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BACH motif

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The BACH motif.

In music, the BACH motif is the motif, a succession of notes important or characteristic to a piece, B flat, A, C, B natural. In German musical nomenclature, in which the note B natural is written as H, it forms Johann Sebastian Bach's family name. One of the most frequently occurring examples of a musical cryptogram, the motif has been used by countless composers, especially after the Bach Revival in the first half of the 19th century.

History

"The figure occurs so often in Bach's bass lines that it cannot have been accidental."[1] Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht goes as far as to reconstruct Bach's putative intentions as an expression of Lutheran thought, imagining Bach to be saying, "I am identified with the tonic and it is my desire to reach it....Like you I am human. I am in need of salvation; I am certain in the hope of salvation, and have been saved by grace." through his use of the motif rather than a standard changing tone figure (B♭-A-C-B♭) in the double discant clausula in the fourth fugue of The Art of Fugue[2].

Bach himself was well aware of the motif and used it in a number of works, most famously as a fugue subject in the last Contrapunctus of The Art of Fugue. The motif also appears in the end of the fourth variation of Bach's Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her", as well as in other pieces.[3] For example, the first measure of the Sinfonia in F minor BWV 795 includes a transposed version of the motif (a♭'-g'-b♭'-a') followed by the original in measure 17[4].

BACH signature cross: BACH motif's cruciform melody, depicted at least as early as the 19th century[citation needed], but not known to have been used by Bach himself

Bach's contemporaries knew of the motif's possibilities: it was discussed in Johann Gottfried Walther's Musicalisches Lexikon (1732), and used as a fugue subject by Bach's son Johann Christian and by his pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs. However, the motif's wide popularity came only in the 19th century during and after the so-called Bach Revival, when works by Johann Sebastian Bach were rediscovered by composers and the public.[3]

Much later composers found that the motif could be easily incorporated not only into the advanced harmonic writing of the 19th century, but also into the totally chromatic idiom of the Second Viennese School; so it was used by Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and their disciples and followers. Today, composers continue writing works using the motif, frequently in homage to Johann Sebastian Bach.[3]

Selected works featuring the motif

In a comprehensive study published in the catalogue for the 1985 exhibition "300 Jahre Johann Sebastian Bach" ("300 years of Johann Sebastian Bach") in Stuttgart, Germany, Ulrich Prinz lists 409 works by 330 composers from the 17th to the 20th century using the BACH motif (ISBN 3-7952-0459-3). A similar list is available in Malcolm Boyd's volume on Bach; it also contains some 400 works. Some of the more famous works that feature the motif prominently are:

BACH motif followed by transposed version from Schumann's Sechs Fugen über den Namen B-A-C-H, Op. 60, No. 4, mm. 1-3[5] Playⓘ. Note that C and H are transposed down, leaving the spelling unaffected but changing the melodic contour.
Schumann, Sechs Fugen for organ, Op. 60, No. 5, mm. 1-4 Playⓘ. The motif may be used in different ways: here it is only the beginning of an extended melody[6].
Webern's String Quartet, Op. 28, tone row, composed of three tetrachords: P I RI, with P = the BACH motif, I = it inverted, and RI = it inverted and backwards.
Charles Ives, 3-Page Sonata, first mvt., first fugal complex Playⓘ. The BACH motif from The Art of Fugue Contrapunctus XIXc is the "'1st Theme'/fugue subject" of Ives' combined sonata-allegro and fugal procedures[13].

Other works include:

Sources

  1. ^ Marshall, Robert (2003). 18th-Century Keyboard Music, p.201 and p.224n18. ISBN 0415966426. See Godt 1979.
  2. ^ Eggebrecht (1993:8) cited in Cumming, Naomi (2001). The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification, p.256. ISBN 0253337542.
  3. ^ a b c Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John, eds. (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)‎
  4. ^ Schulenberg, David (2006). The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach, p.197. ISBN 0415973996.
  5. ^ a b Christopher Alan Reynolds (2003). Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music, p.31. ISBN 067401037X.
  6. ^ Daverio, John (1997). Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age", p.309. ISBN 0195091809.
  7. ^ a b Platt, Heather Anne (2003). Johannes Brahms, p.243. ISBN 0815338503.
  8. ^ Arnold, Ben (2002). The Liszt Companion, p.173. ISBN 0313306893.
  9. ^ Stein, Erwin (ed.). 1987. Arnold Schoenberg letters, p. 206. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520060098
  10. ^ Bailey, Kathryn. 2006. The Twelve-note Music of Anton Webern: Old Forms In a New Language, p. 24. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521547963
  11. ^ Schmelz, Peter J. (2009). Such Freedom, If Only Musical, p.255-56. ISBN 0195341937.
  12. ^ Ivashkin, Alexander (2009) Liner notes to BIS complete symphony cycle, BIS-CD-1767-68
  13. ^ Crist, Stephen (2002). Bach Perspectives: Vol. 5: Bach in America, p.175. ISBN 0252027884. "The reference could not be more clear."
  14. ^ a b c Fearn, Raymond (2003). The Music of Luigi Dallapiccola. 2005: ISBN 158046078X.

Bibliography

  • Boyd, Malcolm. 1999. Bach. Oxford University Press. 2006 edition: ISBN 0195307712.
  • Jeong, Seyoung (2009). Four Modern Piano Compositions Incorporating the B-A-C-H Motive. ISBN 3836497689.
  • Prinz, Ulrich; Dorfmüller, Joachim; and Küster, Konrad. 1985. Die Tonfolge B–A–C–H in Kompositionen des 17. bis 20. Jahrhunderts: ein Verzeichnis, in: 300 Jahre Sebastian Bach, pp. 389–419 (exhibition catalogue)
  • Robinson, Schuyler Watrous. 1972. The B–A–C–H Motive in German Keyboard Compositions from the Time of J.S. Bach to the Present (thesis, University of Illinois)

See also

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