UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: ____August 12, 2006_____________ I, __Paul Douglas McGahie___________________________________________ Hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Doctor of Musical Arts In: Choral Conducting It is entitled: The Choral Fugue: A Comparative Study of Style and Procedure in Works by J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart. This work and its defense approved by: Chair: __Dr. Earl Rivers___________ __Dr. Stephen Coker________ __Dr. Joel Hoffman_________ The Choral Fugue: A Comparative Study of Style and Procedure in Works by J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart A thesis submitted to the The Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS Ensembles and Conducting Division of the College-Conservatory of Music by Paul D. McGahie B.M., Westminster Choir College, 1980 M..M., University of Oklahoma, 1984 The Choral Fugue: A Comparative Study of Style and Procedure in Works by J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart by Paul Douglas McGahie ABSTRACT It is proposed that the fugal writing found in W. A. Mozart’s choral movements of his major choral-orchestral works can be favorably compared to those of the earlier master composer J. S. Bach in terms of mastery of contrapuntal technique, fugal procedure, creative invention, and artistic inspiration. The primary differences in the style and procedures found in the choral fugues of Bach and Mozart result from the differing musical styles of their separate lifetimes and their unique and unusually gifted creative personalities. Seen through the medium of combined chorus and orchestra Bach’s fugal writing will be seen to exist as a procedure, not a form, which allowed him to an amazing variety of music within this single genre. The reader will also be shown how Bach’s fugal polyphony was disseminated to succeeding generations and how Mozart’s exposure to the music of Bach coincided with changes in his choral fugal writing. CONTENTS LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES AND CHARTS Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION . 1 Overview of Fugue as Process, not Form. 2. J.S. BACH AND THE CHORAL FUGUE . 8 Bach as Culminator of Polyphonic Tradition. 3. ANALYSIS OF BACH CHORAL FUGUES . 13 General Considerations Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243 . 14 Sicut locutus est Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden, BWV 230 . 18 Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 . 23 General Considerations Kyrie Pleni sunt coeli Osanna Credo Cum sancto spiritu 4. J. S. BACH’S POSTHUMOUS INFLUENCE: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 46 Bach’s Position in Society Bach’s Contemporary Reputation Bach’s Late Eighteenth Century Reputation Late Eighteenth Century Dissemination of Bach’s Works 5. MOZART AND THE CHORAL FUGUE I . 65 Mozart’s Early Training I. Missa Dominicus, K. 66 . 67 Cum sancto spiritu Et vitam venturi Mozart’s Early Training II. 71 Missa in Honorem S.S. Trinitatis, K. 167 . 72 Cum sancto spiritu Et vitam venturi Mozart’s Final Salzburg Works Missa Solemnis, K. 337 . 80 Benedictus Vesperae Solennes de confessore, K. 339 . 82 Laudate pueri 6. MOZART AND THE CHORAL FUGUE II . 86 Mozart’s Exposure to the Music of J.S. Bach, Vienna, 1782-4 Mass in C Minor, K 427 . 88 Cum sancto spiritu 7. MOZART AND THE CHORAL FUGUE III . 96 Mozart’s Exposure to Bach’s Motets, Leipzig, 1789 Requiem in D minor, K. 626 . 97 Kyrie Quam olim Abrahae 8. SUMMARY . 105 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . 111 LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES AND CHARTS Figure III-1 Bach, Magnificat, Sicut locutus est, Bass, mm. 1-5. 14 III-2 Bass, mm. 1-21 . 15 III-3 SATB, mm. 31-5 . 16 III-4 Bass and continuo, mm. 6-15 . 17 III-5 Bach, Loben den Herrn, alle Heiden, Soprano I, mm. 1-4 . 18 III-6 Soprano I, mm. 23-5 . 19 III-7 Alto, mm. 5-6 . 19 III-8 Chart, motives . 20 III-9 Chart, sectional comparison . 20 III-10 Tenor, mm. 77-80 . 21 III-11 Bach, Mass in B Minor, Kyrie I, Tenor, mm. 30-3 . 24 III-12 Chart, orchestral exposition I . 25 III-13 Chart, choral exposition I . 26 III-14 Chart, orchestral exposition II . 28 III-15 Chart, choral exposition II . 29 III-16 Bach, Mass in B Minor, Pleni sunt coeli, Tenor and Alto, mm. 48-60 . 30 III-17 Bass, mm. 131-37 . 31 III-18 Soprano II and Alto, mm. 65-72 . 32 III-19 Soprano I, mm. 66-9 . 33 III-20 Soprano I and II, mm. 14-18 . 34 III-21 Bach, Mass in B Minor, Credo, Tenor, mm. 1-4. 37 III-22 All parts, mm. 33-41 . 37 III-23 Bach, Mass in B Minor, Cum Sancto Spiritu, Chart . 40 III-24 Tenor, mm. 37-42 . 41 III-25 Tenor, mm. 43-6 . 41 III-26 Bach, Mass in B Minor, Confiteor, Soprano I and II, mm. 31-5 . 43 V-1 Mozart, Missa Dominicus, Cum Sancto Spiritu, Bass mm. 1-7 . 69 V-2 Mozart, Missa Dominicus, Et vitam venture saeculi, Soprano, mm. 1-6 70 V-3 SATB, mm. 54-63 . 71 V-4 Mozart, Missa Trinitatis, Cum Sancto Spiritu, Soprano, mm. 106-13 . 73 V-5 Alto, mm. 23-6 . 75 V-6 Mozart, Missa Trinitatis, Et vitam venture, Bass, mm. 1-5 . 77 V-7 SATB, mm. 44-53 . 78 V-8 Violins I and II, mm. 67-74 . 79 V-9 Mozart, Missa Solemnis, Benedictus, Bass and Tenor, mm. 1-4 . 81 V-10 Mozart, Vesperae Solennes, Laudate pueri, Bass, mm. 1-7 . 83 V-11 Tenor, mm. 26-8 . 83 V-12 Chart of expositions . 84 VI-1 Mozart, Mass in C Minor, Cum Sancto Spiritu, Bass, mm. 1-7 . 89 VI-2 Tenor, mm. 100-07 . 90 VI-3 Chart of expositions . 92 VII-1 Mozart, Requiem, Kyrie, Bass and Alto, mm. 1-4 . 98 VII-2 Subjects, Introit and Kyrie . 100 VII-3 Chart of expositions and strettos . 100 VII-4 Mozart, Requiem, Quam olim Abrahae, Bass and Tenor, mm. 44-51 . 103 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION Overview of Fugue as Process, not Form “There is probably no branch of musical composition in which theory is more widely, one might almost say hopelessly, at variance with practice than fugue.” 1 The fugue is a Baroque genre. It grew out of several different Renaissance polyphonic traditions into a widely accepted procedure used particularly by the North German Lutheran organists. The Baroque German fugue was a result of the practices of professional composer- musicians of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, not teachers or theorists.2 These musicians adapted the old modal vocal polyphony using the new major-minor harmonic system, the figured bass, and the regular beats of modern meter. It was the only Baroque genre to survive in the late eighteenth century Classical period. Under Bach’s hands the fugue grew into a major genre full of complex and sophisticated techniques of melodic and harmonic manipulation. Bach brought the polyphony of the previous seven centuries to its highest fruition. His fugues have remained the preeminent examples of the genre even to the present day. In the vast literature available on Bach’s fugues the lion’s share is concerned with his instrumental fugues, particularly the Preludes and Fugues, The Well-Tempered Clavier, and The Art of the Fugue. Werner Neumann pointed out in his book J. S. Bachs Chorfuge that Bach’s choral fugues are very different from his instrumental fugues. This distinction requires the 1 Alfred Mann, The Study of Fugue (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1958), 12. 2 George Oldroyd, The Technique and Spirit of Fugue; an Historical Study (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1948, reprinted 1967), 70. 1 scholar to look at the choral fugues without previous conceptions gained from the study of instrumental works.3 Unfortunately, the understanding of Bach’s fugal heritage by succeeding generations became muddied and distorted by changes in artistic conventions. Beginning in the late eighteenth century the fugue became primarily a teaching device for students of music. Later in the nineteenth century it coalesced into a very specific and simple “form,” the composition of which became one of the tests required of the conservatory student of composition. This “fugue form” was developed by theorists and pedagogues (not practicing composers) based not upon the authentic fugal procedures of Bach and his contemporaries, but upon their own narrow under- standing of that genre within the then current theories of “modern” homophonic form. The result was over a century of misunderstanding of the fugue in general and the fugal masterworks of Bach in particular. This post-Baroque “fugue form” was an artificial academic construct, a rather restrictive model incorporating the terminology and philosophy of the Classical era homophonic forms, ie. exposition, development, recapitulation, sectional delineation of form, and all that the sonata form implied. Many rules were created governing the fugal answer, tonal versus real statements, modulations, and invertible counterpoint. This codified form specified specific numbers of episodes, keys, and so forth. (Lest we blame only the nineteenth century pedagogues, however, Chapter III shows how fugal practice was a subject of much disagreement even in the years immediately following Bach’s death.) Since this paradigm for the fugue did not hold true to even a modest minority of Bach’s actual fugues, these teachers and treatise writers even went so 3 Normin Rubin, “ ‘Fugue’as a delimiting concept in Bach’s Choruses”, Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Studies in Honor of Arthur Mendel, ed. Robert Marshall (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1974), 196. 2 far as to criticize Bach for “showing no consistency in the matter” and of “confusing the issue.”4 This Classical/Romantic era “form” has confused more than a few students over the years.