DAILY DOSE OF BEETHOVEN (July 2, 2020)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was born six years after the death of Johann Sebastian Bach. Universally recognized as one of the greatest minds in history, it is often overlooked that Mozart made it a practice to learn as much as possible from others—he was one of the greatest students of all time.
So, when in 1782, the 26-year old Mozart encountered the instrumental works of Bach, through the Vienna salon of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, and his friend Christian Gottlieb Neefe (an organist, opera composer, and musical director of the theater in Bonn), he made over the course of the three year period of 1782-85, a complete transformation of his, and Bach's, approach to composition, and a correlate "revolution in musical affairs". (It should be noted that in that same year, 1782, Neefe would become the teacher of the 12 year old Beethoven.)
Within days, Mozart began working to assimilate everything he could from Bach's compositional method from the musical scores owned by Baron van Swieten. The “Fantasy in C Minor K475,” is said to have been composed in 1785, and the “Piano Sonata in C Minor, K457” for pianoforte is usually dated as composed in 1784. Though it is possible that he was composing them both in his head at the same time, the Fantasy does strike us as more advanced, and thus probably a later work. Mozart may not have been satisfied that his sonata K457, treated Bach's ideas adequately.
BACH’s BREAKTHROUGH
The “Fantasy” is a dialogue with J.S. Bach's 1747 “Musical Offering”, also composed in the key of C Minor. The “Musical Offering” was Bach's treatise on the art of rigorous improvisation. Bach had successfully improvised a six-part fugue in the presence of Frederick the Great of Prussia, an intellectual feat that was considered to be impossible, in May 1747 at the age of 62. Bach had also extemporized a three-part fugue on a theme provided for him by the King, who was an accomplished flutist. The King's request had been that Bach "double the voices" in his improvisation, but Bach had declined for that moment, preferring to consider more deeply the implications of the "royal theme".
Bach then wrote, over the course of the two months(!) of May and June, a multi-faceted work, composed of canons, fugues, and a trio sonata, demonstrating the tools and approaches that were required to know how to achieve such a magnificent feat of invention. Bach believed, and demonstrated by composition, that his method of musical discovery was reproducible. His earlier Two and Three-Part "Inventions", composed for his son, were his "rules" for how to compose, including improvisation ("how to have good Inventions [ideas], and more, how to develop them".)
The work included "puzzle canons." Only part of the canon was written out. Clues were provided for how the reader could write out the missing voices. Was Bach bold enough to try and educate a King, by making him write out exercises? Would the working out of the exercises provide the King with an idea of how the seemingly impossible task of setting the King's Theme in 6 voices became possible?
The significance of the six-voiced fugue is that the six species of human voice: soprano, mezzo-soprano, and alto (female), and tenor, baritone, and bass (male) types of the human voice(or instruments that capture the registral qualities of those voice species), and their simultaneous interactions, through the science of counterpoint, provide the widest possible canvas upon which a composer can work. Improvising such a composition would demonstrate the highest freedom of thought that the mind might, in principle, attain.
The addition of each voice does not represent linear or additive growth, but exponential growth, that generates a "density of singularities." In this case dissonances, that when lawfully prepared and resolved sound, paradoxically, beautiful, rather than ugly.
Although we presented the “6-part Ricercar” on June 29, we give you a different version today, not only to directly compare to Mozart, but also so that you can directly hear and SEE that exponential growth. See where each instrument enters, and hear some semblance of its full power and glory with the entrance of the sixth voice at 1:55.
MOZART’S RESPONSE
The “Fantasy” is Mozart's reflection on Bach's compositional method as developed in the “Musical Offering”. He did not necessarily feel that it required composing a fugue. Bach's contrapuntal ideas could also work on a new modern level.
Here, we provide a scored version with Miksudo Uchida:
In the first two measures, we hear a question, a pause, and an answer. But is it an answer, or a question being answered by another question? (see rolling score.) Then, the same question, pause and answer is played slightly lower, in the third and fourth measures. A third time, the question is posed, but there is no pause this time. The composition continues, stating the question in various ways, including inversion, resolving, but only momentarily, in three separate, different "thematic" sections, climaxing in a “Piu Allegro” section reminiscent of the Bach’s “Prelude in C Minor” from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I and the reassertion of the now-transformed opening of the piece.
ABOUT THE METHOD
Mozart's dialogue with Bach, like many great works of art, such as “The Decameron”, “The Canterbury Tales”, and “Gargantua”, pose the same questions, but at ever deeper levels. The “King’s Theme”, or “royal theme” question that Bach has answered one way, is answered by Mozart in another, deeper way.
In the Fantasy, that "question" begins with the same five notes as the first measure of the "royal theme" (C, Eb, G, Ab, B ). But Mozart changes the Bach by adding two notes, making it a total of seven. One is an F#. Mozart, in doing so, has not merely introduced a new "tone"; he has introduced something sometimes called the Lydian, or Tritone interval. It divides the C octave exactly in half, and that interval—C-F#—is also divided in half at Eb. ( C-Eb is a minor third. Eb- F# an augmented second, the "enharmonic equivalent" of a minor third.)
In the opening measure of the Uchida recording, we hear those changes. Instead of Bach’s C Eb G Ab B, we have C Eb F# G Ab C B. Mozart has also added an extra C. What does that do? We discussed the mirror image half-tone motions of G-Ab and C-B in Bach. Here, they are made explicit. Both new tones are there for a reason.
A wise man once insisted that the addition of the F# was revolutionary in that it overturned formalist notions of keys and scales. If one looks at it in and of itself, in the opening phrase, it is hard to discern. What is needed is a physical notion of dimensionalities.
But what key are we in? Are we even in a key? The key signature for C Minor should be three flats. Look at the score! There is no key signature! No flats are indicated at all. Is Mozart perhaps operating in the continuous domain of the entire Well-Tempered system, generating particular keys from that domain, as he proceeds? The " key" is not the key! Imagine observing the earth from the Space Shuttle. You name the nations as they come into view, including your own beloved homeland. But, you are no longer viewing the planet as, say, an Oklahoman who never left the state. You're grasping the entire planet, as a member of the human race, and zeroing in on your home state from that higher standpoint.
The entire piece has an improvisational quality. In fact, strictly speaking, the piece is not in a "key", as one can see by looking at the beginning of the score— The key is created by Mozart, who treats "keys" not as pre-assigned fixed structures, but as regions, created for, and through investigation.
THE DESCENDING CHROMATIC SCALE
We heard how the five-note (C Eb G Ab B ) opening of the “Musical Offering” was altered into seven (C Eb F# G Ab C B ). Where did the descending chromatic scale of the “King’sTheme” go?
Here lies Mozart's genius. In the “King's Theme”, that descending chromatic scale was part of the theme, the melody. Mozart moves it into another dimensionality, an harmonic series that changes with each measure of the bass voice. C B Bb A in the first 4 measures. Do you hear it as a melody? Not at all! It governs harmonic change in the seven-tone melody. They are doubly-connected in physical terms. We hear one process—the changing seven-note theme, interacting with another—the more slowly changing half-steps of the bass. It is not simply a matter of being in two voices. Perhaps it could be compared to the chaos of observing just the passage of days, but measuring and stabilizing those days by the passage of months, or even years.
Such a descending bass line is known as a ground-bass. In every previous composition, it descended from the tonic to the fifth, then back up to the tonic, i.e: C B Bb A Ab G - C. (For example: Bach's Crucifixus from his B Minor Mass, or “Dido's Lament” by Purcell).
This bass line however, surprises us and continues on to Gb (F#), and rests there for a while. Now, the introduction of the dissonance F#, is functioning and interacting at two different levels. One takes place in the first bar; the other takes 15 measures to unfold. Both are measured against C.
Before continuing, let us ask the simple question: Why do people say classical music is relaxing? Is it not often energizing? It is! But, do you not get the feeling, that while you listen to the notes as they fly by, that there is also a slower harmonic process unfolding, that provides that calm?
At 2:37, F# takes on a third role. At first it functions as the fifth of B Minor, then changes its role to the third of D major. (Beethoven will take this idea and run with this in his Ninth Symphony.) We have now heard this tone, F#, function at three different levels. This may contradict reductionist and linear concepts of mind and thought, but please contemplate how your mind really works. The mind is subtle, it does not think merely at one level. When contemplating an idea, does your mind not play with it, at different levels?
We will stop here and return in the next installment for the rest of the C-Minor Fantasy’s innovations.
We provide here a non-scored, but perhaps more poetic rendition, by Mieczyslaw Horszowsk, from 1962.