepwise from
unison to 9th across the collection.
-- in place of the last canon (which would be at
the 10th) Bach introduces a quodlibet (a mash
up of traditional tunes).
The Meaning of Musical ‘Order’
These elements of structure possess wide-ranging,
but somewhat ambiguous, resonance: the notion
of ‘perfection’ as ‘order’ was common to
scientific rationalism and Lutheran theology in
the 17th and 18th centuries. In the broadest
possible terms, such devices linked the Goldberg
Variations, and Bach’s authorship, to God (and to
a divinely ordered universe). The ‘enclosing’ of
the collection with the aria suggests eternity
rather than worldly time.
John Butt, ed., The Cambridge
Companion to J. S. Bach (CUP, 1997)
Ch. 4, ‘Bach’s metaphysics of music’, and ch. 5,
‘Bach and the rationalist philosophy of Leibniz
and Spinoza’. God as mathematician;
knowledge of universe via calculation and
number; music as number – not primarily
about the senses; difficulty of arriving at
perfection and truth in all matters; monadism
– all matter derives from a single true
substance (the monad) – worldly (and thus
fleeting) character of differences.
‘Monadism’ in the ‘Goldbergs’
Refer to the ‘aria’ in the score on KEATS (p. 3/36)
Aria constructed from a standard (pre-existing)
bass line of eight notes (bb. 1-8)
This is expanded by three ‘variations’ (bb. 9-32)
The aria’s melody is ‘composed out of’ the bass,
(in the same way that subsequent variations
are ‘composed out’ of the given bass), the aria
is in two senses a ‘variation’ of the bass.
The Goldberg ‘Aria’
What are the stylistic characteristics of the
‘aria’? Analyse its:
topic(s);
texture – melody based, contrapuntal?;
form;*
galant or strict?
national style – French or Italian (or both)?
Topical Variety in the ‘Goldberg
Variations’
In tension with, but as part of this essential
unity, Bach characteristically introduces an
extremely wide variety of
styles/topics/textures all of which appear ‘out
of’ the bass (or harmonic progression) which
is retained in all movements. Identify the
topics or characteristic technique in variations:
5 (p. 7/36), 7 (p. 9/36), 10 (p. 11/36), 13 (p.
14/36), 16 (p. 18/36).
Understanding the Canons:
1. technique
Analyse variation 18 (p. 21/36), showing how
the bass of the aria is preserved (in varied
form).
Where is the canon and is it strict?
Understanding the Canons:
2. Style & Aesthetic Orientation
How does Bach help the listener/performer ‘get’ the
canon – variation 18 – or in other words, how does he
make it intelligible?
How does Bach distance this canon from abstract, cryptic,
‘difficult’ canons, such as Bach’s own enigmatically
notated canon, BWV 1074, published in 1728 in
Telemann’s musical magazine Der getreue MusicMeister (‘The faithful music master’), and written out
(solved) by Mattheson in Der volkommene
Kapellmeister (1739) (‘The Complete Capellmeister)?*
[AUDIO + DOC VIEWER]
Back story to Bach’s Goldberg Canons
In German music theory of later 17th and early
18th centuries, canon stood for mastery of
composition; it was associated with divine
order (because the universe was imagined as
organised by numbers and proportions), with
the music of angels (as canons were ‘eternal’),
and with the movement of the planets, and
the ‘music of the spheres’. It was an
intellectual genre, remote from the senses.
Canon and Alchemy
The mystique of canon – its status as a secret
known only to an elite – along with its divine and
cosmic associations underwrote some peculiar
connections with alchemy, a proto-science, but
also mystical and occult practice, that sought to
discover the fabled ‘philosopher’s stone’ (a
substance able to transform materials into gold)
and an elixir of youth and immortality. This
comes through in the correspondence between J.
G. Walther and Heinrich Bokemeyer, older
contemporaries of J. S. Bach.
‘Enlightenment’ and Bourgeois
Critiques of Canon
In the 1720s and 1730s, Johann Mattheson, a
Hamburg composer and music critic/theorist,
attacked the ‘culture’ of canon on social and
musical grounds: 1. it comprised a secretive,
elitist, even superstitious knowledge, whereas
musicians should seek to inform the public,
spreading rationality and cultivating taste; 2.
canon was a technical artifice contrary to the true
nature of ‘music’ a flowing, expressive melody.
Music should be for the listener, and so
intelligible, pleasing and moving, not for the
composer.
Johann Adolph Scheibe’s Criticisms of Bach’s Music
(1737)
‘This great man would be the admiration of whole
nations if he were more agreeable, if he did not take
away the natural element in his pieces by giving them a
turgid and confused style, and if he did not darken their
beauty by an excess of art ... He judges according to his
own fingers, his pieces are extremely difficult to play ...
Every ornament, every little grace ... he expresses
completely in notes ... [which] completely covers the
melody throughout. All the voices must work with
each other and be of equal difficulty, and none of them
can be recognised as the principal voice ... One admires
the onerous labour and uncommon effort—which,
however, are vainly employed, since they conflict with
Nature’.
More ‘Agreeable’: A Code for ‘Galant’
Scheibe and Mattheson call for the composer to
think not of himself, or of his art, but of the
listener. Their rejection of artifice and the
artificial, and celebration of (what they deem the)
‘natural’ – that is flowing and moving melody –
are not purely musical issues: also at stake is a
code of conduct that emphasised being pleasing
to others, considerate, entertaining, also
informal, even amorous, not too serious or
learned.*
J. Mattheson Addresses the ‘Galant
Gentleman’
J. S. Bach’s relationship to the canon
polemic
Hypothesis: the canons of the Goldberg variations
appear to represent a ‘compromise’ position, in
which learned counterpoint is 1. no longer
‘secretive’ but rather ‘demonstrated’ and in a
sense explained to the public, 2. combined with
or expressed in terms of dance and melody
oriented styles, and rendered readily intelligible
to listeners.
Assess if this is true for variation 21.
What about the quodlibet? (Cf. Yearsley p. 121)
Did Bach ‘respond’ to Scheibe’s
criticisms?
Gather views expressed in secondary literature
Return to primary sources in The New Bach Reader
Choose your own music examples
Use nuanced language to express what is certain,
what is speculative (‘appears’; ‘could be argued’;
‘perhaps’)
Acknowledge views of others to help you arrive at
your own conclusions. E.g. Yearsley makes a
convincing case ...