Bach Keyboard Music
Introduction: Repertory, Development, Reception

Keyboard Music Intro.: Repertory, Development, Reception

William L. Hoffman wrote (April 12, 2019):
As the leading keyboard performer during his formative years, Bach also was the leading composer of numerous works for the keyboard, including the clavichord and harpsichord, as well as works appropriate for both instruments as well as the organ. The Bach Works Catalogue lists the keyboard (non-organ pedal) works as BWV 772-994 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/index.htm#Keyboard),¹ the third largest of 225 pieces after vocal music, BWV 1-524, and organ music, BWV 525-771. In addition, works for solo lute, playable on the keyboard, follow as BWV 995-1006a (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_9), as well as Other Keyboard and Lute Compositions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_keyboard_and_lute_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#Other_keyboard_and_lute_compositions), involving Canons (BWV 1072-1078), Late Contrapuntal Works (BWV 1079-80), and Spurious and doubtful works in Anna Magdalena's Notebooks (BWV Anh. 113–132).

"Bach was a prodigious talent at the keyboard, well known during his lifetime for both his technical and improvisational abilities," says the 1754 Nekrology (Obituary) cited in Wikipedia. "Many of Bach's keyboard works started out as improvisations. Bach wrote widely for the harpsichord, producing numerous inventions, suites, fugues, partitas, overtures, as well as keyboard arrangements of concerto music by his contemporaries. The fortepiano is an instrument Bach would have encountered once, by the end of his life when it was recently invented, while visiting his son in Potsdam. The visit resulted in Das Musikalische Opfer, parts of which may have been intended for the new instrument."

"There are many contemporary accounts of Bach’s great keyboard abilities," says the essay, "JS Bach Keyboard Works" (http://www.early-music.com/js-bach-keyboard-works/). "Two are especially eloquent: his obituary written by his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel and his student, J. F. Agricola, and his first biography, published by Johann Nikolaus Forkel in 1802. These accounts give us some idea of the brilliance of his playing. His obituary says proudly, 'We cannot be reproached if we are bold enough to persist in the claim that our Bach was the most prodigious organist and keyboard player that there has ever been'."

Keyboard Repertory

From his earliest period, the foundation of Bach's keyboard works — including those for organ — were the preludes and fugues, both separately as preludes or fugues and together, as well as binary short (Well-Tempered Clavier) and long pieces. In addition are trio and sonata compositions, concertos, and improvisational toccatas and fantasias, and variation studies. In the separate, distinctively keyboard media are the two-part inventions and three-part sinfonias, BWV 772-801 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYukikOyC8Q) as well as collections of dance-style movements of the English Suites (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBULK00aK9Q), French Suites (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6BvUbVFMxU), and Miscellaneous Suites, Partitas, and suite movements (BWV 806-845). These dance-style works are distinctive as non-church, chamber compositions in contrast to the chorale-based church organ works which comprise about 200 of the 300 possible organ compositions. In the keyboard category, BWV 772-994, the authenticity of most of the works is accepted, unlike various student copies of chorales attributed to Bach.

In contrast to his organ works, the keyboard music (two-staves without pedal) often was gathered in printed collections that Bach published as four Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice) studies: CU Part 1 (Partitas, BWV 825-830, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb_m61NqehI), CU Part 2 (Overture, BWV 831, in French style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCawA6r9biQ, and Concerto, BWV 971, in Italian Style, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb6UH0ex4_g), CU Part 3 (Four Canonic Duets, BWV 802-805, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_9vEjeqgbg), and CU Part 4 (Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w72ZcLFDs6M), while the Goldberg Canons, BWV 1087, survive in autograph (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ts7sq). Separately-published were the Late Contrapuntal works, BWV 1079, The Musical Offering (Musikalisches Opfer), BWV 1079 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcTVkOzrzQs), some pieces intended for fortepiano, and the Art of Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge), BWV 1080 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOlQzoULv4E) some pieces indicated as being for a two-manual harpsichord.

Also in Leipzig Bach completed and assembled the six English and French Suites in manuscript as well as the 48 short preludes and fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846-893 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1osi_pQcUdM), exemplary pieces widely circulated after Bach's death. Bach also composed miscellaneous, independent, longer keyboard pieces (preludes and fugues, toccatas and fantasias), BWV 894-923), as he also had done with similar organ works throughout his career. Other distinctive, individual keyboard pieces are the Aria variata alla maniera italiana, BWV 989 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpgCkQXmz8g); and the Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo (Capriccio on the departure of the Beloved Brother), BWV 992 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnYNjhkBNiw); and the Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge in D minor, BWV 903 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFn_zVOlDAo)

Keyboard Music Sources, Applications

Keyboard pieces "seem to have flowed from Bach's hands in substantial numbers throughout his career," says David Schulenberg in his exemplary study of this musical genre.² Here Bach composed primarily for the harpsichord, "an instrument with which Bach must have been engaged throughout his life with the same intensity as the organ, if not more so," he says. The earliest, mostly original sources for both types of works for keyboard and organ are found in the materials copied by Johann Christoph Bach of Ohrdruf (1671-1721, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Christoph_Bach_(organist_at_Ohrdruf)), Bach's older brother and teacher, in the Andreas Bach Book and the Möller Manuscript. This source "strengthens the attributions to Bach made in these two collections, and enables better understanding of his earliest keyboard style," says Nicholas Kenyon,³ citing Richard D. P. Jones' study of Bach's formative years as a composer.⁴

Also surviving are copies of organ and keyboard music by Weimar cousin Johann Gottfried Walther and other members of the Bach Circle such as Johann Peter Kellner and the Memprell-Preller collection. The keyboard music "must havbeen composed largely for private practice and study," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 4f), in contrast Bach's church recitals and organ tests throughout his career. Bach did have occasion to present his keyboard pieces "before small audiences in less formal situations" in recitals as well as before aristocratic gatherings in Weimar and Cöthen, the latter being his formative years of keyboard composition. Besides the published collections cited above, the autographs of the other collections compiled in Leipzig "are generally fair copies or revision scores, not first drafts, making it difficult to establish when works were originally composed," says Schulenberg. The earlier works in copies of the later Bach Circle are preserved but undatable and "have lead to disputes over the authenticity of certain pieces," he says.⁵

Given the supplanting of the harpsichord by the pianoforte about 1800 and its subsequent great popularity and ubiquity, changing performance conventions and the principles of historic performance practice and interpretation have raised considerable debate about authenticity, observes Schulenberg (Ibid.: Chapter 2, "Some Performance Questions: Authenticity": 9). Aspects of performance practice such as sonority, rhythm, and ornamentation "are as much a part of the musical fabric as the written notes," he says. Debate also continues concerning what type of keyboard instrument on which the particular music was played since Bach rarely designated such and often instruments were transferable, depending on the availability and venue. The genre of dance suites based on French models, so paramount in Bach's keyboard music, suggests they were meant for harpsichord, he says (Ibid.: 11), while certain passages in the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Art of Fugue contain idiomatic harpsichord writing. "The harpsichord is a suitable medium for the keyboard pieces — not necessarily the optimal or the intended one" while the clavichord and piano "remain possibilities," and the organ also in certain works, says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 12).

Meanwhile, Bach exploited the harpsichord beyond its application as a solo keyboard or obbligato instrument into the arena of concerted accompaniment in all manner of musical ensembles and instrumental combinations. Solo keyboard music dominated his publications as Bach increasingly explored various aspects of musical forms and techniques involving counterpoint, nationalistic styles, and pedagogic applications. The "less glamorous art of basso continuo accompaniment is equally crucial" to performance practice, suggests Schulenberg in a separate baroque keyboard essay.⁶ It became even more significant as the common practice period of the baroque transitioned into the classical era with the galant style, providing "novel problems for continuo players, especially in late works of Bach that combine counterpoint and chromatic harmony with the elements of galant manner," replacing the "older, more polyphonic or 'full-voiced' style," he says. As the Berlin Court keyboardist, Emmanuel had great opportunity to explore the singing, sentimental style while using varied keyboard accompaniment and application such as in his Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord, Wq 47 (https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=C.P.+E.+Bach+harpsichord+piano+concerto#id=1&vid=5838ee14aa30dcef792bebb9e79e47be&action=click).

Of particular interest in the use of keyboard instruments in obligato roles is the initial, coincidental use of the organ in vocal compositions of Handel and Bach in 1707/8, the former in Rome and the latter in Mühlhausen, says John Butt in his essay on the genealogy of the keyboard concerto.⁷ Handel in the spring of 1707 in his first oratorio, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, uses in the instrumental sonata (No. 19) the organ as a solo with strings and oboe, followed by another obbligato role in the ensuing Pleasure aria, observes Butt. A year later, on Easter Sunday, Handel's second oratorio, La Resurrezione, also used the harpsichord as part of a massive ensemble of more than 40 instruments. Earlier, on 4 February 1708, Bach premiered his Town Council Cantata 71, "Gott is mein König," with a solo part for organ (no 2), Ich bin nun achtzig Jahr (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKAMnyl80Ho: SHOW MORE, 2:00). In both cases the young composers had an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities as keyboard performers. Bach later in Cöthen exploited the use of the keyboard as both an accompaniment and an obbligato instrument, for example, in the "Sonata in E Major for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RluDzSDTJZo), and later used the keyboard organ obbligato in choruses and arias in his cantatas for the third cycle in the summer of 1726.

In order to demonstrate his abilities to teach music as part of the duties of cantor in Leipzig, Bach had available in early 1723 three exemplary practical textbooks of keyboard music "inventions" which he then applied with his students at the Thomas School, observes Christoph Wolff in an essay:⁸ the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1; the Aufrichtige Anleitung (Upright Instruction) book, and the Orgel-Büchlein (Little Organ Book). These served both as learning instruments to play the keyboard as well as to "acquire a foretaste of composition," cited by Wolff. The pedagogic use of keyboard compositions is best demonstrated by the account of Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber's studies with Bach, 1724-26 in which he began with Bach's Inventions, followed by the French and English Suites, and then the Well-Tempered Clavier (cited in The New Bach Reader: 322, No. 315, BD III: 950).

Keyboard Music Development

Bach was able in his keyboard works to assimilate various national influences from current and earlier German, French, and Italian traditions, Schulenberg points out in his study of Bach's keyboard music (Ibid.; Chapter 3, "Bach's Style and Its Development in the Keyboard Works": 20f). Meanwhile, Bach was able to mix styles (Stile misto) such as the in the French-style dances of the English Suites where five of the six opening prelude movements are in concerted Italian style. Much earlier, Bach was able to experience the amalgam of styles at the Hamburg Opera which he probably visited in 1705-06 when he also experienced the pan-national influences in Buxtehude's expansive Abendmusiken hybrid oratorios at Lübeck.

A survey of Bach's keyboard works gives an idea of the development of Bach's styles. While no surviving music can securely date their composition, the early keyboard works with their exploration of dance styles, fugal forms, and improvisatory elements are the best indicator of Bach's compositional development. This also involves Bach earliest parallel organ compositions where the distinctive, idiomatic chorales without pedal parts such as the chorale partita variations, another stylistic mix, also were appropriate for clavichord or harpsichord. The suites, also called "partitas" or "overtures," are the least complex although not necessarily the earliest compositions. They often mirror the suites of his older contemporaries such as Pachelbel, Reinken, and Böhm, while even these Bach works show idiomatic distinctions between keyboard instruments not found among his elders. Meanwhile, the early sonatas, toccata, preludes and fugues, and like early keyboard works "are all close to the German organ tradition" also espoused by these composers.

An early transitional element difficult to date precisely is the "composition by variation" in the three-phase binary form of works such as the "Praeludium et Partita," BWV 833, primitive suite with Praeludium, Courante, Sarabande plus Double, and Air (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2Mxshn5ZE), The development of fugal works with rigorous contrapuntal technique using unembellished part-writing in some self-contained sections progressively introduced more advanced fugal devices such as inversion, stretto, and augmentation, thus "in most genres was one of the principal accomplishments in Bach's Weimar years," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 25f). The improvisational toccatas "represent a point well on the way toward somewhat more mature works" of the later Weimar years, as well as large preludes and fugues. The most important development in Weimar was "probably the assimilation of the Venetian concerto style into Bach's works in other genres," including the 16 keyboard solo concertos and trios for harpsichord, BWV 972-987 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk5If1LQVmk. Concurrently, Bach also composed these genres for organ (see "Organ Music: Transcriptions, Part 1, Sebastian's Concertos, Trios, Sonatas, etc.; http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Trans1.htm).

These early keyboard pieces were not complete sets while Bach's English Suites may have been composed by the time he left Weimar in 1717 and were revised and organized into a collection in Cöthen, in connection with "the pedagogic needs of his own growing family," says Schulenberg (Ibid.: 26f). The family notebooks were begun in Cöthen for Friedemann (Clavier-Büchlein) and the first two Anna Magdalena books. These sources contain the earliest copies of the Inventions and Sinfonias (part-writing), some of the French Suites (dances), and movements from the Well-Tempered Clavier (preludes and fugues). The French suites laid the groundwork for the development in Leipzig of the Partitas, appearing between 1726 and 1731 when all six were published as the Part 1 of the Clavier-Übung as Bach ventured into the galant direct appeal to popular taste. The binary-form dance movements grow longer, "in some cases becoming indistinguishable in proportions and styles from sonata movements," with the same process evident in the 48 Well-Tempered Clavier, completed in 1740 when Bach also composed "a flurry of contrapuntally-oriented keyboard works of the Clavier-Übung III, Goldberg Variations and early version of the Art of Fugue.

The collections of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, the Inventions and Sinfonias "have their origins in Cöthen or possibly earlier, and were revised and polished around the time the Bach family moved to Leipzig in 1723," says Ruth Tatlow in her recent study of Bach numerology.⁹ The Clavier-Übung Parts 1 and 2 "were born, revised and published amidst the intensity of Bach's first twelve years in Leipzig," she says. Later, the Clavier-Übung Parts 3 and 4 were published in 1739 and 1741, respectively.

Keyboard Works, Reception History

The 48 preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier was the primary keyboard work to be circulated and performed after Bach's death in 1750 and later acknowledged as masterpieces that rank with the piano works of Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy, says Victor Lederer in his listener's guide.¹⁰ Bach's keyboard music steadily gained in popularity during the 19th century among pianists, fostered initially by publications of his keyboard works as well as the English Bach Awakening and the exemplary efforts of Felix Mendelssohn (see BCML "Bach Organ: 19th Century "Revival," Publications, Mendelssohn," and "19th Century Bach: Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Franck, Brahms," http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Revival-19.htm). In the second quarter of the 19th century, interest in Bach coalesced from varied perspectives such as leading pianists including Bach on their recital programs, the German musical press with periodicals extolling the virtues of Bach's keyboard music, the emergency of the piano in homes and printed music in the "modern mass media model" of editor to consumer, observes Matthew Dirst in his study of Bach keyboard reception history.¹¹

The pioneering harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (1879-1959, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Landowska), brought Bach's intimate and profound music before the public, performed on authentic baroque instruments early in the 20th century. She recorded the Goldberg Variations in 1933, setting the stage for their popularity with the wave of high-fidelity recordings in the 1950s, initiated by Gustav Leonhardt (http://bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Leonhardt-Bach.htm) and Glenn Gould. Landowska recorded many of Bach's keyboard works as well as accompanying Yehudi Menuhin in the Violin Sonatas (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Landowska.htm). By the time of her death in 1959, "the harpsichord had become an integral part of musical life, thanks to her untiring advocacy and the advocacy of influential pupils such as Ralph Kirkpatrick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Kirkpatrick) and Rafael Puyana" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Puyana), says Olaf Joksch (https://www.allmusic.com/album/bach-the-landowska-recordings-box-set-mw0001943830). Other harpsichord pioneers, says Kenyon, included Thurston Dart, George Malcolm, Leonhardt, and Kenneth Gilbert, followed by Blandine Verlet, Trevor Pinnock, and Ton Koopman, and most recently by Rinaldo Alessandrini, Pierre Hantaï, and Andreas Staier. Noted pianists playing Bach include Myra Hess, Wilhelm Kemp, and Rosalyn Tureck as well as Sviatoslav Richter, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Paul Badura-Skoda and Friedrich Goulda.

Landowska and company initiated the 20th century Bach Revival, producing affects, both positive and negative. With the period instrument revival "was a belief that the only suitable instrument for Bach's music was the harpsichord, and that the piano should be excluded," says Nicholas Kenyon in his study on Bach's music and recordings. "The extreme polarity has fortunately been overcome as we move into an era when all manner of different sonorities are acceptable," he says. Meanwhile, the past century has seen the achievement of the early harpsichordists and their successors playing a range of instruments and styles while exploring and enriching the repertoire. At the same time that pianists have taken Bach under wing, playing "the rich repertory of romantic transcriptions," infusing Bach's music with the jazz tradition, notably Keith Jarrett, and overall stimulating new perspectives. In the 1950s, the growth of long-playing recordings opened a vast reservoir of recordings, the New Bach Edition began a new round of scholarship, the early music movement brought a wealth of repertory rarely explored before, and a renaissance of Bach works to be played on the piano.

The first essay of 23 box sets into the complete keyboard works using various instruments (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Keyboard-Complete.htm) was initiated in the early 1950s by Danish-American, German-trained pianist Gunnar Johansen (1906-1991, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Johansen-Gunnar.htm), on 43-long playing Artist Direct records (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Johansen-Gunnar.htm). There followed harpsichordist Isolde Ahlgrimm, Ralph Kirkpartick on clavichord, pianist Glenn Gould, Helmut Walcha on the harpsichord, and harpsichordist Martin Galling. Later collections were compiled by harpsichordists Zuzana Růžičková, Huguette Dreyfus, Christiane Jaccottet, Masaaki Suzuki, Peter Watchorn, Christophe Rousset, aBenjamin Alard, as well as pianists João Carlos Martins, András Schiff, Wolfgang Rübsam, Angela Hewitt, Ivo Janssen, and Pietro Soraci. Three "complete" editions with various performers were released about 2000 on the recording labels Teldec, Brilliant Classics, and Hänssler.

The modern piano has supplanted the organ as the preferred keyboard instrument for Bach's music, given its availability and pedagogic application, says David Yearsley in his essay on Bach's keyboard music.¹² "The piano is the basic keyboard resource for Bach's music, particularly among home pianists "drawn to Bach over the years," he says, citing Joseph Kerman's study of Bach's fugues.¹³ "Much is still to be learned about patterns of dissemination and the intricate web of stylistic relationships from which Bach's music emerged," says Yearsley (Ibid.: 310).

FOOTNOTES

¹ See also: "Works for Keyboard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_keyboard_and_lute_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#Works_for_keyboard_(BWV_772–994; http://www.jsbach.net/catalog/03000000000.html); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach: No. 8, Keyboard Compositions.
² David Schulenberg, "Bach's Keyboard Music: An Introduction," "The Repertory," in The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach (New York: Schimer, 1992: 3); https://www.amazon.com/Keyboard-Music-J-S-Bach/dp/0415974003: Look inside.
³ Nicholas Kenyon, "Keyboard Traditions," Bach 333, Bach: The Music (Berlin: Deutsche Grammophon, 2018: 241ff; https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8469462--bach-333-the-new-complete-edition).
⁴ Richard D. P. Jones, The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vol. 1: 1695-1717, "Music to Delight the Spirit (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press: 141).
⁵ For an accounting of copies and transmission of organ and keyboard music, see BCML Discussion, "Organ Music: Today's Perspectives, Traditions, Discussions," (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Today.htm), and "Bach Family Organ Music, Student Compositions Misattributed," (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Family.htm).
⁶ David Schulenberg, Chapter 9, "'Toward the most elegant taste': developments in keyboard accompaniments from J. S. to C. P. E. Bach," in The Keyboard in Baroque Europe, ed. Christopher Hogwood (Cambridge University Press, 2003, 157), Festschrift for Gustav Leonhardt.
⁷ John Butt, Chapter 5, "Towards a genealogy of the keyboard concerto," in The Keyboard in Baroque Europe (Ibid.: 93).
⁸ Christoph Wolff, "Apropos Bach the teacher and practical philosopher," in The Keyboard in Barque Europe (Ibid.: 133ff).
⁹ Ruth Tatlow, Chapter 6, "Four in two collections for keyboard," and Chapter 7, "Two further collections for keyboard," in Bach's Numbers: Compositional Proportion and Significance (Cambridge University Press, 2015: 159ff).
¹⁰ Victor Lederer, Bach's Keyboard Music: A Listener's Guide, Unlocking the Masters (New York: Amadeus Press, 2010); https://www.worldcat.org/title/bachs-keyboard-music/oclc/437299408/viewport).
¹¹ Matthew Dirst, Chapter 6, "Bach for whom? Modes of interpretation and performance, 1820-1850," in Engaging Bach: The Keyboard Legacy from Marpurg to Mendelssohn (Cambridge University Press, 2012: 143f).
¹² David Yearsley, "Keyboard Music," in in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London & New York: Routledge, 2017: 297)
¹³ Joseph Kerman, The Art of Fugue: Bach's Fugues for Keyboard, 1715-1750 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005, xvii).