W.W. Norton and Co. (599 pages; Hardcover)
Harvard professor and eminent Bach scholar Christoph Wolff’s new book Bach: The Learned Musician belongs in the library of anyone who enjoys reading musical biography. His compendious knowledge, not just of his subject, but also of Bach’s political, artistic, intellectual, and geographical environment allows him to demystify and explain crucial aspects of the great composer’s life and art without “dumbing down” or oversimplifying. True, there are a few moments when Wolff seems to find the need to write for a general audience slightly inhibiting. He frankly admits in his preface that a thorough discussion of Bach’s evolution as a composer and a detailed consideration of the music itself lie outside the scope of what he modestly terms a “biographical essay.” Nonetheless, in emphasizing the “learned” aspects of his subject Dr. Wolff has taken a great risk, one which ultimately pays off handsomely, leaving the thoughtful reader both enlightened and, more importantly, able to listen to some of Western civilization’s greatest music with fresh ears. Additionally, the implications of Dr. Wolff’s work resonate well beyond the scope of his subject, and while it may seem off-topic to begin with a discussion of this wider context, his perspective and achievement will come into much clearer focus if we look briefly at some of these other issues first.
However much we may fancy ourselves more scientific, more progressive, and more highly educated than previous generations, there is one subject about which, at the popular level at least, knowledge and accomplishment have steadily declined: music. The reasons for this are as simple as they are ironic. Advances in the practices of recording and broadcasting have transformed our musical experience from a participatory one, in which a large minority (if not a majority) in all strata of society knew at least the rudiments of singing, reading music, and playing an instrument, into a culture consisting of two musical classes: professionals and consumers. This is not, I hasten to add, some anti-capitalist diatribe, but merely an observation of the fact that music, even the most difficult and complicated music, can be purchased and enjoyed by anyone, anytime, without any prior preparation, skill, or knowledge. Just as we don’t boil our own soap, so we don’t make our own music at home anymore. This process has had a beneficial side: an unprecedented democratization of music of all kinds. But our descent into general technical ignorance has come at a price: a disdain, even fear, of a serious discussion of great music as intellectual entertainment, what Bach himself, in referring to “true music,” called “the recreation of the soul.”
Classical music culture manifests this anti-intellectual, even irrational tendency in many forms, most obnoxiously in the popularity of the stylistically soporific, interminable products of contemporary composers of a self-styled “spiritual” bent, the prime example being England’s John Tavener. The slower, duller, simpler, and more repetitious the music is, the more transcendental it becomes. Then there’s “music appreciation,” which proposes the quaint notion that the great works of our musical culture are incomprehensible as music, but instead need to be studied in “context.” What this means in practice is that people spend their time talking about composers, their lives, related arts, history, religion, philosophy – anything to avoid actually listening to the music for its own sake. There also seems to be an unquenchable need on the part of many insecure listeners to know what the “story” was behind, say, Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, or what Mozart “meant” when he wrote the G-minor Symphony, K. 550. Each person’s own reaction to and understanding of the music itself isn’t enough. There must be an explanation out there somewhere, and we tend to welcome any we can find, however silly it might be.
In this last respect Dr. Wolff’s approach makes some especially significant points. While freely admitting that Bach’s life was not terribly interesting in its outward circumstances, and that primary sources are few and sketchy at best, he manages to integrate the scattered details that survive into an enjoyable narrative that deftly circumvents the gaps in what we know, and takes on substance by returning again and again to the living and vital legacy that we actually have: the music. In a very real sense, Bach’s biography, his intellectual, inner biography, arises from within his life’s work as an artist. The music describes the man, rather than the other way around. By integrating the historical events of his life with the chronology of his musical output, a plausible picture of Bach’s own personality gradually but surely emerges in all its multi-faceted complexity, without the author feeling the need to either fortify the facts or paper over missing details by cheaply mythologizing or romanticizing his subject.
Dr. Wolff’s approach thus clearly opposes the ongoing attempts at both the popular and academic levels to validate musical perceptions according to non-musical, anecdotal, ideological, or purely emotional criteria, a process which has produced this curious, and sometimes even amusing, cultural result: composers receive less credit for the quality of their music than for the how interesting their lives were, or how much non-musical baggage we can associate with them. This process has elevated Mozart to cult status largely on the basis of his Romantically tragic early death, and made his unfinished Requiem, written to a great extent by someone else, his most popular work. Sure, large parts of the Requiem may be second-rate music, but what a great story! Beethoven, who was lucky enough to go deaf and have a difficult personality besides, has never much wavered in popularity, but Haydn has lost considerable ground. After all, he had the temerity to be the most popular composer in the world in his own lifetime and the inconceivable chutzpah to die wealthy (never mind his humble origins). Bach, whose life was outwardly even more placid than Haydn’s, at least had to wait a few generations to receive proper recognition for his compositional achievements.
In any event, Bach remains one of the two or three most acclaimed composers of all time. But why? Is it for the right reasons? How many music lovers today actually listen to him? Who has bothered to sit through all of the cantatas, both sacred and secular? Who explores the keyboard works in depth apart from the Goldberg Variations (another good story, right)? And does anyone today really care about organ music (aside from organists, that is)? If we put Mozart at, say, 10 on a great composer 1-10 popularity scale, and Haydn at 1, Bach would probably rate somewhere around an 8. But this excellent rating stems, not from the ongoing engagement with Bach’s music of the hypothetical average music lover, but rather from several myths and Romantic notions regarding it that are completely peripheral to the actual experience of listening. Consider these, for example, and then the truth as described by Dr. Wolff.
Myth No. 1: Bach was self-taught in music and not terribly well educated in other subjects. (Ignorance is bliss, and makes his actual achievement appear all the more miraculous. Good for 2 popularity points.)
The Truth: It’s true that Bach regarded himself as largely self-taught in composition. But he was a superbly trained performer, as well as a brilliant student consistently at the top of his class, and highly educated for his time at excellent private schools, where he was the regular recipient of scholarship support. Though he did not attend university himself, he was a constant and respected companion in Leipzig to many of Germany’s most highly regarded academics. During his lifetime, he amassed not just a music library of astonishing breadth and depth, but also a notable collection of contemporary and historical theological literature.
Myth No. 2: Bach was largely unappreciated in his lifetime as a composer, particularly during the Leipzig period. (Underdogs and misunderstood geniuses always receive special attention, so another 1 popularity point on the sympathy factor alone.)
The Truth: The legend of Bach’s ill-treatment in Leipzig comes from several sources, among them: Bach’s few surviving letters, a reference to him at a town council meeting prior to his appointment as Cantor as a “mediocrity,” and his subsequent struggles with municipal authorities on behalf of what he termed “a well-regulated church music.” In reality, Bach was so highly regarded, and his fame so widespread, that he was the only Cantor ever appointed who lacked a university education. The comment about “mediocrity” referred not to his qualifications as a musician, but his lack of university training and his unwillingness to teach non-musical subjects. Finally, Bach’s famous missive to the town council does not prove that he was chronically short-handed or that the city elders were insensitive to music, but rather that he needed to draw on the large available pool of freelancers and amateurs more often than he would have liked, and this offended his frankly appallingly high standards of professionalism.
Myth No. 3: Bach’s contemporaries considered his style regressive and old-fashioned. (A variant of Myth No. 2, granted, but necessary because it permits us to believe that Bach’s own public just had to be stupider than we are today. 2 more popularity points, then, for confirming the myth of our own musical and intellectual superiority.)
The Truth: Actually, Bach’s music seems to have been well regarded despite its reputation for difficulty and complexity. He received regular commissions for celebratory and occasional works. His Clavier-Übung series sold well; his talents earned him the protection of an appointment to the Dresden court, and Dr. Wolff points out that the Musical Offering trio sonata displays evidence of Bach’s ability, even at the end of his life, to write music stylistically tailored to contemporary taste. In fact, he was a musical progressive despite his cultivation of a consistently “serious” musical style. He enlarged, perfected, expanded, or transformed virtually every genre that he touched, and it was his erudition that disconcerted his contemporaries, not his music’s perceived anachronistic qualities.
Myth No. 4: Bach suffered under and despised the prevalent system of private (aristocratic) and public (municipal) appointments. (All great artists have to be non-conformists, better still sociopathic, but in this case we can add only 1 popularity point because you can’t get around the fact that despite some really juicy complaining and 30 days in jail for insubordination, Bach actually prospered, died comparatively well off, and wasn’t secretly Gay. Besides, what employee never has anything bad to say about their boss?)
The Truth: Bach actually learned to manipulate “the system” to his advantage with an almost musicianly virtuosity, despite his reputation for having a stubborn temperament where musical issues were concerned. His career choices reflect a shrewd, self-willed independence of spirit remarkable for his age.
Myth No. 5: Bach was some sort of religious nut (if you don’t like religion), or a saintly mystic (if you do). (Either way his art’s irrationality factor goes up, so add another popularity point.)
The Truth: Bach’s religious sincerity and orthodox Lutheran faith were neither unusual, nor irrational, but rather a deeply considered, integral part of his worldview fortified by healthy intellectual curiosity. This did not stop him from drinking, smoking, or otherwise enjoying the material and physical pleasures of life. He was, as much as it’s possible to ascertain, normal.
Myth No. 6: He died fighting blindness, leaving a great masterpiece, The Art of Fugue, incomplete. (Deathbed struggles to finish that one last work despite horrible physical debility are always good for the posthumous reputation. Unfortunately for Bach there’s Mozart, of course, and this department was also a Schubert specialty, with both Bruckner and Mahler coming on strong recently thanks to a couple of unfinished final symphonies. So award only 1 additional popularity point for The Art of Fugue, which despite its legendary reputation no one really listens to anyway.)
The Truth: Sorry folks, both Bach’s compositional practice and documentary evidence point to the fact that he most likely completed The Art of Fugue. The pages containing the sketches for, and most likely the completion of, the final quadruple fugue were lost at some point during posthumous preparation of the manuscript for publication.
Each of these myths has its basis in some piece of historical evidence or fact, but as should be perfectly clear by now, our interpretation of this evidence has been distorted by the need to romanticize or mythologize, rather than confront the facts (many of which have been floating around for decades, if not centuries, even if they haven’t been stated with the force and eloquence that informs Dr. Wolff’s book). Indeed, we find these mistaken beliefs preferable to the truth because they support the modern suspicion that intellectual and spiritual (or emotional) values are incompatible, particularly as regards the act of musical creation, which remains fundamentally non-rational, inexplicable, and unscientific.
Nothing could be further from Bach’s reality. Dr. Wolff raises the striking comparison (originating in Bach’s own time) between the great composer and Sir Isaac Newton. For Newton, as with Bach or any other intellectual child of the enlightenment, the desire to understand Natural Law as embodied in the pursuit of science in no way precluded the highest spiritual aspirations. The discovery and codification of natural laws offered evidence of God’s omnipresent, guiding hand in organizing and regulating the universe. Bach’s harmonic and contrapuntal complexity, his progressive exploration of the most extreme manifestations of musical science as he knew it, offered to him as much evidence of the spiritual reality of God in nature as Newton’s researches. Testing the limits of musical form, finding new laws and new applications for older truths was, for Bach, nothing less than a direct communion with and discovery of God’s will at work in humanity’s daily life.
Whatever one’s personal religious beliefs, how can one not stand in awe of a man able to so conceptualize his life’s work, and what’s more, consistently rise to the level of his ambition with such clearly audible, virtuosic results? Dr. Wolff brilliantly exploits the tension between Bach’s mundane existence, and what we believe his work as composer, performer, teacher, instrument maker, scholar, and practical theorist really meant to him. Supported not just by evidence of what Bach said, but also by what he actually did in every sphere of his professional life, this tension energizes the text, making its subject the embodiment, of raw talent surely, but also of deep reflection, flaming sincerity, and an almost incomprehensible capacity for sheer hard work. Seen in this light, Bach’s Faustian striving for musical perfection becomes both tangible and credible on account of its very reality, his “story” all the more fascinating. In Dr. Wolff’s hands, the truth is more than merely interesting. It’s thrilling. There are moments in his narrative when the author seems utterly enthralled with his subject, and who can blame him?
In short, Bach’s exceptional depth of emotional expressiveness, his music’s transcendental quality, exists not in opposition to, but precisely because of its “learned” character. What composer, for example, has written more important works in minor keys? The list is practically endless: the B-minor Mass, The Art of Fugue, The Musical Offering, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, Violin Concertos in A minor and D minor, fully half of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and countless cantatas. “Minor key” works tend to be more highly regarded than “major key” works largely because of their perceived extra depth, evocative of sadness, anxiety, or tragedy, but also because of their comparative scarcity. In writing the two volumes of The Well-Tempered Clavier (48 preludes and fugues, two each in all the major and minor keys), Dr. Wolff notes, Bach not only rationalized the tonal system; he created a musical language of unprecedented intensity. Indeed, it’s probably fair to say (Dr. Wolff, as a responsible scholar probably wouldn’t care to speculate, so I will) that without this music our understanding of the minor/sad, major/happy antithesis would not have anything like its current force or universality. Bach’s exploration of minor keys was clearly one aspect of his “learned” side, an attempt to broaden the current of musical discourse, and there’s no greater or more cogent proof of the unity of intellectual and emotional expression in his music than the overwhelming success of this particular project.
Given the difficulty of discussing exactly what makes Bach’s music “learned” without becoming technical, the consistent readability of Dr. Wolff’s text is very impressive. There are a few problems though. Certain material in the book derives from an earlier publication: Bach: Essays on His Life and Music, and some of this pre-existing work (such as the discussion of Bach’s encounter with Vivaldi and the idea of “musical thinking”), intended for a more academic context, resists being simplified. Also, grouping all of the musical examples in an appendix, rather than simply integrating them into the narrative with the other photos and charts, proves awkward as well. In any event, these are minor quibbles, and I’m sure Dr. Wolff himself would readily acknowledge his slightly less than adroit talent for recycling previously composed material, at least when compared to that of his subject!
In the final analysis, Dr. Wolff’s demonstration of the spiritual and intellectual unity of Bach’s work offers the modern listener an eminently healthy way to approach the Cantor of Leipzig’s substantial surviving legacy. In particular, Dr. Wolff triumphantly refutes the pernicious and pervasive belief that formally complex, advanced compositional idioms somehow exist independently of the music that employs them, and even work against or inhibit its expressive qualities. This fear of the intellectual drives us to look outside the music itself for explanations as to its “meaning,” and seek refuge in tenuous irrational, anecdotal, historical, or emotional theories that say more about our own insecurities than they do about the art we claim to love. Dr. Wolff’s essay reminds us that Bach’s output stands as a central, perhaps the central, musical monument in Western civilization precisely because of its consistency and expressive universality, with every element subordinated to Bach’s overarching intent: to embody Nature (i.e. the human character) in pursuit of “the honor of God and the recreation of the soul.” It’s a lesson with implications well beyond the study of Bach, and any reader who applies this dictum to his general experience of classical music listening will, I think, find the time spent all the more satisfying and enriching. Thank you, Dr. Wolff.
David Hurwitz
