The Three Greatest Composers of Polyphonic Music for the Harpsichord

By far the most important of all composers for the harpsichord was John Sebastian Bach. He was the most distinguished representative of a numerous family of musicians, who lived in Eisenach and its neighboring towns for some two centuries. They were a simple, honest, straightforward, high-minded race; they lived quiet domestic lives, and devoted themselves to their art, with a simplicity of character, and an elevation of purpose, which always secured them the respect and love of their fellow-townsmen. The subject of this sketch was born in Eisenach, March 21, 1685. He received his first lessons from his father, beginning with the violin. But losing both his parents before he was ten years old, he went to live with his older brother, Johann Christoph, organist at Ohrdruff. With him he began lessons on the clavichord. He made remarkable progress, and speedily gave evidence of the gifts which were by and by to raise him to the highest pinnacle of fame.

His brother seems to have repressed rather than encouraged the impulses of the child's genius He not only refused him the use of his own collection of music, by the best masters of the time, but after the boy had surreptitiously obtained the book, and laboriously copied the whole, by moonlight, this hardhearted and unappreciative teacher took the well-earned and dearly-prized copy away from him. At the age of fifteen, he was sent away to Lueneburg to school, and entered the choir, in which his services paid for his school tuition, including vocal and instrumental music. He made rapid progress in playing the organ and harpsichord, and improved every opportunity to hear the best performers of Lueneburg and the neighboring town of Hamburg. He was also greatly influenced apd inspired by the performances of the duke's orchestra at Celle, a band at that time made up largely of Frenchmen, and playing mostly French music.

He remained at Lueneburg three years. At the end of that time he entered an orchestra at Weimar, and soon after became organist at Arnstadt. Here he studied and practiced with the utmost diligence and zeal, striving to perfect himself, both in playing, and in theory and composition. In 1705 he spent three months at Luebeck, for the purpose of hearing the celebrated organist, Buxtehude, and of becoming acquainted with him.

Bach's reputation as an organist was now beginning to spread. He received several offers of situations, and in 1707 he accepted an organist's post at Muehlhausen in Thueringen, but left it in 1708, when he was twenty-three years old, to become court organist in Weimar. Here he remained nine years, during which time he won acknowledged rank as first of organists and organ composers. He wrote here most of his greatest works for the organ. He made annual concert-tours, playing both the organ and clavichord, and won an extended reputation as a master of the highest rank.

In 1717, he accepted the appointment of conductor at Coethen, and now for five years devoted himself mainly to composing, and directing public performances of chamber music. But in 1723, he was appointed cantor at the St. Thomas school at Leipzig, and also organist and director of music in the two principal churches. Here he remained until his death, July 28, 1750, writing music for his choir for almost every service; chorals, motets, cantatas, and great works for the festivals of the church, among them one High Mass, and his immortal Passion Music.

For the rest, he lived a quiet, retired life, devoting himself, not only to his musical labors, but to the education of his numerous children, of whom he had twenty, by two marriages. The most notable incident which broke the monotony of his daily routine, was a visit to Frederick the Great, in 1747 Bach's son Emanuel was Frederick's principal court musician. The king, who was a lover of music, invited the father to visit him, and treated him with greatest respect and consideration. As usual, Bach's playing and his wonderful skill in improvising on given themes, excited the strongest admiration.

Soon after this he became blind, and continued so for the short remainder of his life. His death occurred from a fit of apoplexy, July 28, 1750.

Bach was one of the world's great creative minds; an original genius of the highest order; a most consummate master of the art of musical composition as understood in his day, and he had no superior in playing the harpsichord and clavichord. All the resources and capabilities of these instruments he thoroughly understood. He was, it is true, very much more than a master of the harpsichord; he was the greatest organist of his time, and his organ compositions are the noblest and most significant the world has yet known. He was a teacher and choir-leader, and a very large part of his mental activity was spent in the production of church music, of which he has left behind an immense amount, hundreds of cantatas, motets, chorals, a great Mass in B minor, five separate settings of the Passion of our Lord as given in the gospels, of which that stupendous work, the Passion Music according to St. Matthew, will forever remain one of the great monuments of Protestant religious art. But though he composed so much for chorus, organ and orchestra, besides chamber music, he nevertheless wrote a very large number of compositions for the harpsichord.

Many of these works are of permanent value from their nobility and beauty of style and their intrinsic emotional significance, and all are characterized by high intellectual qualities, and consummate musicianship. Moreover, although the instruments for which they were written have become totally obsolete, the style, and even the technic of these compositions is such, that whoever wishes to take a high rank as a pianist, must devote to them the most earnest and diligent study. This is doubly true if the pianist aims beyond mere technic, at high artistic qualities and musicianship. Said Robert Schumann, "Make the `Well Tempered Clavichord' your daily bread; then you will surely become a thorough musician." This advice, coming from a writer apparently as far removed as possible from the manner and style of Bach, is highly significant Chopin and Mendelssohn, who, with Schumann, made the Modern Romantic School of pianoforte writing, were diligent students of Bach, and drew a large part of their inspiration from him. These facts may help to show us how immensely important Bach's influence has been, and still is. The secret of this influence lies partly in the profound originality, and the inspired quality of Bach's genius, and partly in the unsurpassed intellectual grasp and power by which his works are everywhere characterized. The study of a Bach fugue is an intellectual exercise of the most salutary kind; an exercise, the severity of whose demands on mental concentration and on the power of sustained thinking, constitutes a most valuable means of intellectual discipline. There is no keener intellectual pleasure than these works afford, to hind who has mastered them.

Bach's instrumental works are the culmination of the polyphonic or contrapuntal style. Up to his time this was the prevalent manner of writing, and almost the only one cultivated by musicians. The monophonic style, indeed, had already a beginning. Opera airs and folk songs had been transferred to the keyed instruments; some dance music also had come to be written in this style. But the aim of all composers was to write good counterpoint, and that in the strict style, canons and fugues. Freer forms were also used, as described in the preceding chapter, which gave more scope to the fancy of the composer. Though founded on the fugal style, they often showed a reaching out after a freer, more elastic and flexible means of emotional expression than was to be found in the comparatively stiff formality of the strict mode of writing. One, especially, of these works, the Chromatic Fantasia of Bach, is a distinct prophecy of the Romantic School, which was to appear a hundred years later.

GEORGE FREDERICK HAENDEL (commonly called in England Handel), was born in Halle, Feb. 23, x685. His family was not musical, and whence he obtained his musical gifts it is not easy to determine. But gifts he had, which were not to be repressed. His father was a physician, who despised all art and artists, and even went to the extreme of keeping his son from school, lest he should there learn some thing of music. But the boy learned somehow, in spite of his father. He used to practice on an old spinet, with muffled strings, which, with somebody's connivance, he had hidden in the garret, and by the time he was seven years old, had become no mean performer. At this time his whole future career was decided by the interference of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. The child had accompanied his father on a visit to Weissenfels, had managed to obtain access to the organ in the duke's chapel, and had given such surprising proofs of genius that the duke strongly urged upon doctor Haendel the wisdom of humoring his son's bent.

He was now placed under the tuition of Zachau, organist of the cathedral at Halle, and took lessons on the organ, harpsichord, violin and oboe, and in counterpoint, canon, fugue, and all the forms of composition then practiced. He wrote a motet every week during the three years he remained with Zachau. His master then confessed that he could teach him nothing more. The ten-year old boy was sent to Berlin, where he made some valuable musical acquaintances, and astonished every one by his surprising improvisations on the organ and harpsichord.

He soon returned to Halle, and spent some years in study and composition, copying large quantities of the best music then known. His father died, and left George and his mother poor. So the boy set to work to support them both. In 1703, he went to Hamburg and entered the orchestra of the German opera-house, as a violin player. He amused himself a short time by pretending to be very ignorant, but happening to take the leader's place at the harpsichord one day, in the absence of the regular conductor, he displayed such ability as at once placed him permanently in that position. He remained here three years, and composed his first three operas, besides other compositions. The success of these, his pay at the theater, and what he had earned by giving lessons, had enabled him to lay up a considerable sum, beyond what was required to support himself and his mother. So he determined to make a musical pilgrimage to Italy, the country which had been the field of labor of some of the greatest of the Netherland contrapuntists, where the ancient contrapuntal style of Catholic church music had culminated in Palestrina, where the opera had first been called into existence, the country whose leadership in music was still unquestioned.

He spent three years in the great musical centers of Italy, Rome, Venice, Naples and Florence. He composed successful operas, church music and a serenata, and made the acquaintance of the most distinguished Italian musicians, among them, Do menico Scarlatti. These men received him with the greatest cordiality, and expressed the highest admiration both of his compositions, and of his skill as an organist and harpsichordist. In 1709 he returned to Germany, and accepted a conductor's post from the Elector of Hanover, on condition of being allowed to visit England. He accordingly went to London in 1710, and at once composed the opera "Rinaldo," to an Italian libretto, for the Haymarket Theater. The work, though written in only fourteen days, was received with the greatest enthusiasm, and Haendel immediately found himself famous. He stayed in London only six months, as his leave of absence had expired, but after his London triumph, his life and work in Hanover no longer contented him.

Early in 1712, he again obtained leave of absence, and coming to London, he lingered far beyond the time allowed him. This naturally offended his master, the elector, and when that prince came to England as George I, Haendel thought it best to avoid showing himself to the new monarch. However, it was soon made up between them. The king arranged some festivity on the Thames, and one of his suite advised Haendel to compose some music for the occasion. This he did, and following the king's barge, in a boat, with his band, he played it, greatly to his majesty's satisfaction. George I was too good a judge of music to deprive himself longer of the services of such a musician, so he not only received him into favor, but granted him an annuity of two hundred pounds.

The two years from 1716 to 1718 Haendel spent with the king in Hanover. Then returning to England, he became chapel-master to the Duke of Chandos, a wealthy nobleman, who lived in a style of great splendor. He remained in this post three years, writing music for the English church service, and harpsichord music for the daughters of the Prince of Wales, who were his pupils. He also wrote here his so-called "Serenata," '°,leis and Galatea," and "Esther," his first English oratorio. He had written a German oratorio, the "Passion," during his last stay in Hanover.

In 1720 he became director of Italian Opera for the Academy of Music, and from this time, for seventeen years, he was constantly engaged in composing operas, and managing operatic enterprises, with varying success. At last, in 1737, he became bankrupt. He made a few ineffectual efforts to recover himself, during the next two years, and then turned his attention almost exclusively to the composition of English oratorios. Here he found his real field. He had had more than forty years of experience as a composer, and all the resources of musical expression then known were perfectly at his command. His imagination was vivid and powerful and dealt most vigorously with the sublimest religious conceptions. So that in "The Messiah," "Samson," " Saul," "Judas Maccabaeus," and " Israel in Egypt," he created imperishable works, of the loftiest character.

Haendel was a large, vigorous man, open-hearted and generous, passionate and hot-tempered, but very placable, of unconquerable will, energetic, industrious, and withal full of genuine religious feeling. The themes he loved to treat were such as called forth joyful adoration and worship. The two great climaxes in °1 The Messiah," the "Hallelujah " chorus and "Worthy is The Lamb," are unsurpassed and unsurpassable as expressions of this phase of religious emotion. He could treat the tender and pathetic aspects of the Messiah's life and work with no less depth and nobility of feeling. Witness his "Behold the Lamb of God," and °' He was Despised." A comparison of these with parallel passages in Bach's '1 Passion Music " will reveal the characteristic differences in the emotional natures of the two men. Bach naturally dwells on the scenes of the Passion and Crucifixion; he dissolves in tears and grief, he melts in contrition, in penitence, in loving, grateful, humble worship. Haendel, too, feels all this, but in a different way, and he does not linger on it; he hastens on to exult in the glorious triumph of the risen Redeemer, to shout forth Hallelujahs in some of the sublimest strains ever uttered by man.

In these oratorios Haendel left his noblest legacy to the world. His organ and harpsichord music, on account of which latter he is necessarily mentioned in this history, was much less significant. Nevertheless, some of it is of permanent value, as, for instance, his " Fire " fugue, and his so-called " Harmonious Blacksmith," and he can not be passed over without honorable mention, since he was, next to Bach, the greatest German organist and harpsichordist of his time, as well as one of the greatest composers of all time. He lived unmarried, died in London April 14, 1759, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

DOMENICO SCARLATTI, born in Naples in 1683, was the son of ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI, a composer of church music of no small importance in musical history. Domenico's significance lies chiefly in the fact that he was a most brilliant virtuoso upon the harpsichord, and a composer of pieces which not only surprise even the advanced pianists of the present day by their brilliancy and difficulty (they are, in fact, more difficult to play on a modern concert pianoforte than on a harpsichord of Scarlatti's time), but which are of no small musical significance and value. He traveled much, met Haendel in Venice, was some years chapel master at the Vatican, in Rome, played in London, in Lisbon, in Italy again, and finally settled in Madrid, in 1739. Here he remained, admired and respected, as composer and virtuoso, until his death, in. 1757.

Scarlatti was not, like Bach and Haendel, a great creative genius of the first rank, but his harpsichord compositions, although greatly inferior in intrinsic significance and permanent influence and value to those of Bach, are probably nearly equal to most of Haendel's, and are even more difficult of execution than any of his, so that in any history of pianoforte music, he must occupy a prominent and an honorable place.