Introduction
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INTRODUCTION The present volume contains all of Carl Philipp Emanuel Both are collected in Miscellanea Musica, Wq 121, pub- Bach’s surviving organ music: the five sonatas Wq 70/2–6, lished in CPEB:CW, VIII/1. Bach also wrote two con- and the prelude Wq 70/7; also included are the six fugues certos for organ and orchestra (Wq 34 and 35), which are Wq 119/2–7 (including the fantasia that accompanies not included in the present volume; they are published in Wq 119/7),1 and the four-part chorales H 336/1–5. The sec- CPEB:CW, III/9.11. tion of incerta includes pieces not found in the two authen- tic catalogues of Bach’s works (CV 1772 and NV 1790) nor Bach and the Organ referred to in his letters or in other contemporary docu- ments, but which nonetheless can be ascribed to him with That most of the important genres of organ music culti- varying degrees of certainty: the chorale preludes on “Aus vated in the eighteenth century—sonata, fantasia, prelude, der Tiefen rufe ich” and “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” fugue, chorale prelude, and trio—are represented in Bach’s and the Adagio in D Minor, H 352. The sketch known as œuvre is perhaps the result of Bach’s musical upbringing the Pedal Exercitium, BWV 598, transmitted on an auto- as son of the greatest organist of the eighteenth century. graph page by C. P. E. Bach, is included in the appendix. Taken as a whole, this corpus of works hardly places Bach Other C. P. E. Bach sonatas often played on the organ or among the most committed, wide-ranging, or prolific or- deemed by various musicologists on stylistic grounds to gan composers of his generation; he composed far less have been intended for the organ have been excluded; only music for the instrument than did his father, or for that those sonatas listed in Bach’s own catalogues as organ pieces matter, several of his father’s other students, for example, have been included here.2 Several fugal and chorale-based Johann Ludwig Krebs. Yet Bach did not forsake the or- works that cannot be securely attributed to Bach are also gan altogether; when he wrote for the instrument, he ap- omitted from the edition; they are listed below under the proached it in novel, idiosyncratic ways. A hundred or so heading “Doubtful and Spurious Works.” Two authentic surviving manuscripts transmit his organ works and attest imitative harmonizations of the family name, B–A–C–H, to the esteem with which his organ music was held in the are given in Helm as spurious fugue expositions, H 389.6.3 late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth. The marginal position of the organ in Bach’s output 1. The “Duo in Contrapuncto,” Wq 119/1, is by Friedrich Wilhelm probably has less to do with training or inclination than Marpurg (1718–95) and is not published in CPEB:CW. See Wolfgang with the trajectory of his professional career. Although Horn, “Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach und das ‘Duo in contrapuncto’ Wq 119/1 (H. 76),” BJ 85 (1999): 159–69. he applied for two organist posts, the first in Naumburg 2. The Sonata in A Major, Wq 70/1, was included by Johann Jakob in 1734, the second in Zittau in 1753, he was unsuccess- Heinrich Westphal, organist in Schwerin and collector of Bach’s mu- ful in both attempts. In 1768, Bach took up the last and sic, in his collection of organ sonatas (B-Bc, 5879 MSM); since then most important post of his career in Hamburg, arguably it has often been played on the organ, and is included in two modern critical editions of Bach’s organ works: Fedtke, 1:5–21, and Hauschild, the greatest organ city in Germany. By then, his organ 62–85 (early and later versions). However, this sonata (also known as technique had long since withered, so that Charles Burney Wq 65/32) was first published in Partie IX of Johann Ulrich Haffner’s reported of Bach on his visit to Hamburg in 1772, he “has Œuvres mêlées (1762–63), and therefore, it has been published in CPEB: so long neglected organ-playing, that he says he has lost CW, I/5.2. The Sonata in D Minor, Wq 69 (published in CPEB:CW, 4 I/6.3), was published in an unauthorized edition of Bach’s organ works all use of the feet.” Bach apparently never played the in- (see critical report of the present volume, source E). Arguments have also been made for the Sonata in D Minor, Wq 65/24 (also in CPEB: of Carl Friedrich Cramer (see figure in the general preface, p. viii). CW, I/6.3), as a possible organ piece. See Leisinger/Wollny 1993, 139. H 389.6/2 is also given as an authentic fughetta, H 285. Copies of both The decision to include here only those sonatas listed in NV 1790 as items in H 389.6 are found in D-B, Mus. ms. P 774 (see source A 3 for organ pieces avoids the slippery question of style and a harpsichord ver- the sonatas in the critical report). sus organ idiom. 4. Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Nether- 3. H 389.6/1 survives as an autograph entry by Bach in an album lands and United Provinces, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1775), 2:275. [ xi ] struments in Hamburg’s principal churches, at least not for tention to Bach’s sensitivity and expressiveness, even on an his many visitors, though Burney mentions spending an instrument which, in contrast to Bach’s beloved clavichord, entire morning “visiting churches, and hearing organs, to was incapable of minute dynamic gradations. Nicolai’s which M. Bach was so kind as to conduct me.”5 The largest comment was written two decades before Burney’s visit to instrument in the city was demonstrated for Burney by an Hamburg, that is, at a time when Bach would still have amateur organist. been confident at the organ. Bach’s three decades of service as royal chamber musi- Nicolai might have heard Bach on one of the many fine cian at the court of Friedrich II (Frederick the Great) of organs in the churches of Berlin or nearby Potsdam, but Prussia and as composer of keyboard music for the bur- another interesting possibility might also be entertained. geoning print market apparently prevented him from de- Two years after Bach had applied for the post in Zittau, an voting much attention to the organ, an instrument only organ in the Berlin Royal Palace was finished by the Berlin occasionally found in the bourgeois homes, aristocratic sa- organ builder Ernst Marx for Anna Amalia, Princess of lons, and royal apartments to which he directed his efforts Prussia, the music-loving younger sister of Friedrich II.7 and where he himself performed. But instead of being seen Bach had close connections to the princess and served as as an ancillary collection of compositions intended for the her honorary Kapellmeister after 1768, when he had left organ, the music in this volume should be considered as Berlin for Hamburg. The immediate inspiration for Nico- one facet of C. P. E. Bach’s efforts as a composer of key- lai’s account could well have been a visit with Bach to the board music for specific patrons and for general sale for organ newly installed in the Berlin Palace in December domestic use by amateurs. Moreover, in spite of the fact 1755. This still-extant instrument, now in the Kirche zur that Bach never held a professional position as organist, frohen Botschaft in Karlshorst on the outskirts of Berlin, we should by no means dismiss his interest in or abilities at could also have been played by Bach while still in Marx’s the instrument. Organists’ auditions, like those Bach would workshop in the earlier months of 1755. have had to undergo, were demanding, and we can assume The specification of this organ was:8 that Bach would not have entered into the Zittau competi- tion without having brought his skills as an organist to the I. Manual II. Ober Werck III. Pedal highest level; after all, the other candidates for the job in- Principal 8 Principal 4 Sub Bass 16 cluded his brother-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol, his Bordun 16 Gedact 8 Violon 8 brother Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and Gottfried August Viola di Gamba 8 Quinda Töne 8 Quinta 6 Rohrflöt[e] 8 Rohrflöt[e] 4 Octave 4 Homilius—some of the finest organists of the generation, [Flauto dolce] 8 Nasat 3 Bass Flöt[e] 8 and all students of J. S. Bach. Indeed, in a letter written Octave 4 Octav[e] 2 Posaun[e] 16 two years after the unsuccessful Zittau application, the Quinta 3 Sifflöt[e] 1 Sper Ventil Berlin writer and publisher Christoph Friedrich Nicolai Octave 2 Salicinat 8 “im discant” Calcanten Glock praised Bach’s mastery of the organ: “If you want to have Quinte 1 Sper Ventil Tremolant an example of how one can combine the deepest secrets of Viola di Gamba 4 Eine Gabel Koppel art with everything that taste treasures, then listen to the 6 Mixtur 5fach [manual coupler] Berlin Bach on the organ.” Nicolai specifically draws at- Sper Ventil 5. Ibid., 2:273. played the organ. In any case, the passage conflicts with that of Burney. See Leisinger 1993, 17. 6. “Wollen Sie aber ein Beispiel haben, wie man die tiefsten Geheim- nisse der Kunst, mit allem, was der Geschmakk schäzbares hat, verbin- 7.