Bach and the Dance of God by Wilfrid MellersReview by: James ParakilasNotes, Second Series, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Mar., 1982), pp. 597-598Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/939558 .

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Book Reviews

Bach and the Dance of God. By Wilfrid Mellers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. [viii, 324 p.; $39.95]

Is it time to put religion back into Bach? Millions of musicians and listeners for whom Bach has always been primarily a religious composer would not say so. On the other hand, Bach scholars since World War II have altered much of the received knowl- edge about Bach, drawing attention in par- ticular to his musical activities away from the church. Their work has prepared many for a reassessment of religion in Bach's work and thought.

Wilfrid Mellers has not written Bach and the Dance of God specifically for church- goers or scholars. Except for a few pages on two organ pieces, he skips over the two immense portions of Bach's output which are most used in church services now: the cantatas and the organ works. He gives considerable space to apparently secular works: cello suites, The Well-Tempered Cla- vier, and the Goldberg Variations. And half of the book is devoted to two monuments of sacred music which live more in concert, recorded, and broadcast performances now than in church: the St. John Passion and the Mass in B minor. Mellers finds religion everywhere in Bach's music; moreover, he is less interested in discerning what is dis- tinctive about Bach's religious beliefs and attitudes than in connecting Bach with re- ligious experience in the most universal sense. He invokes Jung more often than Luther.

He addresses his readers as listeners and performers. His assertions about Bach's re- ligious thought, no less than his musical analyses, depend on listening: "no-one with ears to hear can doubt that Bach was at heart a religious composer." Throughout the book he is concerned to describe how the music sounds, and therefore to specify how it should sound, that is, how it should be sung and played.

Not many books offer musical interpre- tation of Bach's works in several genres, and we would have to be grateful to Mell- ers for that alone. But his book does not lend itself to being read simply as analysis. The challenge he has set himself is to de- scribe Bach's works down to the smallest detail as religious experience, and the terms of his musical analysis are to a great extent religious terms or terms (like sarabande) for which he develops religious implication.

The terms he uses and the associations

he attributes to them are often orthodox and unexceptionable, and sometimes inter- esting even when they are strained-as when he describes the chorus "Ruht wohl" at the end of the St. John Passion as a "sac- ral" sarabande, acknowledging that the chorus is not in sarabande rhythm.

Out of these associations he constructs narratives to describe the experience of lis- tening to the work, and these narratives often seem idiosyncratic, partly because Mellers doesn't ask himself what bearing a generally valid association has on a par- ticular musical situation. Chromaticism, for example, he says has had a long association with "sensual deliquescence," and that statenient by itself can hardly be contra- dicted. In describing the D-sharp minor Fugue of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, he relies on that association to assert that the introduction of a chromatic line in the eleventh measure brings "an explicit secu- larization of the ecclesiastical gravity with which the fugue had opened" (p. 41). But was the secular music which Bach and his public knew decisively more chromatic than their church music? Do churchgoers today feel more "sensual" or less "grave" singing the chromatic harmonies of "O little town of Bethlehem" than the modal melody of "O come, O come, Emmanuel"? Mellers, having raised the interesting question of how this chromatic line alters the character of the fugue, answers it too easily.

He is often most successful, I find, when he steps back from his analysis and con- templates a whole work or movement. Then his far-ranging curiosity brings in a wild harvest to enrich our thoughts about the music. Once he has talked through the "Cum sancto Spiritu" of the B minor Mass, for example, his excitement leads through several pages (208-210) on the suppressed spirit of dance in the history of the Chris- tian Church. Here his individual sentences still raise doubts: is Bach "very different" from other musicians of his era in his power to make music dance? But the pas- sage as a whole succeeds in portraying Bach as a hero of liberation in the com- pany of Dionysus and St. Bernard, Blake, and the black American Church.

Any careful reader will be slowed and some will be disturbed by inaccuracies and irregularities in Mellers's information and

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MLA Notes, March 1982 MLA Notes, March 1982

analysis. He hasn't used modern editions and scholarship: a reader following his chapter on the St. John Passion in the Neue Bach Ausgabe will be perplexed at the sen- tences exclaiming over the major cadence to the recitative ending "Es ist vollbracht!" (p. 137). All readers deserve some warning about the complex histories of Bach's scores. Likewise, Mellers should have considered that his readers would have various ideas of what makes a da capo aria and that few of those readers would be comfortable ap- plying the term to "Ach, mein Sinn," also in the St. John Passion, an aria in which only the opening ritornello returns (p. 109).

If the book is troubling in these ways, the analysis and learning are such that a musically trained and open-minded under- graduate could cope with them. Mellers is obviously gifted at stimulating students; at every page I could imagine him seated at the piano and introducing a class to Bach, sometimes winking at his own extrava- gance.

In the end, though, his portrait of Bach is surprisingly impersonal-surprising es- pecially from the author of books full of

analysis. He hasn't used modern editions and scholarship: a reader following his chapter on the St. John Passion in the Neue Bach Ausgabe will be perplexed at the sen- tences exclaiming over the major cadence to the recitative ending "Es ist vollbracht!" (p. 137). All readers deserve some warning about the complex histories of Bach's scores. Likewise, Mellers should have considered that his readers would have various ideas of what makes a da capo aria and that few of those readers would be comfortable ap- plying the term to "Ach, mein Sinn," also in the St. John Passion, an aria in which only the opening ritornello returns (p. 109).

If the book is troubling in these ways, the analysis and learning are such that a musically trained and open-minded under- graduate could cope with them. Mellers is obviously gifted at stimulating students; at every page I could imagine him seated at the piano and introducing a class to Bach, sometimes winking at his own extrava- gance.

In the end, though, his portrait of Bach is surprisingly impersonal-surprising es- pecially from the author of books full of

vivid musical portraits, notably Music in a New Found Land (London, 1964). Perhaps the difference here has to do with his sub- ject. Even historians who have spent their lives searching the records of Bach's life and have demolished old interpretations of Bach's religious thought have hardly man- aged to begin replacing them. But Mell- ers's result also comes from his method. He has written what amounts to an an- thropology of Bach, fitting every work he considers into many networks of meaning and value. Through these networks he of- fers such a variety of justifications for every compositional decision that the act of composing almost seems to be taken out of Bach's hands. Yet there is a real point to this method. Bach is the classic of Western religious music, just as he is the foundation of musical education and the model of musical craftsmanship. In an age of abun- dant scholarly efforts to reimagine Bach's life and works with all the particulars in place, Mellers reminds us how much more than an individual Bach has become.

JAMES PARAKILAS Bates College

vivid musical portraits, notably Music in a New Found Land (London, 1964). Perhaps the difference here has to do with his sub- ject. Even historians who have spent their lives searching the records of Bach's life and have demolished old interpretations of Bach's religious thought have hardly man- aged to begin replacing them. But Mell- ers's result also comes from his method. He has written what amounts to an an- thropology of Bach, fitting every work he considers into many networks of meaning and value. Through these networks he of- fers such a variety of justifications for every compositional decision that the act of composing almost seems to be taken out of Bach's hands. Yet there is a real point to this method. Bach is the classic of Western religious music, just as he is the foundation of musical education and the model of musical craftsmanship. In an age of abun- dant scholarly efforts to reimagine Bach's life and works with all the particulars in place, Mellers reminds us how much more than an individual Bach has become.

JAMES PARAKILAS Bates College

*c * *c *

Music in Medieval and Early Modern

Europe: Patronage, Sources, and Texts. Edited by Iain Fenlon. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. [xiii, 409 p.; $57.50]

Despite its rather bland title, this volume contains a rich and wide-ranging collection of seventeen essays. The occasion for the

original versions of these papers, as Iain Fenlon explains in his brief preface, was an international conference on medieval and Renaissance music held at King's College, Cambridge, in 1979. The conference fo- cused on four main topics of strong schol-

arly interest, either new and relatively un- familiar areas of investigation or recent contributions to long-established debates, and the essays in this volume are divided

accordingly: one group centers on the

origins and early development of instru- mental music, another explores possible applications of filiation theory and stem-

Music in Medieval and Early Modern

Europe: Patronage, Sources, and Texts. Edited by Iain Fenlon. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. [xiii, 409 p.; $57.50]

Despite its rather bland title, this volume contains a rich and wide-ranging collection of seventeen essays. The occasion for the

original versions of these papers, as Iain Fenlon explains in his brief preface, was an international conference on medieval and Renaissance music held at King's College, Cambridge, in 1979. The conference fo- cused on four main topics of strong schol-

arly interest, either new and relatively un- familiar areas of investigation or recent contributions to long-established debates, and the essays in this volume are divided

accordingly: one group centers on the

origins and early development of instru- mental music, another explores possible applications of filiation theory and stem-

matic techniques to early music sources, and two sets of papers tackle a variety of

questions concerning the general issue of musical patronage in early modern Eu-

rope. The collection includes contributions from many of the most distinguished mu-

sicologists of the period, as well as some excellent work by younger scholars.

The lack of consensus revealed within each set of papers testifies to the difficulty and controversy of the general topics ex-

plored, as well as to the vigor of the con- tributors: it must have been a very stimu-

lating conference. Yet nearly all these scholars do share a wider perspective that

permits them to offer exciting insights into older problems and to introduce new de- bates. The solid archival base of all the ar- ticles, many of which include valuable ap- pendixes of documents published for the first time, further reveals a quite imagi- native use of different sources, particularly in those essays on aspects of patronage.

The new and very stimulating attention

matic techniques to early music sources, and two sets of papers tackle a variety of

questions concerning the general issue of musical patronage in early modern Eu-

rope. The collection includes contributions from many of the most distinguished mu-

sicologists of the period, as well as some excellent work by younger scholars.

The lack of consensus revealed within each set of papers testifies to the difficulty and controversy of the general topics ex-

plored, as well as to the vigor of the con- tributors: it must have been a very stimu-

lating conference. Yet nearly all these scholars do share a wider perspective that

permits them to offer exciting insights into older problems and to introduce new de- bates. The solid archival base of all the ar- ticles, many of which include valuable ap- pendixes of documents published for the first time, further reveals a quite imagi- native use of different sources, particularly in those essays on aspects of patronage.

The new and very stimulating attention

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