Bach Was Old-Fashioned, but Never Forgotten!
When Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, he was considered one of the world’s finest organists and a respected composer. There was just one problem: his music was beginning to sound old-fashioned. The fashionable new Rococo style, with its light-hearted and uncomplicated character, had already taken over.
Mozart had not yet been born, and it would be at least another decade before he started playing the keyboard. By then, Bach was best known as the father of his composing sons, who had become famous in their own right.
Mozart himself usually associated the name ‘Bach’ with the sons, as his letters reveal. But he certainly knew the father’s music. Any aspiring composer or keyboard player had to learn the art of fugue, and nobody could match the old Bach in that department. So the familiar story that Bach was forgotten after his death is simply a myth. His music survived the passage of time better than that of contemporaries such as Telemann and Vivaldi, whose music Mozart probably never encountered.
Mozart discovered much more of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music after moving to Vienna. There, he met Baron van Swieten, a wealthy, generous patron of Dutch descent with a passion for Baroque music. Baroque works were regularly played at the baron’s home, and he commissioned Viennese composers to rework Baroque masterpieces for modern audiences. Mozart received several such commissions himself.
Their musical worlds came closest together in 1789, during Mozart’s tour of Germany. In Leipzig, where Bach had served as Thomaskantor for the final 27 years of his life, his sacred music was still cherished. Mozart was shown the score of a Bach motet and studied it after the performance. His response said it all: “There’s something to be learned here!” Mozart was not one to hand out compliments lightly.
In this edition of Sanssouci, we explore several musical connections between these two eighteenth-century giants. We hear Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, the motet that so impressed Mozart, as well as a fugue for organ in a thoroughly Baroque style. The fugue is traditionally dated to Mozart’s years in Vienna, although some musicologists believe he wrote it when he was around 17. Like several of his other organ works, it was left unfinished.
There is a good reason for this. Mozart, like most organists of his day, relied heavily on improvisation, and most of his organ music was never written down. If he did write out a fugue, he could improvise the ending during the performance. There was little reason to finish it on paper. The missing ending was eventually supplied by the nineteenth-century theorist Matthias Stadler.
Mozart also arranged six fugues for string trio at the request of Baron van Swieten. Five were by Johann Sebastian Bach, while the sixth was by his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, whose music still belonged partly to the Baroque world. Mozart added new preludes, probably of his own composition. We hear three of these arrangements today, including the one by Wilhelm Friedemann.
It is fascinating to hear Mozart arranging Bach or adopting his style. Even more revealing is what happens when Mozart takes that influence and transforms it into something of his own. We have heard hints of this in recent weeks in his Symphony No. 40 and Piano Sonata No. 18. The connection is even stronger in the Fantasy for a Mechanical Organ in F minor, K. 608.
Towards the end of his life, Mozart was commissioned by Count Deym, who had built a mausoleum in memory of Field Marshal Laudon. The mausoleum housed a costly mechanical organ, and the count commissioned music from several composers. Mozart was less than enthusiastic about the assignment. The instrument had no satisfactory bass notes, and its many high pipes irritated his ears.
Still, the music Mozart wrote for it was anything but lightweight. He composed three works for the instrument, and Bach’s influence is especially clear in the fantasy. His contemporaries were impressed too: six years later, the piece was still in use, described by one contemporary as surpassing every other work written for the instrument. The organ was eventually dismantled and its cylinder lost, but an anonymous benefactor had copied out the music. Thanks to that copy, the work survives and can now be played, with some effort, on a conventional organ by a human performer.
We end with the Adagio and Fugue in C minor, which exists in versions for two keyboards and for string quartet or string orchestra. The story behind it is unusual. Mozart first composed the fugue for two keyboards, probably for a performance with his sister Nannerl, and later arranged it for strings. While working on the arrangement, he came up with the slow introduction. He wrote it down and then adapted it for two keyboards as well.
This is a powerful piece. Mozart follows Bach’s principles of fugue writing but pushes them much further. The dissonances and chromatic passages can be startlingly extreme — territory Bach would scarcely have ventured into. At the same time, the music sounds unlike Mozart’s usual style. Anyone expecting carefree moods and endlessly flowing melodies will be surprised. What we get instead is a monumental work that shows just how capable Mozart was of rising to any musical challenge.
Playlist
- Johann Sebastian Bach / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Prelude and Fugue in G minor, BWV 883 / K. 404a No. 2
- Johann Sebastian Bach / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Prelude and Fugue in F major, BWV 882 / K. 404a No. 3
- Wilhelm Friedemann Bach / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Prelude and Fugue in F minor, Fk. ? / K. 404a No. 6
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Matthias Stadler – Fugue in G minor, K. 401
- Johann Sebastian Bach – Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Fantasy in F minor, K. 608
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546
Performers
Rémy Baudet (violin), Staas Swierstra (viola), Rainer Zipperling (cello) (1, 2, 3)
Jan and David Jansen (4, 6)
Gaechinger Cantorey, conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann (5)
Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Otto Klemperer (7)
