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CONTENTS
Johann Sebastian Bach THE ORGANIST AND HIS WORKS FOR THE ORGAN
BY A. PIRRO
WITH A PREFACE BY CH.-M. WIDOR
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY WALLACE GOODRICH
NEW YORK G. SCHIRMER 1902
Authorized Translation
Copyright, 1902, by G. SCHIRMER
16219
Table of Contents
Preface
"If Beethoven appears to our generation as a Greek statue, Bach, on the contrary, impresses us as one of those Sphinxes of Egypt whose towering head commands the wide expanse of the desert."
The comparison is imaginative, but seems to me only partially just.
Sphinx in vastness of proportions, I admit; but the image is destroyed when character is taken into consideration. Bach is indisputably the mightiest of musicians; one is seized with awe in perusing the extraordinary catalogue of his works, so seemingly impossible are its dimensions; in casually looking over those forty and more folio volumes; in pausing for an instant to examine more closely any one of the pages, where the smallest detail seems to have been long considered and predetermined, while over all soars the essential thought, always profound and original. But was there ever a thinker less enigmatical?
Surely this majestic figure dominates his surroundings; but that frank look, those luminous, kindly eyes, are hardly those of a Sphinx. It is rather the heroic statue of Common Sense.
An eminent virtuoso recently declared to me that he should be more or less uncomfortable in dining alone with Beethoven; "but with 'Father Bach,' how different! With him I see myself perfectly at home, pipe in mouth, elbows upon the table; chatting informally about a thousand and one interesting things, over a big stein of beer, as in the good old days." How true!
Bach was a good citizen, an admirable father, as M. Prudhomme would say, a devoted friend; socially affable, and possessed of a rare artistic modesty. Were he asked how he had attained such heights, he would answer: "I was obliged to work; whoever will strive as I did, will succeed as well." He availed himself of every opportunity to become familiar with the works of other composers; Händel he esteemed highly, Couperin interested him; when accorded three weeks' leave that he might hear Buxtehude, Bach so far forgot himself as to allow three months to go by while listening, from a secluded corner of the church, to the justly celebrated organist of St. Mary's in Lübeck.
Bach was a great and good man; never did a more marvellous mechanism perform the functions of a human brain; never has been known a mind that was sounder, better balanced, contained in a more robust body; never were a musician's nerves better controlled.
It required the atrocious harmonizations of Görner to cause Bach one day to turn upon him and hurl his wig at the face of the poor accompanist: "Sie sind ein Schuster" (You are a bungler)!
These fits of anger were, however, rare, despite the astonishing vitality of his constitution; for Bach was naturally patient and kind-hearted.
Note him with his pupils; during the first year nothing but exercises—trills, scales, passages in thirds and sixths, practice in changing fingers—work of every description to insure the equability of the hand. He supervised everything, devoting the minutest attention to the clearness and precision of the touch. If one pupil or the other became discouraged, he good-naturedly wrote little pieces containing in a disguised form the difficulties to be surmounted.
When Bach became organist of the New Church in Arnstadt—he was very young, but eighteen years of age—he had studied the compositions and methods of the following celebrated clavecinists of his time:
Froberger (1615[?]-1667), a protégé of Emperor Ferdinand III., by whom he had been sent, in early life, to study with Frescobaldi in Rome.
Fischer, Capellmeister to the Margrave of Baden.
Johannes Caspar Kerl, a rival of Froberger, also under the protection of Ferdinand III., and entrusted to the care of Carissimi in Rome.
Pachelbel (1653-1706), formerly assistant organist of St. Stephen's in Vienna, then successively organist at Eisenach, Erfurt, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg.
Buxtehude (1637-1707), the celebrated organist at Lübeck.
Bruhns, his pupil.
Böhm, organist of St. John's Church in Lüneburg.
