No. 'Will' in a first-person construction is not a modal verb of tense, but of volition; the simple future would be 'I shall be what I shall be'. When Mr Grew contends that 'I will be what I will be' conveys more meaning I do wonder if he isn't thinking of its volitional strength rather than the simple futurity of 'shall'.

Apologies for remaining so long off-topic. A good friend of mine completed an entire PhD two or three years ago attacking the tendency of Bach scholars to regard his work as 'musicalised Lutheranism'; I ought to try and remember some of this in more detail. (I did proof-read the whole thing at the time.)

PS Thank you for the beetle, Mr Grew.

THE LOST ART OF OPERATING THE KNITTING MACHINE

A recently-discovered film shows an antique knitting machine - obviously from the 19th century - actually being operated by a highly-skilled seamstress. We can note at once that unlike earlier ones thought to date from the 18th century this one is immediately more robust and solid: the metal frame and struts are clearly visible indicating that it was built to last and to provide decades of smooth operation.

We are particularly interested to note the operator's manual techniques, especially as she bounces her hands up and down, and carefully but purposefully strokes the surface of the machine (especially with the left hand) in order to keep it in tip-top and smooth running condition. It is especially pleasing to note how well-served these expert seamstresses were, and we note at the end of her shift a suited gentleman discreetly enters to ask whether she is ready for her afternoon tea.

CLICK

Quite a few, judging by the vitriol my friend received when she gave conference papers, and the warm acclaim she got in private from some other scholars for having dared to rock the boat.

There are other Bach scholars with equally dotty theories, including the indomitable Ruth Tatlow, who might not think Bach was a simple-minded Lutheran but does think a number of other impossible things, some of them possibly even before breakfast.

Not at all - I am here merely offering a final "dotty" conclusion that attempts to be logically consistent (only) with the thrust of your own previous interrogative aside that seemed to be in some way attempting logically consistency with what (through heresay) we are to understand is the view of yet another writer who wishes (we infer, though again only through heresay) to debunk such relevances.

Baz

Interesting stuff, t-i-n. Taruskin has his usual axe to grind, so I wouldn't take his view on this too seriously (though one can write music for 'truth' rather than 'beauty' without being a Lutheran, and the two things are not mutually incompatible (Dieter Schnebel (a Lutheran preacher as well as a composer) - 'Warum kann wahr nicht schön sein?'). He appropriates Michael Marissen's ideas in the previous chapter to use against McClary; but all of these arguments are made very much in a generalised sense. Christoph Wolff and John Butt, amongst others, have drawn attention to the wider range of aesthetic, intellectual and musical influences upon Bach, some of which are either at odds with or relatively indifferent to the Lutheran tradition. On the other hand, neither would deny a Lutheran influence on Bach, just would deny the type of monocausal theory that was very prevalent around Bach year. And most of what I've come across about the instrumental works doesn't play up the Lutheran influences upon these that much.

The problem with a lot of work trying to locate music in a particular social/historical/political/religious context is that it often relies upon a narrow range of questionable scholarship concerning that very context itself, as implied in your comments; I've certainly seen plenty of this with respect to 19th and 20th century music; and also a too-ready tendency to shift from the general to the particular, without considering the extent to which the latter may be at odds with the former. McClary's work is really abysmal in this sense (as Tim Carter pointed out in a review of her Conventional Wisdom); she seems to think it's fine to draw sweeping conclusions about now-remote eras and places on the basis of just a few tawdry attributes.

Fine by me! I just didn't want to spoil your game ...

Having altogether dropped the E flat Prelude and Fugue as unworthy potatoes, and presented already the four Duetti or bicinia as the vegetable accompaniment, we come now to what must be the meat of Bach's Third Keyboard Exercise, namely the twenty-one chorale preludes which constitute his Catechism Hymns.

At this point we expect to find a number of the more serious kind of youthful members yearning for an extended introduction; let Sydney Grew himself then reach out to them in guidance.


The organ music in Part III of the Clavierübung is a collection of pieces set out to represent a kind of ideal church service. We have to imagine as the centre of the service a sermon on the catechism. (It is Greek you know: the idea of oral instruction.) The sermon expounds the five chief elements of the aforesaid catechism, which in the Lutheran order are 1) the commandments, 2) the creed, 3) the Lord's Prayer, 4) baptism and 5) communion. The service is, of course, the High Service or Celebration of Holy Communion. Within this comes the general confession ("We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness"). The confession is not dealt with in the catechism, but it is inseparable from communion, and its place in the service is, of course, before the partaking of the elements, since it purifies the believer to receive them. Bach therefore brings this further subject into his scheme.

Each subject is represented by a hymn, and the hymns are the following: 1) Commandments, "Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot" ("These are the ten numinous commands"); 2) Creed, "Wir glauben all an einen Gott, Schöpfer" ("All of us believe in but one God, the Maker"); 3) Lord's Prayer, "Vater unser" ("Our Father"); 4) Baptism, "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" ("Christ, our Lord, came to the River Jordan"); 5) Confession, "Aus tiefer Not schrei' ich zu dir" ("From the most profound need I cry out to you"); 6) Communion, "Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns . . ." (Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who by us . . .").

Each hymn is worked twice. The first piece is a chorale fantasia in the cases of Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 6. The tune is present in full, and the accompaniment or counterpoint is a fantasia on characteristic themes. In the case of No. 5 the first piece is cast in the form of fugal preparations - each line is preluded, or prepared, by a short fuguistical working of a subject created from the melody of the line. It is composition in which the poetical subject changes as well as the musical. The poetical course, which is from the gravity of a sense of sin to the radiant joy of a sense of redemption, is the course of thought in the hymn itself, and it gives the piece in brief the total form and character of a cantata or Passion. Buxtehude among the northerners wrote well in this manner, a fact illustrated by his arrangements of "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" and "Durch Adams Fall."

The first piece of No. 2 is a chorale fugue, and the second pieces in the set are chorale fugues in the case of Nos. 1, 2 and 4. These pieces are short and in the strongest possible contrast one with another. The piece is a chorale fugue in the case also of No. 6; but this time it is lengthy: it has strettos in the per arsin et thesin syncopation; it is very rich in harmony; and (like the long first piece of No. 2) it opens out at the end to the clear presentation of the full melody of the line.

In the case of No. 3 the second piece is a presentation of the entire melody of the chorale, to a counterpoint of flowing semi-quavers. And in the case of No. 5 it is another working of the whole melody with changing fuguistical preparations. Here is fine and intricate science, for the fugue subjects are worked in direct and inverted condition, as in the opening chorus of the cantata "War Gott nicht mit uns dieser Zeit." The music is lofty and unique in concentrated spiritual power among the larger Bach organ chorales.

The high service on ordinary Sundays included the metrical versions of the Kyrie and the Gloria of the mass. Bach therefore brings these two hymns into his present scheme of an ideal service. He writes three chorale fantasias on the three forms of the melody of the Kyrie hymn: "Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit," "Christe, aller Welt Trost" and "Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist." The latter is perhaps Bach's grandest piece of chorale music for the organ. He also writes three short chorale fugues to follow the long pieces, - exactly as he writes such for three of the catechism hymns. For the Gloria hymn, "Allein Gott in der Hoeh' sei Ehr," he writes two complete chorale fantasias, respectively in G and F major, and a chorale fugue in A major. The latter is a little double fugue, the subjects from the first and second lines of the tune.

The high service opened and closed with organ voluntaries. Bach therefore set a prelude at the beginning of his ideal service and a fugue at the end. The prelude is a majestic thing that seems to express a conception of celestial movement and song like that which inspires the relevant passages in Paradise Lost. All in all, this prelude functions in respect of the chorale pieces that follow it much as the Mastersingers and Tristan preludes function in respect of their operas. The fugue is a triptych. The prelude is generally played in quick time; this gives it a jaunty, even flippant air, which in the end makes it tedious.

At the high service the people communicated after a hymn or the second part of the cantata had been sung. This, of course, was after the sermon. Their partaking of the elements took a long time when their numbers were many, and organ, band and choir filled the time with music. The music consisted of hymns, chorale arrangements on the organ and instrumental pieces of the nature of concerto movements. (It is Forkel, Bach's first biographer, who gives the information that orchestral music was put to this sub communione use, and he had it from Bach's sons: it may therefore be accepted as true.) In his ideal service Bach represents the communion music by four duets. These are regarded as clavier pieces and are published as such. Their style does not, however, differ essentially from that of many authentic organ pieces - for example, the "Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf" of the Little Organ Book, the chorale fugue on "Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot" of the present work, and various passages in two parts in the great organ fugues. Moreover, there was at this time a recognized form of organ music exclusively in two parts, to which the name bicinium was given. In any case, the music of the duets is in keeping with that of the chorale arrangements here, especially in spirit. And that Bach regarded them as an integral part of his plan is proved by the simple fact that they are in the work, since it is impossible that they got there by accident.

The work is not known as an entity. None of its numbers is in the regular repertory of organists, except the Prelude and Fugue in E flat and the first piece on "Wir glauben all." The latter is known in England chiefly from the circumstance that it was published in an English edition in the second half of the nineteenth century as a piece of free organ music and with that nickname of the "Giant's Fugue." The first setting of "Aus tiefer Not" is regarded as impracticable, because of its double pedal part. The first setting of "Vater unser," which follows a symphonic course, is regarded as unintelligible - presumably because of the Scotch snaps.

The work lacks a name. It cannot be called Part III of the Clavierübung, on the analogy of Part II of The Well-tempered Clavier, because "Clavierübung" has itself no life. It could be called only the Catechism Hymns, even though the arrangements of the catechism hymns form but the smaller part of the book: they number twelve, whereas the pieces on other subjects number fifteen. That title, however, would serve, it being understood that it covers all the subjects, as the title French Overture covers a suite as well as the overture, and the title Partita a prelude as well as a suite.

Bach and his pupils played the work at a sitting. It is of the proportions of a mass or a Passion, and so could not be included as an entity in a modern organ recital. But it can be apprehended and played by a performer to and for himself, with rare musical and poetical pleasure, and with a sense of sharing something in secret with one of the spiritually wisest men the world has known.

We begin to-day then with a sadly deluded and rough re-interpretation of the first chorale prelude, "Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit" (God the Father in Eternity) (long version) BWV 669 (rapid-share / send-space).

The words and melody of jolly old Luther's hymn are available to members on the Inter-Net; as Ernest Newman writes, "It is indispensable to have a knowledge of the whole of the words of the hymns. It is not only that Bach 'harmonised the poetry' rather than the melodies of the chorales, but that often the title, taken from the first line of the hymn, conveys either no notion of the hymn's general contents or is quite misleading with regard to these." We encourage members therefore to have a look at these and tell us whether and how Bach has interpreted them.

As contrast here is a steady sober and sensible performance from Matteo.

Actually Sydney Grew the Elder true Englishman as he may have been translates it as "These are the holy ten commands." [sic] But we thought that since people are so often saying "holy this" and "holy that" they do not really consider what the word means. Thus our own "numinous" which was intended to stop them in their tracks - it does indeed seem to have effected something of the kind in the case of Member Now, but he was never meant then to fly off at a tangent and see it as a "perverse disguise"!