On a Journey to St Sulpice (001)

This is the first of a couple of installments I promised to write for Steve. Ultimately it will lead us to the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the St Sulpice in Paris. But I want to put it in some historical context. Organs and organ music: then there is no way around the all important Johann Sebastian Bach. Without getting too carried away: Bach is the alpha and omega of Western music, he synthesized all musical knowledge and provided it and us with a firm foundation. It’s fair to argue – but I won’t go there now – that without Bach there wouldn’t be any postings on our blog about jazz, Clapton, etc.

Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach (31 March 1685), died in Leipzig (28 July 1750). Both places are located in former East Germany. But bear in mind that Germany as we now know it didn’t exist until 1870 and has a long, tragic history. Here’s a highly recommended book by J.R. Gaines: “Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment” (HarperCollins, 2005). Bach was a complex man. Embodied like possibly no other composer the “three musketeers” of religion, mysticism and secularism, all for one and one for all.

Like Tiger Woods, Bach had flaws. He was brilliant and therefore couldn’t cope with stupidity, laziness and authority. No, this is not my autobiography. Bach had little patience, to the point of occasionally treating his pupils to physical punishment - not uncommon in that time but still. Bach was also vain – he knew that he was darn good alright.

One of Bach's aspirations was to work as a freelance musician, but he was born 100 years too early for that to happen. Mozart was the first freelancer, and even he had to severely compromise. Lacking freelance opportunities Bach instead pursued recognition in the form of the title of “Court Composer” or similar. It wouldn’t happen, despite his “Musical Offering”, a phenomenal collection of canons and fugues based on a totally infantile theme by Frederic the Great. Any lesser composer wouldn't even have bothered; Bach turns it into something so brilliant that it almost became an insult to Frederic the Great.

Bach was all about counterpoint, the “relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent”. Little exciting things happens in any music (classical, jazz, pop) unless there is counterpoint. Bach mastered counterpoint and fugue like few if any before or after him. When at their best, the great ones like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven can satisfy the hungry ghosts to well beyond the point where their bellies are finally filled.

In his lifetime Bach was known but not well known, respected but not well respected. After he died some of his manuscripts were circulated in small circle (Mozart etc. certainly studied them) but it would take until the 19th century before the Bach revival would start and the world would finally realize what happened between 1685 and 1750. But during his life Bach was known above all as a “world” famous organist, organ composer and consultant of organ builders.

More about that in the next installment.