verba docent

I believe that much of the way that we conceive of form in music is unconsciously influenced by sonata-allegro form, that ubiquitous ABA classical structure—balanced and harmonious—that is found in so many works from Mozart to Beethoven to Brahms to Prokofiev and Britten, and even in new compositions. In sonata form, the opening exposition and closing recapitulation balance one another by presenting essentially the same material. The central development section allows the composer to explore the musical possibilities inherent in the exposition’s themes. Because of the balance provided by the outer “columns” of the exposition and recapitulation, the composer can travel quite far afield and still maintain the unity of the movement.

Neoclassical architecture

This detail from the portico of Sydney Grammar School, whose doors led directly into the room where I performed dozens of Bach cantatas with the Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra, reminds us why “neoclassicism” is called just that: the architectural and musical forms of the late 18th century reflected the balance and equipoise of those classical Greek and Roman structures.

But…

Bach’s music was not neoclassical in design. I realize that’s a self-evident statement—after all, everyone reading this blog knows that he was a Baroque composer. But I go through this description of what Bach’s music was not so that we might begin to understand what he was.

Instead, I like to think of Bach’s music as being more like a seed growing into a plant, or like the growth of a nautilus shell, with each new shape reflecting the first. Not only does Bach seem to spin out entire movements organically from the germ of an idea; as a conductor responsible for making architectural sense out of a large work like the B Minor Mass, I also believe that he spins the entire work out of the germ of the first movement.

Bach's music in nature

In this way, each phrase reflects the shape of the initial cell, whether by imitation or contrast. These phrases add up to larger sections, which then in turn create the form of the movement, which itself is a reflection of each section.

Although my understanding of fractals is rudimentary at best, I think that Bach’s music is a lot like fractals, which Benoît Mandelbrot, who coined the term, described as “self-similarity”. He wrote in his 1982 book The Fractal Geometry of Nature that fractals are “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.” One of the quickest ways to imagine this is to think of the Russian dolls in which a tiny doll is inside a larger one, then a larger one, then a larger one, etc.

So what is our role in trying to understand the first movement of the B Minor Mass?

1. We need to understand what is contained in the first four bar “introduction” in order to understand the whole movement.

2. We need to understand what is contained in that whole Kyrie I movement in order to understand the whole Kyrie section—Kyrie eleison I, Christe eleison and Kyrie eleison II.

3. We need to understand what is contained in that whole Kyrie section in order to understand the entire Mass.

These are the questions we will need to pose—not only for the the first four bars, first movement and first large section, but for EVERY movement and section in the Mass in order to come to a bird’s eye view of the whole:

1. What are the core musical gestures in the “germ”—musical cell—that Bach presents at the very outset?

2. How does he generate the following material that is related to that original seed?

3. As those phrases accrete into a whole, what musical form emerges from the organic structure?  (This is not to say that Bach doesn’t begin by knowing what form he is going to use; rather, the listener should perceive that the form emerges organically from the initial cell.  Aesthetically, we might say that nature is still the determinant, and Bach is imitating nature’s expansive tendencies.  Sonata form, on the other hand, is a man-made structure into which the musical content is fit.  In landscape gardening terms, it is the difference between Capability Brown’s organically unfolding, wild-seeming vistas which imitate nature, and the highly cultivated, cultured gardens of Versailles.)

4. What are the theological themes that are highlighted by the combination of the generative musical material and the larger form that Bach uses to explore that material?

As I wrote in my previous post, I believe that this cast of mind reflects Bach’s just barely pre-Enlightenment mindset. In an age in which the great astronomer Kepler– himself a Lutheran like Bach– would write “God is the beginning and end of scientific research and striving”, the divisions between science, philosophy and theology had not yet calcified.  Instead, it seems that many great thinkers seem to have been looking for a single theory to unite everything. I can’t help but feel that in a sense, Bach’s incredibly generative style of composition falls into that tradition—the constant relating of the smallest part to the largest system.

In the neoclassical sonata form, the whole shape is determined by the exposition: no stool can remain standing if one of the legs is out of proportion. There is something settling, reassuring and rational about this, and perhaps this is part of Mozart’s great appeal. Whether you understand classical music or not, your body almost seems to sense from the beginning of that final recapitulation that you already know what is left in the movement. It’s like watching the “song progress bar” in iTunes—when you hit the recapitulation, you know how much time is left on the track.

Bach’s music isn’t like that. Each phrase unfolds organically from the initial cell; each large section in a movement unfolds organically from the accretion of phrases; each movement unfolds from the accretion of the sections.  Bach is the musical equivalent of the big bang theory.

Cosmic Bach

Or, to put it in terms that the pre-Enlightenment Lutheran Bach would understand, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1)

Or maybe you saw that coming.

Next time: the 1st four bars of the Kyrie– the seed of the B Minor Mass…