Bach and The Tuning of the World. Jens Johler

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       11. ‘It’s the Affections that Matter’

      He tried to forget Hamburg, the opera, and Sophie Agneta Petersen, but couldn’t. On the contrary. The more he tried not to think about her, the more he thought about her. But as hard as the mortification was to bear, it also inspired him enormously. The disappointment turned into a mania for work, and since he was in the right mood for it, he composed the aria Ulysses sings when he learns from Eurylochos how Circe has turned his companions into pigs. Ulysses is furious at Circe – but in the end succeeds in winning her over! Hermes helps him – Hermes, messenger of the gods –with the sword that he gives him. Bach’s Hermes was Georg Erdmann, and his own sword was music. He was determined to transform the defeat into a triumph! This opera, his first great work, would astonish the world. And he would still win Sophie Agneta Petersen in the end!

      He went to Hamburg a few more times this year, but made no attempt to see his mistress again. Actually that’s not true: he did – but only in the opera house, where he sat next to Reincken in the box and expired with longing when his Eurydice, in different roles now, raised her seductive soprano. Eagerly, Bach sucked up everything he could learn about the opera. Reincken explained to him the difference between the French style of overture (which was always somewhat solemn in the beginning because it accompanied the appearance of the King) and the Italian style, which always began at a fast pace and was called a concerto. He also told him about the importance of the voices – which parts required a bass, and which a tenor or baritone, a contralto or soprano. Bach never tired of asking the maestro about this or that detail; the arrangement of the choruses, for example, and whether one might try one’s hand at a choral fugue – ‘A choral fugue? In the opera? God forbid,’ said Reincken – and of course he wanted to know everything about the instrumentation, from the harpsichord to the violins, up to the oboes and the bassoon.

      ‘You do pester a man with a lot of questions, don’t you,’ said Reincken. ‘Almost as if you were thinking of writing an opera yourself.’

      Bach shrugged and said nothing. When, on another occasion, Reincken asked him directly whether he would like to compose an opera, Bach shook his head and assured him that his goal was to become an organist at a major church, just as the maestro had done himself.

      ‘Fine, fine,’ said Reincken, ‘but if I could begin again today, I would definitely compose operas. I’m an old man now. You don’t change horses at my age. But if I were as young as you, Bach? On the face of it, opera can merely serve up tawdry entertainment and pleasure. But then again, no other art form is capable of grabbing people by their emotions – their affections – quite like the opera. And it’s the affections that matter, Bach, remember that, it’s the affections that matter.’

      ‘I want to learn everything about the affections,’ said Bach to Erdmann, once he was back in Lüneburg. Of course, he’d known for a long time, he said, that music has the power not only to present passions and emotions of all kinds, but also to kindle them in the hearts of the listeners; but now he would like to find out everything about it. The question, for instance, as to how and by what force music arouses different passions in our soul. How is it possible?

      ‘Well,’ said Erdmann, ‘the philosopher René Descartes found out many decades ago how music affects our soul. It’s quite simple: A note or a sequence of notes causes the air to vibrate. The air hits the eardrum, which in turn sets three little bones in motion. These bones are connected with delicate and even more delicate nerves that lead to the pineal gland, and the pineal gland, as we all well know, is the seat of our soul. In the soul, namely in the pineal gland, everything comes together – the messages and commands of the intellect and the animal spirits that rise in the blood from the heart to the brain. In the pineal gland, the animal spirits are affected by the intellect, so they are changed when they return to the body and set the muscles in motion. So everything is wondrously connected with everything else, the body with the brain, the intellect with the soul, and so is music with the animal spirits, which in turn are the cause of our passions.’

      ‘In other words,’ said Bach, when they were walking through Am Berge Street and turned into Sandviertel, ‘we musicians are capable of influencing the souls of people mechanically, so to speak.’

      ‘Correct,’ said Erdmann. ‘Music has a magic power, Bach, you musicians are magicians of the soul.’

      So Bach now had learned from Erdmann that music was capable, in a very natural or physical way, of affecting the soul. That same day, he learned from Georg Böhm the magical means that arouse different affections in the listener. ‘A musician has a plethora of means at his disposal,’ said Böhm, ‘an entire box of magic tricks, but, please, don’t misunderstand the term.’

      The choice of key already has an impact, he explained. C major, for instance, is a radiant and brash key in which you can freely express your joy; C minor, on the other hand, is very sweet, sad as well, and there’s always a risk that it has a bit of a soporific effect. D major is sharp and stubborn by nature, he averred, suitable for composing noisy, funny and warlike things; D minor, by contrast, has something submissive and calm and can be used well for worship. And so on.

      The choice of rhythm has as great an impact on the affections, he said. The three-part time measure, i.e. the three-quarter or six-eight time, always has something stormy and passionate about it; the two-part time measure, on the other СКАЧАТЬ