Bach Keyboard Music
Leipzig Mature Keyboard Works: Studies, Publications

Keyboard Music: Early, Formative Years

William L. Hoffman wrote (May 19, 2019):
Busy composing two church-year cantata cycles as his cantor's primary responsibility in Leipzig, Bach finally at Lent 1725 turned to instrumental music, focusing on keyboard works composed in Cöthen, the family music books, and the beginning of publications emphasizing keyboard composition. Bach's initial attention was the French suite where he completed the so-called "English" and "French" Suites as teaching devices for his students and sons Friedemann and Emmanuel and the beginning of the keyboard Partitas as his first publication of Clavierübung keyboard exercise. Over the next decade and a half, he systematically publish four collections of keyboard music and then created in his final decade a summary of his art with the contrapuntal studies of the Canonic Variations, Musical Offering and Art of Fugue. The entire Clavierübung set of four were intended "to demonstrate the widest possibly variety of keyboard styles, genres, forms and categories," says Nicholas Kenyon,¹ and to set "new performance standards that match the rigorous principles of compositional organizations," says Christoph Wolff, cited by Kenyon, although none of Bach's publications sold well or were widely disseminated until after his death in 1750.

In the Clavierübung Bach was following the tradition and model of his Leipzig predecessor, the learned Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Kuhnau), who also had published four volumes of keyboard music, with the first two containing French-style suites, called Parthien, evidently the German equivalent of the Italian Partita," says David Schulenberg in his study of Bach's keyboard music.² Bach also began with six partitas which "might have been conceived as a tribute to Johann Kuhnau," says Richard D. P. Jones.³ "Market considerations might also have played a part in Bach's debt to Kuhnau. For the older composer's four engraved books of keyboard music, published from 1689 to 1700, had met with enormous success and popularity," in the city noted for its publishing industry. Kuhnau's partitas had "progressed (seven to each volume) systematically through the key system (upwards in major scales in the first volume and minor ones in the second)," says Stephen Daw (Ibid.: 17),⁴ with the latest reprint appearing in 1726 when Bach published his first partita.

Previously, the French-style "English" suites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Suites_(Bach) probably were simply entitled "Six suites with preludes for clavier," based on copies of his students Bernard Christian Kayser (1705-1758, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Kayser-Bernhard-Christian.htm) and Christian Friedrich Penzel (1737-1801, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Penzel-Christian-Friedrich.htm), says Jones (Ibid.: 36). Kayser, who studied with Bach in Cöthen and came with him to Leipzig, also compiled copies of the "French" Suites and the 1722 Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1. The later "French Suites" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Suites_(Bach), without opening preludes and also untitled, Bach also completed and compiled about 1725. These, along with the Inventions and Sinfonias collections and the Well-Tempered Clavier became Bach primary keyboard teaching music in Leipzig.

Clavierübung I: Partitas (Diverse French Suites)

Although none of the four keyboard collections — English Suites, Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), French Suites, and Inventions and Sinfonias — were published, Bach in 1725 began to composed the six Partitas BWV 525-530 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitas_for_keyboard_(Bach), in French style for publication, produced individually with the plates collected for the Clavierübung I, Opus 1, in 1731 when Bach reached another compositional crossroads. Technically more demanding yet more rhetorically pleasing than the WTC, they were composed "for music lovers to refresh the spirit." Bach probably had the partitas imprinted as examples of his mastery of style and keyboard technique.

"Stylistic diversity, to some extent anticipated in the French Suites, now becomes a governing principle, reflected in the colorful movement titles which are no doubt intended to appeal to the market, says Jones (Ibid.: 51). In particular the six Partitas are a milestone and a potpourri, for the "constant variety of their dance movements is inexhaustible, and there is a distinctive fluency and singing quality," says Kenyon (Ibid.). Although containing the same basic ingredients as the two previous French suite collections, these partitas show a "greater structural focus, and in some more ambition," says Victor Lederer.⁵ They "offer an artful and carefully calculated progression in size and intensity, opening with an urbane and charming work and ending with a one vast in dimension and unmistakably tragic in import. In between, the composer alternates works lighter in tone and texture — but in no way slighter artistically — with more ambitious, heavier suites." Within the traditional format of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue, Bach adds movements labeled Menuet, Burlesca, Scherzo, Aria, Rondeau, Capriccio, Passepied, and Gavotta. Each suite opens with a different style: No. 1, "Preludium"; No. 2, "Fantasia': No. 3, "Overture"; No 4, "Sinfonia"; No. 5, "Preambulum"; and No. 6, "Toccata." In the traditional dance movements, Bach uses various nationalistic inflections, while in the modern dance movements, Bach also uses great variety.

Meanwhile, Bach provided "new approaches to the traditional keyboard dances, new types of keyboard texture, and increasing use of galant melody and harmony, as opposed to imitative counterpoint," says Schulenberg. The "Partita No. 1" was Bach's first dance-suite for keyboard "to become well-known outside his immediate circle," says Daw.

"As we sit wondering the beauty of the first music he chose to address to a wider public, the immediacy of the impact of this Opus 1 seems to beckon us across the centuries to share musical pleasures that endure repeated hearings, that repay lengthy contemplation and study, and that are of enduring value simply because they are sincere artistic products of a scrupulously humble and a fastidiously critical mind," Daw concludes (Ibid.: 19).

Clavierübung II: Italian Concerto, French Overture

In 1731, Bach turned to instrumental music for his performances, particularly ensemble works and harpsichord concertos, for the Leipzig Collegium musicum at Zimmermann's coffee house and gardens, a tradition that would continue until 1742, while also undertaking numerous drammi per musica for the annual visits of the Saxon Court, also until 1742. In 1735, as Bach parodied some of his secular cantata music for feast-day oratorios, he turned again to keyboard music with his Clavierübung II, just two works "to demonstrate his ability to capture the cosmopolitan breadth of national styles in his music," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 140): "A Concerto in the Italian taste and an overture in the French Manner," for two-manual harpsichord, "Dedicated to the appreciative, for the Pleasure of the Spirit." The first two published books of keyboard exercises are linked with complimentary key schemes completing the circle of keys started in the partitas, with the possibly numerical symbolism of 41 movements in the first book and 14 in the second. The two new instrumental-style concerto and overture works, BWV 971 and 831 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavier-Übung_II, https://www.allmusic.com/composition/overture-in-the-french-manner-partita-for-keyboard-in-b-minor-clavier-%C3bung-ii-2-bwv-831-mc0002362547) observed the Italian concerto form of the Weimar transcriptions of Italian string concertos for solo organ or harpsichord (BWV 592-96, 972-87, respectively) and the early keyboard French overture and recent orchestral suite settings. While the "rivalry between the two national styles had been reduced to a cliche," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 300), the actual distinctions were now found in the German galant style as well as the so-called mixed style increasingly practiced in French and Italian music as well: French ornamentation and Italian concerted style exist together. While the solo Concerto is a popular work among pianists, "for whose instrument it is better suited than most of Bach's harpsichord works," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 301), the Overture is little known among harpsichordists, "since it is awkward to play and probably too long for most modern recital programs; like the Sixth French Suite it simply contains too many short dances."

The standard three-movement solo Italian "Concerto in F Major," BWV 971 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNEFrryE5P0), is more up-to-date, reflecting the later works of Vivaldi and also popular among Bach's younger contemporaries, Quantz and the Graun brothers, observes Scuhlenberg (Ibid.: 302). Even Bach's notorious critic, Johann Adolf Scheibe (1708-1776, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adolf_Scheibe), admired the quarter-hour work "as a perfect model of a well-designed solo concerto," cited in Kenyon (Ibid.: 140). It has the Vivaldian character of "a bold, driven first movement, a long eloquent central melody like an endless operatic scene, and the one of Bach's continuously energetic finales, marked 'Presto'," says Kenyon (Ibid.). The Italian Concerto, like the later Goldberg Variations, "counts as one of the most perfect of all Bach's large-scale keyboard works," says Jones (Ibid.: 229). The modern style is evidenced in "the somewhat modish thematic writing" in the opening and "the exceptionally clear differentiation between ritornellos and episodes," as well as varied texture and dynamics.

The 10-movement "French Overture in B Minor," BWV 831 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCawA6r9biQ) has the traditional Overture (dotted slow prelude, succeeding fugue, prelude repeat), followed by pairs of gavottes, passepieds, and bourees, interleaved with a courante, sarabande and gigue, and a final Echo. The work is a balance between an extended overture and a variety of nine short dances, observes Schulenberg (Ibid.: 305). Although more in the original, traditional French mold, the half-hour work has Germanic elements such as motivic use of upbeat and dotted rhythms, a virtuoso opening fugue ritornello form of fugal expositions with varied episodes, while the dances have various Bachian touches.

Clavierübung III: Canonical Duets

Clavierübung III, "published in 1739, followed another period of compositional shifts, as Bach returned to sacred vocal music with the Schmelli Songbook, BWV 439-507, and the four parody Missae, Short Masses (Kyrie-Gloria), BWV 233-236, as well as the series of nine harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1051-59. The return to sacred songs spurred Bach to compose the Lutheran liturgical hymns of the Mass and Catechism, with long and short versions, for organ over a period of four years' gestation (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV669-689-Gen1.htm). This third setting followed an instrumental sequence from Book 1 for single manual harpsichord, Book 2 for two-manual harpsichord, and Book 3 for double manual plus pedal, as Jones points out (Ibid.: 231). The content of Book III served Bach several contextual purposes: It observed the unique Leipzig 1739 bicentennial Reformation Jubilee of the community's acceptance of the Lutheran Confession; it completed the Lutheran chorale settings for liturgical and didactic purposes; and it continued the numerical symbology with the trinitarian threes. Book 3 was published for the Leipzig annual Michaelmas Fair while the previous two probably had been published for the Easter Fairs.

The opening Missa: Kyrie-Gloria section "may be viewed as an organ counterpart to the vocal Missae that Bach composed around the same time (c.1738);" says Jones, "and the six pedaliter catechism chorales represent a summary of the main articles of the Lutheran Faith, possibly assembled in preparation for the three Leipzig Reformation Festivals that took place in 1739": the Pentecost Sunday preaching of Martin Luther and Johannes Buggenhagen, the Leipzig University acceptance of the Confession; and the Reformation Day feast. The movements are 21 chorale prelude settings, BWV 669-689, followed by four canonical duets, BWV 802-805) and framed by the extended "Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat Major, BWV 552, sometimes called the "St. Anne" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFW9wU8Ht3U). The opening prelude represents the Trinity while the closing fugue is a dualistic morning-evening doxology, while the four non-liturgical duets are a symbolic representation of Luther's teacher-pupil relationship: emphasis on text, commentary, enhanced understanding, and reinforcement through holy communion (sacrament).

"Clavierübung IV": Goldberg Variations

Bach's most extensive and well-known variations work, posthumously called the "Goldberg" Variations, BWV 988 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldberg_Variations), and not inscribed as a keyboard exercise, was published in 1741, possibly for the Leipzig Christmas Fair which actually began at Epiphany 1742. The purpose of this "Keyboard Practice" for two-manual harpsichord is virtually identical with the three previous Clavierübung studies: "prepared for the soul's delight of music lovers," as cited in Peter Williams' monograph.⁶ Its contents are the opening Aria with 30 diverse variations including a final quodlibet, and closing with a repetition of the Aria, structured in 10 clusters of three genres: dance-like character pieces, arabesque-like technical duet studies, and canons. "Symmetry is everywhere evident, observes Kenyon (Ibid.: 148), from the 32-bar (in two 16-bar halves), with a French Overture in the middle, and the canons increasing by an interval when they appear. "Such variation sets served not only as exercises in performance but as demonstration of compositional techniques," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 319). The variations are based not on a preexisting melody but on a figured bass line harmonic progression. "The beautiful decorated, saraband-like Aria, written in Bach's most progressive, galant style," says Jones (Ibid.: 347), is a frame in which "Bach systematically explores the principles of 1. stylistic diversity; 2. keyboard virtuosity; and 3. strict counterpoint" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ezpwCHtJs). Thus Bach in these variations was able to blend his interests in French-style dance, strict counterpoint, and bass ground.

Ranked with Beethoven's "Diabelli Variations," the 45-minute work was championed by Wanda Landowska (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWD-JvJ-6yk) and became popular in the 1950s when recorded by Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt and Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwas_7H5KUs). The title "Goldberg Variations" is based on Bach's visit in November 1741 to the Dresden home of Saxon Court emissary Count Keyserlingk and its young house-musician, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gottlieb_Goldberg). Keyserlingk previously had notified Bach of his title of "Court Composer," on 17 November 1736. Bach biographer Nikolaus Forkelclaimed that Bach composed the work for Goldberg to play to Keyserlingk. Williams suggests Forkel's source, Friedemann, was the dedicatee, noting Bach assembled the following keyboard collections for him: the 1720 Clavierbüchlein, the 1725-30 Six Sonatas for Organ, BWV 525-30, perhaps the 1722 Book 1 of the WTC, the first three Clavierübung, and the Six Schübler Chorales. BWV 645-50, which he "doubtless played when he became the newly appointed organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, Halle" in 1746, says Williams (Ibid.: 5).

Bach's closest variation predecessors were the early sectional Aria variata, BWV 989 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdINJYUE39Y, and Sarabande con Partite, BWV 990 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcPLVU9pyzg); the single-movement "Passacaglia in C minor," BWV 582 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie52xH8V2L4), and the violin "Chaconne" from the violin "Partita in D minor, BWB 1004 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu-9frVpssg), as well as the harmonic setting of the pure-hymn Easter Cantata 4, "Christ lag in Todesbanden (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43drQ_KRtyg). Bach contemporaries who produced similar studies, says Kenyon (Ibid.: 147), include Handel's Chaconne in G Major, HWV 435 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iFInTxgBas), the Gottlieb Muffat "Ciaconia" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnL8LCqOwyE), the George Muffat "Passacaglia" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2SmhagTcmA), and the Domenico Scarlatti Essercizi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ZjBs2_DGE). Two later works with connections to the "Goldberg Variations" are the annex "Goldberg Canons," BWV 1087 (http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/fourteencanonsgg.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h6AabkLvEE), and the organ Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her," BWV 769 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonic_Variations_on_%22Vom_Himmel_hoch_da_komm%27_ich_her%22), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4saAbmVSjI). The latter, also composed in 1747 along with the Musical Offering, was Bach's evidence for admission to the Mizler Society of learned musicians, which included Telemann and Handel. Bach probably planned the Musical Offering as his required annual published submission in 1748 and the Art of Fugue in 1749, suggests Davitt Moroney.⁷

Given the general idiomatic nature of the writing of the "Goldberg Variations," various instrumental transcriptions have been made in recent years for recordings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldberg_Variations_discography). It began with Dmitry Sitkovitsky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sitkovetsky) for string orchestra in 1993 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je8brwUWOew) and string trio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duVAAq422h0). Others include the Canadian Brass (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=315SjOfmZ1U), Jacques Loussier jazz trio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL5_DIPpNvg), Kamerkoor PA'Dam choir and baroque ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m08kn82zsCI).

Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Art of Fugue

Another keyboard myth is that the Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Fugue) was Bach's last composition, left unfinished with a closing, incomplete quadruple fugue when he died and then was published. An early version essentially was completed in 1742 and that it grew "by accretion through the 1740s," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 338). Its autograph "coincides with the completion of the WTC," Book 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well-Tempered_Clavier, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hms_PF_CKV4), observes Jones (Ibid.: 352). "Indeed, the use of manifold contrapuntal artifices in the more complex fugues from that collection might have acted as an inducement to produce a more systematic survey of the principles of fugal writing," he says. Meanwhile, the experience of working on the Goldberg Variations and the WTC II "simultaneously might have led to the idea of combining fugues and canons within an overall variation framework," says Jones. The unique Art of Fugue autograph (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXQY2dS1Srk) has 12 fugues and two canons, "based on the principle subject of the work, either direct or inverted," with melodic or rhythmic variants, set in four-staves to clarify the contrapuntal texture but playable on the harpsichord. Written "just as the tide of baroque counterpoint was about to be swept away by new galant and rococo classicism," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 177), "the result [14 fugues and four canons] is one of the most profound and significant works in musical history, which makes a direct appeal to audiences prepared to engaged with its complexities."

This summary of Bach's art in the late 1740s was virtually completed as he also finished his "Great Catholic Mass in B Minor." "Most of the fugues differ significantly from any Bach had composed earlier," observes Joseph Kerman in his monograph on Bach's major keyboard fugues.⁸ "Some are contrapuntally much more complex, loaded with strettos, diminutions, augmentations, inversions. Some are simpler, for in order to set off the technical virtuosity that was the work's raison d'être, Bach had the extraordinary idea of making its first number without contrapuntal devices," he says.

Also idiomatically compelling, the Art of Fugue "has been recorded by string quartets, orchestras, saxophone quartets, harpsichordists, organists, pianists, and even a consort of seventeenth-centiry viols," says Kerman. "In light of its unique character and complexity, it is perhaps inevitable that the Art of Fugue has been interpreted as the expression of philosophical and theological abstractions of a sometimes remarkably rarified nature," Jones says (Ibid.: 345).

Musical Offering, BWV 1079, Canons

"The concept of a given theme as the underlying subject of a series of ''canonic variations,' says Jones (Ibid.: 350), is found in the Canonic Variations, BWV 769, and the ten canons of the Musical Offering, BWV 1079. Throughout his career, Bach was fascinated with canons, the strictest form of counterpoint imitation, observes Kenyon (Ibid.: 173; Bach's Canons, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_12, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4iacoawThg). Bach's last two published keyboard works, the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, although studied extensively, "remain music for performance, not merely for contemplation," observes Schulenberg (Ibid.: 338). "Indeed the superficial devices of canon and fugue embodiin each movement are so closely integrated with the deeper musical content that it is impossible to treat one without also treating the other." The Musical Offering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Musical_Offering) is dated to 1747 as a submission to the court of Frederick the Great in response to the King's puzzle canon. The title is "Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta" (the theme given by the king, with additions, resolved in the canonic style), the first letters of which spell out an acrostic the word "ricercar," a well-known genre of the time. The first part are the puzzle two ricercares and three canons for harpsichord or piano, followed by an instrumental trio, "Sonata sopr'il Soggetto Reale," for flute, violin and continuo, and concluding with "6 Canones super Thema Regium" for two claviers. The two ricercares were possibly "Bach's last entirely new keyboard pieces," says Schulenberg (Ibid.).

The history of the work is as follows (Wikipedia): "The collection has its roots in a meeting between Bach and Frederick II on May 7, 1747. The meeting, taking place at the King's residence in Potsdam, came about because Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel was employed there as court musician. Frederick wanted to show the elder Bach a novelty, the fortepiano, which had been invented some years earlier. The King owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Gottfried Silbermann. During his anticipated visit to Frederick's palace in Potsdam, Bach, who was well known for his skill at improvising, received from Frederick a long and complex musical theme on which to improvise a three-voice fugue. He did so, but Frederick then challenged him to improvise a six-voice fugue on the same theme. Bach answered that he would need to work the score and send it to the King afterwards. He then returned to Leipzig to write out the Thema Regium ("theme of the king")."

Theological influences are found in Michael Marissen's essay (Wiki, Ibid.): <<Among the theories about external sources of influence, Michael Marissen’s draws attention to the possibility of theological connotations. Marissen sees an incongruity between the official dedication to Frederick the Great and the effect of the music, which is often melancholy, even mournful. The trio sonata is a contrapuntal sonata da chiesa, whose style was at odds with Frederick’s secular tastes. The inscription Quaerendo invenietis, found over Canon No. 9, alludes to the Sermon on the Mount (“Seek and ye shall find”, Matthew 7:7, Luke 11:9). The main title, Opfer (“offering”), makes it possible for the cycle to be viewed as an Offertory in the religious sense of the word. Marissen also points out that, canonic procedures often evoking the rigorous demands of the Mosaic Law, the ten canons likely allude to the Ten Commandments. Marissen believes that Bach was trying to evangelize Frederick the Great, pointing him to the demands of the Mosaic Law.>>

Michael Marissen (1995). Daniel R. Melamed (ed.). "The theological character of J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering." in Bach Studies 2, ed. Daniel R. Melamed (Cambridge University Press, 1995: 85ff).

FOOTNOTES

¹ Nicholas Kenyon, "Keyboard Traditions," Bach 333, Bach: The Music (Berlin: Deutsche Grammophon, 2018: 138; https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8469462--bach-333-the-new-complete-edition); also more details from Kenyon's "Keyboard Music," in The Faber Pocket Guide to Bach (London: Faber & Faber, 2011: 383ff).
² David Schulenberg, The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach, 1st ed. (New York: Schirmer, 1992, 278); contents https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Keyboard_Music_of_J_S_Bach.html?id=GnbGQzhz0SgC).
³ Richard D. P. Jones, The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach: Volume 2,, 1717-1750, Music to Delight the Spirit (London: Oxford University Press: 2013: 50).
⁴ Stephen Daw, "Partitas," liner notes to the Kenneth Gilbert recording, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Gilbert.htm: K-8, 16ff); music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb_m61NqehI).
⁵Victor Lederer, Bach's Keyboard Music: A Listener's Guide (New York: Amadeus Press 2010: 89).
⁶ Peter Williams, Bach: The Goldberg Variations, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge, 2001: 3).
⁷ Davitt Maroney, liner notes to his 1985/88 recordings of the Musical Offering and Art of Fugue (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Moroney.htm: A-1-3).
⁸ Joseph Kerman, The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard (Berkeley CA: University of California Press 2005: 33f).

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To Come: Fugitive Notes and Keyboard Recordings (Historical, Contemporary).