From J.S. Bach to Mozart · long-overdue biography of a key figure in the transmission of culture...

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end of his life, he argued that Wagner’smusic was best heard not in the operahall, but on the concert stage, withoutthe “complicating and distracting stageactions” which Wagner had insisted wasintegral to his extravaganzas.

Furtwängler proceeded in the samemanner with other incurably Romanticcomposers. For example, LyndonLaRouche, in a 1988 interview with theItalian cultural review Machiavellico,recalls how, while waiting to be shippedfrom India back to the United States fol-lowing the war, he dug up a Furtwän-gler recording of a Tchaikovsky sym-phony—most likely the October-November 1938 EMI recording of theSymphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”) in B minor, Op. 74, as we discover fromArdoin’s discography. LaRouche recallshow “for the first time, I heardTchaikovsky performed as if it weremusic! It was my first encounter withFurtwängler; it was electrifying.”LaRouche dates his quest for identify-ing the intelligiblity of creative discov-ery “between the notes,” from thatmoment.

Let us therefore not be too quick tojudge, smugly, that Furtwängler waswasting his time attempting to breatheClassical life into inferior Romanticworks. For, if he succeeded in inspiringyoung LaRouche to his momentous1951-52 breakthrough in physical econo-my, Furtwängler’s efforts were certainlynot in vain.

As to Furtwängler’s controversialdecision to continue to perform in Ger-many throughout World War II, therecan be no doubt that it was morallymotivated, and Ardoin’s biographicalmaterial, albeit in a chatty, back-of-the-record-jacket way, stoutly defendsFurtwängler against the British-domi-nated musical cabal which spared noeffort to sabotage and blackball the Ger-man patriot both during and after thewar.

Due credit is also given to violinistYehudi Menuhin, for his unceasingefforts to defend Furwängler against thiscabal; and also to New York Metropoli-tan Opera director Rudolf Bing, whoattempted unsuccessfully to bringFurtwängler to the United States in 1954.

Ardoin also documents how theNazis promoted Herbert von Karajan, aNazi Party member, with the specificintent of using Karajan as a means ofkeeping Furtwängler off-balance andpreoccupied by professional rivalries.Most revealing is a quote from thediaries of Nazi propaganda chief JosefGoebbels: “Furtwängler is complainingabout Karajan, who is getting too muchfawning coverage in the press. I put astop to this. Furtwängler is behavingvery decently.”

Other Nazis were more candid intheir estimation of the great conductor.“There is no Jew, filthy as he may be,for whom Furtwängler does not stretchout a helping hand,” complained Hein-rich Himmler, who frequently peti-tioned Hitler to send Furtwängler to aconcentration camp.

In the final analysis, Furtwänglerhas triumphed against both his Naziand his British foes. Even if you do notread this book, do take the opportunityto hear and study Furtwängler’srecordings.

—John W. Sigerson

The powerful fusion of the contra-puntal and geometric inventions of

J.S. Bach, with the beautiful singing ofthe Italian bel canto tradition, resultedmost notably in Mozart’s 1782-86 revo-lution in music and European culture.Johann Christian Bach’s unique role—learning from his extraordinary fatherand brothers; moving to Italy to studywith Padre Martini; and instructing themind of the eight-year-old Mozart—isthe underlying theme of Heinz Gärt-ner’s amiable and helpful book. Howev-er, Gärtner never succeeds in makingthis fundamental theme sing.

Gärtner is well read in the literaturecircumscribing Mozart’s life, andaddresses the biographical gap for thegeneration between J. Sebastian Bachand Mozart. Previously, the only workin German or English on J. ChristianBach was Charles Sanford Terry’s 1923John Christian Bach, which was skimpy

on both Christian’s education in Ger-many, and his subsequent teaching ofthe young Mozart in 1764-5.

Christian’s 260th birthday is Septem-ber 5, 1995. He was born in Leipzig,where his father was the cantor of thefamous Thomas Schule, the eighteenthof twenty children. Only seven of themwere alive when Christian was born.Interestingly, Gärtner suggests that hissurvival was in part due to the fact thatthe Thomas Schule, a school for poorstudents, provided beds for all, and sep-arated Bach’s classrooms from his din-ing room—hence reducing the amountof infection and disease where Christiangrew up.

Gärtner allows his story to proceed,steering between the “Scylla” of the“dry, contrapuntal, learned, complicat-ed” German school, and the “Charyb-dis” of the “flowing, singing, simple”Italian school. But all along the way, his

interesting exceptions prove the contraryrule: that this is a false division. Forexample: (1) Bach, who was attacked forun-singable fugues and “excessive arti-

From J.S. Bach to Mozart

John Christian Bach: Mozart’s Friend and Mentor

by Heinz Gärtnertranslated by Reinhard Pauly

Amadeus Press, Portland, 1994400 pages, hardbound, $29.95

Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 4, Number 3, Fall 1995

© 1995 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited.

fice,” taught at the famous singingschool in Leipzig. (2) Pisendel’s orches-tra in Dresden, where Bach supportersgathered around Friedemann Bach,heard “a felicitous combination of Ital-ian musical élan and German thorough-ness. . . . Italians raved that whoeverwanted to hear Italian music performedto perfection, should go to Dresden.” (3)Christian’s brother and teacher, C.P.E.Bach, defined the cantabile method as“to think through singing.” (4) Christianwrote his next teacher, Padre Martini,that “I have begun to study geometricalproportions, in order to be able to fol-low more adequately the thoughtsexpressed” in Martini’s Storia della Musi-ca. Examples such as these, of instanceswhere learning and beauty cohere,abound in the text.

Regarding such matters, Gärtner’sstory gets muddied, as he fails to sort outthe actual accomplishments of the periodfrom the factioneering that intruded. Forexample, he conflates the above exampleswith a favorable account of King Freder-ick the Great’s confidant and controller,Francesco Algarotti—curiously called infrom Venice, made a noble in Berlin, andassigned to run all matters cultural as asort of King’s secretary.

Algarroti’s essay, the Saggio sopral’opera in musica, praises beautiful operafor its “pleasing illusion,” only to thencriticize “those gentlemen who todaytake charge of our pleasures,” for notcoordinating text, music, dances, sets,and theater building properly. His solu-tion for Frederick, was to “restore orderin the musical realm . . . with disciplineand authority.” Hence, Frederick’s pen-chant for running operas (according toCharles Burney) “like a field marshal inbattle.” Gärtner ignores both this Venet-ian profiling of Frederick, and this sub-stitution of order for truthful beauty.

The book’s strength resides in itsattempt to elucidate Christian Bach’srole in educating the eight-year-oldMozart in 1764 in London, where Bachwas the music master for Queen Sophie-Charlotte. Gärtner revives the studies ofMozart’s education by Théodore deWyzewa and Georges de Saint-Foixfrom pre-World War I France. Theyoung Mozart studied with Christian

for almost a year, re-working several ofChristian’s compositions, includingsonatas and symphonies. Gärtner speaksof “the ‘singing allegro’ manner thatBach bequeathed to his young friend.”

Years later, Mozart would write, “Asan exercise I set the aria ‘Non so d’ondeviene,’ which [Christian] Bach had com-posed so beautifully [in his opera,“Alessandro nell’Indie,” which Mozarthad heard in London as a child]. I knowit so well that I can’t get it out of mymind. Therefore I wanted to seewhether, in spite of this, I could com-pose an aria [to the same text] thatwould not resemble Bach’s—and mineturned out completely different.”Mozart, the adult, loved his teacher’saria, and he loved deliberately freeinghimself to go further.

A few months later, in August, 1778,he met Bach for the second and lasttime. It was for ten days, at the estate ofthe Duke Louis d’Ayen Noailles, theMarshal of France, and the in-law of theMarquis de Lafayette. Lafayette’s fac-tion was planning an invasion of Britain.An agent of the Duke of Orléans, BaronGrimm, forced Mozart out of town afterthis meeting.

Bach had journeyed from London,even though France had recently alliedwith the American colonists in their waragainst Britain. Suspiciously, after this

trip, Bach’s next three years saw a seriesof setbacks in England, and an earlydeath, with almost no one at his funeral.From the Marshal’s estate, Mozart wrotehis father about Bach, “As you wellknow, I love him with all my heart, and Ihave the highest regard for him.” Eventhough Gärtner highlights this quote atthe head of his book, he is oblivious to thehistorical and political circumstances.

Gärtner narrows down the signifi-cance of this meeting to Mozart’s fatherbeing concerned that Mozart might goto England, rather than back toSalzburg. He does not identify Grimm’semployer as the Duke of Orléans, men-tioning instead a German CountFriese—who had employed Grimmtwenty-five years earlier. He even mis-dates a Mozart letter of October, 1782 toOctober, 1778, implying that Mozartwas somehow pro-English during theAmerican Revolution.

Such an oversight would certainlyhave been caught, were it not for Gärt-ner’s overall blindness to strategic andcultural realities. Nevertheless, for along-overdue biography of a key figurein the transmission of culture fromJ.S. Bach to Mozart, and for some sug-gestions as to the richness of the fightinvolved, the reader will find here anamiable story.

—David M. Shavin

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