Bach Organ: 20th Century Reception
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Organ Music: Reception History of Popular Works

William L. Hoffman wrote (March 21, 2019):
As Bach's organ music became firmly established in 19th century reception history, various editions were published as well as transcriptions by various composers-performers, bringing Bach from the church to public concerts as well as into the music schools and before the general public. Foremost among his works were the free, concerted-style and virtuosic preludes and fugues, as well as the trio sonatas and individual works, transcribed for piano as well as orchestra, the latter bringing unfamiliar works to the public while showing a modern tonal palette. In the 20th century, these works were recorded, broadcast, and found their way into the mainstream culture in such varied contexts as film, literature, politics, and popular music. Usually bipartite, the preludes could be shaped as toccatas or fantasias and in some cases a middle slow (Adagio) movement was introduced before the closing fugue. Bach composed them in three periods: early in Arnstadt , before 1708; in Weimar before 1715, and in Leipzig after 1723. Such a wide and deep historical reception was given to Bach beyond any other composer, observes Russell Stinson in his study of the stylistic orientation and historical context of these masterpieces.¹ Surveyed are selective and representative popular organ works performed over the past almost three centuries while "its dramatis personae include such disparate musical figures as Mozart, Wagner, and the rock group Emerson. Lake and Palmer, to films such as The Godfather and Solaris, a Hermann Hesse poem, and "the appropriation of certain pieces by the Nazi party," Stinson says (Ibid.: x).

The 20th century brought forth first various noted organists playing a wider range of works inaugurating new pipe and theater organs. In the second quarter numerous composers set orchestral arrangements while films used a selective number as sound tracks. The most popular organist to play Bach was the celebrity Virgil Fox (1912-1980, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Fox), most notably for his "Heavy Organ" tours with light show from 1971-1978 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIPCx3Te-BA). Fox played the fast movements at "breakneck speed" in his programs, says Stinson (Ibid.: 109). The organ music is considered in the order in which it is catalogued (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organ_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach).

Six Trio Sonatas, BWV 525-530

The most distinguised works which eventually captured the imagination of musicians in the early 20th century are the Six Trio Sonatas, BWV 525-30 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_Sonatas_(Bach), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu94F7n-co0). Initially they were considered as transcriptions for pedagogical exercises. They are "perfect pieces that stand apart" from his other free works since Bach compiled them for performance, observes Nicholas Kenyon.² Each is consciously different in style and context" and while many movements derive from earlier compositions, they are "scrupulously reworked" in the late 1720s. Charles-Marie Widor began performing and teaching this collection, followed by his students: Marcel Dupré, Darius Milhaud, Alexander Schreiner, Edgard Varèse, and the Canadian Henri Gagnon. Albert Schweitzer also studied with Widor, mainly from 1899.

These trio sonatas, that Stinson (Ibid.) calls the "Gradus ad Parnassum for every organist," are Bach's most transcribed works for the greatest combination of instruments, beginning about 1750 for string instruments. Bach's son, Emanuel or Friedemann, arranged the collection for two harpsichords which Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1733-1803, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_van_Swieten), brought to Vienna from Berlin in 1777 and had performed, creating a new Bach circle. Three movements for string trio (violin, viola and cello) are attributed to Mozart, K. 404, in 1782 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2JHxWqVarc). The first complete edition was published in London in 1809-10 by Samuel Wesley and C. F. Horn for piano, three-hands and orchestral versions recently have been recorded (https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA66843).

Four Preludes (Toccata, Fantasy) and Fugues

Bach composed his preludes and fugues (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organ_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV531) for both organ recitals and services, with some for special joy or sorrow occasions, such as the "St. Anne," BWV 552, for the Trinity Festival and a Catechism service, together with the Clavier-Übung III Mass and Catechism chorales. In a number of his preludes and fugues, Bach wrote the opening prelude in the form of a toccata, fantasia, or passacaglia and in other works he added a central slow section to give it the form of a trio sonata. Other preludes and fugues may have been presented at funerals (BWV 544). "The free organ works could most certainly be performed within the liturgical service, either as preludes but more likely as postludes," says George Stauffer in a recent personal communication "They also served as recital pieces for Bach, his sons, and his students, and as study pieces as well. The very large chorale preludes, such as the settings of the 'Great Eighteen Collection,' were too large for liturgical performance aside from Communion music. They, too, were probably earmarked mainly for recitals and study."

The Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 532 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YC4oV-lamk, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_and_Fugue_in_D_major,_BWV_532), is "one of Bach's most effective and exciting early works," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 294). It is found in 17 manuscripts, many with the fugue only suggesting that it is better known and was composed separately, says Stinson (Ibid.: 111). By 1900 it had become popular that Vincent D'Indy called it "a battle horse for modern organists," while Schweitzer preferred to play the only prelude. In the movie The Godfather, the music is presented in the baptism scene juxtaposed with the killing of five mobsters. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/).

The Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 533 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNhlpn6r1zY), known as the "Cathedral" or "Nightwatchman," is an early work dating to c.1708, in Buxtehude style with melancholy in E minor. It is one of Bach's most frequently performed organ works, circulating throughout Germany in the 18th and early 19th centuries and beginning in 1858 "became very popular with French organists," says Stinson (Ibid.:114), as well as in piano transcriptions.

The Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_and_Fugue_in_F_major,_BWV_540, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_AhJXCi20) , is best known for its opening toccata prelude, "another brilliant exercise in musical excitement," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 298), It was first published in 1832 and was a favorite of Mendelssohn. Bresslau organist Adolph Friedrich Hesse (1809-1863, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Friedrich_Hesse) made it a central part of his repertory, notably at the inauguration of the organ at Saint-Eustache in 1844, a "watershed in the reception of Bach's oeuvre in France," says Stinson (Ibid.: 115). Later, Anton Bruckner in 1871 inaugurated the organ at London's Albert Hall with this music and then improvised on it and Brahms played this "heavenly barrel-organ toccata" in his piano recitals, as did Fox on tour in the 1970s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hdwn1xYles). Meanwhile, Emerson, Lake and Palmer used it as the introduction and accompaniment to their song, "The Only Way (Hymn)" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPVgKAmaghI).

The Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fantasia_and_Fugue_in_G_minor,_BWV_542, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg50ozbZcqM), "is one of Bach's best-loved works," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 297f), with Bach showing a "total confidence in the creation of large scale structures," dating to c.1725. It is found in 35 manuscripts, 27 containing only the "Great Fugue" with its brilliant pedal part, which were composed separately and not "paired until after Bach's death," says Stinson (Ibid.: 118). By 1812 it was standard fare in an instrumental transcription at the Berlin Singakademie and was published in 1829. It is a staple of the organ literature, is found in various arrangements (https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/search?Ntt=BWV+542+Bach), and is well-known in the Swingle Singers version (https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=BWV+542+arrangements#id=1&vid=9a5253de8b8d1b1df4ee8f16613bfe4b&action=click).

Six Great Preludes & Fugues, BWV 543-548

First compiled after 1750 by Bach student and theoretician Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-1783), the Six Great Preludes and Fugues, BWV 543-548 (https://www.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-23309_six_preludes_and_fugues_bwv_543-548.html), were part of the Vienna van Sweiten circle in the salon where Mozart heard "nothing but Handel and Bach" and Beethoven performed them at van Swieten's house. They were first published in 1812, arranged by Liszt for piano in 1842, and published nine times by 1852, says Stinson (Ibid.: 121). This music had a great impact on Richard Wagner, particularly the free ritornello forms as found in his later operas, especially the Prelude & Fugue in B minor, BWV 544). Wagner also knew Bach's organ chorales that influenced the closing quarrel scene at the end of Act 2 of Die Meistersinger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_XVtcnqhEw) and the Act 1 chorale, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HssAxEnK7RQ, https://ia802605.us.archive.org/32/items/DieMeistersingerActIPreludeOpeningChoruskrips/1-02ActI__daZuDirDerHeilandKam_.mp3).

The Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_and_Fugue_in_A_minor,_BWV_543, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001270), is one of Bach's earliest works in this form, opening with a toccata-like prelude in the stylus phantasticus North German style with the fugue in an integral series of sequences (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfnkz1cFp8g). Its final form dates to as late as 1730 while its early string instrument style "transfigures the clichés" "into a piece of accumulating power," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 299). More pianists have played this pieces than any other organ work by Bach," says Stinson (Ibid.: 128), with almost 30 varied piano arrangements, most notably Liszt's. Three of the 19th century organists who championed this work were Mendelssohn, English prodigy Elizabeth Stirling (1819-1895, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Stirling), and Camille Saint-Saëns.

The Leipzig Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544 (http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-544/), is a supreme, mature work in Bach autograph dating to 1727-31, says Kenyon in another publication.³ Later, it "was appropriated by two of the greatest pianists of the nineteenth century, Hans von Bülow (1830-1894, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Bülow) and Clara Schumann" (1819-1896, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Schumann) says Stinson (Ibid.: 129). Here is a narrative of a possible performance (http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-544/: "+About this work"): "There is a good chance that Bach played this impressive piece for the first time in St Paul’s Church in Leipzig. That is where, on 17 October 1727, the university held a memorial service for the recently departed Christiane Eberhardine der Starke, who was the Electress of Saxony and the Queen of Poland. For this occasion, Bach wrote ‘funeral music in Italian style’: the cantata Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl, BWV 198. During the ceremony, Bach played the organ himself. He opened with a prelude and ended with a fugue, and although nobody can prove it, it seems highly likely that it was this piece. It exudes the same atmosphere as the funeral music and is written in the same key of B minor. In those days, B minor was described as bizarre, listless and melancholy. And Bach used it more often for stately and mournful occasions, such as the aria ‘Erbarme dich’ from the St Matthew Passion, for example."

The Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 545 (http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-545/, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001270) is another early work that went through many stages to reach its mature form, says Kenyon (Ibid.: 297). Today, the prelude is used in Germany for weddings while in contrast the sober fugue was played at the 2009 funeral of famed anchorman Walter Cronkite. It was transcribed for orchestra by Arthur Honnegger https://www.classicalarchives.com/work/444965.html. The original version is lost and because of its varied moods and structure, as well as variant versions among Bach's students, the work in the18th century yielded "a whole maze of versions of this piece, with big and small differences," says "All of Bach" (Ibid.: +About this work). In addition several subsequent organists have added a slow middle movement to this concise piece lasting only six minutes.

The Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHSV_2VXCzY), was composed in Leipzig c.1723-29. "Whether or not the fugue was written at the same time of earlier" than the prelude, "it is a fine compliment," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 110). It has a wide-ranging, dense, repetitive, concerted profile that caused it to be arrangedfor orchestra by the Mendelssohn circle, the "earliest extant orchestration of any movement from this collections" of six preludes and fugues, says Stinson (Ibid.: 130f).

The Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 547 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXwZs6y3e90), is a mature work with a contrasting prelude having a light touch and a mature fugue, says Kenyon (Ibid.: 297). Spitta (II: 689) ranked it as "one of four stupendous [prelude and fugue] creations," along with BWV 544, 548, and 552. However, it "was not regularly played until fifty years ago," says Stinson (Ibid.: 131), because of its "perceived scholasticism within the fugue, which by any measure is one of Bach's most complex movements." Besides the B minor work, BWV 544, its "contrapuntal artifice" was exploited by Wagner in the Die Meistersinger prelude, which is "applied Bach" and the opera in general "a continuation of Bach," says Wagner as cited in Stinson (Ibid.). It is dated in copies by Bach to Leipzig, although it may date to Weimar. A more detailed commentary can be found at: https://www.allmusic.com/composition/prelude-and-fugue-for-organ-in-c-major-bwv-547-bc-j11-mc0002406113): Description.

The Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548, "Wedge" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_and_Fugue_in_E_minor,_BWV_548, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS20cvSWyIE), was written between 1727 and 1736 (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/mc0002403199: Description) and "is the longest [15 minutes] and most virtuosic of the Six Great," says Stinson (Ibid.: 132). Its name, "Wedge," "is named after its remarkable fugue subject which unfolds like a huge shark's jaw to engorge its countersubject" and "is developed in relatively old-fashioned sections" with a prelude that "is equally powerful," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 300). Piano transcriptions were championed by virtuosos von Bülow and Clara Schumann. It generated compositional borrowings, says Stinson (Ibid.), such as Mendelssohn's "Prelude in C Minor," Op. 37 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CsYxk5JUHo); Rheinberger's "Organ Sonata No. 1," Op. 27 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuaS0BGf7TY); and Middleschulte's pedal Perpetuum mobile (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKbtR6phE9Q).

Prelude & Fugue, "St. Anne."

The Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat, BWV 552, known as the "St. Anne" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavier-Übung_III#Prelude_and_fugue_BWV_552, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04cN0dbP5u4), was published in 1739 as part of the Clavier-Übung III German Organ Mass & Catechism, BWV 669–689. It introduces and closese these fundamental Lutheran chorales for the Trinity Festival and Saturday afternoon Catechism Services. Because of its complex, concerted prelude and triple fugue, both in three parts, it has been transcribed for orchestra, most notably Arnold Schoenberg's version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_R7M0vDLn8). "The opening prelude is overwhelming in its strength of purpose" and "the impetus of the whole thing is irresistible," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 315). The fugue begins with the theme "melodically identical to the first phrase of the Anglican hymn tune 'St. Anne'," says Stinson (Ibid.: 135). The three fugal sections begin gradually in old style and moving to lively triple time with cascading music at the end — the perfection of the prelude and fugue form. The prelude melody inspired the second thematic group in Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachmusik (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb_jQBgzU-I), observes Stinson (Ibid.: 133f), as well as his Fantasy in F minor, K. 608 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLX6ivGfuVU). The work "was greatly favored by English organists of the early nineteenth century," he says, particularly the resemblance of the fugue theme to the Anglican hymn. Later in the century, the Germans and Dutch took up the music, followed by the French, notably Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911), who introduced his version to America at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.

The Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata,_Adagio_and_Fugue_in_C_major,_BWV_564, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNZ1AEuJ3lM) is an early work dating to Weimar (1710-1717) and surviving only in copies. It shares some similarities with other toccatas composed around the same time, such as BWV 538, BWV 540, and others: all show the influence of concerto style and form, says Richard D. P. Jones.⁴ "One senses Bach striving towards a more harmonically varied palette," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 295). It became associated with various prominent organists near the turn of the 20th century, says Stinson (Ibid.: 136ff): Charles Ives, Hubert Parry, Anton Bruckner, Guilmant. Arrangements include Pablo Casals in 1927 for cello and piano (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtnxtGIso3g), and Busoni's for piano, played by Vladimir Horowitz in 1965 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFLg1Fe_5RI). In popular culture, "The Adagio is played during a satanic ritual scene in the 1934 Karloff/Lugosi film The Black Cat." The new millennium has produced two new organ versions: Enjott Schneider's toccata Ataccot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0bN5mYLXb0) and Cameron Carpenter's Revolutionary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG-Mc48uKO0), a remix on the historical evolution of various transcriptions.

The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_and_Fugue_in_D_minor,_BWV_565, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGKfqSJbeAg) is the iconic Bach work whose origins are clouded with the first copy in the hand of Johannes Ringk (1717-1778, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Ringk), and first published by Mendelssohn in 1833. Scholars are divided about its status as a Bach work, since it shows violin passages and has been transcribed as such (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_tu63ypB6I). "Peter Williams’ views notwithstanding, there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the Toccata in D Minor," says George Stauffer in a recent, personal communication. "It has all the earmarks of an early Bach work, including a great deal of imagination and ingenuity that would have been beyond other composers. The best discussion of this is found in Christoph Wolff’s biography [Bach, the Learned Musician], p. 72 (analysis) and music examples 3.1-3.7 in the back of the book. "No other piece of organ music has been so exploited by the mass-media for its 'scary' sound," says Stinson (Ibid.: 138ff). These range from Walt Disney's animated Fantasia in 1940 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcB-6L_b9Hk), to horror films such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Fredric March)and The Raven (Bella Legosi), as well as the character Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (played by James Mason, later Herbert Lom) and Vincent Price as Dr. Phibes and The King Singers' "Deconstructing Johann" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDMUraUAAY4). The German poet Hermann Hesse in 1935 published the music-inspired poem, "Zu einer Toccata von Bach."⁵

The Fantasy in G Major (Pièce d'Orgue), BWV 572 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_in_G_major,_BWV_572, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukx-u-Q6Hes) is a concise, unique three-part work composed in the second decade of the 18th century, with a revised version a decade later in the 1720s. It is an appealing work with French markings, "Tres vitement" (Very quickly) opening molto perpetuo in the opening, "Gravement" (Seriously) expansive five-part counterpoint middle section, and the closing "Lentement" (Slowly). "This is surely the kind of music Bach must have regularly improvised, gloriously capture for posterity," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 294). In form it is a miniature "Toccata and Fugue in D minor," BWV 565 with a toccata, a contrapuntal middle section, and a closing coda. It has a checkered reception history in which various "receptors" (composers) have transcribed the sections from a highly personal perspective, says Stinson (Ibid: 141ff). The most notorious version was by Herbert Haag (alias Franz Joseph Philipp, 1890-1972, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Philipp), who played the "Fantasy in G" at Hitler Youth festivals in the 1930s, says Stinson (Ibid.: 142ff).

The Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passacaglia_and_Fugue_in_C_minor,_BWV_582, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S2pm1g70DI)⁶ ranks with the "Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565," as the most popular works of Bach, says Stinson (Ibid.: 145ff). Beyond the organ community and the 33 piano arrangements, are the popular orchestral transcriptions of Heinrich Esser (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/OT-Esser.htm), Stokowski (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Sbk3E8-ws), and Ottorino Respighi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXwHORPeOsg). The version of Esser (1818-1872, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Esser-Heinrich.htm) was popular in the concert halls from 1855 through the early 20th century, including "comparative" performances with the organ version, succeeded by Stokowski (1922), in his first large-scale Bach orchestration. Arturo Toscanini in 1929 commissioned Respighi's version, best known as the music to Roland Petit'a 1946 ballet Le jeune homme et la Mort, as danced by Mikhail Baryshnikov in the 1985 film White Nights. This music — as "an unequivocal masterwork and the most important set of variations above an ostinato ever written," says Stinson (Ibid.: 147) — has influenced more composers and arrangers than the "Toccata."

Two Chorales: "Ich ruf zu dir," "Herzlich tut mich verlangen"

While Bach's free organ settings of various works have been widely transcribed or orchestrated, the simplicity of the chorale melodies lends themselves to some adaptations beyond the enormous popularity of two selections from cantatas: "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," the chorale "Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne" (Jesus, delight of my soul, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale023-Eng3.htm), from Cantata 147, and "Sleepers Awake," "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" (Wake up, the voice calls us), from Cantata 140, which Bach also set as a trio in one of the six Schübler Chorales, BWV 645 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAXNtHdQB08). The other five aria chorale settings are based on lesser-known hymns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schübler_Chorales) and the best-known other chorale orchestrations are mostly from concise chorale settings of the Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), BWV 599–644, and the Miscellaneous Chorales, BWV 690-765 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organ_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach).

The Weimar Orgelbüchlein communion hymn "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" (I call to you, Lord Jesus Christ), BWV 639 (http://organplayingwiki.byu.edu/index.php/Ich_ruf%27_zu_dir,_Herr_Jesu_Christ_(BWV_639), http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-639/) is a very appealing three-voice texture, possibly transcribed from a trio aria. It is Bach's most famous chorale setting and in its simplicity is the first "that any organist learns," says Stinson (Ibid.: 147ff). It has "more transcriptions and adaptations than any other organ work," save the "Toccata & Fugue" in D minor." Its "unearthly expressiveness" "is so infinitely touching," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 313). Its appeal was recognized by Emanuel in BWV Anh. 73 https://www.classicalarchives.com/work/95111.html) and subsequently by Mendelssohn, with Busoni's piano setting the best known (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhTR-eMpTXU). The best-known orchestral transcription is Stokowski's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgLGk62kwuA). There were various applications in the 20th century: Aaron Copland used it as a case study in polyphony in his book, What to Listen for in Music; its first film use was in Dr. Jekyll ands Mr. Hyde in 1931; and it is found in Andrei Tarkovsky's sci-fi film Solaris in 1972 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apvgFZCSeQY).

The Passion Chorale, "Herzlich tut mich verlangen" (I do desire dearly), BWV 727 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzlich_tut_mich_verlangen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l9yY8cX0_c), in its various guises has been very popular through the ages, especially following the Mendelssohn revival of the St. Matthew Passion in 1729. Surprising, it was the late 19th century French organ school that championed Bach's Miscellaneous Chorale setting: Théodore Dubois in 1878, followed by Charles-Marie Widor and his pupils Schweitzer and Louis Verne. In the 20th century, English composers took up transcriptions, says Stinson (Ibid.: 151f), most notably William Walton's setting in his Bach tribute, Friedrich Ashton's 1940 ballet, The Wise Virgins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wise_Virgins, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWqaHmr8X1o: 2:49). The other eight Walton Bach transcriptions include chorale settings of "Sleepers Awake" and "What God does that is well-done."

The most orchestral transcriptions of Bach chorales and sacred songs are found among the 41 instrumental and vocal works of Bach arranged by Stokowski (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/OT-Stokowski.htm). The nine songs are: "Jesus Christ, God's Son," from Easter Cantata 4, "Christ lays in death'sbondage"; the sacred songs "Come sweetest death," BWV 478, and "My Jesus, what with soul-pain," BWV 487; and the organ chorale preludes: "Now come the heathen's saviour," BWV 599; "I call to you," BWV 639; "Sleepers' awake," BWV 645; "We all believe in one God," BWV 680; "Christ lies in death's bondage," BWV 718; and "A mighty fortress is our God," BWV 745. Other chorale transcriptions (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2001/Jan01/Bach_Transcriptions.htm) include: Schoenberg's 1929 "Come God, Creator, Holy Spirit," BWV 631, and "Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele," BWV 654; Vittorio Gui's 1943 "O Mensch, bewein' dein' Sünde gross," BWV 622, and "In dir ist Freude," BWV 615; Otto Klemperer's 1935 "Bist du bei mir," BWV 508 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmDf7ehQ-Bc); Charles O'Connell's 1940 "Herzliebster Jesu," from the St. Matthew Passion; and Respighi's "Meine Seele erhebt den Herren," BWV 648.

FOOTNOTES

¹ Stinson, Chapter 7, "Aspects of Reception From Bach's Day to the Present," in J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012: 108ff); orchestral transcriptions, see "Bach's Greatest Fugues" (https://www.musicstack.com/item/445975290).
² Nicholas Kenyon, Free Organ Works, Bach: The Music, BACH: The Faber Pocket Guide to Bach (London: Faber & Faber, 2011: 302).
³ Nicholas Kenyon, Free Organ Works, Bach: The Music, Bach 333, The New Complete Edition (Berlin: Deutsche Grammaphon, 2018: 109; 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: 160).
⁵ Hesse, "Zu einer Toccata von Bach," text and English translation (Google), https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=de&tl=en&text=https%3A%2F%2Flyricstranslate.com%2Fen%2Fhermann-hesse-zu-einer-toccata-von-bach-lyrics.html%0A%0AZu%20einer%20Toccata%20von%20Bach%0A%0AUrschweigen%20starrt%20...%20Es%20waltet%20Finsternis%20.
⁶ Further commentary is found at BCW Organ Music: Today's Perspectives, Traditions, "Current Bach Scholarship,"

20th Century Organ Music: Recordings, Instruments

William L. Hoffman wrote (March 23, 2019):
The 20th century reception history of Bach centers on two unique, interrelated events: the recognition of Bach as the foundation of the classical music repertoire and the technological audio revolution enabling music to be reproduced and accessible to everyone. This phenomenal union is explored in Paul Elie's recent (2012), encyclopedic, exacting book, Reinventing Bach, "the story of how one composer precipitated two revolutions in music and technology."¹ The focus is on four historic Bach performers — Albert Schweitzer, Pablo Casals, Leopold Stokowski, and Glenn Gould — (two traditionalists and two iconoclasts) and their pioneering recordings from the 1920s to the 1950s. The first four chapters also intersperse selective Bach biographical accounts from birth to Leipzig while the last three chapters offer a potpourri of performers' materials on a wide range of subjects and Bach anecdotes.

The audio revolution began in 1905 with the invention of the Victor Talking Machine (Victrola) of acoustic cylinders and discs displaying the voice of Italian tenor Enrique Caruso. The major breakthrough came in 1925, utilizing the invention of the recording microphone and the amplifying vacuum tube with the era of electric disc recordings. This was followed by the development of the long-playing record in the late 1940s and in the 1950s the perfection of high-fidelity sound and stereophonic recordings, as well as reel-to-reel home tape recording machines.

Stokowski (1882-1977), began recording in 1917 with the Philadelphia Orchestra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Stokowski: "Recordings") and in the 1920s started his Bach transcriptions, primarily from organ works which Stokowski had learned as an organist early in his career (see Discography, http://stokowski.tripod.com/disco/lsdiscs.htm).²

One of Stokowski's notable collaborations was with the composer-conductor Jose Serebrier ( http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Serebrier-Jose.htm), with Stokowski's transcriptions and orchestrations (https://www.stokowski.org/Leopold_Stokowski_Transcriptions.htm), especially Bach (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Serebrier.htm).

In the mid 1930s Schweitzer (1875-1965, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Schweitzer-Bach.htm) began recording Bach's organ works in London for the Columbia label (https://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=10092482&style=music, ), for a documentary in 1952 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbU3preF97o) and in 1956 for the Philips label (http://www.fampeople.com/cat-albert-schweitzer_3). "It was the great humanist and theologian Albert Schweitzer who had set in motion the so-called Orgelbewegung (organ movement), championing historical instruments and the idea that the organ is ideally suited to performing Bach's polyphony," says Nicholas Kenyon in his Bach 333 music commentary.³ Schweitzer had studied with Charles-Marie Widor, leader of the French Bach Revival, which "had done much to keep Bach's organ music alive in the nineteenth century," says Kenyon, and was a friend of Widor's student Marcel Dupre (1886-1971, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Dupre-Marcel.htm), who did select transcriptions of Bach (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/OT-Dupre.htm) and prepared a performing edition of Bach, Oeuvres Completes pour Orgue de J.S.Bach (https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/oeuvres-pour-orgue/author/bach/), and various Bach recordings (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/OT-Dupre-Rec-Organ.htm). Dupre's students included Jean Guillou, Pierre Cochereau, Olivier Messiaen, Jean-Jacques Grünenwald and Marie-Claire Alain.

Later, Alain (1926-2013, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Alain-Marie-Claire.htm) turned to the Schweitzer Orgelbewegung tradition when she recorded Bach's complete organ music in 1959 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Alain.htm#Organ), second only to Grünenwald (1911-1982, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Grunenwald-Jean-Jacques.htm), beginning in 1957 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Grunenwald-JJ.htm). They were followed with sets commencing by Helmut Walcha (1907-1991) in 1959, Robert Kraft and Lionel Rogg 1961, and Walter Chapius in 1966. Previously, Walcha had produced a 10-volume survey of major works complete in 1952 (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Walcha.htm#Organ1, beginning an "authentic" Bach organ revival. This "revival" "was as much about the instrument as the player," observes Kenyon (Ibid.: 215). Blind from the age of 16 and playing from memory, Walcha (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Walcha-Helmut.htm) "was undoubtedly the father of modern organ playing," says Kenyon.

The neo-classical revival of organ building in the 1950s-1970s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_reform_movement)

"introduced a new generation of all-purpose, equal-temperament instruments suitable for Bach," influenced by Schweitzer's Orgelbewegung. "The movement ultimately went beyond the "Neo-Baroque" copying of old instruments to endorse a new philosophy of organ building, 'more Neo than Baroque'," says Wikipedia. "Concert organist E. Power Biggs [1906—1977, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Power_Biggs), was a "leading popularizer of the movement in the United States, through his many recordings and radio broadcasts." The movement arose in opposition to the excesses of symphonic organ building, and eventually symphonic organs regained popularity after the reform movement brought excesses of its own." The best new makers — Marcussen, Matzler, Flentrop, and Frobenius — "provided many of the instruments familiar to audiences today," says Kenyon. Prominent players recording complete cycles on these instruments, says Kenyon, include Wolfgang Rübsam (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Rubsam-Wolfgang.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Rubsam.htm#OrganNaxos), Peter Hurford (1930-2019, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Hurford-Peter.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Hurford.htm#Organ) and Kevin Bowyer (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Bowyer-Kevin.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Bowyer.htm#Organ). They recorded on neo-classical instruments while Ton Koopman (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Koopman-Ton.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Koopman.htm#Organ) and Simon Preston (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Preston-Simon.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Preston.htm#Organ) "recorded on both historical and neo-classical instruments equally comfortably," says Kenyon (Ibid.: 216).

"E. Power Bigs was both a prolific performer and advocate for the classical pipe organ and repertory. Among other instruments, Biggs championed G. Donald Harrison's Baroque-style unenclosed, unencased instrument with 24 stops and electric action (produced by Aeolian-Skinner in 1937 and installed in Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the three-manual Flentrop tracker organ subsequently installed there in 1958," says Wikipedia. "Many of his CBS radio broadcasts and Columbia recordings were made in the museum. Another remarkable instrument used by Biggs was the John Challis pedal harpsichord; Biggs made recordings of the music of J.S. Bach and Scott Joplin on this instrument." Biggs recorded extensively in the organ repertory on both organ and clavier (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Power_Biggs: "Selected Discography"). "Today, eclecticism has returned to organ building," says Kenyon (Ibid.), with Flentrop building new instruments while restoring and maintaining historic organs. Instruments in Bach's Thuringia region "are now eminently recordable, notably Bernard Foccroulle (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/Foccroulle-Quest.htm), Gerhardt Weinberger (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Weinberger-Gerhard.htm, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Weinberger.htm#Organ), and Christian Schmitt (http://dornmusic.com/portfolio/christian-schmitt/, the last recording a range of organ works, like Biggs. "At the same time a tendency for over-articulated and metronomic Bach playing has given way to a freer, more nuanced approach felt to be more in keeping with what we know to be Bach's own playing style," Kenyon concludes.

Following the initial recordings of the "complete" Bach organ music in the 1950s and 1960s (see above), various organists have contributed to the growing list of 73, some with multiple versions or sets still in progress. Beginning in the 1970s was Karol Gołębiowski, André Isoir, Werner Jacob, Wolfgang Stockmeier (who recorded all the BWV organ numbers), and Hans Vollenweider. In the 1980s came Alessio Corti, Hans Fagius, Jean Guillou, Christopher Herrick, Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, David Sanger, and Dennis Schmidt. In the 1990s were Luc Antonini, Aleš Bárta, Bram Beekman, Winfried Bönig, Matthias Eisenberg, Bernard Lagacé, Olivier Latry, Joan Lippincott, Jacques van Oortmerssen, Michael Radulescu (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Radulescu-M-Profile.htm), George Ritchie, Hartmut Rohmeyer, Ernst-Erich Stender, Hans Helmut Tillmanns, Knud Vad, and Olivier Vernet. In the 2000s came Jacques Amade, Kay Johannsen, James Kibbie, Kei Koito, Tomasz Adam Nowak, Margaret Phillips, Helga Schauerte, and John Scott Whiteley (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Whiteley-JS-Profile.htm). In the current decade of the 2010s are Pieter van Dijk, David Goode, Marie-Ange Leurent & Éric Lebrun, Stefano Molardi (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Molardi-S-Profile.htm), and Enrico Viccardi. Often complete sets in progress have recorded the established free and chorale works but not necessarily pieces classified as BWV Anh. (Anhang, Appendix) or BWV deest (unassigned), mostly chorale-based works, and may be awaiting a determination in the new Bach Werke Verzeichnis BWV 3 due for publication soon.

FOOTNOTES

¹ Paul Elie, Reinventing Bach, (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012; https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/books/reinventing-bach-by-paul-elie.html, https://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/questions-for-paul-elie-author-of-reinventing-bach/: jacket notes).
² Leopold Stokowski discography, Edward Johnson, "Stokowski's Recorded Repertoire, in Oliver Daniel, Stokowski: A Counterpoint of View (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1982: 993ff).
³ Nicholas Kenyon, "Performing Traditions: Keyboard Traditions" in Bach 333: The Music (Berlin: Deutsche Grammophon, 2018: 215f; https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8469462--bach-333-the-new-complete-edition).

—————

To Come: B-A-C-H motif among composers through history with new ventures today,and new Bach 333 articles of Kenyon's Bach Interactive, Bach After Bach and Performing Traditions and Paul Mosely's Bach a la Jazz and Colours of Bach.

Claudio Di Veroli wrote (March 24, 2019):
[To William L. Hoffman] A very interesting article indeed, thanks!

Bach & Beyond: B-A-C-H Motif, Jazz, Contemporary Settings

William L. Hoffman wrote (April, 2019):
The 20th century brought forth not only an explosion of technology with recordings of Bach's music but also a plethora of new transcriptions and arrangements of his music. These often focused on keyboard works, some found in the traditional Bach motif B-A-C-H but and also the keyboard preludes and fugues in many new guises, most notably the fusion of jazz and Bach with many profound, shared characteristics, but also the "New Colours of Bach," as described by Paul Moseley in Bach 333, Bach: The Music. ¹ In recent years, noted performers, composers, arrangers, and technicians have developed new settings and original works.

"No composer in history has so frequently inspired and been interpreted by practitioners of another musical genre as Bach by the masters of jazz," says Moseley (Ibid.: 206). "What does Bach's music have to do with jazz," he asks. While the aesthetics and audiences are different, both are high art forms "characterized by a driving rhythmic force, strong changes in mood and tempo, and much use of sequential progression," he says. Both favor small forces and a trio voicing of melody on keyboard resembling the jazz rhythm section and low string instrument (cello or bass). Another common element is improvisation or the working out of motifs. The strongest element is counterpoint involving "independent part-writing, voice-leading, and the creative resolution of dissonance," says Moseley (Ibid.: 207). "Only Bach wrote so many 'walking bass' lines suitable for jazz musicians to 'swing'."

"Outside of jazz, today's homages to Bach come in three main categories," says Moseley in a separate Bach 333: The Music article, "New Colours of Bach" (Ibid.: 208f). First are transcriptions on instruments either not used or not known by Bach, or "instruments transformed beyond recognition since his time"; second, "a fashion for the reworking of pieces in today's tonal style" or environment called "post-minimalist"; and third, the pop-style called "remix." These might be labeled simply "new guises" or "old wine in new bottles" that is "a potpourri or assortment."

B-A-C-H Motif as Transcription

The first and most extensive transcription phenomenon is the B-A-C-H motif originated by Sebastian Bach and first described by his cousin Johann Gottfried Walther in his Musicalisches Lexicon (1732), while the "Prelude and Fugue in B- flat Major on the name BACH," BWV 898, has Bach's authorship doubtful, possibly by Johann Christian Kittel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GY5J8iiGUc: SHOW MORE). The composer himself used it in one of the fugue subjects of the final (unfinished) contrapunctus in his Art of Fugue,² BWV 1080, (see: Ex. 2, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/L-BACH.htm).

Central to Bach arrangements is the "BACH" four-note musical motiv (B-flat, A, C, B-natural) which Bach exploited, followed particularly by various composers in the first Bach Revival, beginning in the 19th century, and continuing unabated today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BACH_motif, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/L-BACH.htm). "Bach used the motif in a number of works, most famously as a fugue subject in the last Contrapunctus of The Art of Fugue, says Wikipedia. The motif also appears in the end of the fourth variation of Bach's Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her," as well as in other pieces. For example, the first measure of the Sinfonia in F minor, BWV 795, includes a transposed version of the motif (a♭'-g'-b♭'-a') followed by the original in measure 17.

Later commentators wrote: "The figure occurs so often in Bach's bass lines that it cannot have been accidental." Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht³ goes as far as to reconstruct Bach's putative intentions as an expression of Lutheran thought, imagining Bach to be saying, "I am identified with the tonic and it is my desire to reach it ... Like you I am human. I am in need of salvation; I am certain in the hope of salvation, and have been saved by grace," through his use of the motif rather than a standard changing tone figure (B♭-A-C-B) in the double discant clausula in the fourth fugue of The Art of Fugue.

The motif was used as a fugue subject by Bach's son Johann Christian, and by pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs. However, the motif's wide popularity came only after the start of the Bach Revival in the first half of the 19th century. Later composers found that the motif could be easily incorporated not only into the advanced harmonic writing of the 19th century, but also into the totally chromatic idiom of the Second Viennese School; so it was used by Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and their disciples and followers. In the 20th century, numerous contemporary composers continued writing works using the motif, frequently in homage to Johann Sebastian Bach. The most comprehensive BACH motif list is also on the BCW in 3 parts: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/L-BACH.htm. At the same time, numerous transcriptions for orchestra are found (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/L-Orchestra.htm), as well as various instruments in new listings (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/index.htm).

Bach a la Jazz

Keyboard fugal and canonic works of Bach have had particular appeal to jazz musicians, especially the "Well-Tempered Clavier" (WTC) as well as the straightforward simplicity of melody and rhythmic accompaniment of such popular pieces as "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," and the "Air on a G String," from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G Major," BWV 1068. One of the best known realizations is the Jacques Loussier Trio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14AhD3xdoMk).

One of the earliest known jazz interpretations of Bach is the 1937 "Swing Improvisation of the First Movement of the Concerto in D Minor by J.S. Bach" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99j23w3VqKw), featuring violinists African-American Eddie South and Frenchman Stéphane Grappelli, and guitarist Django Reinhardt. "Whatever it is, this is a classic example of a blend of diverse musical genres that just sounds right," says Moseley. Many of the jazz musicians most inspired by Bach were classically-trained pianists such as Hazel Scott, "Two-Part Invention in A Minor," BWV 784 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOIEx7EvSNg); organist Rhoda Scott, "Come Bach to Me" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjtL4MRkBdY); Nine Simone, "Love Me or Leave Me";⁴ George Shearing, "Get Off My Bach" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3jhxTIdGcs); and Oscar Peterson: Bach Suite: Andante" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-NnQS59_g).

The "C Minor Prelude and Fugue," BWV 847, from the 48 WTC shows various ways jazz musicians drew on Bach: Claude Boling, "Bach to Swing" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgfm9ELUjb0), and Jacques Loussier Trio, "Play Bach No. 1"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgR6zIUG6e0). Another work is the "Air on a G String" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8ORz7Qkyy0)or the Modern Jazz Quartet/Swingle Singers version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d-G3FrttKs), with the synthesis of Bach and jazz found in the Modern Jazz Quartet.

The Swingle Singers and John Lewis, MJQ founder, also recorded the "Ricercar a 6" from the Musical Offering, BWV 1079 (https://open.spotify.com/track/7vGpHbLPZUyUMicFTipN0g), while Lewis recorded the entire "48" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22yLbGU3obA) in a fusion.

More varied collaborations dominated in the mid-1960s," says Moseley (Ibid.: 208). These included leading arrangers: Bill Evans Trio in the Sicilienne (Valse) from BWV 1031 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4_zMrPdyfc); Lalo Schifrin, "The Blues for Johann Sebastian" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYPIdg_CYeA); and Stan Getz' "Back to Bach" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKrQlCI2_w). Other noted arrangements include: Alex Templeton, "Bach Goes to Town" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7YK43KUWk); Ramsey Lewis Trio, "Bach to the Blues," "Sleepers Awake," BWV 645 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgWQvdOE5tM: 11:46); and Swingle Singers "Preambulum," Partita No. 5 in G, BWV 829 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVQ4v9rpE78).

In the late 1960s, another recording phenomenon was Wendy Carlos, using a Moog synthesizer for "Switched-on Bach" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-On_Bach), which had emerged from experimental music to being a mainstay in popular music. It has yielded a plethora of imitations and arrangements, https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=switched+on+bach+youtube#id=1&vid=da9d6c7047e821ff32a336318fdaef06&action=view.

New Colours of Bach

Beyond the tradition of Bach transcriptions and arrangements that have grown over the centuries — the normal practice of Bach and his contemporaries — has been the recent technologically-driven expansion of the musical frontiers and their discovery of new methods of responding to Bach's music. While some are content to describe these explorations as "fusion" of different styles, particularly the mid-20th century progressive jazz movement that embraced Bach's music, recent decades have brought a multiplicity of approaches to Bach's influence on contemporary musical expression. Subsequently came such varied performers as Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Whiter_Shade_of_Pale, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oG8faoL-Zk); the Beatles classics, "Penny Lane," "All you Need is Love," and "Blackbird" (https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/beatles-blog/was-blackbird-inspired-by-j-s-bachs-bourree-in-e-minor-bwv-996); and the work of Wendy Carlos' "Switched-on Bach."

Seemingly-straightforward transcriptions by highly-talented musicians playing special instruments bring a new sound perspective to Bach while the original music has been faithfully reproduced. Examples include Richard Galliano on accordion (http://www.richardgalliano.com/it/discografia/bach/) playing the "Contrapunctus 1" from Art of Fugue (https://open.spotify.com/track/0oY0s9YS9WqH5CA47ZiUhP), trumpeter Ulf Håkan Hardenberger playing the organ chorale prelude, "Harzlich tut," BWV 727 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__N6BxHRUx4); and Anne-Sophie Mutter "Air" https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=anne-sophie+mutter+air+youtube+song#id=1&vid=eca49ab1464972bdb34c908f7cb39287&action=click.

In the area of post-minimalist approaches are Elena Kats-Chernin, "Re-invention No.1" for recorder (after J. S. Bach, Invention No.8 in F major, BWV 779; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImFYHydOrhE). The pop-style "remix" is exemplified in Francesco Tristano's "Toccata" from Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88782K9RX1k), and Ulrich Schmauss' iconic "Ave Maria," the "Prelude & Fugue in C," BWV 543, a Moog-inspired remix of András Schiff (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYtPWAzgoa8). Most intriguing is violinist Lara St. John's (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/St-John-Lara.htm) contemporary soundscape, "Re-Bach," of fusion transcriptions from instrumental and vocal works in a great variety of musical styles, using the violin as a launching pad and sounding board. Most impressive is "Recit" (https://www.christianbook.com/lara-st-john/re-bach/pd/DL132389-CP: 8. Recit.), which is the bass arioso, "Siehe" from Advent Cantata 61 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bcYhZeYjLc).

Various all-Bach recordings by noted performers have introduced varied orchestrations and instrumental adaptations, as well as transcriptions of Bach's works into contemporary liturgical and spiritual formats. While early Bach reception in the 19th century adapted many keyboard works to various alternative genre and orchestrations, 20th century technology inaugurated an exploration of applications for other instrumental media as well and adaptations from vocal to instrumental formats ands vice-versa. Foremost was the great classical guitarist Andre Segovia (1893-1987, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Segovia-Andres.htm), who dominated the 20th century, first making his instrument a legitimate and intimate medium for serious music as well as a vehicle for understanding and accepting a wide range of classical music as well as a popular learning medium which surpassed in some quarters the pianoforte.

Segovia began in the 1920s with "his great task of editing a large quantity of guitar music for publication, including his own transcriptions and new works by his contemporaries," says the Bach Cantata Website. "Segovia was particularly enthusiastic about editing and performing music by J. S. Bach, especially when he discovered H. O. Bruger's edition (1921) of the lute works." In the 1930s, "the next generation of Bach interpreters were making records of Breakthrough clarity and intimacy [on electrical recordings], in which you could hear the sound world narrowing down on the individual through improved technology," says Paul Elie.⁵ Segovia "was rehabilitating the guitar the way [Pablo] Casals had done the cello and his transcriptions of work for lutes and violins [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Segovia.htm are prim, icy things." Bach's music for lute is a small but distinct repertory that overlaps with keyboard music and functions both as solo studies, sometimes in transcriptions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_9) as well as in obbligato and continuo scoring, such as the larger vocal works in both arias and choruses, most notably in all three original Passions (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Ref/BWV995-1000-Ref.htm). In addition, besides keyboard works, many of Bach solo instrumental works have been transcribed for guitar, such as Paul Galbraith with the Sonatas & Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV 1001-1006 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mspAjNnvy18).

In 1935, Segovia "premiered his own monumental transcription of J. S. Bach's "Chaconne" from the Violin Partita in D minor, BWV 1004 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cG_gps1BGo]. After that the guitar would never be quite the same again: critics of the instrument were confounded as the instrument attained unprecedented levels of brilliance." Another breakthrough was in 1954 when he commissioned compatriot Joaquin Rodrigo to compose the "Fantasía para un Gentilhombre" for guitar and orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNeuwbsnqsM), which is steeped in the classical and guitar tradition of the improvisatory fantasia that Bach brought to perfection.⁶ A whole generation of guitarists would follow in the 1950s, notably John Williams (https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Four-Suites-Great-Performances/dp/B000F6YW0S) and Julian Bream (http://www.julianbreamguitar.com/a-bach-recital-for-the-guitar.html), then Christopher Parkening (https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-bach-celebration-mw0000155071) and now Sharon Isbin (https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Guitar-Inspiration-Sharon-Isbin/dp/B00PJCFPGS). Of special interest is the Romero family, founded in 1960s, notably Pepe (https://www.allmusic.com/album/bach-sor-guitar-music-mw0001858871) and Angel (https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Romero-Plays-Bach/dp/B000003CY0).

Three recent all-Bach recordings provide new transcription perspectives of masterpieces, points out Moseley (Ibid.: 209).

The Goldberg Variations that Glenn Gould and Gustav Leonhardt brought to the public through recordings in the 1950s resurfaced as instrumental transcriptions a half century later for chamber orchestra by Dmitry Sitkovetsky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je8brwUWOew), the Canadian Brass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVf5uETLkUQ), and the recent Rinaldo Allesandrini's fast and free interpretation of the variations (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/05/bach-alessandrini-variations-on-variations-review-concerto-italiano, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvIMfLwwi5k, complete https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knt283cKRD4). A different perspective is found in pianist Víkingur Ólafsson's transcription with cello (Peter Gregson) and synthesizer of the miniature keyboard "Prelude," BWV 855a, called "Above And Below, B Minor" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENE1JxkkLn8). Gregson's "Cello Suites Recomposed," of the Six Sonatas for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007-1112, involves an arrangement for five cellos playing the various implied and actual harmonic voices (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIKm4TKR1l8).

Guitarist Christopher Parkening was one of the first Bach instrumental soloists, for the Bach Tercentenary in 1985, to adapt ensemble cantata aria movements for instrumental solo and ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UemM_ZMPYmM) with arrangements such as "J.S. Bach: Withstand Firmly"), with the aria "Wederstehe doch der Sunde" (https://tidal.com/browse/track/1326719), opening Cantata 54, which Ólafsson transcribed for piano (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tfqPstSOl4) from the original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iKFi2DH-sA). Even more spectacular is the Empire Brass recording of festival vocal music mostly from cantatas, "A Bach Festival for Brass & Organ" (https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Festival-Brass-Organ/dp/B000002RO7). Many of these arrangements, while preserving the original music intact, show that Bach music written for certain instruments is just as affective, idiomatically, transcribed for others because it comes originally from the heart of the composer. A reversal of this, in which vocalists sing instrumental music, was the Swingle Singers versions of familiar pieces.

New Bach Arrangements, Composers' Tributes

For the 250th anniversary of Bach death in 2000 several arrangers compiled new studies of Bach's music. Two recordings showing how Bach keyboard music could be adapted with fixed text for the Latin Liturgy of the Te Deum and the Requiem. Another, called "Morimur," reveals in Bach's "Chaconne" a deeply spiritual tribute with embedded chorales of sorrow for his first wife, Maria Barbara. A contemporary Passion pasticcio oratorio and biographical tribute was created by the composer Mauricio Kagel, Sankt-Bach-Passion. Johannes Fabrucus has taken arias, recitatives and choruses from mostly secular works to created with new texts a pasticcio cantata-opera, "Silvia," with plot. Most of these works are listed in the BCW "Arrangements & Transcriptions of Bach's Works," http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Arran/L-Vocal.htm.

For the Te Deum, Maurice Bourbon (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Bourbon.htm) assembled a full, 12-verse setting of Luther's German Te Deum, the hymn Herr Gott, dich Loben wir (Lord God, we all praise you, http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale113-Eng3.htm) and ancient melody (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/CM/Das-Tedeum.htm). The source is copy of the five-voice Miscellaneous Chorale prelude, BWV 725, by Nikolaus Forkel, Bach's first biographer, which includes the incipit for each verse, suggesting a chorus added to the organ part, while Bach also composed a four-part harmonization, BWV 328 (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/INS/BWV328-00.htm) in Emmanuel's collection. It is assumed that Forkel made a copy from Bach's autograph in the possession of Friedemann, which is lost. Sebastian also composed chorus Cantata 16 with the same incipit for New Year's 1726 as well as a chorale Cantata 130, "Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir," for the Feast of St. Micin 1724. The full Te Deum setting also includes 11 other matching, appropriate chorale harmonizations and organ settings (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Dec01/Bach_TeDeum.htm. A possible model for Bach could have been the 1731 Te Deum of Jan-Dismas Zelenka, Saxon Court Dresden capellmeister (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwI5nPDwp1M).

The full Requiem after J. S. Bach by Joseph James is based primarily on the Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, as well as other keyboard works, Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother in B flat Major, BWV 992, and 3-Part Inventions, with a four-part full Latin-text overlay. The choice of certain keyboard works is based upon their form (preludes and fugues) as well as being min the minor key and having striking harmonic progressions. Further commentary on the recording is found at http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Joseph_James/Requiem_After_J_S_Bach/7968/. Luther rejected the Latin Requiem Mass as a Protestant liturgical function: "For vigils and requiem masses and yearly celebrations of requiems are useless, and are merely the devil's annual fair." Many were tied to intercessions and indulgences for the dead. Luther had a positive perspective: "Nor do we sing any dirges or doleful songs over our dead and at the grave, but comforting hymns of the forgiveness of sins, of rest, sleep, life, and of the resurrection of departed Christians so that our faith may be strengthened and the people be moved to true devotion."⁷ These are found variously near the beginning and end of the Lutheran hymnal omnes tempore (Ordinary Time) section in Bach's day under the rubrics "Penitence & Amendment" (Confession, Penitence & Justification), "In time of trouble" (Christian Life & Conduct) (Praise & Thanks) (Cross, Persecution & Challenge), Judgment; Death and the Grave (/Dying, Death & Eternity), "Death & Dying" (Patience & Serenity), "Morning & Evening Hymns," and "The life eternal (Justification Catechism)."

|"Morimur" uses Bach's "Chaconne" as the centerpiece of a musical montage that seeks to realize the theory of spiritual connections between the death of Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara in 1720 and his subsequent compilation of the Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006, interspersing three church sonatas and three dance-laden partitas. The extended "Chaconne" somber dance movement closing Partita No. 2 in D minor has inaudible chorale quotations and was composed as a"tombeau," an epitaph in music, according to Hilga Thoene, German musicologist and violin pedagogue. Thoene identified the quotations as being the Easter hymn "Christ lag in Todesbanden," "Jesu meine Freude," and other works alluding to death and resurrection. At the same time, it and its companion piece, the Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003, which also has inaudible chorale quotations, were the centerpieces of the self-contained collection in which the "Passion Sonata" represented the second of the major Christian feast days of Easter and its associated Passion. Baroque violinist Christopher Poppin plays the entire Partita interspersed with plain chorale quotations then the Hilliard vocal ensemble sings eight chorale followed by the "Chaconne" with chorale overlays. Poppin chose the title "Morimur"

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gMEsstD0H0), which means "we die," as part of the Trinitarian formula, "Ex Deo nascimur, In Christo morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus." (From God we are born, in Christ we die, by the Holy Spirit we live again).

Kagel's Sankt-Bach-Passion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankt-Bach-Passion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xLkTU7JWA), was composed for the 1985 Bach Tercentenary, uses the model of Bach's Passions but follows Bach's biography instead of a Gospel account with original music. His text is based on original documents such as Bach letters and biographical sources as well as texts of chorales and cantatas. It incorporates Lutheran chorales with original narrative in recitatives, arias and choruses, and uses the B-A-C-H conventional motif. "In 2002, Paul Griffiths compared recordings of four Passions modeled after Bach's works, commissioned for another Bach-Year in 2000 by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart: Osvaldo Golijov's Pasión Según San Marcos, Sofia Gubaidulina's St. John Passion, Wolfgang Rihm's Deus Passus, and Tan Dun's Water Passion After St. Matthew," says Wikipedia. He called Kagel's work "the most intelligent attempt hitherto at a new Passion – and, indeed, the most moving", because Kagel "changed the game by making Bach himself the suffering protagonist."

Fabricus' "Silvia" is a an opera seria with a libretto inspired by Shakespeare, whose music is a compilation of Bach cantatas, musically mounted and connected by original recitatives http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Haraldson.htm.

FOOTNOTES

¹ Paul Moseley, "Bach a la Jazz" and "The New Colors of Bach," Bach 333, Bach: The Music (Berlin: Deutsche Grammophon, 2018: 215f; https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8469462--bach-333-the-new-complete-edition).
² Bach Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, Contrapunctus No. 19, https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=BWV+1080+NO.+19+YouTube+scrolling#id=1&vid=a3df522783b40e7584cc3cfaec203a1a&action=click
³ Eggebrecht, cited in Cumming, Naomi (2001), The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification, p.256; cited in http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVD/Organ-Music-Trans1.htm.
⁴ Nine Simone, "Love Me or Leave Me," (https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=Nina+Simone+Love+Me#id=1&vid=c0dbe478caa3dc7dfdd4dccef5761a6e&action=click
⁵ Paul Elie, Reinventing Bach, (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012; https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/books/reinventing-bach-by-paul-elie.html, https://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/questions-for-paul-elie-author-of-reinventing-bach/: 92f).
⁶ I had the privilege of seeing Segovia perform about 1960 at Lisner Auditorium, George Washington University, Washington D. C., in recital, playing Bach and Spanish composers. He performed for two hours before a mesmerized audience of 2000 and no one made a sound!
⁷ Source: A Lutheran Requiem? - Nancy Raabe, www.nancyraabe.com/images/A_Lutheran_Requiem_03.ppt.

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To Come: Keyboard (Clavier) Music

Julian Mincham wrote (April, 2019):
[To William L. Hoffman] A welcome account of some of the ways in which Bach has influenced successive performers and composers. It is something of a happy irony that a short piece appeared in a British paper this morning headed 'Bach in fashion---with the millennials'. It claims that there has been a general increase of streaming of classicmusic of late (270% increase of Deezer's playlist) with under 35s accounting for 43% of these listeners. The data showed that interest in Bach's music has particularly surged.

Will mentions in his article both Bill Evans and the Modern Jazz Quartet. The latter is suffused with Bach's influence both structurally and stylistically. Its leader, John Lewis was extremely knowledgeable about and appreciative of the Bach repertoire. As to Bill Evans, I read some years ago that as a young man he spent around 4 years playing little else but Bach. Apparently he was a very fluent sight reader and he traversed pretty much the whole keyboard repertoire. Added to the stylistic influences, I believe he claimed that playing Bach's counterpoint gave him the digital dexterity that jazz requires which does not come from the practice of traditional scales and arpeggios.

From personal point of view, if i ever want to make the case that Bach was, to a degree the first jazz composer, I play them the courante from the partita in E minor. The syncopated rhythms set above the typical Bach 'walking bass line' are quite mind boggling. (unfortunately the effect is often ruined by classical pianists who take it too fast)