Mozart and Counterpoint. (4)

“Mozart and counterpoint“ (excerpt 4).
From: Mozart. His character and works. By Alfred Einstein.

(Translated from „Mozart und der Kontrapunkt“, by Einstein, Alfred: Mozart. Sein Charakter, sein Werk. Zürich, Stuttgart 31953, S. 174-189. Lizenz: verwaist/ License: abandoned. Source link: Mozart und der Kontrapunkt)

By Edward Eggleston

[Note: Johann Sebastian/J.S. Bach (1685-1750) was the father of Carl Phillip Emanuel and Friedemann Bach.]

“Bach and Handel“ – with this the word is spoken, and the decisive names appear. And Handel only in a “historical sense”. Mozart’s experience of 1782 focused on Bach. On April 10 of this year he wrote his father, after asking for the previously mentioned toccatas and fugues by Eberlin and for six fugues by Handel (also in Mozart’s home): “…every Sunday I go to Baron van Swieten’s at noon – and nothing is played but Handel and Bach. – I’m making a collection of Bach fugues, by Sebastian, Emanuel, and also Friedemann. There are also some by Handel, and these too have my attention. …”

Great events of music history are sometimes based on chance. It is accidental that Mozart entered van Swieten’s narrower circle; it is by chance that the music enthusiast van Swieten, from 1770-1777, carried out the emperor’s business at the Prussian court; and so, was the connection between Count Kaunitz and Frederick the Great. [Trans. note: van Swieten is the form most used in the original, and followed here.]

It says much for the count’s judgment, considering the always tense Berlin-Vienna relations, he did not send a diplomatic fox to the old king – who had grown wary and wise about such figures; even the Casanova brothers. Instead he sent the upright baron, with his musical and literary inclinations. As the king had given up music, however, van Swieten moved mostly in the musical circle of the king’s demanding sister, Princess Amalie. She despised Gluck, and was a patron for Marpurg and her court music director Kirnberger. Only “strict” music was supported in this circle.

Yet the king brought J.S. Bach to van Swieten’s attention. The document for this however is not in the music literature, but in Arneth’s “Story of Maria Theresa” (VIII, p. 621). The text slumbered in an appendix there for 75 years. In a confidential letter (July 26, 1774) from van Swieten to Kaunitz, relating an audience with the king we find: “Along with other things he spoke about music, and of a great organist named Bach [not J.S.] coming to visit Berlin. This artist shows a talent greater than any I’ve heard or could imagine in its depth of harmonic knowledge and strength of execution; yet those who knew his father [J.S. Bach] say the son is not his equal. The king holds this opinion, and for proof sang aloud a chromatic fugue subject he had given the older Bach; who from this immediately offered fugues in 4, then 5 – and finally 8 parts.” (»Entre autre il me parla de musique, et d’un grand organiste nommé Bach, qui vient de faire quelque séjour à Berlin. Cet artiste est doué d’un talent superieur à tout ce que j’ai entendu ou pu imaginer en profondeur de connoissances [sic] harmoniques et en force d’execution, cependant ceux qui ont connu son père, ne trouvent pas encore qu’il l’égale. Le Roi est de cette opinion, et pour me le prouver, il chanta à haute voix un sujet de fugue chromatique qu’il avait donné à ce vieux Bach, qui sur le champ en fit une fugue à 4, puis à 5, puis enfin à huit voix obligés.«)

It is clear van Swieten had heard nothing in his life about J.S. Bach before this day in July, and had somewhat misunderstood the king. Baron van Swieten seems to have had Philipp Emanuel in mind; yet the “great organist” the king mentioned was Friedemann Bach, who on May 15, 1774 had tremendous success with a performance in the Church of Nicolai and Mary in Berlin. But those who were musically knowledgeable and had heard the “older Bach” were not deceived: his unique greatness was especially clear in relation to Friedemann’s triumph.

With this the king agreed, and brought the memory of a visit by the greatest of all masters (in 1747) to van Swieten; the visit leading to the creation of the “Musical Offering”. Van Swieten’s interest became quite strong. He started to collect J.S. Bach’s music. In 1774 it seems he visited Philipp Emanuel Bach in Hamburg, which resulted in a letter exchange and the purchase of works by J.S. Bach. So in coming to Vienna, van Swieten brought not just a few printed works, including the “Art of Fugue”; but also the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, the organ trios, and perhaps some of the great organ preludes and fugues – which in Vienna at this time were completely unknown.

For Mozart, the study of these works resulted in a revolution and crisis for his composing. Perhaps the working through of this crisis can only be compared to that of an artist in another area: Albrecht Dürer [1471–1528] following his second Italian journey from 1505 to 1507. The study of Mantegna and Bellini completely disrupted the creative concept of this northern student of Michael Wolgemut. He created works against his nature, in which he is not really himself; and never achieved the serene security and sweetened naturalness of his Venetian models. Nevertheless, without this crisis, we would not have the “Four Apostles” from 1526 – a northern-southern synthesis, personal and universal, a creative high point reflecting all a great artist learned in the course of his life. (A side note: if we want to pursue this popular game of comparing artists from different areas, Mozart can only be compared with Dürer. Nothing is more superficial and off the mark than comparing Mozart and Raphael – as would be the comparison of Beethoven and Michelangelo.)

We will discover this synthesis with Mozart also. It should be added not only Mozart sensed the danger of this division, between a galant (and only galant) style and the learned style. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, in an autobiographical passage (from Bode’s translation of Burney’s “Travels”, III, 201) lamented the decline of music since his father’s time: “… who does not know the particular time, in that music, especially, with a fine and clear development began as well a new period; in which composition rose to such a height, that by my sense of this, much has already been lost. Along with many men of insight, I believe the now popular comic forms [i.e., opera buffa] have had the greater part in this. Without noting particular men that might be rejected as having produced little or nothing in the comic area, I will name one of the greatest living comic masters, Signor Galuppi; who while visiting my home in Berlin completely agreed, and related several ridiculous incidents, with some even occurring in churches in Italy…” Yet Philipp Emanuel and Baldassare Galuppi could only complain, or mock themselves, in regarding the decline or dualism between the “galant” and “learned”, this musical crisis of their time. Only Haydn and Mozart overcame this problem, each in his own way.

Again, van Swieten had a central role, moving Mozart to thorough involvement with Bach’s music. For his patron’s string trio, Mozart arranged first three fugues from the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, one from the “Art of Fugue” and an organ sonata (No.2), and a fugue from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. Mozart added slow tempo preludes for four of these works, and for two others used sections from Bach’s organ sonatas. For van Swieten’s four player group – which may have included Mozart as violist – there are autograph arrangements for five fugues from the “Well-Tempered Clavier” book II; originally there were six or more.

With this, a time of fugue composition began for Mozart, with Kostanze’s pleasant encouragement (the only gesture speaking for her true musicality). The greatest example is from the C Minor Mass. It is noteworthy the fugue was left unfinished. For a piano and violin Sonata in A (K. 402) Mozart started to compose a fugue as finale; and for two reasons this was not completed: because it was written for Kostanze and was a fugue. The examples which were completed have an archaic flavor. Why is it that such a masterful fugue as from K. 394, from April 1782, cannot compete with a fugue by Bach, as with the C minor work from “Well-Tempered Clavier” I – which it apparently follows? – And this despite the artful augmentation, diminution, and stretto of the work. [Theme in ex. 21:]

Because the theme is too “learned”, neutral, too little Mozartian; while Bach’s fugues are always Bachian, and do not simply exhibit (skillful) augmentation, diminution, and stretto – but reflect something more personal, where such things occur by necessity. The same is recognizable, and perhaps even more so, in the fugue from the suite in “Handel’s style”, K. 399: [ex. 22]