No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Æsthetic Treatment of Bach's Organ Music
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
If some apology is required from an amateur for offering some remarks on this subject to an audience partly, at least, composed of professional musicians, I may say that perhaps few persons can have given more time and thought to this particular subject than I have. For a good many years of my life the study and practice of Bach's organ compositions was my principal recreation, especially with the view of getting all the effect from them for which a modern organ affords the opportunity; and there are none of the larger and more important compositions which I have not tried over and over again, in various ways, with this object. The suggestions I have to make, therefore, are at all events not hastily arrived at.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1900
References
∗ For the experiment of scoring some of these compositions for orchestra there is better excuse, but a very careful selection would have to be made as regards æsthetic character. The Toccata in F, an orchestral arrangement of which was played in London not long since, was a most mistaken choice, since in character and genre it is, from the very first bar, emphatically keyboard music, and moreover the long “drone bass” on the pedal, at the commencement, is an effect which only the organ can give.Google Scholar
† The references are to Peters' edition, as the best known and most widely used.Google Scholar
∗ What did Bach mean by the indication “organo pleno” attached to the Prelude in B minor? Certainly not what we understand by “full organ.” Obviously he meant “all the organ”—i.e., all the manuals; in other words, all the variety of tone possible; and the character of the composition exactly lends itself to this ideaGoogle Scholar
∗ As one of the speakers in the discussion seemed to imagine, because I referred two or three times to Best's readings, that my ideas on the treatment of Bach's organ music were entirely borrowed from Best's practice, I may observe that this was the only instance in which I ever adopted a reading from him. I consider him by far the greatest player of Bach's organ music I ever heard; his performance of the variations in the Passacaglia, for delicacy of artistic finish and perfect aesthetic perception, was a thing to remember all one's life after; and to be constantly hearing him was no doubt a kind of education in organ effect and handling. But all the suggestions made in this paper, with the above exception, are entirely my own.Google Scholar
∗ The full to mixtures on the manuals, with a 16-ft. reed on the pedals, is for many organs a very good combination for the louder portions of a fugue, especially in a building where there is much echo; the manual portion is more distinct and less noisy than with a reed added, while the reed on the pedal makes its entry always stand out clearly from the whole.Google Scholar
∗ There are many light fugato passages in organ music where full to 15th without the 12th, has the best effect, occasionally even bourdon, diapasons, and 15th, without either principal or 12thGoogle Scholar