Series Concert I
Puzzles and Sources
Sunday, September 8
Program notes by Timothy Summers
Sunday, September 8
Program notes by Timothy Summers
J.S. Bach — Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007
Bach wrote six suites for cello alone. The first of these, with its modest étude-like demeanor, has become a kind of emblem of European musical heritage. Bach’s cello suites, like his Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, have a way of making a great deal out of a single element. Emblematic of this, and of a kind of algorithmic expansion which Bach seems to have both employed and enjoyed, is his signature below, written with a single note, to be read from four directions, in the form of a cross.
Bach wrote six suites for cello alone. The first of these, with its modest étude-like demeanor, has become a kind of emblem of European musical heritage. Bach’s cello suites, like his Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, have a way of making a great deal out of a single element. Emblematic of this, and of a kind of algorithmic expansion which Bach seems to have both employed and enjoyed, is his signature below, written with a single note, to be read from four directions, in the form of a cross.
Each of the six suites, BWV 1007-10012, comes in six movements. The fifth movement of each is divided into a pair of parallel dances:
Prelude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Minuets (Suite Nos. 1 and 2); Bourrées (Suite Nos. 3 and 4);
Gavottes (Suite Nos. 5 and 6)
Gigue
Their musical arguments are direct, graceful and grounded in the earthy bass of the cello. They explain themselves doubtlessly. Like many works of Bach, these suites were revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, for performance in romantic and post-romantic aesthetic contexts. Pablo Casals’ recordings from the 1930s brought these works to a broader public, and they have been staples of every classical cellist’s repertoire ever since.
Alfred Schnittke — Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich
The works of Bach went on to have strange echoes in the Cold War politics of the later 20th century, particularly in works of Dmitri Shostakovich. Like Bach, Shostakovich wrote preludes, fugues, canons and puzzles, and he used his own initials as a musical cipher. But his puzzles were not merely playful — they served as much for disguise and cryptography as for pure invention. Moreover, reflections and quotations of composers amongst Soviet composers’ works was partly a matter of political and professional protection — a kind of plausible deniability — as much as an attribution or signature.
Prelude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Minuets (Suite Nos. 1 and 2); Bourrées (Suite Nos. 3 and 4);
Gavottes (Suite Nos. 5 and 6)
Gigue
Their musical arguments are direct, graceful and grounded in the earthy bass of the cello. They explain themselves doubtlessly. Like many works of Bach, these suites were revived in the 19th and 20th centuries, for performance in romantic and post-romantic aesthetic contexts. Pablo Casals’ recordings from the 1930s brought these works to a broader public, and they have been staples of every classical cellist’s repertoire ever since.
Alfred Schnittke — Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich
The works of Bach went on to have strange echoes in the Cold War politics of the later 20th century, particularly in works of Dmitri Shostakovich. Like Bach, Shostakovich wrote preludes, fugues, canons and puzzles, and he used his own initials as a musical cipher. But his puzzles were not merely playful — they served as much for disguise and cryptography as for pure invention. Moreover, reflections and quotations of composers amongst Soviet composers’ works was partly a matter of political and professional protection — a kind of plausible deniability — as much as an attribution or signature.
Gravestone of Alfred Schnittke showing a fermata over a whole rest marked fff
by de:Benutzer:Wwwrathert, used under CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Above is Schnittke’s gravestone, with the cipher of a silenced person, or a person in silence. In his Prelude to Shostakovich there is a similar game: reference, absence, honor, and respect. One violin calls to the invisible other from a safe distance. Schnittke’s work, like his grave inscription, is a shrouded dialogue with the disappeared: both D-S-C-H and B-A-C-H live here, hidden in his own cryptic notes.
Sofia Gubaidulina — Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H
Soviet composers of the late 20th century, particularly those with interest in religion and spirituality, looked often to Bach as a model. Sofia Gubaidulina took inspiration both from his systematic compositional methods and from his religious devotion. She writes:
I am a religious Russian Orthodox person and I understand ‘religion’ in the literal meaning of the word, as ‘re-ligio’, that is to say the restoration of connections, the restoration of the ‘legato’ of life. There is no more serious task for music than this.
Sofia Gubaidulina — Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H
Soviet composers of the late 20th century, particularly those with interest in religion and spirituality, looked often to Bach as a model. Sofia Gubaidulina took inspiration both from his systematic compositional methods and from his religious devotion. She writes:
I am a religious Russian Orthodox person and I understand ‘religion’ in the literal meaning of the word, as ‘re-ligio’, that is to say the restoration of connections, the restoration of the ‘legato’ of life. There is no more serious task for music than this.
In her ‘Reflections on B-A-C-H’ she takes Bach’s own encoding of his name from Contrapunctus XVIII in the Art of Fugue. This is in itself a restoration of connections over time, taking what was, according to C.P.E. Bach, the last thing which J.S. Bach wrote — the musical cipher containing his initials — woven into a fugue. Gubaidulina has taken this theme and woven it to the perorations of her own musical thoughts.
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach: ‘At the point where the composer introduces the name BACH in the counte subject to this fugue, the composer died.’
J.S. Bach — Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, Selections
As it happens, the Contrapunctus XVIII was most certainly not the last thing that J.S. Bach wrote. The work is not finished, but its incompleteness has nothing to do with the death of its author. The inscription from C.P.E. Bach (which one hopes was written after the death of J.S. Bach) does provide a good story, but it doesn’t appear to be true.
In any case, the Art of Fugue is a completely extraordinary work, exploring the contrapuntal possibilities of a single theme as far as they might be taken. Its instrumentation is not specified. To play the whole thing at a sitting can be rather numbing; it is best taken in a few works at a time, so that the detailed treatment of the one theme does not become monotonous. Like many instrumental works of Bach, it is a study of music, not a theatrical narrative. Rather than give an analysis of each, we can refer to some visualizations from Steven Malinowski. They show the structures, voicings, and mirrorings more clearly than words:
As it happens, the Contrapunctus XVIII was most certainly not the last thing that J.S. Bach wrote. The work is not finished, but its incompleteness has nothing to do with the death of its author. The inscription from C.P.E. Bach (which one hopes was written after the death of J.S. Bach) does provide a good story, but it doesn’t appear to be true.
In any case, the Art of Fugue is a completely extraordinary work, exploring the contrapuntal possibilities of a single theme as far as they might be taken. Its instrumentation is not specified. To play the whole thing at a sitting can be rather numbing; it is best taken in a few works at a time, so that the detailed treatment of the one theme does not become monotonous. Like many instrumental works of Bach, it is a study of music, not a theatrical narrative. Rather than give an analysis of each, we can refer to some visualizations from Steven Malinowski. They show the structures, voicings, and mirrorings more clearly than words:
Dan Tepfer — Natural Machines
Pianist Dan Tepfer has taken a long look at the works of J.S. Bach, and has made beautiful experimentation in the digital realm, opening up ideas of invention, harmony, improvisation and notation itself. ‘Natural Machines’ shows a kind of perishable notation around improvisation.
Natural Machines is a project where I explore the intersection, in music, between natural and mechanical processes. I improvise at the piano, and programs I’ve written on my computer interact with me in real-time as I’m playing, both musically and visually.
For more information:
Pianist Dan Tepfer has taken a long look at the works of J.S. Bach, and has made beautiful experimentation in the digital realm, opening up ideas of invention, harmony, improvisation and notation itself. ‘Natural Machines’ shows a kind of perishable notation around improvisation.
Natural Machines is a project where I explore the intersection, in music, between natural and mechanical processes. I improvise at the piano, and programs I’ve written on my computer interact with me in real-time as I’m playing, both musically and visually.
For more information: