Clavier-Übung III - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Clavier-Übung III, sometimes referred to as the German Organ Mass, is a collection of compositions for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, started in 1735–6 and published in 1739. It is considered to be Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his musically most complex and technically most demanding compositions for that instrument. In its use of modal forms, motet-style and canons, it looks back to the religious music of masters of the stile antico

Stile antico

Stile antico, literally "ancient style", is a term describing music from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. It refers to a manner of composition which is historically conscious, as opposed to stile moderno...

, such as Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a large number of composers, including Ascanio...

, Palestrina, Lotti

Antonio Lotti

Antonio Lotti was an Italian composer of classical music.Lotti was born in Venice, although his father Matteo was Kapellmeister at Hanover at the time. In 1682, Lotti began studying with Lodovico Fuga and Giovanni Legrenzi, both of whom were employed at St Mark's Basilica, Venice's principal church...

and Caldara

Antonio Caldara

Antonio Caldara was an Italian Baroque composer.Caldara was born in Venice , the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi...

. At the same time Bach was forward-looking, incorporating and distilling modern baroque musical forms, such as the French-style chorale. The work has the form of an Organ Mass: between its opening and closing movements—the great "St Anne" prelude and triple fugue in E flat BWV 552

Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552

Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat major 'St. Anne', BWV 552 is a substantial piece for the organ that is a prime example of the composer's use of religious symbolism. The prelude and fugue form the opening and closing movements, respectively, of the Clavier-Übung III, which was...

—are 21 chorale preludes BWV 669–689 setting parts of the Lutheran mass and catechisms, followed by four duets BWV 802–805

Duets (Bach)

Bach's four Duetti, BWV 802-805, are works for organ without pedals, which were included in Clavier-Übung III. Their inclusion in that work has been occasionally considered strange by scholars, and many theories have arisen surrounding the duets' origins, purpose and significance.*BWV 802: E...

. The chorale preludes range from compositions for single keyboard to a six part fugal prelude with two parts in the pedal. The purpose of the collection was fourfold: an idealized organ programme, taking as its starting point the organ recitals given by Bach himself in Leipzig; a practical translation of Lutheran doctrine into musical terms for devotional use in the church or the home; a compendium of organ music in all possible styles and idioms, both ancient and modern, and properly internationalised; and as a didactic work presenting examples of all possible forms of contrapuntal composition, going far beyond previous treatises on musical theory.

History and origins

November 25, 1736 saw the consecration in a central and symbolic position in the Frauenkirche, Dresden

Dresden Frauenkirche

The Dresden Frauenkirche is a Lutheran church in Dresden, eastern Germany.Built in the 18th century, the church was destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II. It has been reconstructed as a landmark symbol of reconciliation between former warring enemies...

of a new organ, built by Gottfried Silbermann

Gottfried Silbermann

Gottfried Silbermann was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.-Life:...

. The following week, on the afternoon of December 1, Bach gave a two hour organ recital there, which received "great applause". Bach in fact was used to playing on church organs in Dresden, where since 1733 his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach , the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer...

, had been organist at the Sophienkirche

Sophienkirche

The Sophienkirche , Dresden stood on the northeast corner of the Postplatz, in Dresden's old town, before its destruction in 1962 on resolution of the party and government of the GDR...

. It is considered likely that for the December recital Bach performed for the first time parts of his as yet unpublished Clavier-Übung III, the composition of which, according to Gregory Butler's dating of the engraving, started as early as 1735. This inference has been drawn from the special indication on the title page that it was "prepared for music-lovers and particularly connoisseurs" of music; from contemporary reports of Bach's custom of giving organ recitals for devotees after services; and from the subsequent tradition amongst music lovers in Dresden of attending Sunday afternoon organ recitals in the Frauenkirche given by Bach's student Gottfried August Homilius

Gottfried August Homilius

Gottfried August Homilius was a German composer, cantor, and organist. He was the main representative of the empfindsamer style....

, whose programme was usually made up of chorale prelude

Chorale prelude

In music, a chorale prelude is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 examples of the form in his Orgelbüchlein.-Function:The liturgical...

s and a fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

. Bach was later to complain that the tuning for different key signatures on Silbermann organs was not well suited to "today's practice".

Clavier-Übung III is the third of four books of Bach's Clavier-Übung

Clavier-Übung

Clavier-Übung is German for "keyboard practice". In late 17th and early 18th centuries this was a common title for keyboard music collections, initially popular after its adoption by Johann Kuhnau in 1689, although today it is usually associated with Johann Sebastian Bach's series of publications...

. It was his published music for organ, the other three parts being for harpsichord. The title, meaning "keyboard practice", was a conscious reference to a long tradition of similarly titled treatises: Johann Kuhnau

Johann Kuhnau

Johann Kuhnau was a German composer, organist and harpsichordist.-Biography :Kuhnau was born in Geising, Saxony. He grew up in a religious Lutheran family. At age nine, he auditioned successfully for the Kreuzschule in Dresden...

(Leipzig, 1689, 1692), Johann Philipp Krieger (Nuremberg, 1698), Vincent Lübeck

Vincent Lübeck

Vincent Lübeck was a German composer and organist. He was born in Padingbüttel and worked as organist and composer at Stade's St. Cosmae et Damiani and Hamburg's famous St. Nikolai , where he played one of the largest contemporary organs...

(Hamburg, 1728), Georg Andreas Sorge (Nuremberg, 1739) and Johann Sigismund Scholze

Johann Sigismund Scholze

Johann Sigismund Scholze alias Sperontes was a Silesian music anthologist and poet.-Life:...

(Leipzig 1736–1746). Bach started composing after finishing Clavier-Übung II—the Italian Concerto, BWV 971 and the Overture in the French style, BWV 831

Overture in the French style, BWV 831

The Overture in the French style, BWV 831, original title Ouvertüre nach Französischer Art, also known as the French Overture and published as the second half of Clavier-Übung II in 1735 , is a suite in B minor for two-manual harpsichord written by Johann Sebastian Bach...

—in 1735. Bach used two groups of engravers because of delays in preparation: 43 pages by three engravers from the workshop of Johann Gottfried Krügner in Leipzig and 35 pages by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg. The final 78 page manuscript was published in Leipzig in Michaelmas (late September) 1739 at the relatively high price of 3 Reichsthaler

Reichsthaler

The Reichsthaler was a standard Thaler of the Holy Roman Empire, established in 1566 by the Leipzig convention. It was also the name of a unit of account in northern Germany and of a silver coin issued by Prussia.-Reichsthaler coin:...

. Bach's Lutheran theme was in keeping with the times, since already that year there had been three bicentenary Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

festivals in Leipzig.

In translation, the title page reads "Third Part of Keyboard Practice, consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ.
Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the chorus musicus, Leipzig. Published by the author".

Examination of the original manuscript suggests that the Kyrie-Gloria and larger catechism chorale preludes were the first to be composed, followed by the "St Anne" prelude and fugue and the manualiter chorale preludes in 1738 and finally the four duets in 1739. Apart from BWV 676, all the material was newly composed. The scheme of the work and its publication were probably motivated by Georg Friedrich Kaufmann

Georg Friedrich Kaufmann

Georg Friedrich Kauffmann was a Baroque composer and organist from southern Germany who composed primarily sacred works for the organ and voice.-Early life and career:...

's Harmonische Seelenlust (1733–1736), Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch

Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch

Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch was a German/Dutch composer and organist.-Life:Hurlebusch was born in Braunschweig, Germany. He received his first education from his father Heinrich Lorenz Hurlebusch, an organist and composer...

's Compositioni Musicali (1734–1735) and chorale preludes by Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl, Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era.Walther was born at Erfurt...

and Johann Caspar Vogler

Johann Caspar Vogler

Johann Caspar Vogler was a German organist and composer taught by Johann Sebastian Bach.-Biography:He was born in Hausen, near Arnstadt; from 1706 he studied with Johann Sebastian Bach, who was at that time organist there, and was also taught, in Rudolstadt, by P. H. Erlebach and Nicolaus Vetter...

published between 1734 and 1737, as well as the older Livres d'orgue, the French organ mass

French Organ Mass

The French Organ Mass is a type of Low Mass that came into use during the Baroque era. Essentially it is a Low Mass with organ music playing throughout: part of the so-called alternatim practice.-History:...

es of Nicholas de Grigny (1700), Pierre Dumage

Pierre Dumage

Pierre Dumage was a French Baroque organist and composer. His first music teacher was most likely his father, organist of the Beauvais Cathedral. At some point during his youth Dumage moved to Paris and studied under Louis Marchand...

(1707) and others. Bach's formulation of the title page follows some of these earlier works in describing the particular form of the compositions and appealing to "connoisseurs", his only departure from the title page of Clavier-Übung II.

Although Clavier-Übung III is acknowledged to be not merely a miscellaneous collection of pieces, there has been no agreement on whether it forms a cycle or is just a set of closely related pieces. As with previous organ works of this type by composers such as Francois Couperin

François Couperin

François Couperin was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.-Life:Couperin was born in Paris...

, Johann Kaspar Kerll

Johann Kaspar Kerll

Johann Kaspar Kerll was a German baroque composer and organist.Son of an organist, he showed outstanding musical abilities at an early age, and was taught by Giovanni Valentini, court Kapellmeister at Vienna. Kerll became one of the most acclaimed composers of his time, known both as a gifted...

and Dieterich Buxtehude

Dieterich Buxtehude

Dieterich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in church services...

, it was in part a response to musical requirements in church services. Bach's references to Italian, French and German music place Clavier-Übung III directly in the tradition of the Tabulaturbuch, a similar but much earlier collection by Elias Ammerbach

Elias Ammerbach

Elias Nikolaus Ammerbach was a German organist and arranger of organ music of the Renaissance. He published the earliest printed book of organ music in Germany and is grouped among the composers known as the Colorists....

, one of Bach's predecessors at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.
Bach's complex musical style had been criticized by some of his contemporaries. The composer, organist and musicologist Johann Mattheson

Johann Mattheson

Johann Mattheson was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.Mattheson was born and died in Hamburg. He was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed him in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera Cleopatra in 1704...

remarked in "Die kanonische Anatomie" (1722):
Until 1731, apart from his celebrated ridiculing in 1725 of Bach's declamatory writing in Cantata No.21, Mattheson's commentary on Bach had been positive. In 1730, however, he heard by chance that Gottfried Benjamin Hancke had been commenting unfavourably on his own keyboard technique: "Bach will play Mattheson into a sack and out again." From 1731 onwards, his vanity pricked, Mattheson's writing became critical of Bach, whom he referred to as "der künstliche Bach". Over the same period Bach's former pupil Johann Adolph Scheibe

Johann Adolph Scheibe

Johann Adolph Scheibe was a Danish composer, who in 1737 published an influential criticism of Johann Sebastian Bach's music.-References:*This article was initially translated from the Danish Wikipedia....

had been making stinging criticisms of Bach: in 1737 he wrote that Bach "deprived his pieces of all that was natural by giving them a bombastic and confused character, and eclipsed their beauty by too much art." Scheibe and Mattheson were employing practically the same lines of attack on Bach; and indeed Mattheson involved himself directly in Scheibe's campaign against Bach. Bach did not comment directly at the time: his case was argued with some discreet prompting from Bach by Johann Abraham Birnbaum, professor of rhetoric at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

, a music lover and friend of Bach and Lorenz Christoph Mizler

Lorenz Christoph Mizler

Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof was a German physician, mathematician, and writer on music.-Biography:...

. In March 1738 Scheibe launched a further attack on Bach for his "not inconsiderable errors":
In the advertisement in 1738 for his forthcoming treatise, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Mattheson included a letter by Scheibe, resulting from his exchanges with Birnbaum, in which Schiebe expressed strong preference for Mattheson's "natural" melody over Bach's "artful" counterpoint.
Through his friend Mizler and his Leipzig printers Krügner and Breitkopf, also printers for Mattheson, like others he would have had advanced knowledge of the content of Mattheson's treatise. Concerning counterpoint, Mattheson wrote:
Whatever Bach's personal reaction, the contrapuntal writing of Clavier-Übung III provided a musical response to Scheibe's criticisms and Mattheson's call to organists. Mizler's statement, cited above, that the qualities of Clavier-Übung III provided a "powerful refutation of those who have ventured to criticize the music of the Court Composer" was a verbal response to their criticisms. Nevertheless most commentators agree that the main inspiration for Bach's monumental opus was musical, namely musical works like the Fiori musicali

Fiori musicali

Fiori musicali is a collection of liturgical organ music by Girolamo Frescobaldi, first published in 1635. It contains three organ masses and two secular capriccios. Generally acknowledged as one of Frescobaldi's best works, Fiori musicali influenced composers during at least two centuries...

of Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi

, for which Bach had a special fondness, having acquired his own personal copy in Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

in 1714.

Textual and musical plan

BWV	Title	Liturgical significance	Form	Key
552/1	Praeludium		pro organo pleno	E
669	Kyrie, Gott Vater	Kyrie	cantus fermus in soprano	G
670	Christe, aller Welt Trost	Kyrie	c.f in tenor	C (or G)
671	Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist	Kyrie	c.f. in pedal (pleno)	G
672	Kyrie, Gott Vater	Kyrie	3/4 manualiter	E
673	Christe, aller Welt Trost	Kyrie	6/4 manualiter	E
674	Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist	Kyrie	9/8 manualiter	E
675	Allein Gott in der Höh'	Gloria	trio, manualiter	F
676	Allein Gott in der Höh'	Gloria	trio, pedaliter	G
677	Allein Gott in der Höh'	Gloria	trio, manualiter	A
678	Diess sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot'	Ten Commandments	c.f. in canon	G
679	Diess sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot'	Ten Commandments	fugue, manualiter	G
680	Wir glauben all' an einen Gott	Creed	à 4, in organo pleno	D
681	Wir glauben all' an einen Gott	Creed	fugue, manualiter	E
682	Vater unser im Himmelreich	Lord's Prayer	trio and c.f. in canon	E
683	Vater unser im Himmelreich	Lord's Prayer	non-fugal, manualiter	D
684	Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam	Baptism	à 4, c.f. in pedal	C
685	Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam	Baptism	fuga inversa, manualiter	D
686	Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir , BWV 38, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig in 1724 in his second annual cycle for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 19 October 1724...	Repentance	à 6, in pleno organo	E
687	Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir	Repentance	motet, manualiter	F
688	Jesus Christus, unser Heiland	Eucharist	trio, c.f. in pedal	D
689	Jesus Christus, unser Heiland	Eucharist	fugue, manualiter	F
802	Duetto I		3/8, minor	E
803	Duetto II		2/4, major	F
804	Duetto III		12/8, major	G
805	Duetto IV		2/2, minor	A
552/2	Fuga		a 5 voci per organo pleno	E

The number of chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III, twenty one, coincides with the number of movements in French organ mass

French Organ Mass

es. The Mass and Catechism settings correspond to the parts of Sunday worship in Leipzig, the morning mass and afternoon catechism. In contemporary hymn books the mass, comprising the Kyrie and German Gloria, fell under the heading of the Holy Trinity. The organist and music theorist Jakob Adlung

Jakob Adlung

Jakob Adlung, or Adelung, was a German organist, teacher, instrument maker, music historian, and music theorist.-Biography:...

recorded in 1758 the custom of church organists playing the Sunday hymns Allein Gott or Wir glauben in different keys: Bach uses three of the six keys between E and B flat mentioned for Allein Gott. The organ had no role in the catechism examination, a series of questions and answers on the faith, so the presence of these hymns was probably a personal devotional statement of Bach. However, the Lutheran doctrine centred on the Ten Commandments, the Credo, Prayer, Baptism, Penitence and Communion, the subjects of the catechism chorales. In Bach's part of Germany, the catechism hymns were sung at school assemblies on weekdays, with the Kyrie and Gloria on Sundays. Luther's hymn book contains all six of the hymns. However, it is more likely that Bach used these hymns, some of them Gregorian

Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

in origin, as a tribute to the main precepts of Lutherism during the special bicentenary year in Leipzig. The main texts of Lutherans were the Bible, the hymn book and the catechisms: Bach had already set numerous biblical texts in his cantatas and passions; in 1736 he had helped prepare a hymn book with Georg Christian Schemelli; finally in 1739 he set the catechism hymns.
has suggested the following features that Clavier-Übung III borrowed from Frescobaldi's Fiori musicali, Bach's personal copy of which was signed "J.S. Bach 1714":

Intent. The Fiori were written "mainly to assist organists" with compositions "corresponding to mass and vespers".
Plan. The first of the three sets of the Fiori consists of a Toccata [prelude] before the mass, 2 Kyries, 5 Christes, followed by a further 6 Kyries; then a Canzone (after the Epistle), a Ricercare (after the Credo), a Toccata Cromatica (for the Elevation) and finally a Canzona [fugue] (after the post-communion).
Polyphony. Frescobaldi's short Kyries and Christes are written in four part stile antico
Stile antico
Stile antico, literally "ancient style", is a term describing music from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. It refers to a manner of composition which is historically conscious, as opposed to stile moderno...

counterpoint. Many of them have a constantly running cantus firmus or pedal point
Pedal point
In tonal music, a pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign, i.e., dissonant harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing...

.
Structure. The mutations and combination of themes in fugue BWV 552/2 are closely matched by the closing canzona in the first set and the alternative ricercare in the second set of the Fiori. Similarly the ostinato bass of the fugue BWV 680 is prefigured by a ricercare fugue with a five note ostinato bass in the Fiori.

According to , Bach had a clear liturgical purpose in his organ compendium, with its cyclic order and plan, clear to the eye if not the ear. Even though the manualiter fugues were written at the time as Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, only the last fugue BWV 689 has anything in common. Bach's musical plan has a multitude of structures: the organum plenum pieces; the three styles of polyphony, manulaiter and trio sonata in the Mass; the pairs in the Catechism, two with cantus firmus in canon, two with pedal cantus firmus, two for full organ); and the free invention in the duets. The fughetta BWV 681 at the centre of Clavier-Übung III plays a similar role to the central pieces in the other three parts of Bach's Clavier-Übung. It is written using the musical motifs of a French overture, like the first movement of the fourth of Bach's keyboard Partitas BWV 828 (Clavier-Übung I), the first movement of his Overture in the French style, BWV 831

Overture in the French style, BWV 831

(Clavier-Übung II) and the sixteenth variation of the Goldberg Variations

Goldberg Variations

The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...

BWV 988 (Clavier-Übung IV), marked "Ouverture. a 1 Clav."

Although possibly intended for use in services, the technical difficulty of Clavier-Übung III, like that of Bach's later compositions—the Canonic Variations BWV 768, the Musical Offering BWV 1079 and the Art of the Fugue BWV 1080—would have made the work too demanding for most Lutheran church organists. Indeed many of Bach's contemporaries deliberately wrote music to be accessible to a wide range of organists: Sorge composed simple 3 part chorales in his Vorspiele (1750), because chorale preludes such as Bach's were "so difficult and almost unusable by players"; Vogel, Bach's former student from Weimar, wrote his Choräle "principally for those who have to play in country" churches; and another Weimar student, Johann Ludwig Krebs

Johann Ludwig Krebs

Johann Ludwig Krebs was a Rococo musician and composer primarily for the pipe organ.-Life:Krebs was born in 1713 in Buttelstedt, Germany to Johann Tobias Krebs, a well-known organist. J. Tobias had at least three sons who were considered musically talented, and J...

, wrote his Klavierübung II (1737) so that it could be played "by a lady, without much trouble."

Clavier-Übung III combines German, Italian and French styles, reflecting a trend in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Germany for composers and musicians to write and perform in a style that became known as the "mixed taste", a phrased coined by Quantz

Johann Joachim Quantz

Johann Joachim Quantz was a German flutist, flute maker and composer.-Biography:Quantz was born in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, Germany, and died in Potsdam....

. In 1730 Bach had written a now famous letter to the Leipzig town council—his "Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music"—complaining not only of performing conditions, but also of the pressure to employ performing styles from different countries:

Already in 1695, in the dedication of his Florilegium Primum, Georg Muffat

Georg Muffat

-Life:He was born in Megève, Savoy, , and of Scottish descent. He studied in Paris with Jean Baptiste Lully between 1663 and 1669, then became an organist in Molsheim and Sélestat. Later, he studied law in Ingolstadt, afterwards settling in Vienna...

had written, "I dare not employ a single style or method, but rather the most skillful mixture of styles I can manage through my experience in various countries ... As I mix the French manner with the German and Italian, I do not begin a war, but perhaps a prelude to the unity, the dear peace, desired by all the peoples." This tendency was encouraged by contemporary commentators and musicologists, including Bach's critics Mattheson and Scheibe, who, in praising the chamber music of his contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...

, wrote that, "it is best if German part writing, Italian galanterie and French passion are combined".

Recalling Bach's early years in the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg between 1700 and 1702, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

right|250pxCarl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach...

records in the Nekrolog, Bach's obituary of 1754:
The court orchestra of Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg

George William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg

George William was duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruled first over the Principality of Calenberg, a subdivision of the duchy, then over the Lüneburg subdivision. In 1689 he occupied the Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg....

was established in 1666 and concentrated on the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

, which became popular in Germany between 1680 and 1710. It is probable that Bach heard the orchestra at the Duke's summer residence at Dannenberg

Dannenberg (Elbe)

Dannenberg is a town in the district Lüchow-Dannenberg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated near the river Elbe, approx. 30 km north of Salzwedel, and 50 km south-east of Lüneburg...

near Lüneburg. In Lüneburg itself, Bach would have also heard the compositions of Georg Böhm

Georg Böhm

Georg Böhm was a German Baroque organist and composer. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach.-Life:Böhm was born in 1661 in Hohenkirchen, near Ohrdruf...

, organist at the Johanniskirche, and of Johann Fischer

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...

, a visitor in 1701, both of whom were influenced by the French style. Later in the Nekrolog C.P.E. Bach also reports that, "In the art of organ, he took the works of Bruhns, Buxtehude, and several good French organists as models." In 1775 he expanded on this to Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel , was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist.-Biography:...

noting that his father had studied not only the works of Buxtehude

Buxtehude

Buxtehude is a town on the Este River in Northern Germany in the district of Stade and part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region . Buxtehude is a steadily growing medium-sized town and the second largest in the district of Stade. It lies on the southern borders of the Altes Land within easy reach of...

, Böhm

Georg Böhm

, Bruhns

Bruhns

Bruhns is surname of:* "Arthur" Bruhns , composer, pianist, and organist* Birte Bruhns , a German runner* Friedrich Nicolaus Bruhns , German composer and music director...

, Fischer

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German Baroque composer...

, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Kerll, Pachelbel, Reincken and Strunck

Delphin Strungk

Delphin Strungk was a German composer and organist associated with the North German school....

, but also of "some old and good Frenchmen."

Contemporary documents indicate that these composers would have included Boyvin

Jacques Boyvin

Jacques Boyvin was a French Baroque composer and organist.He was probably born in Paris, and studied there. One of his first jobs was that of organist of the parisian church des Quinze-Vingts, and in 1674 he was appointed titular organist of the Rouen Cathedral, where Jean Titelouze served as...

, Nivers

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers was a French organist, composer and theorist. His first livre d'orgue is the earliest surviving collection with traditional French organ school forms...

, Raison

André Raison

André Raison was a French Baroque composer and organist. During his lifetime he was one of the most famous French organists and an important influence on French organ music. He published two collections of organ works, in 1688 and 1714. The first contains liturgical music intended for monasteries...

, d'Anglebert

Jean-Henri d'Anglebert

Jean-Henri d'Anglebert was a French composer, harpsichordist and organist. He was one of the foremost keyboard composers of his day.-Life:...

, Corrette

Michel Corrette

Michel Corrette was a French organist, composer and author of musical method books.-Life:Corrette was born in Rouen, Normandy. His father, Gaspard Corrette, was an organist and composer. Corrette served as organist at the Jesuit College in Paris from about 1737 to 1780. It is also known that he...

, Lebègue

Nicolas Lebègue

Nicolas Lebègue was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was born in Laon and in 1650s settled in Paris, quickly establishing himself as one of the best organists of the country. He lived and worked in Paris until his death, but frequently made trips to other cities to...

, Le Roux

Gaspard Le Roux

Gaspard Le Roux was a French harpsichordist active in Paris at the beginning of the 18th century. Little is known of his life; only by one quotation in a list of professors considered in Paris, and a single collection of suites for one and two harpsichords which appeared in 1705: it is one of the...

, Dieupart

Charles Dieupart

Charles Dieupart was a French harpsichordist, violinist, and composer. Although he was known as Charles to his contemporaries, his real name may have been François. He was most probably born in Paris, but spent much of his life in London, where he settled sometime after 1702/3...

, Francois Couperin

François Couperin

, Nicolas de Grigny

Nicolas de Grigny

Nicolas de Grigny was a French organist and composer. He died young and left behind a single collection of organ music, which together with the work of François Couperin, represents the pinnacle of French Baroque organ tradition.-Life:Nicolas de Grigny was born in 1672 in Reims in the parish of...

and Marchand

Louis Marchand

Louis Marchand was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosi of his time. He worked as organist of numerous churches and, for a few years, at the...

. (The latter, according to an anecdote of Forkel, fled from Dresden in 1717 to avoid competing with Bach in a keyboard "duel".) At the court of Weimar in 1713 Prince Johann Ernst, a keen musician, is reported to have brought back Italian and French music from his travels in Europe. At the same time, or possibly earlier, Bach made meticulous copies of the entire Livre d'Orgue (1699) of de Grigny and the table of ornaments from d'Anglebert's Pièces de clavecin (1689) and his student Vogler made copies of two Livres d'Orgue of Boyvin. In addition at Weimar Bach would have had access to the extensive collection of French music of his cousin Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era.Walther was born at Erfurt...

. Much later in the exchanges between Birnbaum and Scheibe over Bach's compositional style in 1738, while Clavier-Übung III was in preparation, Birnbaum brought up the works of de Grigny and Dumage in connection with ornamentation, probably at the suggestion of Bach. Apart from the elements of "French ouverture" style in the opening prelude BWV 552/1 and the central manualiter chorale prelude BWV 681, commentators agree that the two large-scale five part chorale preludes—Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot BWV 678 and Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682—are partly inspired by the five part textures of Grigny, with two parts in each manual and the fifth in the pedal.

Commentators have taken Clavier-Übung III to be a summation of Bach's technique in writing for the organ; and at the same time a personal religious statement. As in his other later works, Bach's musical language has an otherworldly quality, whether modal or conventional. Compositions apparently written in major keys, such as the trio sonatas BWV 674 or 677, can nevertheless have an ambiguous key. Bach composed in all known musical forms: fugue, canon, paraphrase, cantus firmus, ritornello, development of motifs and various forms of counterpoint.
There are five polyphonic stile antico

Stile antico

compositions (BWV 669–671, 686 and the first section of 552/ii) , showing the influence of Palestrina and his followers, Fux, Caldara and Zelenka. Bach, however, even if he employs the long note values of the stile antico, goes beyond the original model, as for example in BWV 671.

describes one aim of Clavier-Übung III as being to provide an idealized programme for an organ recital. Such recitals were described later by Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel:
The musical plan of Clavier-Übung III conforms to this pattern of a collection of chorale preludes and chamber-like works framed by a free prelude and fugue for organum plenum.

Numerological significance

has given an analysis of the numerology of Clavier-Übung III. According to Wolff there is a cyclic order. The opening prelude and fugue frame three groups of pieces: the nine chorale preludes based on the kyrie and gloria of the Lutheran mass; the six pairs of chorale preludes on the Lutheran catechism; and the four duets. Each group has its own internal structure. The first group is made up of three groups of three. The first three chorales on the kyrie in the stile antico

Stile antico

hark back to the polyphonic masses of Palestrina, with increasingly complex textures. The next group consists of three short versets on the kyrie that have progressive time signatures 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8. In the third group of three trio sonata

Trio sonata

The trio sonata is a musical form that was popular in the 17th and early 18th centuries.A trio sonata is written for two solo melodic instruments and basso continuo, making three parts in all, hence the name trio sonata...

s on the German gloria, two manualiter settings frame a trio for two manuals and pedal with a regular progression of keys, F major, G major and A major. Each pair of catechism chorales has a setting for two manuals and pedal followed by a smaller scale manualiter fugal chorale. The group of 12 catechism chorales is further broken up into two groups of six grouped around pivotal grand plenum organum settings (Wir glauben and Auf tiefer Noth).
The duets are related by the successive key progression, E minor, F major, G major, and A minor. Clavier-Übung III thus combines many different structures: pivotal patterns; similar or contrasting pairs; and progressively increasing symmetry. There is also an overriding numerological symbolism.
The nine mass settings (3 x 3) refer to the three of the Trinity in the mass, with specific reference to Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the corresponding texts. The number twelve of the catechism chorales can be seen as a reference to the usual ecclesiastical use of the number 12, the number of disciples. The whole work has 27 pieces (3 x 3 x 3), completing the pattern. However, despite this structure, it is unlikely that the work was ever intended to be performed as a whole: it was intended as a compendium, a resource for organists for church performances, with the duets possibly accompaniments for communion.
comments on the occurrences of the golden ratio

Golden ratio

In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989...

in Clavier-Übung III pointed out by various musicologists. The division of bars between the prelude (205) and fugue (117) provides one example. In the fugue itself the three parts have 36, 45 and 36 bars, so the golden ratio appears between lengths of the middle section and outer sections. The midpoint of the middle section is pivotal, with the first appearance there of the first subject against a disguised version of the second. Finally in BWV 682, Vater unser in Himmelreich (the Lord's Prayer), a pivotal point, where the manual and pedal parts are exchanged, occurs at bar 41, which is the sum of the numerical order of letters in JS BACH (using the Baroque convention of identifying I with J and U with V). The later cadence at bar 56 in the 91 bar chorale prelude gives another instance of the golden ratio. 91 itself factorises as 7, signifying prayer, times 13, signifying sin, the two elements—canonic law and the wayward soul—also represented directly in the musical structure.

Prelude and fugue BWV 552

The descriptions below are based on the detailed analysis in .

BWV 552/1 Praeludium

Together with the Toccata in F major BWV 540, this is the longest of Bach's organ preludes. It combines the elements of a French ouverture (first theme) and an Italian concerto (third theme), although adapted to the organ. There are the conventional dotted rhythms of an ouverture, but the alternation of themes owes more to the tradition of contrasting passages in organ compositions than the solo-tutti exchanges in a Vivaldi concerto. Originally possibly written in the key of D major, a more common key for a concerto or ouverture, Bach might have transposed it and the fugue into E flat major because Mattheson had described the key in 1731 as a "beautiful and majestic key" avoided by organists. The piece also has three separate themes (A, B, C), sometimes overlapping, which commentators have interpreted as representing the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the Trinity. Other references to the Trinity include the three flats in the key signature, like the accompanying fugue.
As the prelude progresses, the reprises of the first theme do not change in length, while those of the second theme become shorter and those of the third theme become more extended and developed. There are no toccata-like passages and the musical writing is quite different from that of the period. For each theme the pedal part has a different character: a baroque basso continuo in the first theme; a quasi-pizzicato bass in the second; and a stile antico

Stile antico

bass in the third, with notes alternating between the feet. All three themes share a three semiquaver figure: in the first theme in bar 1, it is a figure typical of a French ouverture; in the second theme in bar 32, it is an echo in the galant

Galante music

A new style of classical music, fashionable from the 1720s to the 1770s, was called Galante music. It consciously simplified contrapuntal texture and intense composing techniques that realized a pattern on the page and substituted a clear leading voice with a transparent accompaniment....

Italian style; and in the third theme in bar 71, it is a motif typical of German organ fugues. Despite the concerto-type writing in the third theme, the themes reflect national influences: the first French; the second Italian, with its galant writing; and the third German,
with many elements drawn from the tradition of North German organ fugues. The markings of forte and piano in the second theme for the echos show that at least two manuals were needed; Williams has suggested that perhaps even three manuals could have been intended, with the first theme played on the first keyboard, the second and third on the second and the echos on the third.

Section	Bars	Description	Bar length
A1	1–32	First theme – God, the Father	32 bars
B1	32 (upbeat)-50	Second theme – God, the Son; bar 50, one bar of first theme	18 bars
A2	51–70	First part of first theme	20 bars
C1	71–98 (overlap)	Third theme – the Holy Ghost	27 bars
A3	98 (overlap)-111	Second part of first theme	14 bars
B2	111 (upbeat)-129	Second theme transposed up a fourth; bar 129, one bar of first theme	28 bars
C2	130–159	Third theme with countersubject in pedal	30 bars
C3	160–173 (overlap)	Third theme in E flat minor	14 bars
A4	173 (overlap)-205	Repeat of first theme	32 bars

First theme: God, the Father

The first theme, majestic and solemn, has the dotted rhythms, marked with slurs, of a French ouverture. It is written for five parts with complex suspended harmonies.
The first reprise (A2) of the theme in the minor key contains typically French harmonic progressions:
Second theme: God, the Son

This theme, representing God, the Son, the "kind Lord", has two bar phrases of staccato three part chords in the galant style, with echo responses marked piano.
followed by a more ornate syncopated version which is not further developed during the prelude:
Third theme: the Holy Ghost

This theme is a double fugue based on semiquavers, representing "the Holy Ghost, descending, flickering like tongues of fire." The semiquavers are not marked with slurs, according to North German conventions. In the final development (C3) the theme passes into E flat minor, presaging the close of the movement, but also harking back to the previous minor episode and anticipating similar effects in later movements of Clavier-Übung III, such as the first duet BWV 802. The older style two- or three-part writing forms a contrast to the harmonically more complex and modern writing of the first theme.
The semiquaver subject of the fugue is adapted for the pedal in the traditional way using alternating foot technique:

BWV 552/2 Fuga

The fugue in E flat major BWV 552/2 that ends Clavier-Übung III has become known in English-speaking countries as the "St. Anne" because of the first theme's resemblance to the St. Anne hymn O God, Our Help in Ages Past

O God, Our Help in Ages Past

O God, Our Help in Ages Past is a hymn by Isaac Watts and paraphrases Psalm 90. It originally consisted of nine stanzas. In present usage, however, the hymn is usually limited to stanzas one, two, three, five and nine...

, a hymn that would have been unknown to Bach. A fugue in three sections of 36 bars, 45 bars and 36 bars, with each section a separate fugue on a different theme, it has been called a triple fugue, although only the first theme is combined with the second and third themes; for that reason the second and third sections are sometimes referred to as double fugues. The number three is pervasive and has been understood to represent the Trinity. The description of Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...

follows the nineteenth century tradition of associating the three sections with the three different parts of the Trinity. The number three, however, occurs many other times: in the number of flats of the key signature; in the number of sections; and in the number of bars in each section, each a multiple of 3 x 3. Each of the three themes of the fugues seems to grow from the previous ones. Indeed Hermann Keller has suggested that the second theme is "contained" in the first. Although perhaps hidden in the score, this is more apparent to the listener, both in their shape and in the resemblance of the quaver second theme to crotchet figures in the countersubject to the first theme. Similarly the semiquaver figures in the third theme can be traced back to the second theme and the countersubject of the first section. The form of the fugue conforms to that of a seventeenth century tripartite ricercar

Ricercar

A ricercar is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece...

or canzona

Canzona

In the 16th century an instrumental chanson; later, a piece for ensemble in several sections or tempos...

, such as those of Froberger and Frescobaldi: firstly in the way that themes become progressively faster in successive sections; and secondly in the way one theme transforms into the next. Bach can also be seen as continuing a Leipzig tradition for contrapuntal compositions in sections going back to the keyboard ricercars and fantasias of Nicolaus Adam Strungk

Nicolaus Adam Strungk

Nicolaus Adam Strungk was a German composer and violinist.-Life:...

and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow. The tempo transitions between different sections are natural: the minims of the first and second sections correspond to the dotted crotchets of the third.

Many commentators have remarked on similarities between the first subject and fugal themes by other composers. As an example of stile antico

Stile antico

, it is more probably a generic theme, typical of the fuga grave subjects of the time: a "quiet 4/2" time signature, rising fourths and a narrow melodic range. As points out, the similarity to the subject of a fugue by Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch

Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch

, which Bach himself published in 1734, might have been a deliberate attempt by Bach to blind his public with science. The first two sections of BWV 552/2 share many affinities with the fugue in E flat major BWV 876/2 in the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2, written during the same period. Unlike true triple fugues, like the F sharp minor BWV 883 from the same book or some of the contrapuncti in the Art of the Fugue, Bach's intent with BWV 552/2 was not to combine all three subjects, although this would theoretically have been possible. Rather, as the work progresses, the first subject is heard singing out through the others: sometimes hidden; sometimes, as in the second section, quietly in the alto and tenor voices; and finally, in the last section, high in the treble and, as the climactic close approaches, quasi-ostinato in the pedal, thundering out beneath the two sets of upper voices. In the second section it is played against quavers; and in parts of the last, against running semiquaver passagework. As the fugue progresses, this creates what Williams has called the cumulative effect of a "mass choir". In later sections, to adapt to triple time, the first subject becomes rhythmically syncopated, resulting in what the music scholar Roger Bullivant

Sheffield Bach Choir

The Sheffield Bach Choir was founded in 1950 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of J S Bach in Leipzig.Rehearsals are held at Cemetery Road Baptist Church, in Sheffield’s City Centre, on Monday evenings between 7.30 and 9.30pm...

has called "a degree of rhythmic complexity probably unparalleled in fugue of any period."

Section	Bars	Time signature	Description	Features	Style
First	1–36 [36]	4/2	a pleno organo, 5 parts, 12 entries, countersubject in crotchets	prominence of rising fourths, stretti at bars in parallel thirds (b.21) and sixths (b.26)	Stile antico, fuga grave
Second	37–81 [45]	6/4	manualiter, 4 parts, second subject, then 15 entries of combined first and second subjects from b.57	prominence of seconds and thirds, partial combination of first and second subjects at b.54	Stile antico
Third	82–117 [36]	12/8	a pleno organo, 5 parts, third subject, then combined first and third subjects from b.87	prominence of falling fifths, semiquaver figures recalling second subject, 2 entries of third subject and 4 of first in pedal	Stile moderno, gigue-like

First section

The first section is a quiet 4/2 five part fugue in the stile antico

Stile antico

. The countersubject is in crotchets.
There are two stretto

Stretto

The term stretto comes from the Italian past participle of stringere, and means "narrow", "tight", or "close".In music the Italian term stretto has two distinct meanings:...

passages, the first in thirds (below) and the second in sixths.
Second section

The second section is a four part double fugue on a single manual. The second subject is in running quavers and starts on the second beat of the bar.
The first subject reappears gradually, first hinted at in the lower parts
then in the treble
before rising up from the lower register as a fully fledged countersubject.
Third section

The third section is a five part double fugue for full organ. The preceding bar in the second section is played as three beats of one minim and thus provides the new pulse. The third subject is lively and dancelike, resembling a gigue, again starting on the second beat of the bar. The characteristic motif of 4 semiquavers in the third beat has already been heard in the countersubject of the first section and in the second subject. The running semiquaver passagework is an accelerated continuation of the quaver passagework of the second section; occasionally it incorporates motifs from the second section.
At bar 88, the third subject merges into the first subject in the soprano line, although not fully apparent to the ear. Bach with great originality does not change the rhythm of the first subject, so that it becomes syncopated across bars. The subject is then passed to an inner part where it at last establishes its natural pairing with the third subject: two entries of the third exactly match a single entry of the first.
Apart from a final statement of the third subject in the pedal and lower manual register in thirds, there are four quasi-ostinato pedal statements of the first subject, recalling the stile antico pedal part of the first section. Above the pedal the third subject and its semiquaver countersubject are developed with increasing expansiveness and continuity. The penultimate entry of the first subject is a canon between the soaring treble part and the pedal, with descending semiquaver scales in the inner parts. There is a climactic point at bar 114—the second bar below—with the final resounding entry of the first subject in the pedal. It brings the work to its brilliant conclusion, with a unique combination of the backward looking stile antico in the pedal and the forward looking stile moderno in the upper parts. As Williams comments, this is "the grandest ending to any fugue in music."

Chorale preludes BWV 669–689

The descriptions of the chorale preludes are based on the detailed analysis in .

To listen to a midi recording, please click on the link.

Chorale preludes BWV 669–677 (Lutheran mass)

In 1526 Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

published his Deutsche Messe, describing how the mass could be conducted using congregational hymns in the German vernacular, intended in particular for use in small towns and villages where Latin was not spoken. Over the next thirty years numerous vernacular hymnbooks were published all over Germany, often in consultation with Luther, Justus Jonas

Justus Jonas

Justus Jonas was a German Lutheran reformer.-Biography:Jonas was born at Nordhausen in Thuringia. His real name was Jodokus Koch, which he changed according to the common custom of German scholars in the sixteenth century, when at the University of Erfurt...

, Philipp Melanchthon

Philipp Melanchthon

Philipp Melanchthon , born Philipp Schwartzerdt, was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems...

and other figures of the German Reformation. The 1537 Naumburg

Naumburg

Naumburg is a town in Germany, on the Saale River. It is in the district Burgenlandkreis in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. It is approximately southwest of Leipzig, south-southwest of Halle, and north-northeast of Jena....

hymnbook, drawn up by Nikolaus Medler, contains the opening Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit, one of several Lutheran adaptations of the troped

Trope (music)

A trope or tropus may be a variety of different things in medieval and modern music.The term trope derives from the Greek τρόπος , "a turn, a change" , related to the root of the verb τρέπειν , "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"...

Kyrie summum bonum: Kyrie fons bonitatus

Kyrie

Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....

. The first Deutsche Messe in 1525 was held at Advent so did not contain the Gloria, explaining its absence in Luther's text the following year. Although there was a German version of the Gloria in the Naumburg hymnal, the 1522 hymn Allein Gott in der Höh' of Nikolaus Decius, also adapted from plainchant, eventually became adopted almost universally throughout Germany: it first appeared in print with these words in the 1545 Magdeburg hymnal Kirchengesenge Deudsch of the reformist Johann Spangenberg. A century later Lutheran liturgical texts and hymnody were in wide circulation. In Leipzig Bach had at his disposal the Neu Leipziger gesangbuch (1682) of Gottfried Vopelius. Luther was a firm advocate of the use of the arts, particularly music, in worship. He sang in the choir of the Georgenkirche in Eisenach

Eisenach

Eisenach is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated between the northern foothills of the Thuringian Forest and the Hainich National Park. Its population in 2006 was 43,626.-History:...

, where Bach's uncle Johann Christoph Bach

Johann Christoph Bach

Johann Christoph Bach was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. He was born at Arnstadt, the son of Heinrich Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's great uncle, hence he was Johann Sebastian's first cousin once removed. He was also the uncle of Maria Barbara Bach, J.S...

was later organist, his father Johann Ambrosius Bach

Johann Ambrosius Bach

Johann Ambrosius Bach was a German composer, father to Johann Sebastian Bach.The son of Christoph Bach , Ambrosius was born in Erfurt, Germany as the twin brother of Johann Christoph Bach...

one of the main musicians and where Bach himself would sing, a pupil at the same Latin school as Luther between 1693 and 1695.

Pedaliter settings of Kyrie BWV 669–671

The Kyrie was usually sung in Leipzig on Sundays after the opening organ prelude. Bach's three monumental pedaliter settings of the Kyrie correspond to the three verses. They are in strict counterpoint in the stile antico

Stile antico

of Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali. All three verses have the same melody in their second part. The cantus firmus is in the soprano voice for "God the Father", in the middle tenor voice (en taille) for "God the Son" and in the pedal bass for "God the Holy Ghost". Although having features in common with Bach's vocal settings of the Kyrie, for example in his Missa in F major, BWV 233, the highly original musical style is tailored to organ technique, varying with each of the three chorale preludes. Nevertheless, as in other high-church settings of plainsong, Bach's writing remains "grounded in the unchangeable rules of harmony", as described in Fux's treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum." The solidity of his writing might have been a musical means of reflecting 'firmness in faith'. As observes, "Common to all three movements is a certain seamless motion that rarely leads to full cadences or sequential repetition, both of which would be more diatonic than suits the desired transcendental style."

Below is the text of the three verses of Luther's version of the Kyrie with the English translation of Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit,

groß ist dein Barmherzigkeit,

aller Ding ein Schöpfer und Regierer.

eleison!

•••

Christe, aller Welt Trost

uns Sünder allein du hast erlöst;

Jesu, Gottes Sohn,

unser Mittler bist in dem höchsten Thron;

zu dir schreien wir aus Herzens Begier,

eleison!

•••

Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist,

tröst', stärk' uns im Glauben

allermeist daß wir am letzten End'

fröhlich abscheiden aus diesem Elend,

eleison!

O Lord the Father for evermore!

We Thy wondrous grace adore;

We confess Thy power, all worlds upholding.

Have mercy, Lord.

•••

O Christ, our Hope alone,

Who with Thy blood didst for us atone;

O Jesu! Son of God!

Our Redeemer! our Advocate on high!

Lord, to Thee alone in our need we cry,

Have mercy, Lord

•••

Holy Lord, God the Holy Ghost!

Who of life and light the fountain art,

With faith sustain our heart,

That at the last we hence in peace depart.

Have mercy, Lord.

BWV 669 Kyrie, Gott Vater (Kyrie, O God, Eternal Father)

BWV 669 is a chorale motet

Chorale motet

The chorale motet was a type of musical composition in mostly Protestant parts of Europe, principally Germany, and mainly during the 16th century. It involved setting a chorale melody and text as a motet....

for two manuals and pedal in 4/2 time. The four lines of the cantus firmus in the phrygian mode

Phrygian mode

The Phrygian mode can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek tonos or harmonia sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set octave species or scales; the Medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern conception of the Phrygian mode as a diatonic scale, based on the latter...

of G are played in the top soprano part on one manual in semibreve beats. The single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus. The writing is in alla breve

Alla breve

In music, alla breve Italian: at the breve] refers to a musical meter notated by the time signature symbol , which is the equivalent of 2/2. Alla breve is a "simple-duple meter with a half-note pulse"...

strict counterpoint, occasionally departing from the modal key to B flat and E flat major. Even when playing beneath the cantus firmus, the contrapuntal writing is quite elaborate. The many stile antico features include inversions, suspensions, strettos, use of dactyl

Dactyl

Dactyl may refer to:* Dactyl , a creature in Greek mythology* Dactyl , a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable and two short* Dactyl , the small natural satellite orbiting the asteroid Ida...

s and the canone sine pausa at the close, where the subject is developed without break in parallel thirds. Like the cantus firmus, the parts move in steps, creating an effortless smoothness in the chorale prelude.

BWV 670 Christe, aller Welt Trost (Christ, Comfort of all the world)

BWV 670 is a chorale motet

Chorale motet

for two manuals and pedal in 4/2 time. The four lines of the cantus firmus in the phrygian mode

Phrygian mode

of G are played in the tenor part (en taille) on one manual in semibreve beats. As in BWV 669, the single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus. The writing is again mostly modal, in alla breve

Alla breve

strict counterpoint with similar stile antico features and a resulting smoothness. In this case, however, there are fewer inversions, the cantus firmus phrases are longer and freer, and the other parts more widely spaced, with canone sine pausa passages in sixths.

BWV 671 Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist (Kyrie, O God the Holy Ghost)

BWV 671 is a chorale motet

Chorale motet

for organum plenum and pedal. The bass cantus firmus is in semibreves in the pedal with four parts above in the keyboard: tenor, alto and, exceptionally, two soprano parts, creating a unique texture. The subject of the four part fugue in the manuals is derived from the first two lines of the cantus firmus and is answered by its inversion, typical of the stile antico. The quaver motifs in ascending and descending sequences, starting with dactyl figures and becoming increasingly continuous, swirling and scalelike, are a departure from the previous chorale preludes. Among the stile antico features are movement in steps and syncopation. Any tendency for the modal key to become diatonic is counteracted by the chromaticism of the final section where the flowing quavers come to a sudden end. Over the final line of the cantus firmus, the crotchet figures drop successively by semitones with dramatic and unexpected dissonances, recalling a similar but less extended passage at the end of the five part chorale prelude O lux beata of Matthias Weckmann

Matthias Weckmann

Matthias Weckmann was a German musician and composer of the Baroque period. He was born in Niederdorla and died in Hamburg.- Life :...

. As suggests, the twelve descending chromatic steps seem like supplications, repeated cries of eleison—"have mercy".

Manualiter settings of Kyrie BWV 672–674

The three manualiter chorale preludes BWV 672–674 are short fugal compositions within the tradition of the chorale fughetta, a form derived from the chorale motet

Chorale motet

in common use in Central Germany. Johann Christoph Bach

Johann Christoph Bach

, Bach's uncle and organist at Eisenach

Eisenach

Eisenach is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated between the northern foothills of the Thuringian Forest and the Hainich National Park. Its population in 2006 was 43,626.-History:...

, produced 44 such fughettas. The brevity of the fughettas is thought to have been dictated by space limitations: they were added to the manuscript at a very late stage in 1739 to fill space between already engraved pedaliter settings. Despite their length and conciseness, the fughettas are all highly unconventional, original and smoothly flowing, sometimes with an other-worldly sweetness. As freely composed chorale preludes, the fugue subjects and motifs are based loosely on the beginning of each line of the cantus firmus, which otherwise does not figure directly. The motifs themselves are developed independently with the subtlety and inventiveness typical of Bach's later contrapuntal writing. has suggested that the set might have been inspired by the cycle of five manualiter settings of Nun komm der Heiden Heiland in Harmonische Seelenlust, published by his contemporary Georg Friedrich Kauffmann in 1733: BWV 673 and 674 employ similar rhythms and motifs to two of Kauffmann's chorale preludes.

The Kyries seem to have been conceived as a set, in conformity with the symbolism of the Trinity. This is reflected in the contrasting time signatures of 3/4, 6/8 and 9/8. They are also linked harmonically: all start in a major key and move to a minor key before the final cadence; the top part of each fughetta ends on a different note of the E major triad; and there is a matching between closing and beginning notes of successive pieces. What has called the "new, transcendental quality" of these chorale fughettas is due in part to the modal writing. The cantus firmus in the phrygian mode

Phrygian mode

of E is ill-suited to the standard methods of counterpoint, since entries of the subject in the dominant are precluded by the mode. This compositional problem, exacerbated by the choice of notes on which the pieces start and finish, was solved by Bach by having other keys as the dominating keys in each fughetta. This was a departure from established conventions for counterpoint in the phrygian mode, dating back to the mid-sixteenth century ricercar from the time of Palestrina. As Bach's pupil Johann Kirnberger

Johann Kirnberger

Johann Philipp Kirnberger was a musician, composer , and music theorist. A pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach, he became a violinist at the court of Frederick II of Prussia in 1751. He was the music director to the Prussian Princess Anna Amalia from 1758 until his death. Kirnberger greatly admired J.S...

later remarked in 1771, "the great man departs from the rule in order to sustain good part-writing."

BWV 672 Kyrie, Gott Vater (Kyrie, O God, Eternal Father)

BWV 672 is a fughetta for four voices, 32 bars long. Although the movement starts in G major, the predominant tonal centre is A minor. The subject in dotted minims (G-A-B) and the quaver countersubject are derived from the first line of the cantus firmus, which also provides material for several cadences and a later descending quaver figure (bar 8 below). Some of the sequential writing resembles that of the B flat major fugue BWV 890/2 in the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Smoothness and melifluousness result from what has called the "liquefying effect" of the simple time signature of 3/4; from the use of parallel thirds in the doubling of subject and countersubject; from the clear tonalities of the four-part writing, progressing from G major to A minor, D minor, A minor and at the close E major; and from the softening effect of the occasional chromaticism, no longer dramatic as in the conclusion of the previous chorale prelude BWV 671.

BWV 673 Christe, aller Welt Trost (Christ, Comfort of all the world)

BWV 673 is a fughetta for four voices, 30 bars long, in compound 6/8 time. It has been described by as "a movement of immense subtlety". The subject, three and a half bars long, is derived from the first line of the cantus firmus. The semiquaver scale motif in bar 4 is also related and is much developed throughout the piece. The countersubject, which is taken from the subject itself, uses the same syncopated leaping motif as the earlier Jesus Christus unser Heiland BWV 626 from the Orgelbüchlein

Orgelbüchlein

The Orgelbüchlein was written by Johann Sebastian Bach during the period of 1708–1714, while he was court organist at the ducal court in Weimar...

, similar to gigue-like figures used earlier by Buxtehude in his chorale prelude Auf meinen lieben Gott BuxWV 179; it has been interpreted as symbolising the triumph of the risen Christ over death. In contrast to the preceding fughetta, the writing in BWV 673 has a playful lilting quality, but again it is modal, unconventional, inventive and non-formulaic, even if governed throughout by aspects of the cantus firmus. The fughetta starts in the key of C major, modulating to D minor, then moving to A minor before the final cadence. Fluidity comes from the many passages with parallel thirds and sixths. Original features of the contrapuntal writing include the variety of entries of the subject (all notes of the scale except G), which occur in stretto and in canon.

BWV 674 Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist (Kyrie, O God the Holy Ghost)

BWV 674 is a fughetta for four voices, 34 bars long, in compound 9/8 time. The writing is again smooth, inventive and concise, moulded by the cantus firmus in E phrygian. The quaver motif in the third bar recurs throughout the movement, often in thirds and sixths, and is developed more than the quaver theme in the first bar. The constant quaver texture might be a reference to the last eleison in the plainchant. The movement starts in G major passing to A minor, then briefly C major, before moving back to A minor before the final cadence to an E major triad. As explains, "The so-called modality lies in a kind of diatonic ambiguity exemplified in the cadence, suggested by the key signature, and borne out in the kinds of lines and imitation."

Allein Gott in der Höh' BWV 675–677

Bach's three settings of the German Gloria/Trinity hymn Allein Gott in der Höh' again make allusion to the Trinity: in the succession of keys—F, G and A—possibly echoed in the opening notes of the first setting BWV 675; in the time signatures; and in the number of bars allocated to various sections of movements. The three chorale preludes give three completely different treatments: the first a manualiter trio with the cantus firmus in the alto; the second a pedaliter trio sonata with hints of the cantus firmus in the pedal, similar in style to Bach's six trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530; and the last a three part manualiter fughetta with themes derived from the first two lines of the melody. Earlier commentators considered some of the settings to be "not quite worthy" of their place in Clavier-Übung III, particularly the "much-maligned" BWV 675, which Hermann Keller considered could have been written during Bach's period in Weimar

Weimar

. More recent commentators have confirmed that all three pieces conform to the general principles Bach adopted for the collection, in particular their unconventionality and the "strangeness" of the counterpoint. and have pointed out the possible influence of Bach's contemporaries on his musical language. Bach was familiar with the eight versions of Allein Gott by his cousin Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era.Walther was born at Erfurt...

as well as the Harmonische Seelenlust of Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, posthumously printed by Bach's Leipzig printer Krügner. In BWV 675 and 677 there are similarities with some of Kauffmann's galant innovations: triplets against duplets in the former; and explicit articulation by detached quavers in the latter. The overall style of BWV 675 has been compared to Kauffmann's setting of Nun ruhen alle Wälder; that of BWV 676 to the fifth of Walther's own settings of Allein Gott; and BWV 677 has many details in common with Kauffmann's fughetta on Wir glauben all an einen Gott.

Below is the text of the four verses of Luther's version of the Gloria with the English translation of Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Allein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr'

und Dank für seine Gnade,

darum daß nun und nimmermehr

uns rühren kann kein Schade.

ein Wohlgefall'n Gott an uns hat,

nun ist groß' Fried' ohn' Unterlaß,

all' Fehd' hat nun ein Ende.

•••

Wir loben, preis'n, anbeten dich

für deine Ehr'; wir danken,

daß du, Gott Vater ewiglich

regierst ohn' alles Wanken.

ganz ungemeß'n ist deine Macht,

fort g'schieht, was dein Will' hat bedacht;

wohl uns des feinen Herren!

•••

O Jesu Christ, Sohn eingebor'n

deines himmlischen Vaters,

versöhner der'r, die war'n verlor'n,

du Stiller unsers Haders,

Lamm Gottes, heil'ger Herr und Gott,

nimm an die Bitt' von unsrer Not,

erbarm' dich unser aller!

•••

O Heil'ger Geist, du höchstes Gut,

du allerheilsamst' Tröster,

vor's Teufels G'walt fortan behüt',

die Jesus Christ erlöset

durch große Mart'r und bittern Tod,

abwend all unsern Jamm'r und Not!

darauf wir uns verlaßen.

To God on high all glory be,

And thanks, that He's so gracious,

That hence to all eternity

No evil shall oppress us:

His word declares good-will to men,

On earth is peace restored again

Through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

•••

We humbly Thee adore, and praise,

And laud for Thy great glory:

Father, Thy kingdom lasts always,

Not frail, nor transitory:

Thy power is endless as Thy praise,

Thou speak'st, the universe obeys:

In such a Lord we're happy.

•••

O Jesus Christ, enthroned on high,

The Father's Son beloved

By Whom lost sinners are brought nigh,

And guilt and curse removed;

Thou Lamb once slain, our God and Lord,

To needy prayers Thine ear afford,

And on us all have mercy.

•••

O Comforter, God Holy Ghost,

Thou source of consolation,

From Satan's power Thou wilt, we trust,

Protect Christ's congregation,

His everlasting truth assert,

All evil graciously avert,

Lead us to life eternal.

BWV 675 Allein Gott in der Höh' (All glory be to God on high)

BWV 675, 66 bars long, is a two part invention for the upper and lower voices with the cantus firmus in the alto part. The two outer parts are intricate and rhythmically complex with wide leaps, contrasting with the cantus firmus which moves smoothly by steps in minims and crotchets. The 3/4 time signature has been taken to be one of the references in this movement to the Trinity. Like the two preceding chorale preludes, there is no explicit manualiter marking, only an ambiguous "a 3": performers are left with the choice of playing on a single keyboard or on 2 keyboards with a 4' pedal, the only difficulty arising from the triplets in the 28th bar. The movement is in bar form

Bar form

Bar form is a musical form of the pattern AAB.-Original Use:The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to describe their songs and the songs of the predecessors, the minnesingers of the 12th to 14th century...

(AAB) with bar lengths of sections divisible by 3: the 18 bar stollen has 9 bars with and without the cantus firmus and the 30 bar abgesang has 12 bars with the cantus firmus and 18 without it. The invention theme provides a fore-imitation of the cantus firmus, subsuming the same notes and bar lengths as each corresponding phase. The additional motifs in the theme are ingeniously developed throughout the piece: the three rising starting notes; the three falling triplets in bar 2; the leaping octaves at the beginning of bar 3; and the quaver figure in bar 4. These are playfully combined in ever-changing ways with the two motifs from the counter subject—the triplet figure at the end of bar 5 and the semiquaver scale at the beginning of bar 6—and their inversions. At the end of each stollen and the abgesang, the complexity of the outer parts lessens, with simple triplet descending scale passages in the soprano and quavers in the bass. The harmonisation is similar to that in Bach's Leipzig cantatas, with the keys shifting between major and minor.

BWV 676 Allein Gott in der Höh' (All glory be to God on high)

BWV 676 is a trio sonata for two keyboards and pedal, 126 bars long. The melody of the hymn is omnipresent in the cantus firmus, the paraphrase in the subject of the upper parts and in the harmony. The compositional style and detail—charming and galant—are similar to those of the trio sonatas for organ BWV 525—530. The chorale prelude is easy on the ear, belying its technical difficulty. It departs from the trio sonatas in having a ritornello form dictated by the lines of the cantus firmus, which in this case uses an earlier variant with the last line identical to the second. This feature and the length of the lines themselves account for the unusual length of BWV 676.
The musical form of BWV 676 can be analysed as follows:

bars 1–33: exposition, with left hand following right and the first two lines of the cantus firmus in the left hand in bars 12 and 28.
bars 33–66: repeat of exposition, with right hand and left hand interchanged
bars 66–78: episode with syncopated sonata-like figures
bars 78–92: third and fourth lines of cantus firmus in canon between the pedal and each of the two hands, with a countertheme derived from trio subject in the other hand
bars 92–99: episode similar to passage in first exposition
bars 100–139: last line of cantus firmus in the left hand, then the right hand, the pedal and finally the right hand, before the final pedal point, over which the trio theme returns in the right hand against scale-like figures in the left hand, creating a somewhat inconclusive ending:

BWV 677 Allein Gott in der Höh' (All glory be to God on high)

BWV 677 is a double fughetta, 20 bars long. In the first five bars the first subject, based on the first line of the cantus firmus, and countersubject
are heard in stretto, with a response in bars 5 to 7. The originality of the complex musical texture is created by pervasive but unobtrusive references to the cantus firmus and the smooth semiquaver motif from the first half of bar 3, which recurs throughout the piece and contrasts with the detached quavers of the first subject.
The contrasting second subject, based on the second line of the cantus firmus, starts in the alto part on the last quaver of bar 7:
The two subjects and the semiquaver motif are combined from bar 16 to the close. Examples of musical iconography include the minor triad in the opening
subject and the descending scales in the first half of bar 16—references to the Trinity and the heavenly host

Heavenly host

Heavenly host refers to an army of good angels mentioned in the Bible. It is led either by the Archangel Michael, Jesus, or by God himself. Most descriptions of angels in the Bible describe them in military terms, such as encampment , command structure , and combat...

Chorale preludes BWV 678–689 (Lutheran catechism)

Careful examination of the original manuscript has shown that the large scale chorale preludes with pedal, including those on the six catechism hymns, were the first to be engraved. The smaller manualiter settings of the catechism hymns and the four duets were added later in the space remaining.
The first five catechism hymns were set as three-part fughettas, while the last is a longer four-part fugue. It is possible that Bach, in order to increase the accessibility of the collection, conceived these additions as pieces that could be played on domestic keyboard instruments. Even for a single keyboard, however, they present difficulties: in the preface to his own collection of chorale preludes published in 1750, the organist and composer Georg Andreas Sorge wrote that, "the preludes on the catechism chorales of Herr Capellmeister Bach in Leipzig are examples of this kind of keyboard piece that deserve the great renown that they enjoy," adding that "works such as these are so difficult as to be all but unusable to young beginners and others who lack the considerable proficiency they require."

The Ten Commandments BWV 678, 679

BWV 678 Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments)

Below is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot,

die uns gab unser Herr Gott

durch Mosen, seiner Diener treu.

hoch auf dem Berge Sinai.

Kyrieleis!

These are the holy ten commands,

Which came to us from God's own hands,

By Moses, who obeyed His will,

On the top of Sinai's hill.

Kyrieleis.

The prelude is in the mixolydian mode

Mixolydian mode

Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek harmoniai or tonoi, based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; a modern musical mode or diatonic scale, related to the medieval mode.-Greek Mixolydian:The idea of a...

of G, ending on a plagal cadence in G minor. The ritornello is in the upper parts and bass on the upper manual and pedal, with the cantus firmus in canon at the octave on the lower manual. There are ritornello episodes and five entries of the Cantus firmus, yielding the number of commandments. The distribution of parts, two parts in each keyboard and one in the pedal is similar to that of the de Grigny Livre d'Orgue, although Bach makes much greater technical demands on the right hand part.

Commentators have seen the canon as representing order, with the pun on canon as "law". As also expressed in Luther's verses, the two voices of the canon have been seen as symbolising the new law of Christ and the old law of Moses, which it echoes. The pastoral quality in the organ writing for the upper voices at the opening has been interpreted as representing the serenity before the Fall of Man; it is followed by the disorder of sinful waywardness; and finally order is restored in the closing bars with the calm of salvation.
The upper part and pedal engage in an elaborate and highly developed fantasia based on motifs introduced in the ritornello at the beginning of the chorale prelude. These motifs recur either in their original form or inverted. There are six motifs in the upper part:

the three crotchets at beginning of bar 1 above
the dotted minim in the second part of bar 1 above
the six note quaver figure in the two halves of bar 3 above
the phrase of three semiquavers and two pairs of "sighing" quavers in bar 5 above
the semiquaver passagework in the second half of bar 5 above
the semiquaver passage work in the second half of the second bar below (first heard in bar 13)

and five in the bass:

the three crotchets at the beginning of bar 4 above
the two crotchets dropping by an octave at the beginning of bar 5 above
the phrase in the second part of bar 5 above
the three note scale in the second, third and fourth crotchets of bar 6 above
the last three crotchets in bar 7 above.

The writing for the two upper voices is similar to that for obligato instruments in a cantata: their musical material is independent of the chorale, The opening pedal G on the other hand can be heard as a foretaste of the repeated Gs in the cantus firmus. In between the cantus firmus is sung in canon at the octave on the second manual. The fifth and final entry of the cantus firmus is in the distant key of B flat (G minor): it expresses the purity of the "kyrie eleison" at the end of the first verse, which brings the prelude to a harmonious close:

BWV 679 Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments)

‎
The lively gigue-like fughetta has several similarities to the larger chorale prelude: it is in the mixolydian mode of G; it starts with a pedal point of repeated Gs; the number ten occurs as the number of entries of the subject (four of them inverted); and the piece ends on a plagal cadence. The motifs in the second half of the second bar and the countersubject are extensively developed. The liveliness of the fughetta has been taken to reflect Luther's exhortation in the Small Catechism to do "cheerfully what He has commanded." Equally well Psalm 119 speaks of "delighting ... in His statutes" and rejoicing in the Law.

The Creed BWV 680, 681

BWV 680 Wir glauben all' an einen Gott (We all believe in one God)

Below is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Wir glauben all' an einen Gott,

Schöpfer Himmels und der Erden,

der sich zum Vater geneb hat,

dass wir seine Kinder werden.

Er will uns allzeit ernähren,

Leib und Seel auch wohl bewahren,

allem Unfall will er wehren

kein Leid soll uns widerfahren.

Er sorgt für uns, hüt und wacht,

es steht alles in seiner Macht.

We all believe in One true God,

Maker of the earth and heaven;

The Father Who to us in love

Hath the claim of children given.

He in soul and body feeds us,

All we want His hand provides us,

Through all snares and perils leads us,

Watches that no harm betides us;

He cares for us by day and night,

All things are governed by His might.

The chorale prelude is a four part fugue in the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

of D based on the first line of the Luther's hymn. It is written in the Italian style, apparent both in the instrumental trio-sonata style and in the ingenious use of the full range of Italianate semiquaver motifs. The five notes in the original hymn for the opening melisma

Melisma

Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...

on Wir are expanded in the first two bars and the remaining notes are used for the countersubject. There is exceptionally no cantus firmus

Cantus firmus

In music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.The plural of this Latin term is , though the corrupt form canti firmi is also attested...

, probably because of the exceptional length of the hymn. Features of the remainder of the hymn, however, suffuse the writing, in particular the scale-like passages and the melodic leaps. The fugue subject is adapted to the pedal as a vigorous striding bass with alternate footwork; its quasi-ostinato

Ostinato

In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...

character has been consistently interpreted as representing a "firm faith in God": a striding bass line was often used by Bach for Credo

Credo

A credo |Latin]] for "I Believe") is a statement of belief, commonly used for religious belief, such as the Apostles' Creed. The term especially refers to the use of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Mass, either as text, Gregorian chant, or other musical settings of the...

movements, for example in the Credo and Confiteor of the Mass in B Minor. During each occurrence of the semiquaver part of the subject in the pedal, the music modulates into a different key while the three upper parts play in invertible counterpoint, so that the three different melodic lines can be freely interchanged between the three voices. These highly original transitional passages punctuate the work and give a coherence to the whole movement. Although the added G sharp makes it difficult to recognize the chorale melody, it can be heard more clearly later on, singing out in the tenor part. In the final manualiter episode the ostinato pedal figures are taken up briefly by the tenor part before the movement draws to a close over a final extended restatement of the fugue subject in the pedal.

BWV 681 Wir glauben all' an einen Gott (We all believe in one God)

The manualiter fughetta in E minor is the shortest movement in Clavier-Übung III. The subject paraphrases the first line of the chorale; the two bar passage later in the movement leading up to the two dramatic diminished seventh chords is constructed over the second line. Although not strictly speaking a French ouverture, the movement incorporates elements of that style, in particular the dotted rhythms. It complements the preceding chorale prelude by replacing an Italian style with a contrasting French one. Although still evidently written for organ, in style it most resembles the Gigue for harpsichord from the first French Suite in D minor BWV 812.

The Lord's Prayer BWV 682, 683

BWV 682 Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father who art in heaven)

Below is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Vater unser im Himmelreich,

der du uns alle heissest gleich

Brüder sein und dich rufen an

und willst das Beten vor uns ha'n,

gib, dass nicht bet allein der Mund,

hilf, dass es geh' aus Herzensgrund.

Our Father in the heaven Who art,

Who tellest all of us in heart

Brothers to be, and on Thee call,

And wilt have prayer from us all,

Grant that the mouth not only pray,

From deepest heart oh help its way.

Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682 in E minor has long been considered the most complex of Bach's chorale preludes, difficult at the levels of both understanding and performance. Through a ritornello trio sonata in the modern French galante

Galante music

style, the German chorale of the first verse is heard in canon at the octave, almost subliminally, played in each hand together with the obligato instrumental solo. Bach had already mastered such a compound form in the choral fantasia opening his cantata Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78. The canon could be a reference to the Law, the adherence to which Luther saw as one of the purposes of prayer.
The galante style in the upper parts is reflected in their lombardic rhythms

Lombard rhythm

The Lombard rhythm or Scotch snap is a rhythm associated primarily with Baroque music, generally consisting of a stressed sixteenth note or semiquaver followed by a dotted eighth note or quaver. This effects a reverse of the dotted rhythm normally used in notes inégales, in which the longer value...

and detached semiquaver triplets, sometimes played against semiquavers, typical of French flute music of the time. Below the pedal plays a restless continuo, with constantly changing motifs. On the technical side the suggestion of the German musicologist Hermann Keller that BWV 682 required four manuals and two players has not been accepted. As Bach emphasised to his students, however, articulation was all-important: dotted figures and triplets had to be distinguished and should only come together when the "music is extremely fast."

The theme in the upper parts is an elaborate coloratura

Coloratura

Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...

version of the hymn, like the instrumental solos in the slow movements of trio sonatas or concertos. Its wandering, sighing nature has been taken to represent the unsaved soul in search of God's protection. It has three key elements which are developed extensively in the prelude: the lombardic rhythms in bar 3; the chromatic descending phrase between bars 5 and 6; and the detached semiquaver triplets in bar 10. Bach already used lombardic rhythms in the early 1730s, in particular in some early versions of the Domine Deus of the Mass in B Minor from his cantata Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191

Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191

Gloria in excelsis Deo , BWV 191, is a sacred cantata written by the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and the only one of his church cantatas set to a Latin text. It was likely first performed in Leipzig at Christmas of 1745 to celebrate the end of the Second Silesian War...

. The mounting lombardic figures have been interpreted as representing "hope" and "trust" and the anguished chromaticism as "patience" and "suffering". At the climax of the work in bar 41 the chromaticism reaches its most extreme in the upper parts as the lombardic rhythms pass to the pedal:
The otherworldly way in which the solo parts weave around the solo lines of the chorale, almost hiding them, has suggested to some commentators "groanings which cannot be uttered"—the mystical nature of prayer. After its first statement the ritornello recurs six times but not as a strict repeat, instead the order in which the different motifs are heard constantly changes.

BWV 683 Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father who art in heaven)

The manualiter chorale prelude BWV 683 in the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

of D is similar in form to Bach's earlier composition BWV 636 on the same subject from the Orgelbüchlein

Orgelbüchlein

The Orgelbüchlein was written by Johann Sebastian Bach during the period of 1708–1714, while he was court organist at the ducal court in Weimar...

; the lack of a pedal part allows more freedom and integration of parts in the latter work. The cantus firmus is played without interruption in the uppermost part, accompanied by three part counterpoint in the lower parts. The accompaniment uses two motifs: the five descending semiquavers in the first bar, derived from the fourth line of the chorale "und willst das beten von uns han" (and wishes us to pray); and the three quaver figure in the alto part in the second half of bar 5. The first motif is also inverted. The quiet and sweetly harmonious nature of the music is evocative of prayer and contemplation. Its intimate scale and orthodox style provide a complete contrast to the previous "larger" setting in BWV 682. At the beginning of each line of the chorale, the musical texture is pared down, with more voices added towards the end of the line: the long very first note of the chorale is unaccompanied. The prelude comes to a subdued conclusion in the lower registers of the keyboard.

Baptism BWV 684, 685

BWV 684 Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord to the Jordan came)

Below is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam

nach seines Vaters Willen,

von Sanct Johann die Taufe nahm,

sein Werk und Amt zu 'rfüllen,

Da wollt er stiften uns ein Bad,

zu waschen uns von Sünden,

ersaüfen auch den bittern Tod

durch sein selbst Blut und Wunden;

es galt ein neues Leben.

•••

Das Aug allein das Wasser sieht,

wie Menschen Wasser gießen;

der Glaub im Geist die Kraft versteht

des Blutes Jesu Christi;

und ist vor ihm ein rote Flut,

von Christi Blut gefärbet,

die allen Schaden heilen tut,

von Adam her geerbet,

auch von uns selbst begangen.

To Jordan when our Lord had gone,

His Father's pleasure willing,

He took His baptism of St John,

His work and task fulfilling;

Therein He would appoint a bath

To wash us from defilement,

And also drown that cruel Death

In His blood of assoilment:

'Twas no less than a new life.

•••

The eye but water doth behold,

As from man's hand it floweth;

But inward faith the power untold

Of Jesus Christ's blood knoweth.

Faith sees therein a red flood roll,

With Christ's blood dyed and blended,

Which hurts of all kinds maketh whole,

From Adam here descended,

And by ourselves brought on us.

The chorale prelude Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam BWV 684 has a trio sonata like ritornello in C minor in the three parts of the manuals with the cantus firmus in the tenor register of the pedal in the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

of C. Bach specifically stipulates two keyboards to give different sonorities to the imitative upper parts and the bass part. The undulating semiquavers in the bass, usually interpreted as representing the flowing waters of the Jordan, imitate a violine

Violine

Violine is a Belgian comic book, as well as the name of its main character, created by Didier "Tronchet" Vasseur and Fabrice Tarrin. Other than her own series, Violine is also a recurring character in Spirou magazine.- Synopsis:...

continuo, according to the model of Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust. The musical content of the ritornello contains explicit allusions to the melody of the chorale, sometimes hidden in the semiquaver passage work and motifs.

BWV 685 Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord to the Jordan came)

The manualiter chorale prelude BWV 685, despite being only 27 bars long and techniclly speaking a three part fughetta, is a complex composition with dense fugal writing. The subject and countersubject are both derived from the first line of the cantus firmus. The compact style, imitative contrapuntal writing and sometimes capricious touches, such as repetition and the ambiguity in the number of parts, are features that BWV 685 shares with the shorter chorale preludes in Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust. The contrary motion between the parts in bar 9 harks back to the compositions of Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era.-Biography:...

. has given a precise analysis of the fughetta:

bars 1–4: subject in soprano, countersubject in alto
bars 5–7: subject inverted in bass, countersubject inverted in soprano, with a free alto part
bars 8–10: episode derived from countersubject
bars 11–14: subject in alto, countersubject in bass, with episode continuing against alto part
bars 15–17: subject inverted in soprano, countersubject inverted in bass, with derived alto part
bars 18–20: episode derived from countersubject
bars 21–23: subject in bass, countersubject in soprano, with derived alto part
bars 24–27: subject inverted in alto, countersubject inverted in soprano, with derived bass part

There have been many attempts to interpret the musical iconography of BWV 685. Albert Schweitzer suggested that the subject and countersubject gave the visual impression of waves. Hermann Keller suggested that the three entries of the subject and countersubject, and the three inversions, represent the three immersions at baptism. Others have seen allusions to the Trinity in the three voices. The subject and countersubject have been seen as representing Luther's baptismal themes of Old Adam and New Man. Whatever the intended symbolism, Bach's most probable compositional aim was to produce a shorter chorale prelude contrasting musically with the preceding longer setting.

Penitence BWV 686, 687

BWV 686 Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (Out of the depths I cry to Thee)

Below is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir,

Herr Gott, erhör mein Rufen.

Dein gnädig Ohren kehr zu mir

und meiner Bitt sei öffne;

denn so du willst das sehen an,

was Sünd und Unrecht ist getan,

wer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben?

•••

Darum auf Gott will hoffen ich,

auf mein Verdienst nicht bauen;

auf ihn mein Herz soll lassen sich

und seiner Güte trauen,

die mir zusagt sein wertes Wort;

das ist mein Trost und treuer Hort,

das will ich allzeit harren.

Out of the depths I cry to Thee,

Lord, hear me, I implore Thee!

Bend down Thy gracious ear to me,

Let my prayer come before Thee!

If Thou rememberest each misdeed,

If each should have its rightful meed,

Who may abide Thy presence?

•••

And thus my hope is in the Lord,

And not in mine own merit;

I rest upon His faithful word

To them of contrite spirit;

That He is merciful and just—

Here is my comfort and my trust,

His help I wait with patience.

The chorale prelude Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir BWV 686 is a monumental chorale motet

Chorale motet

in the phrygian mode

Phrygian mode

of C. The climax of Clavier-Übung III, it is composed in the strict polyphonic stile antico

Stile antico

of Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...

using florid counterpoint. This is Bach's unique six part composition for organ, if the Ricercar

Ricercar

a 6 from the Musical Offering BWV 1079 is discounted. German organ writing for double pedal (doppio pedale) can be traced back to Arnolt Schlick

Arnolt Schlick

Arnolt Schlick was a German organist, lutenist and composer of the Renaissance. He is grouped among the composers known as the Colorists. He was most probably born in Heidelberg and by 1482 established himself as court organist for the Electoral Palatinate...

and Ludwig Senfl

Ludwig Senfl

Ludwig Senfl was a Swiss composer of the Renaissance, active in Germany. He was the most famous pupil of Heinrich Isaac, was music director to the court of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and was an influential figure in the development of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style in...

in the sixteenth century; to Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era.-Biography:...

in two settings from his Tabulatura Nova in the early seventeenth century; and in the baroque period to Buxtehude, Reincken, Bruhns, Tunder, Weckmann and Lübeck. In France amongst the composers to have written double pedal parts were François Couperin

François Couperin

, in his organ mass des paroisses, and Louis Marchand

Louis Marchand

.

The first verse of Luther's hymn had already been set by Bach in the cantata Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38 (1724). The fact that the setting in BWV 686 flows more easily, has more countersubjects, has more novel features and has typically organ figurations in the final section has suggested that in this case the whole of Luther's text was taken into account and that it is a purer version of the stile antico. Following the huge scale of the opening, Bach highly inventively incorporates motifs from the cantus firmus into the countersubjects of the seven sections (counting the repeat), resulting in a constantly changing musical texture. The widest range in pitch between upper and lower parts occurs exactly halfway through at bar 27. At the end of each line the cantus firmus is taken up in the left (lower) pedal, which, without break, then plays the countersubject while above the right (upper) pedal concludes the section by playing the cantus firmus in the tenor register in augmentation

Augmentation (music)

In Western music and music theory, the word augmentation has three distinct meanings. Augmentation is a compositional device where a melody, theme or motif is presented in longer note-values than were previously used...

(i.e., with doubled note lengths). The proliferation of dactyl

Dactyl

Dactyl may refer to:* Dactyl , a creature in Greek mythology* Dactyl , a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable and two short* Dactyl , the small natural satellite orbiting the asteroid Ida...

"joy" motifs (a crotchet followed by two quavers) in the last section of the prelude reflects the optimism in the last verse.

has given the following analysis of the seven sections:

first and third line: fugal section, with stretti
Stretto
The term stretto comes from the Italian past participle of stringere, and means "narrow", "tight", or "close".In music the Italian term stretto has two distinct meanings:...

in tenor and soprano manual voices at b.3 and in bass and soprano manual parts in b.9; countersubject with syncopation and crotchet figures
second and fourth line: the rising three note phrase or caput
Caput
The Latin word caput, meaning literally "head" and by metonymy "top", has been borrowed in a variety of English words, including capital, captain, and decapitate...

at the start of the melody occurs in minims or crotchets in all parts, all of which move stepwise (up or down to nearest note); previous crotchet countersubject inverted
fifth line: all parts except the manual bass have the melody; the syncopated countersubject involves either jumps, four quaver figures or anapaest
Anapaest
An anapaest is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. It may be seen as a reversed dactyl...

s (two quavers followed by a crotchet)
sixth line: melody only in alto and tenor manual and tenor and bass pedal parts; jumps in the countersubject break up the musical texture
seventh line: melody in all parts in slightly modified form and with some inversion; animated dactyl and quaver figures in countersubject, adding more lively modern elements to the severe stile antico

BWV 687 Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir (Out of the depths I cry to Thee)

This smaller manualiter setting of Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir is a four part chorale motet in the key of F sharp minor, with the augmented cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of E in the uppermost soprano part. The strict contrapuntal writing is denser than that of BWV 686, although it adheres less to the stile antico and has a more uniform texture. Commentators have suggested that the continual responses to the fugue subjects by their inversion signify confession followed by forgiveness. has pointed out the following musical features in the seven sections of BWV 687:

in each section, the fugue subject in quavers is derived from elements of the corresponding cantus firmus; it is answered by inversions of the subject in stretto
Stretto
The term stretto comes from the Italian past participle of stringere, and means "narrow", "tight", or "close".In music the Italian term stretto has two distinct meanings:...
in each section, there are five bars with alto, tenor and bass in counterpoint, followed by eight bars of the soprano cantus firmus in minims and ending with a one bar cadence
as each cantus firmus episode progresses, the accompanying lower parts move in a more animated way

Communion BWV 688, 689

BWV 688 Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Jesus Christ our Saviour)

Below is the full text of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry

Charles Sanford Terry (historian)

Charles Sanford Terry was an English historian and musicologist who published extensively on Scottish and European history as well as the life and works of J. S. Bach.-Career:...

Jesus Christus, unser Heiland,

der von uns den Gottes Zorn wandt,

durch das bitter Leiden sein

half er aus uns der Höllen Pein.

•••

Daß wir nimmer des vergessen,

Gab er uns sein Leib zu essen,

Verborgen im Brot so klein,

Und zu trinken sein Blut im Wein.

•••

Wer sich will zu dem Tische machen,

Der hab wohl acht auf sein Sachen;

Wer unwürdig hiezu geht,

Für das Leben den Tod empfäht.

•••

Du sollst Gott den Vater preisen,

Daß er dich so wohl wollt speisen,

Und für deine Missetat

In den Tod sein Sohn geben hat.

•••

Du sollst glauben und nicht wanken,

Daß ein Speise sei den Kranken,

Den ihr Herz von Sünden schwer,

Und vor Angst betrübet, sehr.

•••

Solch groß Gnad und Barmherzigkeit

Sucht ein Herz in großer Arbeit;

Ist dir wohl, so bleib davon,

Daß du nicht kriegest bösen Lohn.

•••

Er spricht selber:Kommt, ihr Armen,

Laßt mich über euch erbarmen;

Kein Arzt ist dem Starken not,

Sein Kunst wird an ihm gar ein Spott.

•••

Hättst dir war kunnt erwerben,

Was durft denn ich für dich sterben?

Dieser Tisch auch dir nicht gilt,

So du selber dir helfen willst.

•••

Glaubst du das von Herzensgrunde

Und bekennest mit dem Mund,

So bist du recht wohl geschickt

Und die Speise dein Seel erquickt.

•••

Die Frucht soll auch nicht ausbleiben:

Deinen Nächsten sollst du lieben,

Daß er dein genießen kann,

Wie dein Gott an dir getan.

Christ Jesus, our Redeemer born,

Who from us did God's anger turn,

Through His sufferings sore and main,

Did help us all out of hell-pain.

•••

That we never should forget it,

Gave He us His flesh, to eat it,

Hid in poor bread, gift divine,

And, to drink, His blood in the wine.

•••

Who will draw near to that table

Must take heed, all he is able.

Who unworthy thither goes,

Thence death instead of life he knows.

•••

God the Father praise thou duly,

That He thee would feed so truly,

And for ill deeds by thee done

Up unto death has given His Son.

•••

Have this faith, and do not waver,

'Tis a food for every craver

Who, his heart with sin opprest,

Can no more for its anguish rest.

•••

Such kindness and such grace to get,

Seeks a heart with agony great.

Is it well with thee? take care,

Lest at last thou shouldst evil fare.

•••

He doth say, Come hither, O ye

Poor, that I may pity show ye.

No physician th' whole man will,

He makes a mockery of his skill.

•••

Hadst thou any claim to proffer,

Why for thee then should I suffer?

This table is not for thee,

If thou wilt set thine own self free.

•••

If such faith thy heart possesses,

And the same thy mouth confesses,

Fit guest then thou art indeed,

And so the food thy soul will feed.

•••

But bear fruit, or lose thy labour:

Take thou heed thou love thy neighbour;

That thou food to him mayst be,

As thy God makes Himself to thee.

The chorale prelude Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 688 is a trio sonata with the upper voices in quavers and semiquavers the manuals and the cantus firmus in minims in the pedal in the Dorian mode

Dorian mode

Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...

of G, like a Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

. The eccentric angularity of the keyboard subject with its great widening or narrowing leaps is derived from the melody. It has prompted much speculation as to its iconographic significance. "Unwavering faith" has been taken to be the underlying theme by many commentators, including Spitta and Schweitzer, who compared the unsteady theme to the vision of a sailor seeking a firm foothold on a stormy deck (un marin qui cherche un appui solide sur une planche roulante). Others have interpreted the leaping theme as representing Man's parting from and return to God; or as the "great agony" (großer Arbeit) of the sixth verse; or as the anger of God appeased by the suffering of Christ (the theme followed by its inversion); or as a reference to the treading of the winepress in the passage
from Isaiah

Book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...

43:2–3, signifying victory over the Cross. It has similarly been suggested that the semiquaver passages are a reference to the flowing wine-blood of the communion. Visually, the quaver theme might contain a cross motif and might possibly form an elongated Christogram

Christogram

A Christogram is a monogram or combination of letters that forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ, traditionally used as a Christian symbol. Different types of Christograms are associated with the various traditions of Christianity, e.g...

on the Greek letters iota

Iota

Iota is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 10. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh . Letters that arose from this letter include the Roman I and J and the Cyrillic І , Yi , Je , and iotified letters .Iota represents...

and chi

Chi (letter)

Chi is the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, pronounced as in English.-Greek:-Ancient Greek:Its value in Ancient Greek was an aspirated velar stop .-Koine Greek:...

in certain sections of the score.

Whatever the religious significance, the musical development from the motifs is ingenious and subtle, constantly varying. The material in the semiquaver codetta (bar 6) of the fugue subject and of the countersubject (bars 7–9) is used and developed extensively throughout BWV 688, sometimes in inverted form. The theme itself is transformed in all sorts of ways, including inversion, reflection, reversal and syncopation, the variety increased by how the two upper voices combine together. Once started the semiquaver figures form a moto perpetuo. At some points they contain hidden versions of the quaver fugue subject; but as the work progresses they gradually simplify to scale passages. Even the ending is unconventional, with a simulated ritardando in the last bars with the pedal silent. The chorale prelude is thus composed from a few organic motifs heard already in the first few bars. The unprecedented novelty and musical originality of such a self-generated composition might have been Bach's main intention.

BWV 689 Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Jesus Christ our Saviour)

The last manualiter four part chorale prelude Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 689 in C minor is marked "Fuga super Jesus Christus, unser Heyland" in the 1739 print. In contrast to the previous fughettas in the previous five manualiter settings of the catechism hymns, it is a long and complex fugue of great originality, a tour de force in the use of stretti

Stretto

The term stretto comes from the Italian past participle of stringere, and means "narrow", "tight", or "close".In music the Italian term stretto has two distinct meanings:...

. The fugue subject is derived from the first line of the chorale. In order to facilitate the stretti which underlie the whole conception of BWV 689, Bach chose to transform the modal melody by sharpening the fourth note from a B flat to a B natural, a modification already found in seventeenth century hymnbooks. This change also allowed Bach to introduce dissonances, imbuing the work with that the French organist and musicologist Norbert Dufourcq called "tormented chromaticism". The quaver countersubject and its inversions are used and developed throughout the fugue. It resembles some of Bach's other keyboard fugues, in particular the antipenultimate fugue in B flat minor BWV 891/2 of the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, composed at roughly the same time.
The inversion of the countersubject in bar 5, omitting the first note, plays a significant role later in the fugue (bar 30):
The stretti occur at intervals of varying length; in addition to the fugue subject, there are also imitations and stretti both for the semiquaver figure in the subject (and its inversions) and the figure above derived from the countersubject. has given the following summary of the stretti for the fugue subject:

bars 1–2: between tenor and alto, one and a half bars later
bars 7–8: between soprano and bass, one and a half bars later
bar 10: between alto and soprano, 1 crotchet later
bar 16: between alto and tenor, a minim later
bars 23–24: between bass and tenor, a bar later
bars 36–37: between alto and soprano, 5 crotchets later
bars 37–38: between soprano and tnor, one and a half bars later
bar 57: subject simultaneously in crotchets in alto and augmented in minims in tenor

The last entry of the fugue subject in the tenor voice gives the impression of the return of a conventional cantus firmus; the coda over the tenor's sustained F is built on the motifs of the countersubject. The different types of stretti result in a large variety of harmonisations of the theme and musical textures throughout the chorale prelude.
has given a detailed analysis of BWV 689 from the perspective of Bach's keyboard fugues:

Section 1 (bars 1–18). The fugue starts in a measured way, as if under a burden, the four entries effectively spaced out over regular units of 3/2 bars. The tenor is followed in stretto 6 beats later by the alto and then similarly the soprano by the bass. Before the bass subject ends on the first beat of bar 11, a second set of fugal entries begins, this time more anguished, more dissonant, due to the irregularity of the stretti. The alto entry at the beginning of bar 10 is followed a beat later by the soprano; and the tenor entry at the beginning of bar 16 is followed two beats later by the bass. The quaver countersubject and its inversion are heard throughout, as an unobtrusive accompaniment, yet to reveal their true character.
Section 2 (bars 19–35). The C minor cadence in the middle of bar 19 would normally signify a new subject in a fugue. In this case a leap upwards of a fourth in the soprano part, taken from the fugue subject, and then imitated in the tenor and bass parts signals a renewed vitality and heralds the transformation of the countersubject into material derived from the fourth line of the chorale melody, comprising its highest notes and therefore easily recognizable. The new second 8 quaver subject is heard first in the soprano voice in the second half of bar 20 and the first half of bar 21: it is answered twice by its inversion in the bass in sequence
Sequence (music)
In music, a sequence is the immediate restatement of a motif or longer melodic passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice. It is one of the most common and simple methods of elaborating a melody in eighteenth and nineteenth century classical music...

. Then in bars 23–27 the soprano plays the second subject twice in sequence followed by the inverted form in the alto. Below the bass and tenor play the first subject with a stretto of one bar: for the only time in the fugue, however, these entries of the first subject are not prominent, but play a background role. After the second subject is heard a third time in the soprano, the music seems to draw to a close in the middle of a bar over a two and a half bar long pedal C in the bass. However as the tenor takes up the second subject, the music surges up in semiquaver motifs in the soprano and alto parts to reach a climax at bar 30, when, in a moment of high pathos, the second subject is heard high in the soprano. But then in the succeeding bar the music transforms into a peaceful and harmonious mood of consolation, with the major tonality heard for the first time. In a long and beautiful passage, the now tranquil second subject descends in successive bars through the alto and bass parts passing into the tenor part to reach the second main cadence of the fugue, after which it is heard no more until the last section.
Section 3 (bars 36–56). At the cadence the fugue moves back into B flat minor. The musical texture becomes restless and eccentric; chromaticism returns and the rhythms, enlivened by semiquavers, become unsettling for the listener. The alto resumes the fugue subject followed by a stretto entry of the soprano in its higher register five beats later. The bass then takes up a dance-like accompaniment in 3/4 time, just before a stretto entry from the tenor. The bass continues for 6 bars of 3/4 time (i.e. four and a half normal bars) introducing a short new motif involving a downwards drop of a fifth, linked to the fugue subject and already hinted at in the first section. The soprano plays the new motif in canon with the bass, until the bass resumes the subject, starting on the second beat of the bar, and the rhythm stabilises. The upper parts play a combination of the countersubject and the new motif and continue with them as an episode after the fugue subject ends. A further subject entry in the bass is followed by another episode based on the new motif as all the parts descend with chromaticisms to a cadence.
Section 4 (bars 57–67). In the final section Bach is at his most inventive, creating what Kerman calls "sublime clockwork". The tenor part plays the fugue subject in augmentation like a cantus firmus in minims until the final pedal point F held for five bars. At the same time Bach adds one statement of the fugue subject in crotchets in the alto part, as a sort of "simultaneous stretto". Over this in the soprano he superimposes the second subject in quavers, that has not been heard since the end of the second section. There is a resumption of the clarity and harmoniousness last heard there as the alto and bass parts join the soprano polyphonically in the countersubject, continuing to the close over the pedal point.

Four duets BWV 802–805

The descriptions of the duets are based on the detailed analysis in and .

To listen to a midi recording, please click on the link.

The four duetti BWV 802–805 were included at a fairly late stage in 1739 in the engraved plates for Clavier-Übung III. Their purpose has remained a source of debate. Like the beginning prelude and fugue BWV 552 they are not explicitly mentioned on the title page and there is no explicit indication that they were intended for organ. However, as several commentators have noted, at a time when Bach was busy composing counterpoint for the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations

Goldberg Variations

(Clavier-Übung IV) using a very wide harpsichord range, Bach wrote the duets to lie comfortably in the range C to c″″′ in Helmholtz pitch notation

Helmholtz pitch notation

Helmholtz pitch notation is a musical system for naming notes of the Western chromatic scale. Developed by the German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz, it uses a combination of upper and lower case letters , and the sub- and super-prime symbols to describe each individual note of the scale...

(C2 to C6 in scientific pitch notation

Scientific pitch notation

Scientific pitch notation is one of several methods that name the notes of the standard Western chromatic scale by combining a letter-name, accidentals, and a number identifying the pitch's octave...

), so within the relatively narrow compass of almost every organ of the time. The pieces can nevertheless be played on any single keyboard, such as a harpsichord or fortepiano

Fortepiano

Fortepiano designates the early version of the piano, from its invention by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 up to the early 19th century. It was the instrument for which Haydn, Mozart, and the early Beethoven wrote their piano music...

.

The use of the term duetto itself is closest to that given in the first volume of the Critica Musica (1722) of Johann Mattheson

Johann Mattheson

: a piece for two voices involving more than just "imitation at the unison and the octave". It was Mattheson's view that "a composer's true masterpiece" could rather be found in "an artful, fugued duet, more than a many-voiced alla breve or counterpoint". In choosing the form of the compositions, which go considerably beyond his Two part inventions BWV 772–786, Bach might have been making a musical contribution to the contemporary debates on the theory of counterpoint, already propounded in the tracts of Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...

and of Johann Fux

Johann Fux

Johann Joseph Fux was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. He is most famous as the author of Gradus ad Parnassum, a treatise on counterpoint, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrina style of Renaissance polyphony...

, whose Gradus ad Parnassum had been translated by Bach's friend Mizler. has suggested that it may have been a direct response to the ongoing argument on musical style between Birnbaum and Scheibe: Bach combines the simple and harmonious styles advocated by his critics Mattheson and Scheibe with a more modern chromatic and often dissonant style, which they regarded as "unnatural" and "artificial". Despite many proposed explanations—for example as accompaniments to communion, with the two parts possibly signifying the two sacramental elements of bread and wine—it has never been determined whether Bach attached any religious significance to the four duets; instead it has been considered more likely that Bach sought to illustrate the possibilities of two part counterpoint as fully as possible, both as a historical account and "for the greater glory of God".

Duetto I BWV 802

The first duet in E minor is a double fugue, 73 bars long, in which all the musical material is invertible, i.e. can be exchanged between the two parts. The first subject is six bars long broken up into one bar segments. It is made up of one bar of demisemiquaver scales leading into four bars where the theme becomes angular, chromatic and syncopated. In the sixth bar a demisemiquaver motif is introduced that is developed later in the duet in a highly original way; it also serves as a means of modulation after which the parts interchange their roles. The contrasting second subject in quavers with octave leaps is a descent by a chromatic fourth

Chromatic fourth

In music, a chromatic fourth, or passus duriusculus, is a melody or melodic fragment spanning a perfect fourth with all or almost all chromatic intervals filled in . The quintessential example is in D minor with the tonic and dominant notes as boundaries, :The chromatic fourth was first used in the...

. The harmonies between the two chromatic parts are similar to those in the A minor prelude BWV 889/1 from the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, presumed to have been composed at roughly the same time.

‎

BWV 802 has been analysed as follows:

bars 1–28: exposition for 6 bars in E minor followed by 6 bars with parts interchanged in B minor, four transitional bars of the demisemiquaver motif in imitation, followed by a repeat of the exposition for 12 bars, all in E minor
bars 29–56: inverted exposition for 6 bars with parts in G major followed by 6 bars with parts interchanged in D major, four transitional bars of the demisemiquaver motif in imitation, followed by a repeat of the inverted exposition for 12 bars, all in B minor
bars 57–60: a transitional passage made up of demisemiquaver scales for 2 bars in D minor, then inverted for 2 bars in A minor
bars 61–73: repeat of exposition for 5 bars then with parts interchanged for 5 bars, followed by a final interchange and inversion of parts for the 3 bar coda, all in E minor

Duetto II BWV 803

The second duet in F major BWV 803 is a fugue written in the form of a da capo aria

Da capo aria

The da capo aria is a musical form, which was prevalent in the Baroque era. It is sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria is very common in the musical genres of opera and oratorio...

, in the form ABA. The first section has 37 bars and the second 75 bars, so that with repeats there are 149 bars. There is a sharp contrast between the two sections, which has suggested might have been Bach's musical response to the acrimonious debate on style being conducted between Scheibe and Birnbaum at the time of composition.
Section A is a conventional fugue in the spirit of the inventions and sinfonias, melodious, harmonious and undemanding on the listener—the "natural" cantabile approach to composition advocated by both Mattheson and Scheibe.
Section B is written in quite a different way. It is severe and chromatic, mostly in minor keys, with dissonances, strettos, syncopation and canonic writing—all features frowned upon as "artificial" and "unnatural" by Bach's critics. Section B is divided symmetrically into segments of 31, 13 and 31 bars. The first subject of section A is heard again in canon in the minor key.
The character of the first subject undergoes a complete transformation, from bright and effortless simplicity to dark and strained complexity: the strettos in the first subject produce unusual augmented triad

Augmented triad

In music, an augmented triad is a triad, or chord, consisting of two major thirds . The term augmented triad arises from an augmented triad being a three note chord, or triad, whose top note is raised, or augmented...

s; and a new chromatic countersubject emerges in the central 13 bar segment (which begins in bar 69, the fifth bar below).
The musical structure of Section A is as follows:

bars 1–4: (first) subject in right hand, F major
bars 5–8: subject in left hand, semiquaver countersubject in right hand, C major
bars 9–16: episode on material from countersubject
bars 17–20: subject in right hand, countersubject in left hand, C major
bars 21–28: episode on material from countersubject
bars 29–32: subject in left hand, F major
bars 33–37: coda

The musical structure of Section B is as follows:

bars 38–45: second subject (in two 4 bar segments) in canon at the fifth, led by right hand
bars 46–52: first subject in canon at the fifth, led by the right hand, D minor
bars 53–60: second subject in canon at the fifth, led by left hand
bars 61–68: first subject in canon at the fifth, led by left hand, A minor
bars 69–81: first subject in left hand with chromatic countersubject in right hand (5 bars), inverted first subject in right hand with inverted chromatic countersubject in rleft hand (5 bars), semiquaver passagework (3 bars)
bars 82–89: second subject, in canon at the fifth, led by left hand
bars 90–96: first subject in canon at the fifth, led by left hand, F minor
bars 97–104: second subject in canon at the fifth, led by right hand
bars 105–112: first subject in canon at the fifth, led by right hand, C minor

Duetto III BWV 804

The third duet BWV 804 in G major, 39 bars long, is the simplest of the four duetti. Light and dance-like, it is the closest in form to Bach's Two Part Inventions, of which it most closely resembles the last, No.15 BWV 786. The bass accompaniment in detached quavers of the subject does not appear in the upper part and is not developed.
With very little modulation or chromaticism, the novelty of BWV 804 lies in the development of the semiquaver passagework.
Apart from a contrasting middle section in E minor, the tonality throughout is resolutely that of G major. The use of broken chords recalls the writing in the first movements of the sixth trio sonata for organ BWV 530 and the third Brandenburg Concerto

Brandenburg concertos

The Brandenburg concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721 . They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era...

BWV 1048.

BWV 804 has the following musical structure:

bars 1–4: subject in G major in right hand followed by response in D major in left hand
bars 5–6: transition
bars 7–10: subject in G major in left hand followed by response in D major in right hand
bars 11–15: transition to E minor
bars 16–19: subject in E minor in right hand followed by response in B minor in left hand
bars 20–23: transition
bars 24–25: subject in C major in right hand
bars 26–27: transition
bars 28–31: subject in G major right hand with canon at octave in left hand
bars 32–33: transition
bars 34–37: subject in right hand with stretto at octave in left hand after a quaver
bars 38–39: subject in G major in right hand

Duetto IV BWV 805

BWV 805 is a fugue in strict counterpoint in the key of A minor, 108 bars long. The 8 bar subject starts in minims with a second harmonic half in slow quavers. Bach introduced further "modern" elements in the semitone drops in the subject and later motifs (bars 4 and 18). Although all entries of the subject are either in A minor (tonic) or E minor (dominant), Bach adds chromaticism by flattening notes in the subject and sharpening notes during modulating passages. Despite being a rigorous composition with carefully devised invertible counterpoint, i.e. with parts that can be interchanged, in parts its style is similar to that of the bourée from the Overture in the French style, BWV 831

Overture in the French style, BWV 831

from Clavier-Übung II. There are three episodes which move between different keys and combine three new pairs of motifs, either 2 bars, 4 bars or 8 bars long, in highly original and constantly changing ways. The first episode starts in bar 18 below with the first pair of new motifs, the upper one characterised by an octave drop:
At the end of the first episode, the second harmonious pair of motifs is introduced:
The third pair of motifs, which allows significant modulation, appears for the first time in the second half of the second episode and is derived from the second half of the subject and countersubject:
The musical structure of BWV 805 has been analysed as follows:

bars 1–8: subject in left hand, A minor
bars 9 -17: subject in right hand, countersubject in left hand, E minor
bars 18–32: first episode—first motif (b. 18–25), second motif (b. 26–32)
bars 33–40: subject in right hand, countersubject in left hand, A minor
bars 41–48: subject in left hand, countersubject in right hand, E minor
bars 49–69: second episode—first motif inverted (b. 49–56), second motif inverted (b. 57–63), third motif (b. 64–69)
bars 70–77: subject in right hand, countersubject in left hand, E minor
bars 78–95: third episode—first motif inverted (b. 78–81), first motif (b. 82–85), third motif inverted (86–92), followed by link
bars 96–103: subject in left hand, countersubject in right hand, A minor
bars 104–108: coda with neapolitan sixths in bar 105

Eighteenth century

In 1737, two years before the publication of Clavier-Übung III, Johann Adolf Scheibe had made the above notoriously unfavourable comparison between Bach and another composer of the time, now identified as Georg Frideric Handel. His comments represented a change in contemporary musical aesthetics: he advocated the simpler and more expressive galant

Galant

In music, Galant was a term referring to a style, principally occurring in the third quarter of the 18th century, which featured a return to classical simplicity after the complexity of the late Baroque era...

style, which after Bach's death in 1750 would be further developed during the classical period

Classical period (music)

The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...

, in preference to fugal or contrapuntal writing, which by then was considered old-fashioned and out-moded, too scholarly and conservative. Although Bach did not actively participate in the ensuing debate on musical styles, he did incorporate elements of this modern style in his later compositions, in particular in Clavier-Übung III. Bach's musical contributions, however, could only be properly assessed at the beginning of the nineteenth century when his works became more widely available: up until then much of his musical output—in particular his vocal works—was relatively little known outside Leipzig.

From 1760 onwards a small group of ardent supporters became active in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, keen to preserve his reputation and promulgate his oeuvre. The group centred around his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

right|250pxCarl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach...

, who in 1738 at the age of 24 had been appointed court harpsichordist at Potsdam

Potsdam

Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

to Frederick the Great

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

, then crown prince before his accession to the throne in 1740. C.P.E. Bach remained in Berlin until 1768, when he was appointed Kappelmeister in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

in succession to Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann

. (His brother Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach , the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer...

moved to Berlin in 1774, although not to general acclaim, despite his accomplishments as an organist.) Other prominent members of the group included Bach's former pupils Johann Friedrich Agricola

Johann Friedrich Agricola

Johann Friedrich Agricola was a German composer, organist, singer, pedagogue, and writer on music. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Flavio Anicio Olibrio.-Biography:...

, court composer, first director of the Royal Opera House

Berlin State Opera

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...

in Berlin and collaborator with Emanuel on Bach's obituary (the Nekrolog, 1754), and more significantly Johann Philipp Kirnberger.

Kirnberger became Kappelmeister to the court in 1758 and music teacher of Frederick's niece, Anna Amalia. Not only did Kirnberger build up a large collection of Bach's manuscripts in the Amalien-Bibliothek

Duchess Anna Amalia Library

The Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Thuringia, Germany, houses a major collection of German literature and historical documents...

, but with Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...

he promoted Bach's compositions through theoretical texts, concentrating in particular on counterpoint with a detailed analysis of Bach's methods. The first of the two volumes of Marpurg's "Treatise on fugue" (Abhandlung in der Fuge, 1753–1754) cites the opening segment of the six part fugal chorale prelude Aus tiefer Noth BWV 686 as one of its examples. Kirnberger produced his own extensive tract on composition Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik ("The true principles for the practice of harmony"), twenty years later, between 1771 and 1779. In his treatise Marpurg had adopted some of the musical theories on the fundamental bass

Figured bass

Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...

of Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

from his Treatise on Harmony (1722) in explaining Bach's fugal compositions, an approach which Kirnberger rejected in his tract:

This led to an acrimonious dispute in which both claimed to speak with Bach's authority. When Marpurg made the tactical error of suggesting that, "His famous son in Hamburg ought to know something about this, too," Kirnberger responded in the introduction to the second volume of his tract:
Through Bach's pupils and family, copies of his keyboard works were disseminated and studied throughout Germany; the diplomat Baron van Swieten, Austrian envoy to the Prussian court from 1770 to 1777 and afterwards patron of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, was responsible for relaying copies from Berlin to Vienna. The reception of the works was mixed, partly because of their technical difficulty: composers like Mozart, Beethoven and Rust embraced these compositions, particularly the Well-Tempered Clavier; but. as Johann Adam Hiller reported in 1768, many amateur musicians found them too hard ("Sie sind zu schwer! Sie gefallen mir nicht").

Twenty one prints of the original 1739 edition of Clavier-Übung III survive today. Because of its high price, this edition did not sell well: even 25 years later in 1764, C.P.E. Bach was still trying to dispose of copies. Because of changes in popular tastes after Bach's death, the publisher Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf

Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf

Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf was a German music publisher and typographer.-Biography:...

, son of Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf

Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf

Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf was a German printer and publisher, and founder of the publisher that became Breitkopf & Härtel....

, did not consider it economically viable to prepare new printed editions of Bach's works; instead he retained a master copy of Clavier-Übung III in his large library of original scores from which handwritten copies (hand-exemplar) could be ordered from 1763 onwards. A similar service was provided by the musical publishers Johann Christoph Westphal in Hamburg and Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab

Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab

Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab was a German composer, writer, music publisher, and critic living in Berlin. Rellstab was a very influential figure in Berlin's musical life. In his youth he studied keyboard with Johann Friedrich Agricola and composition with Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch...

in Berlin.
Before 1800 there are very few reports of performances of Bach's works in England or of manuscript copies of his work. In 1770 Charles Burney

Charles Burney

Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...

, the musicologist and friend of Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

and James Boswell

James Boswell

James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....

, had made a tour of France and Italy. On his return in 1771 he published a report on his tour in The Present State of Music in France and Italy. Later that year in a letter to Christoph Daniel Ebeling, the music critic engaged in translating this work into German, Burney made one of his first references to Bach:
It was, however, only in the following year, during his tour of Germany and the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

, that Burney received a copy of the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier from C.P.E. Bach in Hamburg; according to his own reports, he was only to become familiar with its contents over thirty years later. He reported on his German tour in The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces in 1773. The book contains the first English account of Bach's work and reflects the views commonly held at the time in England. Burney compared the learned style of Bach unfavourably with that of his son, whom he had visited:
Burney summarised the musical contributions of J.S. Bach as follows:
As it is known that at the time Burney knew hardly any of Bach's compositions, it appears that his opinions of Bach came second-hand: the first sentence was almost certainly lifted directly from the French translation of Marpurg's Treatise on fugue, to which he had referred earlier in the book for biographical details; and in 1771 he had acquired Scheibe's writings through Ebeling. In Germany Burney's book was not well received, infuriating even his friend Ebeling: in a passage that he changed in later editions, he had repeated without attribution comments from a letter of Louis Devisme, British plenipotentiary in Munich, that, "if innate genius exists, Germany is certainly not the seat of it; though it must be allowed, to be that of perseverance and application." Once aware of the offence this might cause to Germans, Burney had marked with pencil the offending passages in the copy of his daughter Fanny Burney

Fanny Burney

Frances Burney , also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King’s Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr Charles Burney and Mrs Esther Sleepe Burney...

, when in 1786 she became lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the Queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King George III...

, wife of George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

. Later that year, to Fanny's horror, the Queen requested that Fanny show her copy to her daughter Princess Elizabeth. The book was viewed by both the King and Queen, who accepted Fanny's hastily invented explanations of the markings; she similarly managed to excuse herself when Princess Elizabeth later read all the marked passages assuming them to be Fanny's favourites.

Burney was aware of George III's preference for Handel when in 1785 he wrote in his account of the 1784 Handel Commemoration

Handel Commemoration

The Handel festival or ‘Commemoration’ took place in Westminster Abbey in 1784, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel in 1759....

that "in his full, masterly and excellent organ-fugues, upon the most natural and pleasing subjects, he has surpassed Frescobaldi, and even Sebastian Bach, and others of his countrymen, the most renowned for abilities in this difficult and elaborate species of composition." His account was translated into German by Hiller. Writing anonymously in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek in 1788, C.P.E. Bach angrily responded that "there is nothing to be seen but partiality, and of any close acquaintance with the principal works of J.S. Bach for organ we find in Dr. Burney's writings no trace." Undeterred by such comments in 1789, a year after C.P.E. Bach's death, Burney echoed Scheibe's earlier comparison of Bach and Handel when he wrote in his General History of Music:
Burney reflected the English predelection for opera when he added:
Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel , was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist.-Biography:...

, from 1778 the director of music in the University of Göttingen, was another promoter and collector of Bach's music. An active correspondent with both of Bach's sons in Berlin, he published the first detailed biography of Bach in 1802, Bach: On Johann Sebastian Bach's Life, Art and Works: For Patriotic Admirers of True Musical Art, including an appreciation of Bach's keyboard and organ music and ending with the injunction, "This man, the greatest orator-poet that ever addressed the world in the language of music, was a German! Let Germany be proud of him!
Yes, proud of him, but worthy of him too!" In 1779 Forkel published a review of Burney's General History of Music in which he criticized Burney for dismissing German composers as "dwarves or musical ogres" because "they did not skip and dance before his eyes in a dainty manner"; instead he suggested it was more appropriate to view them as "giants".
Amongst his criticisms of Bach in the 1730s, Scheibe had written, "We know of composers who see it as an honour to be able to compose incomprehensible and unnatural music. They pile up musical figures. They make unusual embellishments. ... Are these not truly musical Goths!" Until the 1780s, the use of the word "gothic" in music was pejorative. In his entry for "harmony" in the influential Dictionnaire de Musique (1768), Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

, a fierce critic of Rameau, described counterpoint as a "gothic and barbaric invention", the antithesis of the melodic galante style. In 1772, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

gave a fundamentally different view of "gothic" art that would achieve widespread acceptance during the classical-romantic movement. In his celebrated essay on the cathedral

Strasbourg Cathedral

Strasbourg Cathedral or the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Strasbourg, France. Although considerable parts of it are still in Romanesque architecture, it is widely consideredSusan Bernstein: , The Johns Hopkins University Press to be among the finest...

in Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

, where he was a student, Goethe was one of the first writers to connect gothic art with the sublime:

In 1782 Johann Friedrich Reichardt

Johann Friedrich Reichardt

Johann Friedrich Reichardt was a German composer, writer and music critic.-Early life:Reichardt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to lutenist and Stadtmusiker Johann Reichardt . Johann Friedrich began his musical training, in violin, keyboard, and lute, as a child...

, since 1775 the successor to Agricola as Capellmeister in the court of Frederic the Great, quoted this passage from Goethe in the Musicalisches Kunstmagazin to describe his personal reactions to the instrumental fugues of Bach and Handel. He prefaced his eulogy with a description of Bach as the greatest counterpuntalist ("harmonist") of his age:

The unfavourable comparison to Handel was removed in a later reprinting in 1796, following adverse anonymous remarks in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek. Reichardt's comparison between Bach's music and the Gothic cathedral would often be repeated by composers and music critics. His student, the writer, composer and music critic E.T.A. Hoffmann

E.T.A. Hoffmann

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...

, saw in Bach's music "the bold and wonderful, romantic cathedral with all its fantastic embellishments, which, artistically swept up into a whole, proudly and magnificently rise in the air." Hoffmann wrote of the sublime in Bach's music—the "infinite spiritual realm" in Bach's "mystical rules of counterpoint".
Another musician in C.P.E. Bach's circle was his friend Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, son of the violinist and composer Johann Friedrich Fasch

Johann Friedrich Fasch

Johann Friedrich Fasch was a German violinist and composer.Fasch was born in Buttelstedt, was a choirboy in Weissenfels and studied under Johann Kuhnau at the famous St. Thomas School in Leipzig and later founded a Collegium Musicum in that city...

, who, on the death of Kuhnau in 1722, had turned down the post, later awarded to Bach, of kantor

Kantor

People named Kantor include:* Isaiah Kantor , mathematician* Istvan Kantor, Hungarian-born Canadian performance artist* Jodi Kantor, New York Times journalist* MacKinlay Kantor, American novelist and screen writer...

at the Thomaskirche, where he himself had been trained. From 1756 Carl Fasch shared the role of harpsichord accompanist to Frederick the Great at Potsdam with C.P.E. Bach. He briefly succeeded Agricola as director of the Royal Opera in 1774 for two years. In 1786. the year of Frederick the Great's death, Hiller organised a monumental performance in Italian of Handel's Messiah

Messiah

A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

in Berlin cathedral, recreating the scale of the 1784 London Handel Commemoration

Handel Commemoration

The Handel festival or ‘Commemoration’ took place in Westminster Abbey in 1784, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel in 1759....

described in Burney's detailed account of 1785. Three years later in 1789, Fasch started an informal group in Berlin, formed from singing students and music lovers, that met for rehearsals in private homes. In 1791, with the introduction of a "presence book", it became officially known as the Sing-Akademie

Berlin Singakademie

The Sing-Akademie zu Berlin is a musical society founded in Berlin in 1791 by Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, harpsichordist to the court of Prussia, on the model of the 18th century London Academy of Ancient Music.-Early history:...

and two years later was granted its own rehearsal room in the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin. As a composer, Fasch had learnt the old methods of counterpoint from Kirnberger and, like the Academy of Ancient Music in London, his initial purpose in founding the Sing-Akademie was to revive interest in neglected and rarely performed sacred vocal music, particularly that of J.S. Bach, Graun and Handel. The society subsequently built up an extensive library of baroque music of all types, including instrumental music.
Despite Burney's antipathy towards Bach prior to 1800, there was an "awakening" of interest in the music of Bach in England, spurred on by the presence of émigré musicians from Germany and Austria, trained in the musical tradition of Bach. From 1782 Queen Charlotte

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the Queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King George III...

, a dedicated keyboard player, had as music teacher the German-born organist Charles Frederick Horn

Charles Frederick Horn

Charles Frederick Horn was an English musician and composer. Born in Germany, he emigrated to London with few possessions and no knowledge of the English language, yet rose to become a music teacher in the Royal Household...

; and in the same year Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann was summoned by George III from the Electorate of Hanover

Electorate of Hanover

The Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg was the ninth Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation...

to act as organist and schoolmaster at the Royal German Chapel

Queen's Chapel

The Queen's Chapel is a Christian chapel in central London, England that was designed by Inigo Jones and built between 1623 and 1625 as an adjunct to St. James's Palace...

at St. James' Palace. It is probable that they were instrumental in acquiring for her in 1788 a bound volume from Westphal of Hamburg containing Clavier-Übung III in addition to both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Other German musicians moving in royal circles included Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...

, Carl Friedrich Abel, Johann Christian Fischer

Johann Christian Fischer

Johann Carl Christian Fischer was a German composer. Employed as a music copyist and theatre director for the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin at Ludwigslust, Fischer is now credited with the unique Symphony with Eight Obbligato Timpani, formerly attributed to Johann Wilhelm Hertel, court composer at...

, Frederick de Nicolay, Wilhelm Cramer

Wilhelm Cramer

Wilhelm Cramer was a famous London violinist and musical conductor of German origin. He was one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries...

and Johann Samuel Schroeter.

More significant for the nineteenth century English Bach revival was the presence of a younger generation of German-speaking musicians in London, well versed in the theoretical writings of Kirnberger and Marpurg on counterpoint but not dependent on royal patronage; these included John Casper Heck (c 1740–1791), Charles Frederick Baumgarten (1738–1824) and Joseph Diettenhofer (c 1743- c 1799). Heck in particular promoted fugues in his treatise "The Art of Playing the Harpsichord" (1770), describing them later as "a particular stile of music peculiar to the Organ than the Harpsichord"; in his biographical entry for Bach in the 1780s in the Musical Library and Universal Magazine he gave examples of counterpoint from Bach's late period (Canonic Variations, Art of Fugue). Diettenhofer prepared A Selection of Ten Miscellaneous Fugues, including his own completion of the unfinished Contrapunctus XIV BWV 1080/19 from the Art of Fugue; prior to their publication in 1802 these were "tried at the Savoy Church, Strand before several Organists and eminent Musicians ... who were highly gratified and recommended their Publication." The enthusiasm of these German musicians was shared by the organist Benjamin Cooke and his student the organist and composer John Wall Calcott. Cooke knew them through the Royal Society of Musicians

Royal Society of Musicians

The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain is a charity in the United Kingdom that supports musicians. It is the oldest music-related charity in Great Britain, founded in 1738 as the "Fund for Decay'd Musicians" by a declaration of trust signed by 228 musicians, including Edward Purcell ,...

and had himself published a version of Art of Fugue. Calcott corresponded with Kollmann about the musical theories of the Bach school. In 1798 he was one of the founding members of the Concentores Society, a club with a limited membership of twelve professional musicians, dedicated to composition in counterpoint and the stile antico

Stile antico

Germany

A new printed "movable type" edition of Clavier-Übung III, omitting the duets BWV 802–805, was produced by Ambrosius Kühnel in 1804 for the Bureau de Musique in Leipzig, his joint publishing venture with Franz Anton Hoffmeister

Franz Anton Hoffmeister

Franz Anton Hoffmeister was a German composer and music publisher.Born in Rottenburg am Neckar, he went to Vienna at the age of fourteen to study law...

that later became the music publishing firm of C.F. Peters. Previously in 1802 Hoffmeister and Kühnel and had published a collection of Bach's keyboard music, including the Inventions and Sinfonias and both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier, with Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Johann Nikolaus Forkel , was a German musician, musicologist and music theorist.-Biography:...

acting as advisor. (The first prelude and fugue BWV 870 from Well-Tempered Clavier II was published for the first time in 1799 by Kollmann in London. The whole of Book II was published in 1801 in Bonn by Simrock, followed by Book I; slightly later Nägeli came out with a third edition in Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

.) Hoffmeister and Kühnel did not take up Forkel's suggestion of including in their fifteenth volume the four duets BWV 802–805, which were only published by Peters much later in 1840. Nine of the chorale preludes BWV 675–683 were printed in the four volume Breitkopf and Härtel collection of chorale preludes prepared between 1800 and 1806 by Johann Gottfried Schicht

Johann Gottfried Schicht

Johann Gottfried Schicht was a German composer and conductor.He was the conductor of the Gewandhausorchester from 1785 to 1810, and then the cantor of the Thomanerchor until 1823....

. Forkel and Kollmann corresponded during this period: they shared the same enthusiasm for Bach and the publication of his works. When Forkel's biography of Bach appeared in Germany in 1802, his publishers Hoffmeister and Kühnel wished to have control over translations into English and French. No complete authorized English translation was produced at the time. In 1812 Kollmann used parts of the biography in a long article on Bach in the Quarterly Musical Register; and an unauthorized anonymous English translation was published by Boosey & Company in 1820.

In Berlin, on the death of Fasch in 1800, his assistant Carl Friedrich Zelter

Carl Friedrich Zelter

Carl Friedrich Zelter was a German composer, conductor and teacher of music.Zelter became friendly with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and his works include settings of Goethe's poems...

took over as the director of the Sing-Akademie. The son of a mason, he himself had been brought up as a master mason, but had cultivated his musical interests in secret, eventually taking composition classes with Fasch.
He had been linked to the Sing-Akademie for years and had acquired a reputation as one of the foremost experts on Bach in Berlin. In 1799 he started a correspondence with Goethe on the aesthetics of music, particularly the music of Bach, which was to last until both friends died in 1832. Although Goethe had a late training in music, he considered it an essential element in his life, arranging concerts at his home and attending them elsewhere. In 1819 Goethe described how the organist from Berka

Bad Berka

Bad Berka is a German city, situated in the south of Weimar region in the state of Thuringia. With its almost 8.000 inhabitants Bad Berka is the second biggest city in Weimarer Land district . The river flowing through the city, which is embedded in new red sandstone, is called Ilm.Bad Berka is a...

, Heinrich Friedrich Schütz, trained by Bach's student Kittel, would serenade him for hours with the music of the masters, from Bach to Beethoven, so that Goethe could acquaint himself with music from a historical perspective. In 1827 he wrote:

Commenting in the same year on Bach's writing for the organ, Zelter wrote to Goethe:

Zelter insisted on the pedals as the key to Bach's organ writing: "One might say of old Bach, that the pedals were the ground-element of the development of his unfathomable intellect, and that without feet, he could never have attained his intellectual height."
Zelter was instrumental in building up the Sing-Akademie, broadening their repertoire to instrumental music and encouraging the growing library, another important repository for Bach manuscripts. Zelter had been responsible for Mendelssohn's father Abraham Mendelssohn becoming a member of the Sing-Akademie in 1796. As a consequence one of the major new forces behind the library became Sara Levy, the great aunt of Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, who had built up one of the most important private collections of eighteenth century music in Europe. An accomplished harpsichordist, Sara Levy's teacher had been Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach , the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer...

and she had been a patroness of C.P.E. Bach, circumstances which gave her family close contacts with Bach and resulted in his music enjoying a privileged status in the Mendelssohn household. Felix's mother Lea, who had studied under Kirnberger, gave him his first music lessons. In 1819 Zelter was appointed as the composition teacher of Felix and his sister Fanny

Fanny Mendelssohn

Fanny Cäcilie Mendelssohn , later Fanny Hensel, was a German pianist and composer, the sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn and granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn...

; he taught counterpoint and music theory according to the methods of Kirnberger. Felix's piano teacher was Ludwig Berger, a pupil of Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi was a celebrated composer, pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer. Born in Italy, he spent most of his life in England. He is best known for his piano sonatas, and his collection of piano studies, Gradus ad Parnassum...

, and his organ teacher August Wilhelm Bach

August Wilhelm Bach

August Wilhelm Bach was a German composer and organist. He is unrelated to the family of Johann Sebastian Bach. He studied with his father, Gottfried, as well as with Carl Friedrich Zelter and Ludwig Berger. In 1832, he succeeded Zelter as the director of the Royal Institute of Church Music in...

(unrelated to J.S. Bach), who had himself studied musical theory under Zelter. A.W. Bach was organist of the Marienkirche, Berlin

St. Mary's Church, Berlin

St. Mary's Church, known in German as the Marienkirche, is a church in Berlin, Germany. The church is located on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße in central Berlin, near Alexanderplatz. Its exact age is not known, but it was first mentioned in German chronicles in 1292. It is presumed to date from earlier...

, which had an organ built in 1723 by Joachim Wagner. Mendelssohn's organ lessons were conducted on the Wagner organ, with Fanny present; they commenced in 1820 and lasted for less than two years. It is probable that he learnt some of J.S. Bach's organ works, which had remained in the repertoire of many Berlin organists; his choice would have been limited, because at that stage his pedal technique was still rudimentary.

In autumn 1821 the twelve year old Mendelssohn accompanied Zelter on a trip to Weimar

Weimar

, stopping on the way in Leipzig where they were shown the cantor's room in the choir school of the Thomaskirche by Bach's successor Schicht. They stayed two weeks in Weimar with Goethe, to whom Mendelssohn played extensively on the piano each day. All Mendelssohn's music lessons stopped by summer 1822 when his family left for Switzerland. In the 1820s, Mendelssohn visited Goethe four more times in Weimar, the last time being in 1830, a year after his resounding success in reviving Bach's St Matthew Passion in Berlin, with the collaboration of Zelter and members of the Sing-Akademie. On this last trip, again by way of Leipzig, he stayed two weeks in Weimar and had daily meetings with Goethe, by then in his eighties. He later gave an account to Zelter of a visit to the church of St Peter and St Paul where Bach's cousin Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther

Johann Gottfried Walther was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era.Walther was born at Erfurt...

had been organist and where his two eldest sons had been baptized:

In 1835 Mendelssohn was appointed director of the Gewandhaus Orchester

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is one of the the oldest symphony orchestras in the world...

in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, a post he held until his death in 1847 at the age of 38. He soon met other Bach enthusiasts including Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, one year his junior, who had moved to Leipzig in 1830. Having been taught piano by J.G. Kuntsch, organist at the Marienkirche in Zwickau

Zwickau

Zwickau in Germany, former seat of the government of the south-western region of the Free State of Saxony, belongs to an industrial and economical core region. Nowadays it is the capital city of the district of Zwickau...

, Schumann's seems to have started developing a deeper interest in Bach's organ music in 1832. In his diary he recorded sightreading the six organ fugues BWV 543–548 for four hands with Clara Wieck, the twelve year old daughter of his Leipzig piano teacher Friedrich Wieck

Friedrich Wieck

Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and music reviewer. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was doing international concert tours by age eleven and who later married Robert Schumann...

and his future wife. Schumann later acknowledged Bach as the composer who had influenced him most. In addition to collecting his works, Schumann started with Friedrich Wieck a new fortnightly music magazine, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was a music magazine published in Leipzig, co-founded by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke...

, in which he promoted the music of Bach as well as that of contemporary composers, such as Chopin and Liszt. One of the main contributors was his friend Carl Becker

Carl Ferdinand Becker (organist)

Karl Ferdinand Becker , was a German writer on music, and an organist.-Biography:...

, organist at the Peterskirche and in 1837 the Nikolaikirche. Schumann remained as editor-in-chief until 1843, the year in which Mendelssohn became the founding director of the Leipzig Conservatory. Schumann was appointed professor for piano and composition at the conservatory; other appointments included Moritz Hauptmann

Moritz Hauptmann

Moritz Hauptmann , was a German music theorist, teacher and composer.Hauptmann was born in Dresden, and studied violin under Scholz, piano under Franz Lanska, composition under Grosse and Francesco Morlacchi,...

(harmony and counterpoint), Ferdinand David

Ferdinand David (musician)

Ferdinand David was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David was raised Jewish but later converted to Christianity...

(violin) and Becker (organ and music theory).
One of Mendelssohn's regrets since 1822 was that he had not had sufficient opportunity to develop his pedal technique to his satisfaction, despite having given public organ recitals. Mendelssohn explained later how difficult gaining access to organs had already been back in Berlin: "If only people knew how I had to plead and pay and cajole the organists in Berlin, just to be allowed to play the organ for one hour—and how ten times during such an hour I had to stop for this or that reason, then they would certainly speak differently." Elsewhere, on his travels, he had only sporadic opportunities to practice, but not often on pedalboards matching the standard of those in northern Germany, especially in England. The English organist Edward Holmes commented in 1835 that Mendelssohn's recitals in St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

"gave a taste of his quality which in extemperaneous performance is certainly of the highest kind ... he has not we believe kept up that constant mechanical exercise of the instrument which is necessary to execute elaborate written works." In 1837, despite having performed the St Anne prelude and fugue in England to great acclaim, on his return to Germany Mendelssohn still felt dissatisfied, writing that, "This time I have resolved to practice the organ her in earnest; after all, if everyone takes me for an organist, I am determined, after the fact, to become one." It was only in the summer of 1839 that an opportunity arose when he spent six weeks on holiday in Frankfurt. There he had daily access to the pedal piano of his wife Cécile's cousin Friedrich Schlemmer and, probably through him, access to the organ in the Katharinenkirche built in 1779–1780 by Franz and Philipp Stumm.
August 1840 saw the fruits of Mendelssohn's labour: his first organ recital in the Thomaskirche. The proceeds from the concert were to go towards a statue of Bach in the vicinity of the Thomaskirche. Most of the repertoire in the concert had been played by Mendelssohn elsewhere, but nevertheless as he wrote to his mother, "I practised so much the previous eight days that I could barely stand on my own two feet and walked along the street in nothing but organ passages." The concert was wholly devoted to Bach's music, except for an improvised "free fantasy" at the end. In the audience was the elderly Friedrich Rochlitz, founding editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung

Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung

The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung was a German-language periodical published in the 19th century. Comini has called it "the foremost German-language musical periodical of its time"...

, a journal that had promoted the music of Bach: Rochlitz is reported to have declared afterwards, "I shall depart now in peace, for never shall I hear anything finer or more sublime." The recital started with the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552. The only chorale prelude was Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele BWV 654 from the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes

Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes

The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade 1740-1750, from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist...

, a favourite of both Mendelssohn and Schumann. Until that time very few of these or the shorter chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchlein

Orgelbüchlein

The Orgelbüchlein was written by Johann Sebastian Bach during the period of 1708–1714, while he was court organist at the ducal court in Weimar...

had been published. Mendelssohn prepared an edition of both sets that was published in 1844 by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig and by Coventry and Hollier in London. At about the same time the publishing house of Peters in Leipzig produced an edition of Bach's complete organ works in nine volumes edited by Friedrich Griepenkerl and Ferdinand Roitzsch. The E flat prelude and fugue BWV 552 appears in Volume III (1845), the chorale preludes BWV 669–682, 684–689 in Volume VI and VII (1847) and BWV 683 in Volume V (1846) with chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchlein.
In 1845, while Robert was recovering from a nervous breakdown and a few months prior to the completion of his piano concerto

Piano Concerto (Schumann)

The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54, is a famous Romantic concerto by Robert Schumann, completed in 1845.Schumann had begun several piano concerti before this one: In 1828, he had begun one in E-flat major; from 1829-31 he worked on one in F major, and in 1839, he wrote one movement of a concerto...

,the Schumanns rented a pedalboard to place under their upright piano. As Clara recorded at the time, "On April 24th we got on hire a pedal-board to attach below the pianoforte, and we had great pleasure from it. Our chief object was to practice organ playing. But Robert soon found a higher interest in this instrument and composed some sketches and studies for it which are sure to find high favour as something quite new." The pedalflügel base on which the piano was placed had 29 keys connected to 29 separate hammers and strings encased at the rear of the piano. The pedal board was manufactured by the same Leipzig firm of Louis Schöne that had provided the grand pedal piano in 1843 for the use of students at the Leipzig Conservatory. Before composing any of his own fugues and canons for organ and pedal piano, Schumann had made a careful study of Bach's organ works, of which he had an extensive collection. Clara Schumann's Bach book, an anthology of organ works by Bach, now in the archives of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute

Albert Riemenschneider

Albert Riemenschneider was an American musician and Bach musicologist.Riemenschneider was born into a musical family. His father, Karl H. Riemenschneider,There are two conflicting sources about the name of his father: T. Riemenschneider & L...

, contains the whole of Clavier-Übung III, with detailed analytic markings by Robert Schumann. On the centenary of Bach's death in 1850, Schumann, Becker, Hauptmann and Otto Jahn

Otto Jahn

Otto Jahn , was a German archaeologist, philologist, and writer on art and music.He was born at Kiel...

founded the Bach Gesellschaft

Bach Gesellschaft

The Bach-Gesellschaft was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. Their collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe....

, an institution dedicated to publishing, without any editorial additions, the complete works of Bach through the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel. The project was completed in 1900. The third volume, devoted to keyboard works, contained the Inventions and Sinfonias and the four parts of the Clavier-Übung. It was published in 1853, with Becker as editor.

At the end of September 1853, having been recommended by the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...

, the twenty year old Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

appeared on the doorstep of the Schumann's home in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, staying with them until early November. Like Schumann, perhaps even more so, Brahms was deeply influenced by Bach's music. Shortly after his arrival he gave a performance on the piano of Bach's organ toccata in F BWV 540/1 in the house of a friend of Schumann, Joseph Euler. Three months after Brahms' visit, Schumann's mental state deteriorated: after a failed suicide attempt

Failed suicide attempt

Failed suicide attempts comprise a large portion of suicide attempts. Some are regarded as not true attempts at all, but rather parasuicide. The usual attempt may be a wish to affect another person by the behaviour. Consequently, it occurs in a social context and may represent a request for help....

, Schumann committed himself to the sanitorium in Endenich

Endenich

Endenich is a neighborhood of Bonn, Germany, since 1904.The village of Endenich was founded in the 8th century, first mentioned in 804 as Villa quae vocatur Antiche .Today, about 12,000 people live in Endenich....

near Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, where, after several visits from Brahms, he died in 1856. From its inception, Brahms subscribed to the Bach-Gesellschaft, of which he became an editor in 1881. An organist himself and a scholar of early and baroque music, he carefully annotated and analysed his copies of the organ works; he made a separate study of Bach's use of parallel fifths and octaves in his organ counterpoint. Brahms' Bach collection is now preserved in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde

Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde

The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien , was founded in 1812 by Joseph von Sonnleithner, general secretary of the Court Theatre, Vienna, Austria. Its official charter, drafted in 1814, states that the purpose of the Society was to promote music in all its facets...

in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, of which he became musical director and conductor in 1872. In 1875 he conducted a performance in the Musikverein of an orchestral arrangement by Bernhard Scholz

Bernhard Scholz

Bernhard E. Scholz, was a German conductor, composer and teacher of music.- Life :Bernhard Scholz was born in Mainz in 1835. He was intended by his father to take over his father's business and studied to be a printer at Imp. Lemercier in Paris. But music became his career...

of the prelude in E flat BWV 552/1. In 1896, a year before he died, Brahms composed his own set of eleven chorale preludes

Eleven Chorale Preludes

The Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, are a collection of chorale preludes for organ by Johannes Brahms, composed in 1896, and published posthumously in 1902....

for organ, Op.122. Like Schumann, who turned to Bach counterpoint as a form of therapy in 1845 during his recovery from mental illness, Brahms also viewed Bach's music as salutory during his final illness. As Brahms' friend and biographer Max Kalbeck

Max Kalbeck

Max Kalbeck was a German writer, critic and translator.-Education:Kalbeck studied music in Munich. In 1875 he became the music-critic for the Schlesische Zeitung and assistant director of the Breslau Museum...

reported:
Max Reger

Max Reger

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...

was a composer whose dedication to Bach has been described as a "monomaniacal identification" by the musicologist Johannes Lorenzen: in letters he frequently referred to "Allvater Bach". During his life, Reger arranged or edited 428 of Bach's compositions, including arrangements of 38 organ works for piano solo, piano duet or two pianos, starting in 1895. At the same time he produced a large number of his own organ works. Already in 1894, the organist and musicologist Heinrich Reimann

Heinrich Reimann

Professor Dr. phil. Heinrich Reimann , was a German musicologist, organist, and composer.Reimann was born in Rengersdorf, Silesia, and was a son of Ignaz Reimann, also a musician...

, reacting to modernist trends in German music, had encouraged a return to the style of Bach, stating that, "Beyond this style there is no salvation ... Bach becomes for that reason the criterion of our art of writing for the organ." In 1894–1895 Reger composed his first suite for organ in E minor which was published in 1896 as his Op.16 with a dedication "To the Memory of Johann Sebastian Bach". The original intention was a sonata in three movements: an introduction and triple fugue; an adagio on the chorale Es ist das Heil uns kommen her

Es ist das Heil uns kommen her

Es ist das Heil uns kommen her , BWV 9, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig for the sixth Sunday after Trinity between 1732 and 1735.-History and words:...

; and a passacaglia

Passacaglia

The passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used by contemporary composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often, but not always, based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre....

. In the final version, Reger inserted an intermezzo

Intermezzo

In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...

(a scherzo and trio) as the third movement and expanded the adagio to contain a central section on the Lutheran hymns Aus tiefer Not and O Haupt voll Blut und Bunden. In 1896 Reger sent a copy of the suite to Brahms, his first and only contact. In the letter he asked permission to dedicate a future work to Brahms, to which he received the reply, "Permission for that is certainly not necessary, however! I had to smile, since you approach me about this matter and at the same time enclose a work whose all-too-bold dedication terrifies me!" The overall form of the suite follows the scheme of the eighth organ sonata Op.132 (1882) of Joseph Rheinberger and the symphonies of Brahms. The final passacaglia was a conscious reference to Bach's organ passacaglia in C minor

Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582

Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor is an organ piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Presumably composed early in Bach's career, it is one of his most important and well-known works, and an important influence on 19th and 20th century passacaglias: Robert Schumann described the variations of the...

BWV 582/1, but has clear affinities with the last movements of both Rheinberger's sonata and Brahms' fourth symphony

Symphony No. 4 (Brahms)

The Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 by Johannes Brahms is the last of his symphonies. Brahms began working on the piece in 1884, just a year after completing his Symphony No...

. The second movement is an adagio in ternary form

Ternary form

Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...

, with the beginning of the central section directly inspired by the setting of Aus tiefer Not in the pedaliter chorale prelude BWV 686 of Clavier-Übung III, paying homage to Bach as a composer of instrumental counterpoint. It has a similarly dense texture of six parts, two of them in the pedal. The outer sections are directly inspired by the musical form of the chorale prelude O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross BWV 622 from the Orgelbüchlein. The suite was first performed in the Trinity Church, Berlin

Holy Trinity Church (Berlin)

Trinity Church was a Baroque Protestant church in Berlin, eastern Germany, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It was opened in August 1739 and destroyed in November 1943, with its rubble removed in 1947....

in 1897 by the organist Karl Straube

Karl Straube

Montgomery Rufus Karl/Carl Siegfried Straube was a German church musician , organist, and choral conductor, famous above all for championing the abundant organ music of Max Reger. He studied organ under Heinrich Reimann in Berlin from 1894 to 1897 and became a widely respected concert organist...

, a student of Reimann. According to a later account by one of Straube's students, Reimann had described the work as "so difficult as to be almost unplayable," which had "provoked Straube's virtuosic ambition, so that he set about mastering the work, which placed him before utterly new technical problems, with unflagging energy." Straube gave two further performances in 1898, in the cathedral at Wesel

Wesel

Wesel is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel district.-Division of the town:Suburbs of Wesel include Lackhausen, Obrighoven, Ginderich, Feldmark,Fusternberg, Büderich, Flüren and Blumenkamp.-History:...

, where he had recently been appointed organist, and prior to that in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, where he met Reger for the first time. In 1902 Straube was appointed organist at the Thomaskirche and in the following year cantor; he became the main proponent and performer of Reger's organ works.

England

Apart from prevailing musical tastes and the difficulty in acquiring manuscript copies, a fundamental difference between the design of English and German organs made Bach's organ output less accessible to English organists, namely the absence of pedalboards. Handel's principal works for organ, his organ concertos Op.4

Handel organ concertos Op.4

The Handel organ concertos Op 4, HWV 289–294, refer to the six organ concertos for chamber organ and orchestra composed by George Frideric Handel in London between 1735 and 1736 and published in 1738 by the printing company of John Walsh...

and Op.7

Handel organ concertos Op.7

The Handel organ concertos Op 7, HWV 306–311, refer to the six organ concertos for organ and orchestra composed by George Frideric Handel in London between 1740 and 1751, published posthumously in 1761 by the printing company of John Walsh...

, with the possible exception of op.7 No.1, all appear to have been written for a single manual chamber organ. Until the 1830s, most church organs in England did not have separate pedal pipes and before that the few organs that had pedalboards were all pull-downs, i.e. pedals that operated pipes connected to the manual stops.
Pedalboards rarely contained more than 13 keys (an octave) or exceptionally 17 keys (an octave and a half). Pull-down pedalboards became more common from 1790 onwards. The pedaliter chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III require a 30 key pedalboard, going from CC to f. It is for this reason that the Bach awakening in England started with clavier compositions being played on the organ or organ compositions being adapted either for piano duet or for two (or sometimes three) players at an organ. The new found interest in Bach's organ music, as well as the desire to reproduce the grand and thunderous choral effects of the 1784 Handel Commemoration

Handel Commemoration

The Handel festival or ‘Commemoration’ took place in Westminster Abbey in 1784, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel in 1759....

, eventually had an impact on organ builders in England. By the 1840s, after a series of experiments with pedals and pedal pipes starting around the turn of the nineteenth century (in the spirit of the industrial revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

), newly constructed and existing organs started to be fitted with dedicated diapason pipes for the pedals, according to the well-established German model. The organ in St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

commissioned in 1694 from Father Smith and completed in 1697, with a case by Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...

, had exceptionally already been fitted with a 25 key pedalboard (two octaves C-c') of pull-down German pedals in the first half of the eighteenth century, probably as early as 1720, on the recommendation of Handel. By the 1790s these had been linked to separate pedal pipes, described with detailed illustrations in Rees's Cyclopædia (1819). The four manual "monster" organ in Birmingham Town Hall

Birmingham Town Hall

Birmingham Town Hall is a Grade I listed concert and meeting venue in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. It was created as a home for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival established in 1784, the purpose of which was to raise funds for the General Hospital, after St Philip's Church became...

, constructed in 1834 by William Hill, had three sets of pedal pipes connected to the pedalboard, which could also be operated independently by a two octave keyboard to the left of the manual keyboards. Hill's experiment of installing gigantic 32' pedal pipes, some currently still present, was only partially successful, as their scale did not permit them to sound properly.

The organist, composer and music teacher Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley

Samuel Wesley was an English organist and composer in the late Georgian period. Wesley was a contemporary of Mozart and was called by some "the English Mozart."-Personal life:...

(1766–1837) played a significant role in awakening interest in Bach's music in England, mostly in the period 1808–1811. After a lull in his own career, in the first half of 1806 he made a hand copy of Nägeli's Zurich edition of the Well-Tempered Clavier. In early 1808 Wesley visited Charles Burney

Charles Burney

Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...

in his rooms in Chelsea where he played for him from the copy of Book I of the '48' that Burney had received from C.P.E. Bach in 1772. As Wesley later recorded, Burney "was very delighted ... and expressed his Wonder how much abstruse Harmony & such perfect & enchanting Melody could have been so marvelously united!" Wesley subsequently consulted Burney, now a convert to the music of Bach, on his project to publish his own corrected transcription, stating, "I believe I can fairly securely affirm that mine is now the most correct copy in England." This project was eventually undertaken in with Charles Frederick Horn

Charles Frederick Horn

, published in four installments between 1810 and 1813. In June 1808 after a concert the Hanover Square Rooms

Hanover Square Rooms

The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen's Concert Rooms were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London, by Sir John Gallini in partnership with Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the...

during which Weseley performed some excerpts from the '48', he commented that, "this admirable Musick might be played into Fashion; you see I have only risked one modest Experiment, & it has electrified the Town just in the way that we wanted." Further concerts took place there and in the Surrey Chapel with Benjamin Jacob

Benjamin Jacob

Benjamin Jacob was an organist, conductor, and composer. He was a pupil of Willoughby, Shrubsole, and Arnold . He was an organist at various churches, finally at Surrey Chapel . With Wesley and Crotch, he gave organ recitals to immense audiences from 1808-14...

, a fellow organist with whom Wesley corresponded copiously an effusively about Bach. The musicologist and organist William Crotch

William Crotch

William Crotch was an English composer, organist and artist.Born in Norwich to a master carpenter he showed early musical talent . The three and a half year old Master William Crotch was taken to London by his ambitious mother, where he not only played on the organ of the Chapel Royal in St....

, another advocate of Bach, lectured on Bach in 1809 in the Hanover Square Rooms prior to publishing his edition of the E major fugue BWV 878/2 from the Well-Tempered Clavier II. In the introduction, after commenting that Bach fugues were "very difficult of execution, profoundly learned and highly ingenious", he described their "prevailing style" as "the sublime". By 1810 Wesley had stated his intention to perform the E flat fugue BWV 552/2 from Clavier-Übung III in St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1812 in the Hanover Square Rooms he performed an arrangement of the E flat prelude for organ duet and orchestra with the arranger Vincent Novello

Vincent Novello

Vincent Novello , English musician, son of an Italian who married an English wife, was born in London....

, founder of the music publishing firm Novello & Co, that would later bring out an English edition of Bach's complete organ works. In 1827 the E flat fugue had been arranged for organ or piano duet by Jacob and was even performed bair y three players two years later on the organ in St. James, Bermondsey, where the pedal could be played on a supplementary keyboard. It had also been used for auditions for organists: Wesley's son Samuel Sebastian Wesley

Samuel Sebastian Wesley

Samuel Sebastian Wesley was an English organist and composer.-Biography:Born in London, he was the eldest child in the composer Samuel Wesley's second family, which he formed with Sarah Suter having separated from his wife Charlotte. Samuel Sebastian was the grandson of Charles Wesley...

himself played it in 1827, when seeking employment (unsuccessfully). The chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III were also performed during this period: in his letters to Benjamin, Wesley mentions in particular Wir glauben BWV 680, which had become known as the "giant fugue", because of the striding figure in the pedal part. By 1837, pedal technique on the organ had developed sufficiently in England that the composer and organist Elizabeth Stirling (1819–1895) could give concerts in St Katherine's, Regent's Park

St Katharine's by the Tower

St Katharine's by the Tower--full name Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of St. Katharine by the Tower--was a medieval church and hospital next to the Tower of London. The establishment was founded in 1148 and the buildings demolished in 1825 to build St Katharine Docks, which takes its name...

and St. Sepulchre's, Holborn containing several of the pedaliter chorale preludes (BWV 676, 678, 682, 684) and well as the St Anne Prelude BWV 552/1. (These were the first public recitals in England by a female organist; in 1838 she performed BWV 669–670 and the St Anne fugue BWV 552/2 at St Sepulchre's.) In the same year Wesley and his daughter were invited to the organ loft of Christ Church, Newgate for a Bach recital by Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

. As Mendelssohn recorded in his diary,
A week later, Mendelssohn played the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 on the organ in Birmingham Town Hall. Prior to the concert, he confided in a letter to his mother:
Wesley died the following month. Mendelssohn made a total of 10 visits to Britain, the first in 1829, the last in 1847. His first visit, when he stayed with his friend the pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...

, had been a resounding success and Mendelssohn had been embraced by all strata of British musical society. On his fourth trip to Britain in 1833 he was accompanied by his father and heard the seventeen year old pianist-composer William Sterndale Bennett

William Sterndale Bennett

Sir William Sterndale Bennett was an English composer. He ranks as the most distinguished English composer of the Romantic school-Biography:...

performing his first piano concerto. A musical prodigy like Mendelssohn, at the age of 10 Sterndale Bennett had entered the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

, where he had been taught by Crotch. He was also an accomplished organist, familiar with the works of Bach. (After brief appointments as organist, he subsequently practised on the organ in Hanover Square Rooms, later surprising his son with his mastery of the harder pedal passages on a pedal-piano.) Mendelssohn immediately invited him to Germany. Reportedly when Sterndale Bennett asked to go as his student, Mendelssohn replied, "No, no, you must come to be my friend." Sterndale Bennett eventually visited Leipzig for 6 months from October 1836 to June 1837. There he made friends with Schumann, who became his soul mate and drinking partner. Sterndale Bennett made only two further trips to Germany during the lifetimes of Mendelssohn and Schumann, in 1838–1839 and 1842, although he retained their friendship and helped arrange Mendelssohn's visits to Britain. He became a firm proponent of Bach, organising concerts of his chamber music in London. He was one of the founders in 1849 of the original Bach Society

The Bach Choir

The Bach Choir is a large chorus, based in London, England. It has around 220 active members. The choir's musical director is David Hill and previous musical directors have included Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Reginald Jacques and Sir David Willcocks.The Bach Choir is an...

in London, devoted to the performance and collection of Bach's works, principally choral. In 1854 he staged the first performance in England of the St. Matthew Passion in the Hanover Square Rooms.

Already in 1829, Mendelssohn had become friends with Thomas Attwood

Thomas Attwood

Thomas Attwood was a British economist, the leading figure of the underconsumptionist Birmingham School of economists, and, as the founder of the Birmingham Political Union, a leading figure in the public campaign for the Great Reform Act of 1832.He was born in Halesowen, and attended Halesowen...

, who had studied with Mozart and since 1796 had been organist of St Paul's Cathedral. Through Attwood Mendelssohn gained access to the organ at St Paul's, which was suitable for Bach, despite the unusual alignment of the pedalboard. In 1837, however, during a recital at St Paul's, just before playing to Wesley, the air supply to the organ had suddenly been interrupted; in a later account, that he had to retell annoyingly often, Mendelssohn related that George Cooper, the sub-organist,
Cooper's son

George Cooper (organist)

George Cooper was an English organist and music educator. Born in Lambeth, Cooper was the son of organist George Cooper, Sr. He succeeded his father as assistant organist at St Paul's Cathedral in 1838; having already substituted for his father periodically since 1831...

, also called George, became the next sub-organist at St Paul's: he promoted the organ music of Bach and in 1845 produced the first English edition of the chorale prelude Wir glauben BWV 680 from Clavier-Übung III, published by Hollier & Addison,which he dubbed the "Giant Fugue" because of its striding pedal part. In the second half of the nineteenth century this became the best known of all the pedaliter chorale preludes from
Clavier-Übung III and was republished separately several times by Novello in organ anthologies at an intermediate level.

Mendelssohn's eighth visit occurred in 1842 after the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne. Her husband Prince Albert

Prince Albert

Prince Albert was the husband and consort of Queen Victoria.Prince Albert may also refer to:-Royalty:*Prince Albert Edward or Edward VII of the United Kingdom , son of Albert and Victoria...

was a keen organist and, under his influence, the music of Bach started to be performed at royal concerts. On the second of his two invitations to Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...

, Mendelssohn improvised on Albert's organ and accompanied the queen in two songs by Fanny and himself. Between these two visits, he once more performed the St Anne prelude and fugue, this time before an audience of 3,000 in Exeter Hall

Exeter Hall

Exeter Hall was a hall on the north side of The Strand, London, England. It was erected between 1829 and 1831 on the site of Exeter Exchange, to designs by John Peter Gandy, the brother of the visionary architect Joseph Michael Gandy...

in a concert organized by the Sacred Harmonic Society. In London there were few church organs with German pedal boards going down to CC: those which did included St. Paul's Cathedral, Christ Church, Newgate and St. Peter's, Cornhill,where Mendelssohn frequently performed solo recitals. During his last visit in 1847, he once more entertained Victoria and Albert in Buckingham Palace in May before playing a few days later the prelude and fugue on the name of "BACH" BWV 898 on the barely functional organ in Hanover Square Rooms during one of the Ancient Concerts organized by Prince Albert, with William Gladstone in the audience.
In the late 1840s and early 1850s organ building in England became more stable and less experimental, taking stock of traditions in Germany and innovations in France, particularly from the new generation of organ builders such as Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He is considered by many to be the greatest organ builder of the 19th century because he combined both science and art to make his instruments...

. One of the main names in organ building in England in the second half of the nineteenth century was Henry Willis

Henry Willis

Henry Willis was a British organ player and builder, who is regarded as the foremost organ builder of the Victorian era.-Early Life and work:...

. The manner in which the organ for St. George's Hall, Liverpool

St. George's Hall, Liverpool

St George's Hall is on Lime Street in the centre of the English city of Liverpool, opposite Lime Street railway station. It is a building in Neoclassical style which contains concert halls and law courts, and has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building...

was planned and constructed marks the transition from what Nicholas Thistlethwaite calls the "insular movement" of the 1840s to the adoption of the established German system. Planning formally started on the organ in 1845: the main advisor to Liverpool Corporation was Samuel Sebastian Wesley

Samuel Sebastian Wesley

, son of Samuel Wesley and an accomplished organist, particularly of Bach. He worked in consultation with a panel of university professors of music, who often disagreed with his eccentric suggestions. When Wesley tried to argue about the range of manual keyboards, justifying himself by the possibility of playing octaves with the left hand, he was reminded by the professors that the use of octaves was more common among pianists than first-rate organists and moreover that when he had been organist at Leeds Parish Church, "the dust on the half-dozen lowest keys on the GG manuals remained undisturbed for months." Willis was commissioned to build the organ only in 1851, after he had impressed the committee with the organ for Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe...

he had on display at The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

during the Great Exhibition. The completed organ had four manual keyboards and a thirty key pedalboard, with 17 sets of pedal pipes and a range from CC to f. The instrument had unequal temperament and, as Wesley had stipulated, the air supply came from two large underground bellows powered by an eight horse-power steam engine. Amongst the innovations introduced by Willis were the cylindrical pedal-valve, the pneumatic lever and the combination action

Combination action

A combination action is a system designed to capture specific organ registrations to be recalled instantaneously by the player while he is playing. Because of this, it is also referred to as a capture system. It usually consists of several numbered pistons situated in the space between the manuals...

, the latter two features being adopted widely by English organ builders in the second half of the nineteenth century. The organ was inaugurated in 1855 by William Thomas Best

William Thomas Best

William Thomas Best was an English organist.The son of a solicitor, he was born at Carlisle. Having decided on a musical career, he became a pupil of the cathedral organist. He became particularly skilled in the interpretation of Bach's music...

, who later that year was appointed resident organist, attracting crowds of thousands to here his playing. In 1867 he had the organ retuned to equal temperament. He remained in his post until 1894, giving performances elsewhere in England, including at the Crystal Palace, St James's Hall

St James's Hall

St. James's Hall was a concert hall in London that opened on 25 March 1858, designed by architect and artist Owen Jones, who had decorated the interior of the Crystal Palace. It was situated between the Quadrant in Regent Street and Piccadilly, and Vine Street and George Court. There was a...

and the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

. The St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 was used by Best to start off the series of Popular Monday Concerts at St James's Hall in 1859; and later in 1871 to inaugurate the newly built Willis organ in the Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of Queen Victoria.

France

In France, the Bach revival was slower to take root. Before the late 1840s, after the upheaval caused by the French revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, Bach was rarely performed in public concerts in France and it was preferred that church organists play operatic arias or popular airs instead of counterpoint. One exception was a public performance in the Paris Conservatoire in December 1833, repeated two years later in the Salons Pape, of the opening allegro of Bach's concerto for three harpsichords BWV 1063, played on pianos by Chopin, Liszt

Liszt

Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...

and Hiller

Ferdinand Hiller

Ferdinand Hiller was a German composer, conductor, writer and music-director.-Biography:Ferdinand Hiller was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, where his father Justus was a merchant in English textiles – a business eventually continued by Ferdinand’s brother Joseph...

. Berlioz later described their choice as "stupid and ridiculous", unworthy of their talents. Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

, having won the Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

in 1839, spent three years in the Villa Medici

Villa Medici

The Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French...

in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, where he developed a passionate interest in the polyphonic music of Palestrina. He also met Mendelssohn's sister Fanny, herself an accomplished concert pianist and by then married to the artist Wilhelm Hensel

Wilhelm Hensel

Wilhelm Hensel was a German painter, brother of Luise Hensel, husband to Fanny Mendelssohn, and brother-in-law to Felix Mendelssohn....

: Gounod described her as "an outstanding musician and a woman of superior intelligence, small, slender, but gifted with an energy which showed in her deep-set eyes and in her burning look." In response Fanny noted in her diary that Gounod was "passionately fond of music in a way I have rarely seen before." She introduced Gounod to the music of Bach, playing from memory fugues, concertos and sonatas for him on the piano. At the end of his stay in 1842, the twenty five year old Gounod had become a confirmed Bach devotee. In 1843, after a seven month stay in Vienna, with a letter of introduction from Fanny, Gounod spent 4 days with her brother in Leipzig. Mendelssohn played Bach for him on the organ of the Thomaskirche and conducted a performance of his Scottish Symphony by the Gewandhaus orchestra

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is one of the the oldest symphony orchestras in the world...

, specially convened in his honour. Back in Paris, Gounod took up an appointment as organist and music director in the Église des Missions Étrangères on the rue de Bac, on condition that he would be allowed to have autonomy over the music: Bach and Palestrina figured strongly in his repertoire. When churchgoers initially objected to this daily diet of counterpoint, Gounod was confronted by the Abbé, who eventually yielded to Gounod's conditions, although not without commenting "What a terrible man you are!"

In the late 1840s and 1850s a new school of organist-composers emerged in France, all trained in the organ works of Bach. These included Franck

Franck

- People :* César Franck , Belgian composer of the Romantic era* George Franck , University of Minnesota & New York Giant* Harry A...

, Saint-Saëns, Fauré

Faure

Faure or Fauré is a French family name and may refer to:People:* Edgar Faure, French politician* Élie Faure, French art historian and essayist* Émile Alphonse Faure, lead battery pioneer* Cédric Fauré, French football striker...

and Widor. In the aftermath of the French revolution

French Revolution

, there had already been a revival of interest in France in choral music of the baroque and earlier periods, particularly of Palestrina, Bach and Handel: Alexandre-Étienne Choron

Alexandre-Étienne Choron

Alexandre-Étienne Choron for a short time directed the Paris Opera. He played an essential role in France in making a clear distinction between sacred and secular music, and was one of the originators of French interest in musicology.- Biography :Choron studied mathematics at the collège de Juilly...

founded the Institution royale de musique classique et religieuse in 1817. After the July Revolution

July Revolution

The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...

and Choron's death in 1834, direction of the institute, renamed the "Conservatoire royal de musique classique de France", was taken over by Louis Niedermeyer

Louis Niedermeyer

Abraham Louis Niedermeyer was a composer chiefly of church music but also of a few operas, and a teacher who took over the Ecole Choron, duly renamed École Niedermeyer, a school for the study and practice of church music, where several eminent French musicians studied including Gabriel Fauré and...

and took his name as the École Niedermeyer. Along with the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

, it became one of the main training grounds for French organists. The Belgian composer and musicologist François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis was a Belgian musicologist, composer, critic and teacher. He was one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century, and his enormous compilation of biographical data in the Biographie universelle des musiciens remains an important source of information today...

, a contemporary and colleague of Choron in Paris, shared his interest in early and baroque music. Fétis exerted a similar influence in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, where he was appointed director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels

Royal Conservatory of Brussels

The Royal Conservatory of Brussels is a drama and music college in Brussels, Belgium. An academy for acting and the arts, it has been attended by many of the top actors and actresses in Belgium such as Josse De Pauw, Luk van Mello and Luk De Konink....

in 1832, a position he held until his death in 1871.
At the same time, French organ builders most notably Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He is considered by many to be the greatest organ builder of the 19th century because he combined both science and art to make his instruments...

were starting to produce new series of organs, which with their pedalboards, were designed both for the music of Bach as well as modern symphonic compositions. The change in traditions can be traced back to the inauguration in 1844 of the organ for St Eustache

Église Saint-Eustache, Paris

L’église Saint-Eustache is a church in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, built between 1532 and 1632.Situated at the entrance to Paris’s ancient markets and the beginning of rue Montorgueil, the Église de Saint-Eustache is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture...

, built by Doublaine and Callinet. The German organ virtuoso Adolf Friedrich Hesse

Adolf Friedrich Hesse

Adolf Friedrich Hesse was a German organist and composer.-Life:Hesse studied in Breslau with the organists Friedrich Wilhelm Berner and Ernst Köhler. In 1831, he became the First Organist at the Bernhardinkirche in his hometown...

was invited with five Parisians to demonstrate the new instrument. As part of his recital Hesse played Bach's Toccata in F major, BWV 540/1

Toccata and Fugue in F major, BWV 540

The Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540 is an organ work written by Johann Sebastian Bach. The toccata is thought to be written after 1714, and the fugue before 1731...

, allowing the Parisian audience to hear pedal technique far beyond what was known in France at that time. While impressed by his pedal playing, French commentators at the time gave Hesse mixed praise, one remarking that, while he might be the "king of the pedal ... he thinks of nothing but power and noise, his playing astonishes, but does not speak to the soul. He always seems to be the minister of an angry God who wants to punish." Another commentator, however, who had heard Hesse playing Bach on the organ at an industrial exhibition beforehand, noted that "if the organ of the Doublaine-Callinet firm is perfect from bottom to top, Monsieur Hesse is a complete organist from head to feet." The new organ had a short life: it was destroyed by fire from a falling candle in December 1844.

Two Belgian organist-composers, Franck and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens

Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens

Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens , was an organist and composer for his instrument.Born at Zoerle-Parwijs, near Westerlo, Belgium, Lemmens took lessons from François-Joseph Fétis, who wanted to make him into a musician capable of renewing the organ-player's art in Belgium...

, participated in the inauguration in 1854 of the new organ at St Eustache. Lemmens had studied with Hesse and Fétis; already in the early 1850s he had started giving public concerts in Paris, featuring Bach's organ music and using the brilliant foot technique he had learnt in Germany. At the same time Lemmens had published 18 installments of an organ manual for the use of "organistes du culte catholique", giving a complete introduction to the Bach tradition of organ playing, henceforth adopted in France.
In 1855 the piano firm Érard

Sébastien Érard

Sébastien Érard , born Sébastien Erhard, was a French instrument maker of German origin who specialised in the production of pianos and harps, developing the capacities of both instruments and pioneering the modern piano....

introduced a new instrument, the pedal piano

Pedal piano

The pedal piano is a kind of piano that includes a pedalboard, enabling bass register notes to be played with the feet, as is standard on the organ....

(pédalier), a grand piano fitted with a full German-style pedalboard. The French composer, organist and virtuoso pianist Charles Valentin Alkan and Lemmens gave concerts on it, including performances of Bach's toccatas, fugues and chorale preludes for organ. In 1858 Franck, a friend of Alkan, acquired a pédalier for his private use. Alkan, a devotee of Bach and one of the first subscribers to the Bach Gesellschaft

Bach Gesellschaft

, composed extensively for the pédalier, including in 1866 a set of twelve studies for pedalboard alone. In the 1870s, Alkan, by that time a recluse, returned to give a series of public Petits Concerts each year in the Salle Érard using their pédalier: Alkan's repertoire included the St Anne prelude as well as several chorale preludes.

There were further indications of changes in taste in France: Saint-Saëns, organist at the Madeleine

Madeleine

The madeleine or petite madeleine is a traditional small cake from Commercy and Liverdun, two communes of the Lorraine region in northeastern France....

from 1857 to 1877, refused to perform operatic arias as part of the liturgy, on one occasion replying to such a request, "Monsieur l'Abbé, when I hear from the pulpit the language of the Opéra Comique, I will play light music. Not before!" Saint-Saëns was nevertheless reluctant to use Bach's music in services. He regarded the preludes, fugues, toccatas and variations as virtuosic pieces for concert performance; and the chorale preludes as too Protestant in spirit for inclusion in a Catholic mass. The St Anne prelude and fugue was often used by Saint-Saëns for inaugurating Cavaillé-Coll organs; in Paris; he played for the inaugurations at St Sulpice (1862), Notre Dame

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...

(1868), Trinité (1869), the chapel in Versailles

Versailles

Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

(1873) and the Trocadéro

Trocadéro

The Trocadéro, , site of the Palais de Chaillot, , is an area of Paris, France, in the 16th arrondissement, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. The hill of the Trocadéro is the hill of Chaillot, a former village.- Origin of the name :...

(1878).
The last two decades of the nineteenth century saw a revival of interest in Bach's organ music in France. There were public concerts on the new Cavaillé-Colle organ in the concert hall or Salle des Fêtes of the old Palais du Trocadéro, built for the third Paris exhibition

Exposition Universelle (1878)

The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May through to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.-Construction:...

in 1878. Organized by the organist Alexandre Guilmant

Alexandre Guilmant

Félix-Alexandre Guilmant was a French organist and composer.- Short biography :Guilmant was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer...

, a pupil of Lemmens, in conjunction with Eugène Gigout

Eugène Gigout

Eugène Gigout was a French organist and a composer of European late-romantic music for organ.-Biography:Gigout was born in Nancy, and died in Paris....

, these started as six free concerts during the exhibition. Attracting huge crowds—the concert hall could seat 5,000 with sometimes an extra 2,000 standing—the concerts continued until the turn of the century. Guilmant programmed primarily the organ music of the two composers whom he referred to as "musical giants", Bach and Handel, still mostly unknown to these mass audiences, as well as the works of older masters such as Buxtehude and Frescobaldi. The St Anne prelude and fugue featured in the concerts, Saint-Saëns playing it in one of the first in 1879 and Guilmant again in 1899, in a special concert to mark the twentieth anniversary of the series. The concerts represented a new fin de siècle cult of Bach in France. It was not without its detractors: the music critic Camille Bellaigue (1858–1930) described Bach in 1888 as a "first-rate bore":
The chorale preludes of Bach were late to enter the French organ repertoire. César Franck, although only known to have performed one work by Bach in public, often set chorale preludes (BWV 622

Orgelbüchlein

The Orgelbüchlein was written by Johann Sebastian Bach during the period of 1708–1714, while he was court organist at the ducal court in Weimar...

and BWV 656

Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes

) as examination pieces at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

in the 1870s and 1880s. It was Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...

, Franck's successor on his death in 1890, who introduced the chorale preludes as a fundamental part of organ teaching there, where Bach's other organ works already provided the foundation stone.
Widor believed that the music of Bach represented

Unlike Saint-Saëns and his own teacher Lemmens, Widor had no objection to playing Bach organ music because of its Lutheran associations: "What speaks through his works is pure religious emotion; and this is one and the same in all men, in spite of the national and religious partitions in which we are born and bred." His student, the blind composer and organist, Louis Vierne

Louis Vierne

Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...

later recalled:
On Widor's recommendation, Guilmant succeeded him as professor of organ in the conservatory in 1896. In 1899 he installed a three manual Cavaillé-Coll organ in his home in Meudon

Meudon

Meudon is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:...

, where he gave lessons to a wide range of pupils, including a whole generation of organists from the United States of America. Among his French students were Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

, Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...

and Georges Jacob. Dupré started lessons with Guilmant at the age of eleven, later becoming his successor at the conservatoire. In two celebrated series of concerts at the conservatoire in 1920 and at the Palais du Trocadéro the following year, Dupré performed the complete organ works of Bach from memory in 10 concerts: the ninth concert was devoted entirely to the chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III. Dupré also taught in Meudon

Meudon

Meudon is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:...

, having acquired Guilmant's Cavaillé-Coll organ in 1926. The funeral service for Guilmant at his home in 1911, prior to his burial in Paris, included a performance by Jacob of Aus teifer Noth BWV 686.

Historic transcriptions

Piano

Benjamin Jacob
Benjamin Jacob
Benjamin Jacob was an organist, conductor, and composer. He was a pupil of Willoughby, Shrubsole, and Arnold . He was an organist at various churches, finally at Surrey Chapel . With Wesley and Crotch, he gave organ recitals to immense audiences from 1808-14...

(1778–1829), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for piano duet
Ivan Karlovitsch Tscherlitzky (1799–1865), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 and chorale preludes BWV 669–689 for piano solo
Adolf Bernhard Marx
Adolf Bernhard Marx
Friedrich Heinrich Adolf Bernhard Marx was a German composer, musical theorist and critic.-Life:...

(1795–1866), arrangement of chorale preludes BWV 679 and 683 for piano solo
Franz Xavier Gleichauf (1801–1856), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for piano duet
Otto Singer
Otto Singer
Otto Singer was a German musician also active in the USA.Singer was born in Sora, Saxony. He was educated in Dresden, and later in Leipzig until 1865, and after a short residence in Weimar with Franz Liszt went to New York in 1867.In 1873 he went to Cincinnati as assistant musical director, under...

(1833–1894), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for two pianos
Ludwig Stark (1831–1884), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for piano solo
Ernst Pauer
Ernst Pauer
Ernst Pauer was an Austrian pianist, composer and educator.Pauer formed a direct link with great Viennese traditions: he was born in Vienna, his mother was a member of the famous Streicher family of piano makers, and for a time he was a piano pupil of Mozart's son, F. X. W. Mozart and a...

(1826–1905), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for piano duet
Max Reger
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...

(1873–1916), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for piano duet and piano solo
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

"freely arranged for concert use on the piano" the prelude and fugue BWV 552 in 1890
August Stradal
August Stradal
August Stradal was a Bohemian pianist and music teacher. A student of Anton Bruckner, he made solo piano arrangements of that composer's symphonies 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8. His pianistic credentials included studies with both Theodor Leschetizky and Franz Liszt...

(1860–1930), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for piano solo
William Gillies Whittaker (1876–1944), arrangements of chorale preludes BWV 672–675, 677, 679, 681,683, 685, 687, 689 for piano solo
Christopher Le Fleming (1908–1985), arrangement of prelude and fugue BWV 552 for two pianos
György Kurtág
György Kurtág
György Kurtág is a Hungarian composer of contemporary music.- Biography :György Kurtág was born in Lugoj in the Banat region, Romania.In 1946, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he met his wife, Márta, and also György Ligeti, who became a close friend...

, Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir BWV 687, transcribed for piano 4 hands from Játékok ("Games")

Orchestra

Vincent Novello
Vincent Novello
Vincent Novello , English musician, son of an Italian who married an English wife, was born in London....

arranged the prelude of BWV 552 for orchestra and organ duet: it was first performed with Samuel Wesley
Samuel Wesley
Samuel Wesley was an English organist and composer in the late Georgian period. Wesley was a contemporary of Mozart and was called by some "the English Mozart."-Personal life:...

and Novello at the organ in the Hanover Square Rooms
Hanover Square Rooms
The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen's Concert Rooms were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London, by Sir John Gallini in partnership with Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774. For exactly one century this was the...

in 1812.
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

, conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

. Wir glauben all' an einen Gott BWV 680 and Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir BWV 686 were among the 14 organ works of Bach orchestrated by Stokowski. Wir glauben was first performed on March 15, 1924 and recorded on May 1, 1929.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

, arrangement of Wir glauben all' an einen Gott BWV 680 for string orchestra, 1925 (there is also a simplified version by Arnold Foster)
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

recomposed the prelude and fugue BWV 552 for orchestra in 1928; Its first performance was conducted by Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

in 1929.
Henri Verbrugghen
Henri Verbrugghen
Henri Verbrugghen was a Belgian musician, who directed orchestras in England, Scotland, Australia and the United States....

(1873–1934), arranged the prelude and fugue BWV 552 for orchestra.
Philip James
Philip James
Philip James was an American composer, conductor and music educator.Note: Composer and shakuhachi player Phil James is listed as Phil Nyokai James.-Life:...

(1890–1975), arrangement of Wir glauben all' an einen Gott BWV 680 for orchestra, 1929.
Fabien Sevitzky
Fabien Sevitzky
Fabien Sevitzky was a Russian-born American conductor. He was the nephew of Serge Koussevitsky....

(1891–1967), arrangement of Wir glauben all' an einen Gott BWV 680 for orchestra, 1937.
Alan Bush
Alan Bush
Alan Dudley Bush was a British composer and pianist. He was a committed socialist, and politics sometimes provided central themes in his music.-Personal life:...

(1900–1995), arrangement of Kyrie, Gott, heiliger Geist BWV 671 and the fugue on Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 689 for string orchestra, first performed in the Cambridge Arts Theatre
Cambridge Arts Theatre
Cambridge Arts Theatre is a 666-seat theatre on Peas Hill in central Cambridge, England. The theatre presents a varied mix of drama, dance, opera and pantomime. It attracts some of the highest-quality touring productions in the country, as well as many shows direct from, or prior to, seasons in the...

in November 1941.
Alfred Akon (1905–1977), arrangement of Wir glauben all' an einen Gott BWV 680 for string orchestra, 1942.
Herman Boessenroth (1884–1968), arrangement of Wir glauben all' an einen Gott BWV 680 for full orchestra, 1942.
Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...

, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

, arranged the prelude and fugue BWV 552 for orchestra, recording it with them on December 22, 1944.

Chamber ensembles

Abraham Mendelssohn (1776–1835), arrangement of Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682 for flute, violin, viola, cello and organ
Ferdinand David
Ferdinand David (musician)
Ferdinand David was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David was raised Jewish but later converted to Christianity...

(1810–1873), arrangement of Duetti BWV 802–805 for violin and viola.

Selected recordings

Marie-Claire Alain
Marie-Claire Alain
Marie-Claire Alain is a French organist and organ teacher best known for her prolific recording career. She is particularly known for her ability to perform substantial works entirely from memory.-Background and education:...

, Complete works for organ of Bach, Erato, discs 6 and 7.
André Isoir
André Isoir
André Isoir is a renowned French organist.Isoir studied with Édouard Souberbielle and Germaine Mounier at the École César-Franck and under Rolande Falcinelli at the Paris Conservatoire where he won the first prizes in organ and improvisation in 1960.Thereafter he won several international organ...

, Complete works for organ of Bach, Calliope, discs 13 and 14.
Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman
Ton Koopman is a conductor, organist and harpsichordist.Koopman had a "classical education" and then studied the organ , harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam...

, Bach organ works, Volume 5, Das Alte Werk, Teldec, 2 CDs.
Bernard Foccroulle, Complete organ works of Bach, Ricercar/Allegro, discs 11 and 12.
Helmut Walcha
Helmut Walcha
Helmut Walcha was a blind German organist who specialized in the works of the Dutch and German baroque masters and is known for his recordings of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach.- Biography :Born in Leipzig, Walcha was blinded at age 19 after vaccination for smallpox...

, Complete organ works of Bach, Documents, Membran Musics, discs 8 and 9.

External links

Transcriptions of Bach compositions for piano, piano duet and two pianos
Chorale preludes and four duets from Clavier-Übung III on Mutopia
Free downloads of the complete Clavier-Übung III recorded by James Kibbie
James Kibbie
James Kibbie is an American concert organist, recording artist and pedagogue. He is Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan.- Biography :James Kibbie was born in 1949 in Vinton, Iowa, USA...

on historic German baroque organs: either search for individual works or download the whole collection
Performance by James Pressler of the entirety of Clavier-Übung III besides the Duets on virtual organs
A Joy Forever- Opus 41 at Goshen College, disc 2 by Bradley Lehman, contains free recordings of the Duets
Midi recordings of prelude and fugue BWV 552 by Gary Bricault
Midi recordings of Clavier-Übung III for organ/harpsichord
Midi recording of prelude and fugue BWV 552 on the organ of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe-Kerk (Church of Our Lady), Dordrecht
Dordrecht
Dordrecht , colloquially Dordt, historically in English named Dort, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the fourth largest city of the province, having a population of 118,601 in 2009...
liner notes for recording by Masaaki Suzuki
Masaaki Suzuki
is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist and conductor, and the founder and musical director of the Bach Collegium Japan.He was born in Kobe to parents who were both Christians and amateur musicians...
Trinitarian and Catechistic Connotations of the Clavier-Übung III

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