BACH AND HIS WORSHIPPERS.*
CF all Time's revenges in the sphere of music, none is more amazing than.the growth of Bach's posthumous fame. His life was singularly uneventful, the only incident which brought him into immediate connection with the public history of his time being his visit to Frederick the Great,— of which, by the way, there is no mention in Carlyle's elaborate life. He undoubtedly enjoyed a great reputation for his skill as an organist, and on the score of his immense musical learning, amongst contemporary musicians ; but it brought him none of the substantial recognition with which we have become so familiar in the case of modern musicians. The resources which he had at his command for the per- formance of his work were of the most meagre description, and the attitude of the authorities was unappreciative, or even hostile. He never left his native country, or sought to advertise his talent by travelling from town to town or court to court. The discharge of his duties as organist and Cantor of the Thomas Schule, and the labours of composition, absorbed his entire energies. Nor is this to be wondered at, when the prodigious number of his works is taken into account. These, however, for many years remained in manuscript, passed into different hands, and in a large number of cases were irretrievably lost. His influence at first only made itself felt by the force of heredity and training as exemplified by his sons, though even an imperfect and inadequate acquaintance with his works profoundly im- pressed the master minds of the next generation. Still, though Mozart testified eloquently to Bach's supreme genius, it was only by slow degrees, as his works came to be published, that the recognition of his greatness permeated even the elite of the musical world. But with the advent of the thirties,
• Music and Musio-Lovers. By William Foster Apthorp. New York : Chirles illeribuer's Song.
the cult of Bach assumed a new phase; and it is a remark- able proof of the all-embracing character of his music, that from that day to this the leading representatives of the romantic and the classical schools have been practically at one in their allegiance to the Father of Modern Music.
The love of Bach, like Bimetallism or golf, is a bond of union between men who differ on every other con- ceivable topic, and it would not be difficult to find parallels
quite as surprising as the alliance on the currency question between Archbishop Walsh and Mr. Balfour, who, by the way, is an ardent worshipper at the shrine of Johann Sebas- tian. The testimonies of the great masters to Bach' are worth a passing notice. Beethoven, who was brought up on the "well-tempered Clavier" is credited with the happy saying, "Not Bach [i.e., brook], but Ocean should be his name." Schumann's attitude was one of reverential adora- tion, while Wagner's writings abound in expressions of the most enthusiastic appreciation. It was Bach's music, besides Beethoven's, that chiefly engaged him in the last years of his life, and Herr von Wolzogen records in his Reminiscences how Wagner once said, "Bach works only for himself, he has no public in his mind; only occasionally does it seem as if he were playing something for his wife ; there we have a glimpse of the future which is already contained entirely in his works." And of the great Motet, " Singet dem Herrn," he writes how "the lyric stream of rhythmic melody mingles with the waves of an ocean of harmonies," thus recalling Beethoven's remark quoted above. It was Mendelssohn, how- ever—on whom the enlightened critics of the hour are never weary of pouring out the vials of calumny and spite—who by his splendid enthusiasm and practical exertions first directed the attention of the musical world at large to the masterpiece of Bach. And if Mendelssohn had never written a note of music, he would still deserve to be held in grateful remembrance for his noble services in this regard.
The historic performance under Mendelssohn of the Matthew Passion in Berlin in March 1829, just a hundred years after its original production, and for the first time since Bach's death, lent an impetus to the cult of Bach which has never flagged from that day to this. Nor was the significance of this exploit—carried through in the face of the keenest opposition from the leaders of the musical profession and the apathy of the public—lessened by the curious fact, to quote Mendelssohn's own words, that "it was an actor [Devrient, an enthusiastic Bach worshipper] and a Jew who restored this great Christian work to the public." The publication of Bach's works now went on apace, and some twenty years later the famous Bach-Gesellschaft was founded at Leipsic- with Schumann as one of its originators—for the purpose of publishing in annual volumes a complete critical edition of Bach's works. The first instalment was issued in 1851, and has been continued without intermission ever since, materials still remaining for three or four more volumes. Apart from the labours of the Bach-Gesellschaft, it may suffice to men- tion, amongst other notable hierophants of the cult, Robert Franz, the famous song-writer, whose arrangements have undoubtedly conduced to the diffusion of a knowledge of Bach's works, and Joseph Joachim, the unrivalled inter- preter of Bach's unrivalled violin music, whose devo- tion to this master has been marked by a disinterested generosity only too rare amongst execatants of the highest rank. In this country it was the elder Wesley who first introduced the works of Bach to the public. Mendelssohn lent it an immense stimulus in the course of his numerous visits to our shores, and shortly after his death a Bach Society was formed which, under the presidency of Sir William Sterndale Bennett, rendered good service in the twenty years of its existence. Since 1871 we have bad the annual per- formances of the Passion Music in the Abbey and St. Paul's, and since 1876 the Bach Choir Society has given fifty public performances, at which a quantity of the finest choral and instrumental compositions of their eponymous hero have been introduced for the first time to the English public by Mr. Otto Goldschmidt and Professor Stanford. The greatest conquest of all has been that of the Parisians. When M. Saint-Satins published his delightful volume of essays, Harmonie et Melodie, some ten years back, he spoke of the performances of Bach's great works as practically impossible —so far as an enlightened French public was concerned—by reason of their length and obsolete instrumentation. Bat subsequent events have shown him to be in the wrong, the elite of the musical world in Paris having not only
tolerated, but waxed enthusiastic over the fine perform- ances of the Mass in B minor and the works given recently at the Conservatoire. Such a conquest or conversion is even more remarkable than the change of front adopted by the Parisians towards Wagner, for no active propaganda has been carried on in behalf of Bach. No controversy has raged round the psychology, philosophy, or symbolism of his work. He has won his way by sheer dead-weight of musical genius.
This aspect of Bach is exceedingly well handled in one of the essays of Mr. Apthorp's suggestive volume. He says :-
" No doubt the Bach-cult one finds in some quarters is not wholly free from cant ; I never knew any cult that was. But I must say that I have found less sham love for Bach in people I have met than I have for most of the other great composers. On the contrary, I have usually found Bach made the theme of the most up-and-down plain speaking. It is but another proof of the immense distance which separates him from the popular modes of musical thought. Many people who have to keep up a reputation for musical taste will bear the infliction of a Schumann quartet or a Brahma symphony quite smilingly; they will grin and bear it, and try to think they like it. But Bach marks the point where the worm will turn ; he is the last straw that breaks the back of musical endurance, and people admit quite frankly that they find him intolerable."
These remarks are written with special reference to America, where, according to Mr. Apthorp, it is dangerous to express enthusiasm for Bach except in certain select circles, but they are applicable in a great measure to this country as well. It may not be an altogether satisfactory state of affairs, but it might be much worse. Nothing can be more detestable than a fashion in music-worship, and we are half afraid lest the success achieved by the recent Bach Festival at the Queen's Hall, may induce that section of the community which loves to be "in the movement," to affect an enthusiasm they do not feel, or in other words, may make Bach the fashion. But perhaps the fear is unfounded. At any rate, Bach could never be the "fashion" for long. He affords little or no opportunity for what Mr. Apthorp happily calls the " pyrotechnic enthusiasm " which consumes the Wagnerolater. The necessary conditions of performance of his work—the absence of scenery, action and all the pomp and circumstance of the modern stage—can never wholly appeal to " smart " people. There are undoubtedly many obvious beauties in his works—passages which immediately take hold of the hearer and appeal even to the popular heart. But he is emphatically not one of those writers who please most on a first hearing. The delight which he inspires may be expressed in the saying,
res severa est verum gaudium. The love of Bach, if it be sincere, is a liberal education in music, and, as Mr. Apthorp puts it, it is the most enduring of musical passions. To en- deavour to analyse the secret of his spell is no easy task, but Mr. Apthorp has essayed it with considerable felicity of
insight. He notes, for example, the mixture of grandeur and finesse which characterises his style :—" You find him always fully penetrated by the special character of his subject ; everything he wrote seems to have been written with perfect distinctness of a tistic intent. No man, even among our modern romanticists and tone-painters, ever put a greater wealth of meaning into a phrase than Bach did."
Mr. Apthorp, again, does not fail to do justice to the astonishing way in which Bach foreshadowed and forestalled the effects of his successors. His was indeed Music of the Future, seeing that in him " we find the germ, the potency, and the power of almost everything great that has been done in music since his day It was Bach who rendered musical material so pliable that it was like wax in the hands of the great composers who came after him." His mastery of technical resource was prodigious, but "no matter how intricate the structure of the composition must be, no matter what arduous difficulties must attend the bringing of it to formal perfection, Bach knew how to make it expressive. Listen to it with an ear that pierces through the surface, and what you hear is not the mere whirring of the cog-wheels of a highly perfected mechanism, but the very heart-beat of humanity itself." His modern and romantic spirit is shown in his "keen perception of the adaptability of musical means to musical ends." Like Beethoven when he invented a melody, it was not merely a melody absolutely, but a melody for bassoon or horn or tenor voice : "form and colour were, in his mind, inseparable." In writing for that noblest and most intractable of instruments, the organ, his style is marked by what Mr. Apthorp calls a "superhuman impassiveness;" but his other compositions are conceived in a totally different spirit, the Church cantatas in particular exhibiting the ex- pressiveness, variety, and poetic imaginativeness of his genius in their fullest power.
The appropriateness of Mr. Apthorp's remarks on the obstacles which lie in the way of those who seek to popularise Bach have been strikingly illustrated of late. His works are immensely difficult to perform—especially for singers—and the process of initiation is not rendered any easier by the captious and acrimonious spirit in which certain critics—who claim a monopoly of appreciation of Bach—greet the con- scientious efforts of those who devote their best energies to the bringing forward of his masterpieces. It may be that Bach, like Shakespeare, is best studied at home ; but the number of those who can read Bach's scores, even in these enlightened days, is exceedingly small, and when thousands of people have been refreshed and delighted by the courageous, if imperfect, attempt to interpret Bach's masterpiece made by the only Society which will undertake such a task, what good can be gained by wholesale condemnation and vulgar abuse of their efforts P
Previous page
