Buxtehude BuxWV 141 – Part 1: Getting to know the piece
This month we begin the process of working on the Praeludium in E major, BuxWV 141, by Dietrich Buxtehude. As I mentioned last month, there is a good edition available online for free at http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/1/1e/IMSLP29682-PMLP06429-BuxWV136-154.pdf, pages 21–26. This is a reprint of the edition first published in the 1870s by Breitkopf & Härtel, edited by Phillip Spitta, and frequently reprinted, later on with revisions by Max Seiffert. It is also available in a 1988 Dover reprint and in Kalmus editions. There are several subsequent editions available through music dealers and at libraries. Small differences in these editions will not in any way interfere with the discussion of the process of working on the piece. Any one of them will serve this purpose very well.
The first step in working on a piece is to make sure that there are measure numbers, and if there are not—as in the edition referred to above—to put them in. This is worth doing! It will save time later and help in getting to know the piece. Even though the measure is somewhat of an arbitrary construct (and I feel pretty sure that as a matter of performance and listening nothing would change in the least if all of the bar lines in the notated music were erased), the act of going through and writing in measure numbers is a good first step in exploring what a piece seems to be about on the broadest level. The Buxtehude Praeludium has 110 measures. Going through the piece counting measures, I notice the following, among other things:
• three measures are whole notes;
• three tempo markings appear along the way, each of which apparently occurring at a place where there is also a noticeable change in texture;
• quite a few measures or passages are in only one voice;
• pedal is present almost exactly half the time (though this can be an artifact of the edition rather than the piece);
• several changes in time signature.
None of this is exactly earth shaking, and of course most of what there is to notice about a piece is not noticed casually while counting measures. However, I want to introduce the idea that noticing anything and everything about a piece is the first and an important step towards learning how to play it. I am not talking specifically—or only—about the things that constitute a formal analysis—harmonic or motivic/contrapuntal—such as might be done in a theory class. This might overlap with what I am talking about, and that kind of rigorous academic analysis has several important purposes, only some of which bear upon the act of learning a piece or actually performing it. However, noticing things about a piece—simple or complex, superficial (even, for example, things about font and layout in the page) or “deep” (contrapuntal structure, harmonic intricacies)—can increase ultimate performing security by increasing the extent to which a player simply knows what is coming up next. This is analogous to the fact that it is easier to drive around a town whose streets you know well, or to walk around a building where you know all of the corridors and staircases. It is also part of the process of making a non-memorized piece as well-learned and secure as a memorized piece is supposed to be. (A piece that is memorized mostly by feel is often not particularly secure.) Of course, working out fingerings and pedalings and then practicing them is by far the most important component of learning a piece and becoming comfortable playing it. However, the more consciously familiar you are with the landscape of a piece, the more your mind will be able to help you, as you practice and perform the work, with the task of remembering what is coming up next in time to execute it serenely and securely. Such things as “the next subject entry is in the tenor” or “there’s a surprising chord coming up” or “the first thing on the next page is a D-major chord” or “the font on page 4 is larger, because there are fewer lines” all serve this function. Some of these things might also contribute to an analysis of the piece and perhaps to a greater artistic understanding of the piece as well. However, the point right now is that they make the basic learning of the piece more solid and secure.
The first thing to explore about a piece is what sections the piece falls into. Sometimes sections are delineated by double bars or (of course) movement breaks, or flagged by words—tempo indications, usually. Sometimes they are not. It is also possible to be unsure whether two adjacent areas within a piece should be considered different sections or simply somewhat different parts of the same section. This almost always does not matter at all. Exploring the issue and describing for yourself what is going on is all that is necessary.
In this Praeludium, there are quite a few spots where something changes, that is, where one kind of writing gives way to another. These spots seem to be as follows: after m. 12; the beginning of m. 51; after m. 59; after m. 72; after the first beat of m. 75; after m. 86; and after m. 90. This suggests that there are eight different sections. The nature of the writing in the second, and longest, of these sections changes in the last three and a half measures, that is, from the middle of m. 47 through m. 50. There is no clear break leading into this change, so perhaps it isn’t quite a new section, but simply a different kind of passage. As I pointed out above, it does not matter what we call it as long as we notice what is happening.
So, if these passages or sections are different from one another, then how are they different and what can this tell us about how to work on the piece? Keyboard writing has a tendency to mix contrapuntal and non-contrapuntal textures. Therefore it is always useful in looking over a piece to notice which passages, if any, are written in a thoroughgoing contrapuntal texture and which are not. There may also be passages that seem to be somewhere in between. Of course one can assume that, in general, Renaissance and Baroque keyboard music will have a large proportion of formally worked out counterpoint, later music rather less.
In the case of this piece, the following sections seem to be fully contrapuntal, in the sense that they have a set number of voices and they treat recognizable motives imitatively: the section beginning at m. 13, excluding the last few measures; the section beginning at m. 60; the section beginning in m. 75; and the final section, which begins at m. 91. Each of these sections is more or less fugal—that is, in addition to their being contrapuntal in the sense described above, they have at least one theme or motive that is heard one or more times in each voice. These themes are first heard as follows: 1) mm. 13–15 in the soprano voice; 2) m. 60 in the alto voice; 3) m. 75 in the tenor voice; and 4) m. 91 in the alto voice. It is important to go through and find each and every occurrence of each of these themes. This is certainly part of understanding the rhetoric of the work, and of analyzing the work for achieving an intellectual understanding of the piece and of the mind of the composer. But it is also a very practical step in learning how to get the notes right and how to make the piece secure in performance. As noted above, the more you simply know what’s coming up, the more familiar you are with what is in the piece, the more likely you are to recall it in time to play it easily and securely. The most natural thing to remember is any kind of pattern, and a recurrent theme is a pattern.
Motives or themes, including themes functioning as fugue subjects, are of course not the only recurring patterns that can (and should) be noticed; we will get to some others just below. However, fugue subjects and similar recurring motives are easy to notice and to identify, and are therefore a good starting point. So it is a good idea to highlight them on a copy of the work. I find twelve instances of the theme introduced in m. 13—four in the soprano voice, three in the alto, two in the tenor, and three in the bass. There are also many instances of the second half of this theme occurring without the first half, as in, for example, measures 33 and 34. The theme introduced in m. 60, if we take it to be the full measure in the alto voice, occurs six times: three in the soprano voice, two in the alto, one in the tenor. (This section is in three voices.) However, each half of the theme occurs separately quite a few more times. Does it make sense to call this a measure-long theme, or is it really two separate four-note motives, which may or may not follow one another in the same voice? It doesn’t matter! As long as you notice what the notes and patterns are, either of those concepts will do very nicely to describe the situation. The theme introduced in m. 75 occurs six times, two in each of the three voices. Again, fragments of this theme also occur. The theme introduced in m. 91 seems to occur eleven times, though it would be possible to argue that a couple of them are not quite exactly that theme, but rather a close variant. Each half of the theme also occurs separately many times.
Turning for a moment to the four remaining sections of the piece, what is there to notice about them? First of all, they are short, occupying 27 of the piece’s 110 measures. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that they take up a proportionately small amount of time: that depends on tempo. One of these sections—mm. 87–90—is in a set number of voices (four), with a homophonic, somewhat hymn-like, texture: fully worked-out counterpoint, but with no imitation or motivic development. The other three (at mm. 1, 51, and 73) are not in any fixed number of voices or, really, in voices at all. They include passage work, trills and trill-like writing, fairly long one-voice passages, occasional abrupt changes in texture—the most noticeable of which is near the beginning, where a long solo passage ends in a four-note chord—and some unprepared dissonance. Two of these sections have written comments associated with them: trillo longo in mm. 51 and 53, and con discrezione in m. 73. Both of these might suggest rhythmic freedom at a fairly broad level. This is obvious with con discrezione. It also makes sense that trillo longo, written over a very brief trill-like passage, would suggest that the trill can be made to occupy more time than is notated for it.
Getting to know a piece in order to perform it securely involves simply noticing things, even things whose significance isn’t clear—indeed, even things that are not really significant except in that they form part of the process of getting to know the piece. It is most important to notice anything that happens more than once. There is a good chance that anything that happens more than once is important compositionally, that the composer did it on purpose. However, even if this is not the case, the act of noticing helps with learning. By “anything” in this context I mean, probably, anything except individual pitches. It is probably not fruitful to notice that, for example, the note “a above middle c” occurs in this measure, and then occurs again in that measure. Once in a while this might matter, but usually not. Anything more involved than an individual note, however, is worth paying attention to.
Here are some things—other than the well-defined motives discussed above—that I notice in looking over this piece. The upward leap of a step in the pedal part occurs five times in a row near the beginning; it is possible that the rising quarter-note line in the lowest voice (not shared with the other voices) in the section beginning at m. 60 could be heard as related to this, an extension of it. The countersubject fragment in m. 16 and again m. 18—four notes in the soprano voice beginning just after the downbeat—comes in again somewhat prominently in the final section beginning at m. 103, and ends up being the final gesture of the piece. It also occurs in m. 72, but in a way that is interrupted: it does not resolve, and it leads into the con discrezione section. The phenomenon of two voices playing together—that is, in a way that is in sync rhythmically and more or less parallel—is characteristic of the beginning (mm. 4–6) and the end (mm. 99 on) of the piece, but not, except fleetingly, the middle. The one instance of this that I notice in the middle of the piece is at m. 57 and seems to foreshadow the fugue subject that governs the final section of the piece beginning at m. 91.
The most interesting recurrence of a compositional element in this piece is the first four notes—that is, the rising scale fragment B–C#–D#–E—which keep coming back at crucial moments. To start with, it is the germ from which the rest of the opening section is, at least partly, built up. This is most explicit in mm. 3, 4, and 9. Then this opening gesture is quoted directly as the last notes of the fugue subject that is introduced in m. 13. Also, the second half of that subject is essentially an ornamented inversion of this motive. When the long fugal section that begins in m. 13 is coming to an end and gives way to non-fugal passage work, the four-note motive or a close variant of it is present throughout, as it also is in the following section. The final fugue subject, which enters in m. 91, is made up of the ornamented inversion of this motive, followed by the motive itself. From m. 94 on, the motive occurs in parallel or contrary motion in two or three voices at once repeatedly, and the flourish that gives energy to the ending of the work in mm. 106 and 109 is made up of two iterations in a row of this four-note motive in diminution.
I have posted a copy of the score of BuxWV 141 with various motives and other aspects of the text of the piece highlighted at http://www.gavinblack-baroque.com. Next month we will continue with this piece, and I will discuss how to break the work up into units for practicing. Then, in the August column, we will turn to the Boëllmann Suite Gothique.
