… every art is entitled to be rooted in another, preceding art; moreover, it is not a mere entitlement, as art should have roots.
Béla Bartók

Has Bach duly been appreciated for his reverence causing him to copy and adapt the works and the ideas of great masters he held in high esteem?
Pablo Casals

With the passage of time, sources get increasingly closer to one another. (…) There is but one source, Johann Sebastian Bach, who will remain unique for eternity.
Robert Schumann

…it does not really matter on which instruments Bach's music is performed. (…) His linear counterpoint moves in a sphere which is not bound by specific sound qualities. Its very substance expresses the essence of the music.
Erich Bergel


Revisited

In all probability there is no other master in music literature whose music preserves its substance to such a degree, regardless of the kind of arrangement or sort of instrument that is used. Even Bach himself made use of the arrangement technique, several of his compositions survive in different versions -- each of them meeting the requirements of a certain performance. Bach's oeuvre knows no boundaries between spiritual and secular, instrumental and vocal music, or even between music for winds, for strings or for the keyboard. Although it may seem paradoxical, this universality of Bach's music is not the result of some kind of abstract style -- this may be said only of his late large-scale series, the Musikalisches Opfer or Die Kunst der Fuge. His compositions are inspired by the instruments, the composer knows the technique of each profoundly, and takes full advantage of their possibilities. But the works, notwithstanding their character “springing from the soul of the instrument”, are able to adapt themselves to the context of a different orchestration, they even draw new strength from it.


Trio Sonata in G major (BWV 1038)

The Trio Sonata in G major (BWV 1038) is a wonderful example of a work existing in different versions. Expecting some smaller details, its bass part is identical to the bass of the Violin Sonata in G major (BWV 1021), while the two melodic voices in the trio sonata are completely different from the music of the violin in the latter work. The Violin Sonata in F major, on the other hand, is an arrangement of the trio sonata in which one of the two melodic voices is given to the right hand of the keyboard player, thus resulting in a simple “accompanied sonata”, one of the most popular genres of the time. Most Bach-scholars consider the Violin Sonata in G major as the original, authentic composition of Bach. In their opinion the trio sonata was written by a disciple of Bach as a kind of exercise to compose two independent voices over the given bass. Some people even believe that this disciple was Bach's most talented son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Still others feel that the trio sonata is a much better composition than the violin sonata, and fancy the relation between model and composition exercise the other way round. The mystery surrounding these works is further deepened by the fact that the manuscript of the trio sonata is written by Bach himself, while the violin sonata is preserved in the handwriting of the composer's second wife, Anna Magdalena. (One should not overestimate the significance of this difference, however: Bach, the proud father, may well have notated the trio sonata of his son, just as Anna Magdalena, who married Johann Sebastian in 1721, may have copied a violin sonata composed by her husband or her stepson.) The trio sonata version seems to be more up-to-date in style and more original than the violin sonata -- at least in some places, the most conspicuous among them being the magnificent fugue in the finale, of which we hear only the outlines in the violin sonata. Nevertheless, the trio sonata has plenty of features not at all typical of Bach. One could mention first of all the structure of the opening Largo, which lacks the usual repeat mark and has varied repetition in both sections instead. The bass line is simplified in these variations, while the melodic voices are ornamented by dotted rhythms. The equal number of bars in the two sections can also be seen as an irregular feature, as usually Bach was eager to make some kind of extension in the second half. The second movement (Vivace) gives the impression of an invention built on a single subject, and is, in the opinion of several of its critics, “annoyingly” short. The somewhat sentimental parallel motion of the upper voices in the Adagio belongs rather to the “gallant” style than to the Baroque, but this fact does not contradict Bach's authorship, as he did the same in some slow movements of his undoubtedly authentic organ trio sonatas. It is hard to believe that the Presto fugue for three voices could be written by anyone else than the great Bach: the independent and eloquent melodic curves, the complementary interplay of the voices, the freshness of rhythmic invention makes this piece a splendid finale of Bachian chamber music.

The performance of Zoltán Gyöngyössy, László Hadady, György Lakatos and Borbála Dobozy differs from the original orchestration of the trio sonata in its use of the oboe for the second melodic voice (originally intended for the violin), and in that its bass part is allotted to the bassoon. This cast remains within the possibilities of the baroque performance practice. And if one hears the enchanting colour of the oboe or the lively play and splendidly articulated melodies of the bassoon, one will hardly be sorry for this decision.


Partita in D minor (BWV 1004)

Like most of the chamber works of Bach, the three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin were also written in the Köthen years. By 1720 Bach considered the series as completed, and made a fair autograph manuscript copy of the six works, which is of unusual calligraphic beauty. (This manuscript turned up at the and of the 19th century, so Spitta, the great Bach-biographer had not yet known of it. Brahms wanted to purchase the wonderful score for his own collection, but it was too expensive for him.) Although violin pieces without accompaniment were written before Bach (by Westhof, Biber and J. J. Walther, among others), the three sonatas and three partitas by far surpass all the antecedents, and not just in the field of instrumental writing. These six works are perhaps even more mature and concentrated than Bach's own suites for violoncello solo. With a gesture so typical of him, the composer makes an attempt at the impossible, writing a four-voice polyphonic texture for the melodic instrument. This dense polyphony and rich harmonization prevails not only in the fugues of the sonatas, but also in the dance movements of the partitas, and it was exactly this kind of writing that was subject to most misunderstandings by posterity. Eminent figures of the Bach-renaissance, like Schumann or Mendelssohn composed piano accompaniments to the series to supply the pieces with the “missing” notes and thus restore the polyphony in its proper form. At the end of the 19th century, the sonatas and partitas were generally considered as serving pedagogical purposes. Brahms' famous friend, József Joachim adopted them to the stage, but his interpretation of them as being spectacular virtuoso pieces is just as far from the real nature of these pieces as earlier misunderstandings.

The monumental Ciaccona, which is often performed as an independent piece even today, to some extent overshadows the previous four movements of the work. In the Allemanda the continuous semi-quaver passages are interrupted by motifs of demi-semi-quavers, and the restless character of the piece is determined by the sharply contrasting higher and lower registers of the melody. Notwithstanding its traditional dance associations, the gaiety of the second movement, the Corrente is not constantly cheerful either. In its rhythmic vocabulary, triplets play a prominent role again, clashing with dotted figures. This rhythmic background gives the impression of constant struggle to the listener, and the texts of rhythmically similar arias in Bach's cantata-oeuvre support such an interpretation. The chordal character and triple meter of the Sarabanda's theme already anticipates the closing Ciaccona, but the tension here is not derived from a monumental structure, but rather from the confrontation of free, capricious passages and sections written in a more strict style. The Giga, at last, resolves the accumulated tension into instrumental virtuosity.

Antal Szalai, the performer of the Allemanda and the Corrente, highlights the meditative character of the movements. In Hungary and throughout the world it was the brilliant gypsy musician, Aladár Rácz (1886--1958) who founded the tradition of performing Bach's works on the cymbalo. On this CD the Sarabanda and the Giga is played by Kálmán Balogh in the spirit of this tradition.


Partita for Solo Flute in A minor (BWV 1013)

Curiously enough, the single work by Bach written for solo flute is considered by many as not being intended for the flute originally. Bach seems not to have taken into consideration the necessity for rests to breathe with wind instruments, so perhaps we face again an arrangement of an earlier (now lost) work for the keyboard or the violin.

In opposition to the virtuosity and homogeneous material of the first two movements, the Sarabande's noble simplicity and rhythmic heterogeneity suggests meditation interrupted from time to time by the unexpected impulse of new thoughts. The concluding Bourrée Anglaise is the most living “actor” of this highly intellectual composition. It represents Bach's popular style: not only is its general character that of a dance, but it is even able to recall the boisterous stamping of the feet with its single, flexible voice. It must have been this free atmosphere that inspired János Vázsonyi to insert some play with the overtones into the composition, leaving behind Bach's original melody for a moment.


The Art of Fugue -- Contrapunctus 14 (BWV 1080:19). (Quadruple fugue)

Bach's most monumental series, one of the greatest myths in the history of music, has been surrounded by mystery ever since the composer's death. One of the reasons for this are the several differences between its two extant sources, a manuscript in Bach's own handwriting and the first edition (printed posthumously in 1751), which do not suggest the same order of succession for the individual pieces. And even if the sequence seems to be established with some certainty after the thorough musicological investigations of the 1970s and 80s, the unfinished quadruple fugue still remains a secret. Even its belonging to the cycle was questioned for a long time, as the extant version does not contain the main subject of the series. In 1880, however, Nottebohm recognized that this “lacking” subject can be combined with the three subjects of the fragment, so presumably it was precisely the addition of that fourth subject which was intended to complete the fugue, and to crown the series. Several prominent musicians, like Hugo Riemann, Ferrucio Busoni, the influential English theorist Sir Donald Francis Tovey or the Hungarian Zoltán Göncz made reconstructions of the complete piece. Even more interesting than these attempts is the assumption of Christoph Wolf and Gregory Butler that Bach had in fact finished the movement, but the manuscript was lost. At all events a close investigation of the extant examples of the first edition has shown that some of the metal printing plates were renumbered, and by the time of planning the publication, Bach already knew exactly how much place the piece would take up.

Erich Bergel is related to this mysterious masterpiece in a very personal way. Besides being a Transylvanian of Saxon origin, and in a sense a late successor of the instrumental tradition to which Bach also belonged, this work meant to him a return to life. Having been released from the prison of the Rumanian communist dictatorship after three and a half years, he trained himself by yoga exercises and the study of The Art of Fugue in the following years, waiting for the chance to be able to take his baton in his hand again. Two decades' intensive study of Bach's opus ultimum resulted in two books and Bergel's own completion of the quadruple fugue. The latter was considered to be “an epoch-making achievement” by Karajan, and “a revolutionarily new insight into Bach's late work” by the eminent Bach-scholar, Friedrich Smend.

Bergel also orchestrated the work -- his version is distinguished from the others by its organ-like use of the orchestra. This orchestration mirrors the most characteristic artistic feature of its creator: the inner flame, the spiritual fire which unifies the discipline of structural planning and the charm of spontaneity. One could argue the historic authenticity of the quadruple fugue's romanticizing conclusion, but its artistic value and validity is beyond doubt.

Zoltán Farkas