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George Frideric Handel & Bach
Discussions - Part 5 |
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Continue from Part 4 |
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Bach, Handel Drama: Fulfillment of Baroque Principles |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (March 28, 2020):
One of the key elements in the music of the composers of the Baroque era is the concept of musical drama as found in opera, oratorio, and other genres created during that time. It is particularly noteworthy in the works of Handel but is also a crucial element in the dramatic music of Bach (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/HoffmanBachDramaII.htm) only now being researched and revealed. Handel's dramatic works are found in two forms: Italian opera seria and English language opera, also known as oratorio or static opera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operas_by_George_Frideric_Handel). While not overtly operatic, Bach's vocal works use the poetic forms (recitative, aria) found in Italian opera and cantata while his genres include the cantatas as profane drammi per musica and the Christological oratorio settings of the Passion and the major feast days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, as well as the settings of the Mass Ordinary. Both Bach and Handel in the high Baroque produced works with great dramatic effect, observes Joseph P. Swain in his study of the two composers.1
Handel composing for the theater was more dramatically overt — and successful — while Bach for the church created works with operatic aesthetic embedded in deep spirituality and compositional prowess. A secondary group of dramatic works are the instrumental concertos and sonatas of Bach and Handel, especially Bach's formative sonatas. Examining the "Gifts of the Seicento [17th century]: the Aesthetics of Music Drama," Swain begins with the stile antico heritage as found in the music of Bach and Handel. He proceeds into the weeds — or flowerbeds — of music theory, showing that the instrumental sonatas and concertos of both composers greatly advanced the earlier settings with new rhythm providing a more distinctive, dramatic shape. The monody or recitative at the beginning of the Baroque established the rhythmic pattern and meter with its strength and quality defining the difference among the developing genres of aria, recitative, accompagnato, arioso, etc. The greater musical hierarchy of rhythm and harmony is explored in Bach's Brandenburg Concertos with their distinguishing feature of motor rhythm eminently found in Bach's music. Built-in silence became another striking feature in both composers' music. Swain then examines the drama without words in the instrumental music finding its own standing during the Baroque, with the accompanying development of music instruments and their virtuoso composer-performers. Arcangelo Corelli in his sonatas and concerti grossi developed the principle of embedded harmony which Handel used extensively in Messiah. While building their reputations as improvisors on the keyboard, both composers perfected rhythmic harmony, Handel in Messiah and Bach in the Well-Tempered Clavier, as they expanded Corelli's harmonic pedal point into broader harmonic sequences, "creating the coherence of a continuous Baroque composition."
Influence of Italian Music
Both composers found their sources in Italian music which produced the first music dramas in 1600 at the beginning of the Baroque era. Handel and Bach studied Italian composition, the former in Italy in 1706-09, creating operas Agrippina and Rinaldo, and Bach in Weimar c.1714 studying both Vivaldi concertos and the new Italian-style poetic cantata with arias and recitatives in the style of the Neumeister cantata texts. Coincidentally, both composers living in the Hamburg area in 1705-06 were directly influenced by German activities, Handel by the composer Reinhard Keiser at the Hamburg Opera and Bach by the composer Dietrich Buxtehude's Abendenmusiken in Lübeck. Their dramatic creations for state or church patronage ran in a parallel trajectory beginning in the 1730s as Handel continued to compose opera seria and began composing English-language oratorios while Bach turned to so-called drammi per musica congratulatory cantatas for the Dresden Court and its followers (see "Opera and the Drama per Musica," https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Opera-Drama[Braatz].htm, copy & paste in browser). For Handel, "the lion's share of his music" "was conceived for the working theater, the rest is merely dramatic," Swain observes (Ibid.: 102). Bach's works, while not overtly operatic, nevertheless contain music "permeated by the operatic aesthetic," he says. "The church cantatas are shot through with solo, operatic singing, arias and recitatives. And that is merely the surface; the dynamic of almost any movement of Bach outlines a drama."
Stile Antico Church Motives
Both Bach and Handel used stile antico church motives in their music, Handel "occasionally in his English oratorios" in the theater when, like Bach, "he needs an instantly recognizable sacred semantic for particular spiritual movements in the plot," says Swain (Ibid.:) 102). They are Israel in Egypt (1738), Messiah (1741), Solomon (1748), and his secular ode L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740).2 Bach uses the stile antico in three B-Minor Mass movements:3 the second Kyrie and its possible parody source (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLPgUAw1LA, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalWork_work_00000305?lang=en), the Gratias Agimus tibi in the "Gloria" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4x4gj1fqSE&list=PLXIqphqBxGkaFFnKL7AnjeuFZFIdwDnhF&index=316') and its source, Cantata 29, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojtRw8w0__Y), and the "Confiteor" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwda71H3VE4), original music. "Bach, while preserving in his own translation something of the stile antico sacred semantic, has turned this divine service into a drama," says Swain (Ibid.: 103).
Bach, Handel, Sonatas, Concertos
"The concertos and sonatas of both Bach and Handel continue and perfect the course set for them by the early seventeenth century," says Swain (Ibid.: 103f), "the featured instrument is an abstract character in an abstract drama, the argument of which is the motivic material traded between the solo instrument and the bass." "Only the dance movements and imitative genres that survive into the Baroque lack this explicit yet abstract dramatization, but in the hands of Bach and Handel even these, through their transformation by the new Baroque rhythm, attain a dramatic shape that their ancestors never knew," he says (Ibid.: 104). Using the trio sonata form dominant in instrumental music from the mid-17th century onward, Bach composed chamber music sonatas for violin, flute and viola da gamba.4 The versions and datings of some of these works are still disputed, as are some of Handel's sonatas.5
Monody (Recitative) Pattern, Meter
In 1600, the most revolutionary feature of the first operas were their rhythmically-free settings of recitatives as musical elocution or musical monologues, then called "monody" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monody), with the melody of the solo singer and functional harmony of the basso continuo, observes Swain (Ibid.: 104f). At the same time, music that had distinct beats could be projected in patterns known as meters (http://openmusictheory.com/meter.html) and "the influence of meter in musical experience is immense," he says (Ibid.: 105). "Its absence is the hallmark of recitative. , research from cognitive science has enabled music theorists to explicate some of the psychological aspects of meter, in particular its hierarchical organization" as well as "the strength, ambiguity, tension, and relations with harmonic function." "The perception of rhythm arises from the perceived change in the musical phenomenon, and to capture its richness for the Baroque the concept must include harmonic rhythms, phrase rhythms, textural rhythms, and a deeper understanding of their organization in meter," says Swain (Ibid.: 37).
The perception of meter is assisted by a stream of isochronous beats at regular intervals, he says (Ibid.: 105). "Meter requires that some of those beats be singled out as 'accented,' 'heavy,' 'salient,' and these accents are also isochrony" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrony). "The Baroque composer's control of the strength and quality of meter makes the difference between aria and recitative, and all the intermediary textures of accompagnato, arioso, and so on," Swain shows (Ibid.: 118). Handel carries the recitative principle even further when he composes choral recitatives for an entire chorus and orchestra in Israel in Egypt "to narrate the action of God leading the Israelites out of slavery," he says (Ibid.: 120). A more familiar example is the beginning of the last movement, "Worthy is the Lamb," of Messiah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x2fSxOeij4). An understanding of how Bach mixes textures in "hybrid" recitatives with chorale tropes to bolster text setting is found in his unique chorale cantata second cycle, observes Julian Mincham.6
Musical Hierarchy in Rhythm, Harmony
Swain explains the concept of varied metrical hierarchy in Bach's six Brandenburg concertos. Although each concerto, except for the Fourth, begins in 4/4 common time, they have "rhythmic qualities that distinguish each of Bach's ideas," he observes (Ibid.: 111). The First Brandenburg Concerto "presents the clearest metric hierarchy." The quarter note level is clearly articulated while the "subdivisions, down to the sixteenth note, sound within the first bar, filling out the metrical hierarchy and greatly aiding its perception" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kI1Ab6_Xfk), he says (Ibid.: 112). "The Second is not nearly so easy on the listener searching for meter" and requires analysis of the first four measures (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haRanlw9eSg), beginning with the 16th note upbeat couplet figure, followed by the recurrence of all melodic patterns at the beginning of measure 2 and the change of harmony at measure 3 to determine the strong and weak quarter notes. The Third Concerto (Ibid.: 113) also begins with the 16th note upbeat but confirms the tonic pitch with the tonic resolution at the 4th measure as to which notes are strong or weak (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyDWtvCd9Xo). "Bach's tactus [underlying, inner pulse] in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vx4Sc_SMsQ), however, could hardly be clearer from the opening bar," Swain says (Ibid.: 114), with clear divisions at all rhythmic levels. The Sixth Concerto "begins in a metric whiteout" of rhythmic uncertainty until the fifth measure" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-2UElyRMyI). "These are all movements composed according to the ritornello [return] principle: everything that happens refers back to the initial idea, to all its melodic, harmonic, rhythm, and metric qualities," he summarizes (Ibid.: 115). These are "thoroughly planned and ordered compositions because all those metric qualities exhibit a thorough continuity, a perceptual inertia that Bach can take advantage of as he establishes metric categories and qualities during the progress of each concerto," he says (Ibid.: 118). By 1721, Bach had mastered and perfected the Baroque concerto.
"Bach was the greatest practitioner of motor rhythm in the history of Western music," declares Swain (Ibid.: 127). The examples from five of the Brandenburg Concertos show "how from the opening movement of each concerto the engine of his musical texture is running at full speed with an intensity of movement that does not flag until the last chord," he observes (Ibid.: 128). At the same time, Bach selectively uses silence in through-composed movements such as the beginning of the Schübler Organ Prelude, Wachet auf, BWV 645 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAXNtHdQB08) with the eighth note rest at the end of the first phrase followed by the second entrance (the fugue answer), "to establish the pulse for the rest of the fugue," he says (Ibid.: 129), thereby affirming the motor rhythm. "Handel works with this kind of musical idea, the built-in-silence, a good deal more often," says Swain (Ibid.). One example is the aria "He was despised," from Messiah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP4JSVMBdZg), as well as frequent places in his operas. "The structural principle of motor rhythm is at once more relaxed and more progressive in Handel." "It is one of the essential accomplishments of Bach and Handel that they inject, each in his own way, new energy and power into the most fundamental compositional substrate inherited from the Baroque musical language," he says (Ibid.: 135).
Drama Without Words: Instrumental Music
With the publication (1681-1714) by Arcangelo Corelli of trio sonatas, solo sonatas, and concerti grossi, instrumental music became a fixture of the Baroque era, sharing the limelight with vocal music, displaying agile, voice-like features as well supporting extended works such as cantatas, oratorios, and opera. Corelli's music displayed high-level structures and a new harmony, observes Joseph Swain in Chapter 5, "Gifts of the Seicento: Drama Without Words" (Ibid.: 137ff). String instruments became the primary vehicle of sonatas for the venues of the church and household chamber, with distinct tempi and the challenges of "taxonomy, whether a singe movement is a preludium type, a slow tripla, a fugue, or just imitative," he says (ibid.: 138). Advanced instrumental techniques had been developed, as well as advances in instrumental construction with families of string instruments, notably the da gamba followed by the violins. Composers became instrumental virtuosos, sharing the spotlight with singers, notably divas and castrati.. "Clearly, a sea change had occurred," he observes (Ibid.: 139). "The semantics of an opera libretto" "provided essential structure for the music of the new aesthetic, too." Instruments found their own voices. With Vivaldi's development of the ritornello (return), individual movements grew in complexity and length in the three-movement ensemble concerto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritornello).
Keyboard music also flourished. "The youthful reputations of both Bach and Handel were in large part founded on their powers of improvisation, and both continued to use those powers throughout their careers to create preludes upon a hymn tune for the Lutheran liturgy or to entertain theater-goers during intermissions," says Swain (Ibid.: 140). "Thus in keyboard music, the sequence of toccata and fugue appears in logical contrast, a progression from disorder to order, from emotion to rationality, from fooling around on the instrument to real music." "The preference for rhythmically integrated music could hardly be clearer," he says (Ibid.: 141). Harmonies within melodies as in Corelli's sonatas revealed chords and sequences, produced the "perception of a polyphonic texture and a functional progression from a single voice: a compound melody," he says (Ibid.: 143). "The percepof more than one simultaneous melody is a polyphony, and therefore projects harmony." "The naked melodic dissonances in instrumental writing, which would become routine for both instruments and singers in Bach and Handel, marks a classic syntactic shift in the musical language." "In the entire Baroque, compound melodies never replaced traditional voice-leading completely, and the possibilities of using either syntax and infinitely many combinations of both enrich the music of Bach and Handel immeasurably." Most notable in Bach are the compound melodies in partitas and sonatas for solo violin or the solo cello suites; in Handel throughout Messiah.
Embedded Harmony Within Harmony
Beginning with Corelli is the concept of harmonies within harmonies, known as "embedded harmony," says Swain (Ibid.: 147ff), synthesizing "harmonic progression on more than one level of progression," and expanding "the possibilities of the musical language." "The oldest, simplest, and most explicit technique of harmonic embedding is the pedal point," he observes (Ibid.: 150). "Neither Bach nor Handel scorned what might have been considered a cliché by their time," Handel in Messiah and Bach in his Christmas Oratorio where both in their pastoral symphonies "have numerous tonic pedal points" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnTmWTvBLWw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2enayKFotmo). Both composers embedded tonic and dominant pedals, overlaying harmonic rhythms. In Messiah, the chorus "And the glory of the Lord," the sopranos sing "For the mouth of the Lord" and the rest of the chorus sings "And all flesh" (mm. 58-63, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4egNeuAf0Bg: 1:06). "From the subdivision of the pedal point it is a small step to imagine it as one voice of a compound melody," he says (Ibid.: 152f), for example in Bach's Prelude No. 3 in C-sharp Major, The Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC) I, BWV 848 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-c8WG2GTaI), "playing the two-voice counterpoint yields the perception of perhaps as any as five voices since both voices deliver compound melodies," he says (Ibid.: 153). Corelli's little keys are embedded into big ones in Bach and Handel, notably in da capo arias.
"The most notorious realization of the concept of embedded harmony in the high Baroque is the sequence," says Swain (Ibid.: 156). Bach and Handel used sequences sparingly to "create some of their most breath-taking effects," again in Bach's WTC I, Prelude No. 4 in C-sharp Minor, BWV 849 (mm. 509, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdD_QygwRuY: :21). It is found in Handel's Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 12 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdAgwlM1hJw), he shows (Ibid.: 159), with a sense of accelerando in rhythmic patterns supported by harmonic progression. Other techniques of embedded harmony include "smooth voice-leading and functional chromaticism," he says (Ibid.: 161). All these embedded harmonic techniques then can be used "in concert with the other elements of the musical language," he says (Ibid.: 162) "to expand the harmonic syntax." If "a harmonic progression can embed itself into a higher level, long-lasting harmony that gives way to successive higher-level harmonies, then there are new streams of events, new rhythms to hear," says Swain (Ibid.: 167). "This is the last gift of the seicento to Bach and Handel and all their contemporaries in the high Baroque, a greatly enriched harmonic rhythm" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_rhythm). Diverse "musical phenomena acting together" in the perception of meter and harmony create an intuitive, sustainable response through the cadential conclusion. The "coherence of a continuous Baroque composition" is found in the "consistency that Bach and Handel maintain through the ebbs and flows of harmonic rhythm, the timing patterns of imitative entrances, the entrances and exits of voices in the texture, and the strength of the meter," he concludes (Ibid.: 171). "The rhythm of their music is a constant illusion, apparently consistent in the extreme, and yet as dynamically varied as that of any music on earth."
ENDNOTES
1 Joseph P. Swain, Chapter 4, "Gifts of the Seicento: the Aesthetic of Music Drama," in Listening to Bach and Handel: A Comparative Study (Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2018: 23ff), Amazon.com).
2 See Minji Kim, "Significance and effect of the stile antico in Handel's oratorios," in Early Music 39(4), January 2011: 563-573; Abstract, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261979806_Significance_and_effect_of_the_stile_antico_in_Handel%27s_oratorios.
3 See Mass in B minor BWV 232, General Discussions - Part 19, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV232-Gen19.htm: "1733 Kyrie Composed," "Gloria: Symmetry, Diversity," and "Trinitarian Credo in 1740s."
4 See Bach Chamber Music, http://bach-cantatas.com/Order-2019.htm: Nov 23, 2019: "Chamber Music for Flute"; Nov 27, 2019: "Chamber Music: Violin Sonatas with Harpsichord, Continuo"; and Dec 1, 2019: "Chamber Music: Viola da Gamba Sonatas."
5 See Handel Sonatas, Johan van Veen, musica Dei dominum, http://www.musica-dei-donum.org/cd_reviews/IBSClassical_IBS162019.html.
6 Julian Mincham, "Relationships between Text and Music in the ‘hybrid’ Recitatives of Bach’s second Leipzig Cantata Cycle," in Understanding Bach 4 (Bach Network 2009: 119-133), https://www.bachnetwork.org/ub4/mincham.pdf.
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To Come: A fusion of Swain's "Bach, Handel, and Six Essential Concepts" (cantus firmus, dance, ostinato, cantilena, fugue, ritornello) and "Music and Drama" (opera seria, Passion, English oratorio, solo sonata and solo concerto) with Christoph Wolff's new book, Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (Amazon.com). |
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Bach, Handel: Commonality, Connections |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (April 8, 2020):
There is much to learn about the music of Bach and Handel, particularly about their common cultural heritage in Germany and the Baroque era, because these conditions shaped their work, particularly music that shows a dramatic element. Most obvious are the vocal works of Bach for the church and court and Handel's non-liturgical English oratorios, mostly Old Testament, for the theater, while both shared certain genres involving music of sorrow and joy, most notably funeral music, and the joyous "Gloria from Bach's B-Minor Mass and Handel's Canticle of Moses from Israel in Egypt. Much lesser known dramatically are the instrumental works with implied drama using elements of contrast in style, dynamics, tempi, and ritornello, as well as tension and release, and dance. Both composers used borrowed material, Handel from other composers and Bach in wholesale transcriptions using new text underlay. Meanwhile, a new study of Bach's major works finds two important connections between Bach and Handel: an ostinato figure found in a Handel harpsichord variation and Bach's Goldberg Variations aria and "A Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle: Three Passions and a Trilogy of Oratorios." Among these Christological works, there is a strong connectioninvolving Bach's St. John Passion and his Easter Oratorio. There are textual and musical correspondences among these oratorios and other Bach works for the Mass Ordinary, liturgical chorales, and special feast days.
The actual music of both Bach and Handel took a major dramatic step in 1733 when Bach composed through parody his Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 232.2, for the Saxon Court and Handel produced his first mature English oratorio, Athalia, observes Joseph P. Swain in the last chapter of his Bach-Handel study. Bach focused his sacred composition on extended works for special occasions (oratorios, Mass music) as well as drammi per musica throughout the decade while Handel, seeing the decline in Italian opera seria, first turned to English language works in 1733 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Frideric_Handel#Oratorio), also producing a revival of Esther from 1718 and Deborah, "a pastiche of previously composed music for various purposes," as "a milestone on the path to the oratorio," says Swain (Ibid.: 511f), with its emphasis on choruses in the vernacular.
Common Interests: Music of Sorrow, Joy
In the subchapter of his final chapter, "Slaves to Church and Theater?," Swain says that the "two must have inherited the same musical language and cultural instincts" (Ibid.: 513), and yet their music sounds different, not only from one another but also from their fellow composers of the Baroque." Handel in 1737 had written a funeral anthem for Queen Caroline, The Ways of Zion Do Mourn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctI4RqytF_Y), which became the first part of the oratorio Israel in Egypt (1739). Other Handel music of mourning includes the Dead March from Saul (1739) and Samson (1739, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u37Rpq_dG7U) and another Dead March from Samson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ISkqzLTpBI), as well as the aria/chorus "Ye sons of Israel, now lament" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHBsPY2CaMw). Over a much longer period, Bach composed music of mourning as vocal concertos, motets, and funeral cantatas, some associated with parody, honoring royalty: Weimar Prince Johann Ernst, BWV 1142 (1716), Saxon Queen Christiane Eberhardine, BWV 198 (1727), and Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, BWV 1143 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Weimar-Leipzig-Sorrow.htm).
Music of joy permeates many works of Bach and Handel, most notably the former's "Gloria" from the Mass in B-Minor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeqbA4MTzoQ) and Handel's Canticle of Moses from Israel in Egypt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJjn2RNLrgg). "Most obvious is that they both produce a good sound," says Swain (Ibid.: 512). They "sound so different from one another, so much like Bach and Handel, because they have different purposes and different cultural contexts," he says (Ibid.: 514), Bach for the church liturgy main service and Handel for theater entertainment. One difference is the composers' use of borrowed material. Handel as master of self-borrowing and others often used simple motives such as three from the Allesandro Stradella serenata, Qual prodigio è ch'io miri? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jSdWkkqcbg) for the chorus "He gave them hailstone for rain" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRFpjKKzwwU). "Handel perhaps in a playful test of his own ingenuity, turns into one of his most sonically explosive and rhythmically stirring choruses," says Swain (Ibid.: 540). "In considering instead those movements which Handel adapts more or less wholesale, transcriptions or near-transcriptions, it appears that in such borrowings Handel either preserves or increases the textural and timbral articulations that work best on the higher level of structure." One of the best known Handel self-borrowings is the lover's tiff duet "No, di voi non vo' fidarmi" from Handel's Italian cantata (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR7X4z5ujdE) which becomes the joyful chorus, "For unto us a Child is born" in Messiah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owcn6fgYwpw). Bach in his music of joy does wholesale transcriptions, most notably from annual occasional music for the Leipzig Town to contrafactions in the B-Minor Mass, Cantatas 29, 120, and 193 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Joy-Sorrow-Cycle.htm) as well as congratulatory drammi per musica (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV232-Gen18.htm).
Two Important Connections
A new study of Bach's major collections of vocal and instrumental music, Christoph Wolff's Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work,2 describes two important connections between Bach and Handel. The ostinato figure3 in Bach's Triple "portrait" canon, BWV 1076, which Wolff calls Bach's "Business Card" (Prologue 1ff) and which originated in Bach's Goldberg theme in the Anna Magdalena Notebook (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlyt2J4rzzA: 1:01), also is found as the concluding variation No. 62 in Handel's Prelude with Chaconne with Variations in G Major, HWV 442 The second connection between Bach and Handel is Wolff's Chapter 6, "A Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle: Three Passions and a Trilogy of Oratorios," involving Bach's three extant Passions (1723-31) and the three sacred dramas of the Christmas, Easter and Ascension Oratorios (1735-38), involving "the four major Christological feasts of the ecclesiastical year" (Ibid.: 193), "covering the same thematic range" in Handel's Messiah: Christmas birth, Good Friday Passion, Easter Sunday Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven.
Bach-Handel Ostinato, BWV 988/1, HWV 442/62
The ostinato connection between Bach and Handel has been known for some time. Handel's second published volume of harpsichord dance suites, Suites de Pièces de Clavecin, HWV 434-442 (London 1733), nine dance suites, includes works dating to Handel's Hamburg period (1703-06). "Whether Bach became familiar with the second volume during the 1730s cannot be definitely established," says Wolff (Ibid.: 185). "And he likely would not have known that these recently published were two or even three decades old. Yet it does seem that he took a particular interest in the last piece of the set" (HWV 442). The "final movement of the chaconne (Variation 62) is printed in an incomplete form as a two-part canon at the octave, though the riddle is easy to solve by adding the missing ostinato bass under the notated upper parts," says Wolff (Ibid.: 185). The bass ostinato is realized in the opening measures of Bach's Goldberg Variations (Clavier-Übung IV), BWV 988/1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ezpwCHtJs), begun in the late 1730s, that is part of Bach's autograph addendum, a study of 14 canons, BWV 1087, of the first eight fundamental notes of the aria (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1087.htm). Bach subsequently used this as his "Business Card," Canon triplex a 6, BWV 1076 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN7EuiE7SgI), based on the ATB parts shown in Bach's E. G. Haussmann portrait (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/thefaceofbach/QCL07.htm), for his 1747 membership inthe Mizler Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences.4 Bach's printed card was circulated to the other members, including Handel in London and Telemann in Hamburg. "Thus the canon may well be understood as including a friendly nod toward the London composer, perhaps combines with a subtle critique of the meek two-part canon the conclusion of the latter's Chaconne in G major with 62 variations, BWV 442, constructed over the same notes," says Wolff (Ibid.: 7). At any rate, the six-part canon shared with the Society's membership definitely conformed to the goals formulated in its statutes of 1746, among them 'the renewal of the majesty of ancient music,' even if it may not have been Bach's primary motivation."
1730 Bach Watershed Period
The early 1730s was a watershed period for Bach, whose musical interests had expanded to the realm of profane music, both instrumental and vocal, while still pursuing the final ingredients of a "well-regulated church music to the Glory of God." Bach in 1729 had begun to direct the weekly concerts of the Collegium musicum at Zimmermann's Coffeehouse and Gardens, presenting music favored at the Dresden Court such as operatic arias from Handel operas, as well as Bach's concertos for one or more harpsichords. This organization also provided skilled instrumentalists and vocalists to supplement Bach's church and student musicians. Bach sought where possible to unite the two performing groups, most notably with brass instruments in his Missa: Kyrie-Gloria, BWV 232.2, and his oratorios for Christmas, Easter, and Ascension — both involving Christological works based on pre-existing music in new text underlay, the former as contrafaction (German to Latin) from sacred and secular cantatas, and the latter as German parody mostly from drammi per musica for the Saxon Court. Bach had recently completed his three Passion settings of John (1724), Matthew (1727), and Mark (1731), creating biblically-based oratorio Passions with the Gospel of John's emphasis on Christus Victor, Matthew on atonement through satisfaction, and the parody Mark as the essential synoptic Passion gospel. In the second half of the 1730s, Bach began to revise his three original Passions to secure definitive versions while intentionally and leisurely composing his sacred oratorios. He also during this time in the instrumental realm was composing his Clavier-Übung III, German Organ and Catechism chorale Mass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavier-Übung_III), and compiling four more Missae: Kyrie Gloria, BWV 233-236. Both collections were composed for festive main services, possibly in conjunction with the great Reformation Jubilee of 1739 observing the gala bicentennial of Saxony's acceptance of the Lutheran Confession and the publication in Leipzig of the first comprehensive liturgical chorale book.
Bach's "Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle"
Bach's "Grand Liturgical Messiah Cycle" differs considerably from Handel's Messiah, composed in 1741. Most of Bach's oratorios were German works in the expanded cantata madrigalian style with choruses, arias, ariosi, and accompagnati, as well as chorales. In lieu of poetic commentary madrigalian recitatives, Bach in the German historia tradition (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Oratorio-Pentecost.htm) employed verbatim the gospel narrative recitative as sung by the evangelist narrator, with the gospel characters sung in recitative while the crowds of disciples and onlookers were sung as turbae choruses. Bach's exception to the German oratorio genre is his Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, which as a parody of a profane birthday serenade of 1725 follows the Italian format of a pictorial, contemplative oratorio setting with poetic paraphrases of the gospel text in poetic narrative and commentary as a type of dramma per musica with characters. Meanwhile, there is a strong connection between Bach's St. John Passion and his Easter Oratorio. Both works emphasize the evangelist John's textual perspective of Jesus as Christus Victor in his death and resurrection, as well as Martin Luther's doctrinal Theology of the Cross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_of_the_Cross).
In the spring of 1725, Bach presented a Johannine Chr4istological trilogy of the John Passion, the Easter Oratorio, and the Jesus Farewell Discourse in the Easter-Pentecost season mini-series of nine cantatas set to texts of Leipzig poetess Christiane Mariane von Ziegler (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV249-Gen5.htm: "Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, Part Two). Thus Bach ceased the chorale cantata cycle on the feast of Annunciation, March 25, with Cantata 1, and proceeded essentially with a min-cycle that involved the Johannine trilogy and marked the beginning of Bach's third and final church cantata cycle. In the 1730s, following his completion of church year cantatas cycles, Bach focused "increasingly on musical projects of personal interest," says Wolff (Ibid.: 247). "In sum, Bach created a remarkable network of textual and musical correspondences across these works," particularly, "a special and likely intentional affinity of the St. John Passion with the three oratorios." In 1748/49 Bach was able "to realize a cyclical performance of all four works within a single church year: the Christmas Oratorio, followed by the St. John Passion, the Easter Oratorio, and the Ascension Oratorio. Previously, it is possible that Bach presented a second cycle of all four Passions BWV 244-247, from 1742 to 1745, the first being in 1729-32 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passions_(Bach). These six oratorios (a Pentecost Oratorio also is possible) constitute "an imposing group of large-scale works for the major Christological feasts of the church year, the composer's grand liturgical Messiah cycle," says Wolff (Ibid.: 248). To this category could be added the "Great Catholic" Mass in B Minor which Bach completed in his last year. Further, in the broadest possible sense, a full Bach Christological Cycle of church works could also involve the Latin Church music of the Mass Ordinary and the Magnificat of conception and incarnation as well as the free-standing liturgical plain chorales, BWV 253-435. As part of a well-ordered church music, this cycle also has correspondences with Christological observances celebrated in the church-year cycles: the. Maran feasts of the Presentation, Annunciation, and Visitation, the apostles and saints feasts of John the Evangelist and John the Baptist, the Transfiguration of the Lord, Palm Sunday, and the apocryphal feast of Michael and All-Angels (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Topics/Christological-Cycle-Summary.htm).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
1 Joseph P. Swain, Chapter 16, "Bach and Handel: Synchronicity and Freedom," in Listening to Bach and Handel: A Comparative Study, Monographs in Musicology No.18 (Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2018: 511ff), Amazon.com).
2 Christoph Wolff, Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020), Amazon.com; contents, https://books.google.com/books?id=GQSfDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1&lpg=PT1&dq=wolff+bach+musical+universe+contents&source=bl&ots=S3QErZwd72&sig=ACfU3U2foA9rBVrMU8pom3Kuvn6d41fGzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiIgJTWzc_oAhWOG80KHb1KBusQ6AEwCXoECAsQKQ#v=onepage&q=wolff%20bach%20musical%20universe%20contents&f=false.
3 Ostinato figure: Bach BWV 1076, (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1072-1078.htm, https://imslp.org/wiki/Canon_in_G_major%2C_BWV_1076_(Bach%2C_Johann_Sebastian)); Handel HWV 442, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Handel_Chaconne_G228_Var_62.png), ostinato missing; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_22LuVgZk: 16:08).
4 Mizler Society: Lutz Felbick, "J. S. Bach and Lorenz Mizler," in Bach Notes No. 18 (2013, America Bach Society: 6f), http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Pic-Festival/Bach-Notes-18.pdf); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_Christoph_Mizler; see also Wolff, Prologue, "On the Primacy and Pervasiveness of Polyphony: The Composer's Business Card," in Bach's Musical Universe (Ibid.: 1ff).
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To Come: Swain's "Bach, Handel, and Six Essential Concepts" (cantus firmus, dance, ostinato, cantilena, fugue, ritornello) and "Music and Drama" (opera seria, Passion, English oratorio, solo sonata and solo concerto). |
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William Rowland (Ludwig) wrote (April 8, 2020):
[To William L. Hoffman] There is also a connection between Haydn's Symphonies and Bach's Kantaten. |
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Aryeh Oron wrote (April 8, 2020):
[To Ludwig] Can you explain what is the connection between the 100+ Haydn's Symphonies and the 200+ Bach's Cantatas apart from being the largest body of works of the same type by both composers? |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (April 10, 2020):
The only connection between Bach and Haydn that I have found is this: Bach organ trio sonatas lack the figured bass that "anticipated the development of of the unfigured (cordless) bass part in the later history of musical composition -- as it is manifested, for example, in the string quartet, where Haydn and his followers dropped the keyboard accompaniment altogether," says Christoph Wolff in his new book, Bach's Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020: 115). Also, Baron van Swieten introduced Bach's B-Minor Mass to Haydn, says Wolff (Ibid.: 317f). "Haydn wrote some fugues as final movements of early string quartets, Opus 20 most notably," says Joseph P. Swain in Listening to Bach and Handel: A Comparative Study (Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2018: 284). |
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Bach, Handel: Essential Concepts: Cantus Firmus, Dance, Ostinato |
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William L. Hoffman wrote (April 16, 2020):
Bach and Handel standout during the high Baroque in their use of "six essential concepts or principles of composition, and the understanding of their mastery is indispensable for any deep appreciation of their art: cantus firmus, dance, ostinato, cantilena, fugue, and ritornello," says Joseph P. Swain in his new study of Bach and Handel.1 "Although all flourished during the baroque, all but one, the ritornello, predate that era," he notes (Ibid.) "Bach and Handel invented none of them, but transformed all of them." Especially noteworthy is the cantus firmus (fixed song) sacred chant which in the late Baroque was used by Bach for numerous settings of Lutheran chorales, particularly in the Passions, and in Handel to anticipate dramatic moments through allusions to melodies in his oratorios. The pervasive dance, essential in Baroque music, gets supreme treatment in Bach's keyboard suite collections as compositional and pedagogical models as well as extended Passion choruses, while Handel creates striking dances in his instrumental minuets as well as arias with a compendium of dance styles in Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Closely related to dance is the ostinato, an unassuming bass melody or pattern which was the building block of movements in the early Baroque, while in Bach and Handel's time was the catalyst for keyboard variations in the dance-like passacaglia and chaconne, the Goldberg Variations and The Harmonious Blacksmith being the most popular while both composers created popular string chaconnes and dramatic movements in their oratorios.
Four of the six conventions "depend explicitly on the Gestalt principle of similarity," that sound alike will be perceived together and "will cohere to form a whole, which s a principal aim of structural organization," he says (Ibid.: 174). "The fugue repeats a subject motive, the ostinato repeats a bass melody, a harmonic progression, or both, and the ritornello repeats a clearly harmonized melody of several phrases" while "Dance exploit similarity more subtle in their characteristic rhythmic figures and metric frames." Only "the cantus firmus and cantilena need not repeat themselves," although the chorale melody in Bach shows an organization across several movements in varied applications in his chorale cantatas. A different subset involving four of the six may "stand alone as independent movements": fugue, ostinato (also called chaconne, passacaglia, or ground), dance-style movement, and a cantilena or simple melody in slow tempo. The cantus firmus maintains its own integrity in a stanza of the chorale while the ritornello is too brief a passage to count as a complete movement in the late Baroque. The six concepts "are not at all mutually exclusive," he notes. For example most of Bach's gigues (often in 6/8 or 12/8) are fugues as well, such as the final movement Allegro of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbKkTpD2joA), which includes a ritornello. The great opening chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, "Kommt, ihr Töchter" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnkSFKJ4rC0), combines a cantus firmus within a ritonello structure of a fugue set in a pastorale dance style. All these ingredients, used imaginatively and extensively in the music of Bach and Handel, "contribute to a movement's organization, its scheme for meeting the perceptual and cognitive requirements of its intended audience," Swain in his Chapter 6, "Cantus Formus," says (Ibid.: 175), "along with the more fundamental components of the musical language" such as melody, harmony, and rhythm.
Cantus Firmus: Pervasive in Bach
The cantus firmus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantus_firmus) beginning in Latin Church music as a pre-existing melody, was pervasively used by Bach, particularly in its later manifestation as a Lutheran chorale melody sung in the vernacular German first translated by Martin Luther. The Matthew Passion opening chorus (cited above) uses the chorale, "O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig" (O Lamb of God, innocent; translation Francis Browne) in a complex texture involving a double ensemble with boy's choir singing the hymn. Bach's first vocal chorale setting, the chorale Cantata 4, "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ lay in death's bonds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43drQ_KRtyg), possibly used as early as Easter Sunday, 4 April 1706, in Arnstadt, composed Luther's chorale in eight varied settings as an instrumental sinfonia, two chorale choruses, four chorale arrangements for soloists (including a trope in ostinato and a trio sonata), and a plain, four-part chorale (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWV4-Eng3.htm).
Luther's settings of sacred songs as strophic poetry "often adapted from Biblical sources, ignited an explosion," says Swain (Ibid.: 189). Bach responded with many settings as plain chorales, chorale choruses and tropes in his vocal music as well as chorale preludes in his organ music. Most notable is his use of what is now called the "Passion Chorale," "O sacred head now wounded," know in German as "Herzlich thut mich verlangen" (My heart is filled with longing), which has numerous variant texts and melodies (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Befiehl-du-deine-Wege.htm) and is part of Bach's Passion chorale settings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY6LCG-REkw). It is best known in Bach's harmonization as five four-voice settings in the St. Matthew Passion and three in the St. Mark Passion. Interestingly, the melody also was used in non-Passion settings such as the Christmas Oratorio as "Wie soll ich dich empfangen" (How should I receive Thee, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JYcLrinQQ) and the joyous closing chorale chorus, "Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen" (Now you are well avenged, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lULC5uyVb70). "The meaning of the chorale depended on its immediate context, as does all musical semantics, that is, the text of the moment," he says (Ibid.: 191). Its use in the Christmas Oratorio at the beginning and end connotes the allegory of Jesus ultimate death.
Handel: Cantus Firmus as Anticipation
"The appearance of a cantus firmus in composition . . . is a moment of anticipation, even on occasion, astonishment," Swain observes (Ibid.: 192). "That is the kind of meaning that most attracted Handel." In the chorus from Israel in Egypt, "And the children of Israel sigh'd" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odPDZBtAML0) the melody of "Christ lag" "seems to sound in the sustained melodies," he says (Ibid.: 192f). Two chorale melodies, "Herr Jesu Christ, du höchtes Gut" and "Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ," are quoted in the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctI4RqytF_Y). The closing of the chorus, "Praise the Lord" from Solomon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eEHLg_c8iE: 2:55) sounds like "Gott is heilig" or "Ein feste Burg," he suggests (Ibid.: 193). "For Handel, the great value in a cantus firmus, or a tune of his own invention that sound like one, lies in the potential of the sustained pitch against the Baroque motor rhythm, textual divergence as a source of tension (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keX7IG6VsiY, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWkpjoEgct0). Handel "exploited it in every kind of music he wrote: opera arias, dances, concerto ritornellos, and certainly the grand choruses." The closing chorus, "Give glory of his awful name" from Athalia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFGTYGTuet4: mm. 9-13) is "an authentic cantus formus" that "adumbrates Bach's handling of 'Wachet Auf" in Cantata 140 very well" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz0FmmNrTck), he says (Ibid.: 197).
Dance: Bach, Handel Forte
"No devotee of Bach and Handel's music can escape the dance," says Swain in Chapter 7, "Dance" (Ibid.: 203). Besides "sacred music, all the world's musical traditions owe much of their origins and substance to dancing, but even so, dance infects Baroque music more than any other period of the Western tradition." "Not infrequently, dance rhythms animated the most fashionable church music." Bach's collections of dance music — the French and English Suites and the Partitas — are legion, "not only for keyboard practice but as superior models of composition." Handel's suites for harpsichord date from about the same period (1703-20) while his "most famous dance music comes from suites for orchestra:" the Water Music from 1717 and the Music for the Royal Fireworks of 1749. Bach's four suites for orchestra also are known as overtures while Handel's opera overtures use various dance styles. "They wrote hundreds more dance movements in the form of arias and concerto movements that are not so named but bear every characteristic," such as the gigue in the finale of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmaiMOuuJdE) and the siciliana in Handel's aria, "He shall feed His flock" from Messiah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaGGbyAeS3c).
In the 18 movements of the Brandenburg Concertos, Bach uses varied dance phrases in 13. In his vocal music he uses dance styles, most impressively in the opening pastorale-style chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, cited above, "Kommt, ihr Töchter" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnkSFKJ4rC0). Further, Bach closes all three of his Passion oratorios with the so-called great "rest in the grave" choruses which are all dances set to texts of sorrow: John, "Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine" (Rest well, ye holy limbs) which is a 3/4 minuet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arrA7DBmeNI); Matthew, "Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder" (We sit ourselves down in tears), a 3/4 sarabande (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzuctqOt1A8); and Mark, "Bei deinem Grab und Leichenstein" (By thy rock grave and great tombstone), a 12/8 gigue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjEg3kQjl68).
Handel's use of the minuet is his most extensive use of that dance style, "not only in his suites but also as prelude music to his oratorios and operas, and as movements in his sonatas and concertos, says Swain (Ibid.: 214). "Despite the strong profile of the minuet, each one of his owns a remarkable individuality. None is more daring in its manipulation of meter than the innocent G major minuet from the Water Music" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N80Hh12OjVQ). There is ambiguity and crossed purposes with "the uncertain meter at the beginning, the constant threat of an undermining by the harmonic syncopation, the unbalanced and ephemeral phrasing at the low level," he shows (Ibid.: 217). "It is precisely out of such crossed purposes that Bach and Handel create their magic in the staid and stylized dances of the late Baroque." Handel's 1724 Giulio Cesare in Egitto is a compendium of dance music in 14 of its three dozen mostly da capo arias, including "two bourrées, two gigues, two passepieds, two polonaises, a siciliana, a corrente, and allemande, and no less than three minuets," he says (Ibid.: 218). "Handel's choices of dance rhythms in Giulio Cesare correspond with and deepen the expressions of the characters." Of particular note is Cleopatra's aria, "Tu la mia stella sei" (Oh star of my desire, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py1tHYxYl8Y), which is a heavily articulated gigue. Handel creates a small dramatic form: a concise pattern in a "set of expectations that, as in any good narrative," "that seem to the listener unpredictable and yet completely comprehensible once heard," he says (Ibid.: 222).
"To get what he wants from simple materials, Handel risks banality," Swain cautions (Ibid.). "Bach does not risk banality very often." The opening chorus of Part 3 of the Christmas Oratorio, the adoration of the shepherds, "Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen" (Ruler of heaven, hear our inarticulate speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfM_zj42SGk) is a passepied in 3/8 as a composed song of praise, revealing "the broad and overlapping semantic ranges of dance music and church music in eighteenth-century Lutheran Germany," he says (Ibid.: 223). Bach uses traditional dance suites in his instrumental music, both for harpsichord and orchestra, while his most impressive use is the Cantata 194, "Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest" (Most greatly longed for feast of joy),2 transcribed from a celebratory Köthen court instrumental suite for the festive Sunday, opening the de tempore second half of the church year. It opens with a French overture for chorus, followed by arias in dance forms: 3. pastorale, 5. gavotte, 8. gigue, 10. minuet.
Ostinato: Passacaglia, Chaconne
The simple ostinato bass motive or pattern is the melodic springboard or wellspring for some of the finest music of Bach and Handel, observes Swain in his Chapter 8,"Ostinato." Originating in Spanish dance traditions of the 16th century, it is known by other names as a passacaglia in Italian, chaconne in French (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaconne), and ground bass in English. The ostinato sparked an interplay between Bach and Handel dating to the 1730s and '40s, based on a figure in a Handel harpsichord variation and Bach's Goldberg Variations aria (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Other/Handel-Gen5.htm: "Bach-Handel Ostinato, BWV 988/1, HWV 442/62). In Bach, the aria ostinato is the seed of a set of motives, alternating with a set of canons throughout the Goldberg Variations.3 With a single harmonic plan, Bach composed an "encyclopedia of Baroque instrumental music," he says (Ibid.: 231). In the early Baroque, before the development of embedded harmony, the da capo aria, and the ritornello, the ostinato (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostinato) was the initial building block, exploiting the principle of similarity, to create a large-scale compositional structure to give substance to the music, an architecture that became the sonata form (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonata) in the Classical era of thematic introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation, and coda. Handel shaped a chaconne figure to create the "Air and variations," known as the "The Harmonious Blacksmith,"4 the last movement of his keyboard Suite No. 5 in E Major, HWV 430 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjeFYoXf_WY).
Here is a summary of Swain's "Ostinato" chapter: "The critics’ desire to understand the Goldberg Variations, the great Chaconne for Solo Violin, and the “Crucifixus” from the Mass in B Minor as organic wholes contradicts the plain facts of listeners’ cognition, a contradiction resolved through a dialectical way of hearing them, which also accounts for Handel’s ability to make his ostinatos key dramatic points in his oratorios Saul and Israel in Egypt" (http://www.pendragonpress.com/media/toc_760.pdf). Bach fully exploits the chaconne and passacaglia in two iconic instrumental works with variations: the "Chaconne" conclusion of the "Partita No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin in D minor," BWV 1004, and the "Organ Passacaglia in C minor," BWV 582. Bach's "Chaconne" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DQYGOiaZVI) is a set of 66 variations of the four-bar melody in which in recent years Bach scholars have begun to find spiritual-autobiographical references. The entire partita has quotes from death and resurrection chorales (see http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Revival-20.htm: paragraph beginning "Morimur" uses Bach's 'Chaconne'"). "Like the Goldberg Variations, the chaconne encourages hearing the set as a whole by recalling the opening music," says Swain (Ibid.: 240). Handel composed three extensive chaconnes with variations in three harpsichord suites, Chaconne in G major with 62 variations, HWV 442 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_22LuVgZk); the Chaconne in D minor with 10 variations, HWV 448 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB-Kfmi4MKI), and the Chaconne in G Major from the Suite, HWV 435, with 21 variations, best known in the Halvorsen transcription for violin and viola (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxtvUDpk60s).
There are 20 ostinato variations in Bach's Organ Passacaglia, BWV 582 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie52xH8V2L4). Here Bach uses harmonic changes "in perfectly ordered and metrically aligned syntax," Swain says (Ibid.: 241). Here "Bach manages to impose a dramatic metaphor, a shape of action, upon a genre that in essence consists of [20] events as loosely related as the individual Canterbury tales" (Ibid.: 245). "The sense of something greater than individual variations takes on greater significance for one listening to the Crucifixus of the Mass in B Minor" (Ibid.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyUDe-_l6xQ), transcribed from the chaconne in the opening chorus, "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen" (Weeping, lamentation, worry, apprehension, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXap5fB-hvA), of Cantata 12 for the 3rd Sunday after Easter (Jubilate). "Here the creation of a drama is more than metaphorical because we are witnessing a real drama, that of the crucifixion of Christ and a glimmer of the resurrection." In 1738 Handel composed two English oratorios with "idiosyncratic ostinatos for the stage," says Swain (Ibid.: 254): the chorus "Envy, eldest born of Hell" in Saul (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlxKXYo_Knc), and the soprano aria "Thou didst blow with a wind" from Israel in Egypt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NaMzkhIB0Y). Handel's dramatic ostinato eschews the emphasis on variations "and much more on the virtuosity of interpreting the same bass melody over and over," he says (Ibid.: 266f). "The universal fascination with musical variation is paramount here."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
1 Joseph P. Swain, Part III: Bach, and Handel, and Six Essential Concepts, in Listening to Bach and Handel: A Comparative Study, Monographs in Musicology No.18 (Hillsdale NY: Pendragon Press, 2018: 173ff), Amazon.com, http://www.pendragonpress.com/media/toc_760.pdf).
2 Cantata 194: description, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV194-D4.html; music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcOfjcdevZ8; score, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/BGA/BWV194-BGA.pdf).
3 Goldberg Variations: description, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldberg_Variations; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ezpwCHtJs; music, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ezpwCHtJs; score, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ezpwCHtJs).
4The Harmonious Blacksmith: description, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harmonious_Blacksmith, music and score, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUhY2Tcwg4.
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To Come: Baroque concepts of cantilena, fugue, and ritornello in Bach and Handel |
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Continue on Part 6 |
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