Pedaliter settings of Kyrie BWV 669–671

The Lutheran Kyrie, an adaptation of the Catholic Kyrie fons bonitatis, from the 1537 Naumburg hymnbook

The Kyrie was usually sung in Leipzig on Sundays after the opening organ prelude. Bach's three monumental pedaliter settings of the Kyrie correspond to the three verses. They are in strict counterpoint in the stile antico of Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali. All three have portions of the same melody as their cantus firmus – in the soprano voice for "God the Father", in the middle tenor voice (en taille) for "God the Son" and in the pedal bass for "God the Holy Ghost". Although having features in common with Bach's vocal settings of the Kyrie, for example in his Missa in F major, BWV 233, the highly original musical style is tailored to organ technique, varying with each of the three chorale preludes. Nevertheless, as in other high-church settings of plainsong, Bach's writing remains "grounded in the unchangeable rules of harmony", as described in Fux's treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum." The solidity of his writing might have been a musical means of reflecting 'firmness in faith'. As Williams (2003) observes, "Common to all three movements is a certain seamless motion that rarely leads to full cadences or sequential repetition, both of which would be more diatonic than suits the desired transcendental style."

Below is the text of the three verses of Luther's version of the Kyrie with the English translation of Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

• BWV 669 Kyrie, Gott Vater (Kyrie, O God, Eternal Father)

Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1527: woodcut of the Creation

BWV 669 is a chorale motet for two manuals and pedal in ⁴
₂ time. The four lines of the cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of G are played in the top soprano part on one manual in semibreve beats. The single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus. The writing is in alla breve strict counterpoint, occasionally departing from the modal key to B♭ and E♭ major. Even when playing beneath the cantus firmus, the contrapuntal writing is quite elaborate. The many stile antico features include inversions, suspensions, strettos, use of dactyls and the canone sine pausa at the close, where the subject is developed without break in parallel thirds. Like the cantus firmus, the parts move in steps, creating an effortless smoothness in the chorale prelude.

• BWV 670 Christe, aller Welt Trost (Christ, Comfort of all the world)

Sebald Beham, 1527: woodcut of Christ carrying the Lamb

BWV 670 is a chorale motet for two manuals and pedal in ⁴
₂ time. The four lines of the cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of G are played in the tenor part (en taille) on one manual in semibreve beats. As in BWV 669, the single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus. The writing is again mostly modal, in alla breve strict counterpoint with similar stile antico features and a resulting smoothness. In this case, however, there are fewer inversions, the cantus firmus phrases are longer and freer, and the other parts more widely spaced, with canone sine pausa passages in sixths.

• BWV 671 Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist (Kyrie, O God the Holy Ghost)

Lucas van Leyden, 1514: woodcut of Pentecost

BWV 671 is a chorale motet for organum plenum and pedal. The bass cantus firmus is in semibreves in the pedal with four parts above in the keyboard: tenor, alto and, exceptionally, two soprano parts, creating a unique texture. The subject of the four-part fugue in the manuals is derived from the first two lines of the cantus firmus and is answered by its inversion, typical of the stile antico. The quaver motifs in ascending and descending sequences, starting with dactyl figures and becoming increasingly continuous, swirling and scalelike, are a departure from the previous chorale preludes. Among the stile antico features are movement in steps and syncopation. Any tendency for the modal key to become diatonic is counteracted by the chromaticism of the final section where the flowing quavers come to a sudden end. Over the final line of the cantus firmus, the crotchet figures drop successively by semitones with dramatic and unexpected dissonances, recalling a similar but less extended passage at the end of the five-part chorale prelude O lux beata of Matthias Weckmann. As Williams (2003) suggests, the twelve descending chromatic steps seem like supplications, repeated cries of eleison—"have mercy".

Manualiter settings of Kyrie BWV 672–674

Second Kyrie in the phrygian mode of E from the Missa Sanctorum Meritis by Palestrina, 1594

The Kyrie settings of Bach have similarities with two manualiter settings of "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" from Harmonische Seelenlust by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, 1733

Phrygian is no other key than our A minor, the only difference being that it ends with the dominant chord E–G♯–B, as illustrated by the chorale Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein [Cantata 153]. This technique of beginning and ending on the dominant chord can still be used nowadays, especially in those movements in which a concerto, symphony or sonata does not come to a full conclusion ... This type of ending awakens a desire to hear something additional.

— Georg Andreas Sorge, Anleitung zur Fantasie, 1767^[40]

The three manualiter chorale preludes BWV 672–674 are short fugal compositions within the tradition of the chorale fughetta, a form derived from the chorale motet in common use in Central Germany. Johann Christoph Bach, Bach's uncle and organist at Eisenach, produced 44 such fughettas. The brevity of the fughettas is thought to have been dictated by space limitations: they were added to the manuscript at a very late stage in 1739 to fill space between already engraved pedaliter settings. Despite their length and conciseness, the fughettas are all highly unconventional, original and smoothly flowing, sometimes with an other-worldly sweetness. As freely composed chorale preludes, the fugue subjects and motifs are based loosely on the beginning of each line of the cantus firmus, which otherwise does not figure directly. The motifs themselves are developed independently with the subtlety and inventiveness typical of Bach's later contrapuntal writing. Butt (2006) has suggested that the set might have been inspired by the cycle of five manualiter settings of "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" in Harmonische Seelenlust, published by his contemporary Georg Friedrich Kauffmann in 1733: BWV 673 and 674 employ similar rhythms and motifs to two of Kauffmann's chorale preludes.

The Kyries seem to have been conceived as a set, in conformity with the symbolism of the Trinity. This is reflected in the contrasting time signatures of ³
₄, ⁶
₈ and ⁹
₈. They are also linked harmonically: all start in a major key and move to a minor key before the final cadence; the top part of each fughetta ends on a different note of the E major triad; and there is a matching between closing and beginning notes of successive pieces. What Williams (2003) has called the "new, transcendental quality" of these chorale fughettas is due in part to the modal writing. The cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of E is ill-suited to the standard methods of counterpoint, since entries of the subject in the dominant are precluded by the mode. This compositional problem, exacerbated by the choice of notes on which the pieces start and finish, was solved by Bach by having other keys as the dominating keys in each fughetta. This was a departure from established conventions for counterpoint in the phrygian mode, dating back to the mid-16th century ricercar from the time of Palestrina. As Bach's pupil Johann Kirnberger later remarked in 1771, "the great man departs from the rule in order to sustain good part-writing".^[41]

Kyrie Gott Vater BWV 672 in the original printing of 1739

• BWV 672 Kyrie, Gott Vater (Kyrie, O God, Eternal Father)

BWV 672 is a fughetta for four voices, 32 bars long. Although the movement starts in G major, the predominant tonal centre is A minor. The subject in dotted minims (G–A–B) and the quaver countersubject are derived from the first line of the cantus firmus, which also provides material for several cadences and a later descending quaver figure (bar 8 below). Some of the sequential writing resembles that of the B♭ major fugue BWV 890/2 in the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Smoothness and mellifluousness result from what Williams (2003) has called the "liquefying effect" of the simple time signature of ³
₄; from the use of parallel thirds in the doubling of subject and countersubject; from the clear tonalities of the four-part writing, progressing from G major to A minor, D minor, A minor and at the close E major; and from the softening effect of the occasional chromaticism, no longer dramatic as in the conclusion of the previous chorale prelude BWV 671.

• BWV 673 Christe, aller Welt Trost (Christ, Comfort of all the world)

BWV 673 is a fughetta for four voices, 30 bars long, in compound ⁶
₈ time. It has been described by Williams (2003) as "a movement of immense subtlety". The subject, three and a half bars long, is derived from the first line of the cantus firmus. The semiquaver scale motif in bar 4 is also related and is much developed throughout the piece. The countersubject, which is taken from the subject itself, uses the same syncopated leaping motif as the earlier Jesus Christus unser Heiland BWV 626 from the Orgelbüchlein, similar to gigue-like figures used earlier by Buxtehude in his chorale prelude Auf meinen lieben Gott BuxWV 179; it has been interpreted as symbolising the triumph of the risen Christ over death. In contrast to the preceding fughetta, the writing in BWV 673 has a playful lilting quality, but again it is modal, unconventional, inventive and non-formulaic, even if governed throughout by aspects of the cantus firmus. The fughetta starts in the key of C major, modulating to D minor, then moving to A minor before the final cadence. Fluidity comes from the many passages with parallel thirds and sixths. Original features of the contrapuntal writing include the variety of entries of the subject (all notes of the scale except G), which occur in stretto and in canon.

• BWV 674 Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist (Kyrie, O God the Holy Ghost)

BWV 674 is a fughetta for four voices, 34 bars long, in compound ⁹
₈ time. The writing is again smooth, inventive and concise, moulded by the cantus firmus in E phrygian. The quaver motif in the third bar recurs throughout the movement, often in thirds and sixths, and is developed more than the quaver theme in the first bar. The constant quaver texture might be a reference to the last eleison in the plainchant. The movement starts in G major passing to A minor, then briefly C major, before moving back to A minor before the final cadence to an E major triad. As Williams (1980) explains,^[29] "The so-called modality lies in a kind of diatonic ambiguity exemplified in the cadence, suggested by the key signature, and borne out in the kinds of lines and imitation."

Allein Gott in der Höh' BWV 675–677

Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, an adaptation of the Gloria in excelsis by Nikolaus Decius (1522), from Johann Spangenberg's Kirchengesenge Deudsch (Magdeburg, 1545)

Almost invariably Bach uses the melody to express the adoration of the Angelic hosts, and in scale passages pictures the throng of them ascending and descending between earth and heaven.

— Charles Sanford Terry, Bach Chorales, 1921^[42]

Herr Krügner of Leipzig was introduced and recommended to me by Cappelmeister Bach, but he had to excuse himself because he had accepted the Kauffmann pieces for publication and would not be able to complete them for a long time. Also the costs run too high.

— Johann Gottfried Walther, letter written on January 26, 1736^[43]

Fifth setting of Allein Gott by Johann Gottfried Walther, 1736

Wir glauben all an einen Gott by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, 1733–36

Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1512: woodcut of the Holy Trinity

Bach's three settings of the German Gloria/Trinity hymn Allein Gott in der Höh' again make allusion to the Trinity: in the succession of keys—F, G and A—possibly echoed in the opening notes of the first setting BWV 675; in the time signatures; and in the number of bars allocated to various sections of movements.^[44] The three chorale preludes give three completely different treatments: the first a manualiter trio with the cantus firmus in the alto; the second a pedaliter trio sonata with hints of the cantus firmus in the pedal, similar in style to Bach's six trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530; and the last a three-part manualiter fughetta with themes derived from the first two lines of the melody. Earlier commentators considered some of the settings to be "not quite worthy" of their place in Clavier-Übung III, particularly the "much-maligned" BWV 675, which Hermann Keller considered could have been written during Bach's period in Weimar.^[45] More recent commentators have confirmed that all three pieces conform to the general principles Bach adopted for the collection, in particular their unconventionality and the "strangeness" of the counterpoint. Williams (2003) and Butt (2006) have pointed out the possible influence of Bach's contemporaries on his musical language. Bach was familiar with the eight versions of Allein Gott by his cousin Johann Gottfried Walther as well as the Harmonische Seelenlust of Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, posthumously printed by Bach's Leipzig printer Krügner. In BWV 675 and 677 there are similarities with some of Kauffmann's galant innovations: triplets against duplets in the former; and explicit articulation by detached quavers in the latter. The overall style of BWV 675 has been compared to Kauffmann's setting of Nun ruhen alle Wälder; that of BWV 676 to the fifth of Walther's own settings of Allein Gott; and BWV 677 has many details in common with Kauffmann's fughetta on Wir glauben all an einen Gott.

Below is the text of the four verses of Luther's version of the Gloria with the English translation of Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

Silbermann organ (1710–1714) in Freiberg Cathedral

• BWV 675 Allein Gott in der Höh' (All glory be to God on high)

BWV 675, 66 bars long, is a two-part invention for the upper and lower voices with the cantus firmus in the alto part. The two outer parts are intricate and rhythmically complex with wide leaps, contrasting with the cantus firmus which moves smoothly by steps in minims and crotchets. The ³
₄ time signature has been taken to be one of the references in this movement to the Trinity. Like the two preceding chorale preludes, there is no explicit manualiter marking, only an ambiguous "a 3": performers are left with the choice of playing on a single keyboard or on two keyboards with a 4 ft (1.2 m) pedal, the only difficulty arising from the triplets in bar 28.^[46] The movement is in bar form (AAB) with bar lengths of sections divisible by 3: the 18 bar stollen has 9 bars with and without the cantus firmus and the 30 bar abgesang has 12 bars with the cantus firmus and 18 without it.^[47] The invention theme provides a fore-imitation of the cantus firmus, subsuming the same notes and bar lengths as each corresponding phase. The additional motifs in the theme are ingeniously developed throughout the piece: the three rising starting notes; the three falling triplets in bar 2; the leaping octaves at the beginning of bar 3; and the quaver figure in bar 4. These are playfully combined in ever-changing ways with the two motifs from the counter subject—the triplet figure at the end of bar 5 and the semiquaver scale at the beginning of bar 6—and their inversions. At the end of each stollen and the abgesang, the complexity of the outer parts lessens, with simple triplet descending scale passages in the soprano and quavers in the bass. The harmonisation is similar to that in Bach's Leipzig cantatas, with the keys shifting between major and minor.

Detail of the Silbermann organ in Freiberg Cathedral

• BWV 676 Allein Gott in der Höh' (All glory be to God on high)

BWV 676 is a trio sonata for two keyboards and pedal, 126 bars long. The melody of the hymn is omnipresent in the cantus firmus, the paraphrase in the subject of the upper parts and in the harmony. The compositional style and detail—charming and galant—are similar to those of the trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530. The chorale prelude is easy on the ear, belying its technical difficulty. It departs from the trio sonatas in having a ritornello form dictated by the lines of the cantus firmus, which in this case uses an earlier variant with the last line identical to the second. This feature and the length of the lines themselves account for the unusual length of BWV 676.

The musical form of BWV 676 can be analysed as follows:

• bars 1–33: exposition, with left hand following right and the first two lines of the cantus firmus in the left hand in bars 12 and 28.
• bars 33–66: repeat of exposition, with right hand and left hand interchanged
• bars 66–78: episode with syncopated sonata-like figures
• bars 78–92: third and fourth lines of cantus firmus in canon between the pedal and each of the two hands, with a countertheme derived from trio subject in the other hand
• bars 92–99: episode similar to passage in first exposition
• bars 100–139: last line of cantus firmus in the left hand, then the right hand, the pedal and finally the right hand, before the final pedal point, over which the trio theme returns in the right hand against scale-like figures in the left hand, creating a somewhat inconclusive ending:

BWV 677, after conclusion of BWV 676, from 1739 print

• BWV 677 Allein Gott in der Höh' (All glory be to God on high)

BWV 677 is a double fughetta, 20 bars long. In the first five bars the first subject, based on the first line of the cantus firmus, and countersubject are heard in stretto, with a response in bars 5 to 7. The originality of the complex musical texture is created by pervasive but unobtrusive references to the cantus firmus and the smooth semiquaver motif from the first half of bar 3, which recurs throughout the piece and contrasts with the detached quavers of the first subject.

The contrasting second subject, based on the second line of the cantus firmus, starts in the alto part on the last quaver of bar 7:

The two subjects and the semiquaver motif are combined from bar 16 to the close. Examples of musical iconography include the minor triad in the opening subject and the descending scales in the first half of bar 16—references to the Trinity and the heavenly host.

Luther's Large Catechism, Leipzig 1560

The Ten Commandments in the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter

The Ten Commandments BWV 678, 679

• BWV 678 Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments)

Below is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

The prelude is in the mixolydian mode of G, ending on a plagal cadence in G minor. The ritornello is in the upper parts and bass on the upper manual and pedal, with the cantus firmus in canon at the octave on the lower manual. There are ritornello episodes and five entries of the Cantus firmus, yielding the number of commandments. The distribution of parts, two parts in each keyboard and one in the pedal is similar to that of the de Grigny Livre d'Orgue, although Bach makes much greater technical demands on the right hand part.

Commentators have seen the canon as representing order, with the pun on canon as "law". As also expressed in Luther's verses, the two voices of the canon have been seen as symbolising the new law of Christ and the old law of Moses, which it echoes. The pastoral quality in the organ writing for the upper voices at the opening has been interpreted as representing the serenity before the Fall of Man; it is followed by the disorder of sinful waywardness; and finally order is restored in the closing bars with the calm of salvation.

The upper part and pedal engage in an elaborate and highly developed fantasia based on motifs introduced in the ritornello at the beginning of the chorale prelude. These motifs recur either in their original form or inverted. There are six motifs in the upper part:

• the three crotchets at beginning of bar 1 above
• the dotted minim in the second part of bar 1 above
• the six note quaver figure in the two halves of bar 3 above
• the phrase of three semiquavers and two pairs of "sighing" quavers in bar 5 above
• the semiquaver passagework in the second half of bar 5 above
• the semiquaver passage work in the second half of the second bar below (first heard in bar 13)

and five in the bass:

• the three crotchets at the beginning of bar 4 above
• the two crotchets dropping by an octave at the beginning of bar 5 above
• the phrase in the second part of bar 5 above
• the three note scale in the second, third and fourth crotchets of bar 6 above
• the last three crotchets in bar 7 above.

The writing for the two upper voices is similar to that for obligato instruments in a cantata: their musical material is independent of the chorale, The opening pedal G on the other hand can be heard as a foretaste of the repeated Gs in the cantus firmus. In between the cantus firmus is sung in canon at the octave on the second manual. The fifth and final entry of the cantus firmus is in the distant key of B♭ major (G minor): it expresses the purity of the Kyrie eleison at the end of the first verse, which brings the prelude to a harmonious close:

Sebald Beham, 1527: woodcut in Luther's prayer book of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments

• BWV 679 Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot (These are the holy Ten Commandments)

The lively gigue-like fughetta has several similarities to the larger chorale prelude: it is in the mixolydian mode of G; it starts with a pedal point of repeated Gs; the number ten occurs as the number of entries of the subject (four of them inverted); and the piece ends on a plagal cadence. The motifs in the second half of the second bar and the countersubject are extensively developed. The liveliness of the fughetta has been taken to reflect Luther's exhortation in the Small Catechism to do "cheerfully what He has commanded." Equally well, Psalm 119 speaks of "delighting ... in His statutes" and rejoicing in the Law.

The Creed BWV 680, 681

• BWV 680 Wir glauben all' an einen Gott (We all believe in one God)

Wir glauben in the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter

Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of God, the Creator

First page of original print of BWV 680

Below is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

The chorale prelude in four parts is a fugue in the Dorian mode of D, with the subject based on the first line of Luther's hymn. The prominent counter-subject is first heard in the pedal bass. According to Peter Williams, the chorale prelude is written in the stilo antico Italian style reminiscent of Girolamo Frescobaldi and Giovanni Battista Bassani. Italian elements are apparent in the trio-sonata structure, which combines the upper fugal parts with the ostinato figured bass; and in the ingenious use of the full range of Italianate semiquaver motifs. The five notes in the original hymn for the opening melisma on Wir are expanded in the first two bars and the remaining notes are used for the countersubject. There is exceptionally no cantus firmus, probably because of the exceptional length of the hymn. Features of the remainder of the hymn, however, suffuse the writing, in particular the scale-like passages and the melodic leaps. The fugue counter-subject is adapted to the pedal as a vigorous striding bass with alternate footwork; its quasi-ostinato character has been consistently interpreted as representing a "firm faith in God": a striding bass line was often used by Bach for Credo movements, for example in the Credo and Confiteor of the Mass in B Minor. After each occurrence of the ostinato counter-subject in the pedal, there is a semiquaver bridging passage (bars 8-9, 19-20, 31-32, 44-45, 64-66) in which the music modulates into a different key while the three upper parts play in invertible counterpoint: in this way the three different melodic lines can be freely interchanged between the three voices. These highly original transitional passages punctuate the work and give a coherence to the whole movement. Although the added G♯ makes it difficult to recognize the chorale melody, it can be heard more clearly later on, singing out in the tenor part. In the final manualiter episode (bars 76-83) the ostinato pedal figures are taken up briefly by the tenor part before the movement draws to a close over a final extended restatement of the fugue counter-subject in the pedal.^[49][50]
The American musicologist David Yearsley has described the chorale prelude as follows:^[51] "This energetic, syncopated counterpoint is elaborated above a recurring two-bar theme in the pedal that acts like a ritornello whose continual reappearances are separated by lengthy rests. The ostinato remains constant through the various key-changes that present it in both major and minor mode [...] The shape of the pedal line suggests an archetypal narrative of ascent and descent in perfect symmetry [...] The figure forcefully projects the movements of the feet into the church; heard on full organ (In Organo pleno, according to Bach's own performance direction) with a registration of all due Gravitas, the feet move with real purpose [...] Wir glauben all' is truly a walker's piece at the organ."

• BWV 681 Wir glauben all' an einen Gott (We all believe in one God)

The manualiter fughetta in E minor is both the shortest movement in Clavier-Übung III and the exact midpoint of the collection. The subject paraphrases the first line of the chorale; the two-bar passage later in the movement leading to two dramatic diminished seventh chords is constructed over the second chorale line. Although not strictly a French ouverture, the movement does incorporate elements of that style, in particular the dotted rhythms. Here Bach follows his custom of beginning the second half of a major collection with a French-style movement (as in the other three Clavier-Übung volumes, in both volumes of Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, in the early manuscript version of Die Kunst der Fuge and in the group of five numbered canons in the Musikalisches Opfer). It also complements the preceding chorale prelude by following an Italian style with a contrasting French one. Although still evidently written for organ, in style it most resembles the Gigue for harpsichord from the first French Suite in D minor BWV 812.

The Lord's Prayer BWV 682, 683

• BWV 682 Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father who art in heaven)

Vater unser im Himmelreich from Luther's prayerbook of 1545

Below is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

— Romans 8:26

Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682 in E minor has long been considered the most complex of Bach's chorale preludes, difficult at the levels of both understanding and performance. Through a ritornello trio sonata in the modern French galante style, the German chorale of the first verse is heard in canon at the octave, almost subliminally, played in each hand together with the obligato instrumental solo. Bach had already mastered such a compound form in the choral fantasia opening his cantata Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78. The canon could be a reference to the Law, the adherence to which Luther saw as one of the purposes of prayer.

The galante style in the upper parts is reflected in their lombardic rhythms and detached semiquaver triplets, sometimes played against semiquavers, typical of French flute music of the time. Below, the pedal plays a restless continuo, with constantly changing motifs. On the technical side, the suggestion of the German musicologist Hermann Keller that BWV 682 required four manuals and two players has not been accepted. As Bach emphasised to his students, however, articulation was all-important: dotted figures and triplets had to be distinguished and should only come together when the "music is extremely fast".

The theme in the upper parts is an elaborate coloratura version of the hymn, like the instrumental solos in the slow movements of trio sonatas or concertos. Its wandering, sighing nature has been taken to represent the unsaved soul in search of God's protection. It has three key elements which are developed extensively in the prelude: the lombardic rhythms in bar 3; the chromatic descending phrase between bars 5 and 6; and the detached semiquaver triplets in bar 10. Bach already used lombardic rhythms in the early 1730s, in particular in some early versions of the Domine Deus of the Mass in B minor from his cantata Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191. The mounting lombardic figures have been interpreted as representing "hope" and "trust" and the anguished chromaticism as "patience" and "suffering". At the climax of the work in bar 41, the chromaticism reaches its most extreme in the upper parts as the lombardic rhythms pass to the pedal:

Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of Christ teaching His disciples the Lord's Prayer

The otherworldly way in which the solo parts weave around the solo lines of the chorale, almost hiding them, has suggested to some commentators "groanings which cannot be uttered"—the mystical nature of prayer. After its first statement the ritornello recurs six times but not as a strict repeat, instead the order in which the different motifs are heard constantly changes.^[52]

• BWV 683 Vater unser im Himmelreich (Our Father who art in heaven)

The manualiter chorale prelude BWV 683 in the Dorian mode of D is similar in form to Bach's earlier composition BWV 636 on the same subject from the Orgelbüchlein; the lack of a pedal part allows more freedom and integration of parts in the latter work. The cantus firmus is played without interruption in the uppermost part, accompanied by three-part counterpoint in the lower parts. The accompaniment uses two motifs: the five descending semiquavers in the first bar, derived from the fourth line of the chorale "und willst das beten von uns han" (and wishes us to pray); and the three quaver figure in the alto part in the second half of bar 5. The first motif is also inverted. The quiet and sweetly harmonious nature of the music is evocative of prayer and contemplation. Its intimate scale and orthodox style provide a complete contrast to the previous "larger" setting in BWV 682. At the beginning of each line of the chorale, the musical texture is pared down, with more voices added towards the end of the line: the long very first note of the chorale is unaccompanied. The prelude comes to a subdued conclusion in the lower registers of the keyboard.

Baptism BWV 684, 685

• BWV 684 Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord to the Jordan came)

Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam from a 1577 edition of Luther's hymnbook

Below is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

When in the arrangement of the chorale "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" an unceasing figure of flowing semiquavers makes itself heard, it needs no skilled critic of Bach's works to find in this an image of the river Jordan. Bach's real meaning, however, will not reveal itself thoroughly to him until he has read the whole poem to the last verse, in which the water of baptism is brought before the believing christian as a symbol of the atoning Blood of Christ

— Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, 1873

The chorale prelude Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam BWV 684 has a trio sonata like ritornello in C minor in the three parts of the manuals with the cantus firmus in the tenor register of the pedal in the Dorian mode of C. Bach specifically stipulates two keyboards to give different sonorities to the imitative upper parts and the bass part. The undulating semiquavers in the bass, usually interpreted as representing the flowing waters of the Jordan, imitate a violine continuo, according to the model of Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust. The musical content of the ritornello contains explicit allusions to the melody of the chorale, sometimes hidden in the semiquaver passage work and motifs.

Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of the Baptism of Christ

• BWV 685 Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord to the Jordan came)

The chorale prelude on baptism, "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam", ... represents running waters ... in the last verse of the chorale, baptism is described as a wave of salvation, stained with the Blood of Christ, which passes over humanity, removing all blemish and sin. The small version of the chorale prelude ... is a curious miniature ... four motifs come forward simultaneously: the first phrase of the melody and its inversion; and the first phrase of the melody in a faster tempo and its inversion ... Is not this the case of a very literal observation? Do we not believe that we see waves rising and falling, with the faster waves tumbling over the slower waves? And is not this musical imagery addressed more to the eye than the ear?

— Albert Schweitzer, J.S. Bach, le musicien-poète, 1905^[53]

The manualiter chorale prelude BWV 685, despite being only 27 bars long and technically speaking a three-part fughetta, is a complex composition with dense fugal writing. The subject and countersubject are both derived from the first line of the cantus firmus. The compact style, imitative contrapuntal writing and sometimes capricious touches, such as repetition and the ambiguity in the number of parts, are features that BWV 685 shares with the shorter chorale preludes in Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust.^[54][55] The contrary motion between the parts in bar 9 harks back to the compositions of Samuel Scheidt. Williams (2003) has given a precise analysis of the fughetta:

• bars 1–4: subject in soprano, countersubject in alto
• bars 5–7: subject inverted in bass, countersubject inverted in soprano, with a free alto part
• bars 8–10: episode derived from countersubject
• bars 11–14: subject in alto, countersubject in bass, with episode continuing against alto part
• bars 15–17: subject inverted in soprano, countersubject inverted in bass, with derived alto part
• bars 18–20: episode derived from countersubject
• bars 21–23: subject in bass, countersubject in soprano, with derived alto part
• bars 24–27: subject inverted in alto, countersubject inverted in soprano, with derived bass part

There have been many attempts to interpret the musical iconography of BWV 685. Albert Schweitzer suggested that the subject and countersubject gave the visual impression of waves. Hermann Keller suggested that the three entries of the subject and countersubject, and the three inversions, represent the three immersions at baptism. Others have seen allusions to the Trinity in the three voices. The subject and countersubject have been seen as representing Luther's baptismal themes of Old Adam and New Man. Whatever the intended symbolism, Bach's most probable compositional aim was to produce a shorter chorale prelude contrasting musically with the preceding longer setting.

Confession BWV 686, 687

• BWV 686 Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (Out of the depths I cry to Thee)

Below is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

Aus tiefer Not from the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter

First page of original print of BWV 686

It is significant of Bach's manner of feeling that he should choose this chorale for the crowning point of his work. For it cannot be questioned that this chorale is its crowning point, from the ingenuity of the part-writing, the wealth and nobility of the harmonies, and the executive power which it requires. Even the Northern masters had never attempted to write two parts for the pedals throughout, though they had first introduced the two-part treatment of the pedals, and Bach did them full justice in this piece.

— Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, 1873

Interior of the Sophienkirche, Dresden, in 1910 showing the 1720 organ of Gottfried Silbermann destroyed by bombing in World War II

Title page of Part III of Samuel Scheidt's Tabulatura Nova, 1624. The Modum ludendi and Benedicamus had six parts with double pedal

Scheidt's Modus Pleno Organo Pedaliter: Benedicamus, 1624

The chorale prelude Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir BWV 686 is a monumental chorale motet in the phrygian mode of C. The climax of Clavier-Übung III, it is composed in the strict polyphonic stile antico of Palestrina using florid counterpoint. This is Bach's unique six-part composition for organ, if the Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering BWV 1079 is discounted.^[56] German organ writing for double pedal (doppio pedale) can be traced back to Arnolt Schlick and Ludwig Senfl in the 16th century; to Samuel Scheidt in two settings from his Tabulatura Nova in the early 17th century; and in the baroque period to Buxtehude, Reincken, Bruhns, Tunder, Weckmann and Lübeck. In France, among the composers to have written double pedal parts were François Couperin, in his organ mass des paroisses, and Louis Marchand.^[57]

The first verse of Luther's hymn had already been set by Bach in the cantata Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38 (1724). The fact that the setting in BWV 686 flows more easily, has more countersubjects, has more novel features and has typically organ figurations in the final section has suggested that in this case the whole of Luther's text was taken into account and that it is a purer version of the stile antico. Following the huge scale of the opening, Bach highly inventively incorporates motifs from the cantus firmus into the countersubjects of the seven sections (counting the repeat), resulting in a constantly changing musical texture. The widest range in pitch between upper and lower parts occurs exactly halfway through at bar 27. At the end of each line the cantus firmus is taken up in the left (lower) pedal, which, without break, then plays the countersubject while above the right (upper) pedal concludes the section by playing the cantus firmus in the tenor register in augmentation (i.e., with doubled note lengths).^[58] The proliferation of dactyl "joy" motifs (a crotchet followed by two quavers) in the last section of the prelude reflects the optimism in the last verse.

Williams (2003) has given the following analysis of the seven sections:

• first and third line: fugal section, with stretti in tenor and soprano manual voices at b.3 and in bass and soprano manual parts in b.9; countersubject with syncopation and crotchet figures
• second and fourth line: the rising three-note phrase or caput at the start of the melody occurs in minims or crotchets in all parts, all of which move stepwise (up or down to the nearest note); previous crotchet countersubject inverted
• fifth line: all parts except the manual bass have the melody; the syncopated countersubject involves either jumps, four-quaver figures or anapaests (two quavers followed by a crotchet)
• sixth line: melody only in alto and tenor manual and tenor and bass pedal parts; jumps in the countersubject break up the musical texture
• seventh line: melody in all parts in slightly modified form and with some inversion; animated dactyl and quaver figures in countersubject, adding more lively modern elements to the severe stile antico
• BWV 687 Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir (Out of the depths I cry to Thee)

Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut of the Fall of Man in Luther's Bible

This smaller manualiter setting of Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir is a four-part chorale motet in the key of F♯ minor, with the augmented cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of E in the uppermost soprano part. The strict contrapuntal writing is denser than that of BWV 686, although it adheres less to the stile antico and has a more uniform texture. Commentators have suggested that the continual responses to the fugue subjects by their inversion signify confession followed by forgiveness. Williams (2003) has pointed out the following musical features in the seven sections of BWV 687:

• in each section, the fugue subject in quavers is derived from elements of the corresponding cantus firmus; it is answered by inversions of the subject in stretto
• in each section, there are five bars with alto, tenor and bass in counterpoint, followed by eight bars of the soprano cantus firmus in minims and ending with a one bar cadence
• as each cantus firmus episode progresses, the accompanying lower parts move in a more animated way

Communion BWV 688, 689

• BWV 688 Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Jesus Christ our Saviour)

Jesus Christus, unser Heiland from the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter

Christian Gottlob Hammer, 1852: The Sophienkirche in Dresden where Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann was appointed organist in 1733

Arp Schnitger organ constructed in 1693 in the Jacobikirche, Hamburg, one of the organs Bach played in 1720^[59]

Below is the full text of Luther's hymn with the English translation by Charles Sanford Terry:^[39]

These grand pieces are at the same time eloquent witnesses to his depth of nature, both as a poet and as a composer. Bach always deduced the emotional character of his organ chorales from the whole hymn, and not from its first verse alone. In this way he generally obtained from the poem some leading thought, which seemed to him of particular importance, and in accordance with which he gave to the composition a poetic and musical character of its own. We must follow out his method in detail in order to have been sure that we have grasped his meaning. In the hymn for the Holy Communion, "Jesus Christus unser Heiland," the counterpoint, with its broad, ponderous progressions, may, to the superficial observer, seem unsuitable to the character of the hymn. The attentive reader of the words will, however, soon find the passage that gave rise to this characteristic musical phrase ... the fifth verse. Faith, lively and immovable, together with the solemnity of a consciousness of sin, are the two elements which constitute the emotional groundwork of the piece.

— Philipp Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach, 1873

The chorale prelude Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 688 is a trio sonata with the upper voices in quavers and semiquavers the manuals and the cantus firmus in minims in the pedal in the Dorian mode of G, like a Gregorian chant. The eccentric angularity of the keyboard subject with its great widening or narrowing leaps is derived from the melody. It has prompted much speculation as to its iconographic significance. "Unwavering faith" has been taken to be the underlying theme by many commentators, including Spitta and Schweitzer, who compared the unsteady theme to the vision of a sailor seeking a firm foothold on a stormy deck (un marin qui cherche un appui solide sur une planche roulante). Others have interpreted the leaping theme as representing Man's parting from and return to God; or as the "great agony" (großer Arbeit) of the sixth verse; or as the anger of God appeased by the suffering of Christ (the theme followed by its inversion); or as a reference to the treading of the winepress in the passage

"Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment."

from Isaiah 63:2–3, signifying victory over the Cross. It has similarly been suggested that the semiquaver passages are a reference to the flowing wine-blood of the communion. Visually, the quaver theme might contain a cross motif and might form an elongated Christogram on the Greek letters iota and chi in certain sections of the score.

Whatever the religious significance, the musical development from the motifs is ingenious and subtle, constantly varying. The material in the semiquaver codetta (bar 6) of the fugue subject and of the countersubject (bars 7–9) is used and developed extensively throughout BWV 688, sometimes in inverted form. The theme itself is transformed in all sorts of ways, including inversion, reflection, reversal and syncopation, the variety increased by how the two upper voices combine together. Once started, the semiquaver figures form a moto perpetuo. At some points, they contain hidden versions of the quaver fugue subject; but as the work progresses, they gradually simplify to scale passages. Even the ending is unconventional, with a simulated ritardando in the last bars with the pedal silent. The chorale prelude is thus composed from a few organic motifs heard already in the first few bars. The unprecedented novelty and musical originality of such a self-generated composition might have been Bach's main intention.

Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of the Last Supper

• BWV 689 Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Jesus Christ our Saviour)

Improvising fugues was part of the organist's stock in trade ... The present fugue is an almost unimaginably transfigured version of this genre, which Bach also resuscitated and handled less radically elsewhere in the Clavierübung. It must also be one of the most dramatic, in the sense of eventful, fugues Bach ever wrote. The drama begins in a mood of sobriety and pain and ends in transcendence.

— Joseph Kerman, The Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard, 1715–1750

The last manualiter four-part chorale prelude, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 689 in C minor, is marked "Fuga super Jesus Christus, unser Heyland" in the 1739 print. In contrast to the previous fughettas in the previous five manualiter settings of the catechism hymns, it is a long and complex fugue of great originality, a tour de force in the use of stretti. The fugue subject is derived from the first line of the chorale. In order to facilitate the stretti which underlie the whole conception of BWV 689, Bach chose to transform the modal melody by sharpening the fourth note from a B♭ to a B♮, a modification already found in 17th-century hymnbooks. This change also allowed Bach to introduce dissonances, imbuing the work with what the French organist and musicologist Norbert Dufourcq called "tormented chromaticism".^[60] The quaver countersubject and its inversions are used and developed throughout the fugue. It resembles some of Bach's other keyboard fugues, in particular the antepenultimate fugue in B♭ minor BWV 891/2 of the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, composed at roughly the same time.

The inversion of the countersubject in bar 5, omitting the first note, plays a significant role later in the fugue (bar 30):

The stretti occur at intervals of varying length; in addition to the fugue subject, there are also imitations and stretti both for the semiquaver figure in the subject (and its inversions) and the figure above derived from the countersubject. Williams (2003) has given the following summary of the stretti for the fugue subject:

• bars 1–2: between tenor and alto, one and a half bars later
• bars 7–8: between soprano and bass, one and a half bars later
• bar 10: between alto and soprano, 1 crotchet later
• bar 16: between alto and tenor, a minim later
• bars 23–24: between bass and tenor, a bar later
• bars 36–37: between alto and soprano, 5 crotchets later
• bars 37–38: between soprano and tenor, one and a half bars later
• bar 57: subject simultaneously in crotchets in alto and augmented in minims in tenor

The last entry of the fugue subject in the tenor voice gives the impression of the return of a conventional cantus firmus; the coda over the tenor's sustained F is built on the motifs of the countersubject. The different types of stretti result in a large variety of harmonisations of the theme and musical textures throughout the chorale prelude.

Organ in the Johanniskirche, Lüneburg, where Bach heard Georg Böhm play

Kerman (2008) has given a detailed analysis of BWV 689 from the perspective of Bach's keyboard fugues:

• Section 1 (bars 1–18). The fugue starts in a measured way, as if under a burden, the four entries effectively spaced out over regular units of 1+1⁄2 bars. The tenor is followed in stretto 6 beats later by the alto and then similarly the soprano by the bass. Before the bass subject ends on the first beat of bar 11, a second set of fugal entries begins, this time more anguished, more dissonant, due to the irregularity of the stretti. The alto entry at the beginning of bar 10 is followed a beat later by the soprano; and the tenor entry at the beginning of bar 16 is followed two beats later by the bass. The quaver countersubject and its inversion are heard throughout, as an unobtrusive accompaniment, yet to reveal their true character.
• Section 2 (bars 19–35). The C minor cadence in the middle of bar 19 would normally signify a new subject in a fugue. In this case, a leap upwards of a fourth in the soprano part, taken from the fugue subject, and then imitated in the tenor and bass parts, signals a renewed vitality and heralds the transformation of the countersubject into material derived from the fourth line of the chorale melody, comprising its highest notes and therefore easily recognizable. The new second 8-quaver subject is heard first in the soprano voice in the second half of bar 20 and the first half of bar 21: it is answered twice by its inversion in the bass in sequence. Then in bars 23–27, the soprano plays the second subject twice in sequence followed by the inverted form in the alto. Below the bass and tenor play the first subject with a stretto of one bar: for the only time in the fugue, however, these entries of the first subject are not prominent, but play a background role. After the second subject is heard a third time in the soprano, the music seems to draw to a close in the middle of a bar over a 2.5-bar-long pedal C in the bass. However, as the tenor takes up the second subject, the music surges up in semiquaver motifs in the soprano and alto parts to reach a climax at bar 30, when, in a moment of high pathos, the second subject is heard high in the soprano. But then in the succeeding bar, the music transforms into a peaceful and harmonious mood of consolation, with the major tonality heard for the first time. In a long and beautiful passage, the now-tranquil second subject descends in successive bars through the alto and bass parts, passing into the tenor part to reach the second main cadence of the fugue, after which it is heard no more until the last section.
• Section 3 (bars 36–56). At the cadence the fugue moves back into B♭ minor. The musical texture becomes restless and eccentric; chromaticism returns and the rhythms, enlivened by semiquavers, become unsettling for the listener. The alto resumes the fugue subject followed by a stretto entry of the soprano in its higher register five beats later. The bass then takes up a dance-like accompaniment in ³
  ₄ time, just before a stretto entry from the tenor. The bass continues for 6 bars of ³
  ₄ time (i.e. 4+1⁄2 normal bars) introducing a short new motif involving a downwards drop of a fifth, linked to the fugue subject and already hinted at in the first section. The soprano plays the new motif in canon with the bass, until the bass resumes the subject, starting on the second beat of the bar, and the rhythm stabilises. The upper parts play a combination of the countersubject and the new motif and continue with them as an episode after the fugue subject ends. A further subject entry in the bass is followed by another episode based on the new motif as all the parts descend with chromaticisms to a cadence.
• Section 4 (bars 57–67). In the final section Bach is at his most inventive, creating what Kerman calls "sublime clockwork". The tenor part plays the fugue subject in augmentation like a cantus firmus in minims until the final pedal point F held for five bars. At the same time Bach adds one statement of the fugue subject in crotchets in the alto part, as a sort of "simultaneous stretto". Over this in the soprano he superimposes the second subject in quavers, that has not been heard since the end of the second section. There is a resumption of the clarity and harmoniousness last heard there as the alto and bass parts join the soprano polyphonically in the countersubject, continuing to the close over the pedal point.

Germany

But it is only at his organ that he appears to be at his most sublime, most audacious, in his own element. Here he knows neither limits nor goals and works for centuries to come.

— Robert Schumann, Neue Zeitschrift, 1839

Kollmann, 1799: Engraving of the sun with Bach at the centre, included by Forkel in the Allgem. Mus. Zeitung

A new printed "movable type" edition of Clavier-Übung III, omitting the duets BWV 802–805, was produced by Ambrosius Kühnel in 1804 for the Bureau de Musique in Leipzig, his joint publishing venture with Franz Anton Hoffmeister that later became the music publishing firm of C.F. Peters. Previously in 1802 Hoffmeister and Kühnel and had published a collection of Bach's keyboard music, including the Inventions and Sinfonias and both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier, with Johann Nikolaus Forkel acting as advisor. (The first prelude and fugue BWV 870 from The Well-Tempered Clavier II was published for the first time in 1799 by Kollmann in London. The whole of Book II was published in 1801 in Bonn by Simrock, followed by Book I; slightly later Nägeli came out with a third edition in Zürich.) Hoffmeister and Kühnel did not take up Forkel's suggestion of including in their fifteenth volume the four duets BWV 802–805, which were only published by Peters much later in 1840. Nine of the chorale preludes BWV 675–683 were printed in the four volume Breitkopf and Härtel collection of chorale preludes prepared between 1800 and 1806 by Johann Gottfried Schicht. Forkel and Kollmann corresponded during this period: they shared the same enthusiasm for Bach and the publication of his works. When Forkel's biography of Bach appeared in Germany in 1802, his publishers Hoffmeister and Kühnel wished to have control over translations into English and French. No complete authorized English translation was produced at the time. In 1812, Kollmann used parts of the biography in a long article on Bach in the Quarterly Musical Register; and an unauthorized anonymous English translation was published by Boosey & Company in 1820.^[72]

Sing-Akademie in 1843

Carl Friedrich Zelter

In Berlin, on the death of Fasch in 1800, his assistant Carl Friedrich Zelter took over as the director of the Sing-Akademie. The son of a mason, he himself had been brought up as a master mason, but had cultivated his musical interests in secret, eventually taking composition classes with Fasch. He had been linked to the Sing-Akademie for years and had acquired a reputation as one of the foremost experts on Bach in Berlin. In 1799, he started a correspondence with Goethe on the aesthetics of music, particularly the music of Bach, which was to last until both friends died in 1832. Although Goethe had a late training in music, he considered it an essential element in his life, arranging concerts at his home and attending them elsewhere. In 1819, Goethe described how the organist from Berka, Heinrich Friedrich Schütz, trained by Bach's student Kittel, would serenade him for hours with the music of the masters, from Bach to Beethoven, so that Goethe could acquaint himself with music from a historical perspective. In 1827, he wrote:

On this occasion I recalled the good organist of Berka; for it was there, in perfect repose without extraneous disturbance, that I first formed an impression of your great maestro. I said to myself, it is as if the eternal harmony were conversing with itself, as it may have done in God's breast before the creation of the world; that is the way it move deep within me, and it was if I neither possessed or needed ears, nor any other sense—least of all, the eyes.

Commenting in the same year on Bach's writing for the organ, Zelter wrote to Goethe:

The organ is Bach's own peculiar soul, into which he breathes immediately the living breath. His theme is the feeling just born, which, like the spark from the stone, invariably springs forth, from the first chance pressure of the foot upon the pedals. Thus by degrees he warms to his subject, till he has isolated himself, and feels alone, and then an inexhaustible stream passes out into the ocean.

Zelter insisted on the pedals as the key to Bach's organ writing: "One might say of old Bach, that the pedals were the ground-element of the development of his unfathomable intellect, and that without feet, he could never have attained his intellectual height."^[73]

Felix Mendelssohn

Organ in the Marienkirche, Berlin

Engraving of the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Weimar, 1840

Zelter was instrumental in building up the Sing-Akademie, broadening their repertoire to instrumental music and encouraging the growing library, another important repository for Bach manuscripts. Zelter had been responsible for Mendelssohn's father Abraham Mendelssohn becoming a member of the Sing-Akademie in 1796. As a consequence, one of the major new forces behind the library became Sara Levy, the great-aunt of Felix Mendelssohn, who had assembled one of the most-important private collections of 18th-century music in Europe. An accomplished harpsichordist, Sara Levy's teacher had been Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and she had been a patroness of C.P.E. Bach, circumstances which gave her family close contacts with Bach and resulted in his music enjoying a privileged status in the Mendelssohn household. Felix's mother Lea, who had studied under Kirnberger, gave him his first music lessons. In 1819, Zelter was appointed as the composition teacher of Felix and his sister Fanny; he taught counterpoint and music theory according to the methods of Kirnberger. Felix's piano teacher was Ludwig Berger, a pupil of Muzio Clementi, and his organ teacher was August Wilhelm Bach (unrelated to J.S. Bach), who had himself studied musical theory under Zelter. A.W. Bach was organist of the Marienkirche, Berlin, which had an organ built in 1723 by Joachim Wagner. Mendelssohn's organ lessons were conducted on the Wagner organ, with Fanny present; they commenced in 1820 and lasted for less than two years. It is probable that he learnt some of J. S. Bach's organ works, which had remained in the repertoire of many Berlin organists; his choice would have been limited, because at that stage his pedal technique was still rudimentary.^[74]

In autumn 1821 the twelve-year-old Mendelssohn accompanied Zelter on a trip to Weimar, stopping on the way in Leipzig where they were shown the cantor's room in the choir school of the Thomaskirche by Bach's successor Schicht. They stayed two weeks in Weimar with Goethe, to whom Mendelssohn played extensively on the piano each day. All Mendelssohn's music lessons stopped by summer 1822 when his family left for Switzerland. In the 1820s, Mendelssohn visited Goethe four more times in Weimar, the last time being in 1830, a year after his resounding success in reviving Bach's St Matthew Passion in Berlin, with the collaboration of Zelter and members of the Sing-Akademie. On this last trip, again by way of Leipzig, he stayed two weeks in Weimar and had daily meetings with Goethe, by then in his eighties. He later gave an account to Zelter of a visit to the church of St Peter and St Paul where Bach's cousin Johann Gottfried Walther had been organist and where his two eldest sons had been baptized:^[75]

One day Goethe asked me if I would not care to pay a compliment to craftsmanship and call on the organist, who might let me see and hear the organ in the town church. I did so, and the instrument gave me great pleasure ... The organist gave me the choice of hearing something learned or for the people ... so I asked for something learned. But it was not much to be proud of. He modulated around enough to make one giddy, but nothing unusual came of it; he made a number of entries, but no fugue was forthcoming. When my turn came, I let loose with the D minor toccata of Bach and remarked that this was at the same time something learned and for the people too, at least some of them. But see, I had hardly started to play when the superintendent dispatched his valet downstairs with the message that this playing had to be stopped right away because it was a weekday and he could not study with that much noise going on. Goethe was very much amused by this story.

Felix Mendelssohn, 1836: watercolour of the Gewandhaus

Robert Schumann

Original Leipzig Conservatory in the courtyard of the Gewandhaus

In 1835, Mendelssohn was appointed director of the Gewandhaus Orchester in Leipzig, a post he held until his death in 1847 at the age of 38. He soon met other Bach enthusiasts including Robert Schumann, one year his junior, who had moved to Leipzig in 1830. Having been taught piano by J.G. Kuntsch, organist at the Marienkirche in Zwickau, Schumann seems to have started developing a deeper interest in Bach's organ music in 1832. In his diary he recorded sightreading the six organ fugues BWV 543–548 for four hands with Clara Wieck, the twelve-year-old daughter of his Leipzig piano teacher Friedrich Wieck and his future wife. Schumann later acknowledged Bach as the composer who had influenced him most. In addition to collecting his works, Schumann started with Friedrich Wieck a new fortnightly music magazine, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, in which he promoted the music of Bach as well as that of contemporary composers, such as Chopin and Liszt. One of the main contributors was his friend Carl Becker, organist at the Peterskirche and in 1837 the Nikolaikirche. Schumann remained as editor-in-chief until 1843, the year in which Mendelssohn became the founding director of the Leipzig Conservatory. Schumann was appointed professor for piano and composition at the conservatory; other appointments included Moritz Hauptmann (harmony and counterpoint), Ferdinand David (violin) and Becker (organ and music theory).^[76]

Organ in the Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt in 1900

One of Mendelssohn's regrets since 1822 was that he had not had sufficient opportunity to develop his pedal technique to his satisfaction, despite having given public organ recitals. Mendelssohn explained later how difficult gaining access to organs had already been back in Berlin: "If only people knew how I had to plead and pay and cajole the organists in Berlin, just to be allowed to play the organ for one hour—and how ten times during such an hour I had to stop for this or that reason, then they would certainly speak differently." Elsewhere, on his travels, he had only sporadic opportunities to practice, but not often on pedalboards matching the standard of those in northern Germany, especially in England. The English organist Edward Holmes commented in 1835 that Mendelssohn's recitals in St Paul's Cathedral "gave a taste of his quality which in extemperaneous performance is certainly of the highest kind ... he has not we believe kept up that constant mechanical exercise of the instrument which is necessary to execute elaborate written works." In 1837, despite having performed the St Anne prelude and fugue in England to great acclaim, on his return to Germany Mendelssohn still felt dissatisfied, writing that, "This time I have resolved to practice the organ her in earnest; after all, if everyone takes me for an organist, I am determined, after the fact, to become one." It was only in the summer of 1839 that an opportunity arose when he spent six weeks on holiday in Frankfurt. There he had daily access to the pedal piano of his wife Cécile's cousin Friedrich Schlemmer and, probably through him, access to the organ in the Katharinenkirche built in 1779–1780 by Franz and Philipp Stumm.^[77]

Eduard Holzstich, 1850: watercolour of the Bach Memorial (1843) in front of the Thomaskirche

Programme for Mendelssohn's concert in the Thomaskirche In August 1840

August 1840 saw the fruits of Mendelssohn's labour: his first organ recital in the Thomaskirche. The proceeds from the concert were to go towards a statue of Bach in the vicinity of the Thomaskirche. Most of the repertoire in the concert had been played by Mendelssohn elsewhere, but nevertheless as he wrote to his mother, "I practised so much the previous eight days that I could barely stand on my own two feet and walked along the street in nothing but organ passages." The concert was wholly devoted to Bach's music, except for an improvised "free fantasy" at the end. In the audience was the elderly Friedrich Rochlitz, founding editor of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, a journal that had promoted the music of Bach: Rochlitz is reported to have declared afterwards, "I shall depart now in peace, for never shall I hear anything finer or more sublime." The recital started with the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552. The only chorale prelude was Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele BWV 654 from the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, a favourite of both Mendelssohn and Schumann. Until that time very few of these or the shorter chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchlein had been published. Mendelssohn prepared an edition of both sets that was published in 1844 by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig and by Coventry and Hollier in London. At about the same time the publishing house of Peters in Leipzig produced an edition of Bach's complete organ works in nine volumes edited by Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl and Ferdinand Roitzsch. The E flat prelude and fugue BWV 552 appears in Volume III (1845), the chorale preludes BWV 669–682, 684–689 in Volume VI and VII (1847) and BWV 683 in Volume V (1846) with chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchlein.^[77]

Clara Wieck

In 1845, while Robert was recovering from a nervous breakdown and a few months prior to the completion of his piano concerto, the Schumanns rented a pedalboard to place under their upright piano. As Clara recorded at the time, "On April 24th we got on hire a pedal-board to attach below the pianoforte, and we had great pleasure from it. Our chief object was to practice organ playing. But Robert soon found a higher interest in this instrument and composed some sketches and studies for it which are sure to find high favour as something quite new." The pedalflügel base on which the piano was placed had 29 keys connected to 29 separate hammers and strings encased at the rear of the piano. The pedal board was manufactured by the same Leipzig firm of Louis Schöne that had provided the grand pedal piano in 1843 for the use of students at the Leipzig Conservatory. Before composing any of his own fugues and canons for organ and pedal piano, Schumann had made a careful study of Bach's organ works, of which he had an extensive collection. Clara Schumann's Bach book, an anthology of organ works by Bach, now in the archives of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, contains the whole of Clavier-Übung III, with detailed analytic markings by Robert Schumann. On the centenary of Bach's death in 1850, Schumann, Becker, Hauptmann and Otto Jahn founded the Bach Gesellschaft, an institution dedicated to publishing, without any editorial additions, the complete works of Bach through the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel. The project was completed in 1900. The third volume, devoted to keyboard works, contained the Inventions and Sinfonias and the four parts of the Clavier-Übung. It was published in 1853, with Becker as editor.^[78]

Johannes Brahms at the age of 20 in a drawing made in 1853 at Schumann's home in Düsseldorf by the French organist-artist Jean-Joseph Bonaventure Laurens

Musikverein in Vienna

At the end of September 1853, having been recommended by the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim, the twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms appeared on the doorstep of the Schumann's home in Düsseldorf, staying with them until early November. Like Schumann, perhaps even more so, Brahms was deeply influenced by Bach's music. Shortly after his arrival he gave a performance on the piano of Bach's organ toccata in F BWV 540/1 in the house of Joseph Euler, a friend of Schumann. Three months after Brahms' visit, Schumann's mental state deteriorated: after a suicide attempt, Schumann committed himself to the sanitorium in Endenich near Bonn, where, after several visits from Brahms, he died in 1856. From its inception, Brahms subscribed to the Bach-Gesellschaft, of which he became an editor in 1881. An organist himself and a scholar of early and baroque music, he carefully annotated and analysed his copies of the organ works; he made a separate study of Bach's use of parallel fifths and octaves in his organ counterpoint. Brahms' Bach collection is now preserved in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, of which he became musical director and conductor in 1872. In 1875, he conducted a performance in the Musikverein of an orchestral arrangement by Bernhard Scholz of the prelude in E flat BWV 552/1. In 1896, a year before he died, Brahms composed his own set of eleven chorale preludes for organ, Op.122. Like Schumann, who turned to Bach counterpoint as a form of therapy in 1845 during his recovery from mental illness, Brahms also viewed Bach's music as salutory during his final illness. As Brahms' friend and biographer Max Kalbeck reported:^[79]

He complained about his situation and said 'It's lasting so long.' He also told me that he was not able to listen to any music. The piano remained closed: he could only read Bach, that was all. He pointed to the piano, where on the music stand, which stood on top of the closed cover, lay a score of Bach.

Max Reger

Central section of the adagio from Reger's first suite for organ, Op. 16 (1896)

Max Reger was a composer whose dedication to Bach has been described as a "monomaniacal identification" by the musicologist Johannes Lorenzen: in letters he frequently referred to "Allvater Bach". During his life, Reger arranged or edited 428 of Bach's compositions, including arrangements of 38 organ works for piano solo, piano duet or two pianos, starting in 1895. At the same time he produced a large number of his own organ works. Already in 1894, the organist and musicologist Heinrich Reimann, reacting to modernist trends in German music, had encouraged a return to the style of Bach, stating that, "Beyond this style there is no salvation ... Bach becomes for that reason the criterion of our art of writing for the organ." In 1894–1895 Reger composed his first suite for organ in E minor which was published in 1896 as his Op.16 with a dedication "To the Memory of Johann Sebastian Bach". The original intention was a sonata in three movements: an introduction and triple fugue; an adagio on the chorale Es ist das Heil uns kommen her; and a passacaglia. In the final version, Reger inserted an intermezzo (a scherzo and trio) as the third movement and expanded the adagio to contain a central section on the Lutheran hymns Aus tiefer Not and O Haupt voll Blut und Bunden. In 1896, Reger sent a copy of the suite to Brahms, his only contact. In the letter he asked permission to dedicate a future work to Brahms, to which he received the reply, "Permission for that is certainly not necessary, however! I had to smile, since you approach me about this matter and at the same time enclose a work whose all-too-bold dedication terrifies me!" The overall form of the suite follows the scheme of the eighth organ sonata Op.132 (1882) of Joseph Rheinberger and the symphonies of Brahms. The final passacaglia was a conscious reference to Bach's organ passacaglia in C minor BWV 582/1, but has clear affinities with the last movements of both Rheinberger's sonata and Brahms' fourth symphony. The second movement is an adagio in ternary form, with the beginning of the central section directly inspired by the setting of Aus tiefer Not in the pedaliter chorale prelude BWV 686 of Clavier-Übung III, paying homage to Bach as a composer of instrumental counterpoint. It has a similarly dense texture of six parts, two of them in the pedal. The outer sections are directly inspired by the musical form of the chorale prelude O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß BWV 622 from the Orgelbüchlein.^[80] The suite was first performed in the Trinity Church, Berlin in 1897 by the organist Karl Straube, a student of Reimann. According to a later account by one of Straube's students, Reimann had described the work as "so difficult as to be almost unplayable", which had "provoked Straube's virtuosic ambition, so that he set about mastering the work, which placed him before utterly new technical problems, with unflagging energy." Straube gave two further performances in 1898, in the cathedral at Wesel, where he had recently been appointed organist, and prior to that in Frankfurt, where he met Reger for the first time. In 1902, Straube was appointed organist at the Thomaskirche and in the following year cantor; he became the main proponent and performer of Reger's organ works.^[81]

England

The people who did attend appeared very much delighted, & some of them (especially the Visitors from Norwich) were good Judges, & of course tickled with such a Row as we gave them upon the most magnificent Organ I have yet heard, & I think in which you would agree with me. Your MS. Music Book has been of special Service to us: the triple fugue in E♭ was received with the same kind of Wonder that people express when they see an Air Balloon ascend for the first time: Smith I believe planted two or three Spies to watch the Effects of such Sound upon their Countenance, & consequently Mind.

— Samuel Wesley, 18 July 1815, letter to Vincent Novello reporting on a performance of BWV 552/2 at St Nicholas Church, Great Yarmouth^[82]

Organ in Birmingham Town Hall constructed in 1834

Funeral of the Duke of Wellington in St Paul's Cathedral, 1852, with the Father Smith organ in the background

Apart from prevailing musical tastes and the difficulty in acquiring manuscript copies, a fundamental difference between the design of English and German organs made Bach's organ output less accessible to English organists, namely the absence of pedalboards. Handel's principal works for organ, his organ concertos Op. 4 and Op. 7, with the possible exception of op.7 No.1, all appear to have been written for a single manual chamber organ. Until the 1830s, most church organs in England did not have separate pedal pipes and before that the few organs that had pedalboards were all pull-downs, i.e. pedals that operated pipes connected to the manual stops. Pedalboards rarely contained more than 13 keys (an octave) or exceptionally 17 keys (an octave and a half). Pull-down pedalboards became more common from 1790 onwards. The pedaliter chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III require a 30-key pedalboard, going from CC to f. It is for this reason that the Bach awakening in England started with clavier compositions being played on the organ or organ compositions being adapted either for piano duet or for two (or sometimes three) players at an organ. The newfound interest in Bach's organ music, as well as the desire to reproduce the grand and thunderous choral effects of the 1784 Handel Commemoration, eventually influenced organ builders in England. By the 1840s, after a series of experiments with pedals and pedal pipes starting around 1800 (in the spirit of the industrial revolution), newly constructed and existing organs started to be fitted with dedicated diapason pipes for the pedals, according to the well-established German model. The organ in St Paul's Cathedral commissioned in 1694 from Father Smith and completed in 1697, with a case by Christopher Wren, had exceptionally already been fitted with a 25-key pedalboard (two octaves C-c') of pull-down German pedals in the first half of the 18th century, probably as early as 1720, on the recommendation of Handel. By the 1790s, these had been linked to separate pedal pipes, described with detailed illustrations in Rees's Cyclopædia (1819). The four-manual "monster" organ in Birmingham Town Hall, constructed in 1834 by William Hill, had three sets of pedal pipes connected to the pedalboard, which could also be operated independently by a two-octave keyboard to the left of the manual keyboards. Hill's experiment of installing gigantic 32-foot pedal pipes, some currently still present, was only partially successful, as their scale did not permit them to sound properly.^[83]

Samuel Wesley

William Crotch

Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, 1830: Hanover Square Rooms

Vincent Novello

George Shepherd, 1812: Watercolour of Christ Church, Newgate, designed by Christopher Wren

The organist, composer and music teacher Samuel Wesley (1766–1837) played a significant role in awakening interest in Bach's music in England, mostly in the period 1808–1811. After a lull in his own career, in the first half of 1806 he made a hand copy of Nägeli's Zürich edition of The Well-Tempered Clavier. In early 1808 Wesley visited Charles Burney in his rooms in Chelsea where he played for him from the copy of Book I of the '48' that Burney had received from C.P.E. Bach in 1772. As Wesley later recorded, Burney "was very delighted ... and expressed his Wonder how much abstruse Harmony & such perfect & enchanting Melody could have been so marvelously united!" Wesley subsequently consulted Burney, now a convert to the music of Bach, on his project to publish his own corrected transcription, stating, "I believe I can fairly securely affirm that mine is now the most correct copy in England." This project was eventually undertaken in with Charles Frederick Horn, published in four installments between 1810 and 1813. In June 1808 after a concert the Hanover Square Rooms during which Weseley performed some excerpts from the '48', he commented that, "this admirable Musick might be played into Fashion; you see I have only risked one modest Experiment, & it has electrified the Town just in the way that we wanted." Further concerts took place there and in the Surrey Chapel with Benjamin Jacob, a fellow organist with whom Wesley corresponded copiously an effusively about Bach. The musicologist and organist William Crotch, another advocate of Bach, lectured on Bach in 1809 in the Hanover Square Rooms prior to publishing his edition of the E major fugue BWV 878/2 from The Well-Tempered Clavier II. In the introduction, after commenting that Bach fugues were "very difficult of execution, profoundly learned and highly ingenious", he described their "prevailing style" as "the sublime". By 1810, Wesley had stated his intention to perform the E flat fugue BWV 552/2 from Clavier-Übung III in St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1812, in the Hanover Square Rooms he performed an arrangement of the E flat prelude for organ duet and orchestra with the arranger Vincent Novello, founder of the music publishing firm Novello & Co, that would later bring out an English edition of Bach's complete organ works. In 1827, the E flat fugue had been arranged for organ or piano duet by Jacob and was even performed by three players two years later on the organ in St. James, Bermondsey, where the pedal could be played on a supplementary keyboard. It had also been used for auditions for organists: Wesley's son Samuel Sebastian Wesley himself played it in 1827, when seeking employment (unsuccessfully). The chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III were also performed during this period: in his letters to Benjamin, Wesley mentions in particular Wir glauben BWV 680, which had become known as the "giant fugue", because of the striding figure in the pedal part. By 1837, pedal technique on the organ had developed sufficiently in England that the composer and organist Elizabeth Stirling (1819–1895) could give concerts in St Katherine's, Regent's Park and St. Sepulchre's, Holborn containing several of the pedaliter chorale preludes (BWV 676, 678, 682, 684) as well as the St Anne Prelude BWV 552/1.^[84] (These were the first public recitals in England by a female organist; in 1838 she performed BWV 669–670 and the St Anne fugue BWV 552/2 at St Sepulchre's.) In the same year Wesley and his daughter were invited to the organ loft of Christ Church, Newgate for a Bach recital by Felix Mendelssohn. As Mendelssohn recorded in his diary,

Old Wesley, trembling and bent, shook hands with me and at my request sat down at the organ bench to play, a thing he had not done for many years. The frail old man improvised with great artistry and splendid facility, so that I could not but admire. His daughter was so moved by the sight of it all that she fainted and could not stop crying and sobbing.

A week later, Mendelssohn played the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 on the organ in Birmingham Town Hall. Prior to the concert, he confided in a letter to his mother:

Ask Fanny, dear Mother, what she would say if I were to play in Birmingham the Bach organ prelude in E flat major and the fugue that stands at the end of the same volume. I think she will grumble at me, but I think I would be right all the same. The prelude especially would be very acceptable to the English, I would think, and both in the prelude and in the fugue one can show off the piano, pianissimo, and the whole range of the organ—and it is not a dull piece either in my view!

W. Sterndale Bennett

Ignaz Moscheles

Wesley died the following month. Mendelssohn made a total of 10 visits to Britain, the first in 1829, the last in 1847. His first visit, when he stayed with his friend the pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles, had been a resounding success and Mendelssohn had been embraced by all strata of British musical society. On his fourth trip to Britain in 1833 he was accompanied by his father and heard the seventeen-year-old pianist-composer William Sterndale Bennett performing his first piano concerto. A musical prodigy like Mendelssohn, at the age of 10 Sterndale Bennett had entered the Royal Academy of Music, where he had been taught by Crotch. He was also an accomplished organist, familiar with the works of Bach. (After brief appointments as organist, he subsequently practised on the organ in Hanover Square Rooms, later surprising his son with his mastery of the harder pedal passages on a pedal-piano.) Mendelssohn immediately invited him to Germany. Reportedly when Sterndale Bennett asked to go as his student, Mendelssohn replied, "No, no, you must come to be my friend." Sterndale Bennett eventually visited Leipzig for 6 months from October 1836 to June 1837. There he made friends with Schumann, who became his soul mate and drinking partner. Sterndale Bennett made only two further trips to Germany during the lifetimes of Mendelssohn and Schumann, in 1838–1839 and 1842, although he retained their friendship and helped arrange Mendelssohn's visits to Britain. He became a firm proponent of Bach, organising concerts of his chamber music in London. He was one of the founders in 1849 of the original Bach Society in London, devoted to the performance and collection of Bach's works, principally choral. In 1854, he staged the first performance in England of the St. Matthew Passion in the Hanover Square Rooms.^[85]

Already in 1829, Mendelssohn had become friends with Thomas Attwood, who had studied with Mozart and since 1796 had been organist of St Paul's Cathedral. Through Attwood Mendelssohn gained access to the organ at St Paul's, which was suitable for Bach, despite the unusual alignment of the pedalboard. In 1837, however, during a recital at St Paul's, just before playing to Wesley, the air supply to the organ had suddenly been interrupted; in a later account, that he had to retell annoyingly often, Mendelssohn related that George Cooper, the sub-organist,

ran off like a madman, quite red with anger, was a way a little while, and finally returned with the news that during the performance the organ-blower—on the instructions from the beadle, who had not been able to get people to leave the church and was forced to stay on longer against his will—had left the bellows, locked the door to them and left ... Shame! Shame! was called out from all sides. Three or four clerics appeared and tore into the beadle furiously in front of all the people, threatening him with dismissal.

G. Durand, 1842: engraving of Prince Albert playing the organ in the Old Library in Buckingham Palace in the presence of Queen Victoria and Felix Mendelssohn

Cooper's son, also called George, became the next sub-organist at St Paul's. He promoted the organ music of Bach and in 1845 produced the first English edition of the chorale prelude Wir glauben BWV 680 from Clavier-Übung III, published by Hollier & Addison, which he dubbed the "Giant Fugue" because of its striding pedal part. In the second half of the 19th century, this became the best-known of all the pedaliter chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III and was republished separately several times by Novello in organ anthologies at an intermediate level.^[86]

Mendelssohn's eighth visit occurred in 1842 after the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne. Her husband Prince Albert was a keen organist and, under his influence, the music of Bach started to be performed at royal concerts. On the second of his two invitations to Buckingham Palace, Mendelssohn improvised on Albert's organ and accompanied the queen in two songs by Fanny and himself. Between these two visits, he once more performed the St Anne prelude and fugue, this time before an audience of 3,000 in Exeter Hall in a concert organized by the Sacred Harmonic Society. In London there were few church organs with German pedal boards going down to CC: those which did included St. Paul's Cathedral, Christ Church, Newgate and St. Peter's, Cornhill, where Mendelssohn frequently performed solo recitals. During his last visit in 1847, he once more entertained Victoria and Albert in Buckingham Palace in May before playing a few days later the prelude and fugue on the name of "BACH" BWV 898 on the barely functional organ in Hanover Square Rooms during one of the Ancient Concerts organized by Prince Albert, with William Gladstone in the audience.^[87]

St. George's Hall, Liverpool, with organ built by Henry Willis in 1855

William Thomas Best (1826–1897)

In the late 1840s and early 1850s, organ building in England became more stable and less experimental, taking stock of traditions in Germany and innovations in France, particularly from the new generation of organ builders such as Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. One of the main names in organ building in England in the second half of the 19th century was Henry Willis. The manner in which the organ for St. George's Hall, Liverpool was planned and constructed marks the transition from what Nicholas Thistlethwaite calls the "insular movement" of the 1840s to the adoption of the established German system. Planning formally started on the organ in 1845: the main advisor to Liverpool Corporation was Samuel Sebastian Wesley, son of Samuel Wesley and an accomplished organist, particularly of Bach. He worked in consultation with a panel of university professors of music, who often disagreed with his eccentric suggestions. When Wesley tried to argue about the range of manual keyboards, justifying himself by the possibility of playing octaves with the left hand, he was reminded by the professors that the use of octaves was more common among pianists than first-rate organists and moreover that when he had been organist at Leeds Parish Church, "the dust on the half-dozen lowest keys on the GG manuals remained undisturbed for months." Willis was commissioned to build the organ only in 1851, after he had impressed the committee with the organ for Winchester Cathedral he had on display at The Crystal Palace during the Great Exhibition. The completed organ had four manual keyboards and a thirty key pedalboard, with 17 sets of pedal pipes and a range from CC to f. The instrument had unequal temperament and, as Wesley had stipulated, the air supply came from two large underground bellows powered by an eight horse-power steam engine. Among the innovations introduced by Willis were the cylindrical pedal-valve, the pneumatic lever and the combination action, the latter two features being adopted widely by English organ builders in the second half of the 19th century. The organ was inaugurated in 1855 by William Thomas Best, who later that year was appointed resident organist, attracting crowds of thousands to hear his playing. In 1867, he had the organ retuned to equal temperament. He remained in his post until 1894, giving performances elsewhere in England, including at the Crystal Palace, St James's Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. The St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 was used by Best to start off the series of Popular Monday Concerts at St James's Hall in 1859; and later in 1871 to inaugurate the newly built Willis organ in the Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of Queen Victoria.^[88]

France

One day I was passing by the small rooms on the first floor of the Maison Érard, reserved only for great pianists, for their practice and lessons. At the time the rooms were all empty, except one, from which could be heard the great Triple-Prelude in E flat by Bach played remarkably well on a pedalier. I listened, riveted to the spot by the expressive, crystal-clear playing of a little old man, frail in appearance, who, without seeming to suspect my presence, continued the piece right to the end. Then, turning to me: 'Do you know this music?' he asked. I replied that, as an organ pupil in Franck's class at the Conservatoire, I could scarcely ignore such a fine work. 'Play me something' he added, giving up the piano stool for me. Although somewhat over-awed, I managed to play quite cleanly the C Major Fugue ... Without comment he returned to the piano saying 'I am Charles-Valentin Alkan and I'm just preparing for my annual series of six 'Petits Concerts' at which I play only the finest things'.

— Vincent D'Indy, 1872^[89]

Charles Gounod in his studio in 1893, playing his Cavaillé-Coll organ

Fanny Mendelssohn in a drawing by her future husband Wilhelm Hensel

In France, the Bach revival was slower to take root. Before the late 1840s, after the upheaval caused by the French revolution, Bach was rarely performed in public concerts in France and it was preferred that church organists play operatic arias or popular airs instead of counterpoint. One exception was a public performance in the Paris Conservatoire in December 1833, repeated two years later in the Salons Pape, of the opening allegro of Bach's concerto for three harpsichords BWV 1063, played on pianos by Chopin, Liszt and Hiller. Berlioz later described their choice as "stupid and ridiculous", unworthy of their talents. Charles Gounod, having won the Prix de Rome in 1839, spent three years in the Villa Medici in Rome, where he developed a passionate interest in the polyphonic music of Palestrina. He also met Mendelssohn's sister Fanny, herself an accomplished concert pianist and by then married to the artist Wilhelm Hensel: Gounod described her as "an outstanding musician and a woman of superior intelligence, small, slender, but gifted with an energy which showed in her deep-set eyes and in her burning look". In response Fanny noted in her diary that Gounod was "passionately fond of music in a way I have rarely seen before." She introduced Gounod to the music of Bach, playing from memory fugues, concertos and sonatas for him on the piano. At the end of his stay in 1842, the twenty-five-year-old Gounod had become a confirmed Bach devotee. In 1843, after a seven-month stay in Vienna, with a letter of introduction from Fanny, Gounod spent 4 days with her brother in Leipzig. Mendelssohn played Bach for him on the organ of the Thomaskirche and conducted a performance of his Scottish Symphony by the Gewandhaus orchestra, specially convened in his honour. Back in Paris, Gounod took up an appointment as organist and music director in the Église des Missions Étrangères on the rue de Bac, on condition that he would be allowed to have autonomy over the music: Bach and Palestrina figured strongly in his repertoire. When churchgoers initially objected to this daily diet of counterpoint, Gounod was confronted by the Abbé, who eventually yielded to Gounod's conditions, although not without commenting "What a terrible man you are!"^[90]

In the late 1840s and 1850s a new school of organist-composers emerged in France, all trained in the organ works of Bach. These included Franck, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Widor. In the aftermath of the French revolution, there had already been a revival of interest in France in choral music of the baroque and earlier periods, particularly of Palestrina, Bach and Handel: Alexandre-Étienne Choron founded the Institution royale de musique classique et religieuse in 1817. After the July Revolution and Choron's death in 1834, direction of the institute, renamed the "Conservatoire royal de musique classique de France", was taken over by Louis Niedermeyer and took his name as the École Niedermeyer. Along with the Conservatoire de Paris, it became one of the main training grounds for French organists. The Belgian composer and musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, a contemporary and colleague of Choron in Paris, shared his interest in early and baroque music. Fétis exerted a similar influence in Brussels, where he was appointed director of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 1832, a position he held until his death in 1871.^[91]

Engraving of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. Sulpice, Paris

Organ at St Eustache, rebuilt in 1989 in the original case designed by Victor Baltard

At the same time, French organ builders most notably Aristide Cavaillé-Coll were starting to produce new series of organs, which with their pedalboards, were designed both for the music of Bach as well as modern symphonic compositions. The change in traditions can be traced back to the inauguration in 1844 of the organ for St Eustache, built by Doublaine and Callinet. The German organ virtuoso Adolf Friedrich Hesse was invited with five Parisians to demonstrate the new instrument. As part of his recital Hesse played Bach's Toccata in F major, BWV 540/1, allowing the Parisian audience to hear pedal technique far beyond what was known in France at that time. While impressed by his pedal playing, French commentators at the time gave Hesse mixed praise, one remarking that, while he might be the "king of the pedal ... he thinks of nothing but power and noise, his playing astonishes, but does not speak to the soul. He always seems to be the minister of an angry God who wants to punish." Another commentator, however, who had heard Hesse playing Bach on the organ at an industrial exhibition beforehand, noted that "if the organ of the Doublaine-Callinet firm is perfect from bottom to top, Monsieur Hesse is a complete organist from head to feet." The new organ had a short life: it was destroyed by fire from a falling candle in December 1844.^[92]

Two Belgian organist-composers, Franck and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, participated in the inauguration in 1854 of the new organ at St Eustache. Lemmens had studied with Hesse and Fétis; already in the early 1850s he had started giving public concerts in Paris, featuring Bach's organ music and using the brilliant foot technique he had learnt in Germany. At the same time Lemmens had published 18 installments of an organ manual for the use of "organistes du culte catholique", giving a complete introduction to the Bach tradition of organ playing, henceforth adopted in France.^[92]

Érard pedal piano

Charles Valentin Alkan

In 1855, the piano firm Érard introduced a new instrument, the pedal piano (pédalier), a grand piano fitted with a full German-style pedalboard. The French composer, organist and virtuoso pianist Charles Valentin Alkan and Lemmens gave concerts on it, including performances of Bach's toccatas, fugues and chorale preludes for organ. In 1858, Franck, a friend of Alkan, acquired a pédalier for his private use. Alkan, a devotee of Bach and one of the first subscribers to the Bach Gesellschaft, composed extensively for the pédalier, including in 1866 a set of twelve studies for pedalboard alone. In the 1870s, Alkan, by that time a recluse, returned to give a series of public Petits Concerts each year in the Salle Érard using their pédalier: Alkan's repertoire included the St Anne prelude as well as several chorale preludes.^[93]

There were further indications of changes in taste in France: Saint-Saëns, organist at the Madeleine from 1857 to 1877, refused to perform operatic arias as part of the liturgy, on one occasion replying to such a request, "Monsieur l'Abbé, when I hear from the pulpit the language of the Opéra Comique, I will play light music. Not before!" Saint-Saëns was nevertheless reluctant to use Bach's music in services. He regarded the preludes, fugues, toccatas and variations as virtuosic pieces for concert performance; and the chorale preludes as too Protestant in spirit for inclusion in a Catholic mass. The St Anne prelude and fugue was often used by Saint-Saëns for inaugurating Cavaillé-Coll organs; in Paris; he played for the inaugurations at St Sulpice (1862), Notre Dame (1868), Trinité (1869), the chapel in Versailles (1873) and the Trocadéro (1878).^[94]

Cavaillé-Colle organ in the Salle des Fêtes of the Palais du Trocadéro, built in 1878

Camille Saint-Saëns

The last two decades of the 19th century saw a revival of interest in Bach's organ music in France. There were public concerts on the new Cavaillé-Colle organ in the concert hall or Salle des Fêtes of the old Palais du Trocadéro, built for the third Paris exhibition in 1878. Organized by the organist Alexandre Guilmant, a pupil of Lemmens, in conjunction with Eugène Gigout, these started as six free concerts during the exhibition. Attracting huge crowds—the concert hall could seat 5,000 with sometimes an extra 2,000 standing—the concerts continued until the turn of the century. Guilmant programmed primarily the organ music of the two composers whom he referred to as "musical giants", Bach and Handel, still mostly unknown to these mass audiences, as well as the works of older masters such as Buxtehude and Frescobaldi. The St Anne prelude and fugue featured in the concerts, Saint-Saëns playing it in one of the first in 1879 and Guilmant again in 1899, in a special concert to mark the twentieth anniversary of the series. The concerts represented a new fin de siècle cult of Bach in France. It was not without its detractors: the music critic Camille Bellaigue (1858–1930) described Bach in 1888 as a "first-rate bore":^[91]

Of all the great musicians, the greatest, that is to say he without whom music itself would not exist, the founder, the patriarch, the Abraham, the Noah, the Adam of music, Johann Sebastian Bach, is the most tedious. ... How many times, crushed under these four-square merciless rhythms, lost amid this algebra of sound, this living geometry, smothered by the answers of these interminable fugues, one wants to close one's ears to this prodigious counterpoint ...

Charles-Marie Widor

Alexandre Guilmant

Marcel Dupré at his home in Meudon in front of the Cavaillé-Coll organ previously owned by Guilmant

The chorale preludes of Bach were late to enter the French organ repertoire. César Franck, although only known to have performed one work by Bach in public, often set chorale preludes (BWV 622 and BWV 656) as examination pieces at the Conservatoire de Paris in the 1870s and 1880s. It was Charles-Marie Widor, Franck's successor on his death in 1890, who introduced the chorale preludes as a fundamental part of organ teaching there, where Bach's other organ works already provided the foundation stone. Widor believed that the music of Bach represented

the emotion of the infinite and exalted, for which words are an inadequate expression, and which can find proper utterence only in art ... it tunes the soul to a state in which we can grasp the truth and oneness of things, and rise above everything that is paltry, everything that divides us.

Unlike Saint-Saëns and his own teacher Lemmens, Widor had no objection to playing Bach organ music because of its Lutheran associations: "What speaks through his works is pure religious emotion; and this is one and the same in all men, in spite of the national and religious partitions in which we are born and bred." His student, the blind composer and organist, Louis Vierne later recalled:^[95]

At the reopening of the class at the beginning of 1892, there occurred an event of considerable importance to our artistic development. I mean the discovery of Bach's chorale preludes. I mean "discovery", and this is not an exaggeration, as you may judge for yourselves. At the first class in performance, Widor remarked with some surprise that since his arrival at the Conservatoire not one of us had brought in one of the celebrated chorales. For my part I was acquainted with three of them, published in Braille for the edition Franck had prepared for our school. They had seemed to me to have no technical difficulties and I had paid no further attention to them. My classmates did not even know that they existed. On looking through the music cabinet where there were several books in the Richault edition, we discovered three volumes, two of preludes and fugues and one of chorale preludes, the latter completely untouched, its leaves uncut. The Maître spent the entire class playing these pieces to us, and we were bowled over. The most overwhelming parts of the giant's organ works were suddenly revealed to us. We set to work on them at once, and for three months nothing else was heard in class. We all played chorale preludes at the examination in January, and the surprise of the jury was no less great than our own had been. Upon leaving the hall I heard Ambroise Thomas remark to Widor, "What music! Why didn't I know about that forty years ago? It ought to be the Bible of all musicians, and especially of organists.

On Widor's recommendation, Guilmant succeeded him as professor of organ in the conservatory in 1896. In 1899, he installed a three manual Cavaillé-Coll organ in his home in Meudon, where he gave lessons to a wide range of pupils, including a whole generation of organists from the United States. Among his French students were Nadia Boulanger, Marcel Dupré and Georges Jacob. Dupré started lessons with Guilmant at the age of eleven, later becoming his successor at the conservatoire. In two celebrated series of concerts at the conservatoire in 1920 and at the Palais du Trocadéro the following year, Dupré performed the complete organ works of Bach from memory in 10 concerts: the ninth concert was devoted entirely to the chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III. Dupré also taught in Meudon, having acquired Guilmant's Cavaillé-Coll organ in 1926. The funeral service for Guilmant at his home in 1911, prior to his burial in Paris, included a performance by Jacob of Aus tiefer Noth BWV 686.^[96]