Bach's Legacy: The Music as Heard by Later Masters [1 ed.] 0190091223, 9780190091224

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Bach’s Legacy

Bach’s Legacy The Music as Heard by Later Masters RU S SE L L S T I N S O N

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Stinson, Russell, author. Title: Bach’s legacy : the music as heard by later masters /​ by Russell Stinson. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019049157 (print) | LCCN 2019049158 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190091224 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190091248 (epub) | ISBN 9780190091255 (online) Subjects: LCSH: Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685–​1750—​Appreciation—​History. | Mendelssohn-​Bartholdy, Felix, 1809–​1847. | Schumann, Robert, 1810–​1856. | Wagner, Richard, 1813–​1883. | Elgar, Edward, 1857–​1934. | Music—​History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML410. B13 S88 2020 (print) | LCC ML410. B13 (ebook) | DDC 780.92—​dc23 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2019049157 LC ebook record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2019049158 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

To Emma, Henry, and Luke

Contents Abbreviations

ix

Introduction 1 1. Felix Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works: New Evidence from the Sämtliche Briefe 6 2. New Light on Robert Schumann’s Bach Reception Schumann, Eduard Krüger, and the Reception of Bach’s Organ Chorales in the Nineteenth Century Schumann, Bach, and the “Rhineland” Diary of Woldemar Bargiel

55 55 77

3. Bach in Bayreuth: Richard Wagner and the Well-​Tempered Clavier 100 Book 1 103 Book 2 118 Epilogue 127 4. Edward Elgar Reads Albert Schweitzer: A Case of Negative Bach Reception

137

References Index

161 169

Abbreviations Bach-​Dokumente VI Ausgewählte Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs 1801–​1850, ed. Andreas Glöckner et al. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007. BWV Bach-​Werke-​Verzeichnis = Wolfgang Schmieder, Thematisch-​systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach. Revised edition. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1990. NBA Neue Bach-​Ausgabe = Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Kassel: Bärenreiter; Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1954–​2007.

Introduction This book deals with the “afterlife” of Bach’s music, which is to say the composer’s posthumous role in music history. As such, it represents the discipline of reception history, a field within art and literature that focuses less on the work itself than on the response of the reader, listener, or viewer. In the domain of musicology, reception historians normally trace the influence of one composer on a later one, or they engage with reviews, editions, transcriptions, concert programs, or performance styles. The historical layers imparted by this re-​ contextualization add immeasurably to the music’s significance. Reception historians have chosen Johann Sebastian Bach as a subject more often than any other composer, and for obvious reasons. The “rediscovery” of Bach’s music in the early nineteenth century, after all, marked the first time that a great master, after a period of neglect, was granted his rightful place by a later generation. Given Bach’s vast influence on posterity, there is no shortage of material, and there is every reason to believe that the field of Bach reception will continue to grow over the course of the twenty-​first century. The two most important catalysts thus far in this process have been the sixth volume of the Bach-​Dokumente series (Ausgewählte Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs 1801–​ 1850), an 815-​ page compilation of materials from the first half of the nineteenth century, published in 2007; and Bach und die Nachwelt, a four-​volume series of essays, published between 1997 and 2005 and spanning almost two thousand pages, that covers the reception of Bach’s oeuvre from 1750, the year of the composer’s death, to the year 2000. Both have been invaluable resources for my own research. In the present monograph, I consider how four of the most prominent composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—​Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, and Edward Bach’s Legacy. Russell Stinson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190091224.001.0001

2  Bach’s Legacy Elgar—​engaged with Bach’s legacy. At the heart of the matter, of course, is how these titans incorporated elements of Bach’s style into their own masterworks. But rather than pursue this fairly obvious line of inquiry, I have chosen instead to investigate how these individuals responded to Bach’s art in ways other than “compositional,” whether as performers, conductors, editors, scholars, critics, lecturers, or all-​ around ambassadors. How did these now-​canonical composers help define Bach’s oeuvre for their audiences and beyond? What exactly did these later masters hear in the music of their great predecessor? In each of the following four chapters, which are given in roughly chronological order, I  combine the disciplines of history, biography, and musical analysis in an attempt to answer these and other questions. I  begin with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the figure most often associated with the so-​called Bach revival, with an eye to Mendelssohn’s encounter with Bach’s organ works. Having written extensively on this topic in the past, I explore here the abundant new information on the subject found in Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy:  Sämtliche Briefe, a just-​finished twelve-​volume set of Mendelssohn’s letters that, as the first complete text-​critical edition of these documents ever attempted, is bound to open up a host of fresh perspectives on the composer’s life and output. To judge from his letters, Mendelssohn “received” Bach’s organ works in a variety of musical and social contexts across Europe, for he was just as prone to play them on the piano at a salon gathering in Düsseldorf or Paris as he was to render them on a pipe organ in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, London, or Wittenberg. We behold him enthusing over the transcendent beauty of the music, struggling with its uncompromising pedal parts, arranging private recitals of it, and turning it into a parlor game of sorts. I give particular emphasis to an all-​ but-​lost collection of Bach piano transcriptions by Mendelssohn’s friend Johann Nepomuk Schelble (VI VARIERTE CHORÄLE für die Orgel von J. S. BACH für das Pianoforte zu vier Händen eingerichtet), whose contents Mendelssohn shared with both his friends and his family. The next chapter is devoted to Robert Schumann and his circle. It represents both a conflation and a revision of a pair of articles I recently

Introduction  3 published (in German) in the Bach-​Jahrbuch.1 Like his good friend Mendelssohn, Schumann had a particular affinity for Bach’s organ works, and the subject matter of the first part of this chapter is a virtually unknown anthology of fourteen organ chorales by Bach compiled by Schumann for his colleague Eduard Krüger. Though employed for most of his career as a schoolmaster in remote Ostfriesland, Krüger was a formidable critic in addition to being a fine organist. He thanked Schumann for his efforts by sending him brief commentaries on the individual pieces—​most of which were still unpublished—​just as he did some years later in a letter to the hymnologist Carl von Winterfeld, in hopes of piquing Winterfeld’s interest in the music. Krüger’s commentaries improve our understanding of the compositional style and historical performance practice of these works specifically as well as the reception of Bach’s organ chorales in the nineteenth century generally. Chapter 2 continues with some new insights into Schumann’s reception of Bach’s vocal compositions, especially the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, provided by the recently published “Rhineland” diary of Woldemar Bargiel, the half-​brother of Schumann’s wife Clara. This material, unexpectedly, also raises some intriguing questions about Beethoven’s celebrated pun on “Bach.” Schumann preferred the smaller dimensions and quicker pacing of the St. John Passion, a work he also perceived as more “profound” and “melancholy” than the St. Matthew. He championed the St. John as an editor and critic in Leipzig as well as a conductor in Dresden and Düsseldorf. Richard Wagner was hardly as redoubtable a Bach connoisseur as either Mendelssohn or Schumann, but, as I discuss in Chapter 3, he revered the Well-​Tempered Clavier. Precisely how Wagner reacted to these forty-​eight preludes and fugues is documented by the diaries of his wife Cosima and by various inscriptions preserved in his personal copy of Bach’s collection. These materials have been available to musicologists for decades, but they have yet to be systematically investigated. Cosima reported on a series of soirees at the couple’s Bayreuth home at which the pianist Joseph Rubinstein—​one of the more tragic figures in music history—​performed essentially all forty-​ eight works and at which Wagner held forth as a lecturer. Wagner at

4  Bach’s Legacy these gatherings commented fascinatingly on diverse aspects of the music, including its programmatic implications; he also compared certain movements to operas by Mozart and himself. In Wagner’s view, the Well-​Tempered Clavier revealed the true nature of Bach’s genius. The setting in Chapter  4 shifts from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, and from Germany to the United Kingdom, with a focus on Edward Elgar’s personal copy of Albert Schweitzer’s monograph J. S.  Bach, a unique and essentially unknown document from Edwardian England whose copious annotations betray Elgar’s disdain for Bach as a composer of vocal works and for Schweitzer as an author. Elgar’s scribblings in this source are at once caustic and entertaining, and they touch interestingly not only on Bach’s music per se but also on matters of performance, not to mention such side issues as Bach portraiture, a famous anecdote about Brahms and the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition, and Elgar’s own hobby of betting on horse races. This book would not have been possible without the help of numerous organizations, institutions, and individuals. First of all, I was able to present preliminary versions of the first three chapters at meetings in New Haven (biennial meeting of the American Bach Society), Liverpool (annual conference of the Royal Musical Association), and Salzburg (International Biennial Conference on Baroque Music). The stimulating comments I received from colleagues at those events helped me to rethink and refine my work. It was also my good fortune to conduct on-​site research at the Richard-​Wagner-​ Museum in Bayreuth, Germany, and on the property now known as The Firs (Elgar’s birthplace) in Lower Broadheath, England. For their assistance with my work in these archives, I thank Chris Bennett, Sue Fairchild, Gudrun Föttinger, and Kristina Unger. My travels abroad were funded by Lyon College and the University of Louisville. For answering my questions, volunteering information, and/​or supplying photocopies, I  would like to acknowledge the following colleagues, friends, and family members: Bernhard Appel, Tanja Dobrick, Marion Flaig, Wm. A. Little, Michael Musgrave, Annegret Rosenmüller, Birgit Stinson, Thomas Synofzik, Joe Tierney, Yo Tomita, Melvin Unger, Matthias Wendt, John Whenham, and Peter Wollny. I  thank Tyler Brightwell for preparing the musical examples. A  special word of

Introduction  5 gratitude goes to Suzanne Ryan of Oxford University Press for her support of the project from its inception. My greatest debt is to my wife Laura, for her encouragement and love. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. Russell Stinson Batesville, Arkansas December 2019

Note 1. “Neue Erkenntnisse zu Robert Schumanns Bach-​ Rezeption,” Bach-​ Jahrbuch 101 (2015), 233–​45; and “Robert Schumann, Eduard Krüger und die Rezeption von Bachs Orgelchorälen im 19. Jahrhundert,” Bach-​ Jahrbuch 102 (2016), 157–​85.

1

Felix Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works New Evidence from the Sämtliche Briefe

Felix Mendelssohn’s admiration of J. S. Bach is an incontestable fact of music history. To Mendelssohn, Bach was that “immortal master who in none of his works stands beneath any other master, and who in many of his works stands above all other masters.”1 Mendelssohn was particularly active as a receptor of Bach’s organ works. Of all the sources that document Mendelssohn’s involvement with these compositions, none is more important than the numerous letters written by him on the topic. These missives chronicle how Mendelssohn played the music, shared it with his acquaintances, and responded to it aesthetically and emotionally. The recent appearance of a new critical edition of the Mendelssohn letters, therefore, is a most welcome event. Indeed, this publication ranks as a musicological milestone, one that will allow for a much fuller understanding of its subject’s personality, intellect, and musicianship than has hitherto been possible. Titled Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Sämtliche Briefe, and published by Bärenreiter from 2008 to 2017 under the general editorship of Helmut Loos and Wilhelm Seidel, the edition contains in print for the first time all of the roughly six thousand extant letters from Mendelssohn’s pen, a staggering number by any measure but an almost unbelievable one considering his short life. (The same team is planning an edition of the roughly seven thousand surviving letters written to Mendelssohn.) Compared to previous editions of Mendelssohn’s letters, the new edition boasts obvious advantages. Around five hundred letters appear for the very first time, while hundreds (probably thousands) more appear for the first time Bach’s Legacy. Russell Stinson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190091224.001.0001

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  7 uncut. Furthermore, the texts have been painstakingly transcribed for the sake of greater accuracy, and each letter is accompanied by a commentary dealing with philological matters and placing the document in a wider biographical context. My purpose here is to present the new information found in the Sämtliche Briefe bearing on Mendelssohn’s reception of Bach’s organ works and to explore the implications behind this data.

I No doubt the most significant “new” letter along these lines is one authored by Mendelssohn about a month after he had returned home to Berlin from his grand tour of Europe.2 Remarkably, the trip lasted over two years, making it the longest Bildungsreise ever undertaken by a musician in modern times, with stops first in Germany, then in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, and, finally, England. Dated July 28, 1832, the letter is addressed to Marie Catherine Kiéné, a family friend at whose home Mendelssohn had regularly performed during his four-​month stay in Paris during the winter of 1831–​32. Kiéné was, in fact, an established acquaintance of Mendelssohn’s by then, having hosted him at her salon when he and his father Abraham visited the city in 1825.3 What is more, when the Mendelssohn family visited Paris in 1816, Felix and his older sister Fanny—​they were both child prodigies—​took lessons from Kiéné’s daughter, the esteemed pianist Marie Bigot. Bigot’s daughter Adèle also played the piano, and she is mentioned several times in Mendelssohn’s letter. Like her grandmother, she was a Bach devotee, and perhaps of Bach’s organ music in particular. The relevant portion of this rather long missive reads as follows: My great joy in London was that every Sunday after church at St. Paul’s, I could play the organ as long as I wanted. The people gathered around and listened to the Bach fugue in A minor, the end of which shook the pillars. During the week, other organists offered me their organs, which I  could play to my heart’s content. In London the organs are mostly very good, and therefore I  diligently practiced

8  Bach’s Legacy Sebastian Bach. I  always played the A-​minor fugue and “Das alte Jahr.” Never have I had such joy as on those Sundays, when I could play with such pure pleasure; it did me good. I wish you and Adèle could have been there, because I  know how you love such music. I wanted to procure the pieces for you, but I could never find them in London. I do think, however, that Adèle would like to have my two favorite chorales, which I was still playing at around 5:30 before the mail got picked up. So I copied them down and send them herewith. The pieces are the most beautiful that I know, and I hope she will play them gladly and often. They’re actually for the organ, with soft stops, but because they’re very difficult, people have arranged them for piano, four hands. Should Adèle, however, prefer to play alone, the primo and secondo parts could just be written together, with the octaves in the soprano and bass removed; the bass line is originally for pedal. Regarding the second piece, where I have written C. F., the plain chorale tune is working its way through. It is such a pity that I can’t play it for you on the organ, with flute stops; it sounds quite heavenly that way. One of my friends and I are now thinking about publishing a complete collection of [Bach’s] large organ works. As soon as it appears, allow me to send you a copy.4

This fascinating excerpt adds significantly to our understanding of Mendelssohn’s reception of Bach’s organ works at this point in his young life. It sheds light on how he experienced and promoted the music in different musical and social contexts, ranging from postludes played by himself on the organ at one of the largest churches in all of Europe to—​in a snapshot of Biedermeier culture—​informal performances on the piano at a Parisian salon. It informs us about the specific organ works by Bach that were in Mendelssohn’s repertory and what he thought about them as musical compositions. It offers insights into the practice of piano transcription in the early nineteenth century. And it connects in interesting ways to other letters by Mendelssohn in which this music is discussed. Reading between the lines, we also learn certain details about the publication history of Bach’s organ works within the Mendelssohn circle. To begin with the portion of the letter dealing with the two months spent by Mendelssohn in London in the spring of 1832, it has long

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  9 been known that he performed on the organ at St. Paul’s in the manner he so rapturously described to Kiéné, just as he did more famously in 1837, when the organ blowers chose to vacate their post just as he was about to conclude the Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543. But in his letter to Kiéné, Mendelssohn identifies two specific works by Bach that he played. For reasons that need not be discussed here, these two pieces were undoubtedly the same prelude and fugue (or at least the fugue) in A minor that Mendelssohn played at St. Paul’s in 1837, plus the setting from the Orgelbüchlein of “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist,” BWV 614.5 Both were among his favorite pieces of music. There is reason to believe that Mendelssohn had been playing the A minor on the piano since 1825, when he and his father were visiting Paris (and being hosted by Marie Kiéné). His letter to Kiéné of July 1832, however, represents the earliest mention in any source of his having played it on the organ. That he chose the piece for public consumption is easy to understand, for the A  minor is an ostentatious piece in general, and its gigue-​like fugue approaches outright virtuosity, especially with regard to its pedal part. Indeed, one of the fugue’s most memorable moments is the flashy pedal solo toward the end, which is presumably the same passage Mendelssohn is referring to here as having shaken the pillars of the building. By demonstrating such pedal technique, he revolutionized the whole art of organ playing in England. Such a wide-​ranging pedal line required a standard, two-​octave pedal board. Thus Mendelssohn no doubt appreciated that the three-​ manual organ by Father Smith at St. Paul’s was the only instrument in London of this design, even if the pedals were not properly aligned with the manuals.6 They extended from C to cˊ, as opposed to the standard compass in England of G to cˊ. Despite the limitations posed by English pedal boards, Mendelssohn found the organs in London to be “mostly very good.” In other words, these organs were still superior to the miserable ones he had endured in Italy and Switzerland. The other work named by Mendelssohn is the only organ arrangement by Bach known at the time of the chorale “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist.”7 Definitely not a crowd pleaser like the A minor, this piece constitutes an exceedingly chromatic and melancholy commentary on the passing of the old year, an image that in turn can be

10  Bach’s Legacy taken to symbolize the transience of human existence. The work also complements the A  minor with regard to its slower rhythms, stricter form, and compact size. Mendelssohn is not documented to have played or even to have known “Das alte Jahr” prior to his stay in London in 1832. His fondness for the piece continued for several more years, as we know from a letter he wrote to his sister Fanny in June 1839. Mendelssohn and his wife Cécile were then vacationing in Frankfurt, where they stayed with Cécile’s cousin, Friedrich Schlemmer, a lawyer and amateur organist, and where Mendelssohn regularly visited with Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Guhr, director of the Frankfurt Opera. Guhr was also a fellow Bach collector. He was so impressed by Mendelssohn’s interest in his Bachiana that he offered him a manuscript for free, asking him to choose between one containing roughly half of the approximately forty-​five miniature chorale settings that comprise the Orgelbüchlein and another containing two much longer free works: the Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582; and the Fugue in C Minor on a Theme by Legrenzi, BWV 574. (Guhr and Mendelssohn assumed both sources to be autographs, but the first definitely was not and the same is probably true of the second.) Mendelssohn chose the manuscript of the Orgelbüchlein, explaining his rationale to Fanny in these terms: “I have much greater desire for the chorale preludes, because they begin with the ‘altes Jahr,’ because other big favorites [of mine] are among them, and because the Passacaglia and the fugue are already published.”8 Yes, a well-​known if not famous passage from the Mendelssohn epistolary. But the Sämtliche Briefe offer various bits of new information involving Mendelssohn’s acquisition of this source. For example, two weeks before he wrote to Fanny, he had inscribed the following lines to his younger sister Rebecka: “I have found here a beautiful source with organ works by Sebastian Bach. I want to send Fanny some of the more significant new pieces from it as soon as I’ve finished copying them. Then the two of you can play them together, with you on the pedal parts.”9 (As we shall see, this was not the first time Felix had instructed his two sisters to play organ chorales composed by or attributed to Bach as piano duets.) And in a letter to Guhr a few months later, Mendelssohn profusely thanked his colleague for his generosity: “For the Bach [manuscript], I still thank you every day . . .”10

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  11 As far as Friedrich Schlemmer is concerned, he honed his pedal technique on a pedal piano at his home, and Mendelssohn also took advantage of this instrument. Again, this is a familiar episode from the Mendelssohn annals, but again the Sämtliche Briefe provide new insights. Witness, for example, the following passage from a letter written by Felix that summer to his mother Lea:  “I practice pedal playing for two hours every day on a piano that Dr. Schlemmer has for his organ studies, and I’ve already completely conquered some pieces that before had appeared impossible to me, for example, Bach’s Passacaglia and some of [his] more difficult organ fugues.”11 Whether Mendelssohn was playing from Guhr’s manuscript of the Passacaglia or from his own copy of the print is unclear. As to the identity of the “difficult” organ fugues, it is obvious from a passage at the end of this letter that they were the six preludes and fugues (BWV 543–​48) known at the time as the “Six Great.” Felix also inserted several lines here for Fanny, informing her, in another previously unpublished passage, that he had been “mercilessly” practicing the Passacaglia for “eight whole days” and that he planned to play the work for her on the organ the next time they met.12 There is still more to be said about “Das alte Jahr,” for we learn, quite surprisingly, from a previously unpublished letter from Felix to Lea of February 6, 1839, that this work figured in the festivities for Mendelssohn’s thirtieth birthday, which had taken place just three days earlier. After thanking his mother for the glassware she had mailed him as a present, he listed several other gifts received, including a box for his chess pieces painted by Cécile, a couple of potted plants, and “cakes of all kinds, including one given by Count Reuss with a musical inscription in sugar of the Bach chorale ‘Das alte Jahr vergangen ist,’ and one beneath it that read ‘das neue soll leben’.”13 By way of explanation, Mendelssohn had been living in Leipzig for over three years by this date, and he was on friendly terms with one of the city’s aristocrats (and amateur musicians), Heinrich II, Graf von Reuß-​ Köstritz. The confection presented by Count Reuß did not merely honor Mendelssohn with one of his favorite pieces of music, composed by a fellow Leipziger. Rather, because Mendelssohn’s birthday came early enough in the calendar year to make this a viable option, it also ingeniously paired the title of that work with the New Year’s greeting “das

12  Bach’s Legacy neue soll leben.” Translated into English, the couplet would read: “The old year has passed away; long live the new year.” To return to Mendelssohn’s letter to Marie Kiéné, the final sentence of the quoted passage concerns his plans for an edition of Bach’s organ works that he anticipated undertaking jointly with one of his “friends.” As Wm. A. Little has convincingly argued, this individual must have been the Berlin-​based theorist and composer Adolf Bernhard Marx, who since the mid-​1820s had been one of Mendelssohn’s closest acquaintances.14 The projected edition materialized the very next year (1833) with the publication by Breitkopf & Härtel of the three-​volume set, Johann Sebastian Bach’s noch wenig bekannte Orgelcompositionen. For whatever reasons, only Marx’s name appeared as the editor, yet there can be no question about Mendelssohn’s participation or that he, as the expert on Bach’s organ music, had been the driving force behind the edition. Uta Wald, the editor of volume 3 of the Sämtliche Briefe, posits, however, that Mendelssohn originally had a different partner in this venture, namely, the violinist, professional music copyist, and Bach enthusiast Eduard Rietz, and that the edition had been several years in the making.15 Her evidence is the following passage from an 1834 review of the Breitkopf edition by the Berlin-​based poet and critic Ludwig Rellstab, who by then had known Mendelssohn for well over a decade: We believe, however, that we are not incorrect in assuming these organ works to be the same that eight or ten years ago had begun to be collected in a very musical house in Berlin by a now famous composer and a now deceased friend of his. If we are not mistaken, the sources from which those admirers of Sebastian Bach worked came partially from Zelter’s library, which was so rich in manuscripts of this master, and partially from that of the Joachimthalsches Gymnasium, which likewise owns a great wealth of compositions by this old master.16

To fill in the gaps somewhat:  (1) Eduard Rietz had been one of Mendelssohn’s best friends in Berlin until his premature death in 1832, and he is known to have supplied the Mendelssohn family with his own copies of organ works by Bach; (2)  “Zelter” refers to Mendelssohn’s

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  13 teacher in Berlin, Carl Friedrich Zelter (d. 1832), who was one of the greatest Bach aficionados of the era; and (3)  the Joachimthalsches Gymnasium was a royal school in Berlin renowned for its collection of Bach manuscripts.17 The bulk of the quoted passage from Mendelssohn’s letter to Kiéné involves organ chorales by Bach that Felix did play on the organ but that he also recommended as hausmusik, played on the piano by either one or two performers. These circumstances immediately bring to mind a second, well-​known letter sent by Mendelssohn to Kiéné about a month later in which he copied out the Orgelbüchlein chorale “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 639. In that missive, too, he referred to Kiéné’s granddaughter, Adèle Bigot: As I am still unable to send you, by way of atonement, something I am working on myself, old Bach will have to be my shield and refuge; and so, on the next page, I’m writing down a little piece I got to know here by accident fourteen days ago. . . . The upper voice is an ornamental chorale and should be played on the organ with somewhat strong stops; on the piano it must be played in octaves; or it would be best, I believe, if Mr. Baillot would “sing” the upper voice on his violin, in which case the piano would properly proceed beneath. I’d like to be able to hear Adèle play it with him.18

In imagining what this work might have sounded like on the violin, Mendelssohn was thinking in particular of Pierre Baillot, a celebrated Parisian violinist known especially for his legato technique. Mendelssohn may even have been alluding to this aspect of Baillot’s performance style with his use of the verb “sing.”19 Like Marie Kiéné, Baillot had known the Mendelssohn family for many years, having coached Felix and Fanny in chamber music during their visits to the French capital in 1816 and having performed with Felix at Kiéné’s salon on Felix’s subsequent trips to the city in 1825 and 1831–​32.20 During the latter trip, and most pertinent to our concerns, the two men played Bach’s Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1014–​19. This fact comes as no surprise, considering that Baillot was one of the foremost Bach disciples in all of France.

14  Bach’s Legacy

II The excerpt given earlier from Mendelssohn’s first letter to Marie Kiéné informs us that during his sojourn in London he intended to mail her some music by Bach, obviously printed music that could be procured from a local music dealer. And an earlier passage in the letter suggests that this music was to have served as a token of gratitude for Kiéné’s remarkable hospitality to Mendelssohn during his four-​month stay in Paris during the winter of 1831–​32. He was especially indebted to her for nursing him back to health after contracting a mild case of cholera: “I probably don’t need to tell you how every day I think of you and yours and how every hour I remember my time in your home . . . And when I choose to think of my unpleasant illness at that time, soon enough I  see your dear house before my eyes, and then no bad thoughts come to me.”21 Finding nothing to his satisfaction or maybe nothing at all in the London music shops (and perhaps having had the same experience in Berlin after his return there), Mendelssohn took it upon himself to write out some Bach by hand, choosing two organ chorales. These manuscripts have not survived.22 As to exactly which two works Mendelssohn decided on, the letter offers some unmistakable clues, starting with the fact that both pieces had been arranged by someone other than Mendelssohn himself explicitly for four hands and implicitly for the piano. In addition, the two works were his “two favorite chorales,” a qualification that would seem to narrow the field to the only three organ chorales composed by or ascribed to Bach that Mendelssohn had even mentioned in any of his extant letters up to this date: “Das alte Jahr,” of course, on the basis of the present missive; “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654, from the so-​called Great Eighteen chorales, a work that Mendelssohn had delighted in playing on his travels through Switzerland and Bavaria in 1831; and the miscellaneous, double-​pedal setting of “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740, a work that Mendelssohn had enthused about to his sisters during his visit to Frankfurt in 1831, even if it is today rightly attributed to Bach’s pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs.23 All three works happen to be contained in a collection that preserves the only four-​hand piano transcriptions of Bach organ chorales to have

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  15 survived up to this point in music history, making it quite obvious that Mendelssohn copied out for Kiéné two of these three pieces. The collection in question was issued without a publication date by the Frankfurt house of Friedrich Philipp Dunst as VI VARIERTE CHORÄLE für die Orgel von J.  S. BACH für das Pianoforte zu vier Händen eingericht[et]. It has received such scant attention in the scholarly literature presumably because of the tiny number of copies that have survived. Furthermore, the name of the transcriber appears nowhere in the print, which has probably discouraged interest in it. To my knowledge, the first musicologist to mention the collection was Max Schneider, in an article published in 1906 on the printed sources of Bach’s music up to 1851.24 Schneider merely included this source in what is a listing of these items. But his investigation of music catalogues from the period, specifically C. F. Whistling’s Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur, established the publication date as between 1829 and 1833, for the print is included in Friedrich Hofmeister’s second supplement to Whistling’s tome, which lists works published between January 1829 and December 1833. Schneider was certainly unaware that this print had been cited more fully in the oldest extant thematic catalogue of Bach’s oeuvre, that prepared (but never published) over a fifty-​year period by the singer and Bach collector Franz Hauser, who was also one of Mendelssohn’s closest friends. As found in Yoshitake Kobayashi’s 1973 dissertation on Hauser’s collection of Bach manuscripts, Hauser’s citation reads: “The publisher Dunst in Frankfurt has issued the first volume of varied chorales, arranged by Schelble for piano, four hands, and containing the following six chorales: Schmücke dich o liebe Seele/​Xstus der uns selig macht/​Wir glauben all an einen Gott/​Das alte Jahr vergangen ist/​ O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross/​ Nun komm der Heiden 25 Heiland.” Hauser thus identified the transcriber as the choral conductor and Bach champion Johann Nepomuk Schelble (1789–​1837), another of Mendelssohn’s best friends and one of Hauser’s as well. This was obscure information, to be sure, unknown even to Schelble’s biographer, Oskar Bormann.26 Thanks to Kobayashi’s study, a number of scholars since have cited Schelble as the transcriber.27 This is unfortunately not the case, though, with Arthur Schanz’s massive catalogue of Bach piano transcriptions, where the transcriber is repeatedly

16  Bach’s Legacy identified as F. P. Dunst.28 Dunst merely published the set, whose exact contents are the following: “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele” (pp. 2–​5); from the Orgelbüchlein, “Christus, der uns selig macht,” BWV 620a (pp. 6–​7); “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater” (pp. 8–​9); “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist” (pp. 10–​11); from the Orgelbüchlein, “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß,” BWV 622 (pp.  10–​11); and, from the Great Eighteen chorales, the first setting of “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659 (pp.  12–​13).29 Although the title page carries the designation of 1 Heft, or “1st volume,” there is no evidence that Schelble ever prepared a second volume. The title page of Schelble’s print is reproduced in Figure 1.1.30 Which two of these three transcriptions by Schelble did Mendelssohn pen for Marie Kiéné? The editors of volume 2 of the Sämtliche Briefe, Anja Morgenstern and Uta Wald, casually propose “Das alte Jahr” and “Schmücke dich.”31 But by considering Mendelssohn’s letter in conjunction with Schelble’s collection, one arrives at a different answer, for (1) Mendelssohn indicated or implied to Kiéné that both pieces he had copied out contained octave doublings in the soprano and/​or the bass, and (2) such doublings appear only in “Schmücke dich” and “Wir glauben.” Assuming that Mendelssohn copied out Schelble’s transcriptions of “Schmücke dich” and “Wir glauben,” he would have done so presumably in the order of the print, starting with “Schmücke dich.” This assumption is supported by Mendelssohn’s remarks in his letter to Kiéné about the second work he inscribed, particularly his description of it as incorporating “the plain chorale tune” (“der einfache Choralgesang”). He would not have described “Schmücke dich” this way, since its solo melody line—​and by “solo,” I mean a voice played in the original organ version on its own manual—​constitutes a profusely ornamented version of the chorale tune. Indeed, the degree of ornamentation is far greater than in “Ich ruf zu dir,” whose solo melody line Mendelssohn described in the letter he wrote to Kiéné about a month later as “an ornamental chorale.” The solo melody line of “Wir glauben,” save the spectacular arabesque at the end, contains no ornamentation at all beyond the cadential trills.32 There is also Mendelssohn’s use of the abbreviation “C. F.,” which obviously stands for “Cantus Firmus.” A perusal of the “Primo” piano part suggests that he used this designation as a visual cue right before each one of the four chorale phrases, which are found, respectively, in

Figure 1.1  Johann Nepomuk Schelble: VI VARIERTE CHORÄLE für die Orgel von J. S. BACH für das Pianoforte zu vier Händen eingerichtet, title page. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

18  Bach’s Legacy measures 7–​10, 13–​15, 21–​23, and 26–​28 (see Figure 1.2). Rather than being allotted its own staff, which is how the original organ version is notated, the chorale tune in Schelble’s print shares the top staff with the uppermost accompanimental voice, making its exact location from phrase to phrase less than immediately apparent, the accent marks and octave doublings notwithstanding.33 Mendelssohn employed the same abbreviation for similar reasons in his edition, 15 Große Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel von Johann Sebastian Bach, published in 1846.34 That volume also includes the setting of “Wir glauben” currently under discussion, but because Mendelssohn followed the layout of the original organ version, he had no cause there to use the abbreviation. Nor would he have needed it in writing out Schelble’s transcription of “Schmücke dich.” That work contains only four voices, each of which, including the solo melody line, is allotted its own staff, with each player taking two voices. “Wir glauben,” due to the unusual double-​pedal part, has five voices rather than the standard four, and in Schelble’s transcription the Primo player usually takes the top three voices and the Secondo player the bottom two. The manner in which Schelble transcribed these two works is representative of the collection as a whole. He added no material of his own composition, merely occasional octave doublings of the soprano and bass voices. These doublings serve both as an idiomatic piano technique and as a simulation of four-​foot and sixteen-​foot organ stops. Schelble did, however, add a multitude of performance instructions, especially dynamics, thereby producing a regular ebb and flow of volume consistent with Romantic practice. He also added phrasings, articulation signs, and tempo designations. The result is idiomatically conceived piano music easy enough to have been enjoyed by amateurs. Particularly easy is the Secondo part, which tends to be devoid of any ornamentation and contains the relatively slow-​moving pedal part. Five of the six works are scored for four voices, and in these pieces Schelble assigned the Secondo player the tenor voice as well as the pedal part, with the Primo player taking the soprano and alto. In the case of “Wir glauben,” whose double pedal part thickens the texture to five voices, the Secondo player takes just the two pedal lines and the Primo player the upper three voices. As previously mentioned, the original organ version of “Wir glauben” is now ascribed, on both philological and stylistic grounds,

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  19 to Bach’s pupil J. L. Krebs. Its cantus firmus should not be confused with the famous chorale “Wir glauben all an einen Gott,” which Bach is known to have set for voices as well as for organ (and whose text is Martin Luther’s version of the Nicene Creed). Rather, in great contrast to this exceedingly long, dorian-​mode tune, the melody set by Krebs is remarkably short and in the major mode (its text is by Tobias Clausnitzer). Bach is not known ever to have arranged this hymn for any medium. Given in Figure 1.2 is Schelble’s transcription of “Wir glauben.” For this work, he furnished the tempo designation of Andante and the general performance indication of semp. legato. As he prepared his transcription, he chose to double all four phrases of the chorale tune at the upper octave.35 It is easy to understand why this technique was adopted for the first two phrases, since the uppermost accompanimental voice in the original version there goes higher than the chorale tune. This circumstance poses no problem in the original version because the chorale tune is played on a separate manual. On the piano, though, the melody would be obscured unless transposed up an octave. For consistency’s sake, the octave doubling continues for the final two phrases, even though in neither phrase is there any such voice crossing. A second observation to be made about Schelble’s transcription is that each of the four chorale phrases concludes not with tied notes, as in the original, but with repeated notes. That this was not just an oversight would seem to be demonstrated by the meticulous performance instructions for the repeated notes in measure 15 (see the staccato dots and the phrase marking). Surely these repeated notes were added because of the piano’s inability to prolong notes indefinitely, a principle that would also seem to apply to Schelble’s aversion here to tied notes in general.36 Apparently for the same reason, the beginning of the first phrase of the chorale tune (see measure 7, where the top note on beat 4 is printed erroneously as B-​flat) was changed from a half note to two quarter notes, but at the risk of implying that the second note of the phrase comes a beat earlier than it actually does. Likewise, the tenor half note on the first two beats of measure 3 was rewritten as two quarters. Given in Figure 1.3 is Schelble’s transcription of “Schmücke dich.” For this work, he provided not a tempo designation per se but the

20  Bach’s Legacy

Figure 1.2  Schelble’s transcription of “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740, “Primo” part. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  21

Figure 1.2  ctd. Schelble’s transcription of “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740, “Secondo” part. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

22  Bach’s Legacy

Figure 1.3  Schelble’s transcription of “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654, mm. 1–​50, “Primo” part. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  23

Figure 1.3  ctd. Schelble’s transcription of “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654, mm. 1–50, “Secondo” part. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

24  Bach’s Legacy

Figure 1.3  ctd. Schelble’s transcription of “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654, mm. 51–97, “Primo” part. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  25

Figure 1.3  ctd. Schelble’s transcription of “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654, mm. 51–97, “Secondo” part. © The British Library Board, Music Collections K.10.a.31.(2.)

26  Bach’s Legacy Affekt marking of Grazioso e molto cantabile, similar to how he indicated that “Wir glauben” be played semp. legato. He transcribed the piece in much the same way, too, at least with respect to the handling of the solo melody line. Virtually the entire line, occasionally including the trills, is doubled at the upper octave, which is a particularly felicitous circumstance in measures 16–​17, 33, 74–​75, and 92–​94, where in the original organ version the alto rises above the soprano. Moreover, most of the dotted half notes in the original line have been changed to repeated notes in the trochaic rhythm of a half note followed by a quarter.37 In measures 16–​17, where Bach ends the first phrase of the chorale with a dotted half note tied to a half note, Schelble’s alteration leads to syncopation, similar to the hemiola rhythms written by Bach in measures 46–​47, 55–​56, and 70–​71. The same sort of added syncopation is found in measures 50–​51, 59–​60, and 73–​75, which mark the end, respectively, of the third, fourth, and fifth phrases of the chorale.38 To mark the end, respectively, of the Stollen and Abgesang of this hymn, Bach devised two extremely long phrase endings, each consisting of five tied dotted half notes (mm. 30–​34 and 93–​97). Schelble, for his part, arrived at two different ways of dealing with these sustained pitches: in the former instance, a trochee followed by three quarters, a half note, and a series of rests; in the latter instance, five dotted half notes, but repeated rather than tied. Two points should be made about how the pedal line was appropriated. First, numerous slower rhythms were replaced with faster ones, with two quarter notes typically substituting for a half note and (once again) the trochee of a half note followed by a quarter substituting for a dotted half note. Second, for whatever reasons, no octave doublings are to be found, although measures 50–​54 are transposed down an octave, thus still giving the effect of a sixteen-​foot organ stop. There is no apparent reason for this aberration, and it may well be accidental. The same anomaly occurs in Schelble’s transcription of “O Mensch,” where the pedal line is transposed down an octave for only the first statement of the Stollen (mm. 1–​6). Taken as a whole, Schelble’s collection raises interesting issues about the transmission of Bach’s organ chorales in the early nineteenth century, for it represents the first time that five of these six pieces had been published in any form. Only “Das alte Jahr” was then in print, as it had

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  27 been for over twenty years, thanks to Johann Gottfried Schicht’s four-​ volume anthology, J. S. Bach’s Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel mit einem und zwey Klavieren und Pedal (1803–​6), a collection of no fewer than forty-​three compositions—​but not all of which, by any means, are authentic. Schelble, therefore, had to rely on manuscripts of the other five works. Indeed, he probably owned in manuscript a large if not massive number of organ chorales composed by or ascribed to Bach. One can make this statement just on the basis of a lost manuscript from the so-​called Sammlung Schelble-​Gleichauf—​named for Schelble and his pupil and heir Franz Xaver Gleichauf (1801–​56)—​that bore the title “140 variirte Choräle von Joh. Sebastian Bach.”39 To my knowledge, the term “variirte Choräle” (or “varierte Choräle”) was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries only for organ chorales, and not vocal arrangements of chorale tunes. And, of course, the title of Schelble’s print provides a good example of this practice. More important for our purposes is a well-​known letter dispatched by Mendelssohn to his sister Fanny in November 1831 while he was a guest at Schelble’s home in Frankfurt. He was there for only a few days, as Frankfurt was one of several stops that he made in Germany that fall as he traveled from Switzerland to Paris. His visit coincided with a performance by the city’s Caecilienverein, led by Schelble, of Bach’s Cantata 103, “Ihr werdet weinen und heulen.” At the beginning of his stay, he had received the best and worst of news from his family back in Berlin, first, that his sister Rebecka or “Beckchen” had gotten engaged to the mathematician Lejeune Dirichlet, then, that his aunt Henriette or “Jette” had died. He responded in this letter to Fanny (who herself two years earlier had married the painter Wilhelm Hensel), begun on November 14: Oh my darling sister and musician, today is your birthday, and I wanted to congratulate you and be happy, but then came your letter about Aunt Jette, and now any real joy is probably gone. Yesterday the engagement announcement came, today this letter—​things are strangely back and forth. I want to give you one of the new, unbelievably moving Seb. Bach organ pieces that I just got to know here—​they are fitting today in their pure, gentle solemnity. It’s as if you’re hearing the angels in heaven singing.

28  Bach’s Legacy The 17th. I wanted to write out the piece when I was beginning the letter, then in the evening set aside the paper, and in the morning when I got up, the whole thing was already written out. Schelble had gotten up earlier, and having heard me speak of it, got there before I did. From this tidbit, you can fill in for yourself the rest of the details of my life with him; every moment he puts me to shame with some new kindness. . . . Now play this chorale with Beckchen, as long as you are together, and think of me while you’re doing so. When, at the end, the chorale melody begins to flutter and then stops way up in the air, and everything dissolves into sound—​there it is, I think, heavenly. There are many others just as powerful, but they are too remorseful. This one is exactly fitting today, and so I’m sending it . . . N. B. The chorale is [originally] with double pedal, on eight-​foot stops. Schelble arranged it like this; not a note is missing.40

As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the piece so lovingly discussed by Mendelssohn in this letter must have been the same setting of “Wir glauben” found in Schelble’s print, that is, the work catalogued as BWV 740, mainly because no other organ chorale composed by or attributed to Bach concludes in the manner described here by Mendelssohn.41 And, as Reinmar Emans has shown, Schelble must have inscribed for Mendelssohn’s sisters his piano transcription of the work, rather than BWV 740 proper,42 just as Mendelssohn eight months later would inscribe Schelble’s transcription for Marie Kiéné. It stands to reason, therefore, that Schelble’s print was in circulation by November 1831 and that he supplied Mendelssohn with a copy of it during Mendelssohn’s stay in Frankfurt that month. Considering the wide variety of chorale types found in Bach’s organ works—​included are the melody chorale, cantus firmus chorale, chorale motet, chorale trio, chorale fantasy, and chorale partita—​and the strong likelihood that Schelble owned a huge collection of Bach organ chorales, it hardly seems coincidental that Schelble’s print is dominated by one chorale type in particular, namely, the ornamental chorale. Four of the six pieces unequivocally exemplify this type, wherein the chorale tune is heavily embellished and played on its own manual, and “Wir glauben,” despite its relative lack of ornamentation, should probably be regarded likewise. The sumptuousness of this design seems

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  29 to have appealed to Schelble almost to the exclusion of other chorale types, even though the piano allows for none of the variegated sonority that is possible when playing on two different divisions of the organ. Noteworthy, too, Schelble prescribed for three of the works a slow tempo, a decision perhaps influenced by Bach’s own tempo marking of Adagio assai for “O Mensch,” and for all five works hushed dynamics.43 Whatever factors were involved in the selection process, Schelble chose four of Bach’s very finest ornamental chorales, which attests to his musical judgment and taste. The exception to virtually all of the above is the second work in the collection, “Christus, der uns selig macht.” This work is a chorale canon, a chorale type in which the entire hymn tune is set canonically, in this case, as a canon at the octave between the outer voices. Schelble here doubled both voices at the octave (for the most part) and prescribed forte as the basic dynamic, suggesting the raw power of full organ. He provided no tempo marking. Given this work’s intensely chromatic and dissonant style, which unquestionably symbolizes the agony of the Crucifixion, this may have been one of the organ chorales owned by Schelble that Mendelssohn found too “remorseful” to send to his sisters. The same may be true of “Das alte Jahr,” even though it was one of Mendelssohn’s favorite works. Turning to more practical matters, Schelble’s transcriptions represent a fundamentally different way of playing Bach organ works as piano duets than what seems to have been the norm within the Mendelssohn circle, for whereas Schelble divided the four voices equally between the two players (and in one instance assigned the top three voices to the Primo player and the bottom two to the Secondo player), the practice adopted by Mendelssohn and his acquaintances was for one player to take all the manual voices and the other to play only the pedal line. No doubt the latter practice was simpler, especially with scores in which the pedal line was notated on its own staff: the Primo player read the top two staves, and the Secondo player read the bottom staff. But on those rare occasions when such piano duets were actually notated, the transcriber could easily distribute the material more evenly. Consider, for example, in addition to Schelble’s print, the transcriptions of Bach’s “Six Great” Preludes and Fugues, BWV 543–​ 48, by the Viennese theorist, composer, and organist

30  Bach’s Legacy Simon Sechter (1788–​1867). In arranging those predominantly four-​ voice compositions, Sechter gave the soprano and alto voices to the Primo player and the tenor and bass voices to the Secondo player. His transcriptions were never published, but they survive in an autograph manuscript found today at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek and titled Sebastian Bachs Orgelfugen für das Piano forte zu 4 Händen eingerichtet von Simon Sechter.44 Mendelssohn, though, was more accustomed to the Secondo player taking the pedal line only. That this was a common practice of the era is demonstrated by how casually it is mentioned in the prefaces to two early editions of Bach’s organ music.45 One of these publications is the first volume of the Peters edition of Bach’s complete organ works, published in 1844, whose editor, Friedrich Conrad Griepenkerl, wrote with regard to the “Thema fugatum” section of the Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582, another predominantly four-​voice work:  “On the piano, with three hands, in which case the pedal part must be played mostly an octave lower than notated, it makes a splendid effect.”46 By transposing the pedal line down an octave, Griepenkerl is saying, the Secondo player will not interfere with the left hand of the Primo player in the many passages where the pedal line, assigned to the bass voice, goes as high as or higher than the tenor. Where this is not an issue, Griepenkerl implies, the Secondo player may perform the pedal line at the notated pitch. Griepenkerl offered no advice about which hand the Secondo player should use, but surely this varied according to the preference of the individual performer and whether or not the pedal line was being played at the notated pitch, rather than down an octave. Nor did Griepenkerl mention what was surely a popular option for the Secondo player, which was to double the pedal line at the lower octave, whether using only one hand or both. Basically the same advice was given by the Leipzig organist Carl Ferdinand Becker in the preface to volume 3 of the Bachgesellschaft edition of Bach’s complete works, published in 1853. Becker’s edition contains multitudinous keyboard works by Bach, including all four parts of the Clavierübung, Part  3 of which Becker subtitled Choralvorspiele und Duetten (“Chorale Preludes and Duets,” BWV 669–​89 and 802–​5, respectively). In reference to the organ chorales from Part  3 containing pedal parts—​but surely also meaning the

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  31 Prelude and Fugue in E-​flat Major, BWV 552, a work whose two movements, respectively, open and close the collection—​ Becker wrote: “To render the chorale preludes on the piano, it is recommended that a second player perform the notes designated for the pedal an octave lower than notated.”47 Not insignificantly, Becker was a friend and colleague of Mendelssohn’s during the latter’s years in Leipzig. Throughout his life, Mendelssohn probably played Bach organ works as piano duets with many of his colleagues, thereby introducing the music to non-​organists and in the context of the salon rather than the church. We know of four such individuals, and we can only assume that Mendelssohn and Schelble engaged in this activity as well. In addition, Mendelssohn must have shared this hobby with both of his sisters, who, in turn, unquestionably enjoyed it on their own. Most of the sources refer to one performer rendering the pedal line, and never is Mendelssohn himself cited in this capacity. He probably knew the music better than anyone else he ever played with, and he was probably more technically proficient as well, so he was the obvious choice to play the manual voices. Far less skill and knowledge of the music was required of the other performer, who had to negotiate only one voice that proceeded at a relatively slow pace. In the case of Franz Hauser and the pianist Ignaz Moscheles, we know merely that each played organ works by Bach at the piano “together” with Mendelssohn.48 But as early as 1825 there is evidence that Felix and Fanny were appropriating Bach organ works in the manner outlined by Griepenkerl. Witness the following entry from the diary of Sir George Smart, an English conductor and organist who had just visited the Mendelssohn family at their home in Berlin: “young Mendelssohn played a clever fugue, pastorale, and fantasia of Sebastian Bach, all on the organ with a very difficult part for the pedals which his sister played upon the pianoforte.”49 Four years later, specifically, on July 29, 1829, Fanny could report to Felix, who was then traveling through Scotland, that she and their younger sister Rebecka were now doing much the same thing, except with both players seated at the same instrument (no doubt a piano), reading off the same score, and with Fanny now at the helm: “Beckchen is pounding out the pedal parts to the organ works with virtuosity, and sometimes it does my heart good. Old Bach would laugh himself to death if he could see it.”50 Fanny’s

32  Bach’s Legacy remarks here smack of sarcasm as well as sincerity, for Rebecka, while a gifted soprano, was certainly no keyboard “virtuoso,” unlike her two older siblings. Her inadequacies as a duet partner may not always have amused her sister, but Fanny appreciated her efforts. Assuming that Felix was used to hearing such performances by his sisters and that he also regularly collaborated with Rebecka in this fashion, he would have understood Fanny’s remarks implicitly. That the two sisters continued the tradition well into their adulthood—​ they both remained at the family’s home even after marrying—​is suggested first of all by the aforementioned letter of mid-​November 1831 that Felix sent to Fanny from Schelble’s home instructing her to “play this chorale with Beckchen.” Had Felix not expected his sisters to learn “Wir glauben” as a piano duet, he obviously never would have planned to copy it out for them. This same reasoning may be applied to Felix’s letter to Rebecka of June 4, 1839, in which he informed her of his plans to copy out various Bach organ works for her to play with her sister. Fanny was his obvious choice to play the manual voices, and Rebecka the pedal parts. Just as Rebecka assisted Fanny in this endeavor, two of Felix’s colleagues are known to have helped him in this way. One was the prominent, London-​based pianist Johann Baptist Cramer, a fellow Bach enthusiast whom Felix had met on his very first trip to England in 1829. Cramer attended a musical soirée hosted by Felix and his father Abraham in London during the summer of 1833, performing several of his own compositions and then joining Felix at the piano to sight-​ read the pedal parts of two organ works by Bach.51 The other colleague was the virtually unknown pianist Hermann Schornstein, one of Mendelssohn’s acquaintances from the nearly two years (1833–​35) he spent as municipal music director of the city of Düsseldorf. Schornstein was based in nearby Barmen, where he directed the town’s Singverein, and he had traveled to Düsseldorf one weekend, primarily, it seems, to take in a Saturday-​night concert under Mendelssohn’s baton. The next morning, Mendelssohn hosted a brunch in his quarters at the home of the painter Wilhelm von Schadow whose guest list included Schornstein, various local painters, the Krefeld-​based Musikdirektor Johann Nikolaus Wolff, and Richard Hasenclever, a local physician, writer, and amateur composer. For the musicians in attendance, Bach’s

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  33 organ works became—​quite amusingly—​the subject of a parlor game. Mendelssohn reported on the festivities in a previously unpublished letter to his mother: “The morning after, there was a big gathering at my place, and the musician from Krefeld, and the above-​mentioned music director from Barmen, and Hasenclever, and some painters showed up to edify us with Bach organ works. We drew lots to see who would play the pedal parts. Schornstein won and pounded them out well (but it would have been even better with Fanny).”52 Felix’s playful nudge in Fanny’s direction here, which implies that she was accustomed to helping him in the capacity of “pedal player” and not vice versa, makes for a touching conclusion to this vignette. It constitutes further evidence that playing Bach’s organ works “on the piano, with three hands” was a tradition beloved by the entire Mendelssohn clan.53

III Let us next consider in detail the portion of Mendelssohn’s letter to Marie Kiéné of July 1832 in which he comments directly on “Schmücke dich” and “Wir glauben.” He states first that those two works were the most beautiful that he knew, and he may not merely have been indulging in hyperbole, especially in view of his famous confession to Robert Schumann a few years later about “Schmücke dich.” As Schumann recalled in his Erinnerungen an F.  Mendelssohn, a set of handwritten notes for a never-​completed memoir of Mendelssohn, drafted shortly after his friend’s death in 1847, “Regarding Bach’s chorale prelude ‘Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele’ (in E-​flat major) he said with the most sincere expression:  ‘even if life had taken everything from me, this piece would bring me comfort’.”54 That Mendelssohn also absolutely revered “Wir glauben,” especially its concluding arabesque, is documented by the letter he sent to Fanny during his stay at Schelble’s home. As Mendelssohn’s letter to Kiéné continues, he states that the two works in question were “very difficult” in their original versions for organ. This remark should be taken as an indication of Mendelssohn’s limited technical means as an organist at the time, at least as compared to his unquestionable virtuosity as a pianist. (That he still doubted his

34  Bach’s Legacy organ technique several years later is attested to by the letter he wrote to his mother on July 3, 1839, cited above.) He may have had in his organistic arsenal a token showpiece like Bach’s A-​minor prelude and fugue, but he at least would have been challenged by both of these chorale settings, “Wir glauben,” primarily because of the rare double-​ pedal part but also because of the hand-​crossings, and “Schmücke dich,” because of the ubiquitous trills, constant eighth-​note motion in the accompanimental voices, wide-​ranging pedal part, and pedal-​ unfriendly key of E-​flat major. Indeed, these two pieces are, along with “Christus, der uns selig macht,” the hardest of the six transcribed by Schelble to play in their original versions for organ. Whether Schelble’s own organ technique—​if he played at all—​was sufficient to perform any of the six works is unknown. Mendelssohn’s comments to Kiéné on the subject of organ registration suggest, not surprisingly, that he preferred both pieces in their original versions. Furthermore, the registration he had in mind for “Wir glauben” is reminiscent of one he had actually used for “Schmücke dich” in September 1831. He was then in Munich, where, in a well-​known letter to his family, he discussed one of the local organs, probably that at the Stadtpfarrkirche St. Peter, and penned these lines expressly for Fanny’s benefit: Fanny, I have found here the stops that ought to be used in playing Seb. Bach’s “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele.” It is as if they were made for this piece, and they sound so touching that I am awestruck whenever I begin to play it. For the moving voices I have an eight-​foot flute and a very soft four-​foot flute, which continuously floats above the chorale melody. You know this effect from Berlin. But here there is a manual with reed stops on which I can play the chorale tune, so I use a soft oboe, a very gentle four-​foot clarion, and a viola. This renders the chorale so subdued and glowing, it is as if distant human voices are singing from the depths of their hearts.55

For both works, therefore, Mendelssohn’s preferred registration for the accompanimental voices was soft flute stops, a sonority entirely in accordance with the reduced dynamics prescribed by Schelble. The reduced volume level also agrees with a performance suggestion given

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  35 by Mendelssohn in his aforementioned edition, 15 Große Choral-​ Vorspiele für die Orgel von Johann Sebastian Bach. Both “Wir glauben” and “Schmücke dich” are contained in that publication, and both are marked für 2 Clav. und Ped., a heading that Mendelssohn explained in the preface as follows: “whenever the inscription für 2 Clav. und Ped. appears, mostly soft Stops should be used.”56 The letter sent from Munich connects in turn to two previously unpublished missives from the Sämtliche Briefe. One is among the very first by Mendelssohn to survive, being number 8 in that long sequence. Addressed to Mendelssohn’s family, it dates from September 1821, when its author was only twelve years old and traveling from Berlin to Weimar (to meet Goethe) with his teacher Zelter. Their first stop was Wittenberg, where they were hosted by the local organist and cantor Philipp Franz Christian Mothschiedler. Mendelssohn, who only months earlier had begun his organ studies in Berlin, was allowed to test out both of the principal organs in town, playing one of his older sister’s favorite pieces that happened to be in the key of E-​flat major: “I have already played the two organs here, and Herr Mothschiedler particularly liked, dear Fanny, your favorite piece in E-​flat major.”57 The editors of volume 1 of the Sämtliche Briefe, Juliette Appold and Regina Back, assume this work to be the setting of “Schmücke dich” from the Great Eighteen, and I would agree for the following reasons: (1) the work was one of Mendelssohn’s favorite pieces of music; (2) it is in the key of E-​flat major; (3) it was one of the first organ compositions of any kind that he learned; and (4) it was a work that particularly interested his sister Fanny, as evinced by his special mention of it to her in the letter he sent from Munich in September 1831. Felix reminded Fanny in the letter of 1831 that she had already heard him play the work in Berlin, using soft flute stops for the accompanimental voices (“You know this effect from Berlin”). Perhaps she had done so many times, and perhaps as early as 1820–​21, when she is known to have sat in on her brother’s organ lessons with August Wilhelm Bach at the city’s Marienkirche.58 Yes, if Mendelssohn found the piece “very difficult” in 1832 (letter to Kiéné), he might have found it close to unplayable in 1821, but this does not preclude the possibility that he tried to tackle it even as a pre-​teen. He was nothing if not ambitious.

36  Bach’s Legacy The second previously unpublished letter in question relates to Mendelssohn’s use of the “viola” as one of the stops for the solo melody line of “Schmücke dich” when he played the work in Munich. This missive dates from October 6, 1834, and its circumstances involve a trip to Berlin undertaken by Mendelssohn that September in hopes of securing singers for Düsseldorf ’s newly founded Theaterverein. On his return trip to Düsseldorf, he spent a couple of days in Leipzig, hosted by Franz Hauser. The main objective of his trip to Berlin may not have been fully realized, but he thoroughly enjoyed his stay in the “Sebastianstadt,” as he and Hauser referred to Leipzig. He heard a fifteen-​year-​old piano prodigy by the name of Clara Wieck, attended a thrilling rehearsal at the Gewandhaus of his concert overture Meerestille und glückliche Fahrt, and was asked whether he would consider a permanent position in the city.59 Shortly after this sojourn, he reported back to his family: In Leipzig, this time, I was received so enthusiastically as never before. Not once did I  have time to hear the St. Thomas choir again, but I did play the St. Thomas organ, and I saw the choir loft and the church and Sebastian’s podium and his organ bench. The organ is in bad condition, but a good instrument. The full-​organ registration is one of the best-​sounding I’ve ever heard, so that the long fugues don’t sound unclear or deafening or screaming, as would otherwise be the case, but beautiful and broadly reverberant. The organ also has a good viola da gamba, on which [Bach] enjoyed playing many a chorale. It is a curious feeling, I believe, when you hear the same sounds [that Bach heard] after such a long time.60

Mendelssohn probably got acquainted with this organ on his first trip to Leipzig in October 1821, when he and Zelter were given a guided tour of the Thomasschule by J.  G. Schicht, then Thomaskantor.61 The letter from October 1834, though, marks the first and only time that he is known to have written in any detail about the instrument. He was favorably impressed, especially when playing “long fugues” by Bach with a big registration. Of all the “long fugues” by Bach that

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  37 Mendelssohn might have known at the time, none was more likely to have been selected than the one in A minor (BWV 543/​2) he had played in London. He probably also played Bach chorale settings (or at least improvised on chorales in the style of Bach), using the Viola da Gamba 8ˊ on the Hauptwerk and imagining how his renowned forebear might have utilized the stop in playing chorales—​even though that stop, which was evidently one of Bach’s favorites, was unavailable on the instrument Bach would have known.62 Little could Mendelssohn have known that about six years later—​ on August 6, 1840, to be exact—​he would score arguably his greatest triumph as an organist on this very instrument. On that occasion, he played for the first and only time in his life a full-​length, public organ recital. Intended to raise funds for a monument to Bach in Leipzig, and consisting of six works by Bach in addition to improvisations, the concert was a critical as well as a financial success. It counts as the most famous organ recital ever given.63 Five years later still, in a previously unpublished letter to Friedrich Schlemmer of October 8, 1845, Mendelssohn alluded generically—​ and most amusingly—​to the eight-​foot stops on the organ at the Thomaskirche. He did so in an effort to entice Schlemmer to visit him in Leipzig, appealing to his friend as an art-​lover, hunter, and organist:  “[From Leipzig] you can reach Dresden in four hours, where there are beautiful Raphaels, the Harz Mountains in six hours, where there are wild boars, [and] the Thomas Orgel in five minutes, where there are good eight-​footers.”64 Mendelssohn’s pun here has one imagining those eight-​ foot stops as thoroughly exotic big-​ game animals that made for even better sport than their four-​legged counterparts in the Harz Mountains. What might Schlemmer have performed on that instrument had he come? Naturally, he would have played some Bach, including selections from the Orgelbüchlein, for Mendelssohn included along with his letter a copy of his edition of those works, which had appeared earlier that year. But Schlemmer no doubt would have played some Mendelssohn as well, for Mendelssohn included in that same mailing a copy of his own Six Sonatas for the Organ, which had been published only a month earlier and which are dedicated to none other than Schlemmer.65

38  Bach’s Legacy

IV Finally, the Sämtliche Briefe cast new light on Mendelssohn’s reception of Bach’s organ works during the last three years of his life. There are three letters to consider, starting with one written in Berlin at the end of Mendelssohn’s tenure there as Generalmusikdirektor of the Prussian court. Before the appearance of the Sämtliche Briefe, this missive had never been accurately transcribed. Addressed to the Prussian general Karl Emil von Webern, and dated November 24, 1844, it is really nothing more than an invitation: Dear good warrior and friend, many thanks for the pleasant luncheon yesterday! Tomorrow (Monday) afternoon at 2:00 I’m playing the organ at the Dreifaltigkeitskirche. The door onto the Mohrenstraße will be open. If you want to come and bring along any of your acquaintances who are sincerely interested in a grim Sebastian Bach, you’d be doing me a proper favor. Yours, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.66

To begin with the venue and the instrument, the Dreifaltigkeitskirche, or the Church of the Holy Trinity, had been the home parish of Abraham Mendelssohn and his family since 1825 (they had moved to Berlin in 1811).67 Conveniently located only a few minutes from the Mendelssohns’ home at Leipzigerstraße 3, the church stood at the intersection of Mauerstraße, Kanonierstraße (since 1951, Glinkastraße) and Mohrenstraße, in a section of eastern Berlin (Freidrichstadt) where the Berlin Wall would later stand. The church opened its doors in 1739. It was demolished in 1947, having been severely damaged during the Second World War. It housed an organ from 1775 by Ernst Marx on which Mendelssohn is known to have often played, thanks in no small measure to the generosity of the church’s organist, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Kühnau. Karl Emil von Webern lived only a few blocks away. He had known Mendelssohn for over two decades and regarded him as the best organist he had ever heard.68 In fact, at the luncheon mentioned by Mendelssohn, Webern, who probably hosted this affair, had expressed his desire to “once again” hear Mendelssohn play the organ. Another Prussian dignitary invited by Mendelssohn to his performance was

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  39 the Geheimrat (Privy Councillor) to Frederick William IV, Ludwig von Massow. Mendelssohn’s invitation to Massow has not survived, but Massow’s reply of November 24 has: “Your Excellency, I thank you most courteously for the kind note that I received today, and I, along with some friends of mine whom I’ve taken the liberty of inviting, will be at the Church of the Holy Trinity promptly at 2:00 tomorrow afternoon.”69 Mendelssohn’s listeners probably also included Kühnau as well as Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny, who still lived at the family’s home on Leipzigerstraße. She was certainly in town at the time,70 and she absolutely shared her brother’s enthusiasm for all things Bach. Mendelssohn, however, was expecting a mostly lay audience. Perhaps he feared they would find his Bach selections too serious and learned for their taste, which might explain his tongue-​in-​cheek reference to Bach as a “grim” composer (“ein grimmiger Sebastian Bach”). Whatever the case, it is tempting to believe that Mendelssohn played for about an hour as he had done four years earlier at his all-​Bach recital in Leipzig, offering various free and chorale-​based works by Bach and, of course, improvising. The second letter in question, previously unpublished, finds Mendelssohn back in Leipzig, writing on April 2, 1847 to the organist he most admired, Johann Gottlob Schneider. Schneider was the organist of the Sophienkirche in Dresden, which housed a gem of an organ by Gottfried Silbermann on which Bach himself had performed. In his letter to Schneider, Mendelssohn was corresponding in his capacity as conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in reply to an inquiry by Schneider about whether the orchestra might program an “overture” by Schneider’s former pupil Carl Friedrich Theodor Berthold (presumably Berthold’s Ouverture solennelle sur l’hymne national russe pour grande orchestre avec choeur). Mendelssohn explained that the orchestra had just played its last concert of the season, but he also suggested that Berthold resubmit his score for consideration in September or October. (There is no record of a composition by Berthold ever being performed at the Gewandhaus.) The maestro then turned, facetiously and self-​deprecatingly, to the subject of Bach’s organ music:  “Hopefully you will permit me, the next time I’m in Dresden, to seek you out once again in order to butcher some double-​ pedal works by Sebastian Bach.”71

40  Bach’s Legacy There is considerable evidence of Mendelssohn’s admiration for Schneider, including a report by another of Schneider’s pupils that Mendelssohn, whenever he was in Dresden, never passed up an opportunity to hear Schneider perform and that he sometimes traveled from Leipzig to Dresden expressly to hear the great virtuoso.72 Scholars have even proposed that Schneider coached Mendelssohn in organ playing on these visits. Schneider was especially renowned for his pedal playing, as this eyewitness account by Edward Holmes attests: “[Schneider] plunged into the thick of the Kyries of Sebastian Bach, playing the whole of six and seven parts with such a towering skill in the pedals as to make one think the old author returned from his grave.”73 One could extrapolate from Holmes’s report that Schneider had executed a work by Bach with double pedal, most likely the double-​pedal, six-​voice setting of “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir” (BWV 686) from Part 3 of the Clavierübung. (There are no actual Kyrie settings by Bach for the organ that exceed five voices.) At any rate, it would come as no surprise to learn that a master “pedalist” like Schneider excelled at double-​pedaling. Mendelssohn, though, was primarily a pianist, and pedaling was no doubt his greatest weakness as an organist, no matter how much he was praised for his pedaling in England, where the practice was still something of a novelty. With all of these factors in mind, Mendelssohn’s amusing comment on the subject in his letter to Schneider makes it quite plausible that he had been advised by Schneider on the finer points of double-​pedaling. Mendelssohn, though, would more likely have chosen “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740, as a specimen of this technique. That work was an old favorite of his, and he had edited it for publication only a year earlier as one of the 15 Große Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel von Johann Sebastian Bach. Less than two weeks later, Mendelssohn arrived in England for the tenth and final time. During this whirlwind, month-​long stay, he conducted his oratorio Elijah in London, Manchester, and Birmingham, and performed non-​stop in London as a pianist. He was also prevailed upon in the English capital to play the organ at a “Concert of Ancient Music” organized by Prince Albert (himself an organist) for the Hanover Square Rooms. To be sure, this was a storied venue, but its smallish organ was regarded as “one of the worst in

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  41 the metropolis.”74 Its tone must have been wretched, and its “English” pedal board extended only from G to cˊ, a circumstance that had caused Mendelssohn three years earlier to cancel a previously announced performance on the instrument. He probably deigned to play it this time around only to please the prince. Mendelssohn did not on this occasion, as was formerly believed, improvise a prelude and fugue on B-​A-​C-​H. Rather, according to yet another previously unpublished letter from the Sämtliche Briefe, he played a pre-​existing prelude and fugue by someone else on those four pitches. His letter, written in slightly imperfect English, was probably intended for the composer (and Mozart arranger) Henry Bishop, who was the artistic director for the event: My dear Sir, I regret most sincerely not having been at home when you did me the honor to call this morning. I should have told you so in person if the few days which still remain of my stay in London were not so entirely taken up with businesses of all sorts, & I therefore beg you will excuse my writing this note to thank you for your kindness and to beg you will put down my piece for Wednesday’s concert under the title: Prelude and Fuge on the name of BACH _​_​_​_​_​_​_​  Bach Pray do not say Seb. Bach as the authors name; because I am not quite sure whether it is his or one of his sons (although it is published amongst Sebastian’s works.) Believe me always to remain, my Dear Sir yours most faithfully Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy75

Mendelssohn, therefore, chose not to extemporize on B-​A-​C-​H as he had done at his all-​Bach organ recital in Leipzig but to play a prelude and fugue on that theme that had already been published as a composition by J. S. Bach. This can only mean the Prelude and Fugue on B-​A-​C-​H, BWV 898, a composition originally published in 1819 under the title Praeludium und Fuge über den Namen BACH für das Pianoforte oder die Orgel von Joh. Seb. Bach. By 1847

42  Bach’s Legacy the piece had become a popular selection for both organists and pianists.76 Robert Schumann, in reviewing performances of the work in Leipzig by the organists C. F. Becker (1841) and Carl Kloß (1843), had already voiced far stronger doubts than Mendelssohn about the attribution to J. S. Bach, and in these terms: “Bach’s hand appears in no way to be recognized in [this piece]; perhaps it is entirely the work of one of Bach’s pupils.”77 Whether or not Schumann sensed in the piece a more modern style than that of J. S. Bach, he was correct about a later composer being responsible for it: the harmonic language and pianistic idiom point to the late eighteenth century if not the early nineteenth.78 And surely the dim view that Schumann took of the work colored Mendelssohn’s opinion of it. Mendelssohn probably chose it in this instance just to keep the use of pedal to a bare minimum. Both movements may be played with no pedal at all. Three days after his appearance at the Hanover Square Rooms, Mendelssohn returned to his native Germany for the last time. He would die there six months later, only thirty-​eight years of age. He should be regarded as the greatest champion of Bach’s organ works in the whole history of music.

Notes 1. “Hierzu halte ich es nun wirklich für nothwendig, den Namen Sebastian Bach auf dem Programm zu haben, wenn auch nur mit einem kurzen Stück; aber es ist gewiß Zeit, daß bei diesen Festen, denen [G. F.] Händel so viel Glanz verliehen hat, auch der andere unsterbliche Meister, der in keinem Stück unter einem andern Meister, in vielen über allen steht, nicht länger vergessen werde.” Letter of January 18, 1838 to the administrative committee of the Lower Rhenish Music Festival (emphasis added). See Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy:  Sämtliche Briefe, ed. Helmut Loos and Wilhelm Seidel, 12 vols. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2008–​17), 5: 464. 2. To be exact, a few fragments of the letter have been published due to the efforts of Wm. A. Little. See Little’s article, “Felix Mendelssohn and J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor (BWV 533),” The American Organist 39, no. 2 (February 2005), 73–​83, especially 76; and his monograph, Mendelssohn and the Organ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 108 and 123. For

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  43 discussions of Mendelssohn’s organ playing on his grand tour, see Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 39–​43; Russell Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 17–​30; and Russell Stinson, “Mendelssohns große Reise: Ein Beitrag zur Rezeption von Bachs Orgelwerken,” Bach-​Jahrbuch 88 (2002), 119–​37. 3. See Sämtliche Briefe, 1: 160. 4. “Meine große Freude in London war, daß ich jeden Sonntag nach der Kirche in St Paul die Orgel spielen konnte, so lange ich wollte, ja als die Leute davon hörten und hinkamen um die Bachsche Fuge aus amoll zu hören mit dem Schluß der die Pfeiler erschüttert, da boten mir auch andre Organisten in der Woche ihre Orgeln an, da konnte ich denn nach Herzenslust spielen. Dort sind die Orgeln meist sehr gut und so habe ich mich fleißig im Sebastian Bach üben können: die amoll Fuge und ‘das alte Jahr’ kamen jedesmal vor ich habe vom Spielen noch nie solch eine Freude gehabt wie an diesen Sonntagen, wenn ich so blos zu meinem Vergnügen und nach meinem Sinn spielen konnte, was mir wohl that. Da wünschte ich mir aber Sie und Adèle jedesmal herbei, denn ich weiß, wie Sie solche Musik lieben, und weil ich Sie doch eben nicht herbeischaffen konnte, so wollte ich gern die Stücke zu Ihnen schaffen, konnte sie aber nirgends in London bekommen. Doch denke ich mir daß es Adèle freuen wird, die zwei Lieblingschoräle zu haben, die ich noch um ½ 6 vor Abgang der Post spielte, darum habe ich sie abgeschrieben, und schicke sie hiermit. Es ist die schönste Musik, die ich kenne, und ich hoffe, sie wird sie gern und oft spielen. Sie sind eigentlich für Orgel mit sanften Stimmen, aber da sie sehr schwer sind, so haben die Leute sie 4händig arrangirt; sollte es Adèle jedoch lieber allein spielen, so wären blos die beiden Stimmen primo und Secondo zusammen zu schreiben, und die Octaven im Baß und Soprano wegzulassen; das Pedal macht dann den Baß. Bei dem zweiten, wo ich C. F. hingeschrieben habe, geht der einfache Choralgesang durch. Es ist nur gar zu Schade, daß ich es Ihnen nicht mit den Flötenstimmen auf der Orgel vorspielen kann; es klingt da gar zu himmlisch. Einer meiner Freunde und ich denken jetzt daran eine vollständige Sammlung seiner großen Orgelsachen drucken zu lassen; sobald es erscheint, erlaube ich mir es Ihnen zuzuschicken.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 578–​79. 5. This is the same conclusion reached in the commentary to this letter in the Sämtliche Briefe (vol. 2, p. 737). For further information on Mendelssohn’s involvement with these two works, see Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works,  7–​75.

44  Bach’s Legacy 6. Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 390–​ 91; and R. Larry Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 259. 7. A second arrangement, BWV 1091, surfaced in the mid-​1980s with the discovery of the so-​called Neumeister Collection. 8. “Ich hab viel grössere Lust zu den Choralvorspielen weil sie mit dem ‘alten Jahr’ anfangen, weil andre große Lieblinge drin sind, und weil die Passec. und die Fuge schon gedruckt sind.” Letter of June 18, 1839. See Sämtliche Briefe, 6:  414. See also Wm. A. Little, “Mendelssohns Dilemma:  Die Sammlung Choralvorspiele oder die Passecaille?” in “Zu groß, zu unerreichbar.” Bach-​Rezeption im Zeitalter Mendelssohns und Schumanns, ed. Anselm Hartinger et  al. (Wiesbaden:  Breitkopf & Härtel, 2007), 381–​93; and Bach-​Dokumente VI, 381. 9. “Eine schöne Quelle mit Seb. Bachschen Orgelstücken habe ich hier gefunden; einige neue sehr bedeutende Sachen davon will ich an Fanny schicken sobald ich sie fertig abgeschrieben habe; dann spielt ihr sie wieder zusammen, Du Pedal.” Letter of June 4, 1839. See Sämtliche Briefe, 6: 400. 10. “Für den Bach danke ich Ihnen noch alle Tage . . .” Letter of November 14, 1839. See Sämtliche Briefe, 7: 71. 11. “Spiele ich alle Tage 2 Stunden Pedal auf einem Clavier, das sich Dr.  Schlemmer zu seinen Orgelstudien hat machen lassen, und habe einige Sachen die mir sonst unmöglich schienen bereits ganz bezwungen z.  B.  die Passacaglia von Bach und einige der schwereren Orgelfugen.” Letter of July 3, 1839. See Sämtliche Briefe, 6: 422. 12. Sämtliche Briefe, 6: 425. According to Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 111, Felix intended these lines for his sister Rebecka. 13. “Da hatte ich außerdem noch . . . Kuchen aller Arten—​einen von Graf Reuss auf dem steht der Bachsche Choral ‘das alte Jahr vergangen ist’ in Zuckernoten, und darunter ‘das neue soll leben’.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 6: 301. 14. Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 121–​25. 15. Sämtliche Briefe, 3: 497. 16. “Wir glauben uns jedoch nicht zu irren, wenn wir diese Orgelsachen für dieselben halten, welche wir bereits vor acht oder zehn Jahren in einem sehr musikalischen Hause Berlins kennen lernten, wo ein jetzt berühmter Componist sie gemeinschaftlich mit seinem Freunde, der nun verstorben, zu sammeln angefangen hatte. Wenn wir uns nicht täuschen, so war die Quelle, aus welcher jene Verehrer Sebastian Bach’s schöpften, theils die Bibliothek Zelters, welche so reich an Handschriften dieses Meisters war, theils die des Joachimsthalschen Gymnasiums, die ebenfalls einen großen

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  45 Reichthum an Compositionen dieses alten Meisters besitzt.” The complete review appears in Bach-​Dokumente VI, 499–​500. 17. On the Bach copies by Rietz that he donated to the Mendelssohns, see Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works, 19 and 21–​22. 18. “Weil ich heut als Sühnopfer noch nicht etwas schicken kann, woran ich selbst arbeite, so muß der alte Bach mein Schild und Schutz sein, und so schreibe ich auf die nächste Seite ein kleines Stück, welches ich hier vor 14 Tagen zufällig habe kennen lernen. . . . Die Oberstimme ist abermals ein ausgeschmückter Choral und wird auf der Orgel mit etwas stärkeren Registern gespielt, auf den Clavier müßte man sie in Octaven spielen, oder am besten wär es glaub ich, wenn Herr Baillot die Oberstimme auf seiner Geige sänge, und dann das Clavier ruhig drunter fort ginge. Ich möchte zuhören können, wenn Adèle es mit ihm spielt.” Letter of September 4, 1832. See Sämtliche Briefe, 3: 46–​49, which also contains a transcription of Mendelssohn’s handwritten copy of the piece. For a detailed discussion, see Russell Stinson, J. S.  Bach:  The Orgelbüchlein (New  York:  Schirmer Books, 1996), 157–​59; and Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works, 32–​34. Both of these publications contain a facsimile of Mendelssohn’s handwritten copy. 19. On Baillot’s violin technique, see Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, 35. In yet another letter to Kiéné, written shortly after Baillot’s death in 1842, Mendelssohn referred to the violinist’s “splendid tone.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 9: 60. 20. On Baillot and Mendelssohn, see Sämtliche Briefe, 1:  160 and 165; Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 429, 440, and 684; and Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, 35–​36, 142–​43, and 253–​54. 21. “Wie täglich ich Ihrer und der Ihrigen denke und wie ich an die Zeit in Ihrem Hause mich jede Stunde erinnern muß, das brauche ich Ihnen wohl nicht zu sagen . . . und wenn ich an meine unangenehme Krankheitszeit denken will, so steht mir gleich wieder Ihr liebes Haus vor Augen und läßt mich zu keinem bösen Gedanken kommen . . .” See Sämtliche Briefe, 2:  577. For more on the care administered by Kiéné to Mendelssohn during his illness, see Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 517–​18 and 524–​25. 22. Nor has Mendelssohn’s autograph of the letter itself. See Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 737. 23. On the authorship of “Wir glauben,” see NBA IV/​10 (Orgelchoräle aus unterschiedlicher Überlieferung, ed. Reinmar Emans), Kritischer Bericht, 511–​15; and Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J.  S. Bach, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 487. The work is listed as Krebs-​WV 554 in Felix Friedrich’s thematic catalogue of Krebs’s oeuvre.

46  Bach’s Legacy See Friedrich, Thematisch-​systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Johann Ludwig Krebs (Altenburg: Kamprad, 2009), 125. 24. Max Schneider, “Verzeichnis der bis zum Jahre 1851 gedruckten (und der geschrieben in Handel gewesen) Werke von Johann Sebastian Bach,” Bach-​Jahrbuch 3 (1906), 84–​113, esp. 105. 25. “Bei Dunst in Frankf. ist der Ite Heft Var. Choraele fürs P. f. zu 4 Haenden (:  von Schelble) eingerichtet, erschienen, der folgende 6 Choraele enthaelt:  Schmücke dich o liebe Seele/​Xstus der uns selig macht/​Wir glauben all an einen Gott/​Das alte Jahr vergangen ist/​O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross/​ Nun komm der Heiden Heiland.” See Yoshitake Kobayashi, Franz Hauser und seine Bach-​ Handschriften Sammlung, Ph.D. diss., Georg-​August-​Universität (1973), 272. 26. Oskar Bormann, Johann Nepomuk Schelble: Sein Leben, sein Wirken und seine Werke, Ph.D. diss., University of Frankfurt (1926). Bormann does mention (pp. 71–​72 and 143) Schelble’s orchestration of Bach’s Prelude in C Minor for organ, BWV 546/​1. For a digital photograph of Schelble’s autograph manuscript of this transcription, see the website of the library of Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main. Bormann also cites an orchestration by Schelble of Bach’s “Wedge” fugue for organ, BWV 548/​2, but this transcription has evidently not survived. 27. See, for example, NBA IV/​ 1 (Orgelbüchlein, Sechs Choräle von verschiedener Art [Schübler Choräle], Orgelpartiten, ed. Heinz-​Harald Löhlein), Kritischer Bericht, 109; and Christine Blanken, “Recently Rediscovered Sources of Music of the Bach Family in the Breitkopf Archive,” Bach Perspectives 11 (2017), 132–​71, esp. 138, n. 5. 28. Arthur Schanz, J. S.  Bach in der Klaviertranskription (Eisenach:  Karl Dieter Wagner, 2000), 121, 526–​27, 531, 537, and 547. I have been unable to find any evidence to support Schanz’s claim (p. 547) that Dunst issued a second volume containing four-​hand transcriptions of BWV 615, 618, 651, 658, and Anh. 68. 29. Schanz (p. 547) designates the last work as BWV 659a, while Kobayashi designates it as “BWV 659 oder 659a”. Consistent with Kobayashi’s designation, Schelble’s transcription does seem to fall somewhere between the early (BWV 659a) and late (BWV 659) versions of this work: in measures 19–​20 of the right-​hand part for the Primo player, the transcription lacks the two appoggiaturas found only in the late version; yet in measures 22–​23, where the two versions disagree the most, the transcription follows the more ornate readings of the late version. Consistent with Schanz’s designation, but not with Kobayashi’s, Schelble’s transcription of “Christus,

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  47 der uns selig macht” is based on the early (BWV 620a), not the late (BWV 620) version of that work. Schanz’s designation agrees with that found in NBA IV/​1, Kritischer Bericht, 109. 30. Regarding the figures used in this chapter, it should first be pointed out that Schelble’s collection was published in oblong format. Therefore, to allow for reasonably large reproductions of the source, the figures here are positioned sideways. As is typical of piano duets, Schelble printed the Secondo parts as left pages and the Primo parts as facing right pages. But to allow the music to be viewed here as a kind of full score, the parts are reversed. 31. Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 737. 32. As may be seen in Figure  1.2, Schelble divided the arabesque between the two hands of the Primo player, to avoid hand-​crossings; for the same reason, he shortened the accompanying chords. 33. By “accompanimental voice,” I mean any voice other than the one that states the chorale tune proper. 34. In this edition, whose main contents are the Great Eighteen chorales, the abbreviation “C. F.” is used this way for BWV 652, 654, 656, 657, and 663. 35. The minor ninth found on the last beat of measure 7 is obviously a mistake—​and one of many in this print. Observe, too, how on the same beat the bass voice is doubled at the lower octave and furnished with an accent mark to boot, thereby underscoring the inflection to the submediant. 36. Consider, for example, the Stollen (mm. 1–​15) of “Wir glauben.” The organ version contains thirty ties, only seven of which did Schelble retain. 37. The two dotted half notes that remain in measures 68–​69 were probably left unchanged by accident. Observe also the missing ornamentation, which makes the passage doubly suspect. 38. Starting in measure 52, Schelble made precisely this type of rhythmic alteration—​whatever one may think of its musical merits—​in the three accompanimental voices as well, sometimes enhanced by a sforzando indication or an accent mark. See measures 52, 59–​62, 76, and 94. 39. NBA IV/​5–​6 (Präludien, Toccaten, Fantasien und Fugen für Orgel, ed. Dietrich Kilian), Kritischer Bericht, 254. 40. “O mein liebes Schwesterlein und Musiker, heut ist dein Geburtstag und ich wollte Dir gratuliren und froh sein, da kamen Eure Briefe über Tante Jette und mit der rechten Freude ist es nun wohl vorbei. Gestern kam die Verlobungsnachricht, heute diese, es geht sonderbar hin und her. Ich will Dir eins von den neuen unbegreiflich rührenden Seb. Bachschen

48  Bach’s Legacy Orgelstücken schenken, die ich hier eben kennen gelernt, sie passen zu heut in ihrer reinen weichen Feierlichkeit, es ist also hörte man die Engel im Himmel singen. d. 17ten. Ich wollte das Stück schreiben, als ich den Brief anfing, legte das Papier Abends zurecht, und morgens als ich aufstand, war das ganze schon fertig geschrieben, Schelble war früher aufgestanden, hatte mich davon sprechen hören und war mir zuvorgekommen. An diesem kleinen Zug kannst Du Dir mein übriges Leben mit ihm weiter ausmalen; er beschämt mich jeden Augenblick durch neue Güte. . . . Nun spiele diesen Choral mit Beckchen, so lange ihr noch zusammen seid, und denkt mein dabei. Wenn am Ende die Choralmelodie zu flattern anfängt und oben in der Luft endigt und alles sich in Klang auflös’t, das ist wohl göttlich. Es sind noch viel andre von gleicher Kraft da, aber sie sind bittrer. Zu heute paßt dieser gerade, und so schicke ich ihn . . . N. B. Der Choral ist mit DoppelPedal 8 Fuß, Schelble hat ihn so eingerichtet, es fehlt keine Note.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 421–​22. According to Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 679, Henriette Mendelssohn died from cholera on November 9, 1831. 41. Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works, 24–​27. The manuscript copied by Schelble has not survived. 42. NBA IV/​10, Kritischer Bericht, 513. See also Emans’s article, “Notwendige Korrekturen am Bach-​Bild Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys,” in Bach und die deutsche Tradition des Komponierens:  Wirklichkeit und Ideologie, ed. Reinmar Emans and Wolfram Steinbeck (Dortmund:  Klangfarben Musikverlag, 2009), 139–​45, esp. 144–​45. Wm. A.  Little’s magisterial Mendelssohn and the Organ should also be mentioned in this connection, for the author writes on page 115, after discussing Felix’s letter to Fanny, that “ ‘Wir glauben all’ may well be one of the two chorale preludes from Schelble’s collection that Mendelssohn copied for Mme. Kiéné in the summer of 1832.” Little’s statement earlier on the same page that it was Mendelssohn who copied the work for his sisters, however, is clearly wrong. 43. For “Das alte Jahr” and “O Mensch,” Schelble provided the tempo marking of Adagio; for “Nun komm,” Larghetto. 44. Christine Blanken, Die Bach-​ Quellen in Wien und Alt-​ Österreich (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2011), 417–​18. On pages 587 and 993 of this study, Blanken also lists the print of organ-​chorale transcriptions just discussed, but without citing Schelble as the transcriber. Another manuscript containing Sechter’s transcriptions, dated April 4, 1832 and

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  49 in the hand of an unknown copyist, is housed today at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin under the shelf number Mus. ms. Bach P 925. For further information on the Berlin manuscript, whose connection to Sechter’s transcriptions has never before been pointed out, see NBA IV/​5–​6, Kritischer Bericht, 88; and Paul Kast, Die Bach-​Handschriften der Berliner Staatsbibliothek (Trossingen: Hohner-​Verlag, 1958), 55. 45. Similarly, one finds in the biography of the nineteenth-​century British organist Herbert Stanley Oakeley the following statement about Oakeley’s habit of playing Bach’s “grand organ fugues” at the piano:  “Herbert Oakeley had no sympathy with the objection of some purists to making the pianoforte proxy for the organ. He was very fond of doing so himself, either solo or with a second performer as ‘pedal organ’.” See Edward Murray Oakeley, The Life of Sir Herbert Stanley Oakeley (London: George Allen, 1904), 56. 46. “Auf dem Fortepiano mit drei Händen, wo man denn das Pedal meistens eine Oktav tiefer nehmen muß, macht sie sich vortrefflich.” See Joh. Seb. Bach’s Compositionen für die Orgel, vol. 1, ed. Friedrich Conrad Griepenkerl (Leipzig: C. F. Peters, 1844), iv. 47. “Um die Choralvorspiele  .  .  .  auf dem Pianoforte vorzutragen, ist anzurathen, dass ein zweiter Spieler die dem Pedal vorgezeichneten Töne eine Octave tiefer spiele.” See Johann Sebastian Bach’s Werke, vol. 3, ed. Carl Ferdinand Becker (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1853), xiv. 48. See Mendelssohn’s letter to Hauser of October 21, 1839, published in Sämtliche Briefe, 7: 59–​62 (see especially p. 60); and his letter to Moscheles of August 10, 1832, published in Sämtliche Briefe, 3: 30–​32 (see especially p. 30). The former missive, which has never before been published in its entirety, documents that Mendelssohn and Hauser played “together” chorale settings from the Orgelbüchlein. 49. Entry of October 13, 1825. See H. Bertram and C. L. E. Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart (London:  Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907), 173. The “pastorale” cited by Smart was undoubtedly the Pastorale in F Major, BWV 590, a work that seems to have been a favorite of the entire Mendelssohn family. On this point, see Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works,  16–​17. 50. “Beckchen paukt mit Virtuosität das Pedal zu den Orgelsachen, u.  ich stärke mein Herz zuweilen daran. Der alte Bach würde sich todtlachen, wenn er das sehen könnte.” See Fanny und Felix Mendelssohn: “Die Musik will gar nicht rutschen ohne Dich” (Briefwechsel 1821 bis 1846), ed. Eva Weissweiler (Berlin: Propyläen, 1997), 85.

50  Bach’s Legacy 51. Hans-​Günter Klein, “Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy in England. Die Briefe aus London im Sommer 1833 nach Berlin,” Mendelssohn-​Studien 12 (2001), 55–​127, esp. 108. 52. “Am folgenden Morgen war nun große séance bei mir, indem die Crefelder Musiker, und der obige Barmer Musikdirector, und Hasenclever, und einige Maler, sich einfanden, um uns an Bachschen Orgelsachen zu erbauen. Wir loos’ten wer das Pedal spielen sollte, Schornstein trafs und trommelte gut (Fanny wär doch noch besser gewesen).” Letter of May 6, 1834. See Sämtliche Briefe, 3: 416–​17. 53. Regarding the nineteenth-​century practice of playing Bach’s organ works on the piano, consider also the curious case of John Robert Lunn, an organist and clergyman who from 1857 to 1864 served as Fellow and Sadleirian Lecturer of Pure Mathematics at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge. According to the biography of William Sterndale Bennett, who was then Professor of Music at Cambridge—​ not to mention the founding president of the London Bach Society as well as a friend of both Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann—​Lunn satisfied his fetish for Bach’s organ music (and for the forty-​eight preludes and fugues that comprise the composer’s Well-​Tempered Clavier) in the promenading room of St. John’s known as the Long Gallery: “Another [Bach] zealot was the Rev. J. R. Lunn, a young Fellow of St John’s College, who in this same ‘Long’ was finishing a small manuscript copy of the 48 Preludes and Fugues as a pocket-​companion for evening parties! and who also, with the aid of the diagram of a pedal-​ board painted on the floor beneath his pianoforte, was vigorously practising the Organ Fugues, to the mystification and distraction of the pupils of an eminent mathematical ‘coach’ in the rooms below.” See James Robert Sterndale Bennett, The Life of William Sterndale Bennett (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1907), 267. The “coach” in question was presumably either William Hopkins, who worked at Cambridge in this capacity from 1830 to 1858, or Edward Routh, who did so from 1855 to 1888. At any rate, Hopkins and Routh were by far the most successful coaches of “Senior Wranglers” (the name given to the top undergraduate students in mathematics) at Cambridge during the nineteenth century. On this point, see John N. Howard, “Principal Scientific Contributions of John William Strutt, Third Baron Rayleigh,” in Springs of Scientific Creativity: Essays on Founders of Modern Science, ed. Rutherford Aris et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 163–​87, esp. 165. Lunn’s papers are housed today at the library of St. John’s College, but they include no materials

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  51 related either to the Well-​Tempered Clavier or to Bach’s organ works. For this information, I  thank Adam Crothers, Special Collections Assistant. 54. “Bei dem Choralvorspiel v. Bach ‘Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele’ (in Es dur) sagte er mir d. innigsten Ausdruck: ‘wenn mir das Leben alles genommen hätte, dies Stück würde mich wieder trösten’.” See Erinnerungen an Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy:  Nachgelassene Aufzeichnungen von Robert Schumann, ed. Georg Eismann (Zwickau: Predella-​Verlag, 1948), 39. 55. “Fanny, habe ich hier die Register gefunden, mit denen man Seb. Bachs ‘Schmücke Dich o liebe Seele” spielen muß; das ist, als wären sie dazu gemacht, und klingt so rührend, daß mich es alle Tage wieder durchschauert, wenn ich es wieder anfange. Zu den gehenden Stimmen habe ich eine Flöte 8 Fuß und eine ganz sanfte 4 Fuß, die nun immer über dem Choral schwebt, Du kennst das schon von Berlin her; aber zum Choral ist ein Clavier da, das lauter Zungenregister hat, und da nehme ich dann eine sanfte Hoboe, ein Clairon sehr leise 4ˊ, und eine Viola; das zieht den Choral so still und durchdringend, als wären es ferne Menschenstimmen, die ihn aus tiefstem Herzensgrunde sängen.” Letter of September 16, 1831. See Sämtliche Briefe, 2: 395; and Bach-​Dokumente VI, 278–​79. 56. “Was die Registritung betrifft, so dürfte es nicht überflüssig sein hier im Allgemeinen zu bemerken, dass . . . wo ‘für 2 Claviere und Pedal’ steht, fast nur sanfte Register anzuwenden sind.” 57. “Ich habe schon auf beiden Orgeln hier gespielt und Herrn Mothschilder gefiel dein Lieblingsstück aus es dur liebe Fanni besonders.” Letter of October 27 and 28, 1821. See Sämtliche Briefe, 1:  70. See also Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 359. 58. Sämtliche Briefe, 1: 69. 59. Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music, 297–​98. 60. “In Leipzig bin ich diesmal so brillant aufgenommen worden, wie noch nirgends, ich hatte nicht einmal Zeit den Thomaschor wieder zu hören, dagegen habe ich die Thomasorgel gespielt, und mir den Chor und die Kirche und das Pult des Sebastian, und seine Orgelbank angesehen; die Orgel ist schlecht im Stande, aber ein gutes Instrument, das volle Werk eines der wohlklingendsten die ich gehört habe, so daß die langen Fugen gar nicht undeutlich, oder betäubend schreiend klingen, wie sonst wohl, sondern schön und breit herabströmen. Auch eine gute Viol da Gamba ist da, womit er manchen Choral gespielt haben mag, das ist ein curioses Gefühl, wenn man so nach langer Zeit dieselben Töne wieder zu hören meint.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 4: 67.

52  Bach’s Legacy 61. Sämtliche Briefe, 1: 72–​73. 62. The organ played by Mendelssohn was a rebuild of a rebuild. For specifications, see Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 384–​85. On Bach and this organ stop, see Robert L. and Traute M. Marshall, Exploring the World of J. S. Bach: A Traveler’s Guide (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 207. 63. For a comprehensive discussion, see Matthias Pape, Mendelssohns Leipziger Orgelkonzert 1840:  Ein Beitrag zur Bach-​ Pflege im 19. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1988). 64. “Sie erreichen Dresden in 4 Stunden, wo es schöne Raphaels giebt, den Harz in 6 Stunden, wo es wilde Schweine giebt, die Thomas Orgel in 5 Minuten wo es gute Achtfüßer giebt.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 11:  88. At the time, various paintings by the Italian master Raphael, including the Sistine Madonna, were owned by the Königliche Gemäldegalerie (today, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) in Dresden. 65. On the publication date of Mendelssohn’s sonatas, see Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 279. 66. “Lieber guter Kriegsmann und Freund. Den besten Dank für den gestrigen, vergnügten Mittag vorauf! Morgen (Montag) spiele ich Nachmittags, um 2 Uhr die Orgel in der Dreifaltigkeits-​Kirche. Die Thür nach der Mohrenstraße wird offen sein. Willst Du hinkommen und jeden Deiner Bekannten, den ein grimmiger Sebastian Bach aufrichtig interessirt, mitbringen, so thust Du einen rechten Gefallen. Deinem, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 10: 310. 67. Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 169–​70 and 345–​46. Little gives the year of the letter incorrectly as 1845. 68. Emil von Webern, “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy aus den Erinnerungen des Generalleutnants Karl Emil von Webern,” Die Musik 12, no. 4 (July 1913), 67–​94, esp. 68, 87–​88, and 89–​90. 69. “Ew Wohlgeboren danke ich verbindlichst für die gefällige Benachrichtigung vom heutigen Tage, und werde mit einigen Freunden, die ich zu laden so frei war, pünktlich morgen Nachmittag 2 Uhr in der Dreifaltigkeits Kirche sein.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 10: 749. 70. On Fanny’s whereabouts during the fall of 1844, see R. Larry Todd, Fanny Hensel:  The Other Mendelssohn (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 2010),  305–​6. 71. “Hoffentlich erlauben Sie mir bei meiner nächsten Anwesenheit in Dresden Sie wieder einmal aufzusuchen, um einigen Seb. Bach con Pedale doppio zu quälen.” See Sämtliche Briefe, 12: 115. The conclusion of this passage (“um einigen Seb. Bach con Pedale doppio zu quälen”) is difficult

Mendelssohn’s Reception of Bach’s Organ Works  53 to translate into idiomatic English. An alternative translation would be “in order to torture you with some double-​pedal works by Sebastian Bach.” 72. Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 174–​75. 73. David Yearsley, Bach’s Feet:  The Organ Pedals in European Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 191. 74. Todd, Mendelssohn:  A Life in Music, 547; and Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 74–​75 and 371–​72. On page 371 of Little’s book, the year of Mendelssohn’s performance is given incorrectly as 1842. 75. Letter of April 30, 1847. See Sämtliche Briefe, 12: 128. 76. See the discussion in Michael Heinemann, Die Bach-​Rezeption von Franz Liszt (Cologne:  Studio, 1995), 152–​57. See also Bach-​Dokumente VI, 663–​64 and 668. 77. “Doch scheint Bach’s Hand keineswegs in ihr zu verkennen; vielleicht daß ein Schüler Bach’s sie für dessen ganze Arbeit ausgegeben.” This statement comes from Schumann’s review of a recital played by Becker on August 1, 1841 at the Nicolaikirche in Leipzig. For further information, see Russell Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument: Essays on his Organ Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 60–​61. According to a letter of April 30, 1848 from the critic Eduard Krüger to the hymnologist Carl von Winterfeld, Schumann also questioned the authenticity of “over half ” of the twenty-​eight compositions contained in volume 9 of the “Oeuvres completes” edition of Bach’s music begun in 1837 by the Leipzig firm of C. F. Peters. See Briefwechsel zwischen Carl von Winterfeld und Eduard Krüger, ed. Arthur Prüfer (Leipzig:  Seeman, 1898), 37. This letter seems to have been ignored by all Schumann scholars except Wolfgang Boetticher. See Boetticher, Robert Schumann:  Einführung in Persönlichkeit und Werk (Berlin: Bernhard Hahnefeld Verlag, 1941), 231, n. 29. As Krüger put it to Winterfeld, Schumann took too “harsh” a view of the contents of this volume, for only two of the twenty-​eight works are demonstrably by composers other than Bach. One of the works included is the (undoubtedly genuine) Fantasy in C Minor, BWV 906/​1. We know from the “Bach book” of his wife Clara that Schumann regarded this piece as “hardly by Bach,” probably because of its affinity with the harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. See Russell Stinson, “Clara Schumann’s Bach Book: A Neglected Document of the Bach Revival,” Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 39, no. 1 (July 2004), 1–​66, esp. 8–​9. Volume 9 of the “Oeuvres completes,” edited by F. C. Griepenkerl, appeared in the summer of 1843, sometime between June 6 and August 8, and Schumann presumably discussed its contents with Krüger during the latter’s visit to Leipzig in July of that year. On the matter of the publication

54  Bach’s Legacy date of this volume, plus a listing of its contents, see Karen Lehmann, Die Anfänge einer Bach-​Gesamtausgabe (Hildesheim:  Georg Olms Verlag, 2004), 179, 241, and 550. On the dates of Krüger’s sojourn in Leipzig, see Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument, 65. 78. David Schulenberg, The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach (New York: Schirmer Books, 1992), 378.

2

New Light on Robert Schumann’s Bach Reception Robert Schumann acknowledged Johann Sebastian Bach as his most profound musical influence, just as he hailed Bach as the greatest of all composers, especially in the domain of organ music. For example, Schumann once wrote apropos of the so-​called Six Great Preludes and Fugues, BWV 543–​48, that Bach’s compositions for the organ revealed the master at his “most sublime” and “most audacious.”1 This encomium would have been read by legions of music lovers across Europe, for it appeared in the widely read periodical founded by Schumann under the title Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. As editor of this publication from 1834 to 1844, Schumann promoted Bach’s organ music in various ways. He personally reviewed organ recitals and editions of organ music, and he printed his own editions of certain pieces as well.2 Similarly, he published reviews and full-​length articles by organist-​ colleagues of his in which Bach’s organ music was prominently mentioned, whether in the context of music history, musical style, or performance practice.

Schumann, Eduard Krüger, and the Reception of Bach’s Organ Chorales in the Nineteenth Century One of the more significant of these organist-​colleagues was Eduard Krüger (1807–​ 85), a school teacher and composer from rural Ostfriesland who was perhaps Schumann’s most learned colleague of all. Schumann thought so highly of Krüger as a critic that in 1843 he offered him the editorship of the Neue Zeitschrift.3 Krüger studied Bach’s Legacy. Russell Stinson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190091224.001.0001

56  Bach’s Legacy music in his native Lüneburg before reading aesthetics, history, and philology at the University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen; he graduated from the latter with a dissertation on music in ancient Greece. Starting in 1832, he taught for almost three decades at the Gymnasium in the Ostfriesland village of Emden, where under his baton the local choral society mounted works by Bach, Handel, and Haydn. He returned to Göttingen in 1859, holding various positions at the university there for the remainder of his career. After beginning a lively correspondence with Schumann in 1838, Krüger soon became a valued contributor to the Neue Zeitschrift, with essays on aesthetics, music criticism, sacred music, and early music. Despite his wide-​ranging interests, though, his true passion as both a scholar and a performer was the music of Bach. Krüger considered Bach to be the “source of all music.”4 His specific predilection for Bach’s organ music is evinced by several of his roughly fifty extant letters to Schumann (most of which still await publication) and his numerous writings in the Neue Zeitschrift.5 We learn from these materials that Krüger, at the relatively advanced age of thirty-​one or thirty-​two, resolved to teach himself the organ so that he could play Bach’s compositions for that instrument. In accomplishing this feat, he practiced the organ four or five times a week, or as often as the clergy in Emden would allow. Evidently his normal routine was to concentrate on just a few measures of a Bach work for half an hour at a time, a method that seems to have aided also in Krüger’s memorization of the music. A few years later, in the summer or fall of 1842, he was ready for his first public recital, which was essentially an all-​Bach affair featuring some of the composer’s most technically demanding works. In July 1843 he realized his dream of traveling to Leipzig to perform Bach’s organ works on the same instruments played by Bach himself, in the presence of his hero and fellow Bach fanatic Robert Schumann. This pilgrimage surely represents the musical highpoint of Krüger’s long life. At the end of Krüger’s brief stay in Leipzig that summer, Schumann presented him with a not insignificant farewell gift: a still extant manuscript of Bach’s Kunst der Fuge that Schumann himself had copied out some years earlier.6 And we observe from a letter written by Krüger to Schumann on October 6, 1843 that another manuscript had been

Schumann’s Bach Reception  57 promised, one containing unpublished pieces by Bach. As Krüger wrote in no uncertain terms, “Let me have the promised copies of the unpublished Bachiana as soon as possible! I’ve been pining for them.”7 Schumann sent no letter in response, which is typical of the Schumann-​ Krüger correspondence. Krüger’s plea did not fall on deaf ears, however, for in his next letter, begun about a month later, he thanked Schumann for “sending the volume of Bach that I’ve been longing for, and that shows him in all his glory.”8 Krüger in this missive also congratulated the “music copyist” on a job well done, which means that Schumann did not do the copying himself but engaged a professional scribe to do so. This manuscript has not survived. Krüger’s letter is far more than a thank-​you note. Rather, it is an eight-​page document consisting of two distinct parts, inscribed on two different dates, November 1 and November 12–​13, respectively. Although a few fragments of it have been published here and there,9 the letter has never been discussed in any detail, despite the light it sheds on one of the most important musical personages of the nineteenth century. In the first part of the missive, which deals almost exclusively with the Bach manuscript, Krüger praised the works contained in that source as among the “most splendid and true” specimens of Bach’s genius,10 then offered what can be described as mini-​commentaries on the six pieces he had been able to play through at the organ, citing each one by name. These commentaries make clear that all of the works in question were organ chorales. Ten days later, Krüger drafted the second and much longer part of the letter, which covers a wide spectrum of topics, many pertaining to musical life in Leipzig at the time, especially the city’s music publishers and critics. More to the point, he added commentaries on the remaining works in the Bach manuscript, and these commentaries make clear that all of these works, too, were organ chorales. Krüger also politely appended a brief list of erroneous or at least questionable readings that he had discovered, along with his proposed revisions. Once again, Schumann appears not to have answered Krüger’s letter, its length notwithstanding, but the saga of the lost Bach manuscript does not end there. Instead, several years later, in 1850, Krüger wrote about the manuscript to his friend and fellow early-​music devotee Carl von Winterfeld (the eminent hymnologist), explaining the source’s

58  Bach’s Legacy intriguing provenance and wondering if Winterfeld would like to have a copy of any of the contents he did not already own. Thus Krüger hoped to honor Winterfeld with Bach’s music just as Schumann had honored him seven years earlier: I have often intended to find some precious thing for you that could serve as a token of my appreciation for all the lovely gifts you have bestowed on me in the past. For a long time, I found nothing. Whether I have found it now, I’m uncertain. Here, it is very hard to see the latest musical editions, so I don’t know about works by J. S. Bach that may recently have been published for the first time and that you may therefore already know. In the year 1843 I  received from Robert Schumann, who is a personal friend of mine, a number of Bach organ compositions that were then unpublished and that Schumann had copied for me in Leipzig. I list them here, and I ask you to let me know if there are some that are unknown to you. If there are, I’d like to have a fresh, professional copy prepared and sent to you.11

Krüger not only listed every single work from his manuscript, in order, but, to whet Winterfeld’s appetite, he also provided a mini-​commentary on each. Thanks to these commentaries, as well as those furnished by Krüger to Schumann, we know with certainty that Krüger’s manuscript contained eight of the so-​called Great Eighteen chorales (BWV 651, 653, 654, 656, 658, and 659–​61), in the standard BWV order of Bach’s autograph, followed by the miscellaneous, double-​pedal setting of “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740, and five works from the Orgelbüchlein (BWV 602, 608, 617, 635, and 639), also in the standard BWV order of Bach’s autograph. All fourteen works are cited according to work title and BWV number in Table 2.1, which contains, in English translation, all of the commentaries written by Krüger for either Schumann or Winterfeld.12 As this table makes clear, Krüger indicated to Winterfeld that several of the pieces in his manuscript had already been published in Gotthilf Wilhelm Körner’s series Der Orgelfreund. After listing and commenting on the fourteen works, Krüger continued:

Schumann’s Bach Reception  59 Table 2.1  Krüger’s Chorale Commentaries “Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,” BWV 651 Letter to Schumann: The first one, “Komm heiliger Geist,” is enormously strong and fresh, and agitates the organ in its innermost depths, so that a [previously] dormant splendor flows out of all the pipes and extremities like a thick stream of lava. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 1. “Figuration” pro organo pleno, cantus firmus in the pedal, on “Komm heiliger Geist.” F major, 4/​4 time, with an interwoven, figural theme [here, Krüger notates the first few measures] of lofty, shocking power, but easy to comprehend; should be played at a very broad tempo. “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” BWV 653 Letter to Schumann: “An Wasserflüßen Babylon” is full of secret, fresh coziness—​the soft, gentle voices of Oriental children’s songs. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 2. An Wasserflüssen Babylon. For two manuals and pedal. Cantus firmus in the tenor, imitating the soprano. G major, 3/​4 time. “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654 Letter to Schumann: “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele.” Sentimental and intimate, with the spicy fragrance of the chorale. Interesting is the double comparison with the technically similar “Wachet auf” and the fundamentally different setting of the same chorale from the Breitkopf collection (volume 2). But the one you sent is more spiritual than either of these. Rousingly mystical. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 3. Schmücke dich o liebe Seele. For two manuals and pedal, E-​flat major, 3/​4 time, cantus firmus in the soprano. Very mild and lovely, but easier to comprehend than the preceding, because the soprano states [the chorale melody] in long notes against the figuration. “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig,” BWV 656 Letter to Schumann: “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig.” Full of strange, unusual swells and surges; wonderfully brilliant as the number of voices increases. To me, it is one of the greatest, and should be compared to the St. Matthew Passion. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 4. O Lamm Gottes. A major, 3/​2 time, 3 verses. The first verse has the cantus firmus in the soprano; the second, in the alto; the third, in 9/​4 time, cantus firmus in the bass. The whole thing is intoxicating and serenely magnificent, especially the third verse. Continued

60  Bach’s Legacy Table 2.1 Continued “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen,” BWV 658 Letter to Schumann: Also splendid is “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen,” with the (eight-​foot?) cantus firmus in the pedal. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 5. Von Gott will ich nicht lassen. F minor, 4/​4 time, cantus firmus in the pedal, perhaps eight foot, thought to be four foot. Somewhat gloomy, but toward the middle warm and intimate; artful melismas. Three settings of “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659-​61 Letter to Schumann, first part: “Nun kommt [sic] der Heiden Heiland.” Here he unleashes all his might. He doesn’t leave the cantus firmus, he sings it in a hundred tongues. Letter to Schumann, second part: “Der Heiden Heiland.” Serious, profound, and novel. Number 8 is unprecedentedly bold in how it evolves in such strange ways. Letter to Winterfeld: Numbers 6, 7, and 8. (Veni redemptor spiritum). Nun komm der Heiden Heiland. Arranged three times in G minor, 4/​4 time. The first belongs to the most powerful [works] that I have ever heard from Sebastian Bach on the organ; rather free figuration in the lower voices, with the cantus firmus in the soprano. It begins like this [here, Krüger notates the first few measures]. The second work (Number 7) has canonic figuration in the lower voices, with the cantus firmus likewise in the soprano, although here, as in the preceding work, disguised by trills and turns. The third work (Number 8) is a fugue on the chorale, in which the cantus firmus appears splendidly and solemnly in the bass (pedal). “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740 Letter to Schumann: “Wir glauben all.” With double pedal. Monstrously strong, yet so touching as to reduce one to tears. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 9. Wir glauben all. D minor, 4/​4 time, for two manuals and double pedal, cantus firmus in the soprano. In the second part, both the pedal voices imitate the chorale melody; in the first part, [and only] at the beginning, only the upper pedal voice [does so]. This arrangement is also very dear to me because of its strength, clarity, and abundance, although it seems to me that a particularly good organ is required to bring out the soprano cantus firmus against the double pedal. Körner’s Orgelfreund, vol. 12, p. 24, has this as a work by J. L. Krebs, and with certain readings that to some extent seem better than those in my manuscript.

Schumann’s Bach Reception  61 Table 2.1 Continued “Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott,” BWV 602 Letter to Schumann: The setting of “Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott” is colder, on the whole not touching, and lovely only in places. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 10. Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott. F major, 4/​4 time. Körner has it in the Orgelfreund under the title Der anfahende Organist. The same goes for [leading directly to the commentary on “In dulci jubilo,” BWV 608] “In dulci jubilo,” BWV 608 Letter to Schumann, first part: Regarding “In dulci jubilo,” I am puzzled by how the pedal line goes up to high e and f-​sharp. Should it be played on a four-​foot Posaune, an octave lower than notated? These pedal notes are, as far as I know, found on no organ. Letter to Schumann, second part: “In dulci jubilo.” Great, fantastic. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 11. In dulci jubilo. A major, 3/​4 time. Double canon with the cantus firmus and the middle voices. “Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf,” BWV 617 Letter to Schumann: “Herr Gott nun schleuß den Himel auf ” is indeed lovely, but in its essence not so different from “Vom Himmel hoch” (published by Haslinger), which exhibits a similar construction and treatment. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 12. Herr Gott nun schleuß den Himmel auf. Also published by Körner, I believe (but I don’t have the volume at hand). It is in A minor and combines 12/​16 and 12/​8 time. Cantus firmus in soprano. Not very easy to comprehend, somewhat cold. “Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot,” BWV 635 Letter to Schumann: “Dieß sind die heilg. 10 Gebot.” Fresh, lively, and skillful. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 13. Dieß sind die heiligen zehn Gebot. C major, 4/​4 time, cantus firmus in soprano. Lively, with the pedal in steady eighth-​note motion. Continued

62  Bach’s Legacy Table 2.1 Continued “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 639 Letter to Schumann: Finally, the touching, intimate conclusion, “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” a masterpiece of aria-​like treatment, as Marx once called it. Letter to Winterfeld: Number 14. Ich ruf zu dir. F minor, 4/​4 time. Published by Körner.

You certainly know the Körner edition, which, despite its innumerable typographical errors, is worth having. But if any of the first eight works that I’ve listed are somehow unknown to you, I would be delighted to contract our copyist here in Emden. It appears to me that these eight works are perfectly worthy, and never does their authenticity come into question. I have often played them on the organ, and the lovers of sacred music here have expressed wonderment of and thanksgiving for their mighty creator.13

When, less than a month later, Winterfeld graciously declined Krüger’s offer, Krüger may have been more than a little humiliated: “How sorry I am that I cannot accommodate your friendly offer for copies of those Bach organ works that you mentioned in your letter! But I own a fine edition [of these pieces] that you probably don’t know, that by the late Felix Mendelssohn published by Breitkopf & Härtel and titled ‘15 größere Choralspiele [sic] von J. S. Bach’.”14 Krüger owned Körner’s edition of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, as published in 1846 in the volume of Der Orgelfreund titled “Der anfahende Organist,” but he was unaware of the first more-​or-​less complete edition of the Great Eighteen chorales, that prepared by no less a personage than Felix Mendelssohn (d. 1847)  and published in 1846 by Breitkopf & Härtel under the title 15 Große Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel von Johann Sebastian Bach.15 Mendelssohn’s edition includes fourteen of the Great Eighteen chorales—​BWV 664, 665, 666, and 668 are not included—​ plus the setting of “Wir glauben” (BWV 740) contained in the manuscript compiled by Schumann for Krüger. Krüger evidently had no knowledge either of Mendelssohn’s edition of the Orgelbüchlein, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1845, or of the

Schumann’s Bach Reception  63 three volumes of the Peters edition of the complete Bach organ works (volumes 5–​7), edited by Friedrich Conrad Griepenkerl and Ferdinand Roitzsch and published in 1846–​47, that contain the Orgelbüchlein and the Great Eighteen chorales. With two different editions of the Great Eighteen readily available at the time, the image of Eduard Krüger—​ one of the most formidable Bach aficionados of the time but one also far removed from the musical mainstream—​lovingly performing these pieces from his own precious manuscript for his fellow villagers, on those rare occasions when he could gain access to an organ, is both poignant and serene. There is nothing to suggest that Bach himself ever assembled these fourteen pieces into a collection of their own. Rather, they should be thought of as a kind of chorale anthology conceived by Schumann, the contents of which he chose from his own cache of Bach manuscripts. Schumann had access to unpublished organ chorales by Bach at least as early as 1839–​40, when he included in a supplement to the Neue Zeitschrift two previously unpublished works from the Orgelbüchlein: “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 639, the final piece in Krüger’s manuscript (December 1839); and “Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt,” BWV 637 (January 1840). When, in December 1841, Schumann did likewise with the Orgelbüchlein setting of “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß,” BWV 622, he was dealing with a work that had already been published, but only in the form of J. N. Schelble’s exceedingly obscure piano transcription. As discussed in Chapter 1 of the present book, this transcription was issued in 1831 as one of the VI VARIERTE CHORÄLE für die Orgel von J. S. BACH für das Pianoforte zu vier Händen eingericht[et], a collection of Bach organ-​chorale transcriptions that happens to include three of the pieces in Krüger’s manuscript: “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654; “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659; and “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740. The remaining four works from the Orgelbüchlein contained in Krüger’s manuscript had not been published in any guise until Mendelssohn issued the entire collection in 1845. Given this data, it would seem that Schumann around 1840 had acquired a manuscript of the complete Orgelbüchlein. Furthermore, given the close connection between Schumann and Mendelssohn at this time—​they had been friends and colleagues in Leipzig since Mendelssohn settled there

64  Bach’s Legacy in 1835, and they shared a special enthusiasm for Bach’s organ music—​ one can only conclude that Schumann’s manuscript had been copied from one owned by Mendelssohn, whose collection of unpublished organ works by Bach was one of the largest in existence. With regard to the eight works from the Great Eighteen chorales in Krüger’s manuscript, witness the following excerpt from a letter written by Schumann on October 10, 1839 to his future wife Clara Wieck (who was visiting her mother in Berlin) concerning the French composer and conductor André Hippolyte Chelard, who was then in Leipzig to conduct excerpts from his opera Die Hermannsschlacht.16 Schumann in this missive refers to a manuscript containing “a bunch of large chorales by Bach” that he had just received from Mendelssohn: Yesterday morning Chelard was with me for a long time, and I played a lot of music to him, first like a pupil, but then it got better. He understands little, however, and thinks that Bach is an old composer who wrote old-​fashioned music. I told him Bach was neither new nor old, but a great deal more, namely, eternal. I really almost lost my temper over it . . . Mendelssohn had a bunch of large chorales [by Bach] copied for me, and I was in great ecstasy over [them] when Chelard arrived.17

Mendelssohn was surely also Schumann’s source for the one miscellaneous work in Krüger’s manuscript, “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740, which, as discussed in Chapter 1, was one of Mendelssohn’s favorite pieces altogether. A  lost manuscript of this composition is known to have circulated within Schumann’s circle.18 In deciding on which pieces would be copied for Krüger, Schumann selected certain works that he is known to have found particularly engaging. For example, he made sure to include “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654, which he had once described, in reviewing the all-​Bach organ recital played in Leipzig by Mendelssohn in 1840, as “priceless, deep, and full of soul.”19 Likewise, he included “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 639, which, before it appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift (December 1839), Schumann evidently considered one of the best of Bach’s unpublished works.20 Also included was “In dulci jubilo,” BWV 608. Schumann’s particular appreciation of this piece,

Schumann’s Bach Reception  65 which is a rare specimen of a double canon, is documented by how he meticulously analyzed it in his personal copy of Mendelssohn’s edition of the Orgelbüchlein.21 Whatever musical factors might have led to a piece’s inclusion, there can be no question that the works chosen by Schumann exhibit a great variety of musical styles, whether we mean the different organ-​ chorale types represented (the cantus firmus chorale, chorale canon, chorale motet, chorale partita, chorale trio, melody chorale, and ornamental chorale), the placement of the hymn tune (depending on the work, the tune may appear in the soprano, alto, tenor, or bass), or Bach’s compositional models (which include not only the pre-​existing types of Central and North German organ chorales but also the French organ mass, the sonatas and concertos of such Italian masters as Corelli and Vivaldi, and dance music). Stylistic diversity, therefore, might well have been a guiding principle for Schumann as he selected the repertory. This diversity, to a certain degree, merely results from the fact that Schumann chose eight of the Great Eighteen chorales, as these pieces comprise one of the most stylistically diverse collections that Bach ever conceived. But the five Orgelbüchlein chorales also play a role in this phenomenon, since they may have been chosen largely for the significant exceptions they pose to the relatively homogeneous style of that collection. To be more exact, the Orgelbüchlein is dominated by settings—​so-​called melody chorales, which account for over thirty of the roughly forty-​five works—​in which the entire chorale melody appears in the soprano voice, without ornamentation and without interludes, in the context of four-​voice texture, and with all three of the upper voices played on the same manual. Yet the only Orgelbüchlein chorales included by Schumann that match this prototype are “Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott,” BWV 602, and “Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot,” BWV 635. Schumann may have chosen “Dies sind” for the unusual, organic relationship between its chorale tune and main accompanimental motive:  the latter consists of the first eight notes of the former, stated in double diminution. This aspect of the piece was not lost on Louis Kindscher when in October 1847 he reviewed for the Neue Zeitschrift Körner’s edition of the Orgelbüchlein: “A rather striking example of Bach’s genius in this form is the eleventh chorale, ‘Dieß sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot,’ where,

66  Bach’s Legacy for the duration of the piece, the two [middle] voices imitate one another in spinning out the first phrase of the chorale melody in double diminution (in eighth notes) . . . .”22 The remaining three works are decidedly atypical of the Orgelbüchlein as a stylistic entity, beginning with the fact that “In dulci jubilo” is the only double canon in the collection. The exquisite setting of “Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf ” (BWV 617) departs from Bach’s standard practice within the Orgelbüchlein in various respects, including its texture—​the non-​stop and wide-​ranging left-​ hand is assigned its own manual, while the alto voice is reduced to harmonic filler—​and the presence of interludes between all phrases of the chorale. “Ich ruf zu dir,” in addition to being scored for two manuals, is the only work from the Orgelbüchlein in three voices, and its heavily slurred left-​ hand part unquestionably simulates string writing, implying that the piece is a transcription from a lost cantata. To study Krüger’s commentaries on these fourteen works is to better understand not only the compositional style and performance practice of the music but also the reception of Bach’s organ chorales in nineteenth-​century Germany. In terms of aesthetics, the flowery language for which Krüger was known, especially in his writings on Bach, is on full display. This is particularly true of the commentaries written for Schumann, in which Krüger may have been trying somewhat to flatter the man while at the same time expressing his heartfelt admiration for the organ chorales that had been supplied. As the conductor and critic Carl Montag once put it in a letter to Schumann, “Dr. Krüger interprets old Bach very romantically.”23 The less hyperbolic tone of Krüger’s letter to Winterfeld suggests that Krüger, after having played these works for several years, had developed a more rational and objective opinion of the music (he did barely more than list the five Orgelbüchlein chorales, but this is surely due less to any disinterest in the music than to Krüger’s suspicion that Winterfeld already owned these pieces). We will take the commentaries in the order of Table 2.1, and, to be as comprehensive as possible, in conjunction with numerous other materials, especially Krüger’s writings in the Neue Zeitschrift and the remarks on performance practice found in the preface to Mendelssohn’s edition of the Great Eighteen chorales.

Schumann’s Bach Reception  67 “Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,” BWV 651. Krüger regarded this piece as a volcanic eruption of sorts (letter to Schumann), a metaphor doubtless inspired by Bach’s use of perpetual sixteenth-​ note motion and a registration marking of “in organo pleno.” Both features serve to enhance the chorale text, which is a celebration of Pentecost. Krüger surely had both of these things in mind, too, when he recommended to Winterfeld a broad tempo for the piece. As an organist himself, he knew all too well that playing full organ at an overly fast tempo, especially within a densely polyphonic texture (and especially on a large instrument in a large, reverberant space), can blur the sound. In the preface to volume 1 of the Peters edition of the complete Bach organ works (p. iii), published in 1844, F. C. Griepenkerl likened this effect to playing on the piano with the damper pedal pushed down the entire time. Earlier in his preface (pp. ii–​ iii), Griepenkerl maintained that the indication of “in organo pleno,” or its German equivalent “mit vollem Werk,” does not mean the indiscriminate use of all the stops on the organ. And his comments on this issue agree with one that Mendelssohn had made in his edition of the Great Eighteen chorales:  “the heading volles Werk does not always mean all the sounding stops of the organ.”24 Krüger, however, took the indication of “in organo pleno” far more literally, if a passage from his essay “On Virtuosic Display,” which appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift in 1840, may be trusted. In this diatribe against empty virtuosity and overly subjective, “charming” modes of performance, Krüger dispensed advice on how to “objectively” play Bach’s “organ fantasies.” In neither of Krüger’s commentaries on this setting of “Komm, Heiliger Geist” does he cite the work as a “fantasy.” Rather, he uses the more neutral term “figuration” (letter to Winterfeld). But Bach himself designated the piece as a “fantasia,” and one can easily believe that Krüger perceived of it accordingly. The passage reads: Where in fact does the strength and the enormous efficacy of a great artwork reside, if not in its innermost regions, in its truly original state, completely unconnected to how individual players have interpreted it? [Therefore] sit yourself down at the organ, pull out all the stops, and let loose with one of Bach’s organ fantasies, which are

68  Bach’s Legacy so often played more “charmingly.” Play faithfully note-​for-​note what is written, keeping a steady tempo. You have interpreted the artwork objectively—​and this is the main thing—​as it existed within Bach’s own mind.25

“An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” BWV 653. The language employed by Krüger in describing this work to Schumann implies that he played this composition on relatively soft stops, in accordance with another statement from Mendelssohn’s edition of the Great Eighteen: “whenever the inscription für 2 Clav. und Ped. appears, mostly soft Stops should be used.”26 Given the intimate nature of the piece, only a soft registration makes any sense. It is harder to fathom how Krüger heard in this music the “voices of Oriental children’s songs,” unless he was focusing on the opening five pitches of the cantus firmus. These pitches conform to the most famous of all pentatonic scales—​and therefore of all “Asian” scales—​that based on the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth degrees of the Western major scale. But perhaps what Krüger really meant by “Oriental” was “Jewish,” in which case he would have been alluding to Temple chant, just as the psalm on which the chorale text is based (Psalm 137) famously refers to the “songs of Zion.” His observation that the tenor voice “imitates” the soprano is quite obvious, as measures 7–​15 and 19–​26 of the former contain essentially the same music as measures 1–​8 and 12–​20 of the latter, transposed down an octave. “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654. Here is another specimen of an ornamental chorale designated for two manuals and pedal, but one that Krüger found “easier to comprehend” than the previous work (letter to Winterfeld). According to Krüger’s letter to Winterfeld, the two factors that made the difference were the placement of the cantus firmus in the highest—​and therefore the most audible—​voice and its presentation in longer rhythms, as indicated by the higher incidence of unornamented and tied half notes. Both factors, to be sure, enhance the contrast between the chorale tune per se and the two manual voices that accompany it (“the figuration”). As Krüger explained to Schumann, this work reminded him of two other organ chorales written by or attributed to Bach:  “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” BWV 645, which, as the first of the so-​called

Schumann’s Bach Reception  69 Schübler chorales, constitutes a transcription of a movement from Bach’s cantata by this name (BWV 140);27 and the miscellaneous setting of “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 759, a piece now ascribed to Bach’s pupil Gottfried August Homilius.28 Krüger would have known both of these pieces from J. G. Schicht’s four-​volume edition, J. S. Bach’s Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel mit einem und zwey Klavieren und Pedal, published in 1803–​6 by Breitkopf & Härtel. “Wachet auf ” is the first work in volume 1 of this print, while the miscellaneous setting of “Schmücke dich” is the fifth work in volume 2. Of course, Krüger recalled the latter work because it is based on the same chorale as the setting from the Great Eighteen, despite the fact that it is a “fundamentally different setting” of that hymn (to cite just one discrepancy, it is in three voices, while the setting from the Great Eighteen is in four). Exactly what reminded him of the Schübler chorale is less obvious, but, to paraphrase Krüger, this work does share a number of “technical similarities” with the Great Eighteen chorale, including the key of E-​ flat major, the disposition of two manuals and pedal, and the use of a ritornello. To return to the setting of “Schmücke dich” from the Great Eighteen chorales, and to return to Krüger’s letter to Schumann, few would disagree with Krüger’s assessment of this piece as “mystical” and more “spiritual” than the two works published by Schicht, for Bach here sets this communion hymn in a manner highly evocative of that mystical ritual, with a slow-​moving and beautifully ornamented cantus firmus that tends to be accompanied by sweet-​sounding parallel thirds and sixths in the lower three voices. Krüger was probably thinking of these musical attributes when he described the piece as “sentimental and intimate, with the spicy fragrance of the chorale.” His association of the music with mysticism and spirituality has its precedent in how both Schumann and Mendelssohn responded to the work. Consider, for example, these celebrated lines from Schumann’s pen, written shortly after Mendelssohn had introduced the piece to him: You, Felix Meritis, a man of equally superior intellect and character, played one of [Bach’s] chorale preludes. The title read “Schmücke dich, o meine [sic] Seele.” The cantus firmus was surrounded by wreaths of gilded leaves and so flooded with spirituality that you

70  Bach’s Legacy were prompted to confess: “If life were to deprive me of hope and faith, this single chorale would replenish me with both.”29

“O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig,” BWV 656. This unique work, which may be thought of as a “continuous” chorale partita, consists of three variations or “verses,” in accordance with the three stanzas of the chorale text. Krüger, like all commentators since, was most impressed with the climactic third variation, as he explicitly stated in his letter to Winterfeld. In both his letter to Winterfeld and his letter to Schumann, Krüger referred or alluded to a number of features that distinguish this variation, including the change of meter from 3/​2 to 9/​4; the addition of a pedal part, which changes the overall texture from three to four voices; the addition of a fifth voice in measures 131–​32, 135–​39, and 150–​52; and, in measures 135–​39, the sudden appearance of intensely chromatic harmonies (“strange, unusual swells and surges”) exactly where the word “verzagen” (“despair”) appears in the text.30 As for performance practice, Krüger might not have registered the piece as Mendelssohn recommended in his edition of the Great Eighteen: “In the sixth work, ‘O Lamm Gottes,’ it appears necessary to change the registration at the beginning of each new verse, making the third verse the loudest (and perhaps toward the end, playing full organ).”31 For Krüger had quite an aversion to registration changes, unless expressly indicated by the composer. In his essay “Organ Sound and Organ Playing,” he offered the following remarks on the subject: In the case of a Bach work with five or six voices, all this pulling and pushing [of stops] is impossible during the performance, unless you happen to have a well-​trained assistant standing by. But for many players, myself included, using an assistant in this manner would be very distracting . . . Sebastian Bach places the crescendo in the music itself, using the same trick as Mozart, by simply adding one voice after the next . . . 32

For an example of the type of crescendo referred to here by Krüger, one need look no further than this very setting of “O Lamm Gottes,” with its gradual buildup in texture from three to five voices.

Schumann’s Bach Reception  71 Citing “O Lamm Gottes” as “one of the greatest” in the anthology, Krüger also paid this piece a great compliment by comparing it to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, a work he had first encountered back in 1830, during his student days in Berlin.33 Of course, his specific point of comparison was the monumental opening movement of the Passion—​one of Bach’s most awesome creations—​in which this same hymn is sung in its entirety. Earlier in 1843, in his essay “The Two Bach Passions,” Krüger had poetically depicted this chorus with the following sentence, using one of the same adjectives (‘brilliant”) as in his commentary for Schumann and once again sensing in Bach’s music a certain mysticism: “The St. Matthew Passion begins with a chorus whose content is indeed dogmatic, based, as it is, on an old, mystical church hymn. But this chorus is [also] bold, penetrating, grandiose, and brilliant, as if it were intended to invite the entire world to Christ’s home.”34 Other aspects of this essay by Krüger will be discussed later on in this chapter. “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen,” BWV 658. It is hard to understand how in seven years’ time Krüger could have so radically changed his opinion of this fine work from “splendid” to “somewhat gloomy.” Perhaps the cantus firmus itself, which is based on the relatively somber aeolian mode—​observe the lowered seventh in the pedal line at measure 6—​is to blame. As Krüger explained to Winterfeld, he also sensed that “toward the middle” of this piece, the music becomes more “warm and intimate,” no doubt in conjunction with the modulation at measures 15–​17 from F minor to A-​flat major. His reference to “artful melismas” obviously involves the gossamer figuration in sixteenths and thirty-​seconds that runs throughout, and he may have meant specifically the lovely sequential passage (mm. 18–​20) immediately following the modulation, where the pitch register is at its highest and the texture at its thinnest. Krüger was unsure whether the pedal part should be played on an eight-​foot or a four-​foot stop, but he seems to have inclined toward the former. In this respect, he was at odds not only with Mendelssohn’s edition of the Great Eighteen but a manuscript in the hand of the alleged Bach pupil Johann Christoph Oley, both of which indicate a four-​foot stop.35 Perhaps Krüger was vaguely aware of the practice of using a

72  Bach’s Legacy four-​foot stop (“thought to be four foot”) but preferred an eight-​foot stop for the sake of a true tenor line, as opposed to a second alto part. Three settings of “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659–​61. Of these three works, based on Luther’s translation of Ambrose’s Advent hymn “Veni redemptor gentium” (but mistakenly cited by Krüger in his letter to Winterfeld as “Veni redemptor spiritum”), the first one affected Krüger the most. This is made abundantly clear in Krüger’s letter to Winterfeld, where all three of the pieces are numbered according to their position in Krüger’s manuscript of these organ chorales, and where the first is singled out as one of Bach’s most powerful organ compositions altogether. The same message is at least strongly implied in Krüger’s letter to Schumann. There, only the third setting is numbered (“Number 8”), but surely the first setting described by Krüger in this letter was also the first to appear in his manuscript. Krüger’s touching commentary on this work in the first part of his letter to Schumann—​which concludes with an allusion to the famous chorale by Johann Mentzer, “O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte”—​ effectively captures one of the piece’s real trademarks, which is the remarkably free treatment of its cantus firmus (a Latin term amusingly translated by Krüger as “das starke Thema”). Indeed, there is almost no other ornamental organ chorale by Bach in which the chorale tune is handled more freely.36 Krüger, in his letter to Winterfeld, was likewise impressed with Bach’s free treatment of the accompanimental voices. This phenomenon applies especially to the “walking-​bass” pedal line, a feature almost without precedent in organ music of the late baroque. Krüger had less to say about the other two settings of “Nun komm.” In his letter to Schumann, he may or may not have specifically mentioned the second setting—​the generic description of “serious, profound, and novel” could apply to any of these works—​but he definitely did so in his letter to Winterfeld. There, his description of the two lower voices as “canonic” really applies only to the first three bars of the ritornello, which constitute a canon at the unison. Krüger accurately described the third setting (“Number 8”) as a fugue. He also detected a certain boldness in the work’s “evolution” (letter to Schumann), no doubt due to Bach’s extensive use of inversion for the second half of the piece: in measures 45–​81 the subject appears exclusively in inversion and much of the counterpoint is inverted as well; in measures 81–​88,

Schumann’s Bach Reception  73 as a climactic gesture of sorts, the subject appears both inversus and rectus, in stretto, simultaneously with the last phrase of the cantus firmus. “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater,” BWV 740. Both Schumann and Mendelssohn believed Bach to be the composer of this work, but, as was pointed out in Chapter  1 of the present book, it is properly attributed today to Bach’s pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs. Sometime after receiving his manuscript of these fourteen organ chorales, Krüger, too, had become aware of this attribution, thanks to Körner’s Orgelfreund. Krüger also realized that, in addition to these conflicting composer attributions, the musical content of his manuscript did not always agree with, and was probably inferior to, that of Körner’s edition. In both respects Krüger’s commentary recalls a letter he had submitted to the Neue Zeitschrift in November 1843 (the same month of his letter to Schumann) on the authorship and musical text of the miscellaneous organ chorale “Wir Christenleut,” BWV 710,37 for here was another organ chorale that Krüger had first known exclusively as a work by J. S. Bach (and that had been published as such at the turn of the nineteenth century in J. G. Schicht’s edition), but that had recently been published in Körner’s Orgelfreund, and in a seemingly superior version, as a work by J. L. Krebs. Krüger was willing to accept either Bach or Krebs as the composer, depending on the evidence. All of the evidence, incidentally, supports Bach’s authorship. To return to the setting of “Wir glauben,” Krüger somehow managed to misidentify its key (letter to Winterfeld), which is clearly F major and not D minor, but he also made some good observations about the inconsistency of the double-​pedal part, referring to the Stollen and Abgesang of the chorale, respectively, as its first and second “parts.” To be more exact about this inconsistency—​which, to be sure, constitutes evidence against Bach’s authorship—​the first phrase of the chorale is “pre-​imitated” only by the upper pedal voice (mm. 1–​3), the second phrase by neither voice, and the third by both voices (mm. 16–​19).38 As mentioned earlier, Mendelssohn included this work in his edition of the Great Eighteen chorales, even though it does not belong to that collection. In terms of performance practice, he recommended that no sixteen-​foot pedal stops be used in playing the piece. This restriction, but also (and even more importantly) Mendelssohn’s

74  Bach’s Legacy recommendation that only soft stops be used for any work marked for two manuals and pedal, indicates a relatively soft registration. And this is how the piece is traditionally performed. Krüger’s interpretation seems to have been very different, judging from the language he used in his commentary for Schumann. For rather than describing “Wir glauben” as “soft” and “gentle” (as he did with “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” BWV 653) or “sentimental and intimate” (as he did with “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” BWV 654), he characterized the work as “monstrously strong,” implying a much louder sound and a completely different aesthetic. Indeed, Krüger probably rendered this composition full organ, in imitation of another Bach organ chorale with double pedal, namely, the large setting of “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir” (BWV 686) from Part 3 of the Clavierübung, a work whose registration Bach himself specified as “in organo pleno.” As another of his letters to Schumann attests, Krüger had known this work since at least 1842.39 A few years later, in a review of Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas, he would aptly describe the piece as “gruesomely sublime” (“schauerlich erhaben”).40 Five settings from the Orgelbüchlein. Krüger’s commentaries on these five pieces are brief and straightforward enough for them to be considered as a group. To begin with the two melody chorales, “Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott” (BWV 602)  probably did not appeal to Krüger because it is such a routine work within the Orgelbüchlein (except, that is, for the last two measures, where the bass moves strikingly for over an octave in contrary motion with the middle voices, and where the alto ends up a fifth higher than the soprano). It exemplifies the most common chorale type from that collection, and its two accompanimental motives—​one is assigned to the middle voices, the other to the bass—​are derived from the four-​note, off-​the-​beat musical-​rhetorical figure known as the suspirans, the most common rhythmic motive in all of baroque keyboard music.41 The second of these melody chorales is “Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot” (BWV 635). Perhaps it was just the perpetual motion created by the accompanimental voices that most impressed Krüger about this piece, but he referred to it not only as “lively” but also as “skillful” (letter to Schumann), suggesting an awareness of the work’s complex, organic structure, as discussed above. The pedal part, which inclines

Schumann’s Bach Reception  75 either toward “steady eighth-​note motion” (letter to Winterfeld) or continuous sixteenths, is one of the most active of any Orgelbüchlein chorale. Krüger appreciated “In dulci jubilo” (BWV 608)  as a “great” and “fantastic” example of a double canon. In writing to Schumann, though, he wondered more about how to register the extremely high pedal part, which is the tenor voice of this four-​voice setting, having never seen such high notes on a pedal board. Krüger proposed playing the part down an octave but on a four-​foot reed stop, thereby maintaining the tenor range, which is how most organists since have interpreted the work. Why Schumann, in annotating his personal copy of Mendelssohn’s edition of the Orgelbüchlein, saw fit to recommend an eight-​foot stop is difficult to explain.42 With regard to “Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf ” (BWV 617), it is puzzling that Krüger, in writing to Winterfeld, ever found such a gem to be “somewhat cold.” Seven years earlier, he had found the work “lovely.” Not just in its essence, but also in its “construction and treatment,” the piece reminded Krüger of Bach’s Canonic Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her,” BWV 769, as published in 1832 by Haslinger in volume 2 of that firm’s aborted series Sämmtliche Orgel-​Werke von Joh. Seb. Bach.43 Krüger must have had in mind the first movement of the Canonic Variations, which features a sixteenth-​note melody very similar in rhythm and contour to the main accompanimental motive of this Orgelbüchlein chorale. Finally, Krüger enthused over the intimate lyricism of “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (BWV 639), a composition, as mentioned earlier, that may be a transcription from a lost cantata and that Schumann had published in an 1839 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift. In praising this attribute of the work, Krüger quoted the music theorist and composer Adolf Bernhard Marx (1795–​1866). Marx was surely one of Krüger’s personal acquaintances, considering that he taught at the University of Berlin while Krüger was a student there in the early 1830s.44 Marx also ranks as one of the greatest Bach champions of the first half of the nineteenth century. His particular interest in Bach’s organ music is evinced by his three-​volume edition, Johann Sebastian Bach’s noch wenig bekannte Orgelcompositionen (1833), in which a total of eight works were published for the first time.45 In

76  Bach’s Legacy addition, his greatest and most influential theoretical writing, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, published in four volumes from 1837 to 1847, contains numerous references to organ works by Bach, free as well as chorale-​based, but there is no reference to “Ich ruf zu dir.” More to the point, the piece is not mentioned in any of Marx’s major theoretical writings published prior to the date of Krüger’s letter to Schumann. These include, in chronological order, Die Kunst des Gesangs (1826), Über Malerei in der Tonkunst (1828), the first two volumes of the Kompositionslehre (1837 and 1838), and Die alte Musiklehre im Streit mit unserer Zeit (1841). This fact, coupled with the rather casual language of the phrase “as Marx once called it,” suggests that Krüger was quoting words not printed by Marx but spoken by him, either in a conversation or during a lecture. In either event, it was presumably during his student days in Berlin that Krüger heard Marx describe this piece so eloquently as “ein Meisterstück von arienhafter Behandlung.” Krüger would continue to write to Schumann until 1851, the year in which he issued his markedly unfavorable review of Schumann’s opera Genoveva. This publication would effectively terminate their friendship.46 Krüger would also visit Schumann again in the summer of 1846, not in Leipzig, or Dresden (where Schumann had moved in late 1844), or anywhere else in Schumann’s native Saxony, but on the Ostfriesland island of Norderney.47 In hopes of improving Schumann’s failing health, Robert and his wife Clara vacationed for five weeks at this popular spa, and Krüger, who lived in nearby Emden, visited them there three different times.48 On the date of Krüger’s second visit, July 27, Clara, who of course was one of the leading pianists of the era, played a piano recital. Her repertoire is unknown, but it may well have included Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata (op. 31, no. 2), the last two movements of which she is known to have performed in a recital at Norderney about three weeks later.49 Robert attended the recital on July 27, and we can only assume that Krüger did as well. It bears repeating that Robert and Clara had by this time relocated to the Saxon capital of Dresden, whose leading Bach devotee was the organist Johann Gottlob Schneider. The evidence suggests that Robert spent many an hour at the city’s Sophienkirche listening to this virtuoso render works by Bach on the beautiful Silbermann organ there.50

Schumann’s Bach Reception  77 These are the circumstances surrounding one final excerpt from the Krüger-​Schumann correspondence, and, yes, the excerpt involves Bach’s organ music. It is contained in a letter sent by Krüger only a few days after his last visit with the Schumanns at Norderney, and it sheds light on exactly what the three had discussed at those get-​togethers. We may surmise that the topics of conversation included a possible move by Krüger to Saxony; Schumann’s oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri, which Krüger had glowingly reviewed the previous summer;51 Clara’s mastery of Beethoven’s piano sonatas; and, last but not least, Schneider’s Bach playing: “There is now no more talk of my possibly settling in dear old Saxony, so I will just have to take this longing with me to my grave. I only wish that I could just once hear the ‘Peri’ in its entirety, or a couple of Beethoven sonatas in their entirety, or some Sebastian Bach [played] by Schneider!”52 To provide further context, it should be mentioned that Krüger in 1859 finally did leave the wilds of Ostfriesland, not for Saxony but for the University of Göttingen, where he served first as librarian and choir director, and then as professor of music. He stayed in Göttingen until his death, at the age of seventy-​seven, in 1885. No doubt Krüger was thrilled to return to the prestigious institution where he had studied as a young man and to leave behind the wretched musical conditions in Emden, which he had once explained to Schumann in these terms: “I have never heard [my symphony] and probably will never hear it, at least not with my ‘outer ears,’ because the only music-​making here in the swamp is done by frogs . . . .”53 Schumann, tragically, lived a much shorter life. But he retained an interest in and enthusiasm for Bach’s organ works until the very end of his days.

Schumann, Bach, and the “Rhineland” Diary of Woldemar Bargiel After returning from Norderney to Dresden in late August of 1846, Schumann continued to live in the Saxon capital for almost four years. In 1848 he founded the city’s Verein für Chorgesang, an ensemble that he also directed for over two years. Under Schumann’s baton, and with his wife Clara serving as piano accompanist, this group regularly

78  Bach’s Legacy rehearsed and performed excerpts from sacred vocal works by Bach, including not just cantatas and motets but also the St. John Passion. Schumann especially favored the opening and closing choruses of the St. John, which sit like massive bookends on either side of the work. When, in 1850, Schumann relocated to the Rhenish city of Düsseldorf to assume the duties of municipal director of music (the same post Mendelssohn had held between 1833 and 1835), he continued to concentrate on this repertory, performing Bach’s St. John Passion there in 1851 and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in 1852, both with orchestra.54 Both performances took place on Palm Sunday, in general accordance with the liturgical year, even if the venue was not a church but a concert hall. The performance of the St. John was the first ever in that city.55 These facts help to contextualize a document penned during the mid-​nineteenth century but not published until 2011, namely, the “Rhineland” diary of the composer and conductor Woldemar Bargiel (1828–​97).56 Known still today for his edition of Bach’s four-​part chorales, Bargiel was the half-​brother of Schumann’s wife Clara. Through family connections, he met Schumann for the first time in 1839 and saw him intermittently for the next fourteen years. It was Schumann who suggested that Bargiel enroll at the Leipzig Conservatory—​he did so in 1846, graduating in 1850—​and who in 1853 proclaimed the young artist one of the rising musical stars of the era.57 In June 1852 the Schumanns invited Bargiel to their home in Düsseldorf, where in July and August of that year he visited with them for approximately four weeks. Throughout his stay, Bargiel kept a detailed journal, known unofficially as his “Rhineland” diary, whose entry for July 23 begins: In the morning, after jotting down a few notes, I took a walk with Schumann to the opposite bank of the Rhine; we stopped at the pub “Zum Vater Rhein.” Ordinarily, my conversations with Schumann are not very lively, which is only natural for us, but we seldom discuss insignificant things. Most of Schumann’s remarks were interesting to me. We spoke about Bach. Schumann strongly recommended that I subscribe to the edition of the Bach-​Gesellschaft. He considered Bach the greatest of all composers, and he maintained that you could study him without being overwhelmed by the sheer size of his output.

Schumann’s Bach Reception  79 Schumann had worked through the first volume of the Bach-​ Gesellschaft [edition] in a couple of days. Some time ago here in Düsseldorf, he conducted the first performance of the St. John Passion, and he argued that there is a great prejudice against the work, that it is considered inferior to the St. Matthew Passion; I am also completely convinced of this. Yes, Schumann indeed regarded the St. John Passion as more profound and melancholy, and much more successful in its musical treatment, because in the St. Matthew Passion the second choir merely interrupts the musical flow. Schumann thought of the first chorus of the St. John Passion as an extraordinary masterwork. When I said that Beethoven had said about Bach that he was no brook, but an ocean, Schumann contended that Beethoven could not properly perceive Bach, because he was too occupied with his own compositions and because during Beethoven’s time only the Well-​Tempered Clavier and a few motets were known.58

The material contained in this excerpt opens up fresh perspectives on Schumann’s Bach reception, especially with respect to the St. Matthew and St. John Passions. It also allows for a better understanding of Bargiel’s activities as a Bach receptor, and it raises interesting questions about Beethoven’s famous pun on “Bach,” a word that in the German language means “brook.” To begin with, we should not be at all surprised that Schumann and Bargiel chose Bach as a topic of conservation, given Schumann’s fanaticism for Bach’s works and the fact that Schumann in 1848 had donated to Bargiel the autograph score of his Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH. Bargiel’s statement about being “completely convinced” with regard to Bach’s passion settings implies that by 1852 he too was already something of a Bach connoisseur. This statement, however, could mean two different things: either that Bargiel, too, believed the St. Matthew Passion to be the superior work; or that he merely concurred with Schumann about there being a strong bias against the St. John. In support of the first possibility, Bargiel in 1870 led a performance of the St. Matthew in Rotterdam, marking the first time the work had been heard in the Netherlands.59 Living in the “Sebastianstadt” of Leipzig doubtless contributed to Bargiel’s knowledge and appreciation of Bach’s oeuvre, especially since one of Bargiel’s professors at the Leipzig

80  Bach’s Legacy Conservatory had been Moritz Hauptmann. Hauptmann, along with Schumann, was one of the founders of the Bach-​Gesellschaft, and he also served as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, the same position held by Bach. As for the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition, Bargiel quickly heeded Schumann’s advice about subscribing, for his name appears as a subscriber starting with volume 3, published in 1853, and continuing through volume 13/​1, published in 1864, the year before he moved from Germany to the Netherlands.60 The second paragraph of Bargiel’s narrative begins with a sentence about Schumann’s perusal of the inaugural volume of the Bach-​ Gesellschaft edition. Containing ten of Bach’s church cantatas (BWV 1–​10) and edited by Moritz Hauptmann (who had not only taught Bargiel at the Leipzig Conservatory but who had also served with Schumann on the faculty there), the edition was issued in 1851 by Breitkopf & Härtel. According to Bargiel, Schumann, true to his obsessive personality, had worked through the three hundred pages of this tome in only a couple of days. Bargiel’s report is corroborated by an independent source, a letter written by Schumann in May 1852—​ just a couple of months before Bargiel arrived in Düsseldorf—​to the publisher Hermann Härtel. Schumann congratulated Härtel on the volume as a whole (“the edition is exemplary in every respect”), but he also pointed out two wrong notes in the sixth movement of BWV 4, “Christ lag in Todesbanden.”61 The bulk of Bargiel’s narrative concerns Schumann’s thoughts on the St. Matthew and St. John Passions. We do not know precisely when Schumann got to know these works, but on April 4, 1841 (Palm Sunday) he and his wife Clara heard Felix Mendelssohn conduct the St. Matthew at Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, a performance whose proceeds were used for a monument to Bach in that city. To judge from the entry “St. John Passion by Bach” made by Schumann into his household account books on May 13, 1842, he was studying the score of the St. John about a year later.62 It was presumably also the St. John that Schumann and Clara had been enthusiastically learning in March 1842, when he made the following inscription in their diary: “we played from the Bach Passion; we’re smitten with it.”63 Schumann’s preference for the St. John Passion, as reported on by Bargiel, is corroborated by three independent sources, one of which

Schumann’s Bach Reception  81 also indirectly supports Bargiel’s claim about Schumann’s dislike of the double-​choir writing in the St. Matthew. The first of these sources is a letter dispatched by Schumann on April 2, 1849, three days before his first rehearsal in Dresden of the St. John Passion, to Georg Dietrich Otten, director of music for the city of Hamburg: I have long known your zeal in the cause of good music, particularly with regard to your concert society. Reports of good artistic work are carried independently of newspapers, you see, by kind, invisible spirits. For about a year I have taken much joy in running a similar concert society, which allows me to hear Palestrina, Bach, and various other neglected compositions. Do you know Bach’s St. John Passion, the so-​called little one? But of course you do. But do you not find it much more bold, powerful, and poetic than the St. Matthew? The latter appears to me to have been written five to six years earlier, rather drawn out in places, and excessively long. The St. John, on the other hand, how concise, how ingenious, especially the choruses, and what consummate art! If only such questions could be cleared up! But they are never discussed, except very occasionally in newspapers, and even then these matters are rarely threshed out, simply because the writer lacks real knowledge and real conviction. So things are, and will remain. After all, something must be left for the few, scattered, genuine music lovers who care about Bach, Palestrina, Beethoven’s late quartets, etc.64

The second source is a letter from Schumann to Joseph Euler, administrative director of the Düsseldorf Musikverein, drafted about three weeks before Schumann’s move from Dresden to Düsseldorf in the summer of 1850. In this instance, Schumann was suggesting some repertory for the upcoming concert season: “I thought that I would perhaps first rehearse with the choral society Bach’s St. John Passion (the smaller one, but not any less beautiful).”65 The third is a missive written by Schumann a few weeks after the Düsseldorf performance of the St. John. Addressed to Moritz Hauptmann, who in his capacity as Thomaskantor in Leipzig had loaned Schumann a set of orchestral parts for the concert, it begins:

82  Bach’s Legacy With many thanks I  am returning the parts to the St. John Passion: they served me well. It was a special treat to hear the work in its complete state and with orchestra! It seems to me hardly doubtful that the St. John is later [than the St. Matthew], and written during Bach’s period of greatest mastery. In the St. Matthew Passion, I would like to think, there are more influences from Bach’s time, and the work is simply not as compelling. But the people of course think the double choir makes it so.66

Along with the corresponding passage from Bargiel’s diary, these three letters raise several issues pertaining to Schumann’s reception of the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, issues that for the most part have not yet been discussed in sufficient detail in either the Bach or Schumann literature. First of all, Schumann published a review of Mendelssohn’s 1841 performance of the St. Matthew, and in that brief and very general critique he revealed no hint of any prejudice against the piece.67 Instead, he offered nothing but praise and even reverence for both the work and for Mendelssohn’s interpretation of it. Of course, because this concert was intended to raise money for a Bach monument in Leipzig, which was an undertaking fully endorsed by Schumann, he may have felt that any negative comments would have been inappropriate.68 Regardless of how sincere or not Schumann might have been in writing such a review, he and Clara left at intermission, and she was less than happy. As she wrote in the couple’s diary: Mendelssohn led a performance of a passion setting by Bach at the Thomaskirche, for the erection of a monument to Bach, as he did last year. We had bad seats and could barely hear the music, so we left after the first part. In Berlin, this work had given me much more pleasure. This probably had somewhat to do with the venue, which is . . . well suited to such music. This is certainly not the case at the Thomaskirche, because it is much too high.69

The Berlin performance of the St. Matthew Passion cited here by Clara was one she had heard four years earlier, at the age of seventeen, while on a three-​month concert tour of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen.70 It took place on March 9, 1837 at the city’s Singakademie,

Schumann’s Bach Reception  83 under the direction of Karl Friedrich Rungenhagen (who in 1833 had been chosen over Mendelssohn to lead that ensemble).71 Clara was obviously implying that the high placement of the choir loft in the Thomaskirche was detrimental to hearing music down in the nave. Whether or not there is any merit to this claim, one can understand how a performance at a concert hall like the Singakademie, where the performers would have been in plain sight rather than hidden from view in a rear gallery, might have been easier to appreciate. For Bach enthusiasts in the United States, Clara’s comment resonates with how the distinguished American Bach scholar Arthur Mendel, in his performing edition of the St. John Passion, once described the architectural layout of the Thomaskirche: “The Thomas-​Kirche was a big building: about 80 feet wide, 140 feet long, and 140 feet high in the nave section; that is, slightly narrower than Carnegie Hall, but just as long and a good deal higher.”72 But to return to Clara’s attendance at the Berlin performance, she also left at intermission on that occasion, finding the work unbearably long and slow. As she wrote in her diary, “Hearing seventy-​seven lento and adagio choral movements in succession is something I have not yet learned to endure. I left after the first part.”73 Clara was exaggerating, of course, as there are less than twenty choral movements in the entire St. Matthew Passion,74 and she was making no distinction, as has become the custom, between a free chorus and a chorale setting. Rather, she perceived in this work, or at least in Rungenhagen’s interpretation of it, a long series of slow choral movements. Therefore, Robert Schumann’s strong feelings about the length of the St. Matthew, as expressed in his letter to Otten, may have owed something to his wife’s opinion of the work, even if the version the couple heard in Leipzig was rather abbreviated, lasting about two-​and-​a-​ half hours rather than three.75 But no doubt a greater influence on Schumann as a receptor of the St. Matthew and St. John Passions was Eduard Krüger, the same Eduard Krüger discussed earlier in this chapter. In the winter of 1843, Schumann published in the Neue Zeitschrift a lengthy essay by Krüger titled “The Two Bach Passions,” the conclusion of which contains the following statement: “The aim of these diverse remarks . . . has only been to point out that each passion has its own design and that the St.

84  Bach’s Legacy John Passion enjoys several hitherto unobserved advantages.”76 Krüger summed up the essential differences between the two works as follows: The St. Matthew Passion is on the whole more serene, durable, and elaborate.  .  .  . It is more naïve, grandiose, and accomplished. Therefore it is for all intents and purposes more suited to public taste. . . . But although [the St. John Passion] is less brilliant and more difficult to comprehend, it is more profound and more novel in its emotional content. It may require far more accommodation and discernment on the part of the listener, but it also represents a musical experience of infinite depths, a billowing ocean of dark, unknown splendor.77

Krüger, therefore, like Schumann, expressed a general preference for the St. John Passion. His characterization of the work as particularly profound (“tiefsinnig”) agrees with how Schumann described the composition not only to Bargiel but to the poet and music critic Wolfgang Müller, who also served the Schumann family as their private physician during their years in Düsseldorf. Writing to Müller the day after his performance of the St. John there, Schumann was hoping for some mention of the event in one of the newspapers to which Müller was connected: “Through your agency, I would like to inform the German artistic community about one of Bach’s most profound and accomplished works.”78 Still, one should not make too much of this, considering that “profound” was Schumann’s favorite adjective for describing Bach’s music.79 As someone who famously wrote that the mission of any artist was to “shed light into the very depths of the human heart,”80 Schumann may have considered all great music to be inherently profound. But Krüger’s article, which Schumann evidently valued enough to consult in conjunction with his Düsseldorf performance of the St. John Passion,81 surely affected Schumann’s thinking about various aspects of these two compositions. One such aspect was the length of the St. Matthew, which Krüger saw fit to criticize: “The first part alone lasts as long as an entire church service. The whole thing, with its nearly five-​hour duration, could overwhelm even the most dedicated listener.”82 Whether or not Krüger’s mention of a five-​hour duration

Schumann’s Bach Reception  85 was an intentional exaggeration, the St. Matthew does last about three hours, as opposed to the two hours required for the St. John. According to Schumann’s letter to Otten, the St. John was small enough by comparison to have acquired the nickname of “the little.” More significantly, Schumann, according to his letter to Otten, seems to have sensed within the smaller dimensions of the St. John a greater urgency with respect to its pacing. One aspect of the St. John Passion emphasized by Krüger was the greater weight given by Bach to free choruses instead of chorale settings, especially those in Part 2 centered around Jesus’s trial. In these brief “Turba” movements, the Jews mock Jesus as their king and demand that he be crucified. That Schumann already admired one of these choruses before reading Krüger’s article is documented by his review, published in October 1842, of Carl Loewe’s oratorio Johann Huß. There, in reference to a movement from Loewe’s work, Schumann wrote: “We are reminded of a similar but naturally more artful chorus on the word ‘Kreuzige’ from Bach’s St. John Passion.”83 Nonetheless, Krüger’s detailed discussion of these short choruses from Bach’s St. John Passion, in which the critic detected elements of “humor” as well as “negativism,”84 could only have piqued Schumann’s curiosity. Schumann, after all, according to his letter to Otten, especially treasured the free choruses of Bach’s work. The longest and arguably the greatest of these movements is the opening chorus, which, according to Bargiel, Schumann regarded as “an extraordinary masterwork.” This is hardly a surprise given the astonishingly rich musical and dramatic content of this movement, which, as mentioned earlier, Schumann seems to have regularly conducted during his years in Dresden. Krüger, too, singled out this chorus, and his vivid portrayal of it might well have heightened Schumann’s interest: “The introduction is gloomy, difficult, mystical. The dark billows of suspended seventh chords sound like the waves of the ocean. . . . We feel as if we are in a limitless, other-​worldly place. Out of this mysterious babble arises the cry, ‘Lord, show us that you are the Son of God’.”85 Not that Schumann concurred with Krüger on every aspect of the piece. For example, they disagreed on matters of chronology:  Schumann, in his letters to Otten and Hauptmann, firmly

86  Bach’s Legacy believed that the St. John was composed later, while Krüger opined (for reasons unexplained) that the St. Matthew was the later work.86 It so happens that Krüger was correct on this point, as we now know that the St. John was composed in 1724, and the St. Matthew in 1727 or 1729. Because Schumann felt the St. John to be of superior quality, he naturally assigned it to a later phase of Bach’s compositional development, a “period of greatest mastery” (letter to Hauptmann). In Schumann’s mind, the St. Matthew was simply not as “ingenious” (letter to Otten) and betrayed more influences from Bach’s time (letter to Hauptmann). Almost certainly these influences are represented by the far greater tendency in the St. Matthew toward solo recitatives and da capo arias, a feature of the piece that approaches the baroque genre of opera seria.87 More importantly for our concerns, whereas Krüger attributed the greater popularity of the St. Matthew Passion to such qualities as its overall grandiosity, Schumann, strangely enough, in his letter to Hauptmann, saw Bach’s use of two choirs in that work as little more than a gimmick. And according to Bargiel, Schumann was annoyed in particular by how the second choir tended to “interrupt” the overall flow of the music. There are various movements in the St. Matthew where, at least in theory, the second choir could be accused of this impropriety (see, according to the numbering in the BWV, movements 1, 26, 33, 70, 77, and 78), but this is most obviously true of the first movement, a movement, it should be pointed out, that, along with the opening chorus of the St. John Passion, is usually regarded as one of Bach’s crowning achievements. There, while the first choir sings its mournful text (“Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen”), the second regularly interjects a series of questions (“Wen? Wie? Was? Wohin?”). The first choir proceeds in relatively perpetual motion and in clearly delineated phrases, between which the second choir sings only one word at a time, and in stark, homophonic texture.88 If Schumann was referring specifically to the choral dialogue within the opening chorus, he was objecting to a feature of this movement that virtually every other commentator in music history has praised for its musical and dramatic brilliance. The excerpt from Bargiel’s diary quoted above ends with a long sentence about Bach and Beethoven. Just as Schumann urged Bargiel to learn as much of Bach’s music as possible, so he downplayed Beethoven’s

Schumann’s Bach Reception  87 significance as a Bach receptor. Implying that Beethoven’s knowledge of Bach was woefully inferior to his own, Schumann attributed Beethoven’s relative ignorance to two factors: Beethoven’s preoccupation with his own compositions; and the relatively small number of Bach’s works that were known during Beethoven’s lifetime, presumably meaning those that had been published. Beethoven himself basically agreed with Schumann’s first criticism when, in 1824, he remarked to the piano and harp maker Johann Andreas Stumpff that the musicians of their day needed to study Bach if they wanted to resurrect him, but that they had no time to do so.89 Schumann offered his second criticism having once cited Beethoven, in the pages of the Neue Zeitschrift, as a Bach “expert,” the context being Beethoven’s enthusiastic endorsement of Hoffmeister & Kühnel’s plans for an “Oeuvres completes” edition of Bach’s music.90 In making this citation, Schumann was attempting to garner public support for what would become the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition, so he would naturally have taken a positive tone. In stating that the only Bach works known during Beethoven’s lifetime were the Well-​ Tempered Clavier and a few motets, he of course was making a gross generalization. What prompted Schumann’s diatribe against Beethoven in the first place was Bargiel’s mention of Beethoven’s celebrated pun on “Bach,” a bit of wordplay that appears in no source prior to Karl Gottlieb Freudenberg’s Erinnerungen aus dem Leben eines alten Organisten, published in 1870.91 Freudenberg (1797–​ 1869) had visited with Beethoven in Vienna during the summer of 1825, recording Beethoven’s thoughts on various composers past and present. The excerpt on Bach reads:  “His name ought not to be Bach [brook] but Ocean, because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of combinations and harmonies. He was the ideal of an organist.”92 Bargiel’s citation of Beethoven’s pun attests to its oral transmission almost two decades before the publication of Freudenberg’s book. Who was Bargiel’s source? Certainly not Beethoven, who died the year before Bargiel was born, and certainly not Freudenberg, as there is no indication that the two ever met or even lived in close proximity. Rather, the most likely scenario is that Bargiel learned of Beethoven’s pun through the pianist Ignaz Moscheles (1794–​1870), one of Bargiel’s professors at the Leipzig Conservatory who for many years had

88  Bach’s Legacy been one of Beethoven’s closest Viennese colleagues. Furthermore, Moscheles was a Bach champion in his own right.93 Whoever Bargiel’s source was, one suspects that Beethoven had shared this pun with many of his acquaintances. The extent to which these acquaintances shared the pun with their acquaintances, and so on, is of course impossible to determine. As a kind of coda to this chapter, here is a Bach pun of Schumann’s authoring. He entered it in the fall of 1841 into the diary that he kept with his wife Clara, after the couple had experimented unsuccessfully with the organ at Leipzig’s Johanniskirche. Not surprisingly, their repertory included music by Robert’s favorite composer: “We also played the organ once at the Johanniskirche, a horrible thing to remember because we did not handle it with any accomplishment; in the Bach fugues, Clara could never get past the second entrance [of the subject], as though she were standing at a wide brook.”94

Notes 1. “Am herrlichsten, am kühnsten, in seinem Urelemente erscheint er aber nun ein für allemal an seiner Orgel.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 10, no. 39 (May 14, 1839), 154. See also Bach-​Dokumente VI, 420–​22. On Schumann and Bach’s organ works, see my monographs, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 76–​101; and J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument: Essays on His Organ Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 56–​67; and my essay “Clara Schumann’s Bach Book: A Neglected Document of the Bach Revival,” Bach:  Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 39, no. 1 (2008),  1–​66. 2. On Schumann’s editions of Bach’s organ works, see Bodo Bischoff, “Das Bach-​Bild Robert Schumanns,” in Bach und die Nachwelt, Band 1:  1750–​1850, ed. Michael Heinemann and Hans-​Joachim Hinrichsen (Laaber:  Laaber Verlag, 1997), 421–​ 99, esp. 482–​ 83; and Thomas Synofzik, “ ‘Ich lasse mir alles von Bach gefallen’: Robert Schumann als Bach-​Herausgeber,” in “Diess herrliche, imponirende Instrument”:  Die Orgel im Zeitalter Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys, ed. Anselm Hartinger et al. (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2011), 369–​88.

Schumann’s Bach Reception  89 3. Wolfgang Boetticher, Robert Schumann: Einführung in Persönlichkeit und Werk (Berlin: Bernhard Hahnefeld Verlag, 1941), 232. 4. Krüger described Bach as the “Urquell aller Musik” in a letter to Schumann of June 25, 1839. Like the majority of Krüger’s letters to Schumann, all housed at the Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Kraków (Korespondencja Schumanna collection), this missive remains unpublished. I am indebted to the Robert-​Schumann-​Forschungsstelle, Düsseldorf, for providing me with facsimiles and transcriptions of these materials. All of Krüger’s letters to Schumann will be published in a forthcoming volume of the Schumann Briefedition (Verlag Dohr). 5. For a detailed discussion, see Stinson, J. S.  Bach at His Royal Instrument,  61–​66. 6. See Uwe Martin, “Ein unbekanntes Schumann-​ Autograph aus dem Nachlaß Eduard Krügers,” Die Musikforschung 12 (1959), 405–​15. 7. “Lassen Sie mich doch die versprochenen Copien der ungedruckte Bachiana recht bald haben! Ich schmachte danach.” 8. This missive begins with the sentence “Herzlichen Dank für die ersehnte Sendung des Bachschen Heftes, das ihn in aller Herrlichkeit zeigt.” The portion of the letter containing this passage is found in Bach-​Dokumente VI, 289–​90. 9. See, for instance, Boetticher, Robert Schumann, 231. 10. “Nach meinem (wenn auch menschlich trüglichen) Urteil sind diese Stücke von den vortreflichsten und wahrhaftigsten Zeugnißen des wunderbaren Sängers.” 11. “Oft habe ich gesonnen, auch Ihnen etwas Liebes und Freundliches zu erweisen, um nur zum geringen Theile meinen Dank für die reichen Liebesgaben von Ihrer Hand zu zeigen. Lange fand ich nicht. Ob ich’s jetzt gefunden, bin ich auch im Ungewissen. Es ist nämlich hier sehr schwer, neu erschienene Musicalien zur Ansicht zu bekommen, daher weiß ich nicht, ob, was ich Ihnen von J. S. Bach mittheilen möchte, nicht in den letzten, neuen Ausgaben dennoch enthalten, Ihnen also schon bekannt ist. Ich erhielt nämlich von Rob. Schumann, dem ich persönlich befreundet bin, im J.  1843 eine Anzahl Bachscher Orgelfigurationen, damals ungedruckt, die er mir als etwas Theures u.  Seltenes in Leipzig copiren ließ. Ich bezeichne dieselben hier, und bitte Sie, wenn Ihnen Einzelnes daraus unbekannt, es mir zu sagen, damit ich Ihnen eine sauber geschriebene Copie von einem vorzüglichen Notenschreiber zusenden kann.” Letter of April 8, 1850. See Briefwechsel zwischen Carl von Winterfeld und Eduard Krüger, ed. Arthur Prüfer (Leipzig: Seeman, 1898), 87.

90  Bach’s Legacy 12. Those interested in reading Krüger’s commentaries in the original German should consult my article, “Robert Schumann, Eduard Krüger und die Rezeption von Bachs Orgelchorälen im 19. Jahrhundert,” Bach-​ Jahrbuch 102 (2016), 157–​85, esp. 182–​85. 13. “Die Körnerschen Ausgaben, trozt ihrer zahllosen Druckfehler doch dem Bedürftigen werthvoll, werden Sie gewiß aus Ansicht kennen. Wäre aber von den ersten 8 Nummern, die ich hier bezeichnet habe, irgend eines Ihnen unbekannt, so würden Sie mir eine rechte Liebe erzeigen, wenn Sie unsere Emder Copie annehmen wollten. Mir scheinen diese 8 Nummern Sebastians vollkommen würdig, und nirgend ist mir die Frage nach der Aechtheit gekommen; auf der Orgel habe ich sie oft gespielt, und unseren Freunden heiliger Musik Bewunderung u.  Dankbarkeit gegen den gewaltigen Schöpfer erweckt.” See Briefwechsel zwischen Carl von Winterfeld und Eduard Krüger,  90–​91. 14. “Wie leid thut es mir, Ihrem freundlichen Anerbieten wegen Mittheilung von Abschriften der in Ihrem Briefe erwähnten Bachschen Orgelstücke nicht entgegenkommen zu können! Wahrscheinlich ist Ihnen die schöne, noch von dem seeligen Mendelssohn besorgte Ausgabe derselben bei Breitkopf und Härtel unbekannt geblieben, unter dem Titel: “15 größere Choralspiele [sic] von J. S. Bach,” die sich in meinem Besitze befindet.” Letter from Winterfeld to Krüger of May 13, 1850. See Briefwechsel zwischen Carl von Winterfeld und Eduard Krüger,  95–​96. 15. On Körner’s edition of the Orgelbüchlein, see NBA IV/​1 (Orgelbüchlein, Sechs Choräle von verschiedener Art [Schübler Choräle], Orgelpartiten, ed. Heinz-​Harald Löhlein), Kritischer Bericht, 111; and Bach-​Dokumente VI, 530–​31. On Mendelssohn’s editions of Bach’s organ chorales, see Rudolf Elvers, “Verzeichnis der von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy herausgegebene Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs,” in Gestalt und Glaube:  Festschrift für Vizepräsident Professor D. Dr. Oskar Söhngen (Berlin: Verlag Merseburger, 1960), 145–​49; Wm. A. Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ (New  York, 2010), 119–​38; Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works, 67–​71; and Nobuaki Ebata et  al., “Mendelssohn and the Schübler Chorales (BWV 645-​650): A New Source in the Riemenschneider Bach Institute Collection,” Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 44, no. 1 (2013), 1–​45. See also Bach-​Dokumente VI, 529–​30. 16. Chelard is documented to have conducted these excerpts in a concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on October 13, 1839. Schumann’s critique of the performance (and of the opera itself) appeared in the May 1, 1840 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift in a review-​essay titled “Musikleben in Leipzig während des Winters 1839–​1840.” See Wolfram Schwinger,

Schumann’s Bach Reception  91 “Schumann und Chelard: Ein biographischer Beitrag für die Jahre 1839 bis 1841,” in Robert Schumann:  Aus Anlass seines 100. Todestages, ed. Hans Joachim Moser and Eberhard Rebling (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1956), 73–​76, esp. 74. On Clara’s whereabouts in October 1839, see Clara Schumann: Jugendtagebücher 1827—​1840, ed. Gerd Nauhaus and Nancy B. Reich (Hildesheim:  Georg Olms Verlag, 2019), 341–​46; and Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann:  The Artist and the Woman, rev. ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), xxii. 17. “Gestern früh war Chelard lange bei mir, dem ich viel Musik gemacht, erst wie ein Schüler, dann aber immer beßer. Er versteht aber wenig und denkt, Bach ist ein alter Komponist und schriebe alt; ich sagte ihm, er wäre weder neu, noch alt, sondern vielmehr, nähmlich ewig. Da wär’ ich beinah hitzig geworden . . . Mendelssohn hat mir nähmlich eine Menge großer Choräle [von Bach] abschreiben lassen, über [die] ich eben noch in Extase war, als gerade Chelard kam.” See Briefwechsel von Clara und Robert Schumann, Band III:  Juni 1839 bis Februar 1840, ed. Thomas Synofzik and Anja Mühlenweg (Cologne: Verlag Dohr, 2014), 307. 18. NBA IV/​10, Kritischer Bericht, 511. 19. Schumann’s review appeared in the August 15, 1840 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift. On Mendelssohn’s recital, see Matthias Pape, Mendelssohns Leipziger Orgelkonzert 1840:  Ein Beitrag zur Bach-​ Pflege im 19. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden:  Breitkopf & Härtel, 1988). See also Bach-​ Dokumente VI, 671. 2 0. “Ich ruf zu dir” was published by Schumann in an appendix to the December 10, 1839 issue of the Neue Zeitschrift as part of a series titled Sammlung von Musikstücken aus alter und neuer Zeit als Zulage zur neuen Zeitschrift für Musik. In an advertisement for the series, published in the October 13, 1837 issue of the periodical (p. 120), he discussed the Bach works to be contained therein as follows: “Aber auch der alten Zeit soll gedacht werden. Namentlich liegt uns an Verbreitung vieler noch ungedruckter Compositionen von J.  S. Bach, deren sich bereits einige der herrlichsten in unserem Besitz befinden.” 21. See Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works,  95–​96. 22. “Ein recht schlagendes Beispiel, wie Bach’s Genius die Form mit Leichtigkeit bezwingt, liefert 1)  Choral Nr. 11:  Dieß sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot, wo der ersten Choralzeile eine Nachahmung in doppelter Verkleinerung (in Achtelnoten) entnommen ist, die sich in je zwei Stimmen durch das Ganze fortspinnt . . .” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 27, no. 3 (October 21, 1847), 197.

92  Bach’s Legacy 23. “Der Dr.  Krüger faßt den alten Bach sehr romantisch auf.” Letter of November 12, 1841, cited in Boetticher, Robert Schumann, 229. 24. “der Überschrift ‘volles Werk’ wohl nicht gerade immer alle klingenden Stimmen der Orgel bei den vorliegenden Stücken zu verstehen sind.” 25. “Was wäre denn auch in der That die Kraft eines großen Kunstwerks, wo läge die ungeheuere, Zeiten und Völker zwingende Wirksamkeit desselben, wenn nicht im Inneren, in seiner wirklichen ursprünglichen Gestalt, ganz unabhängig von der einzelnen Erscheinung, durch einzelne Menschen hervorgerufen? Setze dich vor die Orgel, ziehe alle Register aus und stürme los in die Bachsche Orgelphantasie, die sich so oft entzückt: spiele getreulich Note für Note was dasteht, ohne Stocken und Störung des Tempo—​du hast das Kunstwerk objective wiedergegeben, in der Hauptsache wie es vor Bach’s Geiste stand.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 13, no. 18 (August 29, 1840), 70. 26. “wo ‘für 2 Claviere und Pedal’ steht, fast nur sanfte Register anzuwenden sind.” 27. Krüger in 1847 conducted the Musikalische Gesellschaft of Emden in a performance of this cantata by Bach. See Martin Tielke, “Eduard Krüger als Wegbereiter der Bach-​und Händelrenaissance,” Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst und vaterländische Altertümer zu Emden 72 (1992), 170–​206, esp. 198. 28. On the authorship of BWV 759, see NBA IV/​10, Kritischer Bericht, 475–​78; and Peter Williams, The Organ Music of J.  S. Bach, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 495. 29. “Da spieltest du, Felix Meritis . . . einen seiner variirten Choräle vor: der Text hieß ‘schmücke dich, o meine [sic] Seele,’ um den Cantus firmus hingen vergoldete Blättergewinde und eine Seligkeit war darein gegossen, daß du mir selbst gestandest: ‘wenn das Leben dir Hoffnung und Glauben genommen, so würde dir dieser einzige Choral Alles von Neuem bringen’.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 4, no. 51 (June 24, 1836), 212. 30. Measure numbers according to the NBA. 31. “In No. 6  ‘O Lamm Gottes’ scheint es nothwendig mit dem Eintritt jedes neuen Verses die Register zu verändern, so dass der dritte Vers am kräftigsten (vielleicht gegen das Ende hin mit vollem Werke) gespielt wird.” 32. “Bei Bach’scher Fünf-​und Sechsstimmigkeit ist dergleichen ewiges Zucken und Rucken während des Spieles unmöglich. Da muß nun schon ein wohlinstruirter Amanuensis dabei stehen, dessen Mitwirkung Manchen, z. b. mich, sehr stören wurde. . . . S. Bach aber hat freilich das Forte drinnen sitzen und das Crescendo auch:  hier hat er denselben

Schumann’s Bach Reception  93 einfachen Pfiff wie Mozart, daß er unmerklich eine Stimme nach der andern eintreten oder liegen läßt . . .” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 49 (June 19, 1843), 196–​97. 33. Tielke, “Eduard Krüger als Wegbereiter der Bach-​und Händelrenaissance,” 177. 34. “Die Matthäuspassion beginnt mit einem Einleitungschore, der zwar auf dogmatischen Inhalt gegründet ist, indem ein mystisches altes Kirchenlied seine Grundlage bildet: aber er ist dennoch klar, eindringlich, grandiose und glanzvoll, wie wenn er bestimmt wäre, die ganze Welt zu Christi Hause zu laden.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 20 (March 9, 1843), 77. 35. For a facsimile of Oley’s manuscript, see NBA IV/​2 (Die Orgelchoräle aus der Leipziger Originalhandschrift, ed. Hans Klotz), x. 36. See the discussion in Russell Stinson, J. S.  Bach’s Great Eighteen Organ Chorales (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 87–​89. 37. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 19, no. 50 (December 21, 1843), 200. See also NBA IV/​3 (Die einzeln überlieferten Orgelchoräle, ed. Hans Klotz), Kritischer Bericht, 61–​62. 38. See Williams, The Organ Music of J.  S. Bach, 487. The fourth and final phrase of the chorale is pre-​imitated only by the upper pedal voice, in measures  23–​25. 39. Krüger informed Schumann about learning this piece (and other organ works by Bach) in a letter of October 7, 1842: “Einige dieser unendlichen Poesien möchte ich Ihnen zu kosten geben, z. B. das 6stimmige (dopp. Pedal) ‘aus tiefer Not’.” 40. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 24, no. 3 (January 8, 1846), 10. For an informative discussion of Krüger’s review, see Little, Mendelssohn and the Organ, 333–​35. 41. See the discussion in Russell Stinson, Bach:  The Orgelbüchlein (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996), 67–​68 and 105. 42. On Schumann’s annotation, see Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works,  95–​96. 43. See NBA IV/​2, Kritischer Bericht, 53; and NBA IV/​5–​6 (Präludien, Toccaten, Fantasien und Fugen für Orgel, ed. Dietrich Kilian), Kritischer Bericht, 257. According to the former, the volume was edited by Franz Hauser. Krüger would have known the Canonic Variations also through J.  G. Schicht’s edition, J. S.  Bach’s Choral-​ Vorspiele für die Orgel. 44. As of May 1842, when Marx briefly visited with Schumann during a trip to Leipzig, he and Schumann were acquaintances as well. See Robert

94  Bach’s Legacy Schumann:  Tagebücher, ed. Georg Eismann and Gerd Nauhaus, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971–​82), 3: 214. 45. On Marx’s edition, see NBA IV/​5-​6, Kritischer Bericht, 268. As discussed in Chapter 1 of the present book, this edition must have been a collaboration between Marx and Felix Mendelssohn. 46. See the discussion in John Daverio, “Schumann’s ‘New Genre for the Concert Hall’: Das Paradies und die Peri in the Eyes of a Contemporary,” in Schumann and his World, ed. R. Larry Todd (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 129–​55, esp. 147–​48. The “Contemporary” cited in the title of Daverio’s essay is Krüger. 47. See Gerd Nauhaus, “Robert und Clara Schumann auf Norderney,” Kurzeitschrift des Nordseeheilbades Norderney 20 (1978), 39–​ 45; and Tielke, “Eduard Krüger als Wegbereiter der Bach-​und Händelrenaissance,” 201–​02. 48. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, 3: 284–​85. 49. The second item on this program, which is given in facsimile in Nauhaus, “Robert und Clara Schumann auf Norderney,” 45, was listed as the “Adagio und Rondo aus der Sonate in DMoll von L. v. Beethoven.” This can only mean the last two movements of Beethoven’s only piano sonata in the key of D minor. 50. See the discussion in Stinson, The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works, 90 and 97–​98; and Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument,  54–​55. 51. See Daverio, “Schumann’s ‘New Genre for the Concert Hall’.” 52. “Von einer möglichen Uebersiedlung in das liebe Sachsenland ist nun wohl keine Rede mehr, und ich werde solche Sehnsucht mit ins Grab nehmen. Wäre mir nur vergönnt, einmal die Peri vollkommen zu hören, dazu ein Paar Beethovensche Sonaten ganz—​und ausserdem noch einige S. Bäche von Schneider!” Letter of August 1, 1846. 53. “Ich habe [meine Symphonie] nie gehört, werde sie vielleicht nie hören—​d. h.  mit dem äusseren Ohre, da hier im Sumpf nur Frösche musizieren  .  .  .” Letter of December 29, 1849, cited in Tielke, “Eduard Krüger als Wegbereiter der Bach-​und Händelrenaissance,” 180. 54. He also planned a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass. See Bischoff, “Das Bach-​Bild Robert Schumanns,” 472–​79. For the performance of the St. John Passion in Düsseldorf, Schumann prepared his own arrangement. See Matthias Wendt, “Fanfaren für Bach und andere Besetzungsprobleme—​ Schumanns Düsseldorfer Erstaufführung der Johannes-​Passion,” in Vom Klang der Zeit: Besetzung, Bearbeitung und Aufführungspraxis bei Johann Sebastian Bach (Klaus Hofmann zum 65. Geburtstag), ed. Ulrich Bartels and Uwe Wolf (Wiesbaden:  Breitkopf & Härtel, 2004), 156–​79. For a

Schumann’s Bach Reception  95 recording of Schumann’s arrangement, with enlightening liner notes by Thomas Synofzik and the conductor Hermann Max, see J. S.  Bach/​arr. Robert Schumann: Johannes-​Passion (cpo 777 091-​2). 55. The St. Matthew Passion had been premiered in Düsseldorf, under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller, in March 1850. See Rainer Großimlinghaus, Aus Liebe zur Musik:  “Zwei Jahrhunderte Musikleben in Düsseldorf ” (Düsseldorf:  Städtischer Musikverein zu Düsseldorf, 1989), 41, cited in note 70 of the on-​line essay by Matthias Wendt, “Bach und Händel in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns” (lecture given at the “Tag der mitteldeutschen Barockmusik 2001 in Zwickau”), available on the website of the Robert-​Schumann-​Gesamtausgabe (www.schumann-​ga.de). See also Bach-​Dokumente VI, 650. 56. An den Rhein und weiter: Woldemar Bargiel zu Gast bei Robert und Clara Schumann. Ein Tagebuch von 1852, ed. Elisabeth Schmiedel and Joachim Draheim (Sinzig: Studio Verlag, 2011). For biographical information on Bargiel, especially that involving Robert and Clara Schumann, see pages 9–​20 of this publication. 57. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 20, no.  39 (October 28, 1853), footnote on page 185. 58. “Am morgen, nachdem ich einige Notizen geschrieben, machte ich mit Schumann einen Spatziergang nach dem jenseitigen Ufer des Rheins, kehrten in einem dortigen Wirthshaus zum Vater Rhein ein. Die Unterhaltung ist gewöhnlich zwischen mir und Schumann nicht lebhaft, wie das wohl bei uns natürlich ist; doch wird selten was ganz Gleichgültiges und Unbedeutendes besprochen. So waren mir auch mehrere Äußerungen von Schumann interessant. Wir sprachen über Bach. Schumann rieth mir sehr, mich mit auf die Ausgaben der Bachgesellschaft zu subscribiren. Bach sei der primus omnium und man könne wohl, ohne sich von der Menge der Schätze überwältigen zu lassen, ihn studiren. Den ersten Band der Bachgesellschaft habe er in ein Paar Tagen durchgesehen. Schumann hatte vor einiger Zeit hier in Düsseldorf zum ersten Male die Johannis Passion zur Aufführung gebracht und meinte, daß es durchaus ein Vorurtheil sei, daß sie der Mathaeus Passion nicht gleich kommen solle, was auch meine volle Überzeugung ist. Ja, daß er sogar die Johannis Passion noch als tiefer und trauriger ansehe, auch sei die Behandlung in ihr viel bedeutender, da in der Mathaeus P.[assion] meistentheils der zweite Chor nur mit Ausrufungen dazwischen greife. Der erste Chor in der Johannis P.[assion] sei ein außerordentliches Meisterwerk. Als ich sagte, daß Beethoven über Bach gesagt:  Bach sei

96  Bach’s Legacy kein Bach, sondern ein Meer, meinte er, Beethoven habe ihn doch nicht gehörig erkennen können, da er zu sehr mit eigner Produktion beschäftigt war, und zu seiner Zeit von Bach nur das [wohl]temperirte Klavier und einige Motetten bekannt waren.” See An den Rhein und weiter, 39–​40 (emphasis added). 59. An den Rhein und weiter, 13. 60. Bargiel is also listed as a subscriber to volume 21, published in 1874. 61. Letter of May 24, 1852. See Robert Schumanns Briefe:  Neue Folge, ed. Friedrich Gustav Jansen (Leipzig:  Breitkopf & Härtel, 1904), 473. Schumann’s payment to Breitkopf & Härtel for receipt of this volume is recorded in his household account books. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, 3: 588. 62. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, 2: 158; and 3: 214. 63. “wir spielten aus der Passion v. Bach, sie schwärmt darin.” Entry of March 6, 1842. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, 2: 211. 64. Robert Schumanns Briefe, 300–​01. See also Bach-​Dokumente VI, 290. Translation based on The Letters of Robert Schumann, ed. Karl Storck and Hannah Bryant (London: J. Murray, 1907), 259–​60. 65. “Mit dem Gesangverein zuerst zu studieren gedachte ich vielleicht die Johannespassion von Bach (die kleinere, aber nicht minder schöne).” Letter of August 6, 1850, cited in Wendt, “Fanfaren für Bach,” 156–​57. 66. “Mit vielem Dank folgen die Stimmen zur Johannespassion zurück: sie haben mir gute Dienste geleistet—​und vor Allem die Musik vollständig und mit Orchester zu hören, was war das für ein Fest! Es scheint mir kaum zweifelhaft, daß die Johannespassion die spätere, in der Zeit höchster Meisterschaft geschrieben ist; in der anderen spürt man, dächte ich, mehr Zeiteinflüsse, wie auch in ihr der Stoff überhaupt noch nicht überwältigt erscheint. Aber die Leute denken freilich, die Doppelchöre machen’s.” Letter of May 8, 1851. See Hermann Erler, Robert Schumann’s Leben: Aus seinen Briefen geschildert, 2 vols. (Berlin: Ries & Erler, 1887), 2: 144–​45. 67. Schumann’s review appeared in the April 8, 1841 issue of the Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung. 68. On this point, see also Hans-​ Joachim Schulze, “Bach—​ Leipzig—​ Mendelssohn,” in Felix Mendelssohn—​ Mitwelt und Nachwelt, ed. Gewandhaus zu Leipzig (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1996), 79–​83, esp. 81–​82. 69. “In der Thomaskirche gab Mendelssohn die Passions-​Musik von Bach, zur Errichtung eines Denkmals für selben, wie er es schon voriges Jahr einmal gethan. Wir hatten einen schlechten Platz, hörten die Musik nur schwach, und gingen daher nach dem ersten Theil. In Berlin hatte mir

Schumann’s Bach Reception  97 diese Musik viel mehr Genuß verschafft, was wohl theilweise mit am Local lag, das . . . ganz für solche Musik geeignet ist, während dies in der Thomaskirche durchaus nicht der Fall, da sie viel zu hoch ist.” Diary entry of between April 5 and April 11, 1841. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, 2:  158. See also Bach-​ Dokumente VI, 647. The benefit concert by Mendelssohn that had taken place the previous year was his all-​Bach organ recital at the Thomaskirche. 70. Clara Schumann: Jugendtagebücher, 16; and Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman,  50–​52. 71. On Rungenhagen and the St. Matthew Passion, see Martin Geck, Die Wiederentdeckung der Matthäuspassion im 19. Jahrhundert (Regensburg:  Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1967), 128; and Celia Applegate, Bach in Berlin:  Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn’s Revival of the St. Matthew Passion (Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press, 2005), 238. On Rungenhagen’s 1843 performance of the work at the Singakademie, see Bach-​Dokumente VI, 650. 72. J. S. Bach: The Passion According to St. John—​Vocal Score Edited and with an Introduction by Arthur Mendel (New York: G. Schirmer, 1951), footnote on page ix. 73. “Alle Tag ein Chor daraus und es wird mir gefallen, doch die ganzen 77 Chöre im Lento und Adagio auf einmal, das hab ich noch nicht gelernt aushalten. Nach dem ersten Theil ging ich fort.” See Clara Schumann: Jugendtagebücher, 242. 74. It is merely a funny coincidence that her chosen number of “seventy-​ seven” is only one less than the number of movements in the whole work, according to the BWV. The St. Matthew Passion is catalogued as BWV 244, the St. John as BWV 245. 75. Mendelssohn’s legendary performance of the work in 1829 at the Berlin Singakademie was even more abbreviated. See R. Larry Todd, Mendelssohn: A Life in Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 411–​12. 76. “Die Absicht dieser zerstreuten Bemerkungen . . . ist nur diese gewesen, auf die eigenthümliche Größe beider Passionen, und manche unbeachtete Vorzüge der Johannispassion hinzuweisen.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 22 (March 16, 1843), 87. Krüger’s essay, “Die beiden Bach’schen Passionen,” appeared in seven installments, starting on February 20. 77. “Die Matthäuspassion ist im Ganzen heiterer, freier, gesunder gehalten und ausgearbeitet  .  .  .  sie ist naiver, grandioser und künstlerisch vollendeter und darum auch im Ganzen und Großen wirksamer und der Aufnahme des Publicums geeigneter . . . Was [die Johannespassion] aber

98  Bach’s Legacy an äußerem Glanze und leichter Verständlichkeit abgeht, ersetzt sie an Tiefe und Neuheit der Empfindung; wenn sie weit mehr als die andere Passion ein entgegenkommendes, vorgebildetes Gemüth des Hörenden voraussetzt, so giebt sie dagegen auch einen unendlichen Reichthum der tiefsinnigsten musikalischen Auffassung, ein wogendes Meer von dunkler unbekannter Herrlichkeit, eine Darstellung unerhörter Ereignisse, wie sie keine Kunst außer der Musik, keine Musik außer der Bach’schen geben kann.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 19 (March 6, 1843), 73. 78. “Dass die Aufmerksamkeit der deutschen Kunstwelt auf dieses, eins der tiefsinnigsten und vollendetsten Werke Bach’s hingelenkt würde, dazu möchte auch ich beitragen, und auch durch Ihre Hand.” Letter of April 14, 1851, cited at the conclusion of Wendt, “Bach und Händel in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns.” 79. See Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument, 59. 80. Robert Schumann:  On Music and Musicians, ed. Konrad Wolff (New York: Pantheon Books, 1946), 38. 81. See Wendt, “Fanfaren für Bach,” 174. 82. “Das erste Theil hat . . . eine kirchliche Feier für sich ausgemacht, da das Ganze mit seiner fast 5stündigen Dauer auch starke Hörer verzehren könnte.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 20 (March 9, 1843), 78. 83. “Aus der Bachschen Passionsmusik nach dem Evangelisten Johannis erinnern wir un seines ähnlichen, freilich noch kunstvolleren, über die Worte ‘Kreuzige’.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 17, no. 29 (October 7, 1842), 122. Schumann was definitely referring to movement 36 and possibly also—​ because it contains essentially the same words and music—​movement  44. 84. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 22 (March 16, 1843), 86. 85. “Die Einleitung ist düster, schwierig, mystisch: die dunkeln Wogen der schwebenden Septenakkorde klingen an wie oceanischer Wellenklang, in dem alle süßen Wasser verschlungen wirbeln:  wir fühlen uns im Grenzenlosen, wo die Unterschiede des Irdischen verschwunden sind. Aus diesem geheimnißvollen Gemurmel hebt sich der fragende Gesang hervor:  ‘Herr, zeige uns, daß du Gottes Sohn bist’.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 22 (March 16, 1843), 85. Compare Krüger’s description to that of John Butt, who, in the liner notes to his recording of the St. John Passion with the Dunedin Consort, writes:  “the opening chorus ‘Herr, unser Herrscher’ . . . is arguably the most turbulent piece [Bach] wrote, in which the triumphal text is entirely transformed by the grinding dissonance of the music; if Jesus is indeed to be shown as the true Son of

Schumann’s Bach Reception  99 God, the means by which this is achieved are truly agonizing.” See Johann Sebastian Bach: John Passion (Linn, CKD 419). 86. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 18, no. 22 (March 16, 1843), 85. 87. On this point, see also Bischoff, “Das Bach-​Bild Robert Schumanns,” 474. 88. A  similar type of dialogue occurs in the alto aria “Sehet, Jesus hat die Hand, uns zu fassen ausgespannt” (movement 70), except between the second choir and a soloist. An analogous movement from the St. John Passion is the bass aria “Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen” (movement 48). 89. Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, rev. ed., ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 920. 90. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 6, no. 36 (May 5, 1837), 146. See also Bach-​ Dokumente VI, 402. 91. Freudenberg’s memoirs constitute an important source of information on Bach reception in the nineteenth century, especially with regard to the St. Matthew Passion and to such organ works as the Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 533; the Toccata in F Major, BWV 540/​1; the Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542/​2; the Fugue in E-​flat Major, BWV 552/​2; and the setting of “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele” (BWV 654) from the Great Eighteen chorales. See Russell Stinson, “Karl Gottlieb Freudenbergs Erinnerungen aus dem Leben eines alten Organisten und die Bach-​Rezeption im 19. Jahrhundert,” Bach-​Jahrbuch 105 (2019), 237–​51. 92. Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, 956. 93. Neither of the primary biographical sources on Moscheles makes any mention of Beethoven’s pun. See Mark Kroll, Ignaz Moscheles and the Changing World of Musical Europe (Suffolk:  Boydell & Brewer Press, 2014); and Aus Moscheles’ Leben:  Nach Briefen und Tagebüchern, ed. Charlotte Moscheles, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1872-​73). 94. “Einmal spielten wir auch Orgel in der St. Johanniskirche; eine schreckliche Erinnerung; denn wir behandelten sie nicht eben meisterhaft und Klara konnte in den Bach’schen Fugen nie über den zweiten . . . Eintritt hinüber, als stände sie an einem breiten Bach.” Diary entry of between September 27 and October 24, 1841. See Robert Schumann: Tagebücher, 2: 188.

3

Bach in Bayreuth Richard Wagner and the Well-​Tempered Clavier

J. S.  Bach’s Well-​Tempered Clavier—​that monumental and magisterial set of forty-​eight preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys—​has over the years meant different things to different people. For example, the great nineteenth-​century pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow regarded the collection as “The Old Testament” of keyboard literature.1 Robert Schumann also referred to the work in biblical terms, advising young musicians to “let the Well-​Tempered Clavier be your daily bread.” The collection likewise seems to have belonged to Johannes Brahms’s daily routine, for he once quipped, after someone noticed the score on his piano, “with this I rinse out my mouth every morning.” Richard Wagner, for his part, described the Well-​Tempered Clavier as the “quintessence” of Bach’s art. Wagner’s encounter with “the 48” represents an especially compelling chapter in the history of Bach reception. Wagner hailed Bach as one of the greatest composers in music history. His thoughts specifically on the Well-​Tempered Clavier, hereafter abbreviated as the WTC, are documented by various sources, but particularly by the diaries of his second wife, Cosima.2 Begun in 1869, the year before their marriage, and faithfully kept until the day before Wagner’s death in 1883, these journals were originally intended by Cosima as a way of finishing her husband’s autobiography. In published form, they run over two thousand pages, and they preserve Wagner’s musings on virtually every subject imaginable—​especially himself. Entries by Cosima as early as 1869 and as late as 1883 attest to Wagner’s high regard for the WTC, and in many instances she reported on performances of particular works from the collection that took place at the couple’s home in Bayreuth, the famous villa that Wagner dubbed Bach’s Legacy. Russell Stinson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190091224.001.0001

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  101 “Wahnfried” (since it was there that his “delusions” found “peace”). The performers at these gatherings included the pianist Joseph Rubinstein (1878, 1879, 1880), Cosima’s father Franz Liszt (1877, 1882), the conductor Hermann Levi (1882), and Wagner himself (1877, 1878, 1879, 1882).3 During 1878, such performances became increasingly common, and they culminated in a series of soirees from December 17, 1878 to March 2, 1879 in which Rubinstein performed in order, with perhaps one exception, all forty-​eight preludes and fugues (see Table 3.1 for a summary). Wagner, who was hardly the piano virtuoso that Rubinstein was, played the role of lecturer at these events, commenting extensively—​ and sometimes enigmatically—​ on such matters as form, melody, harmony, counterpoint, and the programmatic implications of the music; he also compared certain movements to operas by Mozart and himself. Despite the efforts of Martin Geck, Carl Dahlhaus, and others, Wagner’s remarks as recorded by Cosima still have not received the close attention they deserve. In conjunction with my examination of Cosima’s diaries, I have also studied Wagner’s personal copy of the WTC. Like Brahms, Wagner owned the collection in the circa 1850 edition by Breitkopf & Härtel. His personal copy, hereafter cited as Wagner’s “handexemplar,” is housed today at the Richard-​Wagner-​Museum in Bayreuth.4 The inscriptions found in this neglected source range from remarks on musical style to detailed performance instructions. Various hands are represented, including that of Cosima’s daughter Daniela, who, like her younger sister Blandine, was given musical tutelage in Bayreuth not only by her mother but also by Wagner himself. Rubinstein, too, seems to have made various jottings, and Wagner’s own hand may appear in one instance. Joseph Rubinstein is an obscure as well as a tragic figure within the annals of music history. Born in 1847 in Starokonstantinov, Russia, he received musical training first in his home town and then, for most of his adolescence, in Vienna.5 He came from a wealthy Jewish family. After concertizing as a pianist in Vienna and in his native land, he was appointed “chamber pianist” at the court of grand duchess Helena of Russia, working for her both in Salzburg and St. Petersburg. After getting to know Wagner’s operas Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Rubinstein became obsessed with

102  Bach’s Legacy Table 3.1  Works from the Well-​Tempered Clavier Performed at Wahnfried from December 17, 1878 to March 2, 1879 Date of Performance

Works Performed

December 17, 1878

Book 1: Preludes and Fugues in C Major, C Minor, C-​sharp Major, C-​sharp Minor, D Major, and D Minor

December 18, 1878

Book 1: Preludes and Fugues in E-​flat Major, E-​flat/​D-​sharp Minor, E Major, E Minor, F Major, and F Minor

December 19, 1878

Book 1: Preludes and Fugues in F-​sharp Major, F-​sharp Minor, and G Major

December 20, 1878

Book 1: Preludes and Fugues in G Minor, A-​flat Major, G-​sharp Minor, A Major, A Minor, and B-​flat Major

December 22, 1878

Book 1: Preludes and Fugues in B-​flat Minor, B Major, and B Minor

January 18, 1879

Book 2: Preludes and Fugues in C Major, C Minor, and C-​sharp Major

January 31, 1879

Book 2: Preludes and Fugues in C-​sharp Minor, D Major, D Minor, E-​flat Major, and D-​sharp Minor

February 2, 1879

Book 2: Preludes and Fugues in E Major, E Minor, F Major, F Minor, and F-​sharp Major

February 20, 1879

Book 2: Preludes and Fugues in F-​sharp Minor, G Major, and G Minor

February 28, 1879

Book 2: Preludes and Fugues in A-​flat Major, G-​sharp Minor, A Major, and A Minor

March 2, 1879

Book 2: Preludes and Fugues in B-​flat Major, B-​flat Minor, B Major, and B Minor

Wagner and his music. In April 1872, and obviously after having read Wagner’s notoriously anti-​Semitic essay Das Judenthum in der Musik, the young and mentally unstable artist came to Wagner to be “cured” of his Judaism, offering in exchange to serve as a copyist and rehearsal pianist for the premiere of the Ring cycle, which did not occur until the

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  103 summer of 1876. His decision to work for Wagner would effectively end his career as a concert pianist. It was in July 1872 that Rubinstein first performed for the Wagners a selection from the WTC, choosing, to their delight, one of the fugues in C-​sharp major.6 Alternately praised by Wagner as “Wahnfried’s supreme court pianist” and mocked by him as the “house Israelite,” Rubinstein made several extended visits to Bayreuth during the 1870s. One such sojourn began in November 1878, about a month before he and Wagner began their traversal of the WTC.7 On December 15, Rubinstein anticipated these gatherings by playing for the Wagners one of the preludes in F-​sharp minor.8

Book 1 The first of the soirees at Wahnfried dedicated to the WTC occurred on December 17, 1878. Evidently, only Wagner, Rubinstein, and Cosima were in attendance, which seems to have been the rule and not the exception. That evening, after the two men had discussed German politics, Rubinstein sat at his host’s Steinway and performed the first half-​dozen works from Book 1 of the WTC, the Preludes and Fugues in C Major, C Minor, C-​sharp Major, C-​sharp Minor, D Major, and D Minor. In Cosima’s words: We move on to Bach, start the Well-​Tempered Clavier from the beginning and play the first six. Richard gives Herr Rubinstein directions; after the first he says the remarkable thing about these works is that one can interpret them in various ways—​this first prelude, for instance, sentimentally à la Gounod or fast and vigorous in organ style. I ask Herr Rubinstein to note down at once in pencil everything that Richard says, but he does not seem able to do it properly, and so all I can say about the Fugue in D Major is that he calls it Herr Bürgermeister (“the mayor”) and says the figuration should arouse a feeling of trepidation; the countertheme he calls Frau Bürgermeisterin (“the mayoress”), and to the concluding bars he sings the words Mein Wille geschieht (“my will has been done”). The sixth fugue, in D minor, is the one he finds most wonderful: “Nothing can surpass that. It does not look worked out. What a command he

104  Bach’s Legacy has over his means of expression, using them just as his inspiration demands! And in those times, imagine—​the time of Frederick the Great’s father and his smokers’ gatherings!” . . . Afterward he declares that these preludes and fugues and the motets are probably the most consummate of Bach’s works.9

Surely we can all agree with Wagner that these pieces allow for various modes of performance; their astonishingly high musical quality transcends such considerations as tempo and dynamics. But Wagner’s allusion in this context to Charles Gounod’s arrangement of the C-​ major prelude (popularly known as the Bach/​Gounod “Ave Maria”) is quite surprising, because five years earlier, during a stay in Cologne, he and Cosima had severely criticized Gounod’s adaptation: A good night in the Hotel Disch; early in the morning Richard very annoyed to hear military music, but luckily he discovers that it is not for him, but for a colonel. One piece that is played astonishes us with the utter shallowness of its melody over captivating harmonies—​ eventually we recognize it as Gounod’s Meditation on Bach’s C Major Prelude, and we have to laugh at the way the old master helps out this most trivial of inventions.10

Wagner’s reference here to “fast and vigorous organ style” was probably influenced by just two days earlier having heard Rubinstein play Bach’s “Great” Prelude in A Minor for organ, BWV 543/​1.11 Both preludes constitute studies in perpetual sixteenth-​note motion, in common time (see Examples 3.1 and 3.2). As far as Wagner’s handexemplar is concerned, only the “fast and vigorous organ style” is represented, as someone has inscribed in that source, in pencil, at the beginning of Example 3.1  Prelude in C Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, mm.  1–​3

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  105 Example 3.2  Organ Prelude in A Minor, BWV 543/​1, mm. 1–​3

the movement, the words forte and Orgelstil.12 The latter inscription neatly matches Cosima’s original language of “schnell und kräftig im Orgelstil.” To judge from verified examples of Rubinstein’s script—​and also bearing in mind Cosima’s report that she instructed Rubinstein to jot down Wagner’s remarks—​the hand indeed appears to be that of Rubinstein, who evidently was playing from this very source.13 The same hand is found at the beginning of the C-​major fugue, where the inscriptions piano and milde indicate a contrasting, gentler way of playing.14 Wagner’s remarks about the D-​major fugue may seem frivolous, not to mention self-​aggrandizing. They do, however, exemplify his pronounced (and fully Romantic) tendency to interpret the music of the WTC programmatically. No doubt imagining himself and Cosima as the “Bürgermeister” and “Bürgermeisterin,” he appears to have associated these roles, respectively, with the fugue’s subject and with the contrasting theme—​there is no real countersubject—​that sounds for the first time, in the top voice, at measures 9–​10 (see Examples 3.3 and 3.4). While the former theme opens with a burst of thirty-​second notes and continues with dotted rhythms, like something out of a French overture, the latter is nothing more than a sequentially descending set of sixteenth notes. For the “concluding bars,” Wagner, with himself now elevated to God-​like status, saw fit to parody one of the most sacrosanct of all texts, namely, the Lord’s Prayer, as translated by Martin Luther, replacing the line “Dein Will geschehe” (“thy will be done”) with “Mein Will geschieht” (“my will has been done”), and singing the latter to the dotted rhythms in measures 25–​26 (see Example 3.5). Wagner’s inclination to “sing” the WTC was, as we shall see, not limited to this instance and agrees with a remark made by him several

106  Bach’s Legacy Example 3.3  Fugue in D Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, mm. 1–​2: “Bürgermeister” theme (fugue subject)

Example 3.4  Fugue in D Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, mm. 9–​10: “Bürgermeisterin”  theme

Example 3.5  Fugue in D Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, mm. 25–​27, as sung by Wagner

months earlier, as recorded by Cosima, about the “remarkable singing quality of the figurations” employed by Bach in these works.15 Regarding the D-​minor fugue, it makes perfect sense that Wagner would have singled out this movement as the “most wonderful” of the group, for this fugue is a specimen par excellence of both contrapuntal rigor and organic unity. In what amounts to only about two minutes of music, the subject is stated in various types of stretto, sometimes with the subject inverted, and motives from both the subject and countersubject supply the material for the episodes, resulting in a tightly constructed work whose orderly surface is untouched by any

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  107 extraneous flights of fancy. Wagner marveled that such a masterpiece could date from the reign of Frederick William I, known as the “soldier king” (he was the father of Frederick the Great), whose passion for militarism and statesmanship excluded any real interest in the arts. And yet, why did Cosima make no mention of the Prelude and Fugue in C-​sharp Minor, which seems to have been one of Wagner’s favorite pieces of music altogether? After all, this was the composition that, courtesy of Franz Liszt, had “revealed” Bach to Wagner in the first place and whose prelude, at least, Wagner seems to have played himself for the rest of his life.16 Wagner’s handexemplar, though, does contain an inscription for this work, presumably in Rubinstein’s hand, and it is the word wehmüthig (“melancholy”), written at the beginning of the prelude.17 This inscription accords with an entry from Cosima’s diaries several months earlier about a soiree featuring Wagner as the main performer: in response to his patented rendition of the C-​sharp-​minor prelude, she likened the movement to the “quiet lament of a Sphinx” as well as to “nature before the creation of mankind.”18 Similarly, Wagner remarked that evening that the Italian opera melodies he had just played were “for the world,” whereas Bach’s prelude was “the world itself.” Quite apart from the inherently sad nature of the prelude—​ witness Donald Francis Tovey’s mention of its “pathetic melodies”—​ the Wagners sensed in this music something incomprehensible, primordial, and all-​encompassing.19 It stands to reason that the C-​sharp-​minor fugue, one of only two triple fugues in the entire WTC, would have appealed to Wagner solely because of its masterful counterpoint. But one suspects that it made a rather melancholy impression on him as well, if only because of its affinity with a fugue he once described as “surely the saddest thing ever said in musical notes.”20 By this I mean the opening movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-​sharp Minor, op. 131, a fugue that, in the words of Joseph Kerman, is “haunted” by this fugue of Bach’s, both in terms of the rhythmic makeup and melodic contour of the subject, and the highly unusual key choice—​for either composer—​of C-​sharp Minor (see Examples 3.6 and 3.7).21 Beethoven’s spirit also asserted itself during the second soiree at Wahnfried dedicated to the WTC. This gathering took place just a day later (December 18), with Rubinstein playing the next six works from

108  Bach’s Legacy Example 3.6  Fugue in C-​sharp Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1: fugue subject

Example 3.7  Beethoven, Quartet in C-​sharp Minor, op. 131, first movement: fugue subject

Book 1, the Preludes and Fugues in E-​flat Major, E-​flat Minor/​D-​sharp Minor, E Major, E Minor, F Major, and F Minor. To quote again from Cosima’s diaries: Richard had a good night. We return to the subject of Bach, and he says that in his youth he was prompted by the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann to look into these compositions, searching for mysticism, but all he had really felt was boredom. He introduced this remark by exclaiming, “How necessary education is in all things!” . . . In the evening Bach again.  .  .  . Of the 7th prelude (E-​flat Major) Richard says:  “That is Wotan—​it (and especially the first 9 bars) must be played wildly. The ensuing fugue is the pacification, the good wife who dresses nicely, calms her husband down.” Of the 8th prelude [E-​flat minor] Richard says, “I play that in a more moonlit way, never allowing the twilight to lift.” The following fugue Richard considers the most remarkable of all; he says it is extraordinarily elaborate, yet so full of feeling: “What strettos and augmentations it has—​and what accents!” For him, he says it is the quintessence of fugue. . . . And when today’s six have been played he exclaims “That is music in its true essence; everything we compose is applied music—​a rondo by Hummel, for instance, is Bach diluted so-​and-​so many times, in the way one dilutes essence of roses so-​and-​so many times to obtain the familiar fragrance.” . . . He explains to the children (Lusch and Boni) what a fugue is. Then he says, “Let us now play some applied Bach,” and takes out the piano-​duet arrangement of the Meistersinger prelude . . . 22

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  109 This excerpt focuses on two particular preludes and fugues from the WTC, but it also touches on material of a more general nature. First, Wagner’s awareness of Bach’s oeuvre seems to have been piqued initially by a literary source, that of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s novel Kreisleriana (1813), whose Bach-​ obsessed protagonist uses the music almost like a drug. Second, as the last three sentences demonstrate, Wagner interpreted the six Bach works played that evening as music in its purest, most undiluted state, as opposed to such later compositions as J. N. Hummel’s Rondo in E-​flat Major, op. 11, and the prelude to Wagner’s own opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Why Wagner chose Hummel’s piano rondo as a point of comparison is hardly clear, given the absence of any fugal writing in that work. Wagner’s prelude, on the other hand, is overtly fugal, actually containing a fugal exposition, not to mention “strettos and augmentations.” The specific model, however, seems to have been not one of the fugues from the WTC but one of Bach’s most complex organ fugues, that in C major catalogued as BWV 547/​2.23 The “children” in attendance at this gathering were Cosima’s teenage daughters, from her marriage to Hans von Bülow, Daniela and Blandine, referred to here by their nicknames. Perhaps Wagner explained to the girls what constitutes a fugue, as he had done many years earlier for their mother, making sure to distinguish fugue from canon, and drawing an analogy between double fugues and the relationship he was enjoying with Cosima: “Everything in life repeats itself.” Old proverb. Awareness of this grows clearer and clearer the longer one lives. . . . The common life of the ordinary person is represented in the “canon”: a theme, unaltered, constantly repeated, complementary to itself solely through itself; a character that remains ever constant, so keeping all around it constant. But now comes the “fugue”: the theme remains basically always the same; but it has free contrapuntal counterparts which cause it to appear always in a new light; the theme itself shortens and extends itself, and modulates; the course of the fugue does not let itself be determined in advance, as that of the immutable canon does—​and ends only on the pedal point of death. The great, rich character does not take it beyond the theme of a fine Bach fugue: and at best, as far as a splendid counter theme; that is then the triumph,

110  Bach’s Legacy and if the double fugue always shows both themes equally recognizable and significantly, then life’s finest course has been achieved. They interlace, part and unite; like a dance. But the piece remains always the same: it becomes highly varied but always repeats itself. We two are living in just such a fine Bach double fugue.24

To continue with Cosima’s diary entry of December 18, Wagner, similar to how he had interpreted the D-​major fugue but now adopting a more sexist viewpoint, imagined in the Prelude and Fugue in E-​flat Major another married couple, namely, Wotan—​the major deity in Germanic and Norse mythology—​and his wife Fricka. Both, of course, are major characters in Wagner’s Ring cycle. Apropos of Wagner’s remarks here, it is worth quoting from a dissertation by Alan Anbari: As odd as the latter reference is to anyone who knows the character of Fricka in Wagner’s Ring, the persistent scalar sixteenth-​note figuration that makes up the bulk of this prelude is very much like a lot of the restless accompaniment Wagner often uses to portray Wotan. . . . Curiously, only Bach’s use of the major mode does not jibe with the darker, more somber and volatile character of the minor that Wagner routinely needed to depict his god’s agitation throughout the lengthy drama. Hearing Bach’s work and knowing Wagner heard some aspect of his character foreshadowed therein, one almost wonders if there may be another side of Wotan’s (and Fricka’s) character.25

That leaves Wagner’s commentary on the Prelude and Fugue in E-​flat Minor, a piece that for decades had been one of his favorites by any composer (and for which, alas, there are no inscriptions whatsoever in Wagner’s handexemplar).26 His reference here to the “moonlit” manner in which he performed the prelude is undoubtedly an allusion to the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, op. 27, no.  2.  Just as Beethoven calls for pedal throughout this movement, Wagner must have used more pedal than Rubinstein (perhaps pedaling for the most part only on the downbeat), thereby superimposing upon the music a kind of Romantic haze. Aside from any connection to Beethoven, however, an unabashed Romanticist like Wagner would have been drawn to the intensely negative affect of the prelude,

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  111 whose flat minor key, dissonant harmonies, dotted rhythms, and scalar flourishes evoke the baroque genre of the tombeau, or musical lament (see Example 3.8).27 Indeed, the pianist Paul Badura-​Skoda once opined that the prelude originated as a memorial for Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara.28 It should also be pointed out that Wagner chose the rare key of E-​flat-​minor for the prelude to his opera Götterdämmerung, which is the last opera in the Ring cycle and one more tragically titled in its original version, Siegfrieds Tod.29 Was Bach’s prelude the deciding factor? It was not, however, the Ring that Wagner was composing at the time of the piece-​by-​piece survey of the WTC but rather his final opera, Parsifal. He had begun composing that work back in September of 1877, completing the final draft in April 1879. Scholars have long acknowledged that one of the models for Parsifal was Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, an opus greatly admired by Wagner (and one, of course, like Parsifal, inextricably linked to Good Friday).30 Still, according to Cosima’s diary entry of June 9, 1878, the influence of the WTC may manifest itself already in the opera’s prelude: Richard comes to the subject of Bach’s fugues, in most of which there is hardly ever a modulation: “It is like a cosmic system, which moves according to eternal laws, without feeling; the sorrows of the world are indeed reflected in it, but not in the same way as in other music.” Similarly, he says, he has used only one strong modulation in the Parsifal prelude.31

Exactly what Cosima meant here is unclear, because (1)  all Bach fugues, of course, modulate, and (2) the Parsifal prelude modulates at

Example 3.8  Prelude in E-​flat Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, mm.  1–​4

112  Bach’s Legacy least five times from a flat key to a sharp key, and vice versa, if that is what she meant by a “strong” modulation. Nonetheless, the Wagner expert William Kinderman has unqualifiedly identified the “one strong modulation” as that in measure 51 from G-​flat major to D major, which occurs along with the first appearance of the so-​called faith motive.32 With regard to texture, the prelude also begins just like a keyboard fugue by Bach, with the “subject” stated in a single “voice”—​ the instruments play in unison—​minus any other material. To return to the complete performance of the WTC at Wahnfried, Wagner apparently prized the Fugue in E-​flat Minor both for its emotional depth and contrapuntal artifice (see Examples 3.9 and 3.10). As evidence of the former, one need only hear the plaintive subject, which seems to quote the chorale “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir” (“Out of the depths I cry unto Thee”).33 As an example of fugal writing, this movement constitutes a tour de force of stretto writing, often with the subject inverted and, toward the end, augmented. Wagner’s comment about the fugue’s “accents” would seem to involve the subject itself as well as the multifarious ways it is stated in stretto. Consider first that the subject, by virtue of its contour and rhythm, contains two instances of syncopation (on the second beat of the first bar and the last beat of the second bar), both of which are approached by leap, in what is otherwise a basically stepwise melody. Then consider precisely how Bach treats the theme in stretto, first at the distance of two beats, in two voices, upright and then inverted (mm. 19–​47); then at the distance

Example 3.9  Fugue in E-​flat Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1: fugue subject

Example 3.10  Opening phrase of the chorale “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir”

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  113 of one beat, in three voices, upright and then inverted (mm. 52–​55); and, finally, using two different types of augmentation, strict, with the note values doubled, and free (mm. 62–​72). The fugue culminates with the subject stated simultaneously in all three voices, each with its own rhythm (mm. 77–​82). Combined with the syncopations in the subject per se, these various types of stretto technique create a whole series of cross rhythms, or “accents,” with the subject entering unpredictably on both strong and weak beats, and in different voices. A third soiree took place the next day (December 19), with Rubinstein essaying the next three works in the sequence, the Preludes and Fugues in F-​sharp Major, F-​sharp Minor, and G Major. Cosima summed up that session as follows: “Herr Rubinstein plays us three preludes and fugues; Richard says of the theme of the 13th fugue [F-​ sharp major] that it is like the proclamation of a gospel; in general, he advises Herr Rubinstein not to emphasize the middle voices too strongly, so that the melody may stand out nicely.”34 Exactly what Wagner meant here with respect to the Fugue in F-​sharp Major (“the 13th fugue”) is open to conjecture, but his advice on performance practice seems clear enough, especially if the term “middle voices” is interpreted to mean any voice stated simultaneously with the subject. He simply seems to be saying that, for good pianistic effect, the subject of the fugue should be played louder than any material sounding against it. A day later (December 20), another soiree was held. Although Cosima’s report is somewhat sketchy, the featured repertory seems to have been the next six works from Book 1, the Preludes and Fugues in G Minor, A-​flat Major, G-​sharp Minor, A Major, A Minor, and B-​ flat Major. Also present that evening, at least until the Bach began, was the young pianist Berthold Kellermann, who, after moving to Bayreuth earlier that year, had begun giving piano lessons to Cosima’s daughters. Cosima described the scene in these terms: An unpleasant incident with Herr Kellermann, who goes off to practice for the amateur concert instead of staying for the talk on Bach’s fugues. Richard, very annoyed, tells him his piano playing there is not worth a jot, whereas here he might learn something. Herr Kellermann goes, but Richard is very agitated; as he says, he can never tell a person the

114  Bach’s Legacy truth calmly and unconcernedly, and that is why he prefers to avoid such encounters. Now he is sorry about it, or, rather, he is upset, and much time passes before we can settle down to Bach’s Well-​Tempered Clavier. Richard describes the 17th fugue [A-​flat major] as a dance, and traces a few steps to the first bars, then says it is freer in form, already approaching the sonata. Prelude 18 [G-​sharp minor] enchants and moves one, and its fugue Richard calls a fairy tale told by the grandmother in the Edda. The theme is expressive of complete resignation, and he sings some words to it, which end, Es muß ja doch so sein (“And so it then must be”). In the 19th prelude [A major] he laughs over the fifths and says, “Bach wrote those deliberately, saying, ‘People know what a musician I am, and they know that when I write something like this, I do it on purpose, for the sake of the idea.’ ” Concerning the 20th fugue [A minor], he says Bach must first have thought of it in four voices, then arranged it for keyboard. It is such things, he says, that brought Bach into disrepute and caused his teacher Weinlig to refuse to have anything to do with him. Referring to one of the fugues between nos. 16 [G minor] and 20, Richard says it is curious how Bach sometimes reeled off the most significant themes as if on a spinning wheel.35

Let us take these works in order, beginning with the G-​minor prelude and fugue. Cosima sheds no light on what her husband thought about this piece, but Wagner’s handexemplar reveals how another member of the household played the fugue, for that source contains, on the last page of this fugue, various inscriptions in the distinctive hand of Daniela von Bülow, Cosima’s older daughter and by all accounts a fine pianist in her own right.36 Daniela, who had been trained primarily by her mother but also coached by Wagner, was in her late teens when the WTC soirees in Bayreuth were taking place, and—​who knows?—​ she might have been the performer of the G-​minor prelude and fugue that evening. After all, Cosima reported that Daniela and her sister Blandine had attended the soiree at which Rubinstein played the E-​ flat-​minor prelude and fugue, a gathering that ended with Wagner explaining to the two girls exactly what constitutes a fugue. Regardless of when Daniela might have learned the piece, the ebb and flow of her markings attest to a thoroughly Romantic interpretation. These markings are the following: in measure 22, the word erregt (“excited”),

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  115 for the statement of the subject in the soprano voice; at the beginning of measure 23, a forte indication for the statement that ensues in the alto; in measure 25, the word calmando (“becoming calm”) for the beginning of the episode there; in measure 26, a barely visible crescendo hairpin for the remainder of that episode; in measure 28, immediately after the half cadence that begins the last bar of that system, a piano indication and the word klagend (“mournfully”) for the three-​ voice stretto that starts there; in measures 30–​32, the word crescendo followed by a wavy line indicating the continuation of the crescendo; and in measure 33, two fortissimo markings, in conjunction with the final statement of the subject, in the tenor, where, ingeniously, the last note of the subject is also the Picardy third in the last chord. Whoever taught Daniela this fugue—​ Kellermann is a third possibility—​ it cannot be coincidental that her marking of dynamics closely matches that found in the most popular edition of the WTC edition ever issued, the one by Carl Czerny first published in 1837.37 Continuing with the next four works, one can agree with Wagner that the subject of the Fugue in A-​flat Major is dance-​like, but how this movement departs from standard fugal practice (“freer in form”) in the direction of sonata form is by no means obvious. That he was charmed by the Prelude in G-​sharp Minor comes as no surprise, considering this movement’s close stylistic affinity with the Prelude in C-​sharp Minor from Book 1, which, as mentioned earlier, was one of Wagner’s very favorite movements from the WTC.38 He sensed in the subject of the G-​sharp-​minor fugue something harshly inevitable and so primeval as to conjure up the collection of old Norse poems known as the Edda, a major source of inspiration for the Ring cycle. What Cosima recorded of Wagner’s text for this fugue subject perfectly matches in its use of iambic trimeter the last six notes of that theme (see Example 3.11). Wagner’s text is also reminiscent of Beethoven’s String Quartet Example 3.11  Fugue in G-​sharp Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1: fugue subject, as sung by Wagner

116  Bach’s Legacy in F Major, op. 135, evidently another favorite work within the Wagner household, whose last movement famously asks “Muß es sein?” and answers “Es muß sein.”39 More curious is Wagner’s detection in the A-​ major prelude of (apparently non-​existent) parallel fifths, a breach of part-​writing etiquette that, he is saying, would surely have irked his old composition teacher, Christian Theodor Weinlig. Likewise, Wagner’s insistence that the Fugue in A  Minor was originally a choral work would seem to lack any basis. Which one of the fugue subjects of these four works suggested to Wagner the whir of a spinning wheel is far from clear, as none seems to have such rhythmic drive. Given the pattern of playing either three or six preludes and fugues, one must assume that a sixth work was offered that same evening, and it would have been the Prelude and Fugue in B-​flat Major. Cosima cites this piece nowhere in her diaries. It may, however, be the only one in Wagner’s handexemplar to contain a marking in his own hand (Wagner was averse to annotating his scores or books in any way).40 The marking in question is an inscription under the left-​hand part at the beginning of the prelude that reads: die Bässe nicht zu sehr staccato (“the bass notes not too staccato”). Although the inscription may be too fragmentary ever to be authenticated, it comes tantalizingly close to Wagner’s delicate, meticulous script. Whoever is responsible for it was dispensing good advice—​perhaps in response to Czerny’s edition, which prints staccato dots here—​as playing the left hand “too staccato” can give the illusion of perpetual thirty-​second notes, thereby weakening the contrapuntal integrity of the music (see Example 3.12). What is implied is a more marcato articulation, roughly equivalent to sixteenth notes followed by sixteenth rests.

Example 3.12  Prelude in B-​flat Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, m. 1

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  117 Another soiree had been scheduled for the next day, but Wagner cancelled it. As Cosima wrote, “Richard puts off the Bach evening, saying he wants to be alone.”41 It was thus not until two days later (December 22) that the last three works from Book 1 were covered, with Rubinstein playing the Preludes and Fugues in B-​flat Minor, B Major, and B Minor. To quote Cosima: Bach in the evening. Of the Prelude in B Major (no. 23) Richard says, “This is full of hope, spring must be coming after all.” The 24th prelude [B minor] he thinks should be taken “like a heartfelt lament”; he says he would like to hear it sung by someone like Catalani, with words—​one would see what an impression that would make. He advises Rubinstein always to bring out the melodic line very clearly and says he feels almost like writing words for it himself. I observe that the text would have to be religious, a kind of offertory, and he agrees. He wants the ensuing fugue taken broadly, then gradually quickening. “These pieces are like riddles,” he says, “one must look at them, follow the melody; he has really lavished melody on them.”42

Wagner’s remarks in this excerpt range from the obvious to the unfathomable. Of course, the beautiful Prelude in B Major is fresh-​sounding enough to have suggested on a cold December night the arrival of spring. Where, though, is the vocal essence of the B-​minor prelude, and what aspects of the B-​minor fugue suggested the use of accelerando? At any rate, the B-​minor prelude is unquestionably modeled not after any vocal genre but the slow movements from Corelli’s trio sonatas, wherein two violins create a contrapuntal web of suspensions and imitations, accompanied by a walking bass (see Example 3.13).

Example 3.13  Prelude in B Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1, mm.  1–​3

118  Bach’s Legacy Imagining the legendary Angelica Catalani (1780–​1849) singing the top voice, Wagner instructed Rubinstein to “bring out” this part, at the expense of the equally important middle voice.43 Accordingly, Wagner’s handexemplar preserves an inscription above the top system, apparently in Rubinstein’s hand, that reads: eignet sich zu einem Canto für Sopran (langsam) (“qualifies as a song for soprano [slow]”). The slow tempo would agree with Wagner’s notion of a “heartfelt lament.” As far as the B-​minor fugue is concerned, it may have been the remarkably chromatic subject—​one duly celebrated for containing all twelve basic pitches—​that inspired Wagner’s comments on melody. William Kinderman speculates that this fugue may have factored in Wagner’s choice of B minor to portray the evil magician Klingsor in the second act of Parsifal.44 This section of Wagner’s handexemplar, that is, the last three works from Book 1, also preserves by far the greatest concentration of fingerings anywhere in that source. These include a more-​or-​less complete set of fingerings for measures 1–​17 of the B-​minor prelude, in other words, the first “half ” of this binary form. Presumably in the hand of Daniela von Bülow, these fingerings are remarkable for their use of finger substitution, a technique that allows the music to be played absolutely legato without the aid of the damper pedal, as in organ playing. Similar fingerings, in the same hand, appear throughout the Prelude and Fugue in B-​flat Minor, where numerous dynamics have been added as well, almost all of them borrowed from Carl Czerny’s aforementioned edition. Perhaps both of these works were held in particularly high esteem within Wagner’s circle.

Book 2 Having traversed all of Book 1 of the WTC in under a week, Wagner and Rubinstein waited almost a month before beginning Book 2. They seem to have taken roughly a month and a half to complete it. At this leisurely pace, and with gaps of more than two weeks between performances, they chose three, four, or five works at a time. Cosima, for her part, wrote less in her diaries about the works from Book 2, which is no doubt a reflection of her husband’s relative lack

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  119 of familiarity with these preludes and fugues. Likewise, Wagner’s handexemplar contains far fewer markings of any kind for Book 2, indicating that his entire household had less interest in these works. Only one performance marking is to be found.45 This “neglect” is entirely expected, since Book 2 has always been less popular with musicians and music lovers alike—​and for reasons that go beyond the scope of the present discussion. Meanwhile, the WTC cycle at Wahnfried resumed on January 18, 1879. One of the guests that evening was Otto Eiser, a physician and Wagner devotee from Frankfurt who seems to have been more keen on hearing the prelude to Parsifal than any of the three Bach works on the program. These must have been, from Book 2, the Preludes and Fugues in C Major, C Minor, and C-​sharp Major. Cosima’s exceedingly brief diary entry reads: “three preludes and fugues from the second book of the Well-​Tempered Clavier.”46 About two weeks later, on January 31, the cycle continued with the Preludes and Fugues in C-​sharp Minor, D Major, D Minor, E-​flat Major, and D-​sharp Minor. Cosima had rather more to say about these pieces: .  .  .  we take up Bach’s Preludes and Fugues again, after a long break:  numbers 4–​8 in the second book. Of the seventh [E-​flat major] Richard says, “One can see the Countess from Figaro in that.” And of the 2nd of these five preludes [D major] he says, “He wanted to do something especially beautiful there.” After one of the fugues he says, “Canonic devices—​they are repeated, too, so people should be able to put up with the repetitions of my Leitmotiv.”47

By way of interpreting Wagner’s remarks, beginning with those about the “Countess,” one need only examine the opening bars of the E-​flat major prelude to be reminded of that noble character from Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro. Indeed, the correspondence involves what is arguably the Countess’s most memorable music, the opening bars of the aria “Porgi, amor,” in which the Countess laments her husband’s infidelity, praying to the god of love to put an end to her suffering (see Examples 3.14 and 3.15). Both Bach and Mozart begin on the fifth degree of the E-​flat major scale, ascend to the tonic pitch, repeat the

120  Bach’s Legacy Example 3.14  Prelude in E-​flat Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 2, mm.  1–​2

Example 3.15  Mozart, “Porgi, amor,” mm. 18–​19 (from Le Nozze di Figaro)

tonic pitch in the context of a 4-​3 suspension, and then descend to the leading tone as the harmony shifts from the tonic to the dominant. Wagner doubtless made this connection at this particular time because over the previous week and a half he had played through Figaro in its entirety, finding this aria so beautiful because “it does not go further than it should.”48 Wagner’s handexemplar should also be taken into account here, for the inscription das Gebet, or “the prayer,” appears at the beginning of the fugue. “Porgi, amor” is nothing if not a prayer, implying that the inscription, presumably in Daniela’s hand, was really intended for the prelude. As for the other two preludes and fugues, there is precious little to go on. Wagner would have admired the D-​major prelude for its modern stylistic traits, as we know he did with the F-​minor and B-​minor preludes (see below). These traits include the use of two contrasting themes (already in the first two measures), the second of which is fitted with appoggiatura “sighs,” and a binary design that adumbrates the sonata form of the Classical and Romantic eras. The fugue that he singled out for its “canonic devices”—​and in defense of his own tendency

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  121 toward leitmotives—​may well have been the D-​major fugue, even if that movement represents a virtuoso display not of canonic writing per se but of stretto technique. Two days later, on February 2, Rubinstein served up the next five works in the set, the Preludes and Fugues in E Major, E Minor, F Major, F Minor, and F-​sharp Major. Cosima summed up that soiree as follows: In the evening some more of the Preludes and Fugues, five of them today; the 4th [F minor] Richard calls a complete transition to more modern music. He says Bach must have played it to his wife. Previously he had emphasized the extent to which these works were written by their composers for themselves, and how superficial the works their successors wrote for other people seemed in comparison—​the sonatas. “They have also given us some good things, of course, but this is like birth itself.”49

In referring to the “modern” idiom of the Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, Wagner can only have meant the prelude. Like the D-​major prelude just mentioned, the Prelude in F Minor contains two contrasting themes (already in the first eight measures), the first of which involves appoggiatura sighs, and it is cast in the same binary form. But the F-​ minor also relies heavily on four-​bar phraseology, a hallmark of the pre-​ Classical style.50 Something about the prelude suggested to Wagner that Bach had composed it as a kind of primeval love song for his spouse at the time, meaning either Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara, or his second wife, Anna Magdalena. It is in this sense that we should understand the inscription Ballade, presumably in Rubinstein’s hand, that appears in Wagner’s handexemplar at the beginning of the movement.51 Not until over two weeks later, on February 20, did the series continue, with Rubinstein offering the Preludes and Fugues in F-​sharp Minor, G Major, and G Minor. As Cosima wrote, “In the evening three Bach preludes and fugues from the second book, very well played by Herr Rubinstein. Of the first and most beautiful (in F-​sharp minor, no. 14), Richard says, ‘That is like Nature, uncomprehending and incomprehensible, and it is also endless melody!’ ”52 As discussed earlier in conjunction with the Prelude in C-​sharp Minor from Book 1 of the WTC, Bach’s music impressed both Wagner

122  Bach’s Legacy and Cosima as a primordial, incomprehensible force of nature, and Wagner used similar language in this excerpt with respect to the Prelude and Fugue in F-​sharp Minor from Book 2. But here he also compares the latter work to the all-​important facet of his own compositional technique known as “endless melody.” Wagner meant by this term a melodic style in which leitmotives are manipulated to form the stuff of “musical prose,” replacing the “poetic” rhythms of the symmetrical, four-​square phrases used by earlier composers. The melody, usually asymmetrical in shape, results from the continuity of line, undisturbed by the rests and cadences of earlier musical syntax. Some months earlier, Wagner had declared that his whole concept of endless melody was “predestined” in the music of Bach.53 And according to Carl Dahlhaus, it was in particular the subject of the F-​sharp-​minor fugue that struck Wagner as an example of this phenomenon, since that theme is characterized not only by a lack of symmetry but also by a manipulation of distinct motives.54 Dahlhaus, furthermore, saw in this fugue subject a model of sorts for the opening theme of the prelude to Parsifal. Roughly a week later, on February 28, Rubinstein essayed the next four works in the collection, the Preludes and Fugues in A-​flat Major, G-​sharp Minor, A Major, and A Minor. To quote again from Cosima’s diaries: . . . four of the Preludes and Fugues from the Well-​Tempered Clavier, from No. 17 [A-​flat Major] of the second book on; Richard often sings to himself the theme of the 17th fugue, and he likes it to be played lightheartedly, like a rondo; the following one, in G-​sharp minor, is, I believe, even more beautiful, a truly wonderful wonder! Richard says one only has to compare them with what others understood by fugues, for example, Handel in the Overture to the Messiah.55

These remarks are relatively easy to understand. Yes, the (eminently singable) subject of the Fugue in A-​flat is sprightly enough to suggest the theme of a rondo-​finale from a Classical-​era sonata. Cosima’s admiration of the Prelude and Fugue in G-​sharp Minor corresponds to Wagner’s interest in other binary-​form preludes from the WTC, such as, from Book 1, the Prelude in B Minor, and, from Book 2, the

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  123 Preludes in D Major, F Minor, and B Minor (see below). The fact that the G-​sharp-​minor fugue is a double fugue may also have appealed to Cosima’s (and Wagner’s) sensibilities, especially if she took seriously her husband’s aforementioned notion that their life together was like “a fine Bach double fugue.” In pronouncing all four of these fugues superior to those by “other” composers, Wagner may have had in mind various aspects of the music, but he would surely have criticized the rather pedantic fugue included by Handel in the overture to his oratorio Messiah:  the subject itself is exactly four bars long, and it is stated initially at regular, four-​bar intervals. Later on that year, Wagner would proclaim Bach’s superiority to Handel with respect to the latter’s Alexander’s Feast, maligning that work for its “ineffective and arbitrary harmonies” and declaring that “in Bach everything seems magnificent, necessary, and significant.”56 The WTC cycle at Wahnfried ended a few days later, on March 2, with Rubinstein playing the Preludes and Fugues in B-​flat Major, B-​flat Minor, B Major, and B Minor. Cosima described the proceedings in these terms: In the evening conclusion of the Well-​Tempered Clavier; the B-​flat Major Fugue, which we call die bittende (“the pleading one”); Richard sings to it, Sei mir nicht mehr böse, sei mir wieder gut (“Don’t be angry at me any more, be good to me again”), and makes an imploring gesture. Richard has the last prelude [B minor] played quickly, and with great passion; he finds it quite remarkable that Bach concludes in this way, says that the entire sonata of the future is contained in it, and at a certain passage he observes, “Tristan and Isolde could not have done that any better.”57

Wagner’s comments on these two movements represent two utterly different responses to the WTC, both of which reflect his understanding of music history. He and Cosima may have sincerely admired the Fugue in B-​flat Major, a movement whose second half is distinguished by some remarkable invertible counterpoint, but they also enjoyed poking fun at the fugue’s subject for its reliance on so-​called sigh figures, marked by Bach at the outset with couplet slurs (see Example 3.16).58 Such figuration served as a veritable emblem of grief in baroque

124  Bach’s Legacy Example 3.16  Fugue in B-​flat Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 2: fugue subject, as sung by Wagner

music and was so widespread as to constitute a cliché. Realizing how outmoded sigh figures were in their own era, the Wagners paid tribute to the tradition here with mock seriousness, complete with a new text by Wagner in which he seems to be asking Cosima to forgive him for some minor transgression. As Example 3.16 illustrates, Wagner’s text must have been reserved for the latter half of the theme, beginning precisely with the first sigh figure, for its eleven syllables scan perfectly with the last eleven notes of the theme. Wagner’s handexemplar lacks this text, but, in accordance with Cosima’s diary, it does contain the inscription bittend, apparently in Rubinstein’s hand and written above the third bar, that is, exactly where the sigh figures begin. We can only hope that Rubinstein also got the joke. Upon reaching the last work of the WTC, the Prelude and Fugue in B Minor from Book 2, Wagner opined that Bach had purposely ended the collection with a movement pointing to the future, proclaiming that “the entire sonata of the future [is] contained in it.” This remark by Wagner is paraphrased by an inscription found in his handexemplar, presumably in Rubinstein’s hand and written above the first three bars, that reads:  Grundlage für die heutige Sonate (“foundation of today’s sonata”). Wagner’s notion about the “futuristic” style of the prelude strongly resonates with the titles of two of his essays about his own “futuristic” ideals, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (1849) and Zukunftsmusik (1860). Wagner had made a similar claim about the Prelude in F Minor from Book 2, calling it a “complete transition to more modern music,” but he spoke more grandiloquently about the B-​minor prelude, aware of its special status as the last of no fewer than forty-​eight preludes. The modern idiom of the B-​minor manifests itself in numerous ways. Although it lacks the binary design characteristic of sonata form, it contains three sections that equate to the three “phases” of that form: exposition (mm. 1–​24), development (mm. 25–​40), and

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  125 recapitulation (mm. 41–​62).59 Observe, too, the periodic phrase structure (clearly present already in the first eight bars), the multitude of written-​out turns (imbedded already in the main theme), and the various staccato dots. Wagner instructed Rubinstein to perform the prelude “quickly, and with great passion,” similar to how he wanted Rubinstein to play the opening section of the Prelude in E-​flat Major from Book 1 of the WTC, that is, “wildly.” His recommendation of a fast tempo in the present instance was obviously predicated on Bach’s own marking of Allegro (which in and of itself is another modern trait). Wagner’s desire for “passion” here may have had to do with a striking three-​bar segment at the end of the movement (mm. 62–​64), where Bach, in preparation for the final cadence, dramatically interrupts the musical flow with a series of chords and flourishes, rather in the vein of the French overture (see Examples 3.17 and 3.18). It was probably the last of these chord progressions, the one in measure 64, that inspired Wagner’s coy reference to his opera Tristan und Isolde, and for reasons involving chromaticism and melodic contour. Tristan, of course, is a landmark in the evolution of chromatic harmony, a fact already implied at the very beginning of the prelude, where, on the downbeat of measure 2, the famous “Tristan chord” sounds, followed by, in measures 2–​3,

Example 3.17  Prelude in B Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 2, mm.  62–​64

Example 3.18  Wagner, Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, mm. 1–​3

126  Bach’s Legacy the chromatically ascending “desire” motive. Only in the chord progression at measure 64 of Bach’s prelude does the first chord resolve in chromatically ascending motion, with E-​sharp resolving to F-​sharp in the top voice. Cosima made no mention of the third work played that evening, but it must have been the Prelude and Fugue in B Major. An inscription in Wagner’s handexemplar reveals that he associated the subject of its fugue with another favorite opera of his, Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz. Wagner had cherished this work since childhood and had always viewed it as a model for his own operas. Not surprisingly, both the work itself and its composer, whom Wagner met as a boy, are cited frequently in the pages of Cosima’s diaries. On September 28, 1878, just a few months before the WTC soirees began, she wrote that her husband had been enthusing over a particular movement from Der Freischütz:  “Recently he was beside himself with delight over the Jungfernkranz chorus. ‘It is supposed to be a Silesian folk song,’ he said, ‘but the way the words Schöner, grüner (“a lovely, green bridal wreath”), that exclamation of ecstasy, emerge from the simple phrase Wir winden dir (“We are binding for you”)—​that is typical Weber.’ ”60 This chorus held special sentimental value for Wagner, because at the tender age of eight he had played it on the piano for his stepfather Ludwig Geyer as the man, a colleague of Weber’s, lay dying in the next room.61 With respect to the WTC, both the contour and rhythm of the melody written by Weber to the words “Schöner, grüner” are virtually the same as those used by Bach for the first five notes of the subject of the B-​major fugue (see Examples 3.19 and 3.20). However coincidental these correspondences may be, someone (Rubinstein again?) saw fit to scrawl in Wagner’s handexemplar of the WTC these very words over the first four notes of the opening statement of Bach’s fugue subject. Surely, it was Wagner himself who made the connection. Example 3.19  Fugue in B Major, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 2: fugue subject

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  127 Example 3.20  Weber, refrain of “Jungfernkranz” chorus from Der Freischütz (transposed)

Epilogue The story of Wagner, Rubinstein, and the WTC hardly ends here. For one thing, when Bach’s birthday rolled around two and a half weeks later, the Wagners, presumably again with Rubinstein at the keyboard, celebrated the date with “fugues from the Well-​Tempered Clavier.”62 And at a soiree hosted by the Wagners eight months later, Rubinstein, at Cosima’s request, performed the Prelude in E-​flat Minor from Book 1, causing her to ruminate on the movement’s “power” in addition to its “femininity, tenderness, and touching lament.”63 As stated earlier, this prelude had long been one of Wagner’s favorite pieces; by 1879 it had evidently become one of Cosima’s as well. In between these two gatherings, at a soiree that took place on June 21, 1879, an edition of the WTC other than the one owned by Wagner was on display. Of particular interest was some artwork at the front of the edition not found in Wagner’s handexemplar. As Cosima wrote: Richard asks Herr Rubinstein for something by Bach, and he plays to us the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor for organ [BWV  546]; Richard finds it beautiful, though toward the end rather unfuguelike. We examine the portrait of Bach at the front of the French edition of the Well-​Tempered Clavier (Czerny), and Richard says “A typical musician’s face, like Mozart and Beethoven; they are men of feeling.” And when it is mentioned that there is some doubt whether Bach really lost his eyesight through copying by moonlight, Richard says: “Why? When I think of my two years in Paris, all that penury—​ people might feel like doubting that too, for I was not a mere peasant lad, and at that very time my relations were living in a big house in Leipzig.”64

128  Bach’s Legacy We may surmise from this report that Rubinstein had brought along his own personal copy of the WTC, which was presumably the revised version of Czerny’s edition issued in 1843 by the Parisian house of Launer.65 This circumstance suggests that the aforementioned performance indications from Czerny’s edition found in Wagner’s handexemplar were copied directly from this source. In studying Bach’s facial features as depicted in the portrait at the front of Rubinstein’s copy, some member of the group evidently recalled the famous anecdote about the young Bach secretly copying out by moonlight a volume of keyboard music owned by his older brother. One hypothesis is that Bach permanently damaged his eyesight as a result. Rubinstein seems to have doubted this theory. But Wagner, always prone to self-​pity, eagerly accepted it just on the basis of the eyestrain he had experienced decades earlier in Paris as an ill-​paid music arranger. The year 1880 brought about monumental changes for the Wagners, as far as their day-​to-​day existence was concerned. Advised by his doctor to seek a warmer climate, Richard, along with Cosima and their children, took up residence in southern Italy, staying first from January to August in Naples at the sumptuous Villa d’Angri. Rubinstein, meanwhile, headed north to Berlin, where, remarkably enough, he performed the entire WTC in a series of concerts from January 15 to February 15 at the Architektenhaus there.66 These concerts mark the first time in music history that the entire WTC was performed in public, which makes them something of a milestone in the history of Bach reception. Pianists nowadays who perform the entire collection tend to split its contents between two recitals, one for each book, with each recital lasting between one-​and-​a-​half and two hours. Perhaps to avoid the monotony of so many preludes and fugues played in succession, Rubinstein instead offered six recitals, each containing eight works and therefore lasting on the average between thirty and forty minutes. Financial support was provided by Countess Marie von Schleinitz, a wealthy Berlin socialite who was also one of Wagner’s staunchest friends and supporters as well as the founder of the Bayreuth Patronatsverein (“Patrons Association”), an organization dedicated to the building and maintenance of Wagner’s Festspielhaus there. The Countess’s involvement in the project begs the question of whether Wagner wielded his own considerable influence to make the

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  129 concerts possible in the first place. He certainly had more disciples in Berlin than just Countess Schleinitz. In any event, the series was neither a financial nor a critical success. There were plenty of empty seats, and most critics seem to have regarded the whole thing merely as a curiosity. One critic who evidently attended all six programs was Wilhelm Tappert, editor of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musik-​Zeitung, In his review of the series, Tappert described Rubinstein as “a splendid musician and an excellent pianist” who gave his audiences a “wonderful” experience.67 Yet Tappert also responded negatively—​ and rightly so—​to certain aspects of Rubinstein’s playing. Rubinstein, for example, according to Tappert’s review, displayed a rather cavalier attitude toward Bach’s ornaments, making little distinction between trills and mordents, and sometimes ignoring the symbols altogether, as in the subject of the C-​major fugue from Book 2. Far more egregious, in Tappert’s opinion, was the pianist’s tendency to “merge” the end of a prelude with the beginning of a fugue, even if Bach had written a long chord for the former. Examples 3.21 and 3.22, both of which also appear in Tappert’s critique, illustrate how this was accomplished in the Example 3.21  Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1: end of prelude and beginning of fugue, as notated by Bach

Example 3.22  Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, Well-​Tempered Clavier, Book 1: end of prelude and beginning of fugue, as performed by Joseph Rubinstein

130  Bach’s Legacy case of the Prelude and Fugue in A Minor from Book 1. Rubinstein took another liberty there, which was to ignore Bach’s Picardy-​third ending for the prelude (observe the C-​sharp in Example 3.21). According to Tappert, Rubinstein employed this same artistic license throughout the WTC, suggesting that he (like Wagner?) found the whole tradition of the Picardy third to be a bit precious—​a relic of a bygone era. In the weeks and months that followed Rubinstein’s concerts in Berlin, he and Wagner remained in contact, if only indirectly. For example, very shortly after Tappert’s review appeared, on February 13, either Rubinstein or Countess Schleinitz must have mailed a copy of the review to the Wagners, for Cosima attached one to her diary, between her entries of February 19 and 20.68 Then, in April 1880, Rubinstein eagerly accepted Wagner’s invitation for a sojourn in Naples, where he, along with other young Wagnerites, assisted the master for several months as he prepared for the premiere of Parsifal, which was not to take place until the summer of 1882. Apparently only a day or two after his arrival in Naples, Rubinstein again played for Wagner from the WTC, which is not to say that Wagner altogether enjoyed the performance. Rather, as Wagner told Cosima, he was “shocked” by how “mannered” Rubinstein’s playing had become.69 Rubinstein may have redeemed himself two months later, when, on June 26, he rendered for the Wagners a number of fugues from the collection. At any rate, Wagner responded to the music itself in reverential if not mystical terms, likening it to the ancient Hindu language of Sanskrit. As Cosima wrote, “Herr Rubinstein plays us some fugues from the Well-​Tempered Clavier. ‘They are like the roots of words,’ Richard says, and later, ‘in relation to other music it is like Sanskrit to other languages.’ ”70 Wagner’s newly acquired, music-​loving dog Palumbello probably made an appearance that evening, too, for Cosima recorded in her diary two days later that the creature “recently amused us greatly by joining in a fugue being played by Rubinstein, and right on pitch, too.”71 Over the next two years, Rubinstein remained a regular presence within the Wagner household, whether in Naples, Siena, Munich, Berlin, Palermo, Venice, or Bayreuth. Both Richard and Cosima, however, feared for his mental state. More to the point, the Wagners were well aware of Rubinstein’s suicidal tendencies—​and of the fact that he had tried to kill himself before meeting Wagner in 1872. Following

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  131 Wagner’s death in 1883, Rubinstein tried to revive his career as a concert pianist, but without the “heavenly genius” of Richard Wagner in his life, he fell into abject loneliness and despair.72 Finally, in September of the following year, Rubinstein committed suicide, at the age of thirty-​ six. He made sure to do so, as a symbolic gesture, in the city of Lucerne, where he and Wagner first met.

Notes 1. This quotation, as well as those by Schumann and Brahms that follow, is taken from Eric Wen’s introduction to the new Dover edition (New York, 2014) of the Well-​Tempered Clavier. 2. See Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, ed. Martin Gregor-​Dellin and Dietrich Mack, trans. Geoffrey Skelton, 2 vols. (New  York:  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977–​ 80, originally published as Cosima Wagner:  Die Tagebücher, 2 vols. (Munich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1976–​77). 3. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1: 510–​11, 660, 1006–​7; and 2: 35, 56, 62, 146, 158, 183, 227, 229, 231–​80, 328, 394, 398, 402, 498, 872, 906, 941, 966, and 996. 4. This source is item I-​b-​4.1 (2)  of the Wahnfried-​Bibliothek. Brahms’s personal copy of this print, incidentally, contains numerous analytical markings in his hand. See Christine Blanken, Die Bach-​Quellen in Wien und Alt-​Österreich:  Katalog (Hildesheim:  Georg Olms Verlag, 2011), 240–​41. 5. See Peter Baedeker, “Ein Jude sucht Erlösung bei Richard Wagner: Joseph Rubinstein (1847–​ 1884),” in Judisches Bayreuth, ed. Gesellschaft für Christlich-​ Jüdische Zusammenarbeit (Bayreuth:  Gesellschaft für Christlich-​Jüdische Zusammenarbeit, 2010), 119–​28; and The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia, ed. Nicholas Vazsonyi (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2013), 509. 6. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1: 510–​11. 7. Rubinstein seems to have arrived in Bayreuth that year shortly before November 21. See Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 206. 8. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 229. 9. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 231. Wagner considered Bach’s motets to be the greatest examples of the genre ever written by any composer. He particularly admired the opening movement of “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,” BWV 225, which he described as having a “lyric swing of rhythmic melody [that] seems to be dashing through an ocean of harmonic waves.”

132  Bach’s Legacy See Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, trans. William Ashton Ellis, 8  vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1892–​99), 7: 93; and 3: 316, respectively. Nonetheless, in a still unpublished letter of August 5, 1877 to the conductor Carl Riedel, Wagner complained that the lengthy melisma in this movement on the “i” vowel of “Sin-​get” sounded like a swarm of mosquitoes (“Mückengeschwirre”), proposing instead that the text be changed to “Singt ein neu-​es Lied,” with the melisma schifted to the “eu” diphthong of “neu-​es.” On this letter, see Martin Geck, “Richard Wagner und die ältere Musik,” in Die Ausbreitung des Historismus über die Musik, ed. Walter Wiora (Regensburg:  Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1969), 123–​46, esp. 129; and Werner Breig et al., Chronologisches Verzeichnis der Briefe von Richard Wagner (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1998), 598 (letter no. 7810). My thanks to Martin Dürrer (Richard-​Wagner-​Briefausgabe) for providing me with a transcription. 10. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1: 625 (entry of April 22, 1873). 11. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 229. See also Russell Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 123–​28. 12. A third inscription on this page, found above measure 2, and unquestionably in a different hand, reads, in reference to all of the arpeggiated figuration: wie Harfenakkorde (“like harp chords”). 13. In identifying Rubinstein’s hand here, I  have studied in particular a letter of January 22, 1880 from Rubinstein to Wagner (Richard-​Wagner-​ Museum, Hs 96a—​8). 14. It is hard to accept the hypothesis, advanced by Edgar Istel, that the opening subject of Wagner’s Fugue in C Major, WWV 19B, a youthful double fugue from 1831–​32, is derived from the subject of this fugue by Bach. Any thematic similarities are tenuous at best. See Istel, “Eine Doppelfuge von der Hand Wagners. Nach dem ungedruckten Originalmanuskript mitgeteilt,” Die Musik 11, no. 4 (July 1912), 27–​41, esp. 33. See also John Deathridge et  al., Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke Richard Wagners und ihrer Quellen (Mainz: Schott, 1986), 77–​79. 15. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 56 (entry of April 1, 1878). 16. Liszt had many years prior to 1878 played this work to Wagner. See Geck, “Richard Wagner und die ältere Musik,” 128; Carl Dahlhaus, “Wagner und Bach,” in Dahlhaus, Klassische und romantische Musikästhetik (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1999), 440–​58, esp. 440; and Christian Thorau, “Richard Wagners Bach,” in Bach und die Nachwelt, Band 2: 1850–​1900, ed. Michael Heinemann and Hans-​Joachim Hinrichsen (Laaber: Laaber-​ Verlag, 1999), 163–​99, esp. 171. On Wagner’s performances of the

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  133 prelude toward the end of his life, see Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 906 and 941. 17. Two further inscriptions in the same hand are the words zaghaft (“timid”) for the C-​minor fugue and anmuthig (“graceful”) for the C-​sharp-​major fugue. 18. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 35 (entry of March 7, 1878). 19. D. F. Tovey’s remarks on the WTC, first published in 1924, may be found in the “Editorial Notes and Commentaries” of Richard Jones’s edition of the WTC (London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1994). 20. Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, 5:97. 21. Joseph Kerman, The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard, 1715–​1750 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 30–​31. It might also be mentioned that this fugue by Bach is heard briefly toward the end of Tony Palmer’s 1983 film Wagner, and in a rather melancholy context (see disc 3, c­ hapter 11, of the DVD, released in 2011). The scene in question takes place in the music room at Wahnfried. For most of the scene, Wagner (played by Richard Burton, in one of his last film roles) is rebuked by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (played by Ronald Pickup) for his arrogance, self-​indulgence, and anti-​Semitism. Also present is Cosima (played by Vanessa Redgrave), who sits on the piano bench but does not face the music rack, which holds an edition of the WTC. After Nietzsche storms out of the room, Cosima eventually turns to read the music and proceeds to play the first eight bars of Bach’s fugue. 22. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 232. 23. Stinson, J. S.  Bach at His Royal Instrument, 131–​32. Three days earlier, Wagner had referred to Die Meistersinger in general as a “continuation of Bach.” See Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 229. 24. Entry from Wagner’s own diary of September 10, 1865, but written expressly for Cosima to read. See The Diary of Richard Wagner 1865–​1882:  The Brown Book, ed. Joachim Bergfeld and George Bird (London: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 71–​72. 25. Alan Roy Anbari, Richard Wagner’s Concepts of History, Ph.D.  diss., University of Texas at Austin (2007), 170–​71. 26. For further discussion of Wagner’s reception of this work, see Thorau, “Richard Wagners Bach,” 171 and 176. 27. On the connection between this prelude and the tombeau, see David Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-​tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 178–​79.

134  Bach’s Legacy 28. Paul Badura-​Skoda, Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard, trans. Alfred Clayton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 214–​15. 29. Anbari, “Richard Wagner’s Concepts of History,” 200–​02. 30. Concerning the influence of the St. Matthew Passion on Parsifal, see especially Peter Wapnewski, Der traurige Gott:  Richard Wagner in seinen Helden, rev. ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1980), 260–​68. 31. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 90. 32. William Kinderman, Wagner’s Parsifal (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 2013), 144. 33. Badura-​Skoda, Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard, 223–​24. 34. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 233. 35. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 234–​35. 36. For the identification of Daniela’s hand, and for their help in deciphering various inscriptions found in Wagner’s handexemplar, I  thank Gudrun Föttinger and Kristina Unger. According to Geck, “Richard Wagner und die ältere Musik,” 139, Wagner “studied” the WTC with Rubinstein and Daniela. This does not seem to square completely with another blanket statement made on page  130 of this study, where Geck maintains that Blandine von Bülow “among others” used Wagner’s handexemplar for her piano lessons. 37. For this information, I thank Yo Tomita. These markings do not represent an isolated instance in Wagner’s handexemplar, for performance markings obviously adapted from Czerny’s edition also appear in, from Book 1, the Fugue in C Minor, the Fugue in C-​sharp Minor, and the Prelude and Fugue in B-​flat Minor. No such performance markings appear anywhere in Book 2. 38. On the similarities between these two preludes, see Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-​ tempered Clavier, 209. 39. On Wagner, Cosima, and this string quartet, see Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 1: 199, 315, 330, 824, 994–​95, 1040, 1056, 1058; and 2: 614 and 1107. 40. According to Geck, “Richard Wagner und die ältere Musik,” 130, the handexemplar preserves “performance markings” in Wagner’s hand. Similarly, on page 141 of this essay Geck writes that the source “contains a series of pencil inscriptions that stem from, among others, Wagner and Blandine.” He specifies no such markings, however. 41. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 235. 42. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 236. 43. A few weeks earlier, Wagner had imagined Catalani singing the Andante from Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony. See Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 214 (entry of November 28, 1878).

Wagner and the Well-Tempered Clavier  135 44. Wagner’s Parsifal, 132. 45. The marking in question is an inscription found in measures 20–​21 of the F-​minor prelude that apparently reads: ohne Crescend. 46. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 256–​57. 47. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 263. 48. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 257–​62. 49. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 264. 50. According to David Ledbetter’s insightful study of the WTC, this prelude is the one from Book 2 that comes closest to the galant sonata style of Bach’s eldest sons. See Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-​tempered Clavier, 288. 51. According to Geck, “Richard Wagner und die ältere Musik,” 141, this inscription pertains to the C-​minor prelude from Book 2. 52. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 270. 53. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 200 (entry of November 13, 1878). 54. Dahlhaus, “Wagner und Bach,” 445. On this matter, see also Thorau, “Richard Wagners Bach,” 176–​84. 55. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 271–​72. 56. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 380 (entry of October 14, 1879). 57. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 272–​73. 58. For a helpful illustration of the invertible counterpoint in this fugue, see the diagram in Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-​tempered Clavier, 321. 59. Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-​tempered Clavier, 330–​31. 60. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 158. 61. Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, 4 vols. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933–​47), 1: 32–​33. 62. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 280 (entry of March 21, 1879). 63. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 398. 64. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 328. On the identity of the organ work—​and the “unfuguelike” nature of its fugue—​see Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument, 127. 65. See the discussion of this edition in J. S. Bach: Vingt-​Quatre Préludes et Fugues (Le Clavier bien tempéré, Livre I), annoté par Frédéric Chopin, ed. Jean-​Jacques Eigeldinger (Paris: Société Francaise de Musicologie, 2010), xxxvii–​xxxviii. 66. Carl Friedrich Glasenapp, Das Leben Richard Wagners, 6  vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1894–​1911), 6: 328–​30. 67. Wilhelm Tappert, “Einige Worte über das wohltemperirte Clavier,” Allgemeine Deutsche Musik-​Zeitung 7, no. 7 (February 13, 1880), 49–​51. 68. This detail is mentioned only in the original, German-​language publication of Cosima’s diaries. See Cosima Wagner: Die Tagebücher, 2: 493.

136  Bach’s Legacy 69. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 467 (entry of April 18, 1880). 70. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 498. 71. Cosima Wagner’s Diaries, 2: 499; see also pages 494–​95 and 519. 72. Rubinstein referred to Wagner as a “himmlischer Genius” in a telegram of condolence that he sent to Cosima after learning of Wagner’s death. See Baedeker, “Ein Jude sucht Erlösung bei Richard Wagner,” 128.

4

Edward Elgar Reads Albert Schweitzer A Case of Negative Bach Reception

Like most composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the English master Edward Elgar (1857–​1934) was profoundly influenced by the music of J. S. Bach. In more specific terms, Elgar found in Bach’s contrapuntal writing a compositional model of unsurpassed quality.1 He particularly prized the preludes and fugues of the Well-​Tempered Clavier, admitting in 1896 to playing three or four of them every day.2 As further proof of Elgar’s enthusiasm for Bach’s works (and for bicycling), consider what he reported in 1902 to his friend Ivor Atkins: “I have been Biking wildly—​but not too well—​during the last 10 days & playing Bach, who heals and pacifies all men & all things.”3 About twenty years later, too depressed to compose after the death of his beloved wife Alice, Elgar orchestrated one of his favorite organ works by Bach, the Fantasy and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 537. As he confessed to the conductor Eugene Goosens, the act of transcribing this piece served as a form of psychological therapy:  “Now that my poor wife has gone I can’t be original, so I depend on people like John Sebastian Bach for a source of inspiration.”4 None of this is to imply, however, that Elgar’s palate for Bach was at all undiscriminating. For example, according to the violinist Billy Reed, Elgar “loved some of Bach’s music, but by no means all.”5 More telling is what Elgar wrote to Atkins in 1926 regarding plans for the Three Choirs Festival that year: “I have been thinking over the ‘scheme’ & my brains do not envisage any ‘draw’ amongst the classics. I wish you cd get some decent Bach instead of the infernally dull (some of them)

Bach’s Legacy. Russell Stinson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190091224.001.0001

138  Bach’s Legacy cantatas; if we had anyone to sing them! it wd be different, but the miserable yowling we get wearies me.”6 This excerpt relates directly to an item housed today in the archives of Elgar’s birthplace. I refer to the cottage-​turned-​museum found on the property now known as The Firs and located in Lower Broadheath, a village on the outskirts of Worcester, and to Elgar’s personal copy of Albert Schweitzer’s monograph, J. S. Bach, as translated into English by Ernest Newman. The importance of this unique but overlooked document lies in the multitudinous pencil markings that Elgar entered into it.7 These markings range from mere under-​linings to very substantial inscriptions. Interestingly, they are also virtually all negative in tone or implication, both with regard to Bach and Schweitzer.8 My intention here is to consider the most significant of these annotations.9 Schweitzer’s book is less a biography than a commentary on Bach’s music and its performance. Hugely influential in its day, it represents an attempt to penetrate into the very essence of Bach’s art by stressing the symbolic aspects and theological significance of the music. Schweitzer’s secondary goal was to comprehend exactly how Bach intended for his works to be played or sung. As Newman explained in his foreword: Schweitzer’s study is equally valuable on the aesthetic and practical sides; its convincing demonstration of the pictorial bent of Bach’s mind must necessarily lead to a reconsideration not only of the older view of Bach as a mainly “abstract” musician, but of the aesthetics of music in general; while the chapters on the right manner of performing Bach’s works throw many a new light on this obscure subject.

In surveying Bach’s output, Schweitzer placed by far the greatest emphasis on the composer’s sacred cantatas, passion settings, and organ chorales, hardly a surprise given Schweitzer’s background as a theologian and organist. Born in Upper Alsace in 1875, and the son of a Lutheran pastor, he studied religion and philosophy at the University of Strasbourg in the 1890s, while playing organ continuo for local performances of Bach’s sacred vocal works and taking private organ lessons in Paris with Charles-​ Marie Widor. From 1905 to 1913

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  139 Schweitzer served as a chaplain and theology professor at his alma mater, during which time he played organ continuo for the Paris Bach Society and studied medicine in preparation for his work as a medical missionary. In 1913 he founded his famous hospital in the African village of Lambaréné, where he would spend most of the rest of his life; he died there in 1965, at the age of ninety. A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, Schweitzer is regarded as one of the greatest humanitarians of the twentieth century. Schweitzer’s book, originally conceived as an essay on Bach’s organ chorales for the benefit of French organists, was first published in 1905 as Jean-​Sébastien Bach, le musician-​poète. Almost as soon as the book had appeared, Schweitzer proceeded to translate it from French to German, the latter being his stronger written language, while almost doubling the book’s length from 455 to 844 pages. This revised and expanded version of the study appeared in 1908 simply as J. S. Bach. The identically titled English translation by Ernest Newman was issued in 1911, but with the text now split into two volumes and with almost a hundred pages added. All three versions of the book were published by the Leipzig firm of Breitkopf & Härtel. Ernest Newman (1868–​1959), best known for his monumental biography of Wagner, was the leading British music critic of the first half of the twentieth century. Among his many books is one on Elgar, published in 1906, that helped to promote the composer’s works throughout the English-​speaking musical world. Newman and Elgar may have had their differences, especially when it came to Elgar’s compositions, but they respected each other as colleagues and eventually became good friends. So it was that Elgar in late 1911 received from Newman a copy of his translation of Schweitzer’s book. We know this from an inscription made by Newman at the front of volume 1 (To Edward Elgar/​from En./​8 Nov 1911) and one made by Elgar at the front of volume 2 (Edward Elgar/​Nov 1911/​from E. N.). We can only speculate about when Elgar so copiously annotated the two volumes, but it makes sense that he did so shortly after acquiring them. Whether Elgar ever showed Newman any of his markings or even discussed the book with him is unknown. A total of a 131 pages of this source bear Elgar’s markings. He underlined passages that he found questionable or offensive,

140  Bach’s Legacy corrected certain musical examples, and scribbled in the very generous margins, which are about twice as wide as those in the Dover reprint.10 In doing so, he concentrated on Schweitzer’s chapters dealing with performance practice, as opposed to those of a more musicological nature. In volume 2, for instance, he made nary a mark on pages 142–​239, whose subject matter is Bach’s stylistic development as a composer of sacred cantatas, but then entered a flurry of markings on pages 379–​93, where Schweitzer begins his chapter on the performance of the vocal works. This pattern accords with Elgar’s anti-​academic nature and his background as a performing musician, whether as a professional violinist, pianist, organist, or conductor. On a more personal level, Elgar of course was annotating these volumes not only for his own edification but also for his own amusement, and his curmudgeonly sense of humor is on full display. Still, some of his more derogatory comments seem to exemplify not so much an acerbic wit as a mean spirit. Take, for instance, the two marginalia he penned on page  248 of volume 2, apropos of the sacred cantata “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” BWV 140. Separated by two vertical slashes, these marginalia both refer to the famous instrumental theme of the fourth movement, which Schweitzer gives as a musical example (see Figure 4.1). In the upper half of the left margin, Elgar wrote “The writer cannot see what is great music and what is not.” and in the lower half “One of the sublimest thoughts & one of the perfect achievements in all art & this is all such a sickening ass as Schweitzer can say!”11 Elgar was obviously chastising Schweitzer here for not discussing more fully what was one of his favorite melodic utterances by any composer, one glossed over by Schweitzer on the preceding page as “a simple dance melody.” The theme is unusually lyrical for Bach, which would have appealed to Elgar’s Romantic sensibilities, and it is scored for strings, which would have made it doubly attractive to him, since violin was his main instrument. Presumably it was for these same reasons that Elgar had such a high regard for the slow movement of Bach’s double-​violin concerto (BWV 1043), which he once declared “the most divine thing ever written.”12 There is no evidence that Elgar ever met Schweitzer. No doubt he eventually learned of Schweitzer’s work as a medical missionary, but

Figure 4.1  Edward Elgar’s personal copy of Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, vol. 2, p. 248. Lower Broadheath: The Firs (Elgar’s birthplace), item 2011.187. Reproduced by permission of the Elgar Foundation.

142  Bach’s Legacy presumably (let us hope) not before so harshly annotating Schweitzer’s book. These annotations show that Elgar took a much more critical view of Bach’s oeuvre than did Schweitzer, especially with regard to the cantatas, and that he considered Schweitzer an unreliable author. According to his annotations in Schweitzer’s book, Elgar perceived of Bach’s cantatas as singer-​unfriendly. This is made manifestly clear with respect to recitatives and arias by an inscription he made on page 263 of volume 1, in rebuttal to Schweitzer’s claim that conductors of the day did not find Bach’s sacred cantatas “sufficiently decorative” to perform with any frequency. Elgar underlined “decorative” and wrote “no, the solos are too dreadfully unvocal.” Similarly, in response to Schweitzer’s pronouncement that “good Bach singers are comparatively rare” (vol. 2, p. 412), he wrote “I have never heard one yet. Bach’s solos are not to be sung, only brayed and howled.” As we saw earlier, Elgar expressed exactly this same sentiment to Ivor Atkins—​and in similar barnyard language—​when he complained to his friend about the “miserable yowling” of the Bach singers he had heard. Twice in volume 2 Elgar cited specific examples of what he considered “unvocal” solos. One is the remarkably florid and high-​ pitched tenor aria “Ach, schlage doch bald, selge Stunde” from Cantata 95, “Christus, der ist mein Leben.” Schweitzer ventured that the “extraordinary technical demands” made on the soloist in this movement (pp. 249–​50) might explain why the cantata as a whole had not been more often performed. Elgar, for his part, underlined these words and wrote in the margin “Of course: it’s a horrible horse; see the vocal part.” At the heart of this amusing inscription is not only Elgar’s love of wordplay—​the first two phrases rhyme, and the second uses alliteration—​but also, believe it or not, his fondness for gambling. Elgar loved horses, and he loved betting on them. Therefore, what he meant by “horrible horse” was a nag that usually loses at the track, just as, in Elgar’s mind, singing this aria was a losing proposition, a bad bet.13 Equines also figure in how Elgar cited the second of these “solos,” for twice he likened its (relatively tuneful and easy) vocal part to the neighing of a horse. He was referring in that instance to an aria from the secular cantata “Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde,” BWV 201, better known simply as “Phoebus and Pan.” Thanks to a staged production by Thomas Beecham, this work was undoubtedly

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  143 the most popular secular cantata by Bach in early twentieth-​century England.14 The aria in question is sung by the character Momus, and its text begins “Patron, das macht der Wind” (“My lord, this is just wind”). This movement is also the only one of the work’s six arias not discussed by Schweitzer, which led Elgar to inscribe, with some justification, on page  274, “Why not mention ‘Patron’ with its ‘obbligato CB.—​ (obscured in Momus’ awful neigh)?” Elgar made a second reference to this aria in conjunction with a lengthy footnote by Schweitzer on page 451. As an experienced continuo player himself, Schweitzer knew all too well that arias whose sole instrumentation is basso continuo could be ruined by an overly elaborate continuo realization, which led him to complain here about a piano-​vocal score of one of Bach’s sacred cantatas that had been issued by Breitkopf & Härtel: “What violence can be done to the intentions of the composer may be seen in the fanciful realization of the figured bass of the aria ‘Gewaltige stösst Gott’ from Meine Seel’ erhebt den Herrn [BWV 10] in Breitkopf and Härtel’s piano edition; the demisemiquaver runs have all been added to the text by the editor.” Elgar, uncharacteristically, seems to have agreed with Schweitzer on this point by underlining “What violence” and writing below the footnote “See also Phoebus & Pan Momus’ dreadful neigh.” To look more closely at these two inscriptions, “Patron” is indeed accompanied only by the continuo ensemble, even though Elgar cited the aria as containing an obbligato contrabass (CB) part. He doubtless admired the continuo line for its folk-​like simplicity, a quality that presents itself from the outset with a ritornello theme that is exactly eight bars long and strictly diatonic. Neither trait, to make a gross generalization, typifies the music of Bach. In his second inscription, Elgar seems to allude negatively to a piano-​vocal score of the cantata that contained an overwrought realization of this continuo part. If so, he can only be referring to the piano-​vocal score that had been published by Breitkopf & Härtel around 1897.15 No “demisemiquavers” there, but, almost as distractingly, numerous sixteenth-​note scales for the right hand. “Phoebus and Pan” was probably also the Bach cantata Elgar knew the best. No doubt his interest in the piece was piqued when he and his wife Alice heard a “delightful” (her word) rendition of it at the 1902 Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Düsseldorf.16 At that performance,

144  Bach’s Legacy “Patron” was actually encored.17 This according to a review in The Musical Times by Elgar’s friend August Jaeger. That Elgar promoted the cantata within his social circle is documented by the memoirs of Dora Powell, one of Elgar’s closest associates from 1895 to 1912, who claimed that Elgar introduced her to the work and played it to her several times.18 Like a comic opera in miniature, “Phoebus and Pan” deals with the triumph of good music over bad, in the form of a mythological singing contest between Phoebus Apollo, who presumably symbolizes Bach himself, and the demigod Pan. No matter how “awful” or “dreadful” Elgar might have found the vocal style, he surely appreciated the work for its comedic value. Its tone closely matches that of Wagner’s only comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which, probably not by coincidence, was Elgar’s favorite opera of all.19 Elgar never explained in his letters or writings exactly why he so disliked Bach’s vocal writing, but he probably belonged to the same school of thought as his colleague Newman, who, in a review of Thomas Beecham’s production of “Phoebus and Pan,” faulted Bach’s vocal style for being “over-​elaborate” and too “instrumental” in its orientation.20 On both counts, of course, Newman was merely paraphrasing what Johann Adolph Scheibe had famously said almost two centuries earlier, namely, that Bach “darkened the beauty [of his compositions] by an excess of art” and “demanded that singers . . . should be able to do with their throats . . . whatever he can play on the clavier.”21 Elgar’s low opinion of Bach’s cantatas and of Schweitzer’s commentaries on these works is evinced by a number of inscriptions that he made in volume 2 of Schweitzer’s book. For example, Elgar found “absurd” (p. 5) Schweitzer’s notion that these compositions were just as rich in “dramatic and pictorial music” as the program music of Berlioz and the operas of Wagner. With respect to text-​painting, he questioned Schweitzer on a theme from the opening chorus of Cantata 102, “Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben.” The theme is set to the text “Du schlägest sie, aber sie fühlens nicht” (“You strike them, but they do not feel it”), yet its jaunty rhythms and use of the major mode imply much happier goings-​on. Not sensing any incompatibility between text and music, Schweitzer characterized the melody as “acerbic” (p. 259), which caused Elgar to draw an exclamation point beside the musical example and write “where is the ‘acerbity’?” Schweitzer also

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  145 wondered (p. 260) how Bach could ever have committed the “barbarous perversion” of turning this movement into the Kyrie from the Mass in G Minor, BWV 235. Elgar’s punch line, right on cue, was “any­ thing for money.” The inscriptions provided by Elgar in response to Schweitzer’s discussion of Cantata 70, “Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!,” are delightfully disrespectful. Once again, the context is text-​painting, specifically Bach’s use of trumpet fanfares in the opening chorus to announce the end of time, in accordance with the book of Revelation. Schweitzer (pp. 140–​41) furnishes a musical example for the first of these salvos, which is simply an arpeggiated C-​major triad, along with the statement that “in the opening chorus the trumpet gives its dire summons to humanity to justify itself.” Unconvinced, Elgar underlined “dire summons” and countered with “It sounds (really) extremely cheerful!” As a further dig, he designated the musical example as “the old stage call,” as if Bach was merely depicting the blowing of a post horn.22 Elgar was similarly unimpressed with the opening chorus of Cantata 80, “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” nor was he pleased with Schweitzer’s commentary on the movement. Known then in England as “A Stronghold Sure,” and surely one of the most popular of Bach’s sacred cantatas there, the work exemplifies the chorale cantata, meaning a cantata based more or less in its entirety on the melody and text of a single hymn. Bach begins these works according to the same general plan, with the unadorned chorale tune sung by the sopranos, supported by imitative writing in the lower three parts. Yet he also manages to impart to these opening choruses a keen sense of individuality. To quote Schweitzer (p. 243), “Here Bach’s inexhaustible faculty of invention is plainly evident.” Later on (p. 245), Schweitzer describes the opening chorus of Cantata 80 as follows: “Bach builds up the ‘stronghold sure’ on mighty lines, symbolizing it by a gigantic choral fugue . . . Each of the separate fugues ends with a canon [between the oboes and continuo] with the theme in augmentation . . . The movement runs to two hundred and twenty-​eight bars.” In reading these words, Elgar would have had no doubts about Bach’s mastery of counterpoint—​indeed, no other chorale setting by Bach matches this contrapuntal complexity—​ but he detected a certain monotony in how Bach applies the same

146  Bach’s Legacy procedure for each phrase of the chorale during the course of a movement that can last upwards of seven minutes. Mocking Schweitzer’s earlier point, he wrote “Where then is the ‘inexhaustible invention’ etc etc??” Elgar heard this cantata in concert on at least two occasions.23 Whether he found the whole thing “infernally dull” (letter to Atkins) is open to conjecture. In the case of Cantata 56, “Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen”—​ whose librettist has only recently been identified as Bach’s pupil Christoph Birkmann—​ Elgar took Schweitzer to task, rightly or wrongly, for equivocating on a matter of performance practice (see Figure 4.2).24 Schweitzer here (p.  255) proposes two different ways of singing the main theme of the opening aria. He first recommends stressing the downbeat of the second bar, in accordance with the text, but then posits that an accent on the second beat would be “more characteristic,” because it would enhance the syncopated rhythm. Wanting Schweitzer to take a stand one way or the other, a disgruntled Elgar placed an “X” in the right margin and wrote at the bottom of the page, after the corresponding “X there, “This seems to show how utterly untrustworthy Sch. is a guide—​he will tinker anything to please himself.” To cite a further passage involving performance practice, Elgar also disagreed with Schweitzer (p.  454, footnote) about what type of positive organ should be used for the continuo parts of Bach’s sacred cantatas. In Schweitzer’s words, “Of course the present-​day portative should be fitted with a Venetian shutter swell, so as to make crescendi and diminuendi possible.” Elgar underlined “of course” and wrote “Why? Oh, Bachist!” He was aghast that such a Bach devotee as Schweitzer, who in the first volume of his study (pp. 295–​99) argues so passionately for a return to the baroque organ (and whom today we might call a “Bachian” rather than a “Bachist”), would endorse such a contraption. Turning to the secular cantatas, there is, in addition to Phoebus and Pan, the famous “hunting” cantata “Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd,” BWV 208. As Schweitzer explains, this piece was originally composed for the birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-​ Weißenfels, and one of its recitatives actually refers to the duke as “der theu-​re Chri-​sti-​an.”25 When Bach some years later re-​performed

Figure 4.2  Edward Elgar’s personal copy of Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, vol. 2, p. 255. Lower Broadheath: The Firs (Elgar’s birthplace), item 2011.187. Reproduced by permission of the Elgar Foundation.

148  Bach’s Legacy the cantata for the birthday of Duke Ernst August of Saxe-​Weimar, he merely changed these words to “der theu-​re Ernst Au-​gust.” To quote Schweitzer (pp. 262–​63), “Bach did not worry in the least that the names are accented differently, and that the declamation consequently became nonsensical.” Elgar underlined “became nonsensical” and, as if he had forgotten about this work’s designation as a cantata, added the inscription “surely not worse than a thousand passages in the cantatas etc?” A further secular cantata to consider is the “Hercules” cantata “Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen,” BWV 213, also known as “Herkules auf dem Scheidewege.” Schweitzer praised this work’s “charm and urbanity” and then criticized Handel’s cantata “Die Wahl des Herakles” as a “much inferior” piece (p.  281). Elgar underlined “much inferior” and indignantly drew a question mark in the margin. He probably knew neither work but just assumed that a cantata about Hercules by Handel would be superior to one by Bach. In other words, Elgar must have subscribed to the widely held belief that Handel, whom Elgar dubbed “the greatest figure in religious music,”26 simply wrote better for the human voice. Elgar’s nationalistic pride might have been at stake as well, for Handel, although a native German, spent most of his career in England and effectively adopted that country as his homeland. Handel’s oratorio Messiah was one of Elgar’s favorite works by any composer.27 Elgar again defended Handel against Bach in a one-​word inscription found on page 222 of volume 1. Schweitzer’s subject matter there is a popular anecdote about Brahms and the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition. The story had never before been mentioned in print: It is said that Brahms awaited with impatience each new volume of the Bachgesellschaft. When once he had it in his hand, he put everything aside to read through it, “for,” he said, “in old Bach there is always something astonishing, and, what is the main thing, there is always something to be learned from him.” When a new volume of the Händelgesellschaft came, he placed it on the shelf, and said, “It is certainly interesting: as soon as I have time I will look through it.”

Elgar recorded his disdain for this anecdote by writing, beside the final quote, “ass,” thus using the same epithet for Brahms that he would later

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  149 use for Schweitzer (see above). So much for Elgar’s hyperbolic assessment of Brahms about twenty-​five years earlier as “a giant, lofty and unapproachable, who writes for the whole world and for all time.”28 The inscription becomes doubly ironic when one realizes that Elgar, upon his appointment in 1905 as the first Professor of Music at the new University of Birmingham, insisted that the school purchase all forty-​ six volumes of the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition.29 Elgar, furthermore, seems to have questioned the veracity of this story by underlining “It is said” (the first three words in the excerpt) and writing in the margin “By whom?” The answer to his query is to be found in Max Graf ’s Legend of a Musical City, a book first published in 1945 and one that constitutes a vivid account of musical life in Vienna from the time of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven until about 1940. Born in Vienna in 1873 and educated there as well, Graf was a prominent Viennese music critic who had been personally acquainted with Brahms toward the end of the composer’s life. Graf likewise knew Brahms’s friend and amanuensis Eusebius Mandyczewski (d. 1929), a musicologist and director of the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. According to Graf ’s chapter on Brahms, the anecdote related by Schweitzer originated with Mandyczewski, which should alleviate any doubts about its credibility. It appears in no other printed source prior to 1945, which means that Schweitzer must have heard it from one of his acquaintances. Graf ’s version of the story reads as follows: Next to Mozart the greatest musician, in Brahms’s opinion, was Bach. He once said to Mandyczewski, “When the new Handel edition comes out and is sent to me, I put it in my library and say, ‘As soon as I have time I will look it over.’ But when a new Bach edition appears, I let everything else go, for there is nothing more important to me than studying the volume. I know that I shall learn something new from it.”30

In annotating this passage from Schweitzer’s book, Elgar also saw fit to circle the word “old” as found in Brahms’s remark about the “astonishing” contents of the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition. Musicians have been using the locution “old Bach” ever since Frederick the Great did so in

150  Bach’s Legacy 1747 to distinguish the composer from his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who was Frederick’s court harpsichordist.31 And by the early nineteenth century, “old” had become a commonplace term of endearment for Sebastian Bach, as exemplified by two quotes from Carl Friedrich Zelter given by Schweitzer on page 229 of volume 1 (“old Bach is a son of his country and of his epoch” and “old Bach nods approvingly at me”).32 I suspect, though, that Elgar circled the word here for more personal reasons, reasons having to do with his inaugural lecture in 1905 as Professor of Music at Birmingham. As Elgar himself surely remembered, he had on that occasion boldly referred to Bach as “old” not in the sense of an avuncular spirit but of a deceased composer whose music lives on: “Bach is old but will never be old-​fashioned.”33 Other inscriptions made by Elgar in annotating Schweitzer’s book are discussed in the following list:

1. Elgar made an inscription on page 163 of volume 1 concerning a matter of iconography. Quite unexpectedly, this annotation also sheds light on one of Elgar’s trips to the European continent. The “icon” in question is a portrait (by an unknown artist) that at the turn of the twentieth century was believed to be an authentic rendering of the elderly Bach but that today, no matter how often it has been reproduced, is regarded as spurious. Schweitzer accepted the painting as genuine, printed it in his book, and reported that it had recently been “discovered” by Fritz Volbach, a conductor based in Mainz, or, as Elgar knew the city, “Mayence.” In fact, Volbach had purchased the piece in 1903, and in 1904 it was reproduced by Breitkopf & Härtel for the membership of the Neue Bach-​Gesellschaft.34 According to Schweitzer, the portrait shows “the face of a man who has tasted the bitterness of life.” Elgar, however, as may be seen in Figure 4.3, registered grave doubts about the painting’s authenticity. After underlining “has discovered yet another portrait of Bach,” drawing an “X” in the right margin, and drawing a corresponding “X” at the bottom of the page, he wrote “I saw this at Volbach’s apt. in Mayence. Nothing will make me believe it is a portrait of Bach. V. gave me a copy of it reproduced by Breitkopf. There are many sutch [sic] portraits engraved

Figure 4.3  Edward Elgar’s personal copy of Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, vol. 1, p. 163. Lower Broadheath: The Firs (Elgar’s birthplace), item 2011.186. Reproduced by permission of the Elgar Foundation.

152  Bach’s Legacy





which [as the inscription jumps up into the right margin, beginning with an “X”] are very like Bach. More like than this of Volbach’s.” Elgar is known to have seen Volbach in Mainz only twice in his life, in 1901, which is obviously too early for our concerns, and in late 1904, when he spent a couple of weeks in Germany and Holland to hear performances of his own compositions, including one in Mainz of his oratorio The Apostles, conducted by Volbach.35 Volbach, therefore, must have shown Elgar the painting and given him the reproduction of it during his visit in 1904. The other “sutch portraits” of Bach referenced by Elgar here doubtless included that by Elias Gottlob Haußmann, which remains the only authenticated likeness of Bach to survive. 2. Schweitzer states on page 261 of volume 1 that “In Wagner, the spirit of Bach is most evident in the score of the Meistersinger.” Despite the unquestionable influence of Bach’s music on Wagner’s great comedy, Elgar felt compelled to underline “the spirit of Bach” and write “no, Haydn.” This seemingly enigmatic inscription can be explained by a passage from the aforementioned memoirs of Billy Reed: “[Elgar once] fetched out a full score to show me in dreadful secrecy how Wagner had evidently made a close study of the Haydn [string] quartets before composing Die Meistersinger.”36 This may well have to do with the famous quintet from Act III, “Selig, wie die Sonne,” which is surely the closest thing to Haydn’s chamber music to be found in that opera. 3. According to an inscription by Elgar on page 342 of volume 1, he was unpersuaded by Schweitzer’s claim that the final movement of the Sonata in D Major for Harpsichord, BWV 963, undoubtedly one of Bach’s earliest extant works, demonstrated the budding composer’s capacity for humor and wit. Bach gave this movement the semi-​programmatic title “Thema all’ Imitatio Gallina Cuccu.” It constitutes a charming fugue whose repetitive subject depicts the clucking of a hen (“Gallina”) and whose equally repetitive second countersubject imitates the call of the cuckoo (“Cuccu”). As Schweitzer put it, “In the final fugue [Bach] amuses himself by imitating the cackling of a hen . . . in merry if not very witty style,” to which Elgar responded, in killjoy fashion, “wit does not come in—​humour is intended,

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  153









but there is none.” Elgar probably did not know this fugue at all, but its long and busy subject may have reminded him of certain early organ fugues by Bach that he regarded as “rubbish.”37 4. Schweitzer begins his chapter on the performance of Bach’s harpsichord works (vol. 1, p. 345) by reproducing the famous table of ornaments from the Clavier-​ Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, a collection compiled by Bach for his eldest son. Elgar had the temerity here to emend Bach’s own “explication” of the mordent, changing Bach’s lower auxiliary note to an upper one and writing “All this seems hopelessly confused.” Needless to say, it was Elgar who was confused. 5. Later on in this same chapter (vol. 1, p.  379), Schweitzer discusses how to phrase the subject of the Fugue in D-​sharp Minor from Book 2 of the Well-​Tempered Clavier. He proposes accents on beat 2 of the first bar and on beat 4 of the second bar, to enhance what are syncopated rhythms, and he states that “This theme clearly shows how little significance the bar-​ divisions in Bach have for the thematic emphasis.” Finding this declaration to be a platitude of sorts, Elgar replied “every child knows that bar lines have no function except to guide the eye.” He could hardly have been more condescending. 6. On page 108 of volume 2, Schweitzer provides a musical example for the opening chorus of Cantata 146, “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal,” and describes the music in these terms: “Here the periodic interruption of the natural motion by wider intervals is very interesting.” Elgar seems to have wanted more precise language, for he underlined “by wider intervals,” inscribed “interval is all same—​a 7th,” and marked the three sevenths, all of which are in descending motion, within the musical example. He must have delighted in doing so, as falling sevenths are a veritable trademark of his own compositional style. Just think of the first movement of the Enigma Variations. 7. Elgar actually gave his imprimatur to Cantata 27, “Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende,” writing “good” beside Schweitzer’s musical example for it (vol. 2, p. 240). Given are the first-​violin and continuo parts for the first three bars of the opening chorus. To quote Schweitzer, “The strings and the bass illustrate the words ‘Hin geht die Zeit’ (‘Time passes away’) by means of the

154  Bach’s Legacy rhythm of a slow inexorable pendulum.” Above this repeated pedal point, Bach writes first a tonic triad, then a viio chord, then a V7 of iv, rather like how he begins the final chorus of the St. Matthew Passion, which is also in the same key and uses the same time signature. 8. Schweitzer writes on page 268 of volume 2, with respect to Bach’s appointment as director of the Leipzig collegium musicum, that “the public did not look upon him as a composer who could write graceful and sentimental melodies.” Elgar’s response was positively asinine: “the public wanted something that singers cd. sing—​not mere braying.” 9. On page 293 of volume 2, Schweitzer congratulated the Paris Bach Society for having had the “courage,” since its inception, to perform Bach’s secular cantatas. This passage inspired one of Elgar’s better quips, “This does not say much for French judgment, does it?,” which might have been better still had Elgar realized that Schweitzer actually played for this group. 10. Elgar was a staunch Catholic, and in Protestant England he was stigmatized because of his faith. He may have been predisposed against Bach’s sacred cantatas because they are so deeply rooted in Protestant doctrine. It would come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that he took a special interest in Bach’s only complete setting of the Latin Ordinary, the great Mass in B Minor, BWV 232. That he also took special pleasure in hearing the work is documented by the diaries he kept with his wife Alice, which mention the “most splendid” and “very, very beautiful” performances of the Mass the couple had attended in Düsseldorf and Birmingham, respectively.38 In annotating Schweitzer’s book (vol. 2, pp. 315–​22), Elgar made various inscriptions involving Bach’s “Great Catholic Mass,” as Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel referred to the composition.39 The first has to do with Schweitzer’s recommendation for a long, “cleansing” pause between the Kyrie and Gloria (p. 315), a matter that Elgar found “trite.” With respect to the majestic “Patrem omnipotentem” movement in the Credo, Schweitzer inveighed against conductors who drastically slowed down the tempo and decreased the dynamics

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  155 at the end, so as to underscore the mysticism of the word “invisibilium” (“I believe in one God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible”). Schweitzer reasoned (p. 322) that “[this practice] only results in making the choir unsteady and the conclusion of the movement unintelligible.” Elgar demurred by underlining “only results” and scribbling in the margin “no, it does not.” He clearly favored the more Romantic interpretation. Elgar also had some irreverent fun with Schweitzer’s commentary on the “Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum” movement from the Credo. Schweitzer states (p. 321) that “the orchestra expresses, by means of the joyous ‘resurrection’ motive, the exultation of the elect at the last day,” to which Elgar replied “What about the nonelect?” 11. As Elgar annotated Schweitzer’s final chapter, “The Performance of the Cantatas and Passions,” he was most disturbed by the author’s ideas on phrasing, especially if string instruments were involved. Indeed, Elgar seems to have found Schweitzer patently unqualified to discuss performance practice except in the realm of the keyboard. Witness these insulting inscriptions:  “This section is stupidity writ large” (p. 381), “The author knows nothing of strings & sees everything thro’ the keyboard” (p. 382), “nothing of the kind” (p.  383), “idiot” (p.  386), and “the keyboardist Schweitzer is in a state of ignorance (& surprise)” (p. 388). In no instance, though, did Elgar offer any ideas of his own. I would like to mention one final inscription, which Elgar entered on the very last page of Schweitzer’s monograph. This section of the book technically concludes the last chapter, but it also serves as a conclusion to the study as a whole. Schweitzer here, citing the precedent of such Bach “revivalists” as Felix Mendelssohn, asks nothing less from the reader than to consecrate himself to the cause of Bach’s music: “Only he who sinks himself in the emotional world of Bach, who lives and thinks with him, who is simple and modest as he, is in a position to perform him properly. If the director and the performer do not feel themselves in a consecrated mood, they cannot communicate such a mood to the hearer.” Schweitzer continues, in his final paragraph,

156  Bach’s Legacy by proposing Bach as a kind of panacea for the early twentieth century: “May this perception penetrate everywhere; then will Bach help our age to attain the spiritual unity and fervor of which it so sorely stands in need.” Elgar was unmoved by this heartfelt plea, writing “This book will not help much to such an end.” The inscriptions made by Edward Elgar in annotating Albert Schweitzer’s J. S.  Bach, therefore, are resoundingly negative. They are on the whole too subjective not to be taken cum grano salis, yet they also afford fascinating insights into one of the greatest minds in English music. As such, they deserve to be known to Elgarians and Bachians alike.

Notes 1. See especially Christopher Kent, “Elgar and J.  S. Bach:  A Wider Perspective,” Irish Musical Studies 5 (1996), 179–​90. 2. Robert J. Buckley, Sir Edward Elgar (London: John Lane, 1905), 31. 3. Letter of July 2, 1902. See E. Wulstan Atkins, The Elgar-​Atkins Friendship (London: David & Charles, 1984), 76. 4. Eugene Goosens, Overture and Beginnings:  A Musical Autobiography (London: Methuen, 1951), 298. 5. William H. Reed, Elgar as I  Knew Him (London:  Victor Gollancz, 1936), 86. 6. Letter of February 2, 1926. See Atkins, The Elgar-​Atkins Friendship, 386. 7. To my knowledge, the only discussion whatsoever of this source is to be found in my monograph, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument: Essays on His Organ Works (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 97–​100. There, I limit myself to Elgar’s markings that involve Bach’s organ works. I will not discuss those markings here. 8. In the preface of the piano-​vocal score of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion published by Novello in 1911 and, nominally, at least, co-​edited by Elgar and Ivor Atkins, Schweitzer’s book is described as a “monumental work, now fortunately accessible to English readers in Ernest Newman’s translation” (p. vi). But surely it was Atkins who paid Schweitzer this compliment. After all, Atkins appears to have done the vast majority of the editing. On the latter issue, see Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar:  A Creative Life (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1984), 621.

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  157 9. I  thank Chris Bennett and Sue Fairchild for their invaluable assistance with this source, whose two volumes are catalogued in the archives of The Firs as 2011.186 and 2011.187. 10. Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach, trans. Ernest Newman, 2 vols. (New York: Dover Publications, 1966). 11. Henceforth, any inscription by Elgar will be given in boldface. 12. Letter of March 28, 1925 to the architect Troyte Griffith, cited in Alison I. Shiel, “Elgar, Charles Sanford Terry and J. S. Bach,” The Elgar Society Journal 13, no. 5 (July 2004), 3–​12, esp. 8. 13. Ernest Newman also bet on horses, and sometimes together with Elgar. See Edward Elgar:  Letters of a Lifetime, ed. Jerrold Northrop Moore (Rickmansworth: Elgar Works, 2012), 502. 14. Beecham’s production premiered in London at Covent Garden in 1914. About three decades later, he conducted the work in New York at the Metropolitan Opera. See John Lucas, Thomas Beecham:  An Obsession with Music (Woodbridge:  The Boydell Press, 2008), 119, 141, and 175–​76. 15. Sometime before 1911 Breitkopf re-​issued this score with an English translation by Percy Pinkerton, but Elgar cites the aria according to its original, German incipit. It is worth mentioning that Pinkerton’s translation was used by Ernest Newman in his translation of Schweitzer’s book (see vol. 2, p. 277). The piano-​vocal score of the cantata published by Novello in 1912 contains a different English translation, by J. Michael Diack, that, in turn, was appropriated by Thomas Beecham for his staged production. 16. Edward Elgar: The Path to Knighthood (Diaries 1902–​1904), ed. Martin Bird (Rickmansworth: Elgar Works, 2016), 46–​47. Elgar is also documented to have heard “Phoebus and Pan” in 1907 at the Cardiff Triennial Musical Festival. See Edward Elgar: The Wanderer (Diaries 1905–​1907), ed. Martin Bird (Rickmansworth: Elgar Works, 2018), 332–​33. 17. Attesting further to the aria’s popularity at this time is the fact that in 1903 it was published as a separate piano-​vocal score by G.  Schirmer (New  York) in the series Song Classics. In this edition, titled Der Streit zwischen /​Phoebus und Pan. /​“Patron, das macht der Wind.” /​Air. /​Soprano or Mezzo-​Soprano., the text is given in an English translation by “Mrs. O. B. Boise” (Anastasia Virginia Boise, whose husband was the American composer Otis Bardwell Boise) as well as in the original German, and the music is transposed down a step from G major to F major. 18. Mrs. Richard Powell, Edward Elgar:  Memories of a Variation, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen, 1949), 123; and Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life,

158  Bach’s Legacy 202 and 637. For further evidence that “Phoebus and Pan” was a known quantity in Elgar’s circle, see Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar: The Windflower Letters (Correspondence with Alice Caroline Stuart Wortley and her Family) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 269–​70. 19. On Elgar and Die Meistersinger, see Powell, Edward Elgar, 105; and Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life, 133, 145, 159, and 175. 20. Ernest Newman, “Bach in the Opera House,” in Newman, A Musical Motley (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925), 194–​99, esp. 195 and 197. 21. See The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, ed. Christoph Wolff (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 338. 22. Of course, Bach actually does depict the blowing of a post horn in the last two movements of the Capriccio in B-​flat Major “on the Departure of His Beloved Brother,” BWV 992, a work for harpsichord. 23. Edward Elgar: Provincial Musician (Diaries 1857–​1896), ed. Martin Bird (Rickmansworth:  Elgar Works, 2013), 108; and Edward Elgar:  Road to Recognition (Diaries 1897–​1901), ed. Martin Bird (Rickmansworth, Elgar Works, 2015), 51. 24. On Birkmann as the librettist of Cantata 56, and of several other sacred cantatas by Bach, see Christine Blanken, “Christoph Birkmanns Kantatenzyklus ‘GOtt-​geheiligte Sabbaths-​Zehnden’ von 1728 und die Leipziger Kirchenmusik unter J. S. Bach in den Jahren 1724–​1727,” Bach-​ Jahrbuch 101 (2015), 13–​74. 25. Schweitzer’s musical example here, which Elgar failed to correct, begins on A rather than G, a mistake that changes the harmony from a major to a minor triad. 26. Percy M. Young, Elgar, O. M.: A Study of a Musician (London: Collins, 1955), 258. 27. See the discussion in Diana McVeagh, Elgar the Music Maker (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), 186–​87. 28. Letter of December 21, 1886 from Elgar to the editor of the Malvern Advertiser (and published there the following month). See Edward Elgar: Letters of a Lifetime,  22–​25. 29. On Elgar’s request for the Bach-​Gesellschaft edition, see his letter of May 22, 1905 to Hermann Fiedler, the university’s Dean of the Faculty of Arts, published in Edward Elgar: Letters of a Lifetime, 185–​86. See also A Future for English Music and Other Lectures by Edward Elgar, ed. Percy M. Young (London: Dennis Dobson, 1968), 69. 30. Max Graf, Legend of a Musical City (New  York:  Philosophical Library, 1945), 114. 31. The New Bach Reader, 429.

Elgar Reads Schweitzer  159 32. See also, in the first two chapters of the present book, the references to “old Bach” made by Felix Mendelssohn (letter of September 4, 1832 to Marie Kiéné, cited in Chapter 1), Fanny Mendelssohn (letter of July 29, 1829 to her brother Felix, cited in Chapter 1), and Carl Montag (letter of November 12, 1841 to Robert Schumann, cited in Chapter 2). 33. A Future for English Music, 39. 34. See Heinrich Besseler, Fünf echte Bildnisse Johann Sebastian Bachs (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1956), 51–​58; and Gerhard Herz’s review of Besseler’s book, published in The Musical Quarterly 43 (1957), 116–​22, esp. 117. 35. Edward Elgar: Road to Recognition, 395; and Edward Elgar: The Path to Knighthood, 357–​59. 36. Reed, Elgar as I Knew Him, 50. 37. On these organ fugues, see Stinson, J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument, 99. 38. Edward Elgar: The Path to Knighthood, 44 and 223. Exactly a week after the performance in Düsseldorf, which had taken place on May 18, 1902, the Elgars found themselves on holiday in Eisenach, Bach’s birthplace, where they sent a postcard of the Bach monument there to the conductor Hans Richter. With the music of the Mass still ringing in his ears, Elgar chose to notate above his name the first bar of the fugue subject of the first Kyrie. For a facsimile reproduction of Elgar’s inscription, see Hans Himself: Elgar and the Richter Circle, ed. Martin Bird (Rickmansworth:  Elgar Works, 2017), 116. 39. George B. Stauffer, Bach: The Mass in B Minor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 180.

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References  167 Stinson, Russell. “Mendelssohns große Reise: Ein Beitrag zur Rezeption von Bachs Orgelwerken.” Bach-​Jahrbuch 88 (2002), 119–​37. Stinson, Russell. “Neue Erkenntnisse zu Robert Schumanns Bach-​Rezeption.” Bach-​Jahrbuch 101 (2015), 233–​45. Stinson, Russell. The Reception of Bach’s Organ Works from Mendelssohn to Brahms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Stinson, Russell. “Robert Schumann, Eduard Krüger und die Rezeption von Bachs Orgelchorälen im 19. Jahrhundert.” Bach-​Jahrbuch 102 (2016), 157–​81. Storck, Karl, and Hannah Bryant, eds. The Letters of Robert Schumann. London: J. Murray, 1907. Synofzik, Thomas. “ ‘Ich lasse mir alles von Bach gefallen’: Robert Schumann als Bach-​Herausgeber.” In “Diess herrliche, imponirende Instrument”: Die Orgel im Zeitalter Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys, ed. Anselm Hartiger et al., 369–​88. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2011. Synofzik, Thomas, and Anja Mühlenweg, eds. Briefwechsel von Clara und Robert Schumann, Band III: Juni 1839 bis Februar 1840. Cologne: Verlag Dohr, 2014. Tappert, Wilhelm. “Einige Worte über das wohltemperirte Clavier.” Allgemeine Deutsche Musikzeitung 7, no. 7 (February 13, 1880), 49–​51. Thorau, Christian. “Richard Wagners Bach.” In Bach und die Nachwelt, Band 2: 1850–​1900, ed. Michael Heinemann and Hans-​ Joachim Hinrichsen, 163–​99. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1999. Tielke, Martin. “Eduard Krüger als Wegbereiter der Bach-​und Händelrenaissance.” Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst und vaterländische Altertümer zu Emden 72 (1992), 170–​206. Todd, R. Larry. Fanny Hensel: The Other Mendelssohn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Todd, R. Larry. Mendelssohn: A Life in Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Vazsonyi, Nicholas, ed. The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Wapnewski, Peter. Der traurige Gott: Richard Wagner in seinen Helden. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1980. Webern, Emil von. “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy aus den Erinnerungen des Generalleutnants Karl Emil von Webern.” Die Musik 12, no. 4 (July 1913), 67–​94. Weissweiler, Eva, ed. Fanny und Felix Mendelssohn: “Die Musik will gar nicht rutschen ohne Dich” (Briefwechsel 1821 bis 1846). Berlin: Propyläen, 1997. Wendt, Matthias. “Bach und Händel in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns.” Lecture given at the “Tag der mitteldeutschen Barockmusik 2001 in Zwickau.” Website of the Robert-​ Schumann-​ Gesamtausgabe (www. schumann-​ga.de).

168 References Wendt, Matthias. “Fanfaren für Bach und andere Besetzungsprobleme—​ Schumanns Düsseldorfer Erstaufführung der Johannes-​Passion.” In Vom Klang der Zeit: Besetzung, Bearbeitung und Aufführungspraxis bei Johann Sebastian Bach (Klaus Hofmann zum 65. Geburtstag), ed. Ulrich Bartels and Uwe Wolf, 156–​79. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2004. Williams, Peter. The Organ Music of J. S. Bach. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Wolff, Christoph, ed. The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. Wolff, Konrad, ed. Robert Schumann: On Music and Musicians. New York: Pantheon Books, 1946. Yearsley. David. Bach’s Feet: The Organ Pedals in European Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Young, Percy M. Elgar, O. M.: A Study of a Musician. London: Collins, 1955. Young, Percy M., ed. A Future for English Music and Other Lectures by Edward Elgar. London: Dennis Dobson, 1968.

Index   Albert, Prince Consort of Great Britain (1819–​61),  40–​41 Allgemeine Deutsche Musik-​Zeitung, 129 Ambrose (ca. 340–​97; Archbishop of Milan), 72 “Veni redemptor gentium,” 72 Anbari, Alan Roy (b. 1969; musicologist), 110 Appold, Juliette (musicologist), 35 Atkins, Sir Ivor Algernon (1869–​1953; choirmaster, organist), 137, 142, 146, 156n.8 “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir” (Lutheran chorale), 112   Bach, Anna Magdalena née Wilcke (1701–​60; second wife of Johann Sebastian), 121 Bach, August Wilhelm (1796–​1869; composer, organist), 35 Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–​88; composer, son of Johann Sebastian), 135n.50, 150, 154 Bach, Johann Christoph (1671–​1721; organist, brother of Johann Sebastian), 128 Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685–​1750; composer). See also listing of works under BWV numbers Clavier-​Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, 153 Clavierübung, 30, 40 Great Eighteen chorales, 14, 16, 35, 47n.34, 58, 62–​65, 69 Kunst der Fuge, 56 Orgelbüchlein, 9, 10, 13, 16, 37, 49n.48, 58, 62–​66,  74–​75 “Schübler” chorales, 68–​69 Six “Great” Preludes and Fugues for organ, 11, 29–​30, 55

St. John Passion, 78–​86, 94n.54, 97n.74, 98n.85, 99n.88 St. Matthew Passion, 59, 71, 78–​86, 95n.55, 97n.74, 99n.88, 99n.91, 111, 134n.30, 154, 156n.8 Well-​Tempered Clavier, 50n.53, 79, 100–​36, 137, 153 Bach, Maria Barbara (1684–​1720; first wife of Johann Sebastian), 111, 121 Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann (1710–​84; composer, son of Johann Sebastian), 135n.50, 153 Bach-​Gesellschaft,  80 Back, Regina (musicologist), 35 Badura-​Skoda, Paul (1927–​2019; pianist), 111 Baillot, Pierre (1771–​1842; violinist, composer), 13, 45n.19 Bärenreiter (music publisher), 6 Bargiel, Woldemar (1828–​97; composer, conductor), 77–​88, 95n.56, 96n.60 Barmen,  32–​33 Bayreuth, 100–​36, 130 Festspielhaus, 128 Patronatsverein, 128 Richard-​Wagner-​Museum, 101, 132n.13 Becker, Carl Ferdinand (1804–​77; organist, bibliophile), 30–​31, 42, 53n.77 Beecham, Sir Thomas (1879–​1961; conductor, impresario), 142, 144, 157n.14, 157n.15 Beethoven, Ludwig von (1770–​1827; composer), 77, 79, 81, 86–​88, 99n.93, 107, 127, 149 Quartet in C-​sharp Minor, op. 131, 107 Quartet in F Major, op. 135, 115–​16 Sonata in C-​sharp Minor (“Moonlight”), op. 27, no. 2, 110 Sonata in D Minor (“Tempest”), op. 31, no. 2, 76, 94n.49

170 Index Bennett, Chris (archivist), 157n.9 Bennett, Sir William Sterndale (1816–​75; composer, pianist), 50n.53 Berlin, 7, 12–​14, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38–​39, 64, 71, 76, 82–​83, 128–​30 Architektenhaus, 128 Dreifaltigkeitskirche,  38–​39 Joachimthalsches Gymnasium, 12–​13 Marienkirche, 35 Singakademie, 82–​83, 97n.71, 97n.75 Staatsbibliothek, 49n.44 University of, 56, 75 Berlioz, Hector (1803–​69; composer), 144 Berthold, Carl Friedrich Theodor Berthold (1815–​82; organist), 39 Ouverture solennelle sur l’hymne national russe pour grande orchestre avec choeur, 39 Biblioteka Jagiellońska, 89n.4 Bigot de Morogues, Adèle (d. 1834; daughter of Marie), 7–​8, 13 Bigot de Morogues, Marie née Kiéné (1786–​1820; pianist), 7 Birkmann, Christoph (1703–​71; theologian), 146, 158n.24 Birmingham, 40, 154 University of, 149–​50 Bishop, Sir Henry Rowley (1786–​1855; composer, conductor), 41 Blanken, Christine (musicologist), 48n.44 Boetticher, Wolfgang (1914–​2002; musicologist). 53n.77 Boise, Anastasia Virginia née Stockly (1846–​1937; translator, wife of Otis Bardwell), 157n.17 Boise, Otis Bardwell (1844–​1912; composer), 157n.17 Bormann, Oskar (musicologist), 15 Brahms, Johannes (1833–​97; composer), 100–​1, 131n.1, 131n.4, 148–​49 Breitkopf & Härtel (music publisher), 12, 80, 96n.61, 139, 143, 150–​51, 157n.15 Bach-​Gesellschaft edition of Bach’s complete works, 30, 78–​80, 148–​49 edition of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (ed. Felix Mendelssohn), 37, 62–​63, 65, 67–​68,  73 edition of Bach’s Well-​Tempered Clavier, 101

15 Große Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel von Johann Sebastian Bach (ed. Felix Mendelssohn), 18, 35, 40, 47n.34, 62, 66–​68,  70–​71 Händel-​Gesellschaft edition of G. F. Handel’s complete works, 148 Johann Sebastian Bach’s noch wenig bekannte Orgelcompositionen (ed. A. B. Marx and Felix Mendelssohn), 12, 75, 94n.45 J. S. Bach’s Choral-​Vorspiele für die Orgel mit einem und zwey Klavieren und Pedal (ed. J. G. Schicht), 27, 59, 69, 73, 93n.43 Bremen, 82 Bülow, Blandine von (1863–​1941; daughter of Hans von Bülow and Cosima Wagner), 101, 108–​9, 114, 134n.36, 134n.40 Bülow, Daniela von (1860–​1940; daughter of Hans von Bülow and Cosima Wagner), 101, 108–​9, 114–​15, 118, 120, 134n.36 Bülow, Hans von (1830–​94; pianist, conductor), 100 Burton, Richard (1925–​84; actor), 133n.21 Butt, John (b. 1960; musicologist, conductor), 98n.85 BWV 4: “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” 80 BWV 10: “Meine Seel erhebt den Herren,” 143 BWV 27: “Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende,”  153–​54 BWV 56: “Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen,”  146–​47 BWV 70: “Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!,” 145 BWV 80: “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,”  145–​46 BWV 95: “Christus, der ist mein Leben,” 142 BWV 102: “Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben,” 144–​45 BWV 103: “Ihr werdet weinen und heulen,” 27 BWV 140: “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” 69, 140–​41 BWV 146: “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal,” 153

Index  171 BWV 201: “Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde” (“Phoebus and Pan”), 142–​44, 146, 157n.16 BWV 208: “Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd,” 146–​47 BWV 213: “Laßt uns sorgen, laßt uns wachen” (“Herkules auf dem Scheidewege”), 148 BWV 225: “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,” 131–​32n.9 BWV 232: Mass in B Minor, 94n.54, 154–​ 55, 159n.38 BWV 235: Mass in G Minor, 145 BWV 533: Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, 99n.91 BWV 537: Fantasy and Fugue in C Minor, 137 BWV 540/​1: Toccata in F Major, 99n.91 BWV 542/​2: Fugue in G Minor, 99n.91 BWV 543: Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, 7–​10, 34, 37, 104–​5 BWV 546: Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, 46n.26, 127 BWV 547/​2: Fugue in C Major, 109 BWV 548/​2: Fugue in E Minor (“Wedge”), 46n.26 BWV 552: Prelude and Fugue in E-​flat Major, 31, 99n.91 BWV 574: Fugue in C Minor on a Theme by Legrenzi, 10 BWV 582: Passacaglia in C Minor, 10–​11, 30 BWV 590: Pastorale in F Major, 31, 49n.49 BWV 599–​644: Orgelbüchlein BWV 602: “Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott,” 58, 61, 65, 74 BWV 608: “In dulci jubilo,” 58, 61, 64–​66,  75 BWV 614: “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist,” 7–​11, 14–​16, 26–​27, 29, 48n.43 BWV 615: “In dir ist Freude,” 46n.28 BWV 617: “Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf,” 58, 61, 66, 75 BWV 618: “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig,” 46n.28 BWV 620a: “Christus, der uns selig macht,” 15–​16, 29, 34, 46n.29 BWV 622: “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß,” 15–​16, 26, 29, 48n.43, 63

BWV 635: “Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot,” 58, 61, 65–​66. 74–​75 BWV 637: “Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt,” 63 BWV 639: “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ,” 13, 58, 62–​64, 66, 75–​76 BWV 645: “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (“Schübler” chorales), 59,  68–​69 BWV 651–​68: Great Eighteen chorales BWV 651: “Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,” 46n.28, 58, 59, 67–​68 BWV 652: “Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott,” 47n.34 BWV 653: “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” 58, 59, 68, 74 BWV 654: “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele,” 14–​16, 18–​19, 22–​25, 33–​ 36, 47n.34, 58, 59, 63–​64, 68–​70, 74, 99n.91 BWV 656: “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig,” 47n.34, 58, 59, 70–​71 BWV 657: “Nun danket alle Gott,” 47n.34 BWV 658: “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen,” 46n.28, 58, 60, 71–​72 BWV 659: “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” 15–​16, 46n.29, 48n.43, 58, 60, 63, 72–​73 BWV 660: “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” 58, 60, 72–​73 BWV 661: “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” 58, 60, 72–​73 BWV 663: “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr,” 47n.34 BWV 664: “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr,” 62 BWV 665: “Jesus Christus, unser Heiland,” 62 BWV 666: “Jesus Christus, unser Heiland,” 62 BWV 668: “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit,” 62 BWV 669–​89: chorale settings from Part 3 of the Clavierübung, 30 BWV 686: “Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir,” 40, 74 BWV 710: “Wir Christenleut,” 73

172 Index BWV 740: “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater.” See Krebs, Johann Ludwig BWV 759: “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele.” See Homilius, Gottfried August BWV 769: Canonic Variations on “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her,” 61, 75, 93n.43 BWV 802–​5: duets for keyboard, 30 BWV 898: Prelude and Fugue on B-​A-​C-​H,  41–​42 BWV 906/​1: Fantasy in C Minor, 53n.77 BWV 963: Sonata in D Major, 152–​53 BWV 992: Capriccio in B-​flat Major “on the Departure of His Beloved Brother,” 158n.22 BWV 1014–​19: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, 13 BWV 1043: Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, 140 BWV 1091: “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist” (Neumeister Collection), 44n.7 BWV Anh. 68: “Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten, ” 46n.28   Cardiff Triennial Musical Festival, 157n.16 Catalani, Angelica (1780–​1849; soprano), 117–​18, 134n.43 C. F. Peters (music publisher) edition of Bach’s organ works (ed. F. C. Griepenkerl and F. A. Roitzsch), 30, 63, 67 Oeuvres completes edition of Bach’s music, 53n.77 Chelard, André Hippolyte Jean Baptiste (1789–​1861; composer, conductor), 64, 90n.16 Die Hermannsschlacht, 64 Christian, Duke of Saxe-​Weißenfels (1682–​1736),  146 Clausnitzer, Tobias (1619–​84; theologian), 19 Cologne, 104 Corelli, Arcangelo (1653–​1713; composer), 65, 117 Cramer, Johann Baptist (1771–​1858; composer, pianist), 32 Crothers, Adam (archivist), 51n.53

Czerny, Carl (1791–​1857; composer, pianist), 115 edition of Bach’s Well-​Tempered Clavier, 115, 116, 118, 127–​28, 134n.37   Dahlhaus, Carl (1928–​89; musicologist), 101, 122 Daverio, John (1954–​2003; musicologist), 94n.46 Diack, J. Michael (1869–​1947; music arranger), 157n.15 Dirichlet, Peter Gustav Lejeune (1805–​59; mathematician), 27 Dirichlet, Rebecka née Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1811–​58; sister of Felix Mendelssohn), 10, 27–​29, 31–​32,  44n.12 Dover Publications, 131n.1, 140 Dresden, 37, 39–​40, 76–​77, 81, 85 Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, 52n.64 Königliche Gemäldegalerie, 52n.64 Sophienkirche, 39, 76 Verein für Chorgesang, 77 Dunedin Consort, 98n.85 Dunst, Friedrich Philipp (music publisher), 15–​16, 46 Dürrer, Martin (musicologist), 132n.9 Düsseldorf, 32, 36, 78–​80, 84, 94n.54, 95n.55, 154, 159n.38 Lower Rhenish Music Festival, 42n.1,  143–​44 Musikverein, 81 Robert-​Schumann-​ Forschungsstelle, 89n.4 Theaterverein, 36   Eisenach, 159n.38 Eiser, Otto (1834–​98; physician), 119 Elgar, Lady Caroline Alice (1848–​1920; wife of Edward), 137, 142, 154, 159n.38 Elgar, Sir Edward William (1857–​1934; composer),  137–​59 Enigma Variations (Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36), 153 orchestration of Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 537, 137 The Apostles, 152

Index  173 Emans, Reinmar (b. 1953; musicologist), 28, 48n.42 Emden, 56, 62, 76–​77 Musikalische Gesellschaft, 92n.27 Ernst August, Duke of Saxe-​Weimar (1688–​1748),  148 Euler, Joseph Ignaz (1804–​86; notary public, politician), 81   Fairchild, Sue (archivist), 157n.9 Fiedler, Georg Hermann (1862–​1945; scholar, professor), 158n.29 Föttinger, Gudrun (musicologist), 134n.36 Frankfurt, 10, 14–​15, 27–​28, 46, 119 Caecilienverein, 27 opera company, 10 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1712–​86), 104, 107, 149–​50 Frederick William I, King of Prussia (1688–​1740), 104, 107 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia (1795–​1861),  39 Freudenberg, Karl Gottlieb (1797–​1869; organist, composer), 87 Erinnerungen aus dem Leben eines alten Organisten, 87, 99n.91 Friedrich, Felix (b. 1945; musicologist), 45n.23   G. Schirmer (music publisher), 157n.17 Geck, Martin (1936–​2019; musicologist), 101, 134n.40 Geyer, Ludwig Heinrich Christian (1779–​1821; actor, playwright, painter), 126 Gleichauf, Franz Xaver (1801–​56; music teacher), 27 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–​ 1832; poet), 35 Goosens, Sir Eugene Aynsley (1893–​1962; conductor), 137 Göttingen, 77 University of, 56, 77 Gounod, Charles François (1818–​93; composer), 103 Méditation sur le 1er Prélude de piano de S. Bach, 104

Graf, Max (1873–​1958; music critic, author), 149 Legend of a Musical City, 149 Griepenkerl, Friedrich Conrad (1782–​ 1849; Bach editor, historian), 30–​31, 53n.77, 63, 67 Griffith, Troyte (1864–​1942; architect), 157n.12 Guhr, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand (1787–​ 1848; composer, conductor), 10–​11   Hamburg, 81, 82 Handel, George Frideric (1685–​1759; composer), 56, 122–​23, 148 Alexander’s Feast, 123 “Die Wahl des Herakles,” 148 Messiah, 122–​23, 148 Härtel, Hermann (1803–​75; music publisher), 80 Harz Mountains, 37 Hasenclever, Richard (1813–​76; physician, writer), 32–​33 Haslinger (music publisher), 75 Sämmtliche Orgel-​Werke von Joh. Seb. Bach, 61, 75 Hauptmann, Moritz (1792–​1868; composer, theorist), 80–​82, 85–​86 Hauser, Franz (1794–​1870; baritone, Bach collector), 15, 31, 36, 49n.48, 93n.43 Haußmann, Elias Gottlob (1695–​1774; painter), 152 Haydn, Franz Joseph (1732–​1809; composer), 56, 149, 152 Heinrich II, Graf von Reuß-​Köstritz (1803–​52; aristocrat), 11 Helena, Grand Duchess of Russia (1807–​73),  101 Hensel, Fanny Cäcilia née Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1805–​47; pianist, composer, sister of Felix Mendelssohn), 7, 10, 13, 27–​29, 31–​ 35, 39, 52n.70, 159n.32 Hensel, Wilhelm (1794–​1861; painter), 27 Herz, Gerhard (1911–​2000; musicologist), 159n.34 Hiller, Ferdinand (1811–​85; composer, conductor), 95n.55

174 Index Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus (1776–​1822; composer, critic, writer), 108 Kreisleriana, 109 Hoffmeister & Kühnel (music publisher), 87 Hofmeister, Friedrich (1782–​1864; music publisher), 15 Holmes, Edward (1797–​1859; organist, writer), 40 Homilius, Gottfried August (1714–​85; composer; organist), 69 “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele” (BWV 759), 69 Hopkins, William (1793–​1866; mathematician), 50n.53 Hummel, Johann Nepomuk (1778–​1837; composer), 108 Rondo in E-​flat Major, op. 11, 109   Istel, Edgar (1880–​1943; musicologist), 132n.14   Jaeger, August (1860–​1909; music publisher), 144 Jones, Richard D. P. (musicologist), 133n.19   Kellermann, Berthold (1853–​1926; pianist), 113, 115 Kerman, Joseph (1924–​2014; musicologist), 107 Kiéné, Marie Catherine née Leyer (dates unknown; friend of the Mendelssohn family), 7–​9, 12–​16, 28, 33–​35, 45n.19, 45n.21, 48n.42, 159n.32 Kinderman, William (b. 1952; musicologist), 112, 118 Kindscher, Louis (1800–​75; organist, composer), 65 Kloß, Carl Johann Christian (1792–​1853; organist, composer), 42 Kobayashi, Yoshitake (1924–​2013; musicologist), 15, 46n.29 Körner, Gotthilf Wilhelm (1809–​65; organist, composer), 61, 62 Der Orgelfreund, 58, 60, 61, 62, 65, 73

Krebs, Johann Ludwig (1713–​80; composer, organist), 14, 19, 45n.23, 60, 73 “Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Vater” (BWV 740), 14–​16, 18–​21, 26, 28, 33–​35, 40, 45, 47n.36, 48n.42, 58, 60, 62–​64,  73–​74 Krefeld,  32–​33 Krüger, Eduard (1807–​85; critic, organist), 53n.77, 55–​77, 83–​86, 92n.27, 93n.39, 94n.46, 98n.85 Kühnau, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm (1780–​1848; organist), 38   Lambaréné, 139 Launer (music publisher) edition of Bach’s Well-​Tempered Clavier (ed. Carl Czerny), 128 Ledbetter, David (musicologist), 135n.50 Leipzig, 11, 30, 31, 36, 37, 39–​40, 41, 42, 53n.77, 56, 57, 58, 63–​64, 76, 79–​81, 93n.44, 127, 139 collegium musicum, 154 conservatory, 78–​80, 87 Gewandhaus, 36, 39, 90n.16 Johanniskirche, 88 Nicolaikirche, 53n.77 Thomaskirche, 36, 37, 80–​83, 97n.69 Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung, 96n.67 Levi, Hermann (1839–​1900; conductor), 101 Liszt, Franz (1811–​86; composer, pianist), 101, 107, 132 Little, Wm. A. (1929–​2019; musicologist), 12, 42n.2, 48n.42, 52n.65, 52n.67, 53n.74 Loewe, Carl (1796–​1869; composer), 85 Johann Huß, 85 London, 7–​10, 14, 32, 37, 40–​42 Bach Society, 50n.53 Covent Garden, 157n.14 Hanover Square Rooms, 40–​42 St. Paul’s Cathedral, 7–​9 Loos, Helmut (b. 1950; musicologist), 6 Lower Broadheath, 138 Lucerne, 131 Lüneburg, 56 Lunn, John Robert (1831–​99; organist, clergyman), 50n.53

Index  175 Luther, Martin (1483–​1546; theologian), 19, 72, 105   Mainz,  150–​52 Malvern Advertiser, 158n.28 Manchester, 40 Mandyczewski, Eusebius (1857–​1929; musicologist), 149 Marx, Adolf Bernhard (1795–​1866; theorist, composer), 12, 62, 75–​76,  93n.44 Die alte Musiklehre im Streit mit unserer Zeit, 76 Die Kunst des Gesangs, 76 Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, 76 Über Malerei in der Tonkunst, 76 Marx, Ernst Julius (1728–​99; organ builder), 38 Massow, Ludwig von (1794–​1859; Prussian Geheimrat), 38–​39 Max, Hermann (b. 1941; conductor), 95n.54 Mendel, Arthur (1905–​79; musicologist), 83 Mendelssohn, Henriette (1775–​1831; Parisian governess, aunt of Felix), 27, 48n.40 Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Abraham (1776–​1835; banker, father of Felix), 7, 9, 32, 38 Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Cécile-​Sophie-​ Charlotte née Jeanrenaud (1817–​53; wife of Felix), 10, 11 Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Felix (1809–​47; composer, conductor, organist), 6–​ 54, 62, 64, 67, 69–​70, 82–​83, 97n.69, 97n.75, 155, 159n.32 Elijah, 40, 73 Meerestille und glückliche Fahrt, 36 Six Sonatas for the Organ, 37, 52n.65 Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Lea Felicia Pauline née Salomon (1777–​1842; mother of Felix), 11, 33, 34 Mentzer, Johann (1658–​1734; theologian), 72 “O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte,” 72 Montag, Carl (1817–​64; conductor, critic), 66, 159n.32

Morgenstern, Anja (musicologist), 16 Moscheles, Ignaz (1794–​1870; composer, conductor, pianist), 31, 49n.48, 87–​88,  99n.93 Mothschiedler, Philipp Franz Christian (1774–​1845; organist), 35 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756–​91; composer), 41, 70, 127, 149 Le Nozze di Figaro,  119–​20 Symphony No. 41 in C Major (“Jupiter”), 134n.43 Müller, Wolfgang (1816–​73; poet, music critic), 84 Munich, 34–​36, 130 Stadtpfarrkirche St. Peter, 34   Naples, 128, 130 Neue Bach-​Ausgabe, 92n.30 Neue Bach-​Gesellschaft, 150 Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 55–​56, 63–​67, 73, 75, 83, 87, 90n.16, 91n.19, 91n.20 Neumeister Collection of organ chorales from the Bach circle, 44n.7 New York Carnegie Hall, 83 Metropolitan Opera, 157n.14 Newman, Ernest (1868–​1959; music critic; author), 138–​39, 144, 157n.15 biography of Edward Elgar, 139 biography of Richard Wagner, 139 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844–​ 1900; philosopher), 133n.21 Norderney,  76–​77 Novello (music publisher), 156n.8, 157n.15   Oakeley, Sir Herbert Stanley (1830–​1903; organist, composer), 49n.45 Oley, Johann Christoph (1738–​89; organist, composer), 71 Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 30 Otten, Georg Dietrich (1806–​90; composer, conductor), 81, 83, 85–​86   Palermo, 130 Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da (ca. 1525–​94; composer), 81 Palmer, Tony (b. 1941; film director, author) Wagner, 133n.21

176 Index Paris, 7–​8, 13–​14, 27, 127–​28, 138 Bach Society, 139, 154 Pickup, Ronald Alfred (b. 1940; actor), 133n.21 Pinkerton, Percy Edward (1855–​1946; translator, poet), 157n.15 Powell, Dora née Penny (1874–​1964; friend of Edward Elgar), 144   Raphael (Raffaello Sanzia da Urbino) (1483–​1520; painter, architect), 37, 52n.64 Sistine Madonna, 52n.64 Redgrave, Vanessa (b. 1937; actress), 133n.21 Reed, William Henry (1875–​1942; violinist), 137, 152 Rellstab, Ludwig (1799–​1860; poet, critic), 12 Richter, Hans (1843–​1916; conductor), 159n.38 Riedel, Carl (1827–​88; conductor, composer), 132n.9 Rietz, Eduard (1802–​32; violinist, conductor), 12 Roitzsch, Ferdinand August (1805–​89; Bach editor, organist), 63 Rotterdam, 79 Routh, Edward (1831–​1907; mathematician), 50n.53 Rubinstein, Joseph (1847–​84; pianist),  100–​36 Rungenhagen, Karl Friedrich (1778–​ 1851; composer, conductor), 83, 97n.71   Salzburg, 101 Scarlatti, Domenico (1685–​1757; composer), 53n.77 Schadow, Friedrich Wilhelm von (1788–​ 1862; painter), 32 Schanz, Arthur (musicologist), 15, 46n.28, 46n.29 Scheibe, Johann Adolph (1708–​76; composer, critic) Schelble, Johann Nepomuk (1789–​ 1837; conductor), 15, 27, 31–​33, 46n.26, 48n.41

orchestration of Prelude in C Minor, BWV 546/​1, 46n.26 VI VARIERTE CHORÄLE für die Orgel von J. S. Bach für das Pianoforte zu vier Händen eingericht(et), 15–​29, 34, 46n.28, 46n.29, 47n.30, 48n.42, 48n.44, 63 Schicht, Johann Gottfried (1753–​1823; Bach editor, composer), 27, 36, 69 Schleinitz, Countess Marie von (1842–​ 1912; salonnière, patron of Richard Wagner),  128–​30 Schlemmer, Friedrich (1803–​90; lawyer, organist), 10–​11, 37 Schneider, Johann Gottlob (1789–​1864; organist), 39–​40,  76–​77 Schneider, Max (1875–​1967; musicologist), 15 Schornstein, Hermann (1811–​82; composer, pianist), 32–​33 Schumann, Clara née Wieck (1819–​96; pianist, composer, wife of Robert), 36, 64, 76–​78, 80, 82–​83, 88, 95n.56 Schumann, Robert (1810–​56; composer, conductor, critic), 33, 42, 50n.53, 53n.77, 55–​99, 100, 131n.1, 159n.32 Das Paradies und die Peri, 77 Erinnerungen an F. Mendelssohn, 33 Genoveva, 76 Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH, 79 Schweitzer, Albert (1875–​1965; author, organist, medical missionary),  137–​59 J. S. Bach,  137–​59 Sechter, Simon (1788–​1867; theorist, composer, organist), 29–​30, 49n.44 Seidel, Wilhelm (b. 1935; musicologist), 6 Siena, 130 Silbermann, Gottfried (1683–​1753; organ builder), 39, 76 Smart, Sir George (1776–​1867; composer, conductor, organist), 31, 49n.49 Smith, “Father” Bernard (ca. 1630–​1708; organ builder), 9 St. John’s College (University of Cambridge), 50n.53 St. Petersburg, 101

Index  177 Starokonstantinov, 101 Strasbourg, University of, 138–​39 Stumpff, Johann Andreas (1769–​1846; piano and harp maker), 87 Synofzik, Thomas (b. 1966; musicologist), 95n.54   Tappert, Wilhelm (1830–​1907; music critic, composer), 129–​30 The Firs, 138, 157n.9 The Musical Times, 144 Three Choirs Festival, 137 Tomita, Yo (b. 1961; musicologist), 134n.37 Tovey, Sir Donald Francis (1875–​1940; musicologist), 107, 133n.19   Unger, Kristina (archivist), 134n.36   Venice, 130 Vienna, 87–​88, 101, 149 Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, 149 Vivaldi, Antonio (1678–​1741; composer), 65 Volbach, Fritz (1861–​1940; conductor),  150–​52   Wagner, Cosima née Liszt (1837–​1930; wife of Richard), 100–​36 Wagner, Richard (1813–​83; composer), 100–​36, 144, 152 Das Judenthum in der Musik, 102 Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, 124 Der Ring des Nibelungen, 102, 110–​11,  115

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, 101, 108–​9, 133n.23, 144, 152 Fugue in C Major, 132n.14 Parsifal, 111–​12, 118, 119, 122, 130, 134n.30 Tristan und Isolde, 101, 123, 125–​26 Zukunftsmusik, 124 Wald, Uta (musicologist), 12, 16 Weber, Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von (1786–​1826; composer), 126 Der Freischütz, 126 Webern, Karl Emil von (1790–​1878; Prussian general, violinist), 38 Weimar, 35 Weinlig, Christian Theodor (1780–​1842; composer, organist), 114, 116 Wen, Eric (violinist, editor), 131n.1 Whistling, Carl Friedrich (1788–​1855; music bibliographer), 15 Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur, 15 Widor, Charles-​Marie Jean Albert (1844–​ 1937; organist, composer), 138 Winterfeld, Carl von (1784–​1852; hymnologist), 53n.77, 57–​62, 66–​68, 70–​72,  75 “Wir glauben all an einen Gott” (Lutheran chorale), 19 Wittenberg, 35 Wolff, Johann Nikolaus (1770–​1847; composer, conductor), 32–​33 Worcester, 138   Zelter, Carl Friedrich (1758–​1832; conductor, teacher), 12–​13, 35, 150