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    Ornamentation In J.S. Bach's Organ Works
    Ornamentation In J.S. Bach's Organ Works
    Ornamentation In J.S. Bach's Organ Works
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Ornamentation In J.S. Bach's Organ Works

    By Putnam Aldrich

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    About this ebook

    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateApr 26, 2013
    ISBN9781444659931
    Ornamentation In J.S. Bach's Organ Works

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      Book preview

      Ornamentation In J.S. Bach's Organ Works - Putnam Aldrich

      Introduction

      ‘ORNAMENTATION,’ writes Paul Henry Lang in his monumental study of music in western civilization, is ‘the most typical feature of baroque style, equally prominent in all phases of baroque art.’¹ Musical ornamentation is no exception. It is now generally recognized that the ornaments form an integral part of the musical language of Bach’s time, and that a performance of his works in which the trills, turns, appoggiaturas, and mordents are omitted or interpreted incorrectly, does violence to the musical ideas he intended to express. Organists who are conscientious musicians and devoted to Bach’s works doubtless feel a sincere desire to carry out the composer’s intentions. But they are often perplexed as to just how to proceed in order to do so, being handicapped at the start by a lack of reliable guides. Modern editions of Bach’s works conflict with each other in regard to the signs and placing of the ornaments as well as in their directions for executing them. Efforts to solve the problem by consulting the works of scholars such as Pirro, Schweitzer, and Dannreuther only lead to further confusion: the experts disagree among themselves.

      There are two reasons for these discrepancies and for the unreliability of editors and commentators: (1) these scholars base their interpretations upon documents that were written too late to be trustworthy guides to Bach’s practice; (2) they undertake their quest for authenticity along the lines of 19th-century research, which are not applicable to the Baroque period.

      Both Pirro² and Schweitzer³ are guilty of lapses in scholarship when they base their discussions of Bach’s ornaments upon directions given by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Quantz, and Türk in treatises that were not published until after Bach’s death. Dannreuther’s treatment of Bach’s ornamentation is marred by similar inconsistencies; after dealing competently with 17th-century ornamentation as exemplified in the works of Bach’s forerunners, he proceeds, in the case of Bach himself, to adduce numerous exceptions to the common practice of the period—exceptions, needless to say, that Bach had never heard of—and to introduce, arbitrarily, new ornaments such as the so-called ‘Pralltriller,’ whose invention actually dates from the following generation.⁴ Caspar Koch, the most recent contributor to the literature of this subject, falls into the same error that his predecessors did, by citing, in support of his directions, realizations of ornaments extracted from treatises by Marpurg (1750), Quantz (1752), C. P. E. Bach (1753), Leopold Mozart (1756), Dom Bedos de Celles (1778), Rellstab (1789), and Türk (1789).⁵

      Now it so happens that the last half of the 18th century is precisely the period of the most rapid changes in both the composition and performance of music—changes which brought about the disintegration of the Baroque ideals and the formation of the Classic style of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven.⁶ Interspersed with the conventions that carry over from Bach’s lifetime are innumerable innovations presaging the new style. It becomes difficult even to distinguish a single, unified common practice for this period. It would seem evident that there is no justification for assuming that its usage is similar to Bach’s. Yet, with the exception of a short article by Wanda Landowska,⁷ the present writer knows of no published commentary on Bach’s ornaments that is based exclusively upon sources accessible to Bach himself.

      Equally hazardous as the reliance upon anachronistic source materials is the use of methods of research which leave out of consideration the most important issue of all, namely, the fact that Baroque ideals of performance differed fundamentally from those of the present day. The problem, here, hinges primarily upon the attitude of the musician toward the printed or manuscript score. Nowadays, we regard the composer’s manuscript as the final authority on any debatable point of interpretation. If we wish to obtain an authentic reading of a piece by Brahms, Schumann, or even Beethoven, we can find no better procedure than to consult the autograph manuscript and follow, note for note and sign for sign, the indications that the composer set down on paper. This is known as ‘letting the music speak for itself.’ Unfortunately, however, the music of the Baroque period cannot be induced to speak for itself. At that time the division of labor which has separated composition and performance into two distinct fields of specialization had not yet come into effect. All composers were performers and all performers were composers, at least to the extent that they were called upon to collaborate with the actual composer in the re-creation of any given composition. Many details of execution were not indicated on paper at all, but supplied extemporaneously by the performer.

      It follows that the autograph score is not an authentic record of how the composer or anyone else performed the piece. The method of editorial research developed by 19th-century musicology consists chiefly in tracking down autograph manuscripts and first editions and preparing an ‘Urtext’ that contains only the notes and signs actually set down by the composer. This is the procedure followed by the editors of the Bach Gesellschaft edition. Such a method is obviously quite useless, from the performer’s point of view, in a situation wherein a ‘corrupt’ score (with additions and alterations in handwritings other than the composer’s) may be more authoritative than a ‘pure’ one, and no score can be completely authoritative.

      The

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