Johann Sebastian Bach |

Johann Sebastian Bach

Bach is not new, not old, it is something much more – it is eternal … R. Schumann

The year 1520 marks the root of the branching genealogical tree of the old burgher family of Bachs. In Germany, the words “Bach” and “musician” were synonymous for several centuries. However, only in the fifth generation “out of their midst … a man emerged whose glorious art radiated such a bright light that a reflection of this radiance fell on them. It was Johann Sebastian Bach, the beauty and pride of his family and fatherland, a man who, like no one else, was patronized by the very Art of Music. So wrote in 1802 I. Forkel, the first biographer and one of the first true connoisseurs of the composer at the dawn of the new century, for Bach’s age said goodbye to the great cantor immediately after his death. But even during the life of the chosen one of the “Art of Music” it was difficult to call the chosen one of fate. Outwardly, the biography of Bach is no different from the biography of any German musician at the turn of the 1521th-22th centuries. Bach was born in the small Thuringian town of Eisenach, located near the legendary Wartburg castle, where in the Middle Ages, according to legend, the color of minnesang converged, and in XNUMX-XNUMX. the word of M. Luther sounded: in Wartburg the great reformer translated the Bible into the language of the fatherland.

J.S. Bach was not a child prodigy, but from childhood, being in a musical environment, he received a very thorough education. First, under the guidance of his elder brother J.K. Bach and school cantors J. Arnold and E. Herda in Ohrdruf (1696-99), then at the school at St. Michael’s Church in Lüneburg (1700-02). By the age of 17, he owned the harpsichord, violin, viola, organ, sang in the choir, and after the mutation of his voice, he acted as a prefect (cantor’s assistant). From an early age, Bach felt his vocation in the organ field, tirelessly studied both with the Middle and North German masters – J. Pachelbel, J. Lewe, G. Boehm, J. Reinken – the art of organ improvisation, which was the basis of his composing skills. To this should be added a wide acquaintance with European music: Bach took part in concerts of the court chapel known for its French tastes in Celle, had access to the rich collection of Italian masters stored in the school library, and finally, during repeated visits to Hamburg, he could get acquainted with the local opera.

In 1702, a fairly educated musician emerged from the walls of Michaelschule, but Bach did not lose his taste for learning, “imitation” of everything that could help broaden his professional horizons throughout his life. A constant striving for improvement marked his musical career, which, according to the tradition of the time, was associated with the church, city or court. Not by chance, which provided this or that vacancy, but firmly and persistently, he rose to the next level of the musical hierarchy from organist (Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, 1703-08) to concertmaster (Weimar, 170817), bandmaster (Keten, 171723), finally, the cantor and director of music (Leipzig, 1723-50). At the same time, next to Bach, a practicing musician, the Bach composer grew and gained strength, stepping far beyond the limits of the specific tasks that were set for him in his creative impulses and accomplishments. The Arnstadt organist is reproached for making “many strange variations in the chorale … which embarrassed the community.” An example of this is dating back to the first decade of the 33th century. 1985 chorales found recently (1705) as part of a typical (from Christmas to Easter) working collection of a Lutheran organist Tsakhov, as well as the composer and theorist G. A. Sorge). To an even greater extent, these reproaches could apply to Bach’s early organ cycles, the concept of which began to take shape already in Arnstadt. Especially after visiting in the winter of 06-XNUMX. Lübeck, where he went at the call of D. Buxtehude (the famous composer and organist was looking for a successor who, along with getting a place in the Marienkirche, was ready to marry his only daughter). Bach did not stay in Lübeck, but communication with Buxtehude left a significant imprint on all his further work.

In 1707, Bach moved to Mühlhausen in order to take up the post of organist in the church of St. Blaise. A field that provided opportunities somewhat greater than in Arnstadt, but clearly insufficient to, in the words of Bach himself, “perform … regular church music and in general, if possible, contribute to … the development of church music, which is gaining strength almost everywhere, for which … an extensive repertoire of excellent church writings (resignation sent to the magistrate of the city of Mühlhausen on June 25, 1708). These intentions Bach will carry out in Weimar at the court of Duke Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, where he was waiting for versatile activities both in the castle church and in the chapel. In Weimar, the first and most important feature in the organ sphere was drawn. Exact dates have not been preserved, but it appears that (among many others) such masterpieces as the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the Preludes and Fugues in C minor and F minor, the Toccata in C major, the Passacaglia in C minor, and also the famous ” Organ booklet” in which “a beginner organist is given guidance on how to conduct a chorale in all sorts of ways.” The fame of Bach, “the best connoisseur and adviser, especially in terms of disposition … and the very construction of the organ”, as well as “the phoenix of improvisation”, spread far around. So, the Weimar years include a failed competition with the famous French organist and harpsichordist L. Marchand, who left the “battlefield” before meeting with his opponent, which was overgrown with legends.

With his appointment in 1714 as vice-kapellmeister, Bach’s dream of “regular church music” came true, which, according to the terms of the contract, he had to supply monthly. Mostly in the genre of a new cantata with a synthetic textual basis (biblical sayings, choral stanzas, free, “madrigal” poetry) and corresponding musical components (orchestral introduction, “dry” and accompanied recitatives, aria, chorale). However, the structure of each cantata is far from any stereotypes. It suffices to compare such pearls of early vocal and instrumental creativity as BWV {Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV) – a thematic list of works by J. S. Bach.} 11, 12, 21. Bach did not forget about the “accumulated repertoire” of other composers. Such, for example, are preserved in Bach copies of the Weimar period, most likely prepared for the upcoming performances of the Passion for Luke by an unknown author (for a long time erroneously attributed to Bach) and Passion for Mark by R. Kaiser, which served as a model for their own works in this genre.

No less active is Bach – kammermusikus and concertmaster. Being in the midst of the intense musical life of the Weimar court, he could become widely acquainted with European music. As always, this acquaintance with Bach was creative, as evidenced by the organ arrangements of the concertos by A. Vivaldi, the clavier arrangements by A. Marcello, T. Albinoni and others.

The Weimar years are also characterized by the first appeal to the genre of solo violin sonata and suite. All these instrumental experiments found their brilliant implementation on new ground: in 1717, Bach was invited to Keten to the post of Grand Ducal Kapellmeister of Anhalt-Keten. A very favorable musical atmosphere reigned here thanks to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Keten himself, a passionate music lover and musician who played the harpsichord, gamba, and had a good voice. The creative interests of Bach, whose duties included accompanying the prince’s singing and playing, and most importantly, the leadership of an excellent chapel consisting of 15-18 experienced orchestra members, naturally move to the instrumental area. Solo, mostly violin and orchestral concertos, including 6 Brandenburg concertos, orchestral suites, solo violin and cello sonatas. Such is the incomplete register of the Keten “harvest”.

In Keten, another line is opened (or rather continues, if we mean the “Organ Book”) in the master’s work: compositions for pedagogical purposes, in Bach’s language, “for the benefit and use of musical youth striving for learning.” The first in this series is Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s Music Notebook (begun in 1720 for the first-born and favorite of his father, the future famous composer). Here, in addition to dance miniatures and arrangements of chorales, there are prototypes of the 1st volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier (prelude), two and three-part Inventions (preamble and fantasies). Bach himself would complete these collections in 1722 and 1723, respectively.

In Keten, the “Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach” (the composer’s second wife) was started, which includes, along with pieces by various authors, 5 out of 6 “French Suites”. In the same years, “Little Preludes and Fughettas”, “English Suites”, “Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue” and other clavier compositions were created. Just as the number of Bach’s students multiplied from year to year, his pedagogical repertoire was replenished, which was destined to become a school of performing arts for all subsequent generations of musicians.

The list of Keten opuses would be incomplete without mentioning vocal compositions. This is a whole series of secular cantatas, most of which have not been preserved and have received a second life already with a new, spiritual text. In many ways, the latent, not lying on the surface work in the vocal field (in the Reformed Church of Keten “regular music” was not required) bore fruit in the last and most extensive period of the master’s work.

Bach enters the new field of cantor of the St. Thomas School and music director of the city of Leipzig not empty-handed: “trial” cantatas BWV 22, 23 have already been written; Magnificat; “Passion according to John”. Leipzig is the final station of Bach’s wanderings. Outwardly, especially judging by the second part of his title, the desired top of the official hierarchy was reached here. At the same time, the “Commitment” (14 checkpoints), which he had to sign “in connection with taking office” and the failure to fulfill which was fraught with conflicts with the church and city authorities, testifies to the complexity of this segment of Bach’s biography. The first 3 years (1723-26) were devoted to church music. Until quarrels with the authorities began and the magistrate financed liturgical music, which meant that professional musicians could be involved in the performance, the energy of the new cantor knew no bounds. All Weimar and Köthen experience spilled over into Leipzig creativity.

The scale of what was conceived and done during this period is truly immeasurable: more than 150 cantatas created weekly (!), 2nd ed. “Passion according to John”, and according to new data, and “Passion according to Matthew”. The premiere of this most monumental work of Bach falls not in 1729, as was thought until now, but in 1727. The decrease in the intensity of the cantor’s activity, the reasons for which Bach formulated in the well-known “Project for a good setting of affairs in church music, with the addition of some unbiased considerations regarding its decline” (August 23, 1730, memorandum to the Leipzig magistrate), was compensated by activities of a different kind. Bach Kapellmeister again comes to the forefront, this time heading the student Collegium musicum. Bach led this circle in 1729-37, and then in 1739-44 (?) With weekly concerts in the Zimmermann Garden or the Zimmermann Coffee House, Bach made an enormous contribution to the public musical life of the city. The repertoire is the most diverse: symphonies (orchestral suites), secular cantatas and, of course, concertos – the “bread” of all amateur and professional meetings of the era. It was here that the specifically Leipzig variety of Bach’s concertos most likely arose – for clavier and orchestra, which are adaptations of his own concertos for violin, violin and oboe, etc. Among them are classical concertos in D minor, F minor, A major.

With the active assistance of the Bach circle, the city’s musical life in Leipzig also proceeded, whether it was “solemn music on the magnificent day of the name day of Augustus II, performed in the evening under illumination in the Zimmermann garden”, or “Evening music with trumpets and timpani” in honor of the same Augustus, or beautiful “night music with many wax torches, with the sounds of trumpets and timpani”, etc. In this list of “music” in honor of the Saxon electors, a special place belongs to the Missa dedicated to Augustus III (Kyrie, Gloria, 1733) – part of another monumental creation of Bach – Mass in B minor, completed only in 1747-48. In the last decade, Bach has focused most of all on music free from any applied purpose. These are the second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier (1744), as well as the partitas, the Italian Concerto, the Organ Mass, the Aria with Various Variations (named Goldberg’s after Bach’s death), which were included in the collection Clavier Exercises. Unlike liturgical music, which Bach apparently considered a tribute to the craft, he sought to make his non-applied opuses available to the general public. Under his own editorship, Clavier Exercises and a number of other compositions were published, including the last 2, the largest instrumental works.

In 1737, the philosopher and historian, a student of Bach, L. Mitzler, organized the Society of Musical Sciences in Leipzig, where counterpoint, or, as we would now say, polyphony, was recognized as “first among equals”. At different times, G. Telemann, G. F. Handel joined the Society. In 1747, the greatest polyphonist J. S. Bach became a member. In the same year, the composer visited the royal residence in Potsdam, where he improvised on a new instrument at that time – the piano – in front of Frederick II on a theme he set. The royal idea was returned to the author a hundredfold – Bach created an incomparable monument of contrapuntal art – “Musical Offering”, a grandiose cycle of 10 canons, two ricercars and a four-part trio sonata for flute, violin and harpsichord.

And next to the “Musical Offering” a new “single-dark” cycle was maturing, the idea of ​​​​which originated in the early 40s. It is the “Art of the Fugue” containing all kinds of counterpoints and canons. “Illness (towards the end of his life, Bach went blind. — T. F.) prevented him from completing the penultimate fugue … and working out the last one … This work saw the light only after the death of the author, ”marking the highest level of polyphonic skill.

The last representative of the centuries-old patriarchal tradition and at the same time a universally equipped artist of the new time – this is how J.S. Bach appears in a historical retrospective. A composer who managed like no one else in his generous time for great names to combine the incompatible. The Dutch canon and the Italian concerto, the Protestant chorale and the French divertissement, the liturgical monody and the Italian virtuosic aria… Combine both horizontally and vertically, both in breadth and depth. Therefore, so freely interpenetrate in his music, in the words of the era, the styles of “theatrical, chamber and church”, polyphony and homophony, instrumental and vocal beginnings. That is why separate parts migrate so easily from composition to composition, both preserving (as, for example, in the Mass in B minor, two-thirds consisting of already sounded music), and radically changing their appearance: the aria from the Wedding Cantata (BWV 202) becomes the finale of the violin the sonatas (BWV 1019), the symphony and choir from the cantata (BWV 146) are identical to the first and slow parts of the clavier Concerto in D minor (BWV 1052), the overture from the orchestral Suite in D major (BWV 1069), enriched with choral sound, opens the cantata BWV110. Examples of this kind made up a whole encyclopedia. In everything (the only exception is opera), the master spoke fully and completely, as if completing the evolution of a particular genre. And it is deeply symbolic that the universe of Bach’s thought The Art of the Fugue, recorded in the form of a score, does not contain instructions for performance. Bach, as it were, addresses him all musicians. “In this work,” F. Marpurg wrote in the preface to the publication of The Art of Fugue, “the most hidden beauties that are conceivable in this art are enclosed …” These words were not heard by the composer’s closest contemporaries. There was no buyer not only for a very limited subscription edition, but also for the “cleanly and neatly engraved boards” of Bach’s masterpiece, announced for sale in 1756 “from hand to hand at a reasonable price” by Philippe Emanuel, “so that this work is for the benefit of the public — became known everywhere. A cassock of forgetfulness dangled the name of the great cantor. But this oblivion was never complete. Bach’s works, published, and most importantly, handwritten – in autographs and numerous copies – settled in the collections of his students and connoisseurs, both eminent and completely obscure. Among them are the composers I. Kirnberger and the already mentioned F. Marpurg; a great connoisseur of old music, Baron van Swieten, in whose house W. A. ​​Mozart joined Bach; composer and teacher K. Nefe, who inspired love for Bach to his student L. Beethoven. Already in the 70s. 11th century begins to collect material for his book I. Forkel, who laid the foundation for the future new branch of musicology – Bach studies. At the turn of the century, the director of the Berlin Singing Academy, friend and correspondent of I. W. Goethe K. Zelter, was especially active. The owner of the richest collection of Bach’s manuscripts, he entrusted one of them to the twenty-year-old F. Mendelssohn. These were the Matthew Passion, the historic performance of which on May 1829, XNUMX heralded the advent of a new Bach era. “A closed book, a treasure buried in the ground” (B. Marx) were opened, and a powerful stream of the “Bach movement” swept the entire musical world.

Today, vast experience has been accumulated in studying and promoting the work of the great composer. The Bach Society has existed since 1850 (since 1900, the New Bach Society, which in 1969 became an international organization with sections in the GDR, the FRG, the USA, Czechoslovakia, Japan, France, and other countries). On the initiative of the NBO, Bach festivals are held, as well as International competitions of performers named after. J. S. Bach. In 1907, on the initiative of the NBO, the Bach Museum in Eisenach was opened, which today has a number of counterparts in different cities of Germany, including the one opened in 1985 on the 300th anniversary of the birth of the composer “Johann-Sebastian-Bach- Museum” in Leipzig.

There is a wide network of Bach institutions in the world. The largest of them are the Bach-Institut in Göttingen (Germany) and the National Research and Memorial Center of J. S. Bach in the Federal Republic of Germany in Leipzig. The last decades have been marked by a number of significant achievements: the four-volume Bach-Documente collection has been published, a new chronology of vocal compositions has been established, as well as the Art of the Fugue, 14 previously unknown canons from the Goldberg Variations and 33 chorales for organ have been published. Since 1954, the Institute in Göttingen and the Bach Center in Leipzig have been carrying out a new critical edition of the complete works of Bach. The publication of the analytical and bibliographic list of Bach’s works “Bach-Compendium” in cooperation with Harvard University (USA) continues.

The process of mastering Bach’s heritage is endless, just as Bach himself is endless – an inexhaustible source (let us recall the famous play on words: der Bach – a stream) of the highest experiences of the human spirit.

T. Frumkis

Characteristics of creativity

Bach’s work, almost unknown during his lifetime, was forgotten for a long time after his death. It took a long time before it was possible to truly appreciate the legacy left by the greatest composer.

The development of art in the XNUMXth century was complex and contradictory. The influence of the old feudal-aristocratic ideology was strong; but the sprouts of a new bourgeoisie, which reflected the spiritual needs of the young, historically advanced class of the bourgeoisie, were already emerging and maturing.

In the sharpest struggle of directions, through the negation and destruction of old forms, a new art was affirmed. The cold loftiness of classical tragedy, with its rules, plots, and images established by aristocratic aesthetics, was opposed by a bourgeois novel, a sensitive drama from philistine life. In contrast to the conventional and decorative court opera, the vitality, simplicity and democratic nature of the comic opera were promoted; light and unpretentious everyday genre music was put forward against the “learned” church art of the polyphonists.

Under such conditions, the predominance of forms and means of expression inherited from the past in Bach’s works gave reason to consider his work obsolete and cumbersome. During the period of widespread enthusiasm for gallant art, with its elegant forms and simple content, Bach’s music seemed too complicated and incomprehensible. Even the composer’s sons saw nothing in their father’s work but learning.

Bach was openly preferred by musicians whose names history barely preserved; on the other hand, they did not “wield only learning”, they had “taste, brilliance and tender feeling.”

Adherents of orthodox church music were also hostile to Bach. Thus, Bach’s work, far ahead of its time, was denied by supporters of gallant art, as well as by those who reasonably saw in Bach’s music a violation of church and historical canons.

In the struggle of contradictory directions of this critical period in the history of music, a leading trend gradually emerged, the paths for the development of that new one loomed, which led to the symphonism of Haydn, Mozart, to the operatic art of Gluck. And only from the heights, to which the greatest artists of the late XNUMXth century raised the musical culture, did the grandiose legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach become visible.

Mozart and Beethoven were the first to recognize its true meaning. When Mozart, already the author of The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, became acquainted with Bach’s works, previously unknown to him, he exclaimed: “There is much to learn here!” Beethoven enthusiastically says: “Eg ist kein Bach – er ist ein Ozean” (“He is not a stream – he is an ocean”). According to Serov, these figurative words best express “the immense depth of thought and the inexhaustible variety of forms in Bach’s genius.”

Since the 1802th century, a slow revival of Bach’s work begins. In 1850, the first biography of the composer appeared, written by the German historian Forkel; with rich and interesting material, she drew some attention to the life and personality of Bach. Thanks to the active propaganda of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Bach’s music began to gradually penetrate into a wider environment. In 30, the Bach Society was formed, which set as its goal to find and collect all the manuscript material that belonged to the great musician, and publish it in the form of a complete collection of works. Since the XNUMXs of the XNUMXth century, Bach’s work has been gradually introduced into musical life, sounds from the stage, and is included in the educational repertoire. But there were many conflicting opinions in the interpretation and evaluation of Bach’s music. Some historians characterized Bach as an abstract thinker, operating with abstract musical and mathematical formulas, others saw him as a mystic detached from life or an orthodox philanthropist church musician.

Especially negative for understanding the real content of Bach’s music was the attitude towards it as a storehouse of polyphonic “wisdom”. A practically similar point of view reduced Bach’s work to the position of a manual for students of polyphony. Serov wrote about this indignantly: “There was a time when the entire musical world looked at the music of Sebastian Bach as school pedantic rubbish, junk, which sometimes, as, for example, in Clavecin bien tempere, is suitable for finger exercise, along with sketches by Moscheles and exercises by Czerny. Since the time of Mendelssohn, taste has again leaned towards Bach, even much more than at the time when he himself lived – and now there are still “directors of conservatories” who, in the name of conservatism, are not ashamed to teach their pupils to play Bach’s fugues without expressiveness, i.e., as “exercises”, as finger-breaking exercises… If there is anything in the field of music that needs to be approached not from under the ferula and with a pointer in hand, but with love in the heart, with fear and faith, it is namely, the works of the great Bach.

In Russia, a positive attitude towards the work of Bach was determined at the end of the XNUMXth century. A review of Bach’s works appeared in the “Pocket Book for Music Lovers” published in St. Petersburg, in which the versatility of his talent and exceptional skill were noted.

For the leading Russian musicians, Bach’s art was the embodiment of a mighty creative force, enriching and immeasurably advancing human culture. Russian musicians of different generations and trends were able to comprehend in the complex Bach polyphony the high poetry of feelings and the effective power of thought.

The depth of the images of Bach’s music is immeasurable. Each of them is able to contain a whole story, poem, story; significant phenomena are realized in each, which can equally be deployed in grandiose musical canvases or concentrated in a laconic miniature.

The diversity of life in its past, present and future, everything that an inspired poet can feel, what a thinker and philosopher can reflect on, is contained in the all-encompassing art of Bach. A huge creative range allowed simultaneous work on works of various scales, genres, and forms. Bach’s music naturally combines the monumentality of the forms of passions, the B-minor Mass with the unconstrained simplicity of small preludes or inventions; the drama of organ compositions and cantatas – with contemplative lyrics of choral preludes; the chamber sound of the filigree preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier with the virtuoso brilliance and vitality of the Brandenburg Concertos.

The emotional and philosophical essence of Bach’s music lies in the deepest humanity, in selfless love for people. He sympathizes with a person in grief, shares his joys, sympathizes with the desire for truth and justice. In his art, Bach shows the most noble and beautiful that is hidden in a person; the pathos of the ethical idea is filled with his work.

Not in an active struggle and not in heroic deeds does Bach portray his hero. Through emotional experiences, reflections, feelings, his attitude to reality, to the world around him is reflected. Bach does not move away from real life. It was the truth of reality, the hardships endured by the German people, that gave rise to images of tremendous tragedy; It is not for nothing that the theme of suffering runs through all of Bach’s music. But the bleakness of the surrounding world could not destroy or displace the eternal feeling of life, its joys and great hopes. The themes of jubilation, enthusiastic enthusiasm are intertwined with the themes of suffering, reflecting reality in its contrasting unity.

Bach is equally great in expressing simple human feelings and in conveying the depths of folk wisdom, in high tragedy and in revealing the universal aspiration to the world.

Bach’s art is characterized by close interaction and connection of all its spheres. The commonality of figurative content makes the folk epics of passions related to the miniatures of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the majestic frescoes of the B-minor mass – with suites for violin or harpsichord.

Bach has no fundamental difference between spiritual and secular music. What is common is the nature of musical images, the means of embodiment, the methods of development. It is no coincidence that Bach so easily transferred from secular works to spiritual ones not only individual themes, large episodes, but even entire completed numbers, without changing either the plan of the composition or the nature of the music. The themes of suffering and sorrow, philosophical reflections, unpretentious peasant fun can be found in cantatas and oratorios, in organ fantasies and fugues, in clavier or violin suites.

It is not the belonging of a work to a spiritual or secular genre that determines its significance. The enduring value of Bach’s creations lies in the loftiness of ideas, in the deep ethical sense that he puts into any composition, be it secular or spiritual, in the beauty and rare perfection of forms.

Bach’s creativity owes its vitality, unfading moral purity and mighty power to folk art. Bach inherited the traditions of folk songwriting and music-making from many generations of musicians, they settled in his mind through direct perception of living musical customs. Finally, a close study of the monuments of folk musical art supplemented Bach’s knowledge. Such a monument and at the same time an inexhaustible creative source for him was the Protestant chant.

Protestant chant has a long history. During the Reformation, choral chants, like martial hymns, inspired and united the masses in the struggle. The chorale “The Lord is our stronghold”, written by Luther, embodied the militant fervor of the Protestants, became the anthem of the Reformation.

The Reformation made extensive use of secular folk songs, melodies that have long been common in everyday life. Regardless of their former content, often frivolous and ambiguous, religious texts were attached to them, and they turned into choral chants. The number of chorales included not only German folk songs, but also French, Italian, and Czech ones.

Instead of Catholic hymns alien to the people, sung by the choir in an incomprehensible Latin language, choral melodies accessible to all parishioners are introduced, which are sung by the entire community in their own German language.

So secular melodies took root and adapted to the new cult. In order for “the whole Christian community to join in the singing”, the melody of the chorale is taken out in the upper voice, and the rest of the voices become accompaniment; complex polyphony is simplified and forced out of the chorale; a special choral warehouse is formed in which rhythmic regularity, the tendency to merge into a chord of all voices and highlight the upper melodic one are combined with the mobility of middle voices.

A peculiar combination of polyphony and homophony is a characteristic feature of the chorale.

Folk tunes, turned into chorales, nevertheless remained folk melodies, and collections of Protestant chorales turned out to be a repository and treasury of folk songs. Bach extracted the richest melodic material from these ancient collections; he returned to the choral melodies the emotional content and spirit of the Protestant hymns of the Reformation, returned the choral music to its former meaning, that is, resurrected the chorale as a form of expression of the thoughts and feelings of the people.

Chorale is by no means the only type of Bach’s musical connections with folk art. The strongest and most fruitful was the influence of genre music in its various forms. In numerous instrumental suites and other pieces, Bach not only recreates images of everyday music; he develops in a new way many of the genres that have been established mainly in urban life and creates opportunities for their further development.

Forms borrowed from folk music, song and dance melodies can be found in any of Bach’s works. Not to mention secular music, he uses them widely and in various ways in his spiritual compositions: in cantatas, oratorios, passions, and the B-minor Mass.

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Bach’s creative heritage is almost immense. Even what has survived counts many hundreds of names. It is also known that a large number of Bach’s compositions turned out to be irretrievably lost. Of the three hundred cantatas that belonged to Bach, about a hundred disappeared without a trace. Of the five passions, the Passion according to John and the Passion according to Matthew have been preserved.

Bach began composing relatively late. The first works known to us were written at about the age of twenty; there is no doubt that the experience of practical work, independently acquired theoretical knowledge did a great job, since already in the early Bach compositions one can feel the confidence of writing, the courage of thought and creative search. The path to prosperity was not long. For Bach as an organist, it came first in the field of organ music, that is, in the Weimar period. But the genius of the composer was most fully and comprehensively revealed in Leipzig.

Bach paid almost equal attention to all musical genres. With amazing perseverance and the will to improve, he achieved for each composition separately the crystalline purity of style, the classical coherence of all elements of the whole.

He never got tired of reworking and “correcting” what he had written, neither the volume nor the scale of the work stopped him. Thus, the manuscript of the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier was copied by him four times. The Passion according to John underwent numerous changes; the first version of the “Passion according to John” refers to 1724, and the final version – to the last years of his life. Most of Bach’s compositions were revised and corrected many times.

The greatest innovator and founder of a number of new genres, Bach never wrote operas and did not even attempt to do so. Nevertheless, Bach implemented the dramatic operatic style in a wide and versatile way. The prototype of Bach’s elevated, pathetically mournful or heroic themes can be found in dramatic operatic monologues, in the intonations of operatic lamentos, in the magnificent heroics of the French opera house.

In vocal compositions, Bach freely uses all forms of solo singing developed by operatic practice, various types of arias, recitatives. He does not avoid vocal ensembles, he introduces an interesting method of concert performance, that is, a competition between a solo voice and an instrument.

In some works, such as, for example, in The St. Matthew Passion, the basic principles of operatic dramaturgy (the connection between music and drama, the continuity of musical and dramatic development) are embodied more consistently than in contemporary Italian opera by Bach. More than once Bach had to listen to reproaches for the theatricality of cult compositions.

Neither traditional gospel stories nor spiritual texts set to music saved Bach from such “accusations”. The interpretation of familiar images was in too obvious contradiction with orthodox church rules, and the content and secular nature of music violated ideas about the purpose and purpose of music in the church.

The seriousness of thought, the ability for deep philosophical generalizations of life phenomena, the ability to concentrate complex material in compressed musical images manifested themselves with unusual force in Bach’s music. These properties determined the need for a long-term development of the musical idea, caused a desire for a consistent and complete disclosure of the ambiguous content of the musical image.

Bach found the general and natural laws of movement of musical thought, showed the regularity of the growth of the musical image. He was the first to discover and use the most important property of polyphonic music: the dynamics and logic of the process of unfolding melodic lines.

Bach’s compositions are saturated with a peculiar symphony. The internal symphonic development unites the numerous completed numbers of the B minor mass into a harmonious whole, imparts purposefulness to the movement in the small fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier.

Bach was not only the greatest polyphonist, but also an outstanding harmonist. No wonder Beethoven considered Bach the father of harmony. There are a considerable number of Bach’s works in which the homophonic warehouse predominates, where the forms and means of polyphony are almost never used. Surprising sometimes in them is the boldness of chord-harmonic sequences, that special expressiveness of harmonies, which are perceived as a distant anticipation of the harmonic thinking of musicians of the XNUMXth century. Even in Bach’s purely polyphonic constructions, their linearity does not interfere with the feeling of harmonic fullness.

A sense of the dynamics of keys, of tonal connections was also new for Bach’s time. Ladotonal development, ladotonal movement is one of the most important factors and the basis of the form of many of Bach’s compositions. The found tonal relationships and connections turned out to be an anticipation of similar patterns in the sonata forms of the Viennese classics.

But despite the paramount importance of the discovery in the field of harmony, the deepest feeling and awareness of the chord and its functional connections, the composer’s very thinking is polyphonic, his musical images are born from the elements of polyphony. “Counterpoint was the poetic language of a brilliant composer,” wrote Rimsky-Korsakov.

For Bach, polyphony was not only a means of expressing musical thoughts: Bach was a true poet of polyphony, a poet so perfect and unique that the revival of this style was possible only in completely different conditions and on a different basis.

Bach’s polyphony is, first of all, melody, its movement, its development, it is the independent life of each melodic voice and the interweaving of many voices into a moving sound fabric, in which the position of one voice is determined by the position of another. “… The polyphonal style,” writes Serov, “along with the ability to harmonize, requires a great melodic talent in the composer. Harmony alone, that is, the deft coupling of chords, is impossible to get rid of here. It is necessary that each voice goes independently and is interesting in its melodic course. And from this side, unusually rare in the field of musical creativity, there is no artist not only equal to Johann Sebastian Bach, but even somewhat suitable for his melodic richness. If we understand the word “melody” not in the sense of Italian opera visitors, but in the true sense of the independent, free movement of musical speech in every voice, a movement always deeply poetic and deeply meaningful, then there is no melodist in the world greater than Bach.

V. Galatskaya

• Bach’s organ art →
• Bach’s clavier art →
• Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier →
• Bach’s vocal work →
• Passion by Baha →
• Cantata Baha →
• Bach’s Violin Art →
• Chamber-instrumental creativity of Bach →
• Prelude and Fugue by Bach →