Bach Books
Bettina Hatwig: Rethinking Bach
Review - Part 2

Continue from Part 1

<<Rethinking Bach>>, Part III, Meanings; Chapter 7, Jeremy Begbie, "Bach and Theology"

William L. Hoffman wrote (March 9, 2022):
The first chapter in Part III, Meanings, in the recent essay collection, Rethinking Bach, is Chapter 7, Jeremy Begbie's, "Bach and Theology." The collection's editor, Bettina Varwig, frames the discussion in her Introduction (Ibid.: 3f): A "two-way process can be envisaged with regard to Bach and certain strands of theological thought. Notwithstanding the venerable tradition of theological Bach interpretation since the early twentieth century, Bach scholarship still has a lot to gain from paying more serious attention to the work of historical as well as systematic theologians; conversely, as Jeremy Begbie argues, certain musical qualities that are perhaps crystallized especially clearly in Bach's output can enliven key debates within theological discourse: for instance, (Ibid.: 4) about the "thinking together" of apparently non-congruent realities or beliefs. Once more, it becomes clear that Bach research can productively speak outward, as well as being reshaped substantively by that exchange with well-intentioned neighbors." From a historical theology perspective, Begbie's perspective is to emphasize "biblical exegesis and systematic theology (the study of the main loci of Christian belief and their interrelation)," he says (Ibid.: 170). Begbie in the first two sections examines two significant related topics in Bach theological scholarship "to enrich Bach studies" and "elicit a more nuanced and profound hearing of Bach's music": the sections on "Anti-Judaism and John's Gospel" (Ibid.: 170-75) and "Time and Eternity" (Ibid.: 175-79). "In the last part of the chapter [Thinking Together], I turn the tables and consider what Bach can bring to the theologian; ways in which exploring his music can enable theology to be more truthful and better attuned to the subject," he says (Ibid.: 170), in the sections "Creation and Creativity" (Ibid.: 180-83) and "Multiple Trajectories" (Ibid.; 183-85) with a final refection (Ibid.: 185f).

Bach and Theology

Bach followers have found the significant importance of theology in the shaping of Bach's works since his death in 1750, particularly in his sacred cantata legacy of more than 200 works, as well as the extended feast day and Passion oratorios, as "musical sermons." Begbie's provocative article advances this discussion beginning with a historical review of recent theological scholarship since the Bach tricentenary of 1985 (Ibid.: 169), citing Irish musicologist Harry White.² This Begbie points out, in light of the continuing "wariness of importing anything theological into Bach scholarship" "in some quarters," in contrast to previous debates concerning Bach's piety (dating to mid-20th century), as well "strained theological readings of his music." Begbie also cites the John Butt 2006 perspective³ of "returning to forms of expression and enquiry that were relatively recently outlawed by high modernism; biography, meaning, even religious elements in music." Specifically, Butt points to a restoration "to see him as a figure deeply concerned with his religious calling" (Ibid.: 13). "This is often connected to the articulation of theological points through his music and its interaction with the texts at hand." Now, says Begbie (Ibid.: 170), there are "profound and sensitive treatments of the theological dimensions of Bach appearing in recent years that deserve sustained attention and bode well for the future." Begbie, a trained theologist at Cambridge University who "specializes in the interface between theology and the arts" (Rethinking Bach: xi), first seeks to bridge the historical divide between "by far the majority of studies [that] have come down from historical musicologists, not from professionally trained theologians," while Bach scholars sometimes lack "the degree of theological expertise required to deal in depth with Bach's theology,⁴ and especially the texts he sets," needing "skills in biblical exegesis" and "in handing the distinctiveness and nuances of doctrinal and philosophical language." Second, Begbie finds theological interest in Bach has focused historically on Bach's indebtedness to Martin Luther and Lutheranism⁵ as well as related studies (Ibid.: 170) involving Bach's Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism (see Bach-Bibliographie), Lutheran liturgy,⁶ and "how various musical techniques employed by Bach (tonality, structure, rhythm, etc.) participate in the construction of theological meanings, using conventions of symbolism and signification current in his day."⁷ Two other recent Bach studies involve non-traditional pursuits:⁸ "to contextualize Bach's music amid technologically-charged social and cultural movements in 16th and 17th century Europe" by Karol Berger as well as Bach's relationship to the nascent early modern and the German Enlightenment by scholar-performer John Butt.

Anti-Judaism and John's Gospel

"One of the most contentious issues surrounding Bach in current scholarship is his attitude to and portrayal of Judaism," says Begbie (Ibid.: 170), who makes a distinction between "anti-Judaism" and "anti-semitism" (Ibid.: 187, FN 10). A thumbnail sketch of Lutheran theology in 19th and 20th century Germany, particularly as found in the Turbae crowd choruses⁹ of Bach's St. John Passion, suggests that disputes around "the ideology of modern anti-Semitism," says Begbie (Ibid.: 171), "have been hampered by anachronisms" involving the historical conflation and contiguity of chronology and attitude. Close attention to John's unique, non-synoptic Gospel text in Bach's musical meditation and enactment, not a "commentary," can "illuminate and clarify many of the contested matters in the debates," especially regarding "anti-Judaism," showing Bach "as a rather more subtle and independent figure in his time." Beyond a dualistic, "either-or" debate between "exegesis of text" against "affective impact," Begbie argues for a more integral, multifaceted approach such as the "homiletic context of the work," as found in Robin A. Leaver's essay.¹⁰ The matter of anti-Judaism has achieved "sustained attention" in the St. John Passion and other Bach works from Bach scholar Michael Marissen.¹¹ Begbie finds Marissen's "reading questionable," citing various authorities (Ibid.: 172, FN 25), and urging "a wider theological perspective assumed by John." "The figures and symbols of Israel are thus reworked around a person believed to have been active in and through them in the past, and who embodies them now in the flesh." Begbie questions conflating all Jews (Ibid.; 173) while observing that "the pattern of rejection" "was very much part of Israel's history." Begbie cites John 12:47 that Jesus is the light of the world "not to judge the world but to save the world," also known as the Christus Victor (Wikipedia) Theology of Glory, whose sacrificial death represents the satisfaction theory of atonement. Considering Bach alongside Luther's favorite Gospel translation in John's Gospel, Luther's Theology of the Cross (Wikipedia), and Bach's St. John Passion, Begbie urges debates more precise and theological which lead to "theological themes and accents we might otherwise miss" (Ibid.: 174).

Time and Eternity: Bach Cantatas, Berger, Butt Two important topics in Bach's theology, "Time and Eternity," are the subject of the second section. Contemporary symbolism in non-traditional studies with systematic theology "(often drawing upon philosophy)" (Ibid.: 175)¹² are explored (see FN 8) in Karol Berger's Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity (175-78) and John Butt's Bach's Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions (178f). Berger deals only with major Baworks supporting his intellectual premise of the 1750 pivotal end of one era and the beginning of another, from a cyclical spiritual world to a linear, rational, enlightened domain, essentially shifting from the sphere of traditional, repetitive connections and reaffirmations to the intellectual arena of presumed progress and seeming perfection. Butt's book is an intellectual exploration primarily involving the St. Matthew Passion in its three temporal levels (gospel narrative, Lutheran congregational chorales, and contemporary poetic commentary), as well as a general study of contemplative engagement in the world. Regrettably, neither author (Berger, Butt) refers to the textures of time so essential to Bach cantatas and oratorios as musical sermons, related to past, present, and future perspectives, while Begbie alludes to some topics such as the Johannine Cosmic Christ (Ibid.: 176) and theology in Cantata 103 (see below). Time is the theme of one of Bach's first, albeit old-fashioned, cantatas, BWV 106,¹³ with its title, "Gottes Zeit is die allerbeste Zeit" (God's Time is the very best time, ref. Acts 17:28), a memorial vocal concerto of 1707 (Actus tragicus) in Bach's favored symmetrical form. Here are various biblical allusions and chorale quotations, as well as specific references to Simeon's canticle, Nunc dimittis (Luke 2:29), and two Lukan Passion quotations of Christ from the cross: "Into your hands I commit my spirit" (23:46) and "Today you will be with me in paradise" (23:42). Cantatas representative of the theme of eternity, based upon the chorale, "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort" (O eternity, word of thunder) by Johann Rist (text, BCW), are BWV chorale Cantata 20 (BCW, YouTube) for the first Sunday after Trinity 1724 in a hymn-text meditation, and Dialogue Cantata 60 (BCW, YouTube) for the 24th Sunday after Trinity 1723 as a musical sermon on the day's Gospel, Jesus’ “Raising of Jairus’s daughter” (Matthew 9;18-26).

Berger's Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow

Begbie describes Berger's Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow (Ibid.; 175) as "an account of different perceptions of time in modernity, as played out in music. To summarize: between Bach and Mozart he detects a shift from 'circular' to 'linear time'." Begbie cites Berger's view of the monumental opening chorus in Bach's St. Matthew Passion, "Kommt, ihr Töchter" (Come, you daughters, YouTube), with its da capo return, "creating a synthesizing culmination" representing a "simultaneity of the present" in its three levels of time involving a "temporality of contemplation," i.e. "timeless eternity," also known as God's Time. "The earthly life of Jesus is understood by the New Testament writers as enclosed within eternity — he is the enfleshment of the eternal Logos," says Begbie citing Berger (Ibid.: 176). This Christological incarnation described in John's Gospel Prologue (Chapter 1, Bible Gateway) as that "He was with God in the beginning³"and "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.⁵ '' [Here is the concept of the Cosmic Christ (Wikipedia) or, as Richard Rohr¹⁴ says, "Long before Jesus's personal incarnation, Christ was deeply embedded in all things."] Here is "Bach's fondness for cyclic structures," says Begbie (Ibid.), involving "his relative indifference to the temporal ordering of musical events" and "behind Bach's privileging of harmony." [This "fondness" includes the Bach five cycles of church pieces (see BCW) with three cycles of church-year cantatas, the palindrome (mirror, symmetrical) rhetorical structure of many of Bach's major vocal works, and the da-capo repeat/return (ABA) in arias and instrumental music.] Begbie describes at length (Ibid.: 176-178) Berger's perspective on the Christian worldview and challenges to it and to advocate no arbitrary conflation of Christian perspective to Bach but "to suggest a greater sensitivity to a biblical-creedal construal of time and eternity" that can reveal certain "aspects of Bach's works," he says (Ibid.; 178). Begbie turns briefly to John Butt's Bach's Dialogue with Modernity (Ibid.: 179) to suggest that the contemplative sections of the St. Matthew Passion can encourage the listener "to be more fully involved with God's purposes in time." In contrast to Berger, Butt finds "that the sense of 'linear, passing time' is in fact vivid and pronounced much more than in the St. John Passion" while both Passions "exhibit a musical incompleteness that reaches out to a not-yet-realized fulfillment," says Begbie (Ibid.).

Thinking Together: "Creation and Creativity"

In the closing part of his essay, Thinking Together, Begbie seeks to "explore two ways in which the study of Bach might benefit theology" (Ibid.: 180), instead of the reverse previously considered. He suggests accepting various theological paradoxes such as "God and world, God's presence and absence, the divinity and humanity of Christ" [the Christus Paradox, "truly God and truly man"], etc." He advocates a "jolt of the intellectual imagination." Two thematic examples involving Bach's music are presented. In the next section, "creation and creativity," the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, he examines the "relation between the activity of human making," "such as forming and manipulating musical sounds), and the integrity of the materials out of which something is made (sound-producing bodies, vibrating strings, vocal chords, etc)," says Begbie (Ibid.: 180). Scholar-performer Peter Williams¹⁵ finds this exemplary, "special" harpsichord music with beauty that is both original and (rare in Bach) accessible, based on simple "truthful harmonies." This Aria with 30 Variations, "composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits" (Denen Liebhabern zur Gemüths- Ergetzung verfertiget) as the title page says, "is a world of experience otherwise unknown," especially in the repeat of the opening thematic aria at the end where its "aura is different," changing from "a greeting to a farewell, from elegantly promising to sadly concluding." From its conception to its realization, the music challenges assumptions of creativity, originality, and discovery. "Butt¹⁶ argues that Bach encompasses both premodern and modern sensibilities," says Begbie (Ibid.: 181), from Bach's traditional, pre-modern religious outlook to "a more typically modern accent on the immense possibilities of human making." Each third variation in the 30 is a canon, following an ascending pattern from unison to the ninth interval, "polyphonic music as an exemplar of the unity and diversity pervading the cosmos," suggests Begbie (Ibid.: 191, FN 69). Begbie cites Butt in another publication¹⁷ as seeking a balance "in conjecturing about Bach's own view of the task of composition (and performance) from a sparse array of verbal documents, and on the other in surmising what his music and certain tendencies in his compositional output may tell us," says Butt (1997, Ibid.: 46). Bach's "inventive, constructive powers" Butt stresses in Bach's Dialogue with Modernity (2010, Ibid.: 75), are "symptomatic of the emerging modernity of his time," says Begbie (Ibid.: 182), with a "fast-growing confidence that nature can (and requires to) be brought to new levels of splendor through human creativity and industriousness," "imitating not so much nature as the author of nature," with Bach's own spiritual underpinnings and while avoiding the slippery slope of human perfection and contemporary zero-sum thinking. Begbie offers two caveats in this discussion. First, that "cosmic order and human artifice are to be related in competitive terms is a qumodern one." Second, "Bach's music itself constitutes its own kind of challenge to the assumption of an inherent tension between discovery and creativity, through its intense interweaving of coherence," Begbie citing Williams' assessment of the Goldberg Variations (see above, as well as "disclosure through elaborate artifice" (Ibid.: 183).

Multiple Trajectories

"Theologians have frequently wrestled with the problem of holding together different or contrasting dimensions of theological truth," says Begbie at the beginning of the last section, "Multiple Trajectories" (Ibid.: 183-185), especially in the New Testament Gospels. While the read-together synoptic accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are based upon a sole proto-source, the Q (Quelle) document, John's unique final Gospel begins in the Prologue with a wealth of traditions — "echoes of Genesis, Proverbs, Jewish Wisdom" and "(possibly) Stoicism" with "its multiple resonances" and "interplay between levels of meaning a writer like John so obviously intends," says Begbie (Ibid.: 183), that resonated with Bach. "There is good reason to believe that such mono-dimensional approaches would have been resisted by Bach," he says, citing Martin Petzoldt's article, "The Theological in Bach Research."¹⁸ Says the late Petzoldt, the leading Bach scholar-theologian: "The music, as an interpretive text, should suggest spiritually-associated thoughts to the hearers in its own sense and should open up and broaden the available realm of meaning" (Ibid.: 110). Bach "was compelled with his practice of music as given by God to push towards a fullness of understanding," and "this form of dialogical music making was extraordinarily typical for Bach." Begbie returns to the St. Matthew Passion opening chorus, "the curtain raiser" with its dramatic elements and multiplicity of "diverse currents" in "radically contrasting dimensions of textual reference, allusion, and commentary." Simultaneously, there are "four distinct yet concurrent levels of theological commentary, each evoked musically: the opening ritornello of the narrative of "the heavy trudging of Jesus to Crucifixion"; "Daughter Zion calling to witness the sacrifice of Christ"; "the Faithful responding with puzzled questions"; and the soprano singers of the heavenly Jerusalem singing the chorale, "O Lamm Gottes unschuldig" (O Lamb of God innocent), a metrical paraphrase of the "Agnus Dei." This is an expression of the "capacity of music," says Begbie (Ibid.: 184), such as simultaneous aural perception involving "the theological significance of musical simultaneity" and interplay (Ibid.: 192, FN 83) explored much further in Begbie, Music, Modernity, and God.¹⁹ Another work with complex theological commentary is Cantata 103, "Ihr werdet weinen und heulen" (You will weep and howl, John 16:20), for Jubilate (3rd Sunday after Easter), says Begbie (184), "replete with Luther's theology of the cross," and moving from sorrow to joy¹⁹ (see BCW, paragraph beginning "One of the von Ziegler texts, Cantata 103 . . . ."). Here is the integration of sorrow and joy as an "integrated theological perception."

Begbie concludes with "A final reflection" (Ibid.: 185). "There is an engrained wariness in the contemporary academy of 'universalizing the particular'," with theology "likely seen as suspect in this regard, "concerned as it inevitably is with matters universal." "Classical Christian theology — and the Lutheranism of Bach's day — does not downgrade or dissolve the particular in the name of 'universal' truth. What it does do is question any polarization of universal and particular; the assumption that to care about one is to downplay the other." "The contemporary staging of Bach's Passions are very instructive here," says Begbie (Ibid.: 186). "Indeed, I think they probably tell us much more about our own belief than Bach." This is explored in the final essay in Rethinking Bach, Chapter 14, Michael Markham's "Bach Anxiety: A Meditation on the Future of the Past," says Begbie. In an era where the sacred is secularized and the profane made spiritual, Bach in his time saw no distinction; he readily transformed profane drammi per musica into sacred oratorios, much to the chagrin of some contemporary musicologists (parody is overrated).

ENDNOTES

¹Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
² Harry White, "Evangelists of the Postmodern: "Reconfigurations of Bach since 1985," in Understanding Bach 12 (2017: 85-107), © Bach Network UK, Bach Network UK: 87; critique, "Encountering Bach Today: Historical, Listening, Post-Modern," "New Bach Studies: Evangelists of the Modern," BCW.
³ John Butt, "The Postmodern Mindset, Musicology and the Future of Bach Scholarship," in Understanding Bach 1 (2006: 9-18), © Bach Network UK), Bach Network UK: 13).
⁴ Bach's Theology: several facets are explored in the essay, Theology (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Theology[Hoffman].htm): subjects (sub-headings) with (paragraphs beginning): “Duke Heinrich’s Agenda,” Lutheran services with music, "Bach’s calling for the composition . . . ."; "Martin Petzoldt," leading Bach theologian-scholar, "In the past two decades . . . ."; "Bach's Spirituality and Friedrich Blume," "The impetus for Petzold’s undertaking . . . ."; 'Response," "This lead to many published . . . . " from the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für theologische Bach Forschung, cited in Bigbie (Ibid.: 186, FN 5).
⁵ Bach and Lutheranism: Bach bibliography lists 310 articles on Bach and Luther (Bach-Bibliographie) while Begbie cites Jan Chiapusso's Bach's World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968); Indiana University Press, see especially Chapter 3, "Theology in the Classroom (18-27), and Part 3, Bach's Liturgical Art Work (190-229), "Fulfillment of Lutheran Reform" and the chorale, cantata and Passions/oratorios (Indiana University Press); see also Robin A. Leaver, Bach Studies: Liturgy, Hymnology, and Theology (London: Routledge, 2021, Amazon.com), critique, BCW.
⁶ See Robin A. Leaver, Luther's Liturgical Music: Principles and Implications (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmanns Publishing, 2007; Amazon.com).
⁷ "Eric Chafe is perhaps the most obvious example," says Begbie (Ibid.: 187, FN 7), based on these studies: 1. Tonal Allegory in the Vocal Music of J.S. Bach (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), Amazon.com; 2. Analyzing Bach Cantatas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), Amazon.com; 3. J. S. Bach's Johannine Theology: The St. John Passion and the Cantatas for Spring 1725 (BWV 249, 6, 42, 85; 103, 108, 87, 128, 1, 74, 68, 175, 176) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Amazon.com; 4. Tears into Wine: J. S. Bach's Cantata 21 in its Musical and Theological (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) (plus Weimar Cantatas 61, 63, 152, 182, 12, 172), John Butt review (H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online), Amazon.com, Google Books.
⁸ Bach recent non-traditional studies: Karol Berger, Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), Amazon.com, review, Classical Net; and John Butt, Bach's Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Amazon.com, review, Project Muse. Two critiques of Berger and Butt are found at Berger's “There Is No Time Like God’s Time,” Chapter 3, and the forerunner of Butt's book, “Bach’s Passions and the Textures of Time,” in Matthäus-Passion BWV 244: Early History (A Selective, Annotated Bibliography), BCW: Nos. 31, 32.
⁹ Turbae crowd choruses in all Bach's three Passions (John, Matthew, Mark) show that the antagonists choruses (Jews, Chief Priests, Soldiers) are set as extended fugues while the protagonists (People, Disciples) are set homophonically. Crowd choruses unique to John's Gospel are: 16b(23), "Wäre dieser nicht ein Übelthäter" (If he weren't an evildoer); 16d(25), "Wir dürfen niemand töten" (We're not allowed to kill anyone); 18b(29), "Nicht diesen, sondern Barrabam!" (Not this one, but Barabbas!); 21f(38), "Wir haben ein Gesetz, und nach dem Gesetz soll er sterben" (We have a law, and according to the law he shall die); 23b, (42.); "Lässest du diesen los, so bist du des Kaisers Freund nicht" ( If you let go of this one, you are not Caesar's friend); 23f. (46.), "Wir haben keinen König aber des Kaisers" (We have no king but Caesar); 25b(50), Schreibe nicht: Der Juden König" (Do not write: The King of the Jews); 27b(54), "Lasset uns den nicht zerteilen" (Let's not tear it).
¹⁰ Robin A. Leaver, "J. S. Bach as Preacher: His Passions and Music in Worship," Church Music Pamphlet Series (St. Louis MO: Concordia Publishing, 1984; cited in Matthäus-Passion BWV 244:
Spiritual Sources of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BCW); Leaver calls (Ibid.: 32f) Bach's homiletic oratorio Passions "Sermons in Sound" that prepare for the actual preaching at the Good Friday Vespers with all five rhetorical elements of a sermon and without the need to read the Gospel account of the Passion before the sermon between the two parts of the music which contain the Passion gospel. Bach's Passions are kerygmatic, says Leaver (Ibid.: 25f), proclaiming Jesus as Christ through the portrayal of his suffering, in contrast to the turbulent, vehement crowd choruses, particularly in Bach's St. John Passion.
¹¹ Michael Marissen: Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism, and Bach's St. John Passion: With an Annotated Literal Translation of the Libretto (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), Amazon.com, review, NY Times; in Bach and God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016: Amazon.com), "Bach's St. John Passion and the Jews" (151-157) and Cantata 46 in "Bach's Cantatas and 'the Jews' in the Gospel of John" (122-148); and "Johann Sebastian Bach Was More Religious Than You Might Think," in New York Times (March 30, 2018; NY Times).
¹²"I present a much fuller account of this theme in relation to Bach," says Begbie (Ibid.: 189, FN 39), with "Time and Eternity: Richard Bauckham and the Fifth Evangelist," in In the Fullness of Time: Essays on Christology, Creation, and Eschatology in Honour of Richard Bauckham, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner et al (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmanns, 2016: 29-48), Eeerdamword Blog.
¹³ For an in-depth understanding of the ingredients in Cantata 106, see Bach Cantatas Website Discussion, BCW; music, YouTube.
¹⁴ Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (New York: Convergent, 2019: 13f), Amazon.com; see also, Center for Action and Contemplation.
¹⁵ Peter Williams, The Goldberg Variations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001: 1); (YouTube; article, Wikipedia).
¹⁶ See John Butt, Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), Amazon.com.
¹⁷ John Butt, "Bach's metaphysics of music," in The Cambridge Companion to Bach, ed. John Butt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997: 46-59), Cambidge University Press.
¹⁸ Martin Petzoldt, "The Theological in Bach Research," trans. Mark A.Peters, in Compositional Choices and Meaning in the Vocal Music of J. S. Bach, eds. Mark A. Peters & Reginald Sanders; Contextual Bach Studies No. 8, edited by Robin A.Leaver (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2018: 110), Amazon.com; commentary, BCW: "Theological Context," especially paragraph beginning "Finally, from an historical perspective . . . ."
¹⁹ Jeremy Begbie, Music, Modernity, and God: Essays in Listening; chap 6, "Room of One's Own? Music, Space, and Freedom" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013: 141ff), Amazon.com.
¹⁹Another use of sorrow with joy invthe closing "rest in the grave" choruses from the Bach Passions, blending texts of grief with triple-time dance music: John, "Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine" (Rest in peace, you sacred limbs), as a menuett YouTube; Matthew, "Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder" (We sit down with tears), as a saraband (YouTube), and Mark, "Bey deinem Grab und Leichen-Stein / Will ich mich stets, mein Jesus, weiden" (By thy rock grave and great tombstone, will I myself, my Jesus, pasture), as a gigue. Bach blends both time worlds, using Ecclesiastes 3:4, "a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;" (KJV), music, YouTube.

—————

To come: Rethinking Bach, Chapter 8, David Yearsley, "Bach the Humorist."

Zachary Uram wrote (March 10, 2022):
[To William L. Hoffman] Thank you William for another well-documented and in-depth post!

The topic of Bach and theology is of great interest to me as a Reformed Protestant. I think it's rather ridiculous to say Bach's music is anti-Judaism, this is like saying the moon is anti-sun. Christianity grew out of Judaism, Christ is a Jew, The 12 Disciples and later Paul were all Jews, but Christian faith represents a clear inflection point away from a strictly Judaic paradigm to something which is still Jewish yet altogether different. If Jesus really is the prophesied Messiah then the Apostles were the most fully realized Jews! And to discuss the Gospels, which form the libretto of Bach's music, as being anti-Judaic or even worse anti-Semitic represents in my view a flawed analysis and a shallow understanding of the Gospels and their authors. Paul clearly says he would even renounce his own personal salvation if it could save his fellow Jews whom he so loved. That doesn't sound like a man who is anti-Judaism. Functionally any serious departure from Second Temple Judaism would be, according to such critics as Michael Marissen, anti-Judaic. Which is itself an absurd position to take. In mathematics, we build on a foundation of knowledge to advance into greater knowledge. We don't say algebra is inferior to calculus. We don't say calculus is anti-algebra!

Some people are looking for some intent or dark motives of discrimination in the Biblical texts which just doesn't exist. Yes, one's Judaism would change substantially if they, as a Jew, became a Christian, but part of your fundamental identity is still rooted in Jewishness and the Judaism of your fathers. This reminds me of when Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ came out and some Jewish groups claimed it was explicitly anti-semitic since it portrayed Jews as being hateful towards Jesus and harsh in their judgment of him. I have seen this film several times, and have talked to some Jewish friends who saw it and they didn't see this "obvious" anti-semitism. If we become so sensitive in our discourse we cannot portray events in a historical and accurate way without seeing prejudice because of the cold hard facts, then we fall into a very dangerous place such as censorship and modern Cancel Culture. Where it's not sufficient to be opposed to racism, one must subscribe to anti-racism as codified by Critical Race Theorists.

Would these groups who see anti-Semitism in Bach be satisfied if Bach had butchered the Biblical text the way Thomas Jefferson did with his Bible? Would they be finally satisfied? I think not. Then we'd hear complaints of how Jews are not being given enough of a prominent role. It never ends. Such "critics" cannot be satisfied. Being Jewish was from the beginning about Abraham's covenant obedience before God, his faith in God's Word. By that frame of reference, every Christian is a spiritual Jew. In fact, we Gentiles are grafted into the tree. We don't have specific cultural practices or religious rituals. But I see Jews and Christians as being able to call upon the same God. To become truly one People in Christ whether born Jewish or Christian. Back to Bach's music. I think we must be sensitive to the feelings of various groups who have an interest at stake. We should welcome their respectful criticism and use it as a means of establishing greater mutual understanding and respect. This doesn't mean we label Bach personally or artistically as an anti-semite or even an anti-Judaite without very strong proof. Bach is not here to defend himself. I know that Bach loved a Jew above all others. I have not seen in Bach's Calov Bible even the faintest or remote hint of anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism. Nor in his extant letters. Bach's music speaks for yourself. If you are listening to this beautiful transcendent music of the St. John Passion and your strongest impression is "This is anti-Semitic!" then I posit that reveals far more problems with the listener than it does with Bach or his music.

So in summation, if you want to use such extremely damning (culturally, intellectually, religiously) accusations against a person whether it is Bach or a contemporary you better have a very sound case based on irrefutable proof! In my considered view, Bach was no anti-Semite or anti-Judaic (which is a very badly developed category error) in his personal beliefs, nor expressed in his music.

<<Rethinking Bach>>, Chapter 8, David Yearsley, "Bach the Humorist"

William L. Hoffman wrote (March 18, 2022):
While the recent essay collection in Rethinking Bach,¹ Chapter 7, Jeremy Begbie's "Bach and Theology", has strands of meanings that enhance certain musical qualities, the next essay, Chapter 8, David Yearsley's "Bach the Humorist," examines a radically different subject often avoided in Bach scholarship. In contrast to Bach's works' "supposed profundity, did the composer's music indeed lack a sense of humor?," asks the collection's editor, Bettina Varwig, in her "Introduction: (Still) Talking about Bach" (Ibid.: 4). She cites "a deliberate tuning out of the sometimes subtle, sometimes raucous hilarity that infused both Bach's social life and his musical vocabulary." This "not only delimits our listening experiences and range of performing styes, but also ultimately dehumanizes his music by divorcing it from the lived realities of its creation and reception." "Such challenges to certain long-standing tropes in Bach reception may well bring about gradual shifts in what 'Bach' can and does stand for in the Western cultural imagination." Yearsley's "Bach the Humorist" begins with an early historical reception history of the lighter side of Bach and selective Bach works, primarily keyboard works, as well as the contemporary moralists written perspective. Yearsley selectively reveals humor at length in the first Brandenburg Concerto, especially involving the hunting horns, and briefly the Goldberg Variations closing Quodlibet. The next section below, "Critique/Commentary," shows that contextual concerns provide a broader and deeper perspective on certain elements in the first Brandenburg Concerto, such as the original version, "Sinfonia in F," BWV 1046.1, opening Bach's first "modern" Cantata 208 of 1713 with its important ingredients representative of the interests at the duchy of Saxe-Weißenfels such as Tafelmusik, the Arcadian neo-classical literary style, the importance of the horn in German musical style and the use of the horn in other Bach's works. Also considered are the influential lyrics of poets Christian Heinrich Postel and Christian Friedrich Hunold (pen-name Menantes) on Bach's music and a concluding view below of "Bach and Mannerism."

Bach Humor: Historical Perspective, Selective Works

Yearsley's exploration of Bach humor begins with an early reception history² accounting by Bach's second son Emanuel in the 1754 Obituary (Nekrolog) of Bach's personality (NBR: 305) and the 1802 first biography of Nikolaus Forkel citing humorous works such as the Coffee Cantata (BWV 211). This "aspect of his artistic personality has found little resonance over more than two centuries since Forkel," says Ye(Ibid.: 193), with "Bach's musical wit" "symptomatic of a broader, though now slackening, musicological reticence toward humor, one shared by, or perhaps even inherited from philosophy" (Ibid.: 193f). "The emphasis on Bach the high-minded composer has long affected not only scholarly views of the composer, but also performances of his work," he says (Ibid.: 194). Yearsley, keyboard performer who has written three important Bach monographs,³ observes: "The tendency towards humorlessness in Bach studies has a venerable pedigree," beginning with Philipp Spitta, Bach first, exemplary, magisterial biographer, who berated Cantata 205 (YouTube, BCW) for the librettist Picander's mixture of styles, and "lofty framing choruses appropriate, Spitta implies, only for sacred music," says Yearsley (Ibid.: 195). Yearsley continues with the goal of "reanimating Bach as adept musical humorist" (Ibid.; (196), eschewing the usual comic works and Bach humor commentary,⁴ "to open up possibilities," focusing on the keyboard Partitas, BWV 825-31 (Ibid.: 197-200), and especially on the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, BWV 1046 (Ibid.: 204-219), with passing references to the concluding quodlibet in the Goldberg Variations (Ibid.; 197, 199, 203, 219, 220n12), the Bach Family wedding Quodlibet, BWV 524 (Ibid.: 201, 203, 222n21 & 22),⁵ and the Art of Fugue Contrapunctus 6 (Ibid.: 219), as well as a catalogue of German contemporary criticisms of humor (Ibid.: 201, 210f, 218f).

Keyboard Partita Humor; Moralists Perspective

With his expertise in keyboard performing, Yearsley initially focuses on Bach's Partita No. 1 in B-Fat, BWV 825, with its "challenging hand-crossing games" (Ibid.: 197), notably the closing Gigue (YouTube: 18:22). The first of four Bach published Clavierübung (keyboard exercise) were "to delight the spirit" (Ibid.: 198). Yearsley calls it a bagatelle of "light music," "to borrow Emanuel Bach's adjective." Yearsley compares the music to Domenico Scarlatti's Essercizi 32 sonatas (London, 1738, YouTube), "possibly an inspiration" for the Goldbergs, and "full of hand-crossings and other flamboyances." In the Partita No. 3, BWV 827, the inserted Galanterien character dances (Wikipedia) are of particular note (Ibid.: 198), the Burlesca and Scherzo (YouTube). "Bach included in the Partitas plentiful portions of lighter jocose fare," says Yearsley (Ibid.: 199). The "alternation between the serious and the jocular was characteristic of comic suites of the period," with the Clavierübung series of "madcap gestures and unexpected juxtapositions." Forkel also "had heartily approved of the kind of fun that enlivened the Bach family reunions and wedding celebrations" that gave rise to the "ribald revelry of quodlibets" (Wikipedia), says Yearsley (Ibid.: 200). Various German moralist treatise writers, such as those with a Pietist bent, disapproved of offensive and excessive jokes and jests,⁶ as described in Yearsley (Ibid.: 201-04).

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1

Turning to "Bach's possible attempts at humor in the elevated style favored by moralists and commentators, and lauded by Forkel," Yearsley devotes the bulk of his essay (16 of 28 pages with 10 of the orchestral score) to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1. He calls these concertos "a collection that I believe brims with sublime Bachian humor" (Ibid.: 203), citing Michael Marissen's study⁷ in part as "a critique of worldly hierarchies" with humor (Ibid.: 223n39). Yearsley cites the opening movement with the seeming discordant two hunting horn parts "as simply a picturesque evocation of the chaos of the hunt" with "Bach pushing the aural topography far beyond that of his contemporaries, and humor, it seems to me, is a fruitful, pleasurable way too hear the cantankerousness of the contending forces" (Ibid.: 204f). Various contemporary articles on courtly pursuits, feasts, cavaliers, and court jesters Yearsley cites (Ibid.: 205, 210f) to support his perspective. The third movement Allegro (YouTube: 8:24) is another jaunty gallop (Ibid.: 213) while the final movement, appended dance galanterie (ibid.; 216f: IV Menuetto - Trio I - Polacca - Trio II: 12:31) is "a colorful international procession," says Yearsley (Ibid.; 217), "a pageant of nations." This initial concerto is described as a concerto grosso with concertino soloists (three oboes, two hunting horns) and the string ensemble as ripieno while the structure is a traditional Vivaldian three-movement form of fast-slow-fast, with the hybrid form in the concluding dance movement. The "metrical mayhem and comic cacophony" "might well reveal a flamboyant and calculated desire to be heard as a musical jester," Yersley summarizes (Ibid.; 219), a "gallimaufry" (Ibid.; 213). In a brief appendix (Ibid.; 219), Yearsley cites the "physical humor of the Goldberg Variations, with their cross-handed pyrotechnics overlaid on canonic artifice, and concluding with a quodlibet that is both rustic and erudite." In a concluding side note, Yearsley, observes that the Goldberg Variations, instead of concluding (No. 30) with an erudite canon, ends with another playful quodlibet (YouTube; extended commentary, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/BWV988-Quodlibet[Braatz].htm) which he calls "an incongruous contrapuntal stew using two folk melodies."⁸ Thus, Bach had his cake and ate it, too.

Critique/Commentary

Although Yearsley finds passages in the first Brandenburg Concerto that may have inferences of humor from a listening perspective, with imaginary flights of fancy, contextual concerns provide a broader and deeper perspective on certain elements in this work. The earliest version of this concerto was the Sinfonia in F, BWV 1046a=1071, now BWV 1046.1 (Bach Digital], copied in April 1760 (Bach Digital) by Bach ?student and major copyist Christian Friedrich Penzel (1737-1801, BCW). Penzel, who copied the first three Brandenburg Concertos from extant Leipzig sources, wrote out in full score the first, second and fourth movement (minus the polonaise). "This is the same key (F major) as the [homage Hunting] cantata (BWV 208) and is scored for an identical ensemble, except that it does not require flutes," says Malcolm Boyd in his Brandenburg Concertos monograph.⁹ "What is unusual for a homage cantata of such dimensions (YouTube, BCW), says Boyd (Ibid.: 12), is that, in the form in which it has come down to us [BWV 208.1, Bach Digital], it begins neither with an imposing chorus nor with an instrumental introduction, but with a simple recitative accompanied by continuo only." Cantata 208 was premiered on Monday, 27 February 2013 at the Jägerhof in Weißenfels, a former hunting lodge, for the birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weißenfels (1682-1736. "Bach clearly felt that these three movements, as they stood, were hardly suitable for a volume of concertos, and he therefore set about making the work more concerto-like by introducing an extra movement [Allegro] placed third, with a solo part for the violino piccolo," says Boyd (Ibid.: 60). 'Presumably he did this at some time between 17and 1721, with the margrave's commission in mind . . . ." Later in Leipzig, Bach used the opening Allegro, BWV 1046.2/1,¹⁰ as a sinfonia opening soprano solo Cantata 52, "Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht!" (False world, I do not trust you!; YouTube) for the 23rd Sunday after Trinity 1726, "contrasting the world's speciousness with God's loyalty . . . the aristocratic elements become the word's vainglory," says Marissen (Ibid.: 26).

Various musical and dramatic elements are found in Cantata 208, "Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd" (What Gives Me Pleasure Is Only The Lively Hunt, librettist Salomo Franck of Saxe-Weimar) as representative of the duchy of Saxe-Weißenfels. It was part of the genre of Tafelmusik (table music for the feast), which in its most elaborate form as a profane vocal celebratory serenade was presented in the evenings as static opera for private court entertainment. The progressive Italian operatic style of original poetry was set as recitatives, arias, and occasional choruses. The literary elements showed the influences of the Italian Arcadian Academy (Britannica) neo-classical pastorale literary style and convention in song and dance, focusing on country life, simplicity in nature and the symbol of the shepherd. The hunting horn played a major role in the development of German style music. Because of "strong associations with aristocracy and the outdoor life of the privileged classes," says Marissen (Ibid.: 22), "the original effect of horns in early eighteenth-century concerted music was probably much more evocative than we might suspect today," he suggests (Ibid.; 23). "The fanfares in Reinhard Keiser's Octavia" [Wikipedia] at the Hamburg Opera in 1705, "provide an early example of the coloristic employment of horns for evoking the salubrity of the outdoors and grandeur of aristocratic life." (It is possible that pure-hymn Cantata 100, "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan" (What God does that is well done), was premiered c1732 for Duke Christian at Weißenfels or Sangerhausen, according to recent findings.¹¹) The bass aria "Quoniam" in Bach's B-minor Mass (YouTube) shows that the "horn's affective connotations highlight the image of God's entry into the world as a human being in the form of Christ the King," says Marissen (Ibid.: 23). Other Bach uses of the horn include Birthday Cantata 213 (YouTube), the bass aria "Es nehme zehntausend Dukaten" in the Peasant Cantata BWV 212 (YouTube: 19:07), Cantata 205/1, 11, 15 (YouTube), and New Year's Cantata 143 (YouTube). At the Cöthen court where the Brandenburg Concertos were completed, records show (Friedrich Smend, Bach in Köthen, 1985 Eng. ed., p. 190) that guest instrumentalists (violinists, a lutenist, horn players) were employed. Meanwhile, two Arcadian-influenced poets were active: Christian Heinrich Postel (1658-1705) and Christian Friedrich Hunold (pen-name Menantes, 1681-1721), were librettists associated with the Hamburg opera.¹² Three numbers in the St. John Passion are based on texts of Postel: 19. bass aria "Betrachte, meine Seel" (Consider, my soul), 22. chorale "Durch dein Gefängnis, Gottes Sohn" (Through your imprisonment, Son of God), and 30. alto aria "Es ist vollbracht!" (It is accomplished!). While Capellmeister at Köthen, Bach collaborated with court poet Hunold on at least four annual celebratory serenades for Prince Leopold (BWV 1147=Anh. 5, BWV 1151=Anh. 6, BWV 1153=Anh. 8, BWV 66.1, 134.1), as well as Cantata 204 in Leipzig.

Bach and Mannerism

Musical mannerism is a concept highly debatable. Historically, it involves consistent exaggeration and distortion of fundamental or progressive musical elements, particularly in transitional periods of musical styles. It is described in the “ars subitillior” rhythmic complexity movement of the late 14th century chanson transition from Medieval to Renaissance music; in the development of the motet and madrigal using “motivicity” in the Franco Flemish composers of the 16th century; in the harmonic audacity of Gesulado and the musical rhetoric and new style of Claudio Monteverdi transitioning to the Baroque period c. 1600; the late studied works and mixed styles of early modern Bach (1730-40); and in the Mannheim school with surging dynamics, rhythm and rising scales of the pre-Classical-Romantic era c.1770.¹³ Mannerism also is applied to the late-romantic music of Mahler, as well as current styles (William Hoffman, “Mannerism in Music,” paper for Mus 513, “Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music,” University of New Mexico, 2010). One notable recent study is Charles B. Lahan Jr. 2016 dissertation, Musical Mannerism: a Recurring Stylistic Phenomenon in Keyboard Variations by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and Liszt (University of Oklahoma). His abstract (University of Oklahoma) addresses the history of mannerism and its recurring in classical keyboard works, including Bach's Goldberg Variations, Chapter 3, "Analysis of Bach's Goldberg Variations." Returning to Yearsley's "Bach the Humorist" and his findings in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, it is possible that as Bach in 1713 mastered the art of composition with his first "modern" cantata, BWV 208, he already was looking ahead stylistically while the extra-musical factors came into play. Imagine Bach at the Jägerhof in Weißenfels presenting the Sinfonia in F with the corni di caccia imitating the sounds outside while the rest of the hierarchical ensemble introduces the evening's presentation. We still have much to find and learn.

ENDNOTES

<<Rethinking Bach>>, Part III, Meanings; Chapter 9, Daniel R. Melamed, "Rethinking Bach Codes"

William L. Hoffman wrote (April 7, 2022):
Following essays on theology and humor, the new Bach essay collection, Rethinking Bach,¹ turns to Chapter 9, Daniel R. Melamed, "Rethinking Bach Codes," where musicology in the past 100 years has established and probed speculative theories that involve Bach's hidden structural secrets in his works, particularly methods of numerology and symbolism. "But should we accept it as a given that Bach's music holds deep structural secrets expressed in notational symbols or numerical codes?," asks Bettina Varwig, editor of Rethinking Bach in her Introduction (Ibid.: 4). "Daniel R. Melamed suggests that some fundamental rethinking may be long overdue here, not least in order to counteract the removal of Bach's works from everyday life and concerns into a self-contained sphere of the occult." Whatever the original motivations were, "most speculative hypotheses are not subject to disproof," says Melamed in his conclusion (Ibid.: 245), engendering a pronounced skepticism towards "the origin of almost all of these theories in a small cluster of early-twentieth century studies" by various German musicologists, especially through circular, inductive and self-confirming, -fulfilling reasoning. Melamed, professor of music in musicology at the Indiana University (see Bach Bibliography, Bach-Bibliographie) finds these theories "fundamentally historically ungrounded," despite referring to "original musical sources or contemporary writings on rhetoric or proportions or numbers or symbols." (Perhaps what is needed is the concept of an "historically-informed" perspective as it relates to "critical," "authentic" musical performance [Wikipedia]). "And we can recognize the needs that these methods, which share so many features, appear to fill for those trying to understand Bach from a modern-day perspective." Thus the original motivations create special analytical methods that give rise to all manner of opportunities, thereby making the case, proving the validity of each theory. Says Melamed: "Bach, for many among the wider public, is a composer in symbols and codes, even if they [many among the wide public] do not know why they think so, thus creating a receptive audience for almost any theory." Bach as "a composer of symbols and codes," is Melamed's description, based upon his summary of speculative Bach theoretical studies in eight categories with supporting sources in the previous section of his essay, "What is Gained?" (Ibid.: 241-244). He cautions (Ibid.: 245): "It would be more encouraging to believe that rethinking this matter would make people more skeptical of speculative theories. But this image of Bach may be beyond thought by now, representing an unmovable conviction about who he was. That will be much more difficult to rethink."

Introduction: Past Bachian Written Theories

In his introduction, Melamed chronicles (Ibid.: 227) past Bachian written theories which involve "routinely count[ing] measures . . . to find hidden relationships" [Tatlow; Siegele WTC], "the shape of letters . . . in autograph scores to find pictorial and symbolic meanings" [Lehman "Extraordinary"], "embedded hymn tunes . . . to make them secret epitaphs for the departed" Thoene or "pythagorean relationships" in manuscripts [Dentler Art of Fugue]. Melamed's bill of indictment covers "seemingly endless deciphering, codebreaking, and revealing of hidden meanings" "to point outside music to theology, autobiography, classical writings, astronomy, mathematics, and countless other subjects." Thus, "abstract instrumental pieces carry theological meanings, and even religious works are not just exegeses of their texts; they are complex webs of mathematically constructed symbolism, making theological points with numbers, emblems, and coded scriptural references." Observing that "no speculative literature is remotely the size of that on Bach, Melamed (Ibid.: 227) asks various musicological/critical questions and provides answers in the essay. These involve how the trend started, why the studies proliferate with "new theories seemingly emerging every year," and "why Bach far more than other composers." Most important is Melamed's first query: "Why? What do the authors of thesspeculative interpretations believe they gain by them?" He suggests that the "minimal truth value of these theories . . . "is less instructive than their existence and tenacity." "If we are going to rethink our relationship to Bach we need to examine what these kind of interpretation mean to adherents and why they persist. At the least, we can point to patterns in the claims they make, the language they use, and in the implicit or explicit motivations behind them? Melamed begins his judgement (Ibid.: 228) with the generalization that these theories "are all speculative to a greater or lesser degree, that is they are not corroborated by firm historical evidence outside the notes (even though may delve into the historical context of they interpretations they espouse." He offers a personal caveat: "I am less concerned here with the correctness of individual hypotheses than with the need to adopt a more critical attitude to them altogether." He outlines his critical methodology: to "highlight the reasons why people take and accept these approaches, and consider the interpretive gaps the methods appear to fill, we can bring a healthier sense of skepticism to a musical world that appears all to eager to embrace speculative ideas about Bach and coded meaning in his music."

The Establishment of the Approach

Melamed begins in his first section, "The Establishment of the Approach" (Ibid.: 228-232), with a reception history account of German musicologists and Bach experts finding initial coded meaning from 1925 to 1950. He summarizes initial 1922-23 claims of Wilhelm Werker, followed by "criticism and challenges from several prominent writers" such as Arnold Schering, Georg Schünemann, Alfred Heuß, and Rudolf Steglich. The "first significant publication along these lines," says Melamed (Ibid.: 229) was Schering's essay "Bach und das Symbol" (1925 Bach-Jahrbuch), especially in canon technique emphasizing numbers and lost knowledge in religious works, bringing the "redirection of the focus towards Bach's sacred music." Melamed then cites selective examples of Karl Ziebler and Wilhelm Leutge, providing "context for field-defining studies by Martin Jansen (1937) on Bach number symbolism such as psalm numbers (Ibid.: 230) in Bach's "Aufbauplan" (structural plan)² for a large work, foreshadowing the importance of architecture and planning in many later studies." "The idea that musical or theological secrets lay behind compositions and that they were fundamentally puzzles quickly became essential to speculative Bach studies," says Melamed (Ibid.: 230). Melamed then turns at length (Ibid.: 231) to Friedrich Smend's bicentennial booklet, Johann Sebastian Bach bei seinem Namen gerufen: eine Notenschrift und ihre Deutung (Johann Sebastian Bach Called by His Name: a Notation and its Interpretation, 1950),³ beginning with the six-voice puzzle canon, BWV 1076, found in the 1748 portrait of Bach by Elias Gottlob Haussmann (Ibid.: 231).⁴ From this come lasting speculative theories that Bach puzzles (riddles) have clues to their solutions and unusual notations, says Melamed (Ibid.): To decode the intellectual content of these puzzles requires a familiarity with "the vocabulary and grammar of number symbolism," such as the number alphabet, also called gematria (Wikipedia), notably the numerical representation of Bach's name: B + A + C + H = 2 + 1 + 3 + 8 = 14. "With the publication of Smend's essay, the establishment of speculative Bach studies was complete," says Melamed (Ibid.: 232), with Bach's works "framed as puzzles to be solved and as carriers of symbolic meanings to be decoded." Melamed summarizes (Ibid.; 232) that since "1950, most new speculative theories have come from amateurs and non-Bach specialists," while "a few scholars known for academic scholarship on Bach have taken up these methods as well in the footsteps of Schering, Smend, and Jansen," and Wilibald Gurlitt on the keyboard suites in 1949 and Walter Serauky on Bach's cantatas in 1950. More recent are Walter Blankenburg on the B-minor Mass (1986); Ulrich Siegele on the BmM (2013) and the Well-Tempered Clavier and other instrumental collections (2006, see below, "Presumption and Pervasiveness"), and Ruth Tatlow (BmM, 2013; other vocal-instrumental works, and many instrumental collections, 2015), "have pursued these methods from within the academy."⁵ "The inclusion of their essays on speculative topics in scholarly collections and the appearance of books on respected publishers' lists have almost certainly contributed to the continued life of numerical and symbolic claims about Bach." Melamed repeats his allegation that esoteric scholarly and amateur work "rests on the same unproven foundation — "the belief that Bach worked in this way in the first place, a premise now taken as self-evident."⁶

Presumption and Pervasiveness

In the next section, "Presumption and Pervasiveness" (Ibid.: 233f), Melamed establishes Bach interest in the last decade involving "theoretical" musical creations of polyphonic self-theme and variations (see "Wolff Polyphony: Art of Fugue, BCW). "Integral to the composer's aim are several traits characteristic of his late style," says Alan Street,⁷ cited in Melamed (Ibid.: 233), "notably an exhaustive treatment of thematic potential and reliance upon seemingly mathematical — especially canonic abstraction." "Bach's exhaustive treatment of themes is widely considered self-evident in works like the Art of Fugue, the Goldberg Variations, and the canonic variations on Vom Himmel hoch; so, for Street, are his mathematical tendencies," says Melamed (Ibid.: 233). Again, Melamed turns to historical reception to "trace chains of this presumption" (Ibid.), beginning with scholar Ulrich Siegele in 1962, "of Bach's supposed use of the Golden Section" on divine proportions, followed by scholarly affirmations in 2001 and 2012. Siegele in his 2006 study of the Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC) affirms the importance of the numbers of measures in Bach's keyboard music collections. "This view of Bach began to be incorporated into biographical thinking as well," says Melamed (Ibid.: 233), as well as mathematical symbolism, citing Ruth Tatlow's Bach's Numbers (Ibid.: 234). Various musicologists and Bach works Melamed cites (Ibid.): David Humphreys, Clavier-Übung III; Zoltan Göncz, Musical Offering Ricercar, BWV 1077 canon, St. John Passion; Ulrich Siegele, WTC, B-minor Mass; and Tatlow, "pieces and collections of every kind" in Bach's Numbers.

"Secrets" in Puzzles

In the next section, "Secrets" about puzzles (clues, devices, keys) that Bach deliberately hid to be decoded (Ibid.; 234-36), referencing Smend's Bach bei seinem Namen gerufen, Melamed cites (Ibid.: 235) pianist Cory Hall claiming a "secret system of tempo"; violinist Helga Thoene's hidden texts, names, and chorales in the Chaconne from the Violin Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 (YouTube; Göncz's Musical Offering Ricercar, BWV 1077 canon (YouTube); Ludwig Prautzsch's "a secret language" in Bach's works" (see Bach Bibliography);⁸ and Alberto Basso's foreword to Hans-Eberhard Dentler's Art of Fugue monograph.⁹ "The image of a Bach composition as a puzzle leads to a language of clues," says Melamed, citing the "formal structure of the ricercar provides a cue," says Göncz, cited in Melamed ('The secret codes of the Six-part Ricercar": 47; Ibid.; 235). "Along with puzzles goes a belief in the presence of keys to solving them," says Melamed (Ibid.). He cites the title of "harpsichordist Bradley Lehman's article¹⁰ on Bach's supposedly coded temperament calls the squiggle at the top of an autograph score [WTC I, Bach Digital] a "Rosetta stone." For Street (Ibid.: 108, "the key which unlocks Bach's seemingly [secretive, mystical] cabbalistic intentions is that of rhetoric," says Melamed (Ibid.). TakinSmend's and Jansen's original perspective on the six-voice puzzle canon, BWV 1076 (see above, "The Establishment of the Approach"), Melamed says that for Dentler (Ibid.: 39), "the puzzle of the portrait canon is the key to understanding Bach altogether." "Secrets and puzzles have keys, and one need only look carefully enough for them to grasp Bach and his music."¹¹ Other coding is explored that involves canons in abbreviated notation in Bach's hand (Ibid.: 235f), BWV 1072-1080 (Classical.net, BCW), particularly the portrait canon, BWV 1076, and the 14 various canons on the Goldberg Variations, BWV 1087. "Speculative writers often interpret these canons as evidence that all his music works this way — that something significant lies unnotated in every composition," says Melamed (Ibid.: 236). Another pervasive indicator is the number 14, Bach's name in number alphabet ( B + A + C + H = 2 + 1 + 3 + 8 = 14 ), which Bach did "attach personal significance to it," he says (Ibid.), as well as other numerical references, in a few vocal works such as Bach's intention to set the 11 of 12 disciples responding "Herr, bin ichs?" (Lord, is it I) in the St. Matthew Passion (YouTube). The sacred numbers 3 and 7 also are blanket indicators, says Melamed, while 3 representing the Holy Trinity "is everywhere in the collection of organ works Clavier-Übung III (1739), says Nicholas Kenyon.¹² Further, Melamed says there is "a tendency to assume the potential significance of any number, especially the numbers of measures in a work," such as "84" written at the end of "Patrem omnipotentem" of the B-minor Mass, which Melamed sees "as a routine aid in copying," not of symbolic significance. "This mode of thinking is quickly extended by many speculative writers who attribute meaning to implicit numbers (measure counts, chapters and verses of biblical quotations, and so on), said to be invoked in Bach's music." |

Science/Perfection/Unity; Strategies and Their Implications

In the next section, "Science/Perfection/Unity" (Ibid.: 237-39), Melamed reviews "Promoters of speculative theories about Bach, especially mathematical ones," such as John S. St. Marie, Prautzsch, Hall, Tatlow, Humphreys, Siegele, Lehman, Bernhard Kistler-Liebendörfer, and two controversial speculators, Martin Jarvis¹³ that Ana Magdalena Bach composed the Six Solo Cello Suites, and Helga Thoene¹⁴ that the Chaconne is a tribute to Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara, based upon the symbolism of the numerical patterns and hidden chorale quotations. Summarizes Melamed: "Here the mystical, the perfect, the superlative, and the transcendent all combine into a view of Bach that cannot be meaningfully challenged." In the next section, "Strategies and Their Implications" (Ibid.: 239-241), Melamed finds (Ibid.: 239): "Most speculative theories about Bach depend on relationships among numbers, notes, and texts, and writers employ some consistent strategies to connect them." These include enumerating musical elements such as Smend's number alphabet of notes and text — "a method of equating musical figures and literal textual meanings" and "another tool in the search for hidden meanings: references to chorale melodies," lead by Arnold Schering in 1925 "Bach und das Symbol." The "ability to 'translate' at will among notes, verbal texts, and numbers . . . opens infinite possibilities of interpretation," with measure/note counting determined through numbers and notes, chorales through texts and notes, and number alphabet through text and numbers (Figure 9.1: 240). "The search for the anomalous has flourished since" Smend, Melamed says, citing various writers (Ibid.: 40f).

What Is Gained?

In the substantial, summarizing final section, Melamed rhetorically asks, "What Is Gained?" (Ibid.: 241-245). "Speculative studies" of Bach with "commonalities of language, attitude, and approach" involve a "confluence of many factors" in eight procedural possibilities: 1. Studies "challenge to accepted and mainstream understandings of Bach," citing Dentler and Jarvis (241f); 2. Speculative methods provide "insight into Bach's otherwise largely unknowable compositional process,"¹⁵ citing Thoene and Jarvis (242); 3. Speculative approaches "offer explanations for the greatness of Bach's music, or potentially the true value of a composition," citing Dentler and Blankenburg (242f), 4. Some writers speculative approaches "find theological significance in works not obviously religious in character," another trend started with Smend (243), 5. Speculative approaches "allow Bach's music to be connected to extra-musical phenomena (243): Golden Section (Luetge, Power, St. Marie), Quintilian rhetorical treatise (Ursula Kirkendale, Street); 6. Speculative approaches "provide a way into music that is not well-understood in eighteenth-century analytical terms" with "speculative explanations of the organization of Bach's music as a substitute for historically relevant analytical understanding" (244); 7. Speculative studies, "especially theories of coded meaning, are often fundamentally non-musical" (244); and 8. Subjective speculative approaches "provide a means of understanding the expressive content of pre-romantic music" which "connect abstract music to extra-musical realms."

"At the same time, Bach's music has been absorbed into the modern repertory," observes Melamed (Ibid.; 244). "A lot of it, especially the instrumental music, is not quite 'early music'; it is seen rather as part of a common-practice continuum" (Wikipedia). "Bach's music is nonetheless resistant to Romantic interpretive approaches" in meaning but not as performance practice, while little is known of "his personal life in a way that allows for biographical explanations of the expressive content of pieces." "Esoteric interpretations" can "convey meaning . . . expressive to a degree sympathetic to Romantic ideals." 'In an age that expects emotional, political, or personal expressiveness and communication from music of all kinds, Bach's has the potential to disappoint when its goals are arguably purely musical; for example, in the demonstration of the possibilities of subject, genre, or technique." His closing paragraphs are personal commentary where he criticizes commentators seeking expressiveness that speculative "approaches are a tool for finding that meaning." He finds that "rhetoric" in the second half of the 20th century "as an analytic and interpretive tool for Baroque music may point to a desire to re-inject expressiveness into early-eighteenth century music after the authenticity movement self-consciously distanced itself from Romantic esthetics." In his closing commentary (245), Melamed repeats several criticisms about "speculative hypotheses" originating in a small group of early 20th century studies "historically ungrounded" and that the methods of rhetoric, proportions, numbers, or symbols still continue to fill untethered. Here is his last paragraph: "Bach, for many among the wider public, is a composer in symbols and codes, even if they do not know why they think so, thus creating a receptive audience for almost any theory. It would be encouraging to believe that rethinking this matter would make more people skeptical of speculative theories. But this image of Bach may be beyond thought by now, representing an unmovable conviction about who he was. That will be much more difficult to think."

Postscript

Based upon this last paragraph, Melamed's essay should be retitled "Dismissing Bach Codes," given his aversion to the topic, treated IMHO with cynicism, ridicule, and skepticism. Also read Melamed's 2021 companion essay cited in Footnote 5), "'Parallel Proportions' in J. S. Bach's Music," in Eighteenth-Century Music, Vol. 18 No. 1, Cambridge University Press. Here is Melamed's first ending Reference: "For a history of speculative Bach interpretation and a consideration of its significance see Daniel R. Melamed, ‘Rethinking Bach Codes’, in Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig (New York: Oxford University Press, in press). In that essay I acknowledge ways in which numbers apparently were significant to early eighteenth-century musicians (the personal number 14 to Bach, for example) [see page 231], but to a degree much less than has been asserted in our time and in ways very different from the numerical codes that have been claimed for Bach. On this subject see also Tatlow, Ruth, Bach and the Riddle of the Number Alphabet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) Google Scholar. Melamed also derides the use of classical rhetoric in scholarly studies (see Bach Bibliography Bach-Bibliographie. He also has an aversion to parody (see "Parody": Obsession or Transformation, BCW).

I would cite three readings which offer other perspectives:

1. Ruth Tatlow's article, "Number Symbolism," in Oxford Composer Companions: J. S. Bach, ed.Malcolm Boyd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999: 320ff), Amazon.com, discussion BCW.
2. Part II, Structure and Proportion, in Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass, eds. Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver & Jan Smaczny (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013: 142-62), Amazon.com: Chapter 6. "Some observations on the formal design of Bach's B-minor Mass," Ulrich Siegele; Chapter 7. Chiastic reflection in the B-minor Mass: lament's paradoxical mirror," Melvin P. Unger; Chapter 8. Parallel proportions, numerical structures, and Harmonie in Bach's autograph score, Ruth Tatlow.
3. Robin A. Leaver, "J. S. Bach as Preacher: His Passions and Music in Worship," Church Music Pamphlet Series (St. Louis, 1984: 27-35), Bach's Passion as "Sermons in Sound" rhetorical form: Exordium, Proposito, Tractatio, Applicatio, Conclusio (see also Spiritual Sources of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, "Sermon's in Sound," BCW.

ENDNOTES

¹Rethinking Bach, ed. Bettina Varwig (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2021: 193-225), Amazon.com: "Look inside."
² Bach's Aufbauplan (Structural Plan) goes by various symmetrically structural terms such as "chiastic" (cross-like), "arch-form," "palindrome," and reversible "mirror form." The best-known examples are Cantata 4, Cantata 106, the Magnificat, the St. John Passion (particularly its elaborate scheme of crowd-choruses with clusters of repetitive melodies, see Footnote 6 below), the Motet "Jesu, meine Freude," the Christmas Oratorio, and the Credo in the B-minor Mass; Bach's Passion symmetrical structures are discussed in William Hoffman, "Bach's Leipzig Passions: Common Features," in Narrative Parody in Bach's St. Mark Passion (Master's Thesis, University of New Mexico; May 2000, updated Mar. 2012), BCW.
³ "For a detailed discussion of the working relationship between Smend and Jansen," says Melamed (Footnote 11: 246), "see Ruth Tatlow, Bach and the Riddle of the Number Alphabet (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991: 20-34); for Smend's work not cited in Melamed, read Tatlow's "the Smend-Jansen working method" (35-ff, Google Books) and Tatlow's "B-A-C-H and other forms of in number alphabets" in Bach's Numbers: Compositional Proportion and Significance (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015: 65-67, Google Books.
⁴ Six-voice puzzle canon, BWV 1076: Christoph Wolff's Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (New York: Norton, 2020), discusses this work in his Prologue; "On the Primacy and Pervasiveness of Polyphony: The Composer's Business Card" (1-12), see Amazon.com: "Look inside" for the portrait facing page to title-piece and the original print of BWV 1076, a requirement for admission to the Mizler Scientific Society, to which Bach contributed annual musical exemplars, also read Bach Book Discussion on Wolff's "Bach's Business Card," BCW.
⁵ For a chronological accounting of Melamed's cited scholarly articles in Bach Bibliography, go to Bach-Bibliographie, and type in the full name of each author; Tatlow also has an article, "Parallel Proportions, Numerical Structures and Harmonie in Bach's Autograph Score," in the essay collection Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass, eds. Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver & Jan Smaczny (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013: 142-62), Amazon.com; Melamed also has recently published (5 February 2021) an on-line Cambridge University Press article, "'Parallel Proportions' in J. S. Bach's Music," in Eighteenth-Century Music, Vol. 18 No. 1, Cambridge University Press.
⁶ Sub-structure, sometimes called "Herzstück" (center-piece), is discussed in Friedrich Smend's "Johannes-Passion von Bach" (105-28) in Bach-Jahrbuch 1926 and in Walter Serauky's "Die 'Johannes Passion' von Joh. Seb. Bach und ihr Vorbild" (its role model, 29-39) in Bach-Jahrbuch 1954; notable also is Alfred Dürr's cautionary Appendices IV, "The problem of Symmetry in Bach's Work," in Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion: Genesis, Transmission, and Meaning, trans. Alfred Clayton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000: 124-26), Google Books; related is tonal allegory, a more contemporary term from scholar Eric Chafe (see "Tonal Allegory," in "Johannes-Passion BWV 245, General Discussions - Part 8, BCW.
⁷ Alan Street, "The Rhetorical-Musical Structure of the 'Goldberg' Variations: Bach's Clavier-Übung IV and the Institutio oratoria of Quintilian," in Musical Analysis 6 (1987: 90), Jstor.
⁸ Ludwig Prautzsch, Bach B, Baxch-Bibliographie; No. 9, Zeichen und Zahlenalphabet.
⁹ Hans-Eberhard Dentler, Art of Fugue monograph, Johann Sebastian Bachs Kunst der Fuge: Ein pythagoreisches Werk und seine Verwirklichung (A Pythagorean Work and Its Realization; Mainz; Schott, 2004: 13), Stretta Music.
¹⁰ Bradley Lehman, "Bach's Extraordinary Temperament: Our Rosetta Stone," in Early Music 33/1, 2005: 3-23; article Project Muse, abstract Project Muse.
¹¹ One Bach puzzle is the letter codes in the Schemelli Gesangbuch, a hymnal coding device described in Robin A. Leaver's "Letter Codes Relating to Pitch and Key for Chorale Melodies and Bach's Contributions to the Schemelli 'Gesangbuch'," in BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute Vol. 45, No. 1, 2014: 15-33; Project Muse, book MDZ.
¹² Nicholas Kenyon, "Bach and Numbers: A short note on 333 and the Holy Trinity" (219) as well as "Canons & Countertpoint" (173f), in Bach 333: Bach: the Music, J. S. Bach The Complete Edition, Deutsche Grammophon 2018; Bach 333: paragraph beginning "The set marks 333 years . . . ."
¹³ Martin Jarvis, see New Yorker) and his 2015 film with historical-biographical melodrama about an elicit affair of Sebastian and Ana Magdalena as well as the suicide of first wife Anna Maria (The Spectator); also Bach Network criticism: Yo Tomita, "Anna Magdalena as Bach's Copyist" ( Bach Network UK); Yael Sela, "Anna Magdalena Bach’s Büchlein (1725) as a Domestic Music Miscellany" (Bach Network UK), and Ruth Tatlow's "A Missed Opportunity: Reflections on Written by Mrs Bach" (Bach Network UK).
¹⁴ Helga Thoene, extended discussion of "Morimur," BCW, music download Amazon.com.
¹⁵ Compositional process "largely unknowable" actually was a field first considered in Robert L. Marshall's The Compositional Process of J. S. Bach: A Study of the Autograph Scores of the Vocal Works, Vol. 1 (ACLS Humanities e-Book), Vol. 2. transcriptions of complete sketch material (Ann Arbor MI: Princeton Univ. Press, 1972), Amazon.com; very recent is Ulrich Siegele, "Compositional Technique," in The Routledge Research Companion to J. S. Bach, edited by Robin A. Leaver (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017: 398-434), excerpt Bach Network UK.; in process is Yo Tomita and Richard Rastall, The Genesis and Early History of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, Vol. 1 Genesis, Compilation, Revisions, Vol. 2, Aspects of Afterlife (Routeledge, 2024), BAM!; other recent books on elements of composition: Joseph P. Swain, Listening to Bach and Handel: A Comparative Study (Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2018), amazon.com), discussion BCW; Robert L. Marshall, Bach and Mozart: Essays on the Enigma of Genius (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2019), Amazon.com, discussion Bach-Mozart Essays: Bach Music, Themes BCW; and Harry White, The Musical Discourse of Servitude: Authority, Autonomy and the European Musical Imagination, 1700-1750 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020); Amazon.com, review, BCW.

Daniel R. Melamed wrote (April 9, 2022):
If members of this group would like to read what I actually wrote about this topic, in the tone in which I wrote it, in a form that attempts to deal with an interesting problem in the reception of Bach's music in a nuanced way, please send an individual note to my e-mail address (below). I will send you a copy of the essay for your private use.

You'll need to agree not to send it to others or to post it online, to respect the publisher's copyright.

The other essays in Rethinking Bach, each by people who are really well informed about Bach and Bach scholarship, offer thoughtful arguments expressed in readable prose. Every author in that collection wants those who also love Bach to think about his music and what it might mean. The best way to experience that, and to have your appreciation of Bach be stimulated and grow, is by reading what they have to say directly. I encourage everyone to choose that way of learning from them and with them.

Continue on Part 3