Johann Sebastian Bach's Organ Works Volume 5 Christoph Wolff
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Johann Sebastian Bach's Organ Works Volume 5 Christoph Wolff During his lifetime Johann Sebastian Bach published only three volumes of organ pieces, all of which appeared within more or less the final decade of his life. The third part of the Clavier- Übung was privately engraved in 1739, the Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch were published by Balthasar Schmid of Nuremberg in 1747, and the Sechs Chorale von verschiedener Art (the "Schübler" Chorales) were issued by Johann Georg Schübler of Zella some twelve months later. Whereas the last-named volume comprises transcriptions of cantata movements from the 1720s, the other two contained new works. The third part of the Clavier-Übung was Bach's first publication in the field of organ music and, at the same time, his largest and most ambitious collection of such pieces. It was the third part of a four-part series of volumes, the other three of which contain the Six Partitas (Part One, 1731), the Italian Concerto and French Overture (Part Two, 1735) and the Goldberg Variations (Part Four, 1741). Bach was no doubt fully conscious of his status as a master of the art of keyboard composition, with the result that this series finds him writing, in turn, not only for all the most important keyboard instruments of his day (a single-manual harpsichord in Part One, a two-manual harpsichord in Parts Two and Four, and an organ in Part Three) but also for all the principal genres, styles and compositional techniques, namely, suite, concerto, prelude and fugue, variation, chorale settings of every kind, Italian and French national styles, free counterpoint and two- to six-voice polyphonic settings. The title of the great organ collection of 1739 gives only an inadequate idea of its contents: in translation, it runs "Third Part of the Keyboard Practice consisting in Various Preludes on the Catechism and Other Hymns for the Organ". What this title does not mention are the movements that are not based on chorales. None the less, it must be admitted that it is the twenty-one chorale movements that are in fact central to the work. They fall into two groups: i) German chorale versions of the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass and ii) Luther's Catechism chorales. The chorales are thus all from the pre-Reformational and Lutheran Church. Since the missa hymns and Catechism chorales were independent of the church calendar, there were no restrictions on the times when these works could be performed, as would have been the case with a collection of Advent, Christmas, Passiontide or Easter chorales (cf. the Orgel-Büchlein). The fact that the tunes are based on the old church modes offered Bach a chance to explore modal harmony in a systematic way and, hence, to extend the major-minor tonal spectrum, while at the same time allowing him to introduce dissonant chromaticisms, as in the final section of the concluding strophe of the Kyrie in BWV 671. He also explored the whole stylistic range of the art of composition by combining old techniques such as imitation, canon, ostinato variation and cantus firmus in different registers with examples of the most modern mannerisms, most notably in the vaguely French-sounding chorale BWV 682 and in the virtuoso language of BWV 688. The collection is framed by pieces not based on cantus firmi: namely, the Prelude and Fugue in E flat major ("pedaliter") and four duets in ascending order of tonality ("manualiter"). Each of the chorales exists in two settings, a large-scale one with pedals, and a less ambitious one without. Bach's reason for including this choice was not only to provide a greater variety of different types of chorale but also to offer a selection of pieces for large organ with a pedal department and for a smaller organ, without pedals, or a harpsichord. The same idea of setting one and the same chorale tune in different ways is also found in his late Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch. On this occasion, Bach extends the strict canonic technique that he had used in Part Three of the Clavier-Übung in BWV 678 and 682 and applies it to a five-movement work. He published this set of variations under the title "A Few Canonic Variations on the Christmas Hymn 'From Heaven High to Earth I Come' for the Organ with 2 Manuals and Pedal". Here, in a highly ambitious piece for the organ, Bach demonstrates the art of canonic variation explored elsewhere in his Goldberg Variations, Musical Offering and Art of Fugue. When Bach joined Mizler's Sozietät der musicalischen Wissenschaften in the summer of 1747, he dedicated the piece to this learned society and, at the same time, took the opportunity to have a number of the movements engraved in cryptic notation. The Canonic Variations survive in two different versions. In the original edition of 1747 (BWV 769), the order of the last three movements differs from that of the later autograph copy (BWV 769a). The present recording adopts the order found in the autograph, which ends with the canon at the octave in augmentation, whereas the engraved version ends with a sequence of four canons by inversion at the sixth, third, second and ninth. ● The Silbermann Organ in Freiberg Cathedral Christian Bothmann Building a new church organ has always been a vast undertaking, involving, as it does, the challenge of constructing an instrument within an existing space and not only creating a striking visual impression but also meeting that space's acoustic requirements. Work on such an instrument often lasts many years, during which time the responsibilities of the different craftsmen have to be coordinated and superintended and, last but not least, an eye has to be kept on the budget. Such undertakings have always been preceded by extensive deliberations, and early 18th-century Freiberg was no exception. Here, too, there were lengthy discussions before it was finally decided to tear out the old organ, which was in a poor state of repair and no longer equal to its doxological functions, and to replace it with a new one. Various organ builders tendered for the contract, which was finally awarded in 1710 to the young Gottfried Silbermann, who was the last to submit his design for a 41-stop instrument. Silbermann had only recently set himself up in business on his own and was currently working on an organ for the parish church in the Saxon town of Frauenstein. He had learned the many and varied skills of his trade in the Strasbourg workshop of his brother Andreas, with whom he was apprenticed from 1701, before returning to his native Saxony in 1710. Silbermann's first design for the new organ at Freiberg Cathedral is dated 24 June 1710 and provided for a three-manual instrument - Rück-positiv, Hauptwerk and Brustwerk - with Pedal, but by 30 September he had revised this scheme and replaced the Rückpositiv with an Oberwerk. This change was presumably made at the suggestion of Elias Lindner, who later became the cathedral organist and who not only designed the case but advised Silbermann throughout the whole time that the organ was being built. The contract between Silbermann and the town council was finally concluded on 8 October 1710. Many of the invoices from the subsequent period have survived, affording eloquent testimony to the course of the instrument's elaborate construction. Work on tearing down the old organ began in early 1711 and was followed by the building of the new case. Having already started work on the pipes, Silbermann then began to install the internal parts of the instrument in early 1713. That such complex work could not pass off entirely without difficulty is clear from the fact that Silbermann not only had to ask his paymasters to extend the period set aside for the organ's completion but also to pay him extra. The new organ was examined on 13 and 14 August 1714 by the then Leipzig Thomaskantor, Johann Kuhnau, and the Altenburg court organist, Gottfried Ernst Bestel, who tested it "with great pleasure", to quote from their official report. Both men were full of praise for the organ and its builder. It was a well-deserved success for Silbermann, who thus laid the foundations for his reputation as one of the most important organ builders in Saxony. Translations: Stewart Spencer Bach and Silbermann Ton Koopman Gottfried Silbermann (1683-1753) is a true contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685- 1750). He was born near Freiberg, Saxony, studied under his elder brother Andreas in Strasbourg, and created a synthesis of the French and central German styles of organ- building. The large threemanual organ in Freiberg cathedral is his second instrument. This now world-famous organ survives almost wholly intact, thanks to the high esteem in which Silbermann's successors held his work and their consequent cherishing of it. At the same time the cathedral has an incredibly clear acoustic, so that the organ makes an immediate and lasting impression upon anyone hearing it for the first time. The instrument was tuned to the very high organ pitch of A = approx. 476 Hz, and, after fierce debate, an unequal temperament, close to Silbermann's preference. Evidently church music in Freiberg was played to a higher pitch than in Leipzig (A = approx. 465 Hz). The Freiberg organ is uncommonly rich in tone-colour, has bright reed stops and the most beautiful flutes I know. The pedal-board extends to only two octaves, which calls for creativity on the part of the organist when playing Bach's organ works, which very often go beyond these two octaves.