A few years ago I wrote a short article about Bach's visit to meet Buxtehude. This wasn't just a small effort Bach put out; it was a journey of well over 250 miles (I just checked it with the Google and it puts it at 293, or 472.3 km if you'd prefer). Bach's visit must have borne fruit in the influence he got from perhaps the greatest organist/composer in Europe at the time. I've read just enough of the Bach literature to know that connections have been drawn between pieces of Buxtehude's and pieces by Bach, but I am a performing musician, and busy in all kinds of directions; I am not a musicologist, so I haven't made the time to go into the subject in detail. But recently I stumbled over an example so obvious I had to share it with you.
It's Bach's wonderful Fugue in D Major, Bwv 532. I planned to play it last spring, but I was preparing a piano recital at the same time so I put it off until this year. It is a fun and sprightly fugue, with a virtuous pedal part that has the feet dancing away in a paroxysm of joy. (I'm allowed to use that word once a year, aren't I?)
Last spring I played Buxtehude's Praeludium in F, which contains a fugue (it is basically a prelude and fugue, though Buxthude calls all of his concoctions praeludia no matter how many sections there are and no matter what type). I wrote about it last year on this blog, calling it my "new favorite fugue."
One of the things I pointed out then was just how stupid the fugue subject is:
[listen]
I don't mean to disparage the music. It is perfect for the occasion, and for what the composer does with it. But the actual makeup of that opening it just mindless. It is two notes trilling back and forth. It is almost as if Buxtehude's point was to show us how he could make such a terrific piece out of such unpromising materials.
At least, that may be how Bach read the situation. Now listen to the opening of Bach's Fugue in D:
[listen]
Now that sounds even more pedestrian than his model. In fact, Buxtehude's bird-call opening gets more points for charm; it is possible not to particularly notice its lack of inventiveness simply because it has the naive charm of a bird in springtime. Bach doesn't do that. He tries to make his fugue subject sound like a finger exercise for the organist!
But there is something else. Notice how both fugue subjects have long pauses in them. Here's the Buxtehude:
ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta (pause) ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta (pause) ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta (pause) tum-tum-tum-tahh-tahh-ti (here we dissolve into a profusion of rapid notes rushing down a scale)
And the Bach:
da-di-da-di-da-di-da-di-dah (pause) twi-dle-twi-dle-twi-dle-twi-dle etc etc very long stream of notes also rapid and heading in a downward trajectory
Now into those pauses, both composers are later going to be able to insert other material once the fugue gets going. In fact, when two or three voices are sounding at once in a fugue, it can often sound like the musical strands are talking over each other, albeit harmoniously. This is in fact typical for a fugue. But leave a hole in your theme, and instead of a harmonious blend, you end up with a dialogue--a conversation which quickly shifts from one voice to the other and back because they aren't "talking at once." In Buxtehude's case, he often has the other three voices in his four voice texture make this little comment to fill in that gap:
[listen]
Whereas Bach resorts to this little ditty, even less sophisticated than his fugue subject:
[listen]
After which, it is time to take care of that profusion of notes they've both written into the ends of their fugue subjects. Now there is only so much rushing around that is going to sound musically attractive. Both gentlemen solve that problem the same way, which is to let the fugue subject prattle on with its shower of notes, and have the other voices which are not stating the fugue subject largely stay out of the way. That concentrates the running activity in one voice at a time.
As I observed when I wrote about the Buxtehude, it seems a bit like cheating, mainly because it requires less compositional dexterity to follow one voice around while it chatters and let the other fill in with rhythmic plunks on the beat, but the effect is charming, and a good (or in this case great) composer knows when to get out of the way, and especially, what is most effective given the natural strengths and weaknesses of the material.
Two other observations: one is that the fugue subjects almost never go away. In most fugues there are places, usually transitions from one key are to another, where the fugue subject disappears completely and can be heard in none of the voices. In both of these fugues that happens only a little; it is almost wall to wall subject area, which means that once you have the opening fugue subject in your head you can hear it in the upper voice, the lower voice, or somewhere in the middle, practically the entire time.
Another observation is that both pieces really give your feet something to do. The pedal parts to these fugues are quite athletic and fun to play. Bach, the younger man, must have felt the need to outdo his predecessor, and he concludes his piece with a rip-roaring pedal solo. Not to mention the burp at the end! (Buxtehude chooses instead a soprano flourish.)
Here are both pieces in their entirety for your fun and profit. Happy listening!
Buxtehude: Praeludium in F BwxWV145 (the fugue portion begins at 2:26)
Bach: Fugue in D, Bwv 532
Showing posts with label Bwv 532. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bwv 532. Show all posts
Monday, July 7, 2014
Monday, June 30, 2014
You say goodbye, I say hello
We said farewell to our pipe organ yesterday.
If you're not in the loop, what's happening is that the pipe organ at Faith United Methodist Church in Champaign, Illinois, USA, where I am organist, is getting a new console and extensive work is being done to essentially correct a problem with the electronic relay system that has been an issue since the organ was installed in 1984 and has been growing steadily worse. Digitizing the console will fix the problems (among which are the distressing random appearances of notes that won't play across several ranks of pipes) and add some new features (like 100 memory levels! woohoo!).
This means, however, that our organ is going to be out of commission for the entire month of July and probably most or all of August.
No problem, says our mild mannered organist, dashing into the nearest phone booth (if he can still find one--maybe the cell phone dealer down the street will do). He emerges just moments later as....a pianist!
::gasp!!::
I know. It's a real shocker. The author of Pianonoise: the blog (the breakfast cereal is still in negotations, and the movie is in contract disputes) is actually a pianist. I don't blame you for forgetting about that since I've spent the last month almost exclusively at the organ, trying to spend as much time with it as possible while I still could. But, truth be told, I'm a little relieved, because now I have an excuse to give the piano some attention. All of it, actually.
Yesterday, we sent the organ out with a blazing finale. I played the D major Fugue of Bach (Bwv 532) which has a very exciting pedal part which no one was able to see with the console tucked away in the corner away from the congregation (hint hint, guys, you can still pitch in for the dolly that will let us move the new console out onto the floor). But it was thrilling nonetheless. While I was procuring the score for the fugue I came across this recording of the work on the piano. It also includes the prelude, which I played on Palm Sunday 2013, as well as the fugue which follows, which I meant to get around to last year but was just a little too busy preparing a piano recital at the same time (which was a year ago tomorrow, and featured the works of civil war-era touring virtuoso Louis Moreau Gottschalk. You can check out the current pianonoise radio program to hear the music at pianonoise.com (right hand side below the "new on the blog" box) and read blogs about the experience in the menu on the left, all on the homepage of pianonoise.com this week.)
Another year has come--this time no June recital, so I've gotten around to the fugue. Here are my recordings of both of those works:
[prelude]
[fugue]
Now, I am not a large fan of transcription, although, for occasional fun and frolic, I have indulged in a few of them on pianonoise. Mostly, though, I prefer to play works written for the organ on the organ, works written for the piano (or the harpsichord) on the piano, and works written for the banjo I leave well enough alone.
But it can also be interesting to hear someone reinterpret a work in a different medium, particularly if they do it well. Here is a link to the International Score Library Project page which features a recording by pianist Martha Goldstein. It is interesting to here all of the Romantic grandeur from her performance: the octave bass to give the piece more gravity (and after all, an organist would probably be using stops in different octaves anyway). the lavish rubato, leaning on certain notes to give them expressive properties, and then dashing away in a shower of sound. One thing I find particularly interesting is the very opening, when the pianist, probably realizing that the opening flourish is played with the organist's feet, assumes that that would mean it would have to be played slowly! Of course, in the recording above, I actually use my feet and that doesn't slow me down a bit. There are other spots after that when the pianist seems to be trying to evoke a particular feeling of grandeur to compensate for the piano not actually being (her idea of ?) an organ. It is, at times, the complete opposite approach to the one I took--but then, I didn't have to worry about communicating grandeur so much on an actual pipe organ! Well, you listen:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Prelude_and_Fugue_in_D_major,_BWV_532_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
Scroll down the page under "recordings" until you get to the one on the piano.
If you're not in the loop, what's happening is that the pipe organ at Faith United Methodist Church in Champaign, Illinois, USA, where I am organist, is getting a new console and extensive work is being done to essentially correct a problem with the electronic relay system that has been an issue since the organ was installed in 1984 and has been growing steadily worse. Digitizing the console will fix the problems (among which are the distressing random appearances of notes that won't play across several ranks of pipes) and add some new features (like 100 memory levels! woohoo!).
This means, however, that our organ is going to be out of commission for the entire month of July and probably most or all of August.
No problem, says our mild mannered organist, dashing into the nearest phone booth (if he can still find one--maybe the cell phone dealer down the street will do). He emerges just moments later as....a pianist!
::gasp!!::
I know. It's a real shocker. The author of Pianonoise: the blog (the breakfast cereal is still in negotations, and the movie is in contract disputes) is actually a pianist. I don't blame you for forgetting about that since I've spent the last month almost exclusively at the organ, trying to spend as much time with it as possible while I still could. But, truth be told, I'm a little relieved, because now I have an excuse to give the piano some attention. All of it, actually.
Yesterday, we sent the organ out with a blazing finale. I played the D major Fugue of Bach (Bwv 532) which has a very exciting pedal part which no one was able to see with the console tucked away in the corner away from the congregation (hint hint, guys, you can still pitch in for the dolly that will let us move the new console out onto the floor). But it was thrilling nonetheless. While I was procuring the score for the fugue I came across this recording of the work on the piano. It also includes the prelude, which I played on Palm Sunday 2013, as well as the fugue which follows, which I meant to get around to last year but was just a little too busy preparing a piano recital at the same time (which was a year ago tomorrow, and featured the works of civil war-era touring virtuoso Louis Moreau Gottschalk. You can check out the current pianonoise radio program to hear the music at pianonoise.com (right hand side below the "new on the blog" box) and read blogs about the experience in the menu on the left, all on the homepage of pianonoise.com this week.)
Another year has come--this time no June recital, so I've gotten around to the fugue. Here are my recordings of both of those works:
[prelude]
[fugue]
Now, I am not a large fan of transcription, although, for occasional fun and frolic, I have indulged in a few of them on pianonoise. Mostly, though, I prefer to play works written for the organ on the organ, works written for the piano (or the harpsichord) on the piano, and works written for the banjo I leave well enough alone.
But it can also be interesting to hear someone reinterpret a work in a different medium, particularly if they do it well. Here is a link to the International Score Library Project page which features a recording by pianist Martha Goldstein. It is interesting to here all of the Romantic grandeur from her performance: the octave bass to give the piece more gravity (and after all, an organist would probably be using stops in different octaves anyway). the lavish rubato, leaning on certain notes to give them expressive properties, and then dashing away in a shower of sound. One thing I find particularly interesting is the very opening, when the pianist, probably realizing that the opening flourish is played with the organist's feet, assumes that that would mean it would have to be played slowly! Of course, in the recording above, I actually use my feet and that doesn't slow me down a bit. There are other spots after that when the pianist seems to be trying to evoke a particular feeling of grandeur to compensate for the piano not actually being (her idea of ?) an organ. It is, at times, the complete opposite approach to the one I took--but then, I didn't have to worry about communicating grandeur so much on an actual pipe organ! Well, you listen:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Prelude_and_Fugue_in_D_major,_BWV_532_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
Scroll down the page under "recordings" until you get to the one on the piano.
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