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Johann
Sebastian Bach: Organ
Works *
An introduction by Georg von
Dadelsen
Bach’s sonatas for two
keyboards and pedal hold a
special place in the history
of organ music. Their
movements and style are, in
modern terms, more chamber
music than music for the
church. They translate the
principle of the trio
sonatas on to the organ.
The trio sonata was the most
important ensemble form of
the late Baroque: a tenor
duo usually of two similar
melodic instruments, two
viols, two flutes, with a
thorough-base accompaniment.
This form was developed in
Italy during the 17th
century and its basic rules
were formed under Corelli,
Torelli, and Albinoni. The
four-movement “Sonata da
chiesa” (church sonata) with
its mainly imitative voice
leading and a
slow-quick-slow-quick
movement sequence differs
from the “Sonata da camera”
(chamber sonata) in the
latter’s suite series of
mostly two-part dance
movements. The names of the
two sonata forms derive from
the different uses the music
was put to: the one was
interlude and accompaniment
music for church services,
and the other was composed
for princely chambers and
the social occasions of the
nobility and the middle
class. The “Concerto grosso”
was developed from the trio
sonata by the multiple
filling out of the
individual instrument voices
and the alternation of tutti
and solo parts. In the
“Concertino”, which is
entrusted to the solo parts,
the expanded trio sonata
continued well past the mid-
18th century.
It was Bach’s preoccupation
with the different
instrumental ensemble forms
of his time that led him
first to transpose such
alien examples for the piano
and organ. He then composed
his own pieces of this sort.
The “Italian Concerto” and
the “French Overture” are
models of this kind. For a
composer who in Bach's
masterly way transferred
such ensemble music to the
piano, the trio sonata must
have appeared ideal for the
organ: a talented organist
should on two keyboards and
a pedal, be able to produce
two independent melodic
lines and a bass
accompaniment quite as well
as three players in a normal
trio sonata.
The two keyboards were
essential because of the
frequent interweaving of the
two tenor parts. The
movement had also to be
developed in such a way that
the thorough-base used to
fill out the trio sonata
could be waived: chords
employed in suda a manner -
technically possible on an
organ - would overwhelm the
three independent voice
parts.
Forkel has this to say about
the creation and artistic
value of the trio sonatas:
“Bach
wrote them for his eldest
son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who
was to use them to prepare
himself to be the great
organist which he afterwards
became. One cannot say
enough about their beauty.
They are works of the
composer’s deepest maturity
and may be regarded as his
chief achievement of this
kind.” One may confidently
trust this report of Bach’s
biographer who based it upon
the personal intimation of
Bach’s sons. People have
however placed more value on
the pedagogic aspect of the
report rather than its
exuberant quality judgement.
Today the organ sonatas are
primarily thought of as the
art of trio playing. As
organ music they are instead
overshadowed by the
liturgical associated choral
works, but above all by the
fantasias, toccatas,
preludes and fugues, which
have their special places in
church services. The trio
sonatas cannot rise to the
powerful effects of these
other organ works and are
not intended to do so
anyway.
The chamber
music style of the trio
sonatas and the absence of
any express reference to the
organ in their titles have
led people to associate them
with the pedal harpsichord:
this was the practice
instrument of the organists.
The instrument’s practical
value cannot be
overestimated at a time when
there were no electrical
ventilators and the wind
pressure, with which the
organ pipes are sounded, had
to be provided by blasts of
the organ bellows.
All the same it was only a
substitute for the organ and
no works were therefore
especially produced for it.
The instrumental note which
Bach himself wrote above
each of the sonatas, “ŕ 2
Claviers et Pedal” indicates
the organ for anyone who is
familiar with such notes. In
Bach’s obituary, written by
his son Philipp Emanuel and
his student Agricola, there
are clearly listed “six trio
for organ with obligatory
pedal.” They appear to have
been mostly played while
people were taking communion
at church. Forkel writes “in
Bach’s time it was usual to
play during Communion a
concerto or a solo on any
one instrument.” The organ
sonatas must have perfectly
met this need. According to
handwritten evidence they
were composed in Leipzig at
the end of the 1720’s.
Bach made use of several
movements from earlier
works. The famous autograph,
on the empty pages of which
Bach later entered the
so-called 18 chorales, is
now in the German State
Library in East Berlin.
In construction of the work
Bach does not on the whole
follow the four-movement
church sonata form but the
three-movement solo concerto
of a Vivaldi character with
movement sequences
quick-slow-quick.
Stylistically the trios
contain concerto-like
elements as are also to be
seen in the links between
trio sonatas and concertos.
The quick movements mainly
follow the lines of the
baroque concerto movement: a
thematically and tonally
self-contained opening
ritornello followed in
freely alternating sequence
by more markedly figurative
and firm parts with their
origins in the ritornello.
The movement flows onwards
until the whole is ended
with a repetition of the
ritornello. The figurative
sections, which one has to
see as the solo parts in a
concert, mostly modulate
while the tutti-like
ritornello sections fix the
key each time. It would be
easy with such movements of
distinct tutti and solo
changes to write instrument
scores for “Concerti grossi”
or to register them in such
a way for the organ. But to
do so would only be to
emphasize one side of their
character, the concerto-like
nature of their style, at
the cost of the others, the
strictly three-voice parts.
Bach himself provides no
dynamic notation or register
instructions. In some
movements the concert form
is allied to the three part
“da capo” form. Beside the
concert movements are also
the three concertante fugues
which serve as closing
movements.
The slow middle movements
also provide tonal
contrasts: they are in
parallel minor or major
keys, in number IV dominant
minor. In these movements
the concert character is
most distant: three follow
the two- or three-part
Liedform with repetitions of
each part as is usual in
suite movements.
The individual sonatas,
according to the usage of
the time brought together as
half a dozen, demonstrate in
their repeated departures
from formal ground rules the
different possibilities of
the trio form.
Nr. 1 E-flat major:
The initial allegro is a
first class example of the
sort of concerto movement
developed by Bach.
Everything florid is
renounced and all the
intermediary movements take
their themes from the
ritornello. The three-part
rising main theme is thereby
often altered and turned
about. The second movement,
a sort of “Siciliano”, and
the quick gigue-like third
are in two parts. The second
part, as is particularly
well known of gigues, is an
inversion of the first part.
The pedal is obligatory for
the imitative voice changes.
Nr. 2 C minor:
Between a concert movement
with extensive figurative
sections and a
multiple-theme concert fugue
is placed a highly
imaginatively worked largo
in which the sighing melody
of the beginning is soon
replaced by a long
interwoven melodic line
carried by a tenor duo.
The seven “free” works -
that is those not bound to a
choral/cantus basis, which
this album also contains --
are with one exception works
of Bach’s youth. Several of
them are among his earliest
surviving pieces. They show
inventive energy but not
confidence in the
technicalities of movements
and formal construction.
Above all they do not
achieve the harmonic
qualities of the maturer
works. Others do not show
this ladt, and point towards
the mature organ pieces of
the Weimar period. Among
these is the Fugue in G
minor which attracts
attention by its broadly
conceived, almost
three-dimensional and
self-contained theme.
The Fantasia con
imitazione in B minor
is an unpretentious and
obviously early work from
the opening stage of Bach’s
Arnstadt period. The
imitatio with its series of
fuguelike sections of
similar motifs recalls the
old ricercare form, from
which the fugue form itself
emerged.
The Prelude in A minor
gives the impression of a
carefully worked
improvisation of a fixed
rhythmic-melodic rising
motif. It belongs to Bach’s
earliest period just as do
the toccata-like Prelude
in G major and the Fantasia
in C major. They show
how a four-voice movement
without any great thematic
invention can be made into a
prelude.
The Trio in G minor
is, as Alfred Dürr
has shown, a contemporary
arrangement, that is to say
not by Bach, of a now lost
four-voice version of the
second movement of Bach’s
Cantata No. 166. It shows
already in Bach’s own time
how popular and natural such
arranging was.
The final work, the Fugue
in C minor, is
probably the best example of
the young Bach’s treatment
of the Northern German fugue
style, particularly Buxtehude’s.
Out of three separate but
related themes Bach creates
one great, compelling
movement less by
superimposed formal methods
than by masterful rhythmic
power.
*
This essay on an overall
review of the style of Bach's
creative works for the organ
will be continued in the
second instalment of the
“Organ Works".
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