Section 2: The Baroque Period - Bach #2

Well, I figure it's been long enough since I've written another post. This month has been pretty busy, so sorry if I've kept anybody waiting.

We are now ready to move on to Bach's music. I have found that these music sections are somewhat difficult to write. It's hard to find where to start, and when I do find a good place, it's hard to know just how I should go about discussing a particular composer's style.

Especially Bach. Bach is very difficult to compress into a single post. His music was just so vast, and so important. He has managed to live on for centuries, through the impact his music had on later composers, who then impacted later composers, and so on. He had a very great "ripple effect" on music. Obviously, his exact style has now dissipated, but his genius is still felt gently rippling through music today.

Bach's main genius lay in his knowledge of the actual, inner workings of a melody. He had an innate sense about when to write what note, and seemed to understand (here's the genius) why to write what note. He also had knowledge of how a melody reacted when placed over another melody. Simply put, he knew better than anyone ever had, and perhaps ever has, how the little pieces of music fit to make a whole.

But Bach did not limit himself to strict contrapuntal and fugal compositions. That is, he didn't only write very complex, "melody-over-melody" music. Some of his music is, ironically, profoundly simple. Such as a piece we are all familiar with: the Prelude in C Major, from his Well-Tempered Clavier.

This piece never ceases to puzzle me. It's almost too simple, and yet it remains one of Bach's most attractive pieces. I like to place this piece right in the center portion of my art diagram. At its core, it's just a long series broken chords, or arpeggios, changing every measure. But there's much more underneath this piece.

I find there's a certain degree of ambiguity to it. If you were to get sheet music to this piece, you might find (depending on the publisher) that it has no tempo markings, no dynamic markings, no slurs, and no pedal markings. Bach has apparently left the interpretation of his piece completely up to the performer. And the interpretations are certainly varied. Some pianists play it fast, some play it far too slow, in my opinion, others play it staccato, others load it with large amounts of pedal. The search for the correct way to play it almost teases modern pianists, in precisely the same way the Mona Lisa's smile has puzzled people for centuries. It is its innocent insignificance that has caused the most controversy.

The genius of this piece also lies in its underlying premise: one chord leads logically to another. If you want to increase your musical vocabulary, and learn what chords lead to what chords, this is a good piece to check out. All it is is chords leading to chords. Bach just knew what to do next.

And I think another reason (perhaps a more straightforward one) that this piece is popular, lies in its rhythm. It has a lilting, lullaby sound. The chords are always arpeggiated in the same way. Two notes in the left hand, followed by a repeating pattern in the right hand. This eventually gets to be almost hypnotic, in its consistency and swaying motion.

Taking all of this into consideration, I prefer to play this piece at a more relaxed tempo, sort of a walking pace, and never very loud. I feel that the essence of the piece is its enigmatic simplicity, and so I set limits for myself. I only change the tempo very slightly, if ever, and I do not allow myself to go above a certain volume. It's difficult not to accent or bring things out a lot when it gets really beautiful, but I feel this helps preserve the sense that there is something more under the piece that we are not getting.

I am posting a link to a recording of this piece that I like. It took me a while to sift through the ones I didn't like to find it, but here it is. This is the pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Generally, in the pieces I have seen him play, he plays with strength and virtuosity, so it's interesting to hear him do something so intimate. His tempo is a little fast maybe, but his tone is exceptional. It almost sounds like a harp. (This recording also has, after the prelude, the first fugue, and the second prelude and fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier. The Prelude in C is the first one he plays, but please feel free to listen to the others after it!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0h7UJgVZGk

Now if you did go ahead and listen to all of it, then you got a real treat. The prelude and fugues that followed the first one are just another example of Bach's genius.

Fugal writing was Bach's forte. As I keep saying, he just had an innate, instinctive knowledge of the nature of notes and melodies. I have tried to write a fugue, and it takes a lot of time and thought. I gave up after a while. Bach could improvise them, off the top of his head. They just flowed from him.

And they are works of genius. Each fugue has sometimes several voices, each with its own melodic line. Each line continues through the piece, and the notes weave and mesh together to form the chords, which change and carry the natural flow of the song forward. And its all based on one simple theme.

I have told you that Bach was influential. But you might be wondering how. Fugues are rarely written like Bach's anymore, and he didn't create any new styles of music necessarily. Well I think we see a little glimpse of his influence in what other composers said about him. It is said that Mozart was once shown one of Bach's motets, after which he exclaimed, "Now here is something one can learn from!", and proceeded to look through every available score of Bach's music. Beethoven once called Bach "the original father of harmony". That's interesting. Beethoven and Mozart found that Bach was a sea of knowledge when it came to harmony.

This all goes back to what I said before, about the Baroque period's musical style being horizontal. Bach, it seems, played an enormous role in this shift from horizontal to vertical. Through his knowledge of melody and chords, he composed the summit of Baroque music, and paved the way for later composers, like Mozart, to form the next period of music.

And Bach is still studied today. I recently read an article about jazz music, and the author stated that the best way to learn to write great bass lines was to study the bass lines of Bach. I thought that was interesting.

And lastly, Bach's music was great because he understood the spiritual side of music. He saw the greater circle enclosing the diagram. Many of his scores bear the initials SDG, or Soli Deo Gloria: Only for the glory of God. He did not find himself to be a genius by his own work, and did not wish any of the glory for his compositions to go to himself, but rather, he recognized his gift was from God, and gave Him the glory. Just another reason Bach was great.

Well, that about wraps up our look at some of Bach's music, and of the Baroque period as a whole. I hope this has been as informative so far that is has been for me. :) As I said, Baroque really is not my favorite style, even though a lot was changing in music during the time period. But next post, we get to start heading into another great period of change and development: the Classical period. We'll get to see about composers like Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert. Great composers, who, like Bach, took the music of their day, raised it to another level, and through their influence, opened the door to the next style. I'm excited already.