Joseph Abraham Music

Note: This essay is academic in style and will differ significantly for my other blogs. Please reference this page if you use information or original ideas from my work.
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If one is devoted to the study and investigation of J.S. Bach’s music, one is plagued with speculations. For the great Baroque composer, two worlds exist: the world of facts, and the world of conjunctures. These ‘Bach conjunctures’ and ‘Bach facts’ rely on each other, for facts need conjunctures to present complete ideas and conjunctures need facts in order for the conjunctures to remain in the category of ‘the possible or likely’. For solo violin at least, the influence, origin and method of composition sticks out for one Baroque work above the rest. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor, also known as his Sonata No. 4 in D minor raises many interesting questions. The first question is onomastic. Why do some publications print the violin partitas as sonatas? Furthermore, what is the form of the second partita? What is the form of a partita in general? What is the form of a sonata and how does it relate to a partita? How did the form of a sonata vary prior to and after Bach’s influence? The goal of this essay is an attempt to answer the aforementioned questions as well as possible. The essay will first give a brief history on the origins of the D minor partita, then go on to analyze the piece by movements.

Bach began composing his solo violin partitas and sonatas around the very beginning of the 16th century as a Kappellmeister in Kothen. Before him the foundation was laid for partita style by Johannn Paul von Westhoff, who also composed partitas for solo violin. Bach studied with Westoff at Weimar. Westoff was responsible for many solo violin compositions.

The origin of the partita is thought to originate from the ‘partite’. Evidence of the early partite is seen as early as 1584 in Libro d’intavolatura di liuto, nel quale si contengono i passamezzi, le romanesche, i saltarelli, et le gagliarde, which was written by Vincenzo Gallilei. Galilei was an Italian lutist. Somehow, during the time of Bach, partita became synonymous with suite and sonata. As a side note, the name ‘partita’ ironically sounds like the English word ‘party’; this may or may not be significant: as all the sections of the partita originate from dance suites. The partita style began to die out in the first half of the 18th century. Hayden published the last known Baroque partita in 1770. Bach brought the solo violin repertoire before him and combined it with the popular dance suite style of his day; the Violin’s Partita No.2 in D minor is the child of this union.

While most of Bach’s life and works are left to conjuncture, the violin sonatas are partitas are an exception. Where most of Bach’s compositions had to be reconstructed, the original autographed score of the violin partitas and sonatas exists today. Most of his work was forgotten after his death in 1750, but again the violin sonatas and partitas are an exception, rediscovered a bit over a century later and remaining popular. Bach never published the partitas and sonatas but violinists enthusiastically commissioned copies to be made or copied the manuscripts themselves for instructional value. They are not only technically difficult but also contain a wealth of profundity and expression.

When Bach wrote the sonatas and partitas in 1720, he was at the exact middle of the most creative period of his life. From 1708 to 1717 Bach worked as a virtuosic organist at Weimar, Germany; this is when he wrote for the organ or the ‘king of instruments,’ as he argued. From 1723 through the end of his life, he was responsible for the religious music at Leipzig, where he mostly wrote cantatas, masses and other choral works. In between the two positions, Prince Leopold employed him at Köthen. Leopold, being a Calvinist, preferred the simplicity of standard hymns and encouraged instrumental secular music. The period under Leopold was fertile because Bach was free of religious duties and demands. He was able to compose whatever he desired. Given the sonatas and partitas were never published, it is likely to say that he wrote them for his enjoyment. Under Leopold, he also was free from conservative authorities. While doing what he wanted to do, Bach was praised by Leopold, his patron. Unfortunately, Leopold took on a wife who was hostile toward Bach’s music and this ended the Bach and Leopold relationship. Fortunately, the infamous D minor partita was already finished.

The D minor partita comes from a set, which consists of three sonatas and three partitas. The sonatas follow the established model of their time and present a slow lyric introductory movement. Next is a fugue, a contrapuntal meditation and a brisk finale of rapid passagework. The partitas are suites of dances, although the second breaks away to conclude with arguably the greatest piece of music ever conceived for solo strings – a 15 minute chaconne in which a single idea resonates through 31 variations that embrace a universe of artistry and expression. While many of the dances are written in a single continuous voice, and thus suitable for a violin, most of the slower pieces and especially the fugues and the chaconne present a remarkable stylistic challenge – an attempt to convey multiple ideas and thick textures on an instrument capable of producing no more than two tones at once.

The Partita No. 2 in D minor, has five movements: Allemanda, Corrente, Sarabanda, Giga and Ciaccona. The allamanda form comes from the French word for “German” and is one of the most important dance forms in Baroque music, along with the courante, sarabande and gigue. In contexts other than Bach’s D minor solo violin partita, the allamanda may be called ‘alamande’ in French. Like the partite, the allamanda originated in the mid-16th century. Originally a moderate duple-meter dance in two or three sections, the allemanda became stylized above all Baroque dances. In the mid-1700’s, the allemanda was referred to as being similar to a prelude; it was based on a chord progression in an improvisatory style but the particular notes were crafted with more care. If one hears Bach’s D minor Partita’s Allamanda, one can see how Bach was trying to combine the excitement of improvisation with the advantage of the non-improvisatory composition style, which was pensive and intentional in every played note.

The next section, the Corrente, is a fast triple-meter dance and instrumental form from the late 16th century to the mid-18th century. The form often occurred as a movement in a suite. Usually considered an Italian version of the courante, it is typically written in 3/8 or 3/4, in binary form, and has a homophonic texture and a clear harmonic and rhythmic structure. Its origins are fairly obscure. By the early 1600’s it was a popular dance in both France and Italy. By the end of the 17th century there existed two distinct types of courante: the Italian ‘corrente’, a fast triple-meter dance which was usually virtuosic, clearly structured, binary and homophonic; and the French ‘courante,’ which was ‘majestic’ and ‘grave triple-meter.’ In Bach’s D minor Partita the Courante is considered fast, but not as fast as the Gigue.

The third section of Bach’s D minor Partita, the Sarabande, is another one of the Baroque period’s most popular instrumental dance forms. Like the partite and the allamanda, it also originated from the 16th century. It was a sung dance in Latin America and Spain, which came to Italy early in the 17th century as part of the repertoire for the Spanish five-course guitar. During the first half of the 17th century the Sarabande initially developed based on harmonic schemes and later on characteristics of rhythm and tempo. Both fast and slow types of Sarabande emerged first in England and Spain, then later in France and Germany. The French spelling of sarabande was also used in Germany and England but the English form of the word, ‘saraband,’ was more common. In Italy, the style was called ‘sarabanda.’ In Bach’s D minor partita, the sarabande is very slow, often utilizing quadruple stops.

The Giga is the ‘fastest’ section of Bach’s D minor Partita. In Baroque greater works, tempo remains constant. The impression that makes the listener feel that the music is faster is given by having more notes per measure. The ‘gigue’ (French for the Italian word giga) is, yet again, one of the Baroque period’s most popular instrumental dance forms. It is a standard along with the allemande, courante, and sarabande of the Baroque suite form. Although most gigues are notated in simple duple-meter, most sound as if they are written in a compound meter and most are also binary. In the 17th-century, distinctions became evident between Italian and French styles of the form. The French gigue gave the impression of a moderate or fast tempo with irregularities in phrasing and imitative, contrapuntal texture. The Italian giga sounded much faster than the French gigue but had a slower harmonic rhythm; it was usually in 12/8 time and was marked ‘presto,’ with balanced four-bar phrases and homophonic texture. Since 1690, gigues and gigas appeared as highly complex virtuosic solo pieces, which used a wide variety of compositional techniques and a joyful affect. Bach’s D minor Partita’s Giga arguably shows little difference from the aforementioned French characteristics.

The last and most significant movement of the D minor Partita, Bach’s Ciaconna (Chaconne in French) has been agreed by many scholars to be the most virtuosic movement of Baroque violin literature ever composed. Many violinists spend a lifetime simply attempting to master this single movement. Before the first year of the 19th century, the Chaconne was more strictly a dance form, performed at a quick tempo. Most Chaconnes are in a triple meter. The word, Chaconne, is sometimes used interchangeably with Passacalglia. Both were dance forms and have origins in ‘ground bass.’ Bach’s Chaconne of his D minor Partita is infamous and often performed without the first four movements. The Ciaccona is commonly required repertoire for violin competitions worldwide. Johannes Brahms loved the Ciaccona so much that he published i as a left hand exercise for keyboard instruments. In a letter to Clara Schumann, Brahms said about Bach’s D minor Partita’s Ciaccona:

On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.

Given the virtuosity required to perform the Ciaconna and many other of Bach’s solo violin pieces, one must ask how he had them performed. Given the difficulty in performing, more generally, the partita and sonata for solo violin, Bach would have had a considerable amount of difficulty finding worthy candidates to perform some of his most virtuosic compositions. Some scholarly sources hypothesize that J.S. Bach was sufficient as a violinist to perform the solo violin music he composed, or at least in youth he was. Today, even the greatest Violinist alive, with all the facility and luxury of modern pedagogy and technology, Bach’s D minor Partita is still unobtainable to most. Were the violinists of Bach’s day more skilled than Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell? Surely they were not.

The quadruple stops used in the Sarabande and Ciaccona inspire the musicologist to ask: what was the difference in Bach’s day? Perhaps the most virtuosic violinist of the Baroque period had better violins? Surely this is not the case because violinists still have access to the coveted Stradivarius violins, crafted in Bach’s youth. Thus, the difference between Bach’s day and our modern world lies surely in the bow. The Baroque style bow was shaped similar to a crescent. With the increasing technical demands of the music of the 18th century, the old curved type of bow or ‘Bach bow’ was not entirely satisfactory and was displaced by the modern type, with concave stick and a mechanical tightening adjustment. The innovation created a much stronger and brighter tone, opening new musical worlds for all bowed instruments.

However, with the gain of brightness, power and volume, one trait was lost with the new bow. Because of the distance between wood and hairs was greater in the Bach bow than in the modern bow, the old bow could strike three-part chords simultaneously. The older bow would make many of the slower movements like the Sarabande sound more chordal and easier to execute. In order to execute the chords on a modern bow, the violinist must quickly arpeggiate three of four note chords. The older bow’s hair was much more loose, especially in the middle section. If the performer desired to play more than two notes simultaneously at the expense of brightness and power, than the performer had the option. A Baroque period bow could also be tightened or loosened with the instrumentalist left thumb. In the 1920’s a violinist name George Stoll loosened his bow and placed the hair and wood around the violin, giving him the ability to play four notes simultaneously. Later in the 1950’s a violinist/scholar named Emil Telemanyi commissioned a bow to be made which could be loosened and tightened with a button mechanism near where the left hand would hold the bow of a violin; the result was called the patented ‘Vega bow’. The Vega bow allowed the performer to quickly adjust the tension of a their bow at the touch of a button.

With the Vega bow three note chords could now be sustained but this required an all new style of playing because the finger positioning used to quickly execute a note would be different than sustaining for multiple measures, especially if vibrato were to be used. Also, Telmanyi insist that in order to play at least one chord in the famed Ciaccona, one must use his/her left thumb on the finger board, which is unusual. However, the strength of Telemanyi’s theory tends to omit the fact that Bach has notated exactly how to execute his chordal violin phrases. Thus, Telemanyi’s argument will ever be in the world of conjuncture, unless history reveals to us otherwise. Henry Joachim, a scholar, wrote the following in the musical times.

It is doubtful whether the modern player and listener will accustom themselves to this small tone, more especially as our modern concert halls are far too large for this intimate music, and the modern artist, being anything but an idealist will not so easily give up distorting the [Bach’s Ciaconna] Chaconne in front of a large public in a vast hall—for this piece is regarded as a supreme test of technical and musical equipment of the performer.

Performing Bach’s music with authentic style has always created difficulties. One can only create conjunctures as to whether Bach would be upset or gladdened by the different performance practices applied to his music over the last 250 years after his death. The ‘purist vs. innovative’ in the context of Baroque performance is not a new argument. Furthermore, his solo violin music has become a staple in Baroque repertoire for every instrument one can think of. Many instruments, which perform the violin sonatas, were not even invented at the time Bach composed his works. For marimba, Bach’s violin sonatas are the standard Baroque repertoire. The marimba sustains the notes longer and makes the chord progressions more prevalent.

The reason I chose to research Bach’s D minor Partita is because I am currently studying the piece and preparing to perform it. The task is by far the most virtuosic musical pursuit of my lifetime. I only hope that if this life is over, I may meet the greatest of all Baroque composers and that he may say my toil is adequate.

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The following is the last movement of Bach’s Violin Partita in Dm, performed by my friend Pasha Tseitlin.

 

References:
Brahms, Johannes, and Styra Avins. “Appendices A: Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann.” Johannes Brahms: His Life and Letters. 769-771. Oxford [England: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.
“Chaconne.” The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev. Ed. Michael Kennedy. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Field, Christopher D.S., et al. “Fantasia.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Fuller, David and Cliff Eisen. “Partita.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010
Grout, Donald Jay., J. Peter Burkholder, and Claude V. Palisca. “Johannes Brahms.” A History of Western Music, 721. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
Hudson, Richard and Meredith Ellis Little. “Sarabande.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Joachim, Henry. “Bach’s Solo Violin Sonatas and the Modern Violinist.” The Musical Time, Vol. 72, No. 1057, 221-222. 20. Jstor. May 2010 .
Kraft, G. and Dieter Härtwig. “Weimar.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Little, Meredith Ellis and Suzanne G. Cusick. “Allemande.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Little, Meredith Ellis and Suzanne G. Cusick. “Courante.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Little, Meredith Ellis. “Gigue (i).” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Silbiger, Alexander. “Chaconne.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 20 May. 2010 .
Telmanyi, Emil. “Some Problems in Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Music.” The Musical Times, Vol. 96, No. 1343, 14-18. Jstor. May 2010 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/933576>.
Williams, Peter. “Bach’s G Minor Sonata for viola da gamba and HaBWV1029: A Seventh Brandenburg Concerto?.” Early Music, Vol. 12, No. 3, String Issue. Jstor. May 2010

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