Music in the History of the Western Church

SEBASTI

t he handled he raised to the highest power that they have ever attained. Many of his most admirable qualities appear in his secular works, but these we must pass over. In viewing him exclusively as a composer for the Church, however, we shall see by far the most considerable part of him, for his secular compositions, remarkable as they are, always appear

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nic character. His culture was at its basis purely German. He never went abroad to seek the elegancies which his nation lacked. He did not despise them, but he let them come to him to be absorbed into the massive substance of his national education, in order that this education might become in the deepest sense liberal and human. He interpreted what was permanent and hereditary in German culture, not what was ephe

ries [285] were members of the town bands and choruses, which sustained almost the entire musical culture among the common people of Germany during that period. These organizations, combining the public practice of religious and secular music, were effective in nourishing both the artistic and the religious spirit of the time. In Germany in the seventeenth century there was as

ived instruction from a foreign master. They kept aloof from the courts, the hot-beds of foreign musical growths, and submitted themselves to the service of the Protestant Church. They were peasants and small farmers, well to do and everywhere respected. Their stern self-mastery h

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sic at the Thomas and Nicolai churches, where he labored from 1723 until his death in 1750. His life story presents no incidents of romantic interest. But little is known of his temperament or habits. In every place in which he labored his circumstances were much the same. He was a church organist and choir director from the beginning to the end of his career. He became the greatest organist of his time and the most accomplished master of musical science. His declared aim in life was to reform and perfect German church music. The means to achieve this were always afforded him, so far as the scanty musical fac

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h music did not involve an effort to restore to congregational singing its pristine zeal, or to revive an antiquarian taste for the historic choir anthem. Bach was a man of the new time; he threw himself into the c

d a host of freer forms. The Passion music and the cantata had recently shown signs of brilliant promise. The Italian solo song was rejoicing in its first flush of conquest on German soil. No one, however, could foresee what might be done with these materials until Bach arose. He gathered them all in hi

Bach was no isolated phenomenon of his time. He created no new styles; he gave art no new direction. He was one out of many poorly paid and overworked church musicians, performing the duties that were traditionally attached to his office, improvising fugues and preludes, and accompanying choir and congregation at certain moments in the service, composing motets, cantatas, and occasionally a larger work for the regular order of the day, providing special music for a church festival, a public funeral, th

ons. Her service was to him perfect freedom. His opportunity to contribute to the glory of the Church was one that dwarfed every other privilege, and his official duty, his personal pleasure, and his highest ambition ran like a single current, fed by many streams, in one and the same channel. To measure the full strength of the mighty tide of feeling which runs through Bach's church music we must recognize this elem

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iment to the people's hymn-a function it assumed about 1600-and afterwards in the practice of extemporization upon choral themes. Out of this latter custom a style of organ composition grew up in the seventeenth century which, through association and a more or less definite correspondence with the spirit and order of the prescribed service, came to be looked upon as distinctively a church style. This German organ music was strictly church music according to the only adequate definition of church music that has ever been given, for it had grown up within the Church itself, and through its very liturgic connections had come to make its appeal to the worshipers, [291] not as an artistic decoration, but as an agency directly adapted to aid in promoting those ends which the church ceremony had in view. Furthermore, the dignity and severe intellectuality of this German organ style, combined with its majesty of sound and strength of movement, seemed to add distinctly to the biblical flavor of the liturgy, the uncompromising dogmatism of the authoritative teaching, and the intense moral earnestness which prevailed in the C

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structure. Its birthplace was Italy; the canzona of Frescobaldi and his compeers was the parent of the fugue. The task of developing this Italian germ was given to the Dutch and Germans. The instrumental instinct and

figured bass harmony; the ability to write every species of polyphony with ease [293] was a matter of course with every musical apprentice. But with Bach, the master, the fugue was not merely the sign of technical facility; it was a means of expression, a supreme manifestation of style. By the telling force of his subjects, the amazing dexterity and rich fancy displayed in their treatment, the ability to cover the widest range of emotional suggestion, his fugues appeal to a far deeper sense than wonder at technical cleverness. Considering that it lies in the very essence of the contrapuntal style that it should be governed by certain very rigid laws of design and procedure, we may apply to Bach's organ works in general a term that has been given to architecture, and say that they are "construction beautified." By this is meant that every feature, however beautiful in itself, finds its final charm and justification only as a necessary component in the comprehensive plan. Ea

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est that would be aroused in the congregation, and the unity that would be established between the office of the organist and that of the people. The chorals that were appointed for the day would commonly furnish the player with his raw material, and the song of the people would appear again soaring above their heads, adorned by effective tonal combinations. This method could also be employed to a more moderate extent in accompanying the congregation as they sang the hymn in unison; interludes between the stanzas and even flourishes at the ends of the lines would give scope to the organist to exhibit his knowledge and fancy. The long-winded interlude at last became an abuse, and was reduced or suppressed; but the free organ prelude on the entire choral melody grew in favor, and before Bach's day ability in this line was the chief test of a player's competence. In Bach's early days choral preludes by famous masters had found their way into print in large numbers, and were the objects of his assiduous study. His own productions in this class surpassed all his models, and as a free improviser on choral themes he excelled all his contemporaries. "I had supposed," said the famous Reinken, who at the age of ninety-seven heard Bach extemporize on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" at Hamburg,-"I had supposed that this art was dead, but I see that it still lives in you." In this species of playing, the hymn melody is given out with one hand or upon the pedals, while around it is woven a network of freely moving parts. The prelude may be br

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ship was not necessarily to reflect and emphasize the thought of the hymn. This usage having become conventional, and the organist being allowed much latitude in his treatment, his pride in his science would lead him to dilate and elaborate according to a musical rather than a poetic impulse, thinking less of appropriateness to a precise mood (an idea which, indeed, had hardly became lodged in instrumental music in Bach's time) than of producing an abstrac

instinct was a fire which must burst forth, or it would consume the very soul of its possessor. And so we find among the fugues, fantasies, and toccatas of Bach compositions whose dazzling magnificence is not exceeded by the most sensational effusions of the modern pianoforte and orchestral schools. In all the realm of music there is nothing more superb than those Niagaras of impetuous sound which roll through such works as the F major and D minor toccatas and the G major fantasie,-to select examples out of scores of equally apt illustrations. But sound and fury are by no means their aim; Bach's invention and science are never more resourceful than when apparently driven by the demon of unrest. In [299] order to give the freest sweep to his fancy Bach, the supreme lord of form, often broke through form's conventionalisms, so that even his fugues sometimes became, as they have been called, fantasies in the form of fugues, just as Beethoven, under a similar impulse, wrote sonate quasi fantasie. Witness the E minor fugue with the "wedge theme." In Bach's day and country there was no concert stage; the instrumental virtuoso was the organist. It is not necessary to suppose, therefore, that pieces so exciting to the nerves as those to which I have alluded were all composed strictly for the ordinary church worship. There were many occasi

f the organ music with the people's hymn in the choral prelude, and the conformity of its style to that of the choir music in motet and cantata, it became vitally blended w

rocedure, for it may be, and in Bach usually is, more closely related to the [301] ritual framework than the English anthem, in consequence of the manner in which it has been made to absorb strictly liturgic forms into its substance. Bach, in his cantatas, kept the notion of liturgic unity clearly in mind. He effected this unity largely by his use of the choral as a conspicuous element in the cantata, often as its very foundation. He checked the Italianizing process by working the arioso recitative, the aria for one or more voices, and the chorus into one grand musical scheme, in which his intricate organ style served both as fabric and decoration. By the unexampled prominence which

ous art. The choral, especially that appointed for a particular day (Hauptlied), is often used as the guiding thread which weaves the work into the texture of the whole daily office. In such cases the chosen choral will appear in the different numbers of the work in fragments or motives, sometimes as subject for voice parts, or woven into the accompaniment as theme or in obligato fashion. It is more common for entire lines of the choral to be treated as canti firmi, forming the subjects on which elaborate contrapuntal choruses are constructed, following precisely the same principle of design that I have described in the case of the organ choral preludes. In multitudes of cantata movements lines or verses from two or more chorals are introduced. There are cantatas, such as "Wer nur den lieben Gott," in which each number, whether recitative, aria, or chorus, takes its thematic mater

ablished by Bach, most liberally, of course, in the arias. The words of the cantata consisted of Bible texts, stanzas of church hymns, and religious poems, the whole illustrating some Scripture theme or referring to some especial commemoration. The hard and fast metrical schemes of the German hymns were unsuited to the structure and rhythm of the aria, and so a form of verse known as the madrigal, derived from Italy, was used when rhythmical flexibility was an object. For all these reasons we have in Bach's arias the widest license of expression admissible in the school of art which he represented. The Hamburg composers, in their shallow aims, had boldly transferred the Italian concert aria as it stood into the Church, as a sign of their complete defiance of ecclesiastical prescription. Not so Bach; the ancient churchly ideal was to him a thing to be reverenced, even when he departed from it. He, therefore, took a middle course. The Italian notion of an aria-buoyant, tuneful, the voice part sufficient unto itself-had no place in Bach's method. A melody to him was usually a detail in a contrapuntal scheme. And so be wove the voice part into the accompaniment, a single instrument-a violin, perhaps, or oboe-often raised

, on the other hand, is practically unlimited in scope, and in H?ndel's choruses the style and treatment are given almost unrestrained license in the way of dramatic and epic suggestion. Within the restrictions imposed upon him, however, Bach expends upon his choruses a wealth of invention in design and expression not less wonderful than that exhibited in his organ works. The motet form, the free fantasia and the choral fantasia forms are all employed, and every device known to his art is applied for the illustration of the text. Grace and tenderness, when the cheering assurances of the Gospel are the

e frequently than almost any other. We know him as a giant nature in all situations; great and grandiose is also his joy and cheerfulness. But [307] never, we believe, does his art work with fuller energy and abandonme

irly be compared to the St. Matthew in largeness of conception or beauty of detail. In Bach's treatment of the Passion story we have the culmination of the artistic development of the early liturgic practice whose progress has already been sketched. Bach completed the process of fusing the Italian aria and recitative with the German

an ancestry,-they are utterly unlike also in poetic intention. Bach's work deals only with the human in Christ; it is the narrative of his last interviews with his disciples, his arrest, trial, and death, together with comments by imagined personalities contemplating these events, both in their immediate action upon the sensibilities and in their doctrinal bearing. It is, therefore, a work so mixed in style that it is difficult to cla

congregation" forms another group, singing appropriate chorals. A third element comprises the company of [309] believers and the "daughter of Zion," singing choruses and arias in comment upon the situations as described by the evangelist. It must be remembered that these chorus factors are not indicated by any division of singers into groups. The work is performed throughout by the same company of singers, in Bach's day by the diminutive choir of the Leipsic Church,

orus were not enough to sustain the composer's conception, a ninth part, bearing a choral melody, floats above the surging mass of sound, holding the thought of the hearer to the significance of the coming scenes. The long chorus which closes the first part, which is constructed in the form of a figured choral, is also built upon a scale which [310] Bach has seldom exceeded. But the structure of the work in general is comparatively open, and the expre

es kühle war," and the recitative and chorus, matchless in tenderness, beginning "Nun ist der Herr zur Ruh' gebracht." Especially impressive are the tones given to the words of the Saviour. These tones are distinguished from those of the other personages not only by their greater melodic beauty, but also by their accompaniment, which consists of the stringed instruments, while the other recitatives are supported by the organ alone. In Christ's despairing cry upon [311] the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," this ethereal stringed accompaniment is extinguished. What Bach intended to s

tyle, but with extreme beauty. As an instance of the poetic fitness with which these chorals are introduced we may cite the last in the work, where immediately after the words "Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost," the chorus sings a stanza beginning "When my death hour a

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death have quite vanished. The tone is indeed that of lamentation, for the Passion drama in its very aim and tradition did not admit any anticipation of the resurrection; neither in the Catholic or Lutheran ceremonies of Good Friday is there a foreshadowing

and performed again in 1740. From that time it was nowhere heard until it was produced by Felix Mendelssohn in the Sing Academie at Berlin in 1829. The impression

s that had become sacred in the practice of the ancient Church. The congregations of Leipsic were especially conservative in this respect. The entire mass in figured form, however, was not used in the Leipsic service; on certain special days a part only would be sung. The Kyrie and Gloria, known among the Lutheran musicians as the "short mass," were frequently employed. The B minor Mass was not composed for the Leipsic service, but for the chapel of the king of Saxony in Bach's honorary capacity of composer to the royal and electoral court. It was begun in 1735 and finished in 1738, but was not performed entire in Bach's lifetime. By the time it was completed it had outgrown the dimensions of a service mass, and it has probably never been sung in actual church worship. It is so difficult that its performance is an event worthy of special commemoration. Its first com

ve perished. Even in the successful work of these men there is a strange inequality. But upon all that Bach attempted-and the amount of his work is no less a marvel than its quality-he affixed the stamp of final and inimitable perfection. [315] We know from testimony that this perfection was the result of thought and unflagging toil. The file was not the least serviceable tool in his workshop. This intellectual restraint, operating upon a highly intellectualized form of art, often gives Bach's music an air of severity, a scholastic hardness, which repels sympathy and makes difficult the path to the treasures it contains. The musical culture of our age has been so long based on a different school that no lit

tyle was Gothic-if we may use such a term for illustration's sake-not Renaissance. His style is Teutonic in the widest as well as the most literal sense. It is based on forms identified with the practice of the people in church and home. He recognized not the priestly or the aristocratic element, but the popular. His significance in the history of German Evangelical Christianity is great. Protestantism, like Catholicism, has had its supreme poet. As Dante embodied i

to councils or synods, or altogether in a verbal [317] revelation supposed to have been vouchsafed at certain epochs in the past, but in the intuition of the continued presence of the eternal creative spirit in the soul of man. This consciousness, of which creeds and liturgies are but partial and temporary symbols, can find no adequate artistic expression unless it be in the art of music. The more clearly this fact is recognized by the world, the more the fame of Sebastian Bach will increase, for no other musician has so amply embraced and so deeply penetrated the universal

ten happens that their greatest men appear in periods of general moral relaxation, apparently rebuking the unworthiness of their fellow citizens instead of exemplifying common traits of character. But later generations are able to see that, after all, these men are not detached; their real bases, although out of sight for the time, are immovably set in nationality. Milton was no less representative of permanent elements in English character when "fallen upon evil days," when t

blanket over art in its protest against the external and formal in worship. In the orthodox church circles the enthusiasm necessary to nourish a wholesome spiritual life and a living church art at the same time had sadly abated. The inculcation of a dry utilitarian morality and the cultivation of a dogmatic pedantry had taken the place of the joyous freedom of the Gospel. Other more direct causes also entered to turn public interest away from the music of the Church. The Italian opera, with its equipment of sensuous fascinations, devoid of serious aims, was at the high tide of its popularity, patronized by the ruling classes, and giving the tone to all the musical culture of the time. A still more obvious impediment to the revival of popular interest in church music was the rapid formation throughout Germany of choral societies devoted to the performance of oratorios. Following the example of England, these societies took up the works of H?ndel, and the enthusiasm excited by Haydn's "Creation" in 1798 gave a still more powerful stimulus to the movement. These

e denied that a steady uplift in the department of church music has been in progress in Germany all through the nineteenth century. The transition from rationalism [321] and infidelity to a new and higher phase of evangelical religion effected under the lead of Schleiermacher, the renewed interest in church history, the effort to bring the forms of worship into co?peration with a quickened spiritual life, the revival of the study of the great works of German art as related to national intellectual development,-th

ssociations (evangelische Kirchengesang-Vereine), analogous to the Catholic St. Cecilia Society, have taken in hand the question of the establishment of church music on a more strict and effici

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ranch of art to the position which it held in the national life two hundred years ago. In the strict sense writers of the school of Spitta are correct in asserting that a Protestant church music no longer exists. "It must be de

y, which includes a large number of the most eminent musicians of Germany, is that of making Bach's choral works better known, and especially of reintroducing them into their old place in the w

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