Bach in Three

With Stephen Freeman, Shaun Warden (violins), Shaun Ng (viola da gamba), Diana Weston (harpsichord).

Saturday July 13 Mosman Art Gallery @ 4 pm

Sunday July 14 St Jude’s Church, Bowral @ 2.30 pm.

Program

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Trio Sonata for 2 violins and basso continuo BWV 1037

Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in B minor for violin and cembalo BWV 1014

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) – Trio Sonata in E minor for two violins and continuo H. 577

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – Sonata in G minor for viola da gamba and harpsichord H. 510

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) – Quartetto Op. 8 No. 4 from Six Quartettos for Carl Friedrich Abel for violin (oboe or flute), violin, viola da gamba and basso

Respected in his day, forgotten for a century, Johann Sebastian Bach is now revered as one of the greatest musicians the world has ever known. Respected for his teaching as much as for his music, his son Carl Philip Emanuel was amongst those most to benefit as, to a lesser extent, was his youngest son Johann Christian.

As the supreme exponent of polyphony, Bach required his students to undertake rigorous preliminary practise of pieces for all ten fingers. Only when they had achieved a ‘clean and clear touch’ (Forkel) after months of perseverance and patience, were they permitted to move onto his larger works. These he demonstrated to show how they should sound. “Bach…would sit down at one of his magnificent instruments. Then the hours passed as though they were minutes.” (Ernst Ludwig Gerber, quoting his father, 1791).

Bach’s preference for polyphony as his preferred method of expression lasted his lifetime, despite his knowledge and ability to adopt other forms (French and Italian). His role as Cantor of St Thomas Church in Leipzig continued his career as primarily a liturgical composer and he had not the opportunity nor inclination to move into the popular world of opera, nor to acquiesce to the ‘natural’ style. The world’s taste in music was changing in the period after Christian’s birth in 1735.

Of Bach’s playing on the clavier and the organ “his fingers and feet could move and cross each other with such amazing agility, making the widest leaps without missing a single note and without upsetting his equilibrium by such violent motions.” BUT “his greatness would gain the admiration of entire nations if he did not deprive his compositions of being natural by imbuing them with bombast and confusion, obscuring their beauty by excessive artifice.” (Scheibe, 1737). So there it was – a young critic pointing out the usual changes of a generation, one which Emanuel partially conceded too, and which Christian took on board whole-heartedly. Despite an appreciation of the other camp (“in recent times music has changed greatly…thus the old kind of music not longer sounds good to our ears” (Bach, 1730)), Bach opted for tradition and in the last 15 years or so his output dropped as he revised his life’s work. The monumental works that did emerge such as the The Art of Fugue and the Goldberg Variations attested to where his heart lay.

At the time of Bach’s death, when Christian was 15, Emanuel was in Berlin, in the employ of Frederick II of Prussia. The appointment sounds prestigious but it was not wholly satisfactory. Emanuel was a difficult customer. He had, Burney said, a “chearful and lively disposition” but his wit could turn to sarcasm and insult, even of his superiors – “If you think the king loves music, you are wrong; he only loves to play the flute.” These opposing traits are to be found in his music. In it there is evidence of the high regard he had of his father’s teaching. “In composition and keyboard playing my father was my only teacher.” He never did lose his love of counterpoint. At the same time, “Emmanuel’s cantabile writing is as good as that of any other German, not only in vocal music but also in compositions for the clavier. They are difficult, I admit, but melodious” (Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg, 1770). Emanuel himself said his “chief endeavor in recent years has been to play and write for the clavier in as cantabile a manner as possible, in spite of the instrument’s inability to sustain notes.”

Twenty years younger than his brother, and having had some basic training from his father, Christian aged 16 arrived in Berlin soon after his (Bach’s) death. Both in terms of age and temperament, Christian was much more likely to absorb the new trend in composition. In addition, while his musical education continued under his brother’s tutelage for the next three years, the environment in which he found himself was hugely influential in forming his ideas. Easing him into his new home were ex-students of his father – Johann Friedrich Agricola, Christoph Nichelmann and Johann Philipp Kirnbirger – all of whom contributed to the musical life of Berlin and were aware of the ‘cantabile’ style in vogue. Christian was able to take full advantage of the vibrant Berlin music scene – attending the numerous chamber concerts and operas. Composers such as Quantz and Carl Heinrich Graun were encouraged by music-loving Frederick to write lyrically. As their employer, he called the tune, and had very little patience with polyphony.

With this musical milieu all around him, Christian was also very receptive to what his brother had to teach him. “To think through singing” was Emanuel’s concept of the cantabile style. For this to work “Every step must be taken to remove the accompanying parts from the hand that performs the principal melody so that it may be played with a free, unhampered expression.” (Emanuel)

Temperamentally the brothers were poles apart. Of one of his youthful concertos Christian writes “I have written this concerto – isn’t it beautiful?”. This was, in essence, the creed that Christian was to follow throughout his whole composing life. Christian’s personality had spontaneity, warmth and friendliness which was able to be expressed in a lightness of touch to which the cantabile style lent itself perfectly.