j rj r

(rods)/lDOI\lO/ Tluoelor v\l /319%; , Mcisia c_l,dr

and Mcntlelssolin, no longer results from the musical substance ofhis music but rather from its style and play, from formula andsymrrietry, from the mere gesture of recognition. ln being placedinto the service of proseiytizing zeal, the neo-religious Bach isimpoverished, reduced and stripped of the specific music-al contentwhich was the basis of his prestige. He suffers the very fate whichhis fervent protectors are least willing to admit: he is changed intoa neutralized cultural rnonurnent, in which aesthetic success minglcsohscurcly with a truth that has losr its intrinsic substance. Theylirtvc made him into a composer for organ festivals in well-prcservetlBaroque towns, into ideology.

2

The most elementary historical reection should arouse doubtsconcerning the hisloricist image of Bach. A contemporary of theFncyclopcdists, he died six years before Mozarfs birth and onlytwcttty before that of Beethoven. Even the boldest construction ofthe non-sirnultaneily' of music could not sustain the thesis that asingle ego can conserve what the spirit of the epoch dissolved, asthough the truth of a phenomenon were ever simply attributableto its bacltwardncss. Bad individualism and the irrational beliefin timelcssncss converge; isolating the individual from his relationto the historical stage of consciousness, however polemical that rela-tion may be, can only be arbitrary. To argue that, in his ahistoricalWOli~15liDp-\1t-'l1lC-ll was nevertheless equipped with all the technicaldiscoveries of the epochBach experienced nothing of its Zeitgeistexcept for the Pietism of the texts he used for his sacred works-Pietism being anti-iinlightctiinent-is to overlook the elementaryfact that Pictism, like all forms of restoration. absorbed the forcesof the very Fnlightcnmcnt that it opposed. The subject which hopesto attain grace by becoming absorbed in itself through reflectedinwardness. has already escaped dogmatic order and is on its own.aulonoinous in the cltoice of heteronomy. Bachs participation in histime, horvevcr, is drastically demonstrated by central aspects of hismusic. The contrast between Philipp iimanuc-is generation and hisfather's often blurs the fact that the latters work embraces theentire sphere of the Galant, not alone in stylistic models like theFrench Suitc5in which at times it seems as if the mighty handhas in advance given denite shape to the genre types of the nine-teenth centurybul also in the large, completely constructed workslike the French Overtures, in wliieh the moments of pleasure and

136

ltI, t|

i .

"R. "1t' . "- - t . .ii this 5 mmn_" "9 1 P=$'="l than "1 Vloiliesethe w'@H'TmPl"1 Cflavizghbrgglthbilvjsd mlmnf win? has playedpart the process of rationalizationFr:>ymnheEgi?1nihglfg gijefvcout I_n_|-1; - - - , . _ -enliagll }5ndi:|id=:::nang_eaE%:: liyrifti1a;l glementi, whose ditier.Eeiirlftefligen than to an image Qf 1-he Middle Ogle, Coslij 0 VIE?-Jarnyl case become highly questionable? One nee

did Bach full the spirit of tiie bn.i".rr_.i coritinao, with its intervallic-lianrionic mode of thinking, but within that spirit he was also thepolyphoiiist who ci'catcd the form of the fugue from its gI'Opit"ig be-ginnings in the sevctiicenth century; the tlieory of the tiigue stemsfrom Bach no less titan that of strict counterpoint from Palestrina,and he reniained its sole master. Yet it is this very duality ofmind, luirnionic and contrapuntal, circumscribing every one of thecoinpositional problems that Bach pat-adigniatically resolved, whiclimust eiicluile the image oi" hint as the consunimation oi the MiddleAges. Were the image valid. he would neither have had that dualityof niintl, nor have struggled, especially in the speculative late works.with a parailox wliich would have been tuithiitliable for tlie oldpolyphonic mind, iiariiely_ how, in let-nis of hn.r.i'o coririiiuo harmoity,music could justify its progression as ineaningful and at tiie sametime orgiiiiixe itself polyphonically, through the siniultarieity ofintlependcnt voices. The expressiveness alone of many of the seem-ingly archaic pieces should arouse scepticism. The aflirinative toneof the E-tlat major fugue front the second bool-t of the Weil-'J"enipcred Cirii.=i'eiiorr1 is not the iittrnediiite certainty oi a sacralcoiiiinuiiity articiiliitetl in niusic and secure in its revealed truth:such ailirinatioii anti emphasis are tittcrly alien to the Diitcli. Rather.iii its siibstaiicccei*tainly not in its subjective consciousncssit isrellection on the happiness of musical security. the like of whichis possessed only by the cniaiicipated subject, for only it can con-ceive music as the emphatic promise of objective salvation. Thiskind of fugue presupposes the dualism. it says how beautiful itwould be to hring back its riiessiige of happiness from the circum-scribed cosmos to niani-rind. To the irritation of todays religiousiieophytcs. it is romantic. although, of course, its vision is far moreexalted than that which the later romantic style could allow itself.It does not rnirtor the solitary subject as the guarantee of meaning.but rather aims at its abolition and transcendence in an objective.comprehensive absolute. But this absolute is evoked, asserted, postu-lated precisely because and only inasrnuch as ii. is not present inphysical eiiperiencix-; l3aclis power is that of such evocation. He wasno archaic ninstcr crtiftsinan but rather a genius of nteditation. It isonly ti5it'|g barbarisin that limits works oi art to what meets theeye, blind to the difference between essence and appearance intlicnt: such ti confusion of the being of Bach's music with its inten-tion wipes out the very metaphysics which it is supposed to protect.Since such barbarism blurs not merely the essence, but with it theobvious as well, it overlooks the [act that the particular polyphonictcchiiiqiies used by Bach to construct musical objectivity themselves

l38

pgesupposctl subjectivization. The art of fugue composition is oneo motl ' ~ - -- . ' .order tdlliligltgniiniliirt, D-f eiplumng the mmll.B$[ pan of 3 them 1one could almost s- -0 ilnditluigrfll whc.'le' ll '5, an all of ll5ll"ihence i11CtJLlllP3lllIllU\~%"':ll1 tllssolvmg He-lg Famed as -tha ienlm andrains itself static rid I 1-16 mnlnmn hchcf that this B-mg n1i1l""son to ibis techngi U6 yinjged tliroiigliout the fugue. By contpgiri.

1 _ h . _ q, 4*; _*~ml*l@5s tlte genuinely medieval one of130$-p '0ll1C figuration. of imitation, only secondarily in the past-ravesan r ~ ' ' - .' ' =1Bqchiiihzhgf imitation triiimphs---by Ito means frequent in

dei1seD I'l'lE:l'Ol.l'lrSl:l; Fpdssleh mild rugcS' Such 35 the e3*tm"n31l"_ 1| _ i_ 1 L _ 10111l1B_5ecoltd book, the venerable techniqueIs pita in the service of a driving, thoroughly dynamic thoroughlyni *rn' If . , - - - ' _ I. e ect The fat.-t that the identity of the reeiii-i-mg thgmgsE1:$;l:n'; lflglflto plrcsenre itself at all. under the attack of the

. .5 P0 l M la ~l"t? that had been set free by polyphony,518111 es nothing niore static than do the dynamic Beethovenit , ' ' I I ._ 's nti as lVi|llCl'l faithfully adhere to the tectonic demands of this

rlprlfci let of C"'5 Quilt in order to develop the reprise itself out-) t I I __-i _ 1 _'iuht Elli;-Sr {PfBlh(]dBVBlUpl11Ll. in his last book Schoenbergi.'-l'tiCl'i tllgtbafini lit Ii iChmq 9. "1 it-'-,~"I~*i"B WiiivClagqiciqm at cljciellglc ll-11.|C!|t.{)ll"t[Ili(l.illZliJl'lLll principle in y'i.=;;m5E6 ~ r - a ecipiering of Bach would presuntiibly have

establish the link between the ljEC(}1]"]pf]si[i[jn of 1-he giventhe t r. .. 'cOnlE*:I1'dmtj1l;';lIllll1I0(;1_i;'l.1sub]ci.tive_reflection on the motivic work

1 H _ , an t e change ll1 the WCll'l{-["i1'(}Q@53 that tookP all '15"lg the 53"": PU

manifestations of his late work. so grotesquely ntisunderstoodby Hiitdciititlt in recent years. evokes much that even in his owntime souritlcd like something out of the past, and which seems tohave been deliberately aimed at creating pedantic ntistintlerstiindiiig.It is impossible not to hear the seventeenth century tone in preciselysuch magnificent conceptions as the c--sharp minor triple fugue fromthe rst book of the Weii-'l"eiiipt'rci! C.Tirii=ich0rd, where. in orderto bring out the contrast between the three themes all the moredrastically, Bach leaves everything not directly related to this con-trast in a pre-schematic state. so to speak. motivicaily undevelopedlike the rudimentary pre-Bach fugties. one of which. the Riccrenin.is alluded to by a word-play in the Miisi'ocii Oei-i'iig. Like theRicerciirn, the aiiri {irate fugue in E-major in the second bookcarries the archaic element down to its very score. as though it hadbeen written in the vivacious spirit of a highly stylized past, itselfnaturally ctitious. the same procedure followed by Bach in writinghis famous piano concerto in the Italian style. He frequently in-dulgerl an inclination, entirely incompatible with Existentialistdignity. to experiment with strange. arbitrarily chosen idioms andto awake their formative power for music construction. As earlyas Bach the rationalization of compositional technique. the pre-dominance of subjective reason, so to speak, brings with it thepossibility of freely chosing from all the objectively availableprocedures of the epoch. Bach does not feel himself blindly boundto any of thern but instead always chooses that which best suitsthe compositional intention. Such liberty vis-it-vis the ancient how-ever, can hardly he construed as the culmination of the tradition.which instead must prohibit just that tree selection of availablepossibilities. Even less can the meaning of Buchs recourse to thetradition be described as restorative. {For it is precisely the archaic-soundirig pieces which are often the most daring. not merely interms of their contrapuntai combinations, which indeed draw directlyon the earlier polyphonic arrangements. but also with regard to themost aclvancetl aspects of the general effect. The c-sharp minorfugue. which begins as though it were a dense network of equallyrelevant lines, the theme of which seems at rst to be nothing morethan the unobtrusive glue that holds the voices together, pro-gressively reveals itself, starting with the entrance of the guredsecond theme. to be an irresistible crescendo. composed from be-ginning to end and clima:-ring with the mighty explosion of themain theme entering in the bass. the most extreme concentration ofa pseudo-ten-voice srrerro and the taming point of a heavilyaccented dissonance. in order then to vanish as though through a

140

minim-___1i|iui11th:

Fiied. And here one stumbles u o l - - ' Us- . . . - r ' bi u1t' fitself one which in the meanwhil P n m am g E O progress1 \ la - . . .

res set-em for the sake of giiiidiiiiii of t E Ur an 0 liethe name of cominunication of CDllSl(lCIl:ifilFll'leal?lli:gl'iand playfuI.1nlistener who with me dc1in' to presumptive- - eofthe-olilth I lost the belief that the formal vocabulary iliiriiilsrihhiid $180was binding IlCLl1l'10lbt~:tllCI1i'Dt'.i either - - ,1 3 0 er' . tl _ - -the objective 3 1 7 . ' _ . ' 3 Yeloquence therpri of the times. or that the faculties of liurnanE ft th g 5 gt-t free in music ultimately produced a higherorrno ru. it '. .- __ .movcmam thu rumF:-el5t:1;r=fS~'li1::c;]li.id to be plpid for the freedom ofthc arliestproducls Ofthcilu k.HedlT'I.l1ltCt'lICO erence of ntusic.I:venof Bachts Own mm bow wlttlis style. most conspicuously, thongd 1 I _ . . 1 less to that price. lhe 'El'l1_E._{iTi.lliB(jQ]'[|g5

iiiW-ii ''= 'Pi$ '6 "@Pm"~*i-1s fvmwl trimas ' - . concerto and the Sligltg ai1l1hInIBlidL aha mndn of H. Mom Planwon comllsiiioniil _e'til{:ili C ta an L~"@Fl. Despite all its n"\]lt'F H ' -_ ty and eliervesccnce, Mozart's proverbialg am 1*. is pure mu5'*-1| P~-""Hi"1!. rather nicchanical 'tritl crass in'U'Tl'lp3ll50l't with Bach's innitely involulcd unschematic approachtisa raceofto . 'the feign hmnlllcnihggr Tilitll-_

ltlvtlltcs ertturmtl criteria. It is no :1L'CilEIll that today's l3t:'.'.h apolo-gi:~LS would endorse it. Yet it still includes elements of the historicalconstellation that constitutes Bach's essence. Among his archaictraits is the attempt to parry the impoverishment and petrifactionof musical language. the shadow-side of its decisive progress. Suchtraits represent Bach's cilort to resist the inexorable growth of theconmtotlity-character of music, a process which was linked to itssubjectiviisntion, Yet. such features are also identical with Bach'smodernity inasmuch as they always serve to defend the right ofinherent musical logic against the demands of taste. Bach as archaistdistinguisltcs himself from all subsequent classic-ists, up to andincluding Stravinsky. by his refusal to confront the historical levelof the material with an abstract stylistic ideal. Rather what wasbecomes rt means of forcing what is toward a future of its own mali-ing. The reconciliation oi scholar and gentleman, which, as Alfredliinstein stressed. set the tone and aim of Viennese Classicismsince I-Iaydtt. is in a ccrlain sense also the dominant idea in Bach.He was not. however, interested in striking :1 mean between the twoelements. His nmsic strove to achieve the indilference of the eit-trcmcs towarcls each other more radically than any other until thatof the late Beethoven. Bach, as the most advanced master of bursocr:r1rEni.m_. at the some time renounced his obedience, as antiquatedpolyphonist. to the trend of the times, a trend he himself hadsltupcd. in order to help it reach its innermost truth, the e|nanci-pation of the subject to objectivity in a. coherent whole of whichsubjectivity itself was the origin. l')o\\-'n to the subtiest structuraldetails it is always a question of the undiminished coincidence ofthe ltztrntonic-ftinctional and oi the contrapuntal dimension. Thedistant past is entrusted with the utopia of the musical subject-object; anachronism becomes a harbinger of things to come.

5

This. if true. does not merely contradict the prevailing conceptionof B:u.'l1's music but also modies the immediate relation to it. Thisrclution tlclines itself essentially through the pr:-ixis of performance.Today, however, under the unholy star of Ilistoricism. the per-formance of liach has assumed a sectarian aspect. Historicism hasincited a fanatical interest that. no longer concerns even the workitself. At times one can hardly avoid the suspicion that the soleconcern of todaj.-'"s Bach devotees is to see that no irlautltenticilynantics. nto-ziications of tempo, oversize choirs and orcltestras

I42

l4-1

creep in: they seem to wail with potential fury lest any more humaneimpulse bcconte audible in the rendition. The critique directed atthe late Romantics inated and sentimentalized Bach image neednot be challenged, even though the relation to Bach apparent inSchumann's work proved to be ineoniparuhly more productive thanthe present punctilious purity. What calls for refutation. however.is that of which the purists are most proud- --their olijcctivit;-,". Theonly objective rBprcscntat.ion of music is one which shows itselfto be adequate to the essence of its object. This. however. is not tobe identilicd-as Hindemith, too, took for grantcdwith the ideaof the historically rst rendition. The lact that the colouristic.dimension of music had hardly been discovered in Bach's time, andhad certainly not yet been liberated as a compositional technique;that composers tlltl not malte sharp distinctions between the differ-ent types of piano and organ, but rather abandoned the sound inlarge measure to taste. points in a direction diammetrically opposedto the desire to slavishly imitate the customary sounds of the time.Even had Bach been in fact satised with the orgrins and harpsi-chords of the epochs, with its thin choruses and orchestras. thiswould in no way prove their adequacy for the intrinsic substanceof his music. The a1'tists' consciousnessthe idca' they had of theirwort-; cannot, of course, be reconstructedmay, it is true, contributeto clucidatiitg certain aspects of their work, but it can never supplythe canon. Authentic works unfold their lrutlt-content, which trans-cends the scope of individual consciousness. in a temporal dimen-sion through the law of their form. In addition. that which is knownof Bach as interpreter absolutely contradicts the musicological styleof presentation and points to a flexibility on the part of the com-poser which would much prefer to renounce the monumental thangive up the chance of atlttpting the tone to subjective impulse. Ofcourse, Forkel's famous report appeared too long after Bachs deathto claim full authenticity: but what he writes about Bach the pianistis clearly based on precise statements. and there is no apparentreason why the picture should he falsied at a time when the con-troversy had not yet arisen and when there was little syinpathy forthe clavichordI-le loved best to play the claviclierd. The so-calledpianos (sc. liarpsichords). despite a crnnpletcly tlierent action-which can only mean the register -were too soulless for him, andthe pianofort-as during his lifetime were still too undeveloped andmuch too primitive to have satised him. Hence, he held the clavi-chorcl for the best instrument for study as well as for private musicaldiversion. T-Te found it most suitable for executing his nest ideasand (lid not believe that either the ltarpsichorcl or the piano could

143

produce as great H variety of tonal nuances as this instrument, whichdespite its poor tone was erttraordirtnrily pliable in its details. Whatis true, however. for differentiating within the intimate sphere. isconversely all the more so for the extensive dynamics of the largechoral works. No matter how it was done in the Cl-tut-c|1 of Sr,Thomas, a performance of the Sr. Martltetv Po.s.s'ion, for instance,done with meagrt-: tltetls sounds pale and indecisive to the present-day ear, like a rehearsal which a few musicians have by chancedecided to attend, while at the same time it assttmes a didactic-pednntic character. Yet even more important is that such zt per-forntance thereby contradicts the intrinsic essence of Baclfs music.The only adequate interpretation of the dynamic objectively enn-bedded in his work is one which realizes it. True interpretation isan it-rely of the work; its task is to illuminate in the sensuous pheno-menon the totality of all the characteristics and interrelations whichhave been recognized through intensive study of the score. Thefavourite argument of the purists is that all this should be left tothe work itself, whiclt need only be performed ascetically in orderto speak; interpretation. they contend. serves only to unduly em-phasize tnusic which can be expressed simply and which is all themore powerful without such frills. This ttrguntent completely missesthe point. As long as music requires any kind of interpretationwltatsoevcr, its form defines itself through the tension between thecompositions essence and its sensuous appearance. To identify thev.-orit with the latter is only justifiable when the appearance is tintanifestatiott of the essence. Yet, precisely this is achieved onlythrough subjective labour and reection. The attempt to do justiceto Bach's objective content by directing this eort towards abolish-ing the subject is self-defeating. Objectivity is not left over afterthe subject is subtracted. The musical score is never identical withthe work: devotion to the text means the constant effort to graspthat which it hides. Without such a dialectic, devotion becomesbetrayal: an interpretation which does not bother about the music'smoaning on the assumption that it will reveal itself of its own accordwill inevitably be false since it fails to see that the meaning is alwaysconstituting itself anew. .\/leaning can never be grasped by the purerendition, allegedly purged of all exhibitionism; rather. such apresentation, which is meaningless in itself and not to be distin-guished front the unntusical, becomes not the path to meaning, aswhich it sees itself, but a vvuli blocking the way. This does not mean,however. that the monstrously nttitssive performances of Bach whichwere the order of the day up until the First World War are anybetter. The dynamics. required ttrc not related to the level of volume

l4-l

ii

l

it

l

nor to the breadth of rrriatcertrto and dect'iu-rrcrtrfo. The dynamicsconsist in the quintessence of all the compositional contrasts. media-tions, subdivisions. transitions and relations which constitute thework: and at the time of Bach's greatest maturity. composition wasno less the art of infinitesimal transitions than in any of the latercomposers. The entire richness of the musicral texture, the integra-tion of which was the source of Bac-his power, must be placed inprominence by the performattce instead of being sacrificed to arigid, immobile monotony. the spurious setnblance of unity thatignores the multiplicity it should embody and surmount. Reectionon style must not be permitted to suppress the concrete musicalcontent and to settle complaccntly into the pose of transcendentBeing. it must follow the structure of the musical composition thatis concealed beneath the surface of sound. Mechanically St-lueakittgr:onrr'nnoinstrumenls anti wretched school choirs contribute not tosacred sobriety hut to malicious failure; and the thought that theshrill and rasping Baroque organs are capable of capturing the longwaves of the lapidary, large fugue-s is pure superstition. l3achsmusic is separated from the general level of his age by an astronom-ical distance. Its eloquence returns only when it is liberated fromthe sphere of resentment and obscuruntism, the triumph of thesubjcctless over sttbjectivisnt. They say Bach, mean Telemann andare secretly in agreement with the regression of musical conscious-ness which even without them remains a constant threat under thepressures of the culture industry. Of course, there is also the possi-bility that the contradiction between the substance of Baclfs com-positions and the means for realizing it in sound, both those avail-able at the time and those accumulated since, can no longer beresolved. ln the light oi this possibility. the much discussed ab-stractness of sound in the Mu.st'r?o'l Oering and the Art of thisFugue, as works in which the choice of instruments is left open.acquires a new dimension. lt is conceivable that the contradictionbetween music and sound-material especially the inadequacy ofthe organ tone to the innitely articulated st1'ucturchad alreadybecome visible at the time. if this were the case, Bach would haveomitted the sound and left his most mature instrumental workswaiting for the sound that would suit them. With such pieces it isnot even remotely possible for philologists with no affinity for cont-position to write out the parts and assign them to ttrlchttttging instru-ments or groups. What is demanded is that they be rethought foran orchestra which neither squanders nor sctimps but rather whichfunctions as a moment of the integral composition. In the case ofthe entire Arr of the Fugtte. the only such cllort has been that of

145

Eritz Siiedly, whose arrangement did not survive its New Yorkpremiere. Justice is done Bach not through musioological usurpa-tion but solely through the most advtttl-t:o:l composition which inturn converges with the level of Bach's continually unfolding work.The few instrumeulutions contributed by Schoenberg and Anton vonWebern, especially those of the great triple fugue in E at majorand of the siropart Rit-errata, in which every faoet of the composi-tion is transposed into rt correlative timbre and in which the surfaceinterweaving of lines is dissolved into the most minute motivicinterrelations and then reunited through the overall constructivedisposition of the orchestrasuch instrutnentations are models ofan attitude to Bach which corresponds to the stage of his truth. Per-haps the traditional Bach can indeed no longer be interpreted. Ifthis is true, his heritage has passed on to composition, which is loyalto him in being disloyal; it calls his music by name in producing itanew.

146

{.ARNOLD SCI-IOENBHRG E874-195]

3" 5-PERI. but those tlnhcardi\'ot -to lhtrsehschrelfo-rc' W Hm pipei P1111-" "I'llPi '3 I h_ _ _3 f-~*_1'- blll. more endeard,P " i 1- Spirit dllttes of no mn,;_

KJ'f.'t'