"Johann Sebastian Bach, his teachers and his sons"
From 1700 till 1702 Bach was living and studying at a boarding school at St.Michaelis in Lüneburg. During these two years Bach should have visited the Katarinenkirche in Hamburg, where Reincken was the organist of the great 4-manual 32’-organ. Bach considered Buxtehude as his teacher in 1707, when he set out by foot his famous journey from Arnstadt to Lübeck to study with the great organist of St.Marien in Lübeck. In his Arnstadt-years Bach transcribed a few parts of ‘Hortus Musicus’ by Reincken and was clearly influenced by the fugue style of Reincken, showed in the here played g-minor fugue. Energetic, perpetuum mobile fugues with more than one counter-subject were the trade mark of Reincken.
In his early Chorale Partitas Bach showed great similarities with the Partitas by Georg Böhm. In the chorale prelude on Vater unser im Himmelreich Böhm shows great ability to design beautiful shaped colourful diminutions. In the copy by Bach’s nephew and colleague in Weimar, Johann Gottfried Walther one could find even more embellishments and fioriture than in an older copy.
The Toccata in d by Buxtehude starts exactly in the same manner as another - much more famous - Toccata in d-minor by his student from Arnstadt. Like in other Toccatas and Praeludia Buxtehude shows himself a master of form, architecture and summary of all kind of vocal and instrumental styles and disciplines in one kind of piece for organ.
Starting a Praeludium as Passaggio, i.e. with one voice, quasi like a sring instrument, was used quite often by the young Bach. Also in his late twenties, in Weimar, he still used this technique in BWV 543. Till the pedal solo it looks like a composition for one string instrument, varying from violin, viola to cello. After the pedal solo (also for one voice!) suddenly a typical Bach-Praeludium is unfold, with polyphonic, fugatic elements.
The fugue is a dancelike fugue in triple metre with a real instrumental theme, in which the end resembles the opening of the Praeludium. Bach ‘improvised’ for us a great final cadenza, for pedal as well as the manual.
In 1720, three years before Leipzig, Bach applied for the vacant organist job on the famous large 32’ Schnitger-organ in the Jacobi Church in Hamburg. In spite of his astonishing playing he didn’t get the position, because he couldn’t bring enough money to the church……
It proves nonetheless that he liked this particular organ very much.
It also means that there is more than a slight chance that he also would have loved the only little bit smaller Schnitger-brother in Groningen, also with older stops and also with an open 32’ in the pedal.
Johann Sebastian Bach also turned out to be a good teacher himself. Not only later known German church musicians studied with him, but also three very gifted and for the music history important composers with the same surname: his sons Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian. Carl Philipp’s ‘True art of playing keyboard instruments’ and Sturm und Drang- and Empfindsame-compositions influenced Vienna (Beethoven, Haydn) and was therefore very important for the development of the music history in Europe after Johann Sebastian Bach.
In the here played Sonata, written for Princess Amalia von Preußen (sister of Frederic the Great) Carl Philipp showed himself a representantive of a new style. The work is clearly meant for two different manuals, without use of pedals. His rhetoric style with big contrasts between Sanguinicus and Melancholicus, illustrated by resp. forte and piano, works very well on this organ type (the original house organ of Amalia survived the Second World War and is to be found in a church in Berlin-Karshorst).
Wilhelm Friedemann, the eldest son, didn’t possess an easy character, as it seems. Father Bach recognized his great talents and helped him to get the position of organist on the Gottfried Silbermann-organ in the Sophie Church in Dresden. After 13 years (1746) he moved to Halle to take a same kind of church musician position as his father had in Leipzig. Unfortunately he caused all kinds of trouble and resigned in 1764 in order to be one of the first freelance musicians in history! He moved u.a. to Berlin and was rather popular as harpsichord teacher. The Fugue in c minor can be seen as a traditional solemn and very inspired fugue, with modern features like basso continuo elements in the theme and the for Wihelm Friedemann traditional closing: monodic harmonization of the theme. In the second Fugue in F major even with suggestive fermatas. A very long theme, consisting of actually two themes, with in the second half directly in companionship of a counter subject and in the Comes already with two more counter subjects! These three counter subjects and the main fugue theme do change in position constantly and do cause quite often incredible unprepared dissonances, fruits of a highly original composer!
Leo van Doeselaar
22 дек 2021
