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Bach’s music was
already considered old-fashioned before he died and nothing was published for
fifty years after his death. In spite of that, composers and writers that
followed him did not forget him and acknowledged his genius. His music has been
in the mainstream repertoire ever since the early nineteenth century when a 20
year- old Felix Mendelssohn conducted a brilliant performance of Bach’s St
Matthew’s Passion in Berlin in 1829.
Both Mozart and Beethoven were greatly inspired by Bach’s music and when Mozart
heard Bach’s work Singet dem Herrn in neues Lied in Leipzig in 1789,
nearly 40 years after Bach’s death, he is said to have cried out, “Now here is
something one can learn from!” Mozart demanded to see the entire collection of
unpublished motets owned by the choir school where Bach had worked and spread
the parts around him. When Mozart came to write his Requiem he included a
fugue on the Kyrie eleison as an act of homage to Bach. Beethoven called
Bach the father of harmony. “Not Bach (“stream” in German), but Meer
(sea), should be his name.” The non-musical Goethe said Bach’s organ music
sounded “as if eternal harmony were conversing within itself, as it may have
done in the bosom of God just before the creation of the world.” The
musicologist Alfred Einstein said: “When the angels play for God they play Bach,
but when they play for themselves they play Mozart – and God listens in.”
Chopin paid tribute to the 48 preludes and fugues of Bach’s Well-Tempered
Clavier, often called “the Old Testament” and the composer-journalist Robert
Schumann campaigned for a Bach monument and a complete edition of his work.
Brahms was devoted to Bach from a young age, composing organ preludes and fugues
in the same style. Liszt elaborated and transcribed a number of his keyboard
pieces and Wagner called him “the musical miracle man.” As if this were not
enough, Bach’s influence continued into the 20th century as a shadow
not only behind neo-classicists like Stravinsky, Busoni and Max Reger, but also
behind the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg. Today, according to the editors of
The New Bach Reader, Bach is omnipresent. “The further we climb in our
own musical education, the higher the
mountain of
Bach’s
music thrusts its peak into the sky.” Bach has been transcribed to jazz by
Jacques Loussier and Keith Jarett and synthesized by Moog. He has been turned
into rock by Sting and Elvis Costello and his influence can be heard in the solo
improvisations of Irish fiddle players. Even those who are not familiar with
Bach’s music easily recognize some of his music like the Air on the G string,
made famous first by a cigar advertisement and later used as the basis for
Procul Harum’s 1960s hit A Whiter Shade of Pale. Many a church wedding
is graced by Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring and the lovely Sheep may
Safely Graze, extracted from one of Bach’s 200 cantatas. The dramatic organ
Toccata in D minor has shaken the foundation of many churches and the
themes from The Well-Tempered Clavier, transcribed to popular pieces,
repeatedly appear in contemporary “crossover” albums. Perhaps Bach was the
summation of all who preceded him and the greatest influence on all who followed
him. The spell of inspiration and influence cast by Bach continues into the
second millennium. Many regards to Bach, the composer, as the greatest of all
time.
What are suites? The term ‘suite’ has been used to describe different kinds of
collections - from a group of rooms leading from one to another to a set of
matching furniture. The musical suite shares similar features, with different
movements having their own structure, function, and place in the overall
sequence, but linked together by the same musical ideas and the same key.
The basis of the instrumental
suite was the dance. The idea of linking together contrasting dances goes back
to around 1400. At first, the slow stately pavan, in duple time, was paired with
the fast triple galliard. Later new dances began to appear and the allemande,
the courante, the sarabande and the gigue replaced the pavan and the galliard.
Although French influence predominated, it was a German composer, J.J. Froberger,
who is credited with forming these different dances into a regular pattern that
formed the basis of the instrumental suites of Bach and Handel. In the writings
of Bach, the suite reached the height of its development as Bach contributed not
only his orchestral suites but also those for violin, for cello and the keyboard
suites such as the English Suite No.5 and Partita No.5, recorded
on this album. |
