The Registration of J. S. Bach’s Organ Works, Quentin Faulkner. Wayne Leupold Editions WL800029; www.wayneleupold.com.
The registration of Bach’s organ works has exercised a fascination for many decades, with many different solutions being proposed—very few of which, in the light of ongoing research, can be validated by historically authenticated documents. Forkel’s comment that Bach combined the stops in a most individual manner offers no practical help and cannot be regarded as a prescription for anything goes.
A brief preface reminds us that although Bach left registration indications in several of his works, he left no comprehensive treatment of this subject. It discusses the two main periods of Bach’s composition of organ music—at the beginning of his professional career and in his later Leipzig years—and the fact that in the intervening years there were immense changes in both organ building and musical styles. Recent research by Siegbert Rampe and Ibo Ortgies into the function of the organist in this period suggests that written-down compositions were intended primarily to provide models for improvisation and played on pedal clavichord. Only in the later 18th century did auditions allow the performance of a previously composed work.
The two chapters of part A of this book contain comments from Bach himself and specifications of a few instruments, including Halle Cathedral of 1851, showing how conservative middle German organbuilding remained in the century after Bach’s death. By far the largest, and most important, part of the book is the three chapters in part B. Chapter III gives sources providing general principles of registration or comments thereon by Andreas Werckmeister (1687/98), Friedrich Niedt and Johann Mattheson (1706/10 and 1721), Johann Adolph Scheibe (1739), and Jacob Adlung (1768). Werckmeister’s Orgelprobe was probably known to Bach, and the source material considered here would have reflected ideas current in the preceding generation. Scheibe was a Bach pupil who dared to criticize his teacher’s music! He is best considered as a proponent of the new galant style, and mentions that improvised preludes and fugues tended to be played on the full organ. The short excerpts from pp. 482–506 of Adlung’s Anleitung zu der musikalischen Gelahrtheit of 1758 and the much longer excerpt from his other work, the Musica mechanica organoedi, started 1720–30 but unfinished at the time of his death in 1762, gain vital credibility through the editorial role of Agricola, a Bach pupil who even added a set of footnotes invoking Bach as a support.
Chapter IV, which covers almost half of the book, provides us with no fewer than nine detailed considerations of individual stops and specific stop combinations culled from Christian Boxberg’s description of the new organ at Görlitz (1704), Bach’s own comments on the renovation of St. Blasius, Mühlhausen (1708), a complete translation of J. F. Walther’s significant text on the new Wagner organ in the Royal Garrison Church, Berlin (1726), registrations for the Castle church at Lahm (1732), excerpts from Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister of 1739, and Gottfried Silbermann’s own suggestions for registration on his organs at Grosshartmannsdorf and Fraureuth. F. W. Marpurg’s comments on registrations for different compositional genres show a pronounced French influence, although no organs built in the French style would have been known to him and his readers. However, it is clear that Bach was aware of the French prescriptions through his copying of De Grigny. Agri-
cola’s own information on organs and stops included here was also published by Marpurg, and finally there is some valuable material by C. G. Schröter about recommended stops to be used in figured bass accompaniment.
Chapter V includes much valuable material gleaned from sources that provide registration instructions for individual pieces. First, there is a list of the indications, including manual changes, found in works by Bach himself and Johann Gottfried Walther, who left a major corpus of chorale preludes, many of which are multi-verse settings, as well as arrangements of chamber concerti and a few free pieces. The most comprehensive list of registrations prescribed for individual pieces covers the large number of chorale preludes by Georg Kaufmann (1679–1735), organist at Merseburg, about fifteen miles from Leipzig, where his preludes were published in installments between 1733–36; it is a great pity that the modern edition omits the indications for several of these pieces. Finally, the registrations found in four variation sets of chorale preludes by Daniel Gronau (1700–47) of Danzig are given; these reflect many of the tendencies of middle-German sources.
Part C opens with a discussion on changing manuals, particularly in free works and fugues, which remains a point of major contention today. George Stauffer has argued since the 1980s against manual changes on a number of grounds, analyzing those non-chorale-based works that do have such indications. The possibility of echo sections or passages requiring a second manual is mentioned in the light of the one example known, the Praeludium in E minor by Bruhns, as is the notion that registration indications were omitted because “composed” works were intended for the pedal clavichord. Preludes are discussed broadly, as is the evidence of Heinrich Knecht and Friedrich Marpurg for manual changes in free works.
Most interesting is the requirement by Agricola in 1773 that during an audition for a post a candidate should improvise a free fantasy over three manuals; the possibility that this was then applied by later performers to Bach’s existing works is placed in context. An ample exploration of the concept of fugal registration up to Mendelssohn also makes for illuminating reading, especially when the latter’s dynamic indications in his excellent piano fugues are examined.
Also reproduced in extenso are the prefaces to Griepenkerl’s edition of Bach’s collected organ works and a discussion of where they differ from 18th-century treatises already cited in this book. A wide-ranging bibliography gives details not only of contemporary sources but also of recent publications of Bach scholarship; this is followed by a well-organized alphabetic key to information in the sources, making it easy to look up any references from a keyword.
What this short monograph does not do is to put forward dogmatic statements from the author; rather, its immense value lies in bringing together source material from Bach’s contemporaries, his pupils and their contemporaries, and leaving the player to make a decision for him/herself based on these comments, several of which are contradictory—for example, whether to use the reeds or not in the plenum! It also discusses the possible transmission of the works prior to the printed editions of the mid-19th century—maybe far fewer players than we would think actually had access to the pieces via MSS—no Internet downloads or photocopiers in the 18th century!
All texts quoted are provided in the original German, together with an excellent translation into English. One major problem for us today is the almost total absence of organs outside of Germany with characteristics corresponding to those familiar to Bach. However, this thoughtful and thought-provoking book goes a long way to help us make an informed decision based on the material collected together when registering the master’s works on the instrument on which we wish to play, and is highly recommended.
—John Collins
Sussex, England
April 27, 2009
THE DIAPASON
