Honours for the compositional oeuvre by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the “enfant terrible” among Bach’s sons, always were scarce compared with depictions of his unsettled lifestyle. After many years of analysing said oeuvre, Anthony Spiri now presents a selection of piano works from different stages in W.F. Bach’s life. We discover a remarkable freedom of form with regard to the contemporary
conventions, a frequently satirical playing with styles from different eras, and an almost visionary anticipation of later forms of musical works.
Anthony Spiri was educated in Cleveland, Boston and Salzburg, and performed
with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Michael Tilson Thomas and Christopher Hogwood, to name but a few. While he almost exclusively concerned himself with historical performance practice of Baroque and classical piano music on the cembalo and pianoforte, he has meanwhile taken to using such experiences to his advantage in his interpretations on a modern grand piano.
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Wilhelm Friedemann fully deserves his reputation for having been a difficult, uncooperative character. Despite sparse documentation, his turbulent life has been the subject of films and novels, while his rich musical output is most often treated with astonishing superficiality..
Let us review the various stages of his career.
1710–1733 Weimar/Cöthen/Leipzig
As the first-born son of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann is groomed to be the heir of a famous musical dynasty. Even when his younger brothers had also grown to be successful musicians, father Bach regarded his eldest son as the most gifted and gave him preferred treatment.
1733–1746: Dresden
While installed as organist of the prestigious
Sophienkirche, W.F. Bach composers much instrumental music, gives public concerts
and becomes acquainted with court life. His published works, however, are not well-received, and seem to have displeased even his father.
1746–1770: Halle
W.F. is now organist at the Liebfrauenkirche,
where he composes most of his vocal works, particularly church cantatas. He arranges works of other composers for church use. In 1765 he publishes his best-known keyboard work, the ‘Eight Polonaises’.
1770–1784: Braunschweig/Berlin
Wilhelm Friedemann is unemployed and needs not conform to the demands of others.
Keyboard music comes once again to the fore. There is chamber music and even an operatic fragment from this period. Bach displays even less willingness than before to take public taste into account and is increasingly
isolated. Toward the end of his
life he is appreciated only by a small circle of connoisseurs.
This recording offers a small but representative
selection of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s keyboard works. Three each of the forms fantasia, fugue and sonata from different
periods of his life are presented here.
The D major sonata, Falck 3 was published
in 1745, intended as the first of a series of six harpsichord sonatas. It is not surprising that the other five never appeared,
considering the technical difficulties
of the piece and the incessant use of three part counterpoint, extremely unusual in a keyboard sonata! In other respects it resembles the ‘Württembergische Sonaten’ of W. F. Bach’s younger brother Carl Philipp Emanuel, which had recently appeared in Berlin.
The outer movements make use of the galant vocabulary of the day, although the wide leaps, artfully stretched phrasing and harmonic tension make most contemporary sonatas seem harmless indeed. An unusual feature is Bach’s use of of a short, crooked leaping figure to subtly unite all three movements.
In the outer movements it appears at the end of all large sections as part of the codetta.
In the second movement, a weighty fugue pressed into sonata form, this motive
forms the end of the fugue theme itself. Canon, retrograde, stretta, the exchange of parts – extreme contrapuntal artistry is present throughout.
The three 3-part fugues are taken from a set of eight which W.F. Bach dedicated to the counterpoint-loving Princess Amalie of Prussia, the sister of Frederick the Great and a noted composer in her own right. Despite
obvious resemblances to the fugues of his father, Friedemann succeeds in creating soundscapes in a very personal style which often bring to mind the fugues of Schumann and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
The theme of the d minor fugue begins as a study in half-steps and is rounded off by three small scale fragments. Despite its brevity, the piece revels in chromatic lines, diminished harmonies and rhetorical pauses.
The c minor fugue seems to consciously refer to J S. Bach’s 2-part Invention in d minor,
but surpasses its model in the almost fanatic piling-up of polyphonic techniques. A few lovely moments in the galant style relax
the otherwise incessant forward drive of the piece.
The fugue in e minor breathes a deep sadness with its static theme, constant sighing motives, and expressive leaps. We are easily reminded of the g sharp minor fugue from the second volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
The Fantasie in a minor is undated, but displays features typical of W. F. Bach’s last period, a strange, seemingly chaotic sequence of events and a plethora of disturbing
details, such as the rhythmically confusing off-beat bass octaves of the final
section. The impression of incessant rage created here may almost seem to be intended as an insult to the listener.
The e minor Fantasie is much better behaved, though a few passages in dotted rhythm prove almost unplayable to the distance
between the three voices. The piece is close to the musical style of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, a bit surprising, as at this time (1770) Wilhelm Friedemann considered his brother’s music to be quite inferior and was certainly not out to imitate him. The accusation
was of course unjust: Carl Philipp merely had the good business sense to keep his most experimental keyboard works a secret, but even he, starting about 1774, presented individual works that were just as radical as those of his elder brother.
The manuscript designated as P883 in the Berliner Staatsbibliothek was unknown to Martin Falck, who created the first catalogue
of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s music in 1913. It contains keyboard fantasies and sonatas that were unpublished in Bach’s
lifetime. We cannot establish the date of their composition – they may even be from different periods – but the c minor Fantasie from this source certainly does bear resemblance
to other works from Bach’s final period
in Berlin. The finely gradated dynamics may also imply the use the fortepiano and hence a relatively late date of composition.
The very old five-part toccata form, in which free declamatory or arpeggiated sections alternate with fugal passages, ie easily recognized. But the subtle way in which Bach uses tiny cellular ideas to unify the motives, rhythms and harmonies of the piece is far ahead of his time. The overlapping
of old and new techniques bears striking
witness to the virtuosity of his musical spirit.
In the D major sonata from P883 W.F. Bach’s intention to avoid old-fashioned counterpoint and reduce the technical demands
upon the player is immediately evident.
The left hand, for example, does not play its usual role as an equal partner of the right. The first movement atypically reflects
the popular South German symphonic style, while the melancholy second movement
reverts to a late Baroque idiom, albeit with numerous personal touches. The third movement with its comical, fragmented opening period and almost complete refusal
to modulate must be an acid commentary
upon the fashionable, musically flat sonata
style of the day. But below the slightly trashy, careless surface of this parody, Bach’s mind remains active in unifying his material. For example, he reuses the opening
motivic fragment to usher in the second theme. Another tiny motive, consisting of an upward leaping fourth, pokes its head up strategically throughout the sonata. This occurs most strikingly at the end of the second
movement, where the motive poses a question that is immediately taken up in the third bar of the following movement.
The first movement of the G major sonata mixes a modern style close to that of Haydn with music that could have been written by Händel or Rameau. The second movement is – once again! – a deeply felt fugue. But Bach ignores the rules by giving the opening
fugue theme a chordal accompaniment and continues by painting his counterpoint with ‘romantic’ harmonies. The third movement
is wilfully irritating with its bizarre rhythm and frequently displays Wilhelm Friedemann’s love for little fast, crooked motifs. Some phrases are so clichéd that we must once again suspect a parody.
The ‘politically incorrect’ mixture of Baroque, pre-Classical and pre-Romantic styles which we find in this sonata is one of the most striking features of Wilhelm Friedemann’s music, especially in his later years.
Anthony Spiri