{"history":[],"article":{"id":"5468756e-57b0-4027-88cd-013f433fccf0","title":"Clavier-Übung III","slug":"clavier-bung-iii","content":":::summary\n:::\n\n# \nThe **Clavier-Übung III**, sometimes referred to as the **German Organ Mass**, is a collection of compositions for organ by [Johann Sebastian Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-sebastian-bach), started in 1735–36 and published in 1739.\nIt is considered Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his most musically complex and technically demanding compositions for that instrument.\nIn its use of modal forms, motet-style and canons, it looks back to the religious music of masters of the [stile antico](https://bliptext.com/articles/prima-pratica), such as [Frescobaldi](https://bliptext.com/articles/girolamo-frescobaldi), [Palestrina](https://bliptext.com/articles/giovanni-pierluigi-da-palestrina), [Lotti](https://bliptext.com/articles/antonio-lotti) and [Caldara](https://bliptext.com/articles/antonio-caldara).\nAt the same time, Bach was forward-looking, incorporating and distilling modern baroque musical forms, such as the French-style chorale.\nThe work has the form of an Organ Mass: between its opening and closing movements—the [prelude and \"St Anne\" fugue in E♭ major, BWV 552](https://bliptext.com/articles/)—are 21 chorale preludes, BWV 669–689, setting two parts of the [Lutheran Mass](https://bliptext.com/articles/mass-liturgy) and six catechism chorales, followed by [four duets, BWV 802–805](https://bliptext.com/articles/).\nThe chorale preludes range from compositions for single keyboard to a six-part fugal prelude with two parts in the pedal.\nThe purpose of the collection was fourfold: an idealized organ programme, taking as its starting point the organ recitals given by Bach himself in Leipzig; a practical translation of [Lutheran](https://bliptext.com/articles/lutheran) doctrine into musical terms for devotional use in the church or the home; a compendium of organ music in all possible styles and idioms, both ancient and modern, and properly internationalised; and as a didactic work presenting examples of all possible forms of contrapuntal composition, going far beyond previous treatises on musical theory.\n# [Johann Sebastian Bach, 1746 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Johann///Sebastian///Bach.jpg]\n\n# History and origins\nNovember 25, 1736, saw the consecration of a new organ, built by [Gottfried Silbermann](https://bliptext.com/articles/gottfried-silbermann), in a central and symbolic position in the [Frauenkirche, Dresden](https://bliptext.com/articles/dresden-frauenkirche).\nThe following week, on the afternoon of December 1, Bach gave a two-hour organ recital there, which received \"great applause\".\nBach was used to playing on church organs in Dresden, where since 1733 his son, [Wilhelm Friedemann Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-friedemann-bach), had been organist at the [Sophienkirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/sophienkirche).\nIt is considered likely that for the December recital Bach performed for the first time parts of his as yet unpublished Clavier-Übung III, the composition of which, according to Gregory Butler's dating of the engraving, started as early as 1735.\nThis inference has been drawn from the special indication on the title page that it was \"prepared for music-lovers and particularly connoisseurs\" of music; from contemporary reports of Bach's custom of giving organ recitals for devotees after services; and from the subsequent tradition among music lovers in Dresden of attending Sunday afternoon organ recitals in the Frauenkirche given by Bach's student [Gottfried August Homilius](https://bliptext.com/articles/gottfried-august-homilius), whose programme was usually made up of [chorale preludes](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-prelude) and a [fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/fugue).\nBach was later to complain that the [temperament](https://bliptext.com/articles/temperament-music) on Silbermann organs was not well suited to \"today's practice\".\n[Clavier-Übung](https://bliptext.com/articles/clavier-bung) III is the third of four books of Bach's [Clavier-Übung](https://bliptext.com/articles/clavier-bung).\nIt was the only portion of music meant for the organ, the other three parts being for harpsichord.\nThe title, meaning \"keyboard practice\", was a conscious reference to a long tradition of similarly titled treatises: [Johann Kuhnau](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kuhnau) (Leipzig, 1689, 1692), [Johann Philipp Krieger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-philipp-krieger) (Nuremberg, 1698), [Vincent Lübeck](https://bliptext.com/articles/vincent-l-beck) (Hamburg, 1728), [Georg Andreas Sorge](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-andreas-sorge) (Nuremberg, 1739) and [Johann Sigismund Scholze](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-sigismund-scholze) (Leipzig 1736–1746).\nBach started composing after finishing Clavier-Übung II—the [Italian Concerto, BWV 971](https://bliptext.com/articles/italian-concerto-bwv-971) and the [Overture in the French style, BWV 831](https://bliptext.com/articles/overture-in-the-french-style-bwv-831)—in 1735.\nBach used two groups of engravers because of delays in preparation: 43 pages by three engravers from the workshop of Johann Gottfried Krügner in Leipzig and 35 pages by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg.\nThe final 78-page manuscript was published in Leipzig in Michaelmas (late September) 1739 at the relatively high price of 3 [Reichsthaler](https://bliptext.com/articles/reichsthaler).\nBach's Lutheran theme was in keeping with the times, since already that year there had been three bicentenary [Reformation](https://bliptext.com/articles/protestant-reformation) festivals in Leipzig.\nIn translation, the title page reads \"Third Part of Keyboard Practice, consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ. Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the chorus musicus, Leipzig. Published by the author\".\nExamination of the original manuscript suggests that the Kyrie-Gloria and larger catechism chorale preludes were the first to be composed, followed by the \"St Anne\" prelude and fugue and the manualiter chorale preludes in 1738 and finally the four duets in 1739.\nApart from BWV 676, all the material was newly composed.\nThe scheme of the work and its publication were probably motivated by [Georg Friedrich Kauffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-friedrich-kauffmann)'s Harmonische Seelenlust (1733–1736), [Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch](https://bliptext.com/articles/conrad-friedrich-hurlebusch)'s Compositioni Musicali (1734–1735) and chorale preludes by [Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieronymus-florentinus-quehl), [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther) and [Johann Caspar Vogler](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-vogler) published between 1734 and 1737, as well as the older Livres d'orgue, the [French Organ Masses](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-organ-mass) of [Nicolas de Grigny](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolas-de-grigny) (1700), [Pierre Dumage](https://bliptext.com/articles/pierre-dumage) (1707) and others.\nBach's formulation of the title page follows some of these earlier works in describing the particular form of the compositions and appealing to \"connoisseurs\", his only departure from the title page of Clavier-Übung II.\nAlthough Clavier-Übung III is acknowledged to be not merely a miscellaneous collection of pieces, there has been no agreement on whether it forms a cycle or is just a set of closely related pieces.\nAs with previous organ works of this type by composers such as [François Couperin](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-couperin), [Johann Caspar Kerll](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-kerll) and [Dieterich Buxtehude](https://bliptext.com/articles/dieterich-buxtehude), it was in part a response to musical requirements in church services.\nBach's references to Italian, French and German music place Clavier-Übung III directly in the tradition of the Tabulaturbuch, a similar but much earlier collection by [Elias Ammerbach](https://bliptext.com/articles/elias-ammerbach), one of Bach's predecessors at the [Thomaskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomaskirche) in Leipzig.\nBach's complex musical style had been criticized by some of his contemporaries.\nThe composer, organist and musicologist [Johann Mattheson](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-mattheson) remarked in \"Die kanonische Anatomie\" (1722):\n\"It is true, and I have experienced it myself, that quick progress ... with artistic pieces (Kunst-Stücke) [i.e., canons and the like] can engross a sensible composer so that he can sincerely and secretly delight in his own work. But through this self-love we are unwittingly led away from the true purpose of music, until we hardly think of others at all, although it is our goal to delight them. Really we should follow not only our own inclinations, but those of the listener. I have often composed something that seemed to me trifling, but unexpectedly attained great favour. I made a mental note of this, and wrote more of the same, although it had little merit when judged according to artistry.\"\nUntil 1731, apart from his celebrated ridiculing in 1725 of Bach's declamatory writing in the cantata [Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21](https://bliptext.com/articles/ich-hatte-viel-bek-mmernis-bwv-21), Mattheson's commentary on Bach had been positive.\nIn 1730, however, he heard by chance that Gottfried Benjamin Hancke had been commenting unfavourably on his own keyboard technique: \"Bach will play Mattheson into a sack and out again.\"\nFrom 1731 onwards, his vanity pricked, Mattheson's writing became critical of Bach, whom he referred to as \"der künstliche Bach\".\nOver the same period Bach's former pupil [Johann Adolf Scheibe](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adolf-scheibe) had been making stinging criticisms of Bach: in 1737 he wrote that Bach \"deprived his pieces of all that was natural by giving them a bombastic and confused character, and eclipsed their beauty by too much art\".\nScheibe and Mattheson were employing practically the same lines of attack on Bach; and indeed Mattheson involved himself directly in Scheibe's campaign against Bach.\nBach did not comment directly at the time: his case was argued with some discreet prompting from Bach by Johann Abraham Birnbaum, professor of rhetoric at the [University of Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/university-of-leipzig), a music lover and friend of Bach and [Lorenz Christoph Mizler](https://bliptext.com/articles/lorenz-christoph-mizler).\nIn March 1738 Scheibe launched a further attack on Bach for his \"not inconsiderable errors\":\n\"This great man has not sufficiently studied the sciences and humanities which are actually required of a learned composer. How can a man who has not studied philosophy and is incapable of investigating and recognizing the forces of nature and reason be without fault in his musical work? How can he attain all the advantages which are necessary for the cultivation of good taste when he has hardly troubled himself with critical observations, investigations and with the rules which are as necessary to music as they are to rhetoric and poetry. Without them it is impossible to compose movingly and expressively.\"\nIn the advertisement in 1738 for his forthcoming treatise, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Mattheson included a letter by Scheibe, resulting from his exchanges with Birnbaum, in which Scheibe expressed strong preference for Mattheson's \"natural\" melody over Bach's \"artful\" counterpoint.\nThrough his friend Mizler and his Leipzig printers Krügner and Breitkopf, also printers for Mattheson, like others Bach would have had advance knowledge of the content of Mattheson's treatise.\nConcerning counterpoint, Mattheson wrote:\n\"Of double fugues with three subjects, there is, as far as I know, nothing else in print but my own work under the name, Die Wollklingende Fingerspruche, Parts I and II, which out of modesty I would commend to no one. On the contrary I would much rather see something of the same sort published by the famed Herr Bach in Leipzig, who is a great master of the fugue. In the meantime, this lack exposes abundantly, not only the weakened state and the decline of well-grounded contrapuntists on the one hand, but on the other hand, the lack of concern of today's ignorant organists and composers about such instructive matters.\"\nWhatever Bach's personal reaction, the contrapuntal writing of Clavier-Übung III provided a musical response to Scheibe's criticisms and Mattheson's call to organists.\nMizler's statement, cited above, that the qualities of Clavier-Übung III provided a \"powerful refutation of those who have ventured to criticize the music of the Court Composer\" was a verbal response to their criticisms.\nNevertheless, most commentators agree that the main inspiration for Bach's monumental opus was musical, namely musical works like the [Fiori musicali](https://bliptext.com/articles/fiori-musicali) of [Girolamo Frescobaldi](https://bliptext.com/articles/girolamo-frescobaldi), for which Bach had a special fondness, having acquired his own personal copy in [Weimar](https://bliptext.com/articles/weimar) in 1714.\n# [The market place and Frauenkirche in Dresden, c 1750, by Bernardo Bellotto | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Canaletto///%28I%29///006.jpg]\n# [Reconstruction of the facade of the Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche, Dresden on which Bach performed on December 1, 1736, a week after its dedication | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Organ-Frauenkirche-Dresden.jpg]\n# [Title page of Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/CU3title.jpg]\n# [Johann Mattheson | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Johann///Mattheson.jpg]\n# [Engraving of the University of Leipzig with the Paulinerkirche, the university church, in the background. In the 1730s both of Bach's friends Mizler and Birnbaum were professors there and Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel was a student. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Paulinercollegium///hof///800.jpg]\n# [Johann Adolph Scheibe | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Johann///Adolph///Scheibe.jpg]\n# [Title page of Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (1739) by Johann Mattheson | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Mattheson-1738-Volkommene-Capellmeister.png]\n\n# Textual and musical plan\nThe number of chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III, twenty-one, coincides with the number of movements in [French organ Masses](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-organ-mass).\nThe Mass and Catechism settings correspond to the schedule of Sunday worship in Leipzig, the morning Mass and afternoon catechism.\nIn contemporary hymn books, the [Lutheran Mass](https://bliptext.com/articles/divine-service-lutheran) comprising the troped German Kyrie and German Gloria fell under the heading of the Holy Trinity.\nThe organist and music theorist [Jakob Adlung](https://bliptext.com/articles/jakob-adlung) recorded in 1758 the custom of church organists playing the two Sunday hymns \"[Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr](https://bliptext.com/articles/allein-gott-in-der-h-h-sei-ehr)\" and \"Wir glauben all an einen Gott\"' in different keys: Bach uses three of the six tonalities between E and B♭ mentioned for \"Allein Gott\".\nThe organ had no role in the catechism examination, a series of questions and answers on the faith, so the presence of these hymns was probably a personal devotional statement of Bach.\nHowever, Luther's [Shorter Catechism](https://bliptext.com/articles/shorter-catechism) (see illustration) centres on the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Office of the Keys and Confession, and the Eucharist, the exact subjects of Luther's own six catechism chorales.\nIn Bach's part of Germany, these catechism hymns were sung at school assemblies on weekdays, with the Kyrie and Gloria on Sundays.\nLuther's hymn book contains all six of the chorales.\nHowever, it is more likely that Bach used these hymns, some of them [Gregorian](https://bliptext.com/articles/gregorian-chant) in origin, as a tribute to the main precepts of Lutheranism during the special bicentenary year of Luther's 1539 sermon in the Thomaskirche, Leipzig.\nThe main texts for Lutherans were the Bible, the [hymn book](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-compositions-by-j-s-bach-printed-during-his-lifetime) and the catechisms: Bach had already set numerous biblical texts in his cantatas and passions; in 1736 he had helped prepare a [hymn book](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-compositions-by-j-s-bach-printed-during-his-lifetime) with [Georg Christian Schemelli](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-christian-schemelli); finally in 1739 he set the catechism hymns (see earlier illustration of title page) as organ chorale preludes.\nhas suggested the following features that Clavier-Übung III borrowed from Frescobaldi's Fiori musicali, Bach's personal copy of which was signed \"J.S. Bach 1714\":\nAccording to, Bach had a clear liturgical purpose in his organ compendium, with its cyclic order and plan, clear to the eye if not the ear.\nEven though the manualiter fugues were written at the time as Book 2 of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), only the last fugue BWV 689 has anything in common.\nBach's musical plan has a multitude of structures: the organum plenum pieces; the three styles of polyphony, manualiter and trio sonata in the Mass; the pairs in the Catechism, two with cantus firmus in canon, two with pedal cantus firmus, two for full organ); and the free invention in the duets. The fughetta BWV 681 at the centre of Clavier-Übung III plays a structural role similar to the central pieces in the other three parts of Bach's Clavier-Übung, to mark the beginning of the second half of the collection. It is written using the musical motifs of a [French overture](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-overture), as in the first movement of the fourth of Bach's keyboard [Partitas](https://bliptext.com/articles/partitas-bwv-825-830) BWV 828 (Clavier-Übung I), the first movement of his [Overture in the French style, BWV 831](https://bliptext.com/articles/overture-in-the-french-style-bwv-831) (Clavier-Übung II), the sixteenth variation of the [Goldberg Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/goldberg-variations) BWV 988 (Clavier-Übung IV), marked \"Ouverture.\na 1 Clav\", and Contrapunctus VII in the original manuscript version of Die Kunst der Fuge as contained in P200.\nAlthough possibly intended for use in services, the technical difficulty of Clavier-Übung III, like that of Bach's later compositions—the [Canonic Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/canonic-variations) BWV 769, [The Musical Offering](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-musical-offering) BWV 1079 and [The Art of Fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-art-of-fugue) BWV 1080—would have made the work too demanding for most Lutheran church organists.\nIndeed, many of Bach's contemporaries deliberately wrote music to be accessible to a wide range of organists: Sorge composed simple 3-part chorales in his Vorspiele (1750), because chorale preludes such as Bach's were \"so difficult and almost unusable by players\"; Vogel, Bach's former student from Weimar, wrote his Choräle \"principally for those who have to play in country\" churches; and another Weimar student, [Johann Ludwig Krebs](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-ludwig-krebs), wrote his Klavierübung II (1737) so that it could be played \"by a lady, without much trouble\".\nClavier-Übung III combines German, Italian and French styles, particularly in the opening Preludium, BWV 552/1, whose three thematic groups seem deliberately chosen to represent France, Italy and Germany respectively (see discussion of BWV 552/1 below).\nThis reflects a trend in late 17th- and early 18th-century Germany for composers and musicians to write and perform in a style that became known as the \"mixed taste\", a phrased coined by [Quantz](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-joachim-quantz).\nIn 1730, Bach had written a now-famous letter to the Leipzig town council—his \"Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music\"—complaining not only of performing conditions, but also of the pressure to employ performing styles from different countries:\n\"It is anyway, somewhat strange that German musicians are expected to be capable of performing at once and ex tempore all kinds of music, whether it comes from Italy or France, England or Poland.\"\nAlready in 1695, in the dedication of his Florilegium Primum, [Georg Muffat](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-muffat) had written, \"I dare not employ a single style or method, but rather the most skillful mixture of styles I can manage through my experience in various countries ... As I mix the French manner with the German and Italian, I do not begin a war, but perhaps a prelude to the unity, the dear peace, desired by all the peoples.\"\nThis tendency was encouraged by contemporary commentators and musicologists, including Bach's critics Mattheson and Scheibe, who, in praising the chamber music of his contemporary [Georg Philipp Telemann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-philipp-telemann), wrote that, \"it is best if German part writing, Italian galanterie and French passion are combined\".\nRecalling Bach's early years in the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg between 1700 and 1702, his son [Carl Philipp Emanuel](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-philipp-emanuel-bach) records in the Nekrolog, Bach's obituary of 1754:\n\"From there, through frequent hearing of the then famous orchestra, maintained by the Duke of Celle and consisting largely of Frenchmen, he had the opportunity of consolidating himself in the French style, which in those parts and at that time, was completely new.\"\nThe court orchestra of [Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-william-duke-of-brunswick-l-neburg) was established in 1666 and concentrated on the music of [Jean-Baptiste Lully](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-baptiste-lully), which became popular in Germany between 1680 and 1710.\nIt is probable that Bach heard the orchestra at the Duke's summer residence at [Dannenberg](https://bliptext.com/articles/dannenberg-elbe) near Lüneburg.\nIn Lüneburg itself, Bach would have also heard the compositions of [Georg Böhm](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-b-hm), organist at the Johanniskirche, and of [Johann Fischer](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-ferdinand-fischer), a visitor in 1701, both of whom were influenced by the French style.\nLater in the Nekrolog C.P.E. Bach also reports that, \"In the art of organ, he took the works of Bruhns, Buxtehude, and several good French organists as models.\"\nIn 1775, he expanded on this to Bach's biographer [Johann Nikolaus Forkel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-nikolaus-forkel) noting that his father had studied not only the works of [Buxtehude](https://bliptext.com/articles/buxtehude), [Böhm](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-b-hm), [Nicolaus Bruhns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolaus-bruhns), [Fischer](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-ferdinand-fischer), Frescobaldi, [Froberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-jakob-froberger), [Kerll](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kaspar-kerll), [Pachelbel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-pachelbel), [Reincken](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adam-reincken) and [Strunck](https://bliptext.com/articles/delphin-strungk), but also of \"some old and good Frenchmen.\"\nContemporary documents indicate that these composers would have included [Boyvin](https://bliptext.com/articles/jacques-boyvin), [Nivers](https://bliptext.com/articles/guillaume-gabriel-nivers), [Raison](https://bliptext.com/articles/andr-raison), [d'Anglebert](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-henri-d-anglebert), [Corrette](https://bliptext.com/articles/michel-corrette), [Lebègue](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolas-leb-gue), [Le Roux](https://bliptext.com/articles/gaspard-le-roux), [Dieupart](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-dieupart), [François Couperin](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-couperin), [Nicolas de Grigny](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolas-de-grigny) and [Marchand](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-marchand).\n(The latter, according to an anecdote of Forkel, fled from Dresden in 1717 to avoid competing with Bach in a keyboard \"duel\".) At the court of Weimar in 1713, [Prince Johann Ernst](https://bliptext.com/articles/prince-johann-ernst-of-saxe-weimar), a keen musician, is reported to have brought back Italian and French music from his travels in Europe.\nAt the same time, or possibly earlier, Bach made meticulous copies of the entire Livre d'Orgue (1699) of de Grigny and the table of ornaments from d'Anglebert's Pièces de clavecin (1689), and his student Vogler made copies of two Livres d'Orgue of Boyvin.\nIn addition, at Weimar, Bach would have had access to the extensive collection of French music of his cousin [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther).\nMuch later, in the exchanges between Birnbaum and Scheibe over Bach's compositional style in 1738, while Clavier-Übung III was in preparation, Birnbaum brought up the works of de Grigny and Dumage in connection with ornamentation, probably at the suggestion of Bach.\nApart from the elements of \"French ouverture\" style in the opening prelude BWV 552/1 and the central manualiter chorale prelude BWV 681, commentators agree that the two large-scale five-part chorale preludes—Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot' BWV 678 and [Vater unser im Himmelreich](https://bliptext.com/articles/vater-unser-im-himmelreich) BWV 682—are partly inspired by the five-part textures of Grigny, with two parts in each manual and the fifth in the pedal.\nCommentators have taken Clavier-Übung III to be a summation of Bach's technique in writing for the organ, and at the same time a personal religious statement.\nAs in his other later works, Bach's musical language has an otherworldly quality, whether modal or conventional.\nCompositions apparently written in major keys, such as the trio sonatas BWV 674 or 677, can nevertheless have an ambiguous key.\nBach composed in all known musical forms: fugue, canon, paraphrase, cantus firmus, ritornello, development of motifs and various forms of counterpoint.\nThere are five polyphonic stile antico compositions (BWV 669–671, 686 and the first section of 552/ii), showing the influence of Palestrina and his followers, Fux, Caldara and Zelenka.\nBach, however, even if he employs the long note values of the stile antico, goes beyond the original model, as for example in BWV 671.\ndescribes one aim of Clavier-Übung III as being to provide an idealized programme for an organ recital.\nSuch recitals were described later by Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel:\n\"When Johann Sebastian Bach seated himself at the organ when there was no divine service, which he was often requested to do, he used to choose some subject and to execute it in all the forms of organ composition so that the subject constantly remained his material, even if he had played, without intermission, for two hours or more. First he used this theme for a prelude and fugue, with the full organ. Then he showed his art by using the stops for a trio, quartet, etc., always upon the same subject. Afterwards followed a chorale, the melody of which was playfully surrounded in the most diversified manner with the original subject, in three or four parts. Finally the conclusion was made by a fugue, with the full organ, in which either another treatment only of the first subject predominated, or one or, according to its nature, two others were mixed with it.\"\nThe musical plan of Clavier-Übung III conforms to this pattern of a collection of chorale preludes and chamber-like works framed by a free prelude and fugue for organum plenum.\n# [Title page of the small catechism of Martin Luther, 1529, intended for use by children | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Small-Catechism-Luther-1529.jpg]\n# [Title page of Fiori Musicali by Girolamo Frescobaldi, 1636 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Frescobaldi-Fiori-musicali-title-page.jpg]\n# [Engraving of Celle by Matthäus Merian, 1654 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Celle-1654-Merian.jpg]\n# [Title page of Premier Livre d'Orgue, the French organ Mass by Nicolas de Grigny, Paris 1699 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Premier///Livre///d%27Orgue///Nicolas///de///Grigny///1699.jpg]\n# [Table of ornaments from d'Anglebert's Pièces de Clavecin. copied by Bach in Weimar between 1709 and 1716 in the same manuscript as his copy of Grigny's Livre d'Orgue | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/D%27Anglebert-Bach.png]\n\n# Numerological significance\nhas given an analysis of the numerology of Clavier-Übung III.\nAccording to Wolff there is a cyclic order.\nThe opening prelude and fugue frame three groups of pieces: the nine chorale preludes based on the kyrie and gloria of the Lutheran Mass; the six pairs of chorale preludes on the Lutheran catechism; and the four duets.\nEach group has its own internal structure.\nThe first group is made up of three groups of three.\nThe first three chorales on the kyrie in the stile antico hark back to the polyphonic Masses of Palestrina, with increasingly complex textures.\nThe next group consists of three short versets on the kyrie that have progressive time signatures, , and.\nIn the third group of three [trio sonatas](https://bliptext.com/articles/trio-sonata) on the German gloria, two manualiter settings frame a trio for two manuals and pedal with a regular progression of keys, F major, G major and A major.\nEach pair of catechism chorales has a setting for two manuals and pedal followed by a smaller scale manualiter fugal chorale.\nThe group of 12 catechism chorales is further broken up into two groups of six grouped around pivotal grand plenum organum settings (Wir glauben and Auf tiefer Noth).\nThe duets are related by the successive key progression, E minor, F major, G major, and A minor.\nClavier-Übung III thus combines many different structures: pivotal patterns; similar or contrasting pairs; and progressively increasing symmetry.\nThere is also an overriding numerological symbolism.\nThe nine Mass settings (3 × 3) refer to the three of the Trinity in the Mass, with specific reference to Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the corresponding texts.\nThe number twelve of the catechism chorales can be seen as a reference to the usual ecclesiastical use of the number 12, the number of disciples.\nThe whole work has 27 pieces (3 × 3 × 3), completing the pattern.\nHowever, despite this structure, it is unlikely that the work was ever intended to be performed as a whole: it was intended as a compendium, a resource for organists for church performances, with the duets possibly accompaniments for communion.\ncomments on the occurrences of the [golden ratio](https://bliptext.com/articles/golden-ratio) in Clavier-Übung III pointed out by various musicologists.\nThe division of bars between the prelude (205) and fugue (117) provides one example.\nIn the fugue itself the three parts have 36, 45 and 36 bars, so the golden ratio appears between lengths of the middle section and outer sections.\nThe midpoint of the middle section is pivotal, with the first appearance there of the first subject against a disguised version of the second.\nFinally in BWV 682, Vater unser in Himmelreich (the Lord's Prayer), a pivotal point, where the manual and pedal parts are exchanged, occurs at bar 41, which is the sum of the numerical order of letters in JS BACH (using the Baroque convention of identifying I with J and U with V).\nThe later cadence at bar 56 in the 91 bar chorale prelude gives another instance of the golden ratio.\n91 itself factorises as 7, signifying prayer, times 13, signifying sin, the two elements—canonic law and the wayward soul—also represented directly in the musical structure.\n# [A baroque number alphabet in the Cabbalologia of Johann Henning, 1683 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Cabalistic-Gematria.png]\n\n# Prelude and fugue BWV 552\n\n## BWV 552/1 Praeludium\nTogether with the [Toccata in F major BWV 540](https://bliptext.com/articles/toccata-and-fugue-in-f-major-bwv-540), this is the longest of Bach's organ preludes.\nIt combines the elements of a French overture (first theme), an Italian concerto (second theme) and a German fugue (third theme), although adapted to the organ.\nThere are the conventional dotted rhythms of an ouverture, but the alternation of themes owes more to the tradition of contrasting passages in organ compositions than the solo-tutti exchanges in a Vivaldi concerto.\nOriginally possibly written in the key of D major, a more common key for a concerto or ouverture, Bach might have transposed it and the fugue into E♭ major because Mattheson had described the key in 1731 as a \"beautiful and majestic key\" avoided by organists.\nThe piece also has three separate themes (A, B, C), sometimes overlapping, which commentators have interpreted as representing the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the Trinity.\nOther references to the Trinity include the three flats in the key signature, like the accompanying fugue.\nAs the prelude progresses, the reprises of the first theme are shortened, as in a typical Vivaldi concerto; that of the second theme is simply transposed to the dominant; and those of the third theme become more extended and developed.\nThere are no toccata-like passages and the musical writing is quite different from that of the period.\nFor each theme the pedal part has a different character: a baroque [basso continuo](https://bliptext.com/articles/thorough-bass) in the first theme; a quasi-pizzicato bass in the second; and a stile antico bass in the third, with notes alternating between the feet.\nAll three themes share a three semiquaver figure: in the first theme in bar 1, it is a figure typical of a French ouverture; in the second theme in bar 32, it is an echo in the [galant](https://bliptext.com/articles/galante-music) Italian style; and in the third theme in bar 71, it is a motif typical of German organ fugues.\nThe three themes reflect national influences: the first French; the second Italian, with its galant writing; and the third German, with many elements drawn from the tradition of North German organ fugues.\nThe markings of forte and piano in the second theme for the echos show that at least two manuals were needed; Williams has suggested that perhaps even three manuals could have been intended, with the first theme played on the first keyboard, the second and third on the second and the echos on the third.\n**First theme: God, the Father**\nThe first theme has the dotted rhythms, marked with slurs, of a French ouverture.\nIt is written for five parts with complex suspended harmonies.\nThe first reprise (A2) of the theme in the minor key contains typically French harmonic progressions:\n**Second theme: God, the Son**\nThis theme, representing God, the Son, the \"kind Lord\", has two bar phrases of staccato three-part chords in the galant style, with echo responses marked piano.\nThis is followed by a more ornate syncopated version which is not further developed during the prelude:\n**Third theme: the Holy Ghost**\nThis theme is a [double fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/double-fugue) based on semiquavers, representing \"the Holy Ghost, descending, flickering like tongues of fire.\"\nThe semiquavers are not marked with slurs, according to North German conventions.\nIn the final development (C3) the theme passes into E♭ minor, presaging the close of the movement, but also harking back to the previous minor episode and anticipating similar effects in later movements of Clavier-Übung III, such as the first duet BWV 802.\nThe older style two- or three-part writing forms a contrast to the harmonically more complex and modern writing of the first theme.\nThe semiquaver subject of the fugue is adapted for the pedal in the traditional way using alternating foot technique:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bwv552i-A.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Bwv552i-G.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Bwv552i-B.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bwv552i-C.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Bwv552i-D.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Bwv552i-E.png]\n\n## BWV 552/2 Fuga\nThe triple fugue ... is a symbol of the Trinity.\nThe same theme recurs in three connected fugues, but each time with another personality.\nThe first fugue is calm and majestic, with an absolutely uniform movement throughout; in the second the theme seems to be disguised, and is only occasionally recognisable in its true shape, as if to suggest the divine assumption of an earthly form; in the third, it is transformed into rushing semiquavers as if the Pentacostal wind were coming roaring from heaven.\nThe fugue in E♭ major BWV 552/2 that ends Clavier-Übung III has become known in English-speaking countries as the \"St. Anne\" because of the first subject's resemblance to a hymn tune of the same name by [William Croft](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-croft), a tune that was not likely known to Bach.\nA fugue in three sections of 36 bars, 45 bars and 36 bars, with each section a separate fugue on a different subject, it has been called a [triple fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/fugue).\nHowever, the second subject is not stated precisely within the third section, but only strongly suggested in bars 93, 99, 102–04, and 113–14.\n**The number three**\nThe number three is pervasive in both the Prelude and the Fugue, and has been understood by many to represent the Trinity.\nThe description of [Albert Schweitzer](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-schweitzer) follows the 19th-century tradition of associating the three sections with the three different parts of the Trinity.\nThe number three, however, occurs many other times: in the number of flats of the key signature; in the number of fugal sections; and in the number of bars in each section, each a multiple of three (3 × 12, 3 x 15), as well as in the month (September = 09 or 3 x 3) and year (39 or 3 x 13) of publication.\nEach of the three subjects seems to grow from the previous ones.\nIndeed, musicologist [Hermann Keller](https://bliptext.com/articles/hermann-keller) has suggested that the second subject is \"contained\" in the first.\nAlthough perhaps hidden in the score, this is more apparent to the listener, both in their shape and in the resemblance of the quaver second subject to crotchet figures in the countersubject to the first subject.\nSimilarly, the semiquaver figures in the third subject can be traced back to the second subject and the countersubject of the first section.\n**Form of the fugue**\nThe form of the fugue conforms to that of a 17th-century tripartite [ricercar](https://bliptext.com/articles/ricercar) or [canzona](https://bliptext.com/articles/canzona), such as those of Froberger and Frescobaldi: firstly in the way that themes become progressively faster in successive sections; and secondly in the way one theme transforms into the next.\nBach can also be seen as continuing a Leipzig tradition for contrapuntal compositions in sections going back to the keyboard ricercars and fantasias of [Nicolaus Adam Strungk](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolaus-adam-strungk) and [Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-zachow).\nThe tempo transitions between different sections are natural: the minims of the first and second sections correspond to the dotted crotchets of the third.\n**Source of the subjects**\nMany commentators have remarked on similarities between the first subject and fugal themes by other composers.\nAs an example of stile antico, it is more probably a generic theme, typical of the fuga grave subjects of the time: a \"quiet \" time signature, rising fourths and a narrow melodic range.\nAs points out, the similarity to the subject of a fugue by [Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch](https://bliptext.com/articles/conrad-friedrich-hurlebusch), which Bach himself published in 1734, might have been a deliberate attempt by Bach to blind his public with science.\nRoger Wibberly has shown that the foundation of all three fugue subjects, as well as of certain passages in the Prelude, may be found in the first four phrases of the chorale \"O Herzensangst, O Bangigkeit\".\nThe first two sections of BWV 552/2 share many affinities with the fugue in E♭ major BWV 876/2 in [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), Book 2, written during the same period.\nUnlike true triple fugues, like the F♯ minor BWV 883 from the same book or some of the contrapuncti in [The Art of the Fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-art-of-the-fugue), Bach's intent with BWV 552/2 may not have been to combine all three subjects, although this would theoretically have been possible.\nRather, as the work progresses, the first subject is heard singing out through the others: sometimes hidden; sometimes, as in the second section, quietly in the alto and tenor voices; and finally, in the last section, high in the treble and, as the climactic close approaches, quasi-ostinato in the pedal, thundering out beneath the two sets of upper voices.\nIn the second section it is played against quavers; and in parts of the last, against running semiquaver passagework.\nAs the fugue progresses, this creates what Williams has called the cumulative effect of a \"mass choir\".\nIn later sections, to adapt to triple time, the first subject becomes rhythmically syncopated, resulting in what the music scholar [Roger Bullivant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sheffield-bach-choir) has called \"a degree of rhythmic complexity probably unparalleled in fugue of any period\".\n**First section**\nThe first section is a quiet five-part fugue in the stile antico.\nThe countersubject is in crotchets.\nThere are two [stretto](https://bliptext.com/articles/stretto) passages, the first in thirds (below) and the second in sixths.\n**Second section**\nThe second section is a four-part double fugue on a single manual.\nThe second subject is in running quavers and starts on the second beat of bar 37.\nThe first subject reappears gradually, first hinted at in the inner parts (bars 44–46)\nthen in the treble of bar 54\nbefore rising up from the lower register as a fully fledged countersubject (bars 59–61).\n**Third section**\nThe third section is a five-part double fugue for full organ.\nThe preceding bar in the second section is played as three beats of one minim (a [hemiola](https://bliptext.com/articles/hemiola)) and thus provides the new pulse.\nThe third subject is lively and dancelike, resembling a gigue, again starting on the second beat of the bar.\nThe characteristic motif of 4 semiquavers in the third beat has already been heard in the countersubject of the first section and in the second subject.\nThe running semiquaver passagework is an accelerated continuation of the quaver passagework of the second section; occasionally it incorporates motifs from the second section.\nAt bar 88, the third subject merges into the first subject in the soprano line, although not fully apparent to the ear.\nBach with great originality does not change the rhythm of the first subject, so that it becomes syncopated across bars.\nThe subject is then passed to an inner part where it at last establishes its natural pairing with the third subject: two entries of the third exactly match a single entry of the first.\nApart from a final statement of the third subject in the pedal and lower manual register in thirds, there are four quasi-ostinato pedal statements of the first subject, recalling the stile antico pedal part of the first section.\nAbove the pedal the third subject and its semiquaver countersubject are developed with increasing expansiveness and continuity.\nThe penultimate entry of the first subject is a canon between the soaring treble part and the pedal, with descending semiquaver scales in the inner parts.\nThere is a climactic point at bar 114—the second bar below—with the final resounding entry of the first subject in the pedal.\nIt brings the work to its brilliant conclusion, with a unique combination of the backward looking stile antico in the pedal and the forward looking stile moderno in the upper parts.\nAs Williams comments, this is \"the grandest ending to any fugue in music\".\n# [Part of the third section of the Fuga BWV 552 from the 1739 print | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/BWV552-fuga-manuscript.png]\n# [Hubert Kratz, c 1880: Eastward view of interior of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where Martin Luther preached in 1539 and where Bach served as cantor from 1723 until his death in 1750. The main organ was at the west end of the church with a smaller swallow's nest organ at the east end. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Thomaskirche-1885.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Bwv552ii-A.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Bwv552ii-stretto.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Bwv552ii-B.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Bwv552ii-first-subject-hidden.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Bwv552ii-first-subject-soprano.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Bwv552ii-section-2-countersubject.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Bwv552ii-C.png]\n# [800px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Bwv552ii-3-first-subject.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Bwv552ii-D.png]\n\n# Chorale preludes BWV 669–689\n\n## Chorale preludes BWV 669–677 (Lutheran Mass)\nThese two chorales—German versions of the Kyrie and Gloria of the Lutheran missa brevis — have here a peculiar importance as being substituted in the Lutheran church for the two first numbers of the mass, and sung at the beginning of the service in Leipzig.\nThe task of glorifying in music the doctrines of Lutheran christianity which Bach undertook in this set of chorales, he regarded as an act of worship, at the beginning of which he addressed himself to the Triune God in the same hymns of prayer and praise as those sung every Sunday by the congregation.\nIn 1526, [Martin Luther](https://bliptext.com/articles/martin-luther) published his Deutsche Messe, describing how the Mass could be conducted using congregational hymns in the German vernacular, intended in particular for use in small towns and villages where Latin was not spoken.\nOver the next thirty years numerous vernacular hymnbooks were published all over Germany, often in consultation with Luther, [Justus Jonas](https://bliptext.com/articles/justus-jonas), [Philipp Melanchthon](https://bliptext.com/articles/philipp-melanchthon) and other figures of the [German Reformation](https://bliptext.com/articles/german-reformation).\nThe 1537 [Naumburg](https://bliptext.com/articles/naumburg) hymnbook, drawn up by Nikolaus Medler, contains the opening Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit, one of several Lutheran adaptations of the [troped](https://bliptext.com/articles/trope-music) Kyrie summum bonum: Kyrie fons bonitatus.\nThe first Deutsche Messe in 1525 was held at Advent so did not contain the Gloria, explaining its absence in Luther's text the following year.\nAlthough there was a German version of the Gloria in the Naumburg hymnal, the 1523 hymn \"[Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr](https://bliptext.com/articles/allein-gott-in-der-h-h-sei-ehr)\" of [Nikolaus Decius](https://bliptext.com/articles/nikolaus-decius), also adapted from plainchant, eventually became adopted almost universally throughout Germany: it first appeared in print with these words in the 1545 Magdeburg hymnal Kirchengesenge Deudsch of the reformist Johann Spangenberg.\nA century later, Lutheran liturgical texts and hymnody were in wide circulation.\nIn Leipzig, Bach had at his disposal the Neu Leipziger gesangbuch (1682) of Gottfried Vopelius.\nLuther was a firm advocate of the use of the arts, particularly music, in worship.\nHe sang in the choir of the Georgenkirche in [Eisenach](https://bliptext.com/articles/eisenach), where Bach's uncle [Johann Christoph Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christoph-bach) was later organist, his father [Johann Ambrosius Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-ambrosius-bach) one of the main musicians and where Bach himself would sing, a pupil at the same Latin school as Luther between 1693 and 1695.\n# [Martin Luther, 1526: Title page of Deutsche Messe | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Luther-Deutsche-Messe-Wittemberg-1526.png]\n# [Title page of the hymn book in Latin and German of Johann Spangenberg published in Magdeburg in 1545 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Spangenberg-1545.png]\n\n### Pedaliter settings of Kyrie BWV 669–671\nThe Kyrie was usually sung in Leipzig on Sundays after the opening organ prelude.\nBach's three monumental pedaliter settings of the Kyrie correspond to the three verses.\nThey are in [strict counterpoint](https://bliptext.com/articles/strict-counterpoint) in the stile antico of Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali.\nAll three have portions of the same melody as their cantus firmus – in the soprano voice for \"God the Father\", in the middle tenor voice (en taille) for \"God the Son\" and in the pedal bass for \"God the Holy Ghost\".\nAlthough having features in common with Bach's vocal settings of the Kyrie, for example in his Missa in F major, [BWV 233](https://bliptext.com/articles/bwv-233), the highly original musical style is tailored to organ technique, varying with each of the three chorale preludes.\nNevertheless, as in other high-church settings of plainsong, Bach's writing remains \"grounded in the unchangeable rules of harmony\", as described in Fux's treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum.\" The solidity of his writing might have been a musical means of reflecting 'firmness in faith'. As observes, \"Common to all three movements is a certain seamless motion that rarely leads to full cadences or sequential repetition, both of which would be more diatonic than suits the desired transcendental style.\"\nBelow is the text of the three verses of Luther's version of the Kyrie with the English translation of [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nKyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit,\ngroß ist dein Barmherzigkeit,\naller Ding ein Schöpfer und Regierer.\neleison!\nChriste, aller Welt Trost\nuns Sünder allein du hast erlöst;\nJesu, Gottes Sohn,\nunser Mittler bist in dem höchsten Thron;\nzu dir schreien wir aus Herzens Begier,\neleison!\nKyrie, Gott heiliger Geist,\ntröst', stärk' uns im Glauben\nallermeist daß wir am letzten End'\nfröhlich abscheiden aus diesem Elend,\neleison!\nO Lord the Father for evermore!\nWe Thy wondrous grace adore;\nWe confess Thy power, all worlds upholding.\nHave mercy, Lord.\nO Christ, our Hope alone,\nWho with Thy blood didst for us atone;\nO Jesu!\nSon of God!\nOur Redeemer!\nour Advocate on high!\nLord, to Thee alone in our need we cry,\nHave mercy, Lord.\nHoly Lord, God the Holy Ghost!\nWho of life and light the fountain art,\nWith faith sustain our heart,\nThat at the last we hence in peace depart.\nHave mercy, Lord.\nBWV 669 is a [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) for two manuals and pedal in time.\nThe four lines of the cantus firmus in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of G are played in the top soprano part on one manual in semibreve beats.\nThe single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus.\nThe writing is in [alla breve](https://bliptext.com/articles/alla-breve) strict counterpoint, occasionally departing from the modal key to B♭ and E♭ major.\nEven when playing beneath the cantus firmus, the contrapuntal writing is quite elaborate.\nThe many stile antico features include inversions, suspensions, strettos, use of [dactyls](https://bliptext.com/articles/dactyl-poetry) and the canone sine pausa at the close, where the subject is developed without break in parallel thirds.\nLike the cantus firmus, the parts move in steps, creating an effortless smoothness in the chorale prelude.\nBWV 670 is a [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) for two manuals and pedal in time.\nThe four lines of the cantus firmus in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of G are played in the tenor part (en taille) on one manual in semibreve beats.\nAs in BWV 669, the single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus.\nThe writing is again mostly modal, in [alla breve](https://bliptext.com/articles/alla-breve) strict counterpoint with similar stile antico features and a resulting smoothness.\nIn this case, however, there are fewer inversions, the cantus firmus phrases are longer and freer, and the other parts more widely spaced, with canone sine pausa passages in sixths.\nBWV 671 is a [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) for organum plenum and pedal.\nThe bass cantus firmus is in semibreves in the pedal with four parts above in the keyboard: tenor, alto and, exceptionally, two soprano parts, creating a unique texture.\nThe subject of the four-part fugue in the manuals is derived from the first two lines of the cantus firmus and is answered by its inversion, typical of the stile antico.\nThe quaver motifs in ascending and descending sequences, starting with dactyl figures and becoming increasingly continuous, swirling and scalelike, are a departure from the previous chorale preludes.\nAmong the stile antico features are movement in steps and syncopation.\nAny tendency for the modal key to become diatonic is counteracted by the chromaticism of the final section where the flowing quavers come to a sudden end.\nOver the final line of the cantus firmus, the crotchet figures drop successively by semitones with dramatic and unexpected dissonances, recalling a similar but less extended passage at the end of the five-part chorale prelude O lux beata of [Matthias Weckmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/matthias-weckmann).\nAs suggests, the twelve descending chromatic steps seem like supplications, repeated cries of eleison—\"have mercy\".\n# [The Lutheran Kyrie, an adaptation of the Catholic Kyrie fons bonitatis, from the 1537 Naumburg hymnbook | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Kyrie-Gott-Naumburg-1537.png]\n# [Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1527: woodcut of the Creation | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Creation-Luther-Lucas-Cranach-Elder-1527.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bwv669-preview.png]\n# [Sebald Beham, 1527: woodcut of Christ carrying the Lamb | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Luther-prayerbook-Beham-1527.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Bwv670-preview.png]\n# [Lucas van Leyden, 1514: woodcut of Pentecost | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Pentecost-Lucas-van-Leyden-1514.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Bwv671-preview.png]\n\n### Manualiter settings of Kyrie BWV 672–674\nPhrygian is no other key than our A minor, the only difference being that it ends with the dominant chord E–G♯–B, as illustrated by the chorale Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein [Cantata 153].\nThis technique of beginning and ending on the dominant chord can still be used nowadays, especially in those movements in which a concerto, symphony or sonata does not come to a full conclusion ... This type of ending awakens a desire to hear something additional.\nThe three manualiter chorale preludes BWV 672–674 are short fugal compositions within the tradition of the chorale fughetta, a form derived from the [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) in common use in Central Germany.\n[Johann Christoph Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christoph-bach), Bach's uncle and organist at [Eisenach](https://bliptext.com/articles/eisenach), produced 44 such fughettas.\nThe brevity of the fughettas is thought to have been dictated by space limitations: they were added to the manuscript at a very late stage in 1739 to fill space between already engraved pedaliter settings.\nDespite their length and conciseness, the fughettas are all highly unconventional, original and smoothly flowing, sometimes with an other-worldly sweetness.\nAs freely composed chorale preludes, the fugue subjects and motifs are based loosely on the beginning of each line of the cantus firmus, which otherwise does not figure directly.\nThe motifs themselves are developed independently with the subtlety and inventiveness typical of Bach's later contrapuntal writing.\nhas suggested that the set might have been inspired by the cycle of five manualiter settings of \"[Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland](https://bliptext.com/articles/nun-komm-der-heiden-heiland)\" in Harmonische Seelenlust, published by his contemporary [Georg Friedrich Kauffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-friedrich-kauffmann) in 1733: BWV 673 and 674 employ similar rhythms and motifs to two of Kauffmann's chorale preludes.\nThe Kyries seem to have been conceived as a set, in conformity with the symbolism of the Trinity.\nThis is reflected in the contrasting time signatures of, and.\nThey are also linked harmonically: all start in a major key and move to a minor key before the final cadence; the top part of each fughetta ends on a different note of the E major triad; and there is a matching between closing and beginning notes of successive pieces.\nWhat has called the \"new, transcendental quality\" of these chorale fughettas is due in part to the modal writing.\nThe cantus firmus in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of E is ill-suited to the standard methods of counterpoint, since entries of the subject in the dominant are precluded by the mode.\nThis compositional problem, exacerbated by the choice of notes on which the pieces start and finish, was solved by Bach by having other keys as the dominating keys in each fughetta.\nThis was a departure from established conventions for counterpoint in the phrygian mode, dating back to the mid-16th century ricercar from the time of Palestrina.\nAs Bach's pupil [Johann Kirnberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kirnberger) later remarked in 1771, \"the great man departs from the rule in order to sustain good part-writing\".\nBWV 672 is a fughetta for four voices, 32 bars long.\nAlthough the movement starts in G major, the predominant tonal centre is A minor.\nThe subject in dotted minims (G–A–B) and the quaver countersubject are derived from the first line of the cantus firmus, which also provides material for several cadences and a later descending quaver figure (bar 8 below).\nSome of the sequential writing resembles that of the B♭ major fugue BWV 890/2 in the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier).\nSmoothness and mellifluousness result from what has called the \"liquefying effect\" of the simple time signature of ; from the use of parallel thirds in the doubling of subject and countersubject; from the clear tonalities of the four-part writing, progressing from G major to A minor, D minor, A minor and at the close E major; and from the softening effect of the occasional chromaticism, no longer dramatic as in the conclusion of the previous chorale prelude BWV 671.\nBWV 673 is a fughetta for four voices, 30 bars long, in compound time.\nIt has been described by as \"a movement of immense subtlety\".\nThe subject, three and a half bars long, is derived from the first line of the cantus firmus.\nThe semiquaver scale motif in bar 4 is also related and is much developed throughout the piece.\nThe countersubject, which is taken from the subject itself, uses the same syncopated leaping motif as the earlier Jesus Christus unser Heiland BWV 626 from the [Orgelbüchlein](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein), similar to gigue-like figures used earlier by Buxtehude in his chorale prelude Auf meinen lieben Gott [BuxWV](https://bliptext.com/articles/buxwv) 179; it has been interpreted as symbolising the triumph of the risen Christ over death.\nIn contrast to the preceding fughetta, the writing in BWV 673 has a playful lilting quality, but again it is modal, unconventional, inventive and non-formulaic, even if governed throughout by aspects of the cantus firmus.\nThe fughetta starts in the key of C major, modulating to D minor, then moving to A minor before the final cadence.\nFluidity comes from the many passages with parallel thirds and sixths.\nOriginal features of the contrapuntal writing include the variety of entries of the subject (all notes of the scale except G), which occur in stretto and in canon.\nBWV 674 is a fughetta for four voices, 34 bars long, in compound time.\nThe writing is again smooth, inventive and concise, moulded by the cantus firmus in E phrygian.\nThe quaver motif in the third bar recurs throughout the movement, often in thirds and sixths, and is developed more than the quaver theme in the first bar.\nThe constant quaver texture might be a reference to the last eleison in the plainchant.\nThe movement starts in G major passing to A minor, then briefly C major, before moving back to A minor before the final cadence to an E major triad.\nAs explains, \"The so-called modality lies in a kind of diatonic ambiguity exemplified in the cadence, suggested by the key signature, and borne out in the kinds of lines and imitation.\"\n# [Second Kyrie in the phrygian mode of E from the Missa Sanctorum Meritis by Palestrina, 1594 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Palestrina-Missa-Sanctorum-Meritis-Kyrie-II-1594.png]\n# [The Kyrie settings of Bach have similarities with two manualiter settings of \"Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland\" from Harmonische Seelenlust by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, 1733 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/GFKauffmann-Nun-komm-der///Heiden///Heiland-1733.png]\n# [Kyrie Gott Vater BWV 672 in the original printing of 1739 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/BWV672-manuscript.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Bwv672-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Bwv673-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Bwv674-preview.png]\n\n### Allein Gott in der Höh' BWV 675–677\nAlmost invariably Bach uses the melody to express the adoration of the Angelic hosts, and in scale passages pictures the throng of them ascending and descending between earth and heaven.\nHerr Krügner of Leipzig was introduced and recommended to me by Cappelmeister Bach, but he had to excuse himself because he had accepted the Kauffmann pieces for publication and would not be able to complete them for a long time.\nAlso the costs run too high.\nBach's three settings of the German Gloria/Trinity hymn Allein Gott in der Höh' again make allusion to the Trinity: in the succession of keys—F, G and A—possibly echoed in the opening notes of the first setting BWV 675; in the time signatures; and in the number of bars allocated to various sections of movements.\nThe three chorale preludes give three completely different treatments: the first a manualiter trio with the cantus firmus in the alto; the second a pedaliter trio sonata with hints of the cantus firmus in the pedal, similar in style to Bach's [six trio sonatas for organ](https://bliptext.com/articles/organ-sonatas-bach) BWV 525–530; and the last a three-part manualiter fughetta with themes derived from the first two lines of the melody.\nEarlier commentators considered some of the settings to be \"not quite worthy\" of their place in Clavier-Übung III, particularly the \"much-maligned\" BWV 675, which Hermann Keller considered could have been written during Bach's period in [Weimar](https://bliptext.com/articles/weimar).\nMore recent commentators have confirmed that all three pieces conform to the general principles Bach adopted for the collection, in particular their unconventionality and the \"strangeness\" of the counterpoint.\nand have pointed out the possible influence of Bach's contemporaries on his musical language.\nBach was familiar with the eight versions of Allein Gott by his cousin [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther) as well as the Harmonische Seelenlust of [Georg Friedrich Kauffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-friedrich-kauffmann), posthumously printed by Bach's Leipzig printer Krügner.\nIn BWV 675 and 677 there are similarities with some of Kauffmann's galant innovations: triplets against duplets in the former; and explicit articulation by detached quavers in the latter.\nThe overall style of BWV 675 has been compared to Kauffmann's setting of Nun ruhen alle Wälder; that of BWV 676 to the fifth of Walther's own settings of Allein Gott; and BWV 677 has many details in common with Kauffmann's fughetta on Wir glauben all an einen Gott.\nBelow is the text of the four verses of Luther's version of the Gloria with the English translation of [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nAllein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr'\nund Dank für seine Gnade,\ndarum daß nun und nimmermehr\nuns rühren kann kein Schade.\nein Wohlgefall'n Gott an uns hat,\nnun ist groß' Fried' ohn' Unterlaß,\nall' Fehd' hat nun ein Ende.\nWir loben, preis'n, anbeten dich\nfür deine Ehr'; wir danken,\ndaß du, Gott Vater ewiglich\nregierst ohn' alles Wanken.\nganz ungemeß'n ist deine Macht,\nfort g'schieht, was dein Will' hat bedacht;\nwohl uns des feinen Herren!\nO Jesu Christ, Sohn eingebor'n deines himmlischen Vaters,\nversöhner der'r, die war'n verlor'n, du Stiller unsers Haders,\nLamm Gottes, heil'ger Herr und Gott,\nnimm an die Bitt' von unsrer Not,\nerbarm' dich unser aller!\nO Heil'ger Geist, du höchstes Gut,\ndu allerheilsamst' Tröster,\nvor's Teufels G'walt fortan behüt',\ndie Jesus Christ erlöset\ndurch große Mart'r und bittern Tod,\nabwend all unsern Jamm'r und Not!\ndarauf wir uns verlaßen.\nTo God on high all glory be,\nAnd thanks, that He's so gracious,\nThat hence to all eternity\nNo evil shall oppress us:\nHis word declares good-will to men,\nOn earth is peace restored again\nThrough Jesus Christ our Saviour.\nWe humbly Thee adore, and praise,\nAnd laud for Thy great glory:\nFather, Thy kingdom lasts always,\nNot frail, nor transitory:\nThy power is endless as Thy praise,\nThou speak'st, the universe obeys:\nIn such a Lord we're happy.\nO Jesus Christ, enthroned on high,\nThe Father's Son beloved\nBy Whom lost sinners are brought nigh,\nAnd guilt and curse removed;\nThou Lamb once slain, our God and Lord,\nTo needy prayers Thine ear afford,\nAnd on us all have mercy.\nO Comforter, God Holy Ghost,\nThou source of consolation,\nFrom Satan's power Thou wilt, we trust,\nProtect Christ's congregation,\nHis everlasting truth assert,\nAll evil graciously avert,\nLead us to life eternal.\nBWV 675, 66 bars long, is a two-part invention for the upper and lower voices with the cantus firmus in the alto part.\nThe two outer parts are intricate and rhythmically complex with wide leaps, contrasting with the cantus firmus which moves smoothly by steps in minims and crotchets.\nThe time signature has been taken to be one of the references in this movement to the Trinity.\nLike the two preceding chorale preludes, there is no explicit manualiter marking, only an ambiguous \"a 3\": performers are left with the choice of playing on a single keyboard or on two keyboards with a 4 ft pedal, the only difficulty arising from the triplets in bar 28.\nThe movement is in [bar form](https://bliptext.com/articles/bar-form) (AAB) with bar lengths of sections divisible by 3: the 18 bar stollen has 9 bars with and without the cantus firmus and the 30 bar abgesang has 12 bars with the cantus firmus and 18 without it.\nThe invention theme provides a fore-imitation of the cantus firmus, subsuming the same notes and bar lengths as each corresponding phase.\nThe additional motifs in the theme are ingeniously developed throughout the piece: the three rising starting notes; the three falling triplets in bar 2; the leaping octaves at the beginning of bar 3; and the quaver figure in bar 4.\nThese are playfully combined in ever-changing ways with the two motifs from the counter subject—the triplet figure at the end of bar 5 and the semiquaver scale at the beginning of bar 6—and their inversions.\nAt the end of each stollen and the abgesang, the complexity of the outer parts lessens, with simple triplet descending scale passages in the soprano and quavers in the bass.\nThe harmonisation is similar to that in Bach's Leipzig cantatas, with the keys shifting between major and minor.\nBWV 676 is a trio sonata for two keyboards and pedal, 126 bars long.\nThe melody of the hymn is omnipresent in the cantus firmus, the paraphrase in the subject of the upper parts and in the harmony.\nThe compositional style and detail—charming and galant—are similar to those of the trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530.\nThe chorale prelude is easy on the ear, belying its technical difficulty.\nIt departs from the trio sonatas in having a ritornello form dictated by the lines of the cantus firmus, which in this case uses an earlier variant with the last line identical to the second.\nThis feature and the length of the lines themselves account for the unusual length of BWV 676.\nThe musical form of BWV 676 can be analysed as follows:\nBWV 677 is a double fughetta, 20 bars long.\nIn the first five bars the first subject, based on the first line of the cantus firmus, and countersubject\nare heard in stretto, with a response in bars 5 to 7.\nThe originality of the complex musical texture is created by pervasive but unobtrusive references to the cantus firmus and the smooth semiquaver motif from the first half of bar 3, which recurs throughout the piece and contrasts with the detached quavers of the first subject.\nThe contrasting second subject, based on the second line of the cantus firmus, starts in the alto part on the last quaver of bar 7:\nThe two subjects and the semiquaver motif are combined from bar 16 to the close.\nExamples of musical iconography include the minor triad in the opening\nsubject and the descending scales in the first half of bar 16—references to the Trinity and the [heavenly host](https://bliptext.com/articles/heavenly-host).\n# [Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, an adaptation of the Gloria in excelsis by Nikolaus Decius (1522), from Johann Spangenberg's Kirchengesenge Deudsch (Magdeburg, 1545) | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Allein-Gott-Spangenberg-1545.png]\n# [Fifth setting of Allein Gott by Johann Gottfried Walther, 1736 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Walther-Allein-Gott-5.png]\n# [Wir glauben all an einen Gott by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, 1733–36 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Kauffmann-Wir-Glauben.png]\n# [Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1512: woodcut of the Holy Trinity | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Trinity-1513-Lucas-Cranach-elder.jpg]\n# [Silbermann organ (1710–1714) in Freiberg Cathedral | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Fotothek///df///ps///0002744///Kirchen///%5E///Dome.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Bwv675-preview.png]\n# [Detail of the Silbermann organ in Freiberg Cathedral | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Fotothek-detail-Silbermann-organ-Freiberger-Dom.jpg]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Bwv676-preview.png]\n# [BWV 677, after conclusion of BWV 676, from 1739 print | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/BWV677-manuscript.png]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/BWV676-end.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Bwv677-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/BWV677-excerpt.png]\n# [Luther's Large Catechism, Leipzig 1560 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Luther-Catechism-1560-Leipzig.png]\n# [The Ten Commandments in the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Luther-Walter-Ten-Commandments-1524.png]\n\n## Chorale preludes BWV 678–689 (Luther's catechism chorales)\nCareful examination of the original manuscript has shown that the large scale chorale preludes with pedal, including those on the six catechism hymns, were the first to be engraved.\nThe smaller manualiter settings of the catechism hymns and the four duets were added later in the remaining spaces, with the first five catechism hymns set as three-part fughettas and the last as a longer four-part fugue.\nIt is possible that Bach, in order to increase the accessibility of the collection, conceived these additions as pieces that could be played on domestic keyboard instruments.\nEven for a single keyboard, however, they present difficulties: in the preface to his own collection of chorale preludes published in 1750, the organist and composer Georg Andreas Sorge wrote that, \"the preludes on the catechism chorales of Herr Capellmeister Bach in Leipzig are examples of this kind of keyboard piece that deserve the great renown that they enjoy,\" adding that \"works such as these are so difficult as to be all but unusable to young beginners and others who lack the considerable proficiency they require\".\n\n### The Ten Commandments BWV 678, 679\nBelow is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nThe prelude is in the [mixolydian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/mixolydian-mode) of G, ending on a [plagal cadence](https://bliptext.com/articles/plagal-cadence) in G minor.\nThe ritornello is in the upper parts and bass on the upper manual and pedal, with the cantus firmus in canon at the octave on the lower manual.\nThere are ritornello episodes and five entries of the Cantus firmus, yielding the number of commandments.\nThe distribution of parts, two parts in each keyboard and one in the pedal is similar to that of the de Grigny Livre d'Orgue, although Bach makes much greater technical demands on the right hand part.\nCommentators have seen the canon as representing order, with the pun on canon as \"law\".\nAs also expressed in Luther's verses, the two voices of the canon have been seen as symbolising the new law of Christ and the old law of Moses, which it echoes.\nThe pastoral quality in the organ writing for the upper voices at the opening has been interpreted as representing the serenity before the [Fall of Man](https://bliptext.com/articles/fall-of-man); it is followed by the disorder of sinful waywardness; and finally order is restored in the closing bars with the calm of salvation.\nThe upper part and pedal engage in an elaborate and highly developed fantasia based on motifs introduced in the ritornello at the beginning of the chorale prelude.\nThese motifs recur either in their original form or inverted.\nThere are six motifs in the upper part:\nand five in the bass:\nThe writing for the two upper voices is similar to that for obligato instruments in a cantata: their musical material is independent of the chorale, The opening pedal G on the other hand can be heard as a foretaste of the repeated Gs in the cantus firmus.\nIn between the cantus firmus is sung in canon at the octave on the second manual.\nThe fifth and final entry of the cantus firmus is in the distant key of B♭ major (G minor): it expresses the purity of the Kyrie eleison at the end of the first verse, which brings the prelude to a harmonious close:\nThe lively gigue-like fughetta has several similarities to the larger chorale prelude: it is in the mixolydian mode of G; it starts with a pedal point of repeated Gs; the number ten occurs as the number of entries of the subject (four of them inverted); and the piece ends on a plagal cadence.\nThe motifs in the second half of the second bar and the countersubject are extensively developed.\nThe liveliness of the fughetta has been taken to reflect Luther's exhortation in the Small Catechism to do \"cheerfully what He has commanded.\"\nEqually well, Psalm 119 speaks of \"delighting ... in His statutes\" and rejoicing in the Law.\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Bwv678-preview.png]\n# [Sebald Beham, 1527: woodcut in Luther's prayer book of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Ten-Commandments-Luther-Beham-1527.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Bwv678-excerpt.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Bwv679-preview.png]\n\n### The Creed BWV 680, 681\nBelow is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nThe chorale prelude in four parts is a fugue in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of D, with the subject based on the first line of Luther's hymn.\nThe prominent counter-subject is first heard in the pedal bass.\nAccording to [Peter Williams](https://bliptext.com/articles/peter-williams-musicologist), the chorale prelude is written in the stilo antico Italian style reminiscent of [Girolamo Frescobaldi](https://bliptext.com/articles/girolamo-frescobaldi) and [Giovanni Battista Bassani](https://bliptext.com/articles/giovanni-battista-bassani).\nItalian elements are apparent in the trio-sonata structure, which combines the upper fugal parts with the ostinato figured bass; and in the ingenious use of the full range of Italianate semiquaver motifs.\nThe five notes in the original hymn for the opening [melisma](https://bliptext.com/articles/melisma) on Wir are expanded in the first two bars and the remaining notes are used for the countersubject.\nThere is exceptionally no [cantus firmus](https://bliptext.com/articles/cantus-firmus), probably because of the exceptional length of the hymn.\nFeatures of the remainder of the hymn, however, suffuse the writing, in particular the scale-like passages and the melodic leaps.\nThe fugue counter-subject is adapted to the pedal as a vigorous striding bass with alternate footwork; its quasi-[ostinato](https://bliptext.com/articles/ostinato) character has been consistently interpreted as representing a \"firm faith in God\": a striding bass line was often used by Bach for [Credo](https://bliptext.com/articles/credo) movements, for example in the [Credo](https://bliptext.com/articles/credo) and Confiteor of the [Mass in B Minor](https://bliptext.com/articles/mass-in-b-minor).\nAfter each occurrence of the ostinato counter-subject in the pedal, there is a semiquaver bridging passage (bars 8–9, 19–20, 31–32, 44–45, 64–66) in which the music modulates into a different key while the three upper parts play in [invertible counterpoint](https://bliptext.com/articles/invertible-counterpoint): in this way the three different melodic lines can be freely interchanged between the three voices.\nThese highly original transitional passages punctuate the work and give a coherence to the whole movement.\nAlthough the added G♯ makes it difficult to recognize the chorale melody, it can be heard more clearly later on, singing out in the tenor part.\nIn the final manualiter episode (bars 76–83) the ostinato pedal figures are taken up briefly by the tenor part before the movement draws to a close over a final extended restatement of the fugue counter-subject in the pedal.\nThe American musicologist David Yearsley has described the chorale prelude as follows: \"This energetic, syncopated counterpoint is elaborated above a recurring two-bar theme in the pedal that acts like a ritornello whose continual reappearances are separated by lengthy rests. The ostinato remains constant through the various key-changes that present it in both major and minor mode [...] The shape of the pedal line suggests an archetypal narrative of ascent and descent in perfect symmetry [...] The figure forcefully projects the movements of the feet into the church; heard on full organ (In Organo pleno, according to Bach's own performance direction) with a registration of all due Gravitas, the feet move with real purpose [...] Wir glauben all' is truly a walker's piece at the organ.\"\nThe manualiter fughetta in E minor is both the shortest movement in Clavier-Übung III and the exact midpoint of the collection.\nThe subject paraphrases the first line of the chorale; the two-bar passage later in the movement leading to two dramatic diminished seventh chords is constructed over the second chorale line.\nAlthough not strictly a French ouverture, the movement does incorporate elements of that style, in particular the dotted rhythms.\nHere Bach follows his custom of beginning the second half of a major collection with a French-style movement (as in the other three Clavier-Übung volumes, in both volumes of Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, in the early manuscript version of Die Kunst der Fuge and in the group of five numbered canons in the Musikalisches Opfer).\nIt also complements the preceding chorale prelude by following an Italian style with a contrasting French one.\nAlthough still evidently written for organ, in style it most resembles the Gigue for harpsichord from the first [French Suite](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-suites-bach) in D minor BWV 812.\n# [Wir glauben in the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Luther-Walter-Wir-glauben-1524.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of God, the Creator | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Catechism-Creator-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [First page of original print of BWV 680 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/BWV680-manuscript.jpg]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Bwv680-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Bwv681-preview.png]\n\n### The Lord's Prayer BWV 682, 683\nBelow is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nVater unser im Himmelreich,\nder du uns alle heissest gleich\nBrüder sein und dich rufen an und willst das Beten vor uns ha'n, gib, dass nicht bet allein der Mund,\nhilf, dass es geh' aus Herzensgrund.\nOur Father in the heaven Who art,\nWho tellest all of us in heart\nBrothers to be, and on Thee call,\nAnd wilt have prayer from us all,\nGrant that the mouth not only pray,\nFrom deepest heart oh help its way.\nLikewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.\nVater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682 in E minor has long been considered the most complex of Bach's chorale preludes, difficult at the levels of both understanding and performance.\nThrough a ritornello trio sonata in the modern French [galante](https://bliptext.com/articles/galante-music) style, the German chorale of the first verse is heard in canon at the octave, almost subliminally, played in each hand together with the obligato instrumental solo.\nBach had already mastered such a compound form in the choral fantasia opening his cantata [Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78](https://bliptext.com/articles/jesu-der-du-meine-seele-bwv-78).\nThe canon could be a reference to the Law, the adherence to which Luther saw as one of the purposes of prayer.\nThe galante style in the upper parts is reflected in their [lombardic rhythms](https://bliptext.com/articles/lombard-rhythm) and detached semiquaver triplets, sometimes played against semiquavers, typical of French flute music of the time.\nBelow, the pedal plays a restless continuo, with constantly changing motifs.\nOn the technical side, the suggestion of the German musicologist Hermann Keller that BWV 682 required four manuals and two players has not been accepted.\nAs Bach emphasised to his students, however, articulation was all-important: dotted figures and triplets had to be distinguished and should only come together when the \"music is extremely fast\".\nThe theme in the upper parts is an elaborate [coloratura](https://bliptext.com/articles/coloratura) version of the hymn, like the instrumental solos in the slow movements of trio sonatas or concertos.\nIts wandering, sighing nature has been taken to represent the unsaved soul in search of God's protection.\nIt has three key elements which are developed extensively in the prelude: the lombardic rhythms in bar 3; the chromatic descending phrase between bars 5 and 6; and the detached semiquaver triplets in bar 10.\nBach already used lombardic rhythms in the early 1730s, in particular in some early versions of the Domine Deus of the [Mass in B minor](https://bliptext.com/articles/mass-in-b-minor-structure) from his cantata [Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191](https://bliptext.com/articles/gloria-in-excelsis-deo-bwv-191).\nThe mounting lombardic figures have been interpreted as representing \"hope\" and \"trust\" and the anguished chromaticism as \"patience\" and \"suffering\".\nAt the climax of the work in bar 41, the chromaticism reaches its most extreme in the upper parts as the lombardic rhythms pass to the pedal:\nThe otherworldly way in which the solo parts weave around the solo lines of the chorale, almost hiding them, has suggested to some commentators \"groanings which cannot be uttered\"—the mystical nature of prayer.\nAfter its first statement the ritornello recurs six times but not as a strict repeat, instead the order in which the different motifs are heard constantly changes.\nThe manualiter chorale prelude BWV 683 in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of D is similar in form to Bach's earlier composition BWV 636 on the same subject from the [Orgelbüchlein](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein); the lack of a pedal part allows more freedom and integration of parts in the latter work.\nThe cantus firmus is played without interruption in the uppermost part, accompanied by three-part counterpoint in the lower parts.\nThe accompaniment uses two motifs: the five descending semiquavers in the first bar, derived from the fourth line of the chorale \"und willst das beten von uns han\" (and wishes us to pray); and the three quaver figure in the alto part in the second half of bar 5.\nThe first motif is also inverted.\nThe quiet and sweetly harmonious nature of the music is evocative of prayer and contemplation.\nIts intimate scale and orthodox style provide a complete contrast to the previous \"larger\" setting in BWV 682.\nAt the beginning of each line of the chorale, the musical texture is pared down, with more voices added towards the end of the line: the long very first note of the chorale is unaccompanied.\nThe prelude comes to a subdued conclusion in the lower registers of the keyboard.\n# [Vater unser im Himmelreich from Luther's prayerbook of 1545 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Luther-Vater-unser-1545.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Bwv682-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Bwv682-chorale.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of Christ teaching His disciples the Lord's Prayer | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Vater-Unser-Catechism-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Bwv682-excerpt-41.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Bwv683-preview.png]\n\n### Baptism BWV 684, 685\nBelow is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn \"Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\" with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nChrist unser Herr zum Jordan kam\nnach seines Vaters Willen,\nvon Sanct Johann die Taufe nahm,\nsein Werk und Amt zu 'rfüllen,\nDa wollt er stiften uns ein Bad,\nzu waschen uns von Sünden,\nersaüfen auch den bittern Tod\ndurch sein selbst Blut und Wunden;\nes galt ein neues Leben.\nDas Aug allein das Wasser sieht,\nwie Menschen Wasser gießen;\nder Glaub im Geist die Kraft versteht\ndes Blutes Jesu Christi;\nund ist vor ihm ein rote Flut,\nvon Christi Blut gefärbet,\ndie allen Schaden heilen tut,\nvon Adam her geerbet,\nauch von uns selbst begangen.\nTo Jordan when our Lord had gone,\nHis Father's pleasure willing,\nHe took His baptism of St John,\nHis work and task fulfilling;\nTherein He would appoint a bath\nTo wash us from defilement,\nAnd also drown that cruel Death\nIn His blood of assoilment:\n'Twas no less than a new life.\nThe eye but water doth behold,\nAs from man's hand it floweth;\nBut inward faith the power untold\nOf Jesus Christ's blood knoweth.\nFaith sees therein a red flood roll,\nWith Christ's blood dyed and blended,\nWhich hurts of all kinds maketh whole,\nFrom Adam here descended,\nAnd by ourselves brought on us.\nWhen in the arrangement of the chorale \"Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\" an unceasing figure of flowing semiquavers makes itself heard, it needs no skilled critic of Bach's works to find in this an image of the river Jordan.\nBach's real meaning, however, will not reveal itself thoroughly to him until he has read the whole poem to the last verse, in which the water of baptism is brought before the believing christian as a symbol of the atoning Blood of Christ\nThe chorale prelude Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam BWV 684 has a trio sonata like ritornello in C minor in the three parts of the manuals with the cantus firmus in the tenor register of the pedal in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of C. Bach specifically stipulates two keyboards to give different sonorities to the imitative upper parts and the bass part.\nThe undulating semiquavers in the bass, usually interpreted as representing the flowing waters of the Jordan, imitate a [violine](https://bliptext.com/articles/violine) continuo, according to the model of Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust.\nThe musical content of the ritornello contains explicit allusions to the melody of the chorale, sometimes hidden in the semiquaver passage work and motifs.\nThe chorale prelude on baptism, \"Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\", ... represents running waters ... in the last verse of the chorale, baptism is described as a wave of salvation, stained with the Blood of Christ, which passes over humanity, removing all blemish and sin.\nThe small version of the chorale prelude ... is a curious miniature ... four motifs come forward simultaneously: the first phrase of the melody and its inversion; and the first phrase of the melody in a faster tempo and its inversion ... Is not this the case of a very literal observation?\nDo we not believe that we see waves rising and falling, with the faster waves tumbling over the slower waves?\nAnd is not this musical imagery addressed more to the eye than the ear?\nThe manualiter chorale prelude BWV 685, despite being only 27 bars long and technically speaking a three-part fughetta, is a complex composition with dense fugal writing.\nThe subject and countersubject are both derived from the first line of the cantus firmus.\nThe compact style, imitative contrapuntal writing and sometimes capricious touches, such as repetition and the ambiguity in the number of parts, are features that BWV 685 shares with the shorter chorale preludes in Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust.\nThe contrary motion between the parts in bar 9 harks back to the compositions of [Samuel Scheidt](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-scheidt).\nhas given a precise analysis of the fughetta:\nThere have been many attempts to interpret the musical iconography of BWV 685.\nAlbert Schweitzer suggested that the subject and countersubject gave the visual impression of waves.\nHermann Keller suggested that the three entries of the subject and countersubject, and the three inversions, represent the three immersions at baptism.\nOthers have seen allusions to the Trinity in the three voices.\nThe subject and countersubject have been seen as representing Luther's baptismal themes of Old Adam and New Man.\nWhatever the intended symbolism, Bach's most probable compositional aim was to produce a shorter chorale prelude contrasting musically with the preceding longer setting.\n# [Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam from a 1577 edition of Luther's hymnbook | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Luther-Christ-unser-Herr-zum-Jordan-kam.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Bwv684-preview.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of the Baptism of Christ | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Baptism-Catechism-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Bwv685-preview.png]\n\n### Confession BWV 686, 687\nBelow is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nAus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir,\nHerr Gott, erhör mein Rufen.\nDein gnädig Ohren kehr zu mir\nund meiner Bitt sei öffne;\ndenn so du willst das sehen an,\nwas Sünd und Unrecht ist getan,\nwer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben?\nDarum auf Gott will hoffen ich,\nauf mein Verdienst nicht bauen;\nauf ihn mein Herz soll lassen sich\nund seiner Güte trauen,\ndie mir zusagt sein wertes Wort;\ndas ist mein Trost und treuer Hort,\ndas will ich allzeit harren.\nOut of the depths I cry to Thee,\nLord, hear me, I implore Thee!\nBend down Thy gracious ear to me,\nLet my prayer come before Thee!\nIf Thou rememberest each misdeed,\nIf each should have its rightful meed,\nWho may abide Thy presence?\nAnd thus my hope is in the Lord,\nAnd not in mine own merit;\nI rest upon His faithful word\nTo them of contrite spirit;\nThat He is merciful and just—\nHere is my comfort and my trust,\nHis help I wait with patience.\nIt is significant of Bach's manner of feeling that he should choose this chorale for the crowning point of his work.\nFor it cannot be questioned that this chorale is its crowning point, from the ingenuity of the part-writing, the wealth and nobility of the harmonies, and the executive power which it requires.\nEven the Northern masters had never attempted to write two parts for the pedals throughout, though they had first introduced the two-part treatment of the pedals, and Bach did them full justice in this piece.\nThe chorale prelude Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir BWV 686 is a monumental [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of C. The climax of Clavier-Übung III, it is composed in the strict polyphonic stile antico of [Palestrina](https://bliptext.com/articles/giovanni-pierluigi-da-palestrina) using [florid counterpoint](https://bliptext.com/articles/counterpoint).\nThis is Bach's unique six-part composition for organ, if the [Ricercar](https://bliptext.com/articles/ricercar) a 6 from the [Musical Offering](https://bliptext.com/articles/musical-offering) BWV 1079 is discounted.\nGerman organ writing for double pedal (doppio pedale) can be traced back to [Arnolt Schlick](https://bliptext.com/articles/arnolt-schlick) and [Ludwig Senfl](https://bliptext.com/articles/ludwig-senfl) in the 16th century; to [Samuel Scheidt](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-scheidt) in two settings from his Tabulatura Nova in the early 17th century; and in the baroque period to Buxtehude, Reincken, Bruhns, Tunder, Weckmann and Lübeck.\nIn France, among the composers to have written double pedal parts were [François Couperin](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-couperin), in his organ Mass des paroisses, and [Louis Marchand](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-marchand).\nThe first verse of Luther's hymn had already been set by Bach in the cantata [Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38](https://bliptext.com/articles/aus-tiefer-not-schrei-ich-zu-dir-bwv-38) (1724).\nThe fact that the setting in BWV 686 flows more easily, has more countersubjects, has more novel features and has typically organ figurations in the final section has suggested that in this case the whole of Luther's text was taken into account and that it is a purer version of the stile antico.\nFollowing the huge scale of the opening, Bach highly inventively incorporates motifs from the cantus firmus into the countersubjects of the seven sections (counting the repeat), resulting in a constantly changing musical texture.\nThe widest range in pitch between upper and lower parts occurs exactly halfway through at bar 27.\nAt the end of each line the cantus firmus is taken up in the left (lower) pedal, which, without break, then plays the countersubject while above the right (upper) pedal concludes the section by playing the cantus firmus in the tenor register in [augmentation](https://bliptext.com/articles/augmentation-music) (i.e., with doubled note lengths).\nThe proliferation of [dactyl](https://bliptext.com/articles/dactyl-poetry) \"joy\" motifs (a crotchet followed by two quavers) in the last section of the prelude reflects the optimism in the last verse.\nhas given the following analysis of the seven sections:\nThis smaller manualiter setting of Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir is a four-part chorale motet in the key of F♯ minor, with the augmented cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of E in the uppermost soprano part.\nThe strict contrapuntal writing is denser than that of BWV 686, although it adheres less to the stile antico and has a more uniform texture.\nCommentators have suggested that the continual responses to the fugue subjects by their inversion signify confession followed by forgiveness.\nhas pointed out the following musical features in the seven sections of BWV 687:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Bwv686-preview.png]\n# [Interior of the Sophienkirche, Dresden, in 1910 showing the 1720 organ of Gottfried Silbermann destroyed by bombing in World War II | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Sophienkirche-Dresden-Silbermann-Organ.jpg]\n# [Title page of Part III of Samuel Scheidt's Tabulatura Nova, 1624. The Modum ludendi and Benedicamus had six parts with double pedal | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Scheidt-Tabulatura-Nova-III.png]\n# [Scheidt's Modus Pleno Organo Pedaliter: Benedicamus, 1624 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Scheidt-Tabulatura-Nova-III-Benedicamus.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Bwv687-preview.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut of the Fall of Man in Luther's Bible | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Fall-of-Man-Bible-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n\n### Communion BWV 688, 689\nBelow is the full text of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nThese grand pieces are at the same time eloquent witnesses to his depth of nature, both as a poet and as a composer.\nBach always deduced the emotional character of his organ chorales from the whole hymn, and not from its first verse alone.\nIn this way he generally obtained from the poem some leading thought, which seemed to him of particular importance, and in accordance with which he gave to the composition a poetic and musical character of its own.\nWe must follow out his method in detail in order to have been sure that we have grasped his meaning.\nIn the hymn for the Holy Communion, \"Jesus Christus unser Heiland,\" the counterpoint, with its broad, ponderous progressions, may, to the superficial observer, seem unsuitable to the character of the hymn.\nThe attentive reader of the words will, however, soon find the passage that gave rise to this characteristic musical phrase ... the fifth verse.\nFaith, lively and immovable, together with the solemnity of a consciousness of sin, are the two elements which constitute the emotional groundwork of the piece.\nThe chorale prelude Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 688 is a trio sonata with the upper voices in quavers and semiquavers the manuals and the cantus firmus in minims in the pedal in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of G, like a [Gregorian chant](https://bliptext.com/articles/gregorian-chant).\nThe eccentric angularity of the keyboard subject with its great widening or narrowing leaps is derived from the melody.\nIt has prompted much speculation as to its iconographic significance.\n\"Unwavering faith\" has been taken to be the underlying theme by many commentators, including Spitta and Schweitzer, who compared the unsteady theme to the vision of a sailor seeking a firm foothold on a stormy deck (un marin qui cherche un appui solide sur une planche roulante).\nOthers have interpreted the leaping theme as representing Man's parting from and return to God; or as the \"great agony\" (großer Arbeit) of the sixth verse; or as the anger of God appeased by the suffering of Christ (the theme followed by its inversion); or as a reference to the treading of the winepress in the passage\n\"'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.'\"\nfrom [Isaiah](https://bliptext.com/articles/book-of-isaiah) 63:2–3, signifying victory over the Cross.\nIt has similarly been suggested that the semiquaver passages are a reference to the flowing wine-blood of the communion.\nVisually, the quaver theme might contain a cross motif and might form an elongated [Christogram](https://bliptext.com/articles/christogram) on the Greek letters [iota](https://bliptext.com/articles/iota) and [chi](https://bliptext.com/articles/chi-letter) in certain sections of the score.\nWhatever the religious significance, the musical development from the motifs is ingenious and subtle, constantly varying.\nThe material in the semiquaver [codetta](https://bliptext.com/articles/codetta) (bar 6) of the fugue subject and of the countersubject (bars 7–9) is used and developed extensively throughout BWV 688, sometimes in inverted form.\nThe theme itself is transformed in all sorts of ways, including inversion, reflection, reversal and syncopation, the variety increased by how the two upper voices combine.\nOnce started, the semiquaver figures form a [moto perpetuo](https://bliptext.com/articles/moto-perpetuo).\nAt some points, they contain hidden versions of the quaver fugue subject; but as the work progresses, they gradually simplify to scale passages.\nEven the ending is unconventional, with a simulated [ritardando](https://bliptext.com/articles/ritardando) in the last bars with the pedal silent.\nThe chorale prelude is thus composed from a few organic motifs heard already in the first few bars.\nThe unprecedented novelty and musical originality of such a self-generated composition might have been Bach's main intention.\nImprovising fugues was part of the organist's stock in trade ... The present fugue is an almost unimaginably transfigured version of this genre, which Bach also resuscitated and handled less radically elsewhere in the Clavierübung.\nIt must also be one of the most dramatic, in the sense of eventful, fugues Bach ever wrote.\nThe drama begins in a mood of sobriety and pain and ends in transcendence.\nThe last manualiter four-part chorale prelude, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 689 in C minor, is marked \"Fuga super Jesus Christus, unser Heyland\" in the 1739 print.\nIn contrast to the previous fughettas in the previous five manualiter settings of the catechism hymns, it is a long and complex fugue of great originality, a tour de force in the use of [stretti](https://bliptext.com/articles/stretto).\nThe fugue subject is derived from the first line of the chorale.\nIn order to facilitate the stretti which underlie the whole conception of BWV 689, Bach chose to transform the modal melody by sharpening the fourth note from a B♭ to a B♮, a modification already found in 17th-century hymnbooks.\nThis change also allowed Bach to introduce dissonances, imbuing the work with what the French organist and musicologist [Norbert Dufourcq](https://bliptext.com/articles/norbert-dufourcq) called \"tormented chromaticism\".\nThe quaver countersubject and its inversions are used and developed throughout the fugue.\nIt resembles some of Bach's other keyboard fugues, in particular the antepenultimate fugue in B♭ minor BWV 891/2 of the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), composed at roughly the same time.\nThe inversion of the countersubject in bar 5, omitting the first note, plays a significant role later in the fugue (bar 30):\nThe stretti occur at intervals of varying length; in addition to the fugue subject, there are also imitations and stretti both for the semiquaver figure in the subject (and its inversions) and the figure above derived from the countersubject.\nhas given the following summary of the stretti for the fugue subject:\nThe last entry of the fugue subject in the tenor voice gives the impression of the return of a conventional cantus firmus; the coda over the tenor's sustained F is built on the motifs of the countersubject.\nThe different types of stretti result in a large variety of harmonisations of the theme and musical textures throughout the chorale prelude.\nhas given a detailed analysis of BWV 689 from the perspective of Bach's keyboard fugues:\n# [Jesus Christus, unser Heiland from the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Luther-Walter-Jesus-Christus-unser-Heiland-1524-1.png]\n# [Christian Gottlob Hammer, 1852: The Sophienkirche in Dresden where Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann was appointed organist in 1733 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Christian///Gottlob///Hammer///-///Sophienkirche///1852.jpg]\n# [Arp Schnitger organ constructed in 1693 in the Jacobikirche, Hamburg, one of the organs Bach played in 1720 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Arp///Schnitger///organ///St.///Jacobi///Hamburg.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Bwv688-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Bwv688-excerpt.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of the Last Supper | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Sacrament-Catechism-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Bwv689-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Bwv689-excerpt.png]\n# [Organ in the Johanniskirche, Lüneburg, where Bach heard Georg Böhm play | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/St.///Johannis///L%C3%BCneburg///-///Orgel.jpg]\n\n# Four duets BWV 802–805\nThe four duetti BWV 802–805, in the successive tonalities of E minor, F major, G major and A minor, were included at a fairly late stage in 1739 in the engraved plates for Clavier-Übung III.\nTheir purpose has remained a source of debate.\nLike the beginning prelude and fugue BWV 552 they are not explicitly mentioned on the title page and there is no explicit indication that they were intended for organ.\nHowever, as several commentators have noted, at a time when Bach was busy composing counterpoint for the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier) and the [Goldberg Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/goldberg-variations)\n(Clavier-Übung IV) using a very wide harpsichord range, Bach wrote the duets to lie comfortably in the range C to c in [Helmholtz pitch notation](https://bliptext.com/articles/helmholtz-pitch-notation) (C2 to C6 in [scientific pitch notation](https://bliptext.com/articles/scientific-pitch-notation)), so within the relatively narrow compass of almost every organ of the time.\nThe pieces can nevertheless be played on any single keyboard, such as a harpsichord or [fortepiano](https://bliptext.com/articles/fortepiano).\nThe use of the term duetto itself is closest to that given in the first volume of the Critica Musica (1722) of [Johann Mattheson](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-mattheson): a piece for two voices involving more than just \"imitation at the unison and the octave\".\nIt was Mattheson's view that \"a composer's true masterpiece\" could rather be found in \"an artful, fugued duet, more than a many-voiced alla breve or counterpoint\".\nIn choosing the form of the compositions, which go considerably beyond his [Two part inventions](https://bliptext.com/articles/two-part-inventions) BWV 772–786, Bach might have been making a musical contribution to the contemporary debates on the theory of counterpoint, already propounded in the tracts of [Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-marpurg) and of [Johann Fux](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-fux), whose [Gradus ad Parnassum](https://bliptext.com/articles/gradus-ad-parnassum) had been translated by Bach's friend Mizler.\nhas suggested that it may have been a direct response to the ongoing argument on musical style between Birnbaum and Scheibe: Bach combines the simple and harmonious styles advocated by his critics Mattheson and Scheibe with a more modern chromatic and often dissonant style, which they regarded as \"unnatural\" and \"artificial\".\nDespite many proposed explanations—for example as accompaniments to communion, with the two parts possibly signifying the two sacramental elements of bread and wine—it has never been determined whether Bach attached any religious significance to the four duets; instead it has been considered more likely that Bach sought to illustrate the possibilities of two-part counterpoint as fully as possible, both as a historical account and \"for the greater glory of God\".\n# [Gradus ad Parnassum, the 1725 treatise on counterpoint by Johann Fux, Austrian composer and music theorist | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Fux-Gradus-ad-Parnassum.jpg]\n\n## Duetto I BWV 802\nThe first duet in E minor is a double fugue, 73 bars long, in which all the musical material is invertible, i.e. can be exchanged between the two parts.\nThe first subject is six bars long broken up into one bar segments.\nIt is made up of one bar of demisemiquaver scales leading into four bars where the theme becomes angular, chromatic and syncopated.\nIn the sixth bar a demisemiquaver motif is introduced that is developed later in the duet in a highly original way; it also serves as a means of modulation after which the parts interchange their roles.\nThe contrasting second subject in quavers with octave leaps is a descent by a [chromatic fourth](https://bliptext.com/articles/chromatic-fourth).\nThe harmonies between the two chromatic parts are similar to those in the A minor prelude BWV 889/1 from the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), presumed to have been composed at roughly the same time.\nBWV 802 has been analysed as follows:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Bach-Duet1-preview.png]\n\n## Duetto II BWV 803\nThe A section of the F major Duetto is everything that Scheibe could have asked for—and that is not enough for Bach, who moves here far beyond the clarity and unity of the F major invention.\nWithout the B section the Duetto is the perfect work of 1739, completely in and of its time.\nIn its entirety however the piece is a perfect blasphemy—a powerful refutation indeed of the progressive shibboleths of naturalness and transparency.\nThe second duet in F major BWV 803 is a fugue written in the form of a [da capo aria](https://bliptext.com/articles/da-capo-aria), in the form ABA.\nThe first section has 37 bars and the second 75 bars, so that with repeats there are 149 bars.\nThere is a sharp contrast between the two sections, which has suggested might have been Bach's musical response to the acrimonious debate on style being conducted between Scheibe and Birnbaum at the time of composition.\nSection A is a conventional fugue in the spirit of the [Inventions and Sinfonias](https://bliptext.com/articles/inventions-and-sinfonias), melodious, harmonious and undemanding on the listener—the \"natural\" cantabile approach to composition advocated by both Mattheson and Scheibe.\nSection B is written in quite a different way.\nIt is severe and chromatic, mostly in minor keys, with dissonances, strettos, syncopation and canonic writing—all features frowned upon as \"artificial\" and \"unnatural\" by Bach's critics.\nSection B is divided symmetrically into segments of 31, 13 and 31 bars.\nThe first subject of section A is heard again in canon in the minor key.\nThe character of the first subject undergoes a complete transformation, from bright and effortless simplicity to dark and strained complexity: the strettos in the first subject produce unusual [augmented triads](https://bliptext.com/articles/augmented-triad); and a new chromatic countersubject emerges in the central 13-bar segment (which begins in bar 69, the fifth bar below).\nThe musical structure of Section A is as follows:\nThe musical structure of Section B is as follows:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Bach-Duet2-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Bwv803-excerpt1.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Bwv803-countersubject.png]\n\n## Duetto III BWV 804\nThe third duet BWV 804 in G major, 39 bars long, is the simplest of the four duetti.\nLight and dance-like, it is the closest in form to Bach's Two Part Inventions, of which it most closely resembles the last, No.15 BWV 786.\nThe bass accompaniment in detached quavers of the subject does not appear in the upper part and is not developed.\nWith very little modulation or chromaticism, the novelty of BWV 804 lies in the development of the semiquaver passagework.\nApart from a contrasting middle section in E minor, the tonality throughout is resolutely that of G major.\nThe use of broken chords recalls the writing in the first movements of the sixth trio sonata for organ BWV 530 and the third [Brandenburg Concerto](https://bliptext.com/articles/brandenburg-concertos) BWV 1048.\nBWV 804 has the following musical structure:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Bach-Duet3-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Bwv804-excerpt.png]\n\n## Duetto IV BWV 805\nBWV 805 is a fugue in strict counterpoint in the key of A minor, 108 bars long.\nThe 8 bar subject starts in minims with a second harmonic half in slow quavers.\nBach introduced further \"modern\" elements in the semitone drops in the subject and later motifs (bars 4 and 18).\nAlthough all entries of the subject are either in A minor (tonic) or E minor (dominant), Bach adds chromaticism by flattening notes in the subject and sharpening notes during modulating passages.\nDespite being a rigorous composition with carefully devised invertible counterpoint, i.e. with parts that can be interchanged, in parts its style is similar to that of the [bourée](https://bliptext.com/articles/bour-e) from the [Overture in the French style, BWV 831](https://bliptext.com/articles/overture-in-the-french-style-bwv-831) from Clavier-Übung II.\nThere are three episodes which move between different keys and combine three new pairs of motifs, either 2 bars, 4 bars or 8 bars long, in highly original and constantly changing ways.\nThe first episode starts in bar 18 below with the first pair of new motifs, the upper one characterised by an octave drop:\nAt the end of the first episode, the second harmonious pair of motifs is introduced:\nThe third pair of motifs, which allows significant modulation, appears for the first time in the second half of the second episode and is derived from the second half of the subject and countersubject:\nThe musical structure of BWV 805 has been analysed as follows:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Bach-Duet4-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Bwv805-excerpt-second-motif.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Bwv805-excerpt-third-motif.png]\n\n# Reception and influence\n\n## Eighteenth century\nFinally, Mr. ——— is the most eminent of the Musikanten in ———.\nHe is an extraordinary artist on the clavier and on the organ, and he has until now encountered only one person with whom he can dispute the palm of superiority.\nI have heard this great man play on various occasions.\nOne is amazed at his ability, and one can hardly conceive how it is possible for him to achieve such agility, with his fingers and with his feet, in the crossings, extensions, and extreme jumps that he manages, without mixing in a single wrong tone, or displacing his body by any violent movement.\nThis great man would be the admiration of whole nations if he had more amenity, if he did not take away the natural element in his pieces by giving them a turgid and confused style, and if he did not darken their beauty by an excess of art.\nIn 1737, two years before the publication of Clavier-Übung III, [Johann Adolf Scheibe](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adolf-scheibe) had made the above notoriously unfavourable comparison between Bach and another composer of the time, now identified as [Georg Frideric Handel](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-frideric-handel).\nHis comments represented a change in contemporary musical aesthetics: he advocated the simpler and more expressive [galant](https://bliptext.com/articles/galant) style, which after Bach's death in 1750 would be further developed during the [classical period](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-period-music), in preference to fugal or contrapuntal writing, which by then was considered old-fashioned and out-moded, too scholarly and conservative.\nAlthough Bach did not actively participate in the ensuing debate on musical styles, he did incorporate elements of this modern style in his later compositions, in particular in Clavier-Übung III.\nBach's musical contributions, however, could only be properly assessed at the beginning of the 19th century, when his works became more widely available: up until then much of his musical output—in particular his vocal works—was relatively little known outside Leipzig.\nFrom 1760 onwards a small group of ardent supporters became active in [Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/berlin), keen to preserve his reputation and promulgate his oeuvre.\nThe group centred around his son [Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-philipp-emanuel-bach), who in 1738 at the age of 24 had been appointed court harpsichordist at [Potsdam](https://bliptext.com/articles/potsdam) to [Frederick the Great](https://bliptext.com/articles/frederick-ii-of-prussia), then crown prince before his accession to the throne in 1740.\nC.P.E. Bach remained in Berlin until 1768, when he was appointed Kapellmeister in [Hamburg](https://bliptext.com/articles/hamburg) in succession to [Georg Philipp Telemann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-philipp-telemann).\n(His brother [Wilhelm Friedemann Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-friedemann-bach) moved to Berlin in 1774, although not to general acclaim, despite his accomplishments as an organist.) Other prominent members of the group included Bach's former pupils [Johann Friedrich Agricola](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-agricola), court composer, first director of the [Royal Opera House](https://bliptext.com/articles/berlin-state-opera) in Berlin and collaborator with Emanuel on Bach's obituary (the Nekrolog, 1754), and more significantly [Johann Philipp Kirnberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-philipp-kirnberger).\nKirnberger became Kapellmeister to the court in 1758 and music teacher of Frederick's niece, [Anna Amalia](https://bliptext.com/articles/duchess-anna-amalia-of-brunswick-wolfenb-ttel).\nNot only did Kirnberger build up a large collection of Bach's manuscripts in the Amalien-Bibliothek, but with [Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-marpurg) he promoted Bach's compositions through theoretical texts, concentrating in particular on counterpoint with a detailed analysis of Bach's methods.\nThe first of the two volumes of Marpurg's Treatise on fugue (Abhandlung von der Fuge, 1753–1754) cites the opening segment of the six-part fugal chorale prelude Aus tiefer Noth BWV 686 as one of its examples.\nKirnberger produced his own extensive tract on composition Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (The true principles for the practice of harmony), twenty years later, between 1771 and 1779.\nIn his treatise Marpurg had adopted some of the musical theories on the [fundamental bass](https://bliptext.com/articles/figured-bass) of [Jean-Philippe Rameau](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-philippe-rameau) from his Treatise on Harmony (1722) in explaining Bach's fugal compositions, an approach which Kirnberger rejected in his tract:\n\"Rameau filled this theory with so many things that had no rhyme or reason that one must certainly wonder how such extravagant notions can have found belief and even champions among us Germans, since we have always had the greatest harmonists among us, and their manner of treating harmony was certainly not to be explained according to Rameau's principles. Some even went so far that they preferred to deny the soundness of a Bach in his procedure with respect to the treatment and progression of chords, rather than admit that the Frenchman could have erred.\"\nThis led to an acrimonious dispute in which both claimed to speak with Bach's authority.\nWhen Marpurg made the tactical error of suggesting that, \"His famous son in Hamburg ought to know something about this, too,\" Kirnberger responded in the introduction to the second volume of his tract:\n\"Moreover, what Mr. Bach, Capellmeister in Hamburg, thinks of the excellent work of Mr. Marpurg, is shown by some passages from a letter that this famous man has written to me: 'The behaviour of Mr. Marpurg towards you is execrable.' Further: 'You may loudly proclaim that my basic principles and those of my late father are anti-Rameau.'\"\nThrough Bach's pupils and family, copies of his keyboard works were disseminated and studied throughout Germany; the diplomat [Baron van Swieten](https://bliptext.com/articles/baron-van-swieten), Austrian envoy to the Prussian court from 1770 to 1777 and afterwards patron of [Mozart](https://bliptext.com/articles/mozart), [Haydn](https://bliptext.com/articles/haydn) and [Beethoven](https://bliptext.com/articles/beethoven), was responsible for relaying copies from Berlin to Vienna.\nThe reception of the works was mixed, partly because of their technical difficulty: composers like Mozart, Beethoven and [Rust](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-rust) embraced these compositions, particularly [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier); but, as [Johann Adam Hiller](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adam-hiller) reported in 1768, many amateur musicians found them too hard (\"Sie sind zu schwer! Sie gefallen mir nicht\").\nTwenty-one prints of the original 1739 edition of Clavier-Übung III survive today.\nBecause of its high price, this edition did not sell well: even 25 years later in 1764, C.P.E. Bach was still trying to dispose of copies.\nBecause of changes in popular tastes after Bach's death, the publisher [Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottlob-immanuel-breitkopf), son of [Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf](https://bliptext.com/articles/bernhard-christoph-breitkopf), did not consider it economically viable to prepare new printed editions of Bach's works; instead he retained a master copy of Clavier-Übung III in his large library of original scores from which handwritten copies (hand-exemplar) could be ordered from 1763 onwards.\nA similar service was provided by the musical publishers Johann Christoph Westphal in Hamburg and [Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-carl-friedrich-rellstab) in Berlin.\nBefore 1800, there are very few reports of performances of Bach's works in England or of manuscript copies of his work.\nIn 1770, [Charles Burney](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-burney), the musicologist and friend of [Samuel Johnson](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-johnson) and [James Boswell](https://bliptext.com/articles/james-boswell), had made a tour of France and Italy.\nOn his return in 1771 he published a report on his tour in The Present State of Music in France and Italy.\nLater that year in a letter to [Christoph Daniel Ebeling](https://bliptext.com/articles/christoph-daniel-ebeling), the music critic engaged in translating this work into German, Burney made one of his first references to Bach:\n\"A long & laboured Fugue, recte et retro in 40 parts, may be a good Entertainment for the Eyes of a Critic, but can never delight the Ears of a Man of Taste. I was no less surprised than pleased to find Mr. C.P.E. Bach get out of the trammels of Fugues & crowded parts in which his father so excelled.\"\nIt was, however, only in the following year, during his tour of Germany and the [Low Countries](https://bliptext.com/articles/low-countries), that Burney received a copy of the first book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier) from C. P. E. Bach in Hamburg; according to his own reports, he was only to become familiar with its contents over thirty years later.\nHe reported on his German tour in The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces in 1773.\nThe book contains the first English account of Bach's work and reflects the views commonly held at the time in England.\nBurney compared the learned style of Bach unfavourably with that of his son, whom he had visited:\n\"How he formed his style, where he acquired all his taste and refinement, would be difficult to trace; he certainly neither inherited nor adopted them from his father, who was his only master; for that venerable musician, though unequalled in learning and contrivance, thought it so necessary to crowd into both hand all the harmony he could grasp, that he must inevitably have sacrificed melody and expression. Had the sone chosen a model, it would certainly have been his father, whom he highly reverenced; but as he has ever disdained imitation, he must have derive from nature alone, those fine feelings, that variety of new ideas, and selection of passages, which are so manifest in his compositions.\"\nBurney summarised the musical contributions of J.S. Bach as follows:\n\"Besides many excellent compositions for the church, this author produced Ricercari, consisting of preludes, fugues, upon two, three and four subjects; in Modo recto & contrario and in every one of the twenty-four keys. All the present organ-players of Germany are formed upon his school, as most of those on the harpsichord, clavichord and piano forte are upon that of his son, the admirable Carl. Phil. Emanuel Bach ; so long known by the name of Bach of Berlin, but now music-director at Hamburg.\"\nAs it is known that at the time Burney knew hardly any of Bach's compositions, it appears that his opinions of Bach came second-hand: the first sentence was almost certainly lifted directly from the French translation of Marpurg's Treatise on fugue, to which he had referred earlier in the book for biographical details; and in 1771 he had acquired Scheibe's writings through Ebeling.\nIn Germany Burney's book was not well received, infuriating even his friend Ebeling: in a passage that he changed in later editions, he had repeated without attribution comments from a letter of Louis Devisme, British plenipotentiary in Munich, that, \"if innate genius exists, Germany is certainly not the seat of it; though it must be allowed, to be that of perseverance and application.\"\nOnce aware of the offence this might cause to Germans, Burney had marked with pencil the offending passages in the copy of his daughter [Fanny Burney](https://bliptext.com/articles/fanny-burney), when in 1786 she became lady-in-waiting to [Queen Charlotte](https://bliptext.com/articles/charlotte-of-mecklenburg-strelitz), wife of [George III](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-iii-of-the-united-kingdom).\nLater that year, to Fanny's horror, the Queen requested that Fanny show her copy to her daughter Princess Elizabeth.\nThe book was viewed by both the King and Queen, who accepted Fanny's hastily invented explanations of the markings; she similarly managed to excuse herself when Princess Elizabeth later read all the marked passages assuming them to be Fanny's favourites.\nBurney was aware of George III's preference for Handel when in 1785 he wrote in his account of the 1784 [Handel Commemoration](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-commemoration) that \"in his full, masterly and excellent organ-fugues, upon the most natural and pleasing subjects, he has surpassed Frescobaldi, and even Sebastian Bach, and others of his countrymen, the most renowned for abilities in this difficult and elaborate species of composition.\"\nHis account was translated into German by Hiller.\nWriting anonymously in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek in 1788, C.P.E. Bach angrily responded that \"there is nothing to be seen but partiality, and of any close acquaintance with the principal works of J.S. Bach for organ we find in Dr. Burney's writings no trace.\"\nUndeterred by such comments in 1789, a year after C.P.E. Bach's death, Burney echoed Scheibe's earlier comparison of Bach and Handel when he wrote in his General History of Music:\n\"The very terms of Canon and Fugue imply restraint and labour. Handel was perhaps the only great Fughuist, exempt from pedantry. He seldom treated barren or crude subjects; his themes being almost always natural and pleasing. Sebastian Bach, on the contrary, like Michel Angelo in painting, disdained facility so much, that his genius never stooped to the easy and graceful. I never have seen a fugue by this learned and powerful author upon a motivo, that is natural and chantant; or even an easy and obvious passage, that is not loaded with crude an difficult accompaniments.\"\nBurney reflected the English predilection for opera when he added:\n\"If Sebastian Bach and his admirable son Emmanuel, instead of being music-directors in commercial cities, had been fortunately employed to compose for the stage and public of great capitals, such as Naples, Paris, or London, and for performers of the first class, they would doubtless have simplified their style more to the level of their judges; the one would have sacrificed all unmeaning art and contrivance, and the other have been less fantastical and recherché; and both, by writing a style more popular, would have extended their fame, and been indisputably the greatest musicians of the eighteenth century.\"\n[Johann Nikolaus Forkel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-nikolaus-forkel), from 1778 the director of music in the [University of Göttingen](https://bliptext.com/articles/university-of-g-ttingen), was another promoter and collector of Bach's music.\nAn active correspondent with both of Bach's sons in Berlin, he published the first detailed biography of Bach in 1802, Bach: On Johann Sebastian Bach's Life, Art and Works: For Patriotic Admirers of True Musical Art, including an appreciation of Bach's keyboard and organ music and ending with the injunction, \"This man, the greatest orator-poet that ever addressed the world in the language of music, was a German! Let Germany be proud of him! Yes, proud of him, but worthy of him too!\"\nIn 1779, Forkel published a review of Burney's General History of Music in which he criticized Burney for dismissing German composers as \"dwarves or musical ogres\" because \"they did not skip and dance before his eyes in a dainty manner\"; instead he suggested it was more appropriate to view them as \"giants\".\nAmong his criticisms of Bach in the 1730s, Scheibe had written, \"We know of composers who see it as an honour to be able to compose incomprehensible and unnatural music. They pile up musical figures. They make unusual embellishments. ... Are these not truly musical Goths!\"\nUntil the 1780s, the use of the word \"gothic\" in music was pejorative.\nIn his entry for \"harmony\" in the influential Dictionnaire de Musique (1768), [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-jacques-rousseau), a fierce critic of Rameau, described counterpoint as a \"gothic and barbaric invention\", the antithesis of the melodic galante style.\nIn 1772, [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe) gave a fundamentally different view of \"gothic\" art that would achieve widespread acceptance during the classical-romantic movement.\nIn his celebrated essay on the [cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/strasbourg-cathedral) in [Strasbourg](https://bliptext.com/articles/strasbourg), where he was a student, Goethe was one of the first writers to connect gothic art with the sublime:\n\"The first time I went to the minster I was full of the common notions of good taste. From hearsay I respected the harmony of mass, the purity of forms, and I was the sworn enemy of the confused caprices of Gothic ornament. Under the term gothic, like the article in a dictionary, I threw together all the synonymous misunderstandings, such as undefined, disorganized, unnatural, patched-together, tacked on, overloaded, which had gone through my head. ... How surprised I was when I was confronted by it! The impression which filled my soul was whole and large, and of a sort that—since it was composed of a thousand harmonizing details—I could relish and enjoy, but by no means identify and explain. ... How often have I returned from all sides, from all distances, in all lights, to contemplate its dignity and magnificence. It is hard on the spirit of man when his brother's work is so sublime that he can only bow and worship.\nHow often has the evening twilight soothed with its friendly quiet my eyes, tired-out with questing, by blending the scattered parts into masses which now stood simple and large before my soul, and at once my powers unfolded rapturously to enjoy and understand.\"\nIn 1782, [Johann Friedrich Reichardt](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-reichardt), since 1775 the successor to Agricola as Capellmeister in the court of Frederic the Great, quoted this passage from Goethe in the Musicalisches Kunstmagazin to describe his personal reactions to the instrumental fugues of Bach and Handel.\nHe prefaced his eulogy with a description of Bach as the greatest counterpuntalist (\"harmonist\") of his age:\n\"There has never been a composer, not even the best and deepest of the Italians, who so exhausted all the possibilities of our harmony as did J. S. Bach. Almost no suspension is possible that he did not make use of, and he employed every proper harmonic art and every improper harmonic artifice a thousand times, in earnest and in jest, with such boldness and individuality that the greatest harmonist, if called upon to supply a missing measure in the theme of one of his greatest works, could not be entirely sure of having supplied it exactly as Bach had done. Had Bach had the high sense of truth and the deep feeling for expression that animated Handel, he would have been far greater even than Handel himself; but as it is, he is only much more erudite and industrious.\"\nThe unfavourable comparison to Handel was removed in a later reprinting in 1796, following adverse anonymous remarks in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek.\nReichardt's comparison between Bach's music and the Gothic cathedral would often be repeated by composers and music critics.\nHis student, the writer, composer and music critic [E.T.A. Hoffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/e-t-a-hoffmann), saw in Bach's music \"the bold and wonderful, romantic cathedral with all its fantastic embellishments, which, artistically swept up into a whole, proudly and magnificently rise in the air\".\nHoffmann wrote of the sublime in Bach's music—the \"infinite spiritual realm\" in Bach's \"mystical rules of counterpoint\".\nAnother musician in C.P.E. Bach's circle was his friend [Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-friedrich-christian-fasch), son of the violinist and composer [Johann Friedrich Fasch](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-fasch), who, on the death of Kuhnau in 1722, had turned down the post, later awarded to Bach, of [kantor](https://bliptext.com/articles/cantor-church) at the [Thomaskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomaskirche), where he himself had been trained.\nFrom 1756 Carl Fasch shared the role of harpsichord accompanist to Frederick the Great at Potsdam with C.P.E. Bach.\nHe briefly succeeded Agricola as director of the Royal Opera in 1774 for two years.\nIn 1786.\nthe year of Frederick the Great's death, Hiller organised a monumental performance in Italian of Handel's [Messiah](https://bliptext.com/articles/messiah-handel) in a Berlin cathedral, recreating the scale of the 1784 London [Handel Commemoration](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-commemoration) described in Burney's detailed account of 1785.\nThree years later in 1789, Fasch started an informal group in Berlin, formed from singing students and music lovers, that met for rehearsals in private homes.\nIn 1791, with the introduction of a \"presence book\", it became officially known as the [Sing-Akademie zu Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/sing-akademie-zu-berlin) and two years later was granted its own rehearsal room in the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin.\nAs a composer, Fasch had learnt the old methods of counterpoint from Kirnberger and, like the Academy of Ancient Music in London, his initial purpose in founding the Sing-Akademie was to revive interest in neglected and rarely performed sacred vocal music, particularly that of J.S. Bach, Graun and Handel.\nThe society subsequently built up an extensive library of baroque music of all types, including instrumental music.\nDespite Burney's antipathy towards Bach prior to 1800, there was an \"awakening\" of interest in the music of Bach in England, spurred on by the presence of émigré musicians from Germany and Austria, trained in the musical tradition of Bach.\nFrom 1782 [Queen Charlotte](https://bliptext.com/articles/charlotte-of-mecklenburg-strelitz), a dedicated keyboard player, had as music teacher the German-born organist [Charles Frederick Horn](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-frederick-horn); and in the same year [Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/augustus-frederic-christopher-kollmann) was summoned by George III from the [Electorate of Hanover](https://bliptext.com/articles/electorate-of-hanover) to act as organist and schoolmaster at the [Royal German Chapel](https://bliptext.com/articles/queen-s-chapel) at St James's Palace.\nIt is probable that they were instrumental in acquiring for her in 1788 a bound volume from Westphal of Hamburg containing Clavier-Übung III in addition to both books of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier).\nOther German musicians moving in royal circles included [Johann Christian Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christian-bach), [Carl Friedrich Abel](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-friedrich-abel), [Johann Christian Fischer](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christian-fischer), [Frederick de Nicolay](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolay-family), [Wilhelm Cramer](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-cramer) and [Johann Samuel Schroeter](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-samuel-schroeter).\nMore significant for the 19th-century English Bach revival was the presence of a younger generation of German-speaking musicians in London, well versed in the theoretical writings of Kirnberger and Marpurg on counterpoint but not dependent on royal patronage; these included John Casper Heck (c. 1740 – 1791), [Charles Frederick Baumgarten](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-frederick-baumgarten) (1738–1824) and Joseph Diettenhofer (c. 1743 – c. 1799).\nHeck in particular promoted fugues in his treatise \"The Art of Playing the Harpsichord\" (1770), describing them later as \"a particular stile of music peculiar to the Organ than the Harpsichord\"; in his biographical entry for Bach in the 1780s in the Musical Library and Universal Magazine, he gave examples of counterpoint from Bach's late period ([Canonic Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/canonic-variations), [The Art of Fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-art-of-fugue)).\nDiettenhofer prepared A Selection of Ten Miscellaneous Fugues, including his own completion of the unfinished Contrapunctus XIV BWV 1080/19 from The Art of Fugue; prior to their publication in 1802 these were \"tried at the Savoy Church, Strand before several Organists and eminent Musicians ... who were highly gratified and recommended their Publication.\"\nThe enthusiasm of these German musicians was shared by the organist Benjamin Cooke and his student the organist and composer John Wall Calcott.\nCooke knew them through the [Royal Society of Musicians](https://bliptext.com/articles/royal-society-of-musicians) and had himself published a version of The Art of Fugue.\nCalcott corresponded with Kollmann about the musical theories of the Bach school.\nIn 1798, he was one of the founding members of the Concentores Society, a club with a limited membership of twelve professional musicians, dedicated to composition in counterpoint and the stile antico.\n# [C. P. E. Bach | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Carl///Philipp///Emanuel///Bach.jpg]\n# [Johann Kirnberger | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Kirnberger-gallica.jpeg]\n# [Friedrich Marpurg | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Marpurg-Kauke-Berol-1758.jpeg]\n# [Charles Burney | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Charles///Burney.jpg]\n# [Fanny Burney | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Frances///d%27Arblay///%28%27Fanny///Burney%27%29///by///Edward///Francisco///Burney.jpg]\n# [Johann Nikolaus Forkel | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Forkel///1790.jpg]\n# [J. W. von Goethe | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Goethe%2C///Georg///Oswald///May%2C1779.jpg]\n# [J. F. Reichardt | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Reichhardt-1796.png]\n# [Carl Fasch | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Carl-Friedrich-Christian-Fasch.jpeg]\n# [Interior of the Royal German Chapel, St James's Palace | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Charles-Wild-Royal-German-Chapel-1816.png]\n# [Thanksgiving service in 1789 for the recovery of George III in St Paul's Cathedral. The Grand Organ, built by Father Smith with a case designed by Christopher Wren, can be seen in the background. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Father-Smith-Organ-St-Paul%27s-1789.jpg]\n\n## Nineteenth and early twentieth century\n\n### Germany\nBut it is only at his organ that he appears to be at his most sublime, most audacious, in his own element.\nHere he knows neither limits nor goals and works for centuries to come.\nA new printed \"movable type\" edition of Clavier-Übung III, omitting the duets BWV 802–805, was produced by [Ambrosius Kühnel](https://bliptext.com/articles/ambrosius-k-hnel) in 1804 for the Bureau de Musique in Leipzig, his joint publishing venture with [Franz Anton Hoffmeister](https://bliptext.com/articles/franz-anton-hoffmeister) that later became the music publishing firm of [C.F. Peters](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-f-peters).\nPreviously in 1802 Hoffmeister and Kühnel and had published a collection of Bach's keyboard music, including the [Inventions and Sinfonias](https://bliptext.com/articles/inventions-and-sinfonias) and both books of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), with [Johann Nikolaus Forkel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-nikolaus-forkel) acting as advisor.\n(The first prelude and fugue BWV 870 from The Well-Tempered Clavier II was published for the first time in 1799 by Kollmann in London. The whole of Book II was published in 1801 in Bonn by [Simrock](https://bliptext.com/articles/nikolaus-simrock), followed by Book I; slightly later Nägeli came out with a third edition in Zürich.) Hoffmeister and Kühnel did not take up Forkel's suggestion of including in their fifteenth volume the four duets BWV 802–805, which were only published by Peters much later in 1840.\nNine of the chorale preludes BWV 675–683 were printed in the four volume [Breitkopf and Härtel](https://bliptext.com/articles/breitkopf-and-h-rtel) collection of chorale preludes prepared between 1800 and 1806 by [Johann Gottfried Schicht](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-schicht).\nForkel and Kollmann corresponded during this period: they shared the same enthusiasm for Bach and the publication of his works.\nWhen Forkel's biography of Bach appeared in Germany in 1802, his publishers Hoffmeister and Kühnel wished to have control over translations into English and French.\nNo complete authorized English translation was produced at the time.\nIn 1812, Kollmann used parts of the biography in a long article on Bach in the Quarterly Musical Register; and an unauthorized anonymous English translation was published by [Boosey & Company](https://bliptext.com/articles/boosey-hawkes) in 1820.\nIn Berlin, on the death of Fasch in 1800, his assistant [Carl Friedrich Zelter](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-friedrich-zelter) took over as the director of the Sing-Akademie.\nThe son of a mason, he himself had been brought up as a master mason, but had cultivated his musical interests in secret, eventually taking composition classes with Fasch.\nHe had been linked to the Sing-Akademie for years and had acquired a reputation as one of the foremost experts on Bach in Berlin.\nIn 1799, he started a correspondence with Goethe on the aesthetics of music, particularly the music of Bach, which was to last until both friends died in 1832.\nAlthough Goethe had a late training in music, he considered it an essential element in his life, arranging concerts at his home and attending them elsewhere.\nIn 1819, Goethe described how the organist from [Berka](https://bliptext.com/articles/bad-berka), Heinrich Friedrich Schütz, trained by Bach's student Kittel, would serenade him for hours with the music of the masters, from Bach to Beethoven, so that Goethe could acquaint himself with music from a historical perspective.\nIn 1827, he wrote:\n\"On this occasion I recalled the good organist of Berka; for it was there, in perfect repose without extraneous disturbance, that I first formed an impression of your great maestro. I said to myself, it is as if the eternal harmony were conversing with itself, as it may have done in God's breast before the creation of the world; that is the way it move deep within me, and it was if I neither possessed or needed ears, nor any other sense—least of all, the eyes.\"\nCommenting in the same year on Bach's writing for the organ, Zelter wrote to Goethe:\n\"The organ is Bach's own peculiar soul, into which he breathes immediately the living breath. His theme is the feeling just born, which, like the spark from the stone, invariably springs forth, from the first chance pressure of the foot upon the pedals. Thus by degrees he warms to his subject, till he has isolated himself, and feels alone, and then an inexhaustible stream passes out into the ocean.\"\nZelter insisted on the pedals as the key to Bach's organ writing: \"One might say of old Bach, that the pedals were the ground-element of the development of his unfathomable intellect, and that without feet, he could never have attained his intellectual height.\"\nZelter was instrumental in building up the Sing-Akademie, broadening their repertoire to instrumental music and encouraging the growing library, another important repository for Bach manuscripts.\nZelter had been responsible for Mendelssohn's father [Abraham Mendelssohn](https://bliptext.com/articles/abraham-mendelssohn) becoming a member of the Sing-Akademie in 1796.\nAs a consequence, one of the major new forces behind the library became [Sara Levy](https://bliptext.com/articles/itzig-family), the great-aunt of [Felix Mendelssohn](https://bliptext.com/articles/felix-mendelssohn), who had assembled one of the most-important private collections of 18th-century music in Europe.\nAn accomplished harpsichordist, Sara Levy's teacher had been [Wilhelm Friedemann Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-friedemann-bach) and she had been a patroness of [C.P.E. Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-p-e-bach), circumstances which gave her family close contacts with Bach and resulted in his music enjoying a privileged status in the Mendelssohn household.\nFelix's mother Lea, who had studied under Kirnberger, gave him his first music lessons.\nIn 1819, Zelter was appointed as the composition teacher of Felix and his sister [Fanny](https://bliptext.com/articles/fanny-mendelssohn); he taught counterpoint and music theory according to the methods of Kirnberger.\nFelix's piano teacher was [Ludwig Berger](https://bliptext.com/articles/ludwig-berger-composer), a pupil of [Muzio Clementi](https://bliptext.com/articles/muzio-clementi), and his organ teacher was [August Wilhelm Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/august-wilhelm-bach) (unrelated to J.S. Bach), who had himself studied musical theory under Zelter.\nA.W. Bach was organist of the [Marienkirche, Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-mary-s-church-berlin), which had an organ built in 1723 by [Joachim Wagner](https://bliptext.com/articles/joachim-wagner).\nMendelssohn's organ lessons were conducted on the Wagner organ, with Fanny present; they commenced in 1820 and lasted for less than two years.\nIt is probable that he learnt some of J. S. Bach's organ works, which had remained in the repertoire of many Berlin organists; his choice would have been limited, because at that stage his pedal technique was still rudimentary.\nIn autumn 1821 the twelve-year-old Mendelssohn accompanied Zelter on a trip to [Weimar](https://bliptext.com/articles/weimar), stopping on the way in Leipzig where they were shown the cantor's room in the choir school of the Thomaskirche by Bach's successor Schicht.\nThey stayed two weeks in Weimar with Goethe, to whom Mendelssohn played extensively on the piano each day.\nAll Mendelssohn's music lessons stopped by summer 1822 when his family left for Switzerland.\nIn the 1820s, Mendelssohn visited Goethe four more times in Weimar, the last time being in 1830, a year after his resounding success in reviving Bach's [St Matthew Passion](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-matthew-passion) in Berlin, with the collaboration of Zelter and members of the Sing-Akademie.\nOn this last trip, again by way of Leipzig, he stayed two weeks in Weimar and had daily meetings with Goethe, by then in his eighties.\nHe later gave an account to Zelter of a visit to the church of St Peter and St Paul where Bach's cousin [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther) had been organist and where his two eldest sons had been baptized:\n\"One day Goethe asked me if I would not care to pay a compliment to craftsmanship and call on the organist, who might let me see and hear the organ in the town church. I did so, and the instrument gave me great pleasure ... The organist gave me the choice of hearing something learned or for the people ... so I asked for something learned. But it was not much to be proud of. He modulated around enough to make one giddy, but nothing unusual came of it; he made a number of entries, but no fugue was forthcoming. When my turn came, I let loose with the D minor toccata of Bach and remarked that this was at the same time something learned and for the people too, at least some of them. But see, I had hardly started to play when the superintendent dispatched his valet downstairs with the message that this playing had to be stopped right away because it was a weekday and he could not study with that much noise going on.\nGoethe was very much amused by this story.\" In 1835, Mendelssohn was appointed director of the [Gewandhaus Orchester](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig-gewandhaus-orchestra) in [Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig), a post he held until his death in 1847 at the age of 38. He soon met other Bach enthusiasts including [Robert Schumann](https://bliptext.com/articles/robert-schumann), one year his junior, who had moved to [Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig) in 1830. Having been taught piano by J.G. Kuntsch, organist at the Marienkirche in [Zwickau](https://bliptext.com/articles/zwickau), Schumann seems to have started developing a deeper interest in Bach's organ music in 1832. In his diary he recorded sightreading the six organ fugues BWV 543–548 for four hands with [Clara Wieck](https://bliptext.com/articles/clara-wieck), the twelve-year-old daughter of his [Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig) piano teacher [Friedrich Wieck](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wieck) and his future wife. Schumann later acknowledged Bach as the composer who had influenced him most. In addition to collecting his works, Schumann started with [Friedrich Wieck](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wieck) a new fortnightly music magazine, the [Neue Zeitschrift für Musik](https://bliptext.com/articles/neue-zeitschrift-f-r-musik), in which he promoted the music of Bach as well as that of contemporary composers, such as Chopin and Liszt.\nOne of the main contributors was his friend [Carl Becker](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-ferdinand-becker-organist), organist at the [Peterskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-peter-leipzig) and in 1837 the [Nikolaikirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-nicholas-church-leipzig).\nSchumann remained as editor-in-chief until 1843, the year in which Mendelssohn became the founding director of the [Leipzig Conservatory](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig-conservatory).\nSchumann was appointed professor for piano and composition at the conservatory; other appointments included [Moritz Hauptmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/moritz-hauptmann) (harmony and counterpoint), [Ferdinand David](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinand-david-musician) (violin) and Becker (organ and music theory).\nOne of Mendelssohn's regrets since 1822 was that he had not had sufficient opportunity to develop his pedal technique to his satisfaction, despite having given public organ recitals.\nMendelssohn explained later how difficult gaining access to organs had already been back in Berlin: \"If only people knew how I had to plead and pay and cajole the organists in Berlin, just to be allowed to play the organ for one hour—and how ten times during such an hour I had to stop for this or that reason, then they would certainly speak differently.\"\nElsewhere, on his travels, he had only sporadic opportunities to practice, but not often on pedalboards matching the standard of those in northern Germany, especially in England.\nThe English organist Edward Holmes commented in 1835 that Mendelssohn's recitals in [St Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral) \"gave a taste of his quality which in extemperaneous performance is certainly of the highest kind ... he has not we believe kept up that constant mechanical exercise of the instrument which is necessary to execute elaborate written works.\"\nIn 1837, despite having performed the St Anne prelude and fugue in England to great acclaim, on his return to Germany Mendelssohn still felt dissatisfied, writing that, \"This time I have resolved to practice the organ her in earnest; after all, if everyone takes me for an organist, I am determined, after the fact, to become one.\"\nIt was only in the summer of 1839 that an opportunity arose when he spent six weeks on holiday in Frankfurt.\nThere he had daily access to the pedal piano of his wife Cécile's cousin Friedrich Schlemmer and, probably through him, access to the organ in the [Katharinenkirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-catherine-s-church-frankfurt) built in 1779–1780 by Franz and Philipp Stumm.\nAugust 1840 saw the fruits of Mendelssohn's labour: his first organ recital in the [Thomaskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomaskirche).\nThe proceeds from the concert were to go towards a statue of Bach in the vicinity of the Thomaskirche.\nMost of the repertoire in the concert had been played by Mendelssohn elsewhere, but nevertheless as he wrote to his mother, \"I practised so much the previous eight days that I could barely stand on my own two feet and walked along the street in nothing but organ passages.\"\nThe concert was wholly devoted to Bach's music, except for an improvised \"free fantasy\" at the end.\nIn the audience was the elderly [Friedrich Rochlitz](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-rochlitz), founding editor of the [Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung](https://bliptext.com/articles/allgemeine-musikalische-zeitung), a journal that had promoted the music of Bach: Rochlitz is reported to have declared afterwards, \"I shall depart now in peace, for never shall I hear anything finer or more sublime.\"\nThe recital started with the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552.\nThe only chorale prelude was Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele BWV 654 from the [Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-eighteen-chorale-preludes), a favourite of both Mendelssohn and Schumann.\nUntil that time very few of these or the shorter chorale preludes from the [Orgelbüchlein](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein) had been published.\nMendelssohn prepared an edition of both sets that was published in 1844 by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig and by Coventry and Hollier in London.\nAt about the same time the publishing house of Peters in Leipzig produced an edition of Bach's complete organ works in nine volumes edited by [Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-konrad-griepenkerl) and Ferdinand Roitzsch.\nThe E flat prelude and fugue BWV 552 appears in Volume III (1845), the chorale preludes BWV 669–682, 684–689 in Volume VI and VII (1847) and BWV 683 in Volume V (1846) with chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchlein.\nIn 1845, while Robert was recovering from a nervous breakdown and a few months prior to the completion of his [piano concerto](https://bliptext.com/articles/piano-concerto-schumann), the Schumanns rented a pedalboard to place under their upright piano.\nAs Clara recorded at the time, \"On April 24th we got on hire a pedal-board to attach below the pianoforte, and we had great pleasure from it. Our chief object was to practice organ playing. But Robert soon found a higher interest in this instrument and composed some sketches and studies for it which are sure to find high favour as something quite new.\"\nThe pedalflügel base on which the piano was placed had 29 keys connected to 29 separate hammers and strings encased at the rear of the piano.\nThe pedal board was manufactured by the same Leipzig firm of Louis Schöne that had provided the grand pedal piano in 1843 for the use of students at the Leipzig Conservatory.\nBefore composing any of his own fugues and canons for organ and pedal piano, Schumann had made a careful study of Bach's organ works, of which he had an extensive collection.\nClara Schumann's Bach book, an anthology of organ works by Bach, now in the archives of the [Riemenschneider Bach Institute](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-riemenschneider), contains the whole of Clavier-Übung III, with detailed analytic markings by Robert Schumann.\nOn the centenary of Bach's death in 1850, Schumann, Becker, Hauptmann and [Otto Jahn](https://bliptext.com/articles/otto-jahn) founded the [Bach Gesellschaft](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach-gesellschaft), an institution dedicated to publishing, without any editorial additions, the complete works of Bach through the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel.\nThe project was completed in 1900.\nThe third volume, devoted to keyboard works, contained the [Inventions and Sinfonias](https://bliptext.com/articles/inventions-and-sinfonias) and the four parts of the Clavier-Übung.\nIt was published in 1853, with Becker as editor.\nAt the end of September 1853, having been recommended by the violinist and composer [Joseph Joachim](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-joachim), the twenty-year-old [Johannes Brahms](https://bliptext.com/articles/johannes-brahms) appeared on the doorstep of the Schumann's home in [Düsseldorf](https://bliptext.com/articles/d-sseldorf), staying with them until early November.\nLike Schumann, perhaps even more so, Brahms was deeply influenced by Bach's music.\nShortly after his arrival he gave a performance on the piano of Bach's organ toccata in F BWV 540/1 in the house of [Joseph Euler](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-euler), a friend of Schumann.\nThree months after Brahms' visit, Schumann's mental state deteriorated: after a [suicide attempt](https://bliptext.com/articles/suicide-attempt), Schumann committed himself to the sanitorium in [Endenich](https://bliptext.com/articles/endenich) near [Bonn](https://bliptext.com/articles/bonn), where, after several visits from Brahms, he died in 1856.\nFrom its inception, Brahms subscribed to the Bach-Gesellschaft, of which he became an editor in 1881.\nAn organist himself and a scholar of early and baroque music, he carefully annotated and analysed his copies of the organ works; he made a separate study of Bach's use of parallel fifths and octaves in his organ counterpoint.\nBrahms' Bach collection is now preserved in the [Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde](https://bliptext.com/articles/gesellschaft-der-musikfreunde) in [Vienna](https://bliptext.com/articles/vienna), of which he became musical director and conductor in 1872.\nIn 1875, he conducted a performance in the [Musikverein](https://bliptext.com/articles/musikverein) of an orchestral arrangement by [Bernhard Scholz](https://bliptext.com/articles/bernhard-scholz) of the prelude in E flat BWV 552/1.\nIn 1896, a year before he died, Brahms composed his own set of [eleven chorale preludes](https://bliptext.com/articles/eleven-chorale-preludes) for organ, Op.122.\nLike Schumann, who turned to Bach counterpoint as a form of therapy in 1845 during his recovery from mental illness, Brahms also viewed Bach's music as salutory during his final illness.\nAs Brahms' friend and biographer [Max Kalbeck](https://bliptext.com/articles/max-kalbeck) reported:\n\"He complained about his situation and said 'It's lasting so long.' He also told me that he was not able to listen to any music. The piano remained closed: he could only read Bach, that was all. He pointed to the piano, where on the music stand, which stood on top of the closed cover, lay a score of Bach.\"\n[Max Reger](https://bliptext.com/articles/max-reger) was a composer whose dedication to Bach has been described as a \"monomaniacal identification\" by the musicologist Johannes Lorenzen: in letters he frequently referred to \"Allvater Bach\".\nDuring his life, Reger arranged or edited 428 of Bach's compositions, including arrangements of 38 organ works for piano solo, piano duet or two pianos, starting in 1895.\nAt the same time he produced a large number of his own organ works.\nAlready in 1894, the organist and musicologist [Heinrich Reimann](https://bliptext.com/articles/heinrich-reimann), reacting to modernist trends in German music, had encouraged a return to the style of Bach, stating that, \"Beyond this style there is no salvation ... Bach becomes for that reason the criterion of our art of writing for the organ.\"\nIn 1894–1895 Reger composed his first suite for organ in E minor which was published in 1896 as his Op.16 with a dedication \"To the Memory of Johann Sebastian Bach\".\nThe original intention was a sonata in three movements: an introduction and triple fugue; an adagio on the chorale [Es ist das Heil uns kommen her](https://bliptext.com/articles/es-ist-das-heil-uns-kommen-her); and a [passacaglia](https://bliptext.com/articles/passacaglia).\nIn the final version, Reger inserted an [intermezzo](https://bliptext.com/articles/intermezzo) (a scherzo and trio) as the third movement and expanded the adagio to contain a central section on the Lutheran hymns Aus tiefer Not and [O Haupt voll Blut und Bunden](https://bliptext.com/articles/o-sacred-head-now-wounded).\nIn 1896, Reger sent a copy of the suite to Brahms, his only contact.\nIn the letter he asked permission to dedicate a future work to Brahms, to which he received the reply, \"Permission for that is certainly not necessary, however! I had to smile, since you approach me about this matter and at the same time enclose a work whose all-too-bold dedication terrifies me!\"\nThe overall form of the suite follows the scheme of the eighth organ sonata Op.132 (1882) of [Joseph Rheinberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-rheinberger) and the symphonies of Brahms.\nThe final passacaglia was a conscious reference to Bach's organ [passacaglia in C minor](https://bliptext.com/articles/passacaglia-and-fugue-in-c-minor-bwv-582) BWV 582/1, but has clear affinities with the last movements of both Rheinberger's sonata and [Brahms' fourth symphony](https://bliptext.com/articles/symphony-no-4-brahms).\nThe second movement is an adagio in [ternary form](https://bliptext.com/articles/ternary-form), with the beginning of the central section directly inspired by the setting of Aus tiefer Not in the pedaliter chorale prelude BWV 686 of Clavier-Übung III, paying homage to Bach as a composer of instrumental counterpoint.\nIt has a similarly dense texture of six parts, two of them in the pedal.\nThe outer sections are directly inspired by the musical form of the chorale prelude O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß BWV 622 from the Orgelbüchlein.\nThe suite was first performed in the [Trinity Church, Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/holy-trinity-church-berlin) in 1897 by the organist [Karl Straube](https://bliptext.com/articles/karl-straube), a student of Reimann.\nAccording to a later account by one of Straube's students, Reimann had described the work as \"so difficult as to be almost unplayable\", which had \"provoked Straube's virtuosic ambition, so that he set about mastering the work, which placed him before utterly new technical problems, with unflagging energy.\"\nStraube gave two further performances in 1898, in the cathedral at [Wesel](https://bliptext.com/articles/wesel), where he had recently been appointed organist, and prior to that in [Frankfurt](https://bliptext.com/articles/frankfurt), where he met Reger for the first time.\nIn 1902, Straube was appointed organist at the Thomaskirche and in the following year cantor; he became the main proponent and performer of Reger's organ works.\n# [Kollmann, 1799: Engraving of the Sun with Bach at the centre, included by Forkel in the Allgem. Mus. Zeitung | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Kollmann-Sun.png]\n# [Sing-Akademie in 1843 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Gaertner2.jpg]\n# [Carl Friedrich Zelter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Carl-Friedrich-Zelter.jpeg]\n# [Felix Mendelssohn | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Mendelssohn-Jaeger-1870.jpg]\n# [Organ in the Marienkirche, Berlin | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Wagner-Orgel///in///der///Marienkirche///zu///Berlin.jpg]\n# [Engraving of the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Weimar, 1840 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Weimar-1840-Herderplatz-Oeder.jpg]\n# [Felix Mendelssohn, 1836: watercolour of the Gewandhaus | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Gewandhaus-1836.jpg]\n# [Robert Schumann | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Robert///Schumann///1839.jpg]\n# [Original Leipzig Conservatory in the courtyard of the Gewandhaus | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Leipziger///Konservatorium///der///Musik.JPEG]\n# [Organ in the Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt in 1900 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Frankfurt///Katharinenkirche///Orgel///um///1900.jpg]\n# [Eduard Holzstich, 1850: watercolour of the Bach Memorial (1843) in front of the Thomaskirche | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Altes///Bachdenkmal///%28Leipzig%29///-///Holzstich.jpg]\n# [Programme for Mendelssohn's concert in the Thomaskirche In August 1840 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Mendelssohn-Thomaskirche-1840.png]\n# [Clara Wieck | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/JH///Schramm///-///Clara///Wieck///%28Zeichnung///1840%29.jpg]\n# [Johannes Brahms at the age of 20 in a drawing made in 1853 at Schumann's home in Düsseldorf by the French organist-artist Jean-Joseph Bonaventure Laurens | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Brahms-Laurens-1853.png]\n# [Musikverein in Vienna | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Wiener///Musikverein///1.jpg]\n# [Max Reger | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/N%C3%B6lken%2C///Reger.jpg]\n# [Central section of the adagio from Reger's first suite for organ, Op. 16 (1896) | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Reger-Aus-tiefer-Not-Op16.png]\n\n### England\nThe people who did attend appeared very much delighted, & some of them (especially the Visitors from Norwich) were good Judges, & of course tickled with such a Row as we gave them upon the most magnificent Organ I have yet heard, & I think in which you would agree with me.\nYour MS. Music Book has been of special Service to us: the triple fugue in E♭ was received with the same kind of Wonder that people express when they see an Air Balloon ascend for the first time: Smith I believe planted two or three Spies to watch the Effects of such Sound upon their Countenance, & consequently Mind.\nApart from prevailing musical tastes and the difficulty in acquiring manuscript copies, a fundamental difference between the design of English and German organs made Bach's organ output less accessible to English organists, namely the absence of [pedalboards](https://bliptext.com/articles/pedal-keyboard).\nHandel's principal works for organ, his [organ concertos Op. 4](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-organ-concertos-op-4) and [Op. 7](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-organ-concertos-op-7), with the possible exception of op.7 No.1, all appear to have been written for a single manual [chamber organ](https://bliptext.com/articles/chamber-organ).\nUntil the 1830s, most church organs in England did not have separate pedal pipes and before that the few organs that had pedalboards were all pull-downs, i.e. pedals that operated pipes connected to the manual stops.\nPedalboards rarely contained more than 13 keys (an octave) or exceptionally 17 keys (an octave and a half).\nPull-down pedalboards became more common from 1790 onwards.\nThe pedaliter chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III require a 30-key pedalboard, going from CC to f. It is for this reason that the Bach awakening in England started with clavier compositions being played on the organ or organ compositions being adapted either for piano duet or for two (or sometimes three) players at an organ.\nThe newfound interest in Bach's organ music, as well as the desire to reproduce the grand and thunderous choral effects of the 1784 [Handel Commemoration](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-commemoration), eventually influenced organ builders in England.\nBy the 1840s, after a series of experiments with pedals and pedal pipes starting around 1800 (in the spirit of the [Industrial Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/industrial-revolution)), newly constructed and existing organs started to be fitted with dedicated diapason pipes for the pedals, according to the well-established German model.\nThe organ in [St Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral) commissioned in 1694 from [Father Smith](https://bliptext.com/articles/bernard-smith-organ-builder) and completed in 1697, with a case by [Christopher Wren](https://bliptext.com/articles/christopher-wren), had exceptionally already been fitted with a 25-key pedalboard (two octaves C-c') of pull-down German pedals in the first half of the 18th century, probably as early as 1720, on the recommendation of Handel.\nBy the 1790s, these had been linked to separate pedal pipes, described with detailed illustrations in [Rees's Cyclopædia](https://bliptext.com/articles/rees-s-cyclop-dia) (1819).\nThe four-manual \"monster\" organ in [Birmingham Town Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/birmingham-town-hall), constructed in 1834 by William Hill, had three sets of pedal pipes connected to the pedalboard, which could also be operated independently by a two-octave keyboard to the left of the manual keyboards.\nHill's experiment of installing gigantic 32-foot pedal pipes, some currently still present, was only partially successful, as their scale did not permit them to sound properly.\nThe organist, composer and music teacher [Samuel Wesley](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-wesley-composer-born-1766) (1766–1837) played a significant role in awakening interest in Bach's music in England, mostly in the period 1808–1811.\nAfter a lull in his own career, in the first half of 1806 he made a hand copy of Nägeli's Zürich edition of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier).\nIn early 1808 Wesley visited [Charles Burney](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-burney) in his rooms in Chelsea where he played for him from the copy of Book I of the '48' that Burney had received from [C.P.E. Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-p-e-bach) in 1772.\nAs Wesley later recorded, Burney \"was very delighted ... and expressed his Wonder how much abstruse Harmony & such perfect & enchanting Melody could have been so marvelously united!\" Wesley subsequently consulted Burney, now a convert to the music of Bach, on his project to publish his own corrected transcription, stating, \"I believe I can fairly securely affirm that mine is now the most correct copy in England.\"\nThis project was eventually undertaken in with [Charles Frederick Horn](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-frederick-horn), published in four installments between 1810 and 1813.\nIn June 1808 after a concert the [Hanover Square Rooms](https://bliptext.com/articles/hanover-square-rooms) during which Weseley performed some excerpts from the '48', he commented that, \"this admirable Musick might be played into Fashion; you see I have only risked one modest Experiment, & it has electrified the Town just in the way that we wanted.\"\nFurther concerts took place there and in the Surrey Chapel with [Benjamin Jacob](https://bliptext.com/articles/benjamin-jacob), a fellow organist with whom Wesley corresponded copiously an effusively about Bach.\nThe musicologist and organist [William Crotch](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-crotch), another advocate of Bach, lectured on Bach in 1809 in the Hanover Square Rooms prior to publishing his edition of the E major fugue BWV 878/2 from The Well-Tempered Clavier II.\nIn the introduction, after commenting that Bach fugues were \"very difficult of execution, profoundly learned and highly ingenious\", he described their \"prevailing style\" as \"the sublime\".\nBy 1810, Wesley had stated his intention to perform the E flat fugue BWV 552/2 from Clavier-Übung III in [St. Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral).\nIn 1812, in the Hanover Square Rooms he performed an arrangement of the E flat prelude for organ duet and orchestra with the arranger [Vincent Novello](https://bliptext.com/articles/vincent-novello), founder of the music publishing firm [Novello & Co](https://bliptext.com/articles/novello-co), that would later bring out an English edition of Bach's complete organ works.\nIn 1827, the E flat fugue had been arranged for organ or piano duet by Jacob and was even performed by three players two years later on the organ in St. James, Bermondsey, where the pedal could be played on a supplementary keyboard.\nIt had also been used for auditions for organists: Wesley's son [Samuel Sebastian Wesley](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-sebastian-wesley) himself played it in 1827, when seeking employment (unsuccessfully).\nThe chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III were also performed during this period: in his letters to Benjamin, Wesley mentions in particular Wir glauben BWV 680, which had become known as the \"giant fugue\", because of the striding figure in the pedal part.\nBy 1837, pedal technique on the organ had developed sufficiently in England that the composer and organist Elizabeth Stirling (1819–1895) could give concerts in [St Katherine's, Regent's Park](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-katharine-s-by-the-tower) and [St. Sepulchre's, Holborn](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-sepulchre-s-holborn) containing several of the pedaliter chorale preludes (BWV 676, 678, 682, 684) as well as the St Anne Prelude BWV 552/1.\n(These were the first public recitals in England by a female organist; in 1838 she performed BWV 669–670 and the St Anne fugue BWV 552/2 at St Sepulchre's.) In the same year Wesley and his daughter were invited to the organ loft of [Christ Church, Newgate](https://bliptext.com/articles/christ-church-newgate) for a Bach recital by [Felix Mendelssohn](https://bliptext.com/articles/felix-mendelssohn).\nAs Mendelssohn recorded in his diary,\n\"Old Wesley, trembling and bent, shook hands with me and at my request sat down at the organ bench to play, a thing he had not done for many years. The frail old man improvised with great artistry and splendid facility, so that I could not but admire. His daughter was so moved by the sight of it all that she fainted and could not stop crying and sobbing.\"\nA week later, Mendelssohn played the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 on the organ in Birmingham Town Hall.\nPrior to the concert, he confided in a letter to his mother:\n\"Ask Fanny, dear Mother, what she would say if I were to play in Birmingham the Bach organ prelude in E flat major and the fugue that stands at the end of the same volume. I think she will grumble at me, but I think I would be right all the same. The prelude especially would be very acceptable to the English, I would think, and both in the prelude and in the fugue one can show off the piano, pianissimo, and the whole range of the organ—and it is not a dull piece either in my view!\"\nWesley died the following month.\nMendelssohn made a total of 10 visits to Britain, the first in 1829, the last in 1847.\nHis first visit, when he stayed with his friend the pianist and composer [Ignaz Moscheles](https://bliptext.com/articles/ignaz-moscheles), had been a resounding success and Mendelssohn had been embraced by all strata of British musical society.\nOn his fourth trip to Britain in 1833 he was accompanied by his father and heard the seventeen-year-old pianist-composer [William Sterndale Bennett](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-sterndale-bennett) performing his first piano concerto.\nA musical prodigy like Mendelssohn, at the age of 10 Sterndale Bennett had entered the [Royal Academy of Music](https://bliptext.com/articles/royal-academy-of-music), where he had been taught by Crotch.\nHe was also an accomplished organist, familiar with the works of Bach.\n(After brief appointments as organist, he subsequently practised on the organ in Hanover Square Rooms, later surprising his son with his mastery of the harder pedal passages on a pedal-piano.) Mendelssohn immediately invited him to Germany.\nReportedly when Sterndale Bennett asked to go as his student, Mendelssohn replied, \"No, no, you must come to be my friend.\"\nSterndale Bennett eventually visited Leipzig for 6 months from October 1836 to June 1837.\nThere he made friends with Schumann, who became his soul mate and drinking partner.\nSterndale Bennett made only two further trips to Germany during the lifetimes of Mendelssohn and Schumann, in 1838–1839 and 1842, although he retained their friendship and helped arrange Mendelssohn's visits to Britain.\nHe became a firm proponent of Bach, organising concerts of his chamber music in London.\nHe was one of the founders in 1849 of the original [Bach Society](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach-society) in London, devoted to the performance and collection of Bach's works, principally choral.\nIn 1854, he staged the first performance in England of the [St. Matthew Passion](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-matthew-passion) in the Hanover Square Rooms.\nAlready in 1829, Mendelssohn had become friends with [Thomas Attwood](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomas-attwood-composer), who had studied with Mozart and since 1796 had been organist of St Paul's Cathedral.\nThrough Attwood Mendelssohn gained access to the organ at St Paul's, which was suitable for Bach, despite the unusual alignment of the pedalboard.\nIn 1837, however, during a recital at St Paul's, just before playing to Wesley, the air supply to the organ had suddenly been interrupted; in a later account, that he had to retell annoyingly often, Mendelssohn related that George Cooper, the sub-organist,\n\"ran off like a madman, quite red with anger, was a way a little while, and finally returned with the news that during the performance the organ-blower—on the instructions from the beadle, who had not been able to get people to leave the church and was forced to stay on longer against his will—had left the bellows, locked the door to them and left ... Shame! Shame! was called out from all sides. Three or four clerics appeared and tore into the beadle furiously in front of all the people, threatening him with dismissal.\"\n[Cooper's son](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-cooper-organist), also called George, became the next sub-organist at St Paul's. He promoted the organ music of Bach and in 1845 produced the first English edition of the chorale prelude Wir glauben BWV 680 from Clavier-Übung III, published by Hollier & Addison, which he dubbed the \"Giant Fugue\" because of its striding pedal part.\nIn the second half of the 19th century, this became the best-known of all the pedaliter chorale preludes from\nClavier-Übung III and was republished separately several times by Novello in organ anthologies at an intermediate level.\nMendelssohn's eighth visit occurred in 1842 after the accession of [Queen Victoria](https://bliptext.com/articles/queen-victoria) to the throne.\nHer husband [Prince Albert](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-prince-consort) was a keen organist and, under his influence, the music of Bach started to be performed at royal concerts.\nOn the second of his two invitations to [Buckingham Palace](https://bliptext.com/articles/buckingham-palace), Mendelssohn improvised on Albert's organ and accompanied the queen in two songs by Fanny and himself.\nBetween these two visits, he once more performed the St Anne prelude and fugue, this time before an audience of 3,000 in [Exeter Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/exeter-hall) in a concert organized by the Sacred Harmonic Society.\nIn London there were few church organs with German pedal boards going down to CC: those which did included [St. Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral), [Christ Church, Newgate](https://bliptext.com/articles/christ-church-newgate) and [St. Peter's, Cornhill](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-peter-s-cornhill), where Mendelssohn frequently performed solo recitals.\nDuring his last visit in 1847, he once more entertained Victoria and Albert in Buckingham Palace in May before playing a few days later the prelude and fugue on the name of \"BACH\" BWV 898 on the barely functional organ in Hanover Square Rooms during one of the Ancient Concerts organized by Prince Albert, with [William Gladstone](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-ewart-gladstone) in the audience.\nIn the late 1840s and early 1850s, organ building in England became more stable and less experimental, taking stock of traditions in Germany and innovations in France, particularly from the new generation of organ builders such as [Aristide Cavaillé-Coll](https://bliptext.com/articles/aristide-cavaill-coll).\nOne of the main names in organ building in England in the second half of the 19th century was [Henry Willis](https://bliptext.com/articles/henry-willis).\nThe manner in which the organ for [St. George's Hall, Liverpool](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-george-s-hall-liverpool) was planned and constructed marks the transition from what Nicholas Thistlethwaite calls the \"insular movement\" of the 1840s to the adoption of the established German system.\nPlanning formally started on the organ in 1845: the main advisor to [Liverpool Corporation](https://bliptext.com/articles/liverpool-corporation) was [Samuel Sebastian Wesley](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-sebastian-wesley), son of Samuel Wesley and an accomplished organist, particularly of Bach.\nHe worked in consultation with a panel of university professors of music, who often disagreed with his eccentric suggestions.\nWhen Wesley tried to argue about the range of manual keyboards, justifying himself by the possibility of playing octaves with the left hand, he was reminded by the professors that the use of octaves was more common among pianists than first-rate organists and moreover that when he had been organist at Leeds Parish Church, \"the dust on the half-dozen lowest keys on the GG manuals remained undisturbed for months.\"\nWillis was commissioned to build the organ only in 1851, after he had impressed the committee with the organ for [Winchester Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/winchester-cathedral) he had on display at [The Crystal Palace](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-crystal-palace) during the [Great Exhibition](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-exhibition).\nThe completed organ had four manual keyboards and a thirty key pedalboard, with 17 sets of pedal pipes and a range from CC to f. The instrument had unequal temperament and, as Wesley had stipulated, the air supply came from two large underground bellows powered by an eight horse-power steam engine.\nAmong the innovations introduced by Willis were the cylindrical pedal-valve, the pneumatic lever and the [combination action](https://bliptext.com/articles/combination-action), the latter two features being adopted widely by English organ builders in the second half of the 19th century.\nThe organ was inaugurated in 1855 by [William Thomas Best](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-thomas-best), who later that year was appointed resident organist, attracting crowds of thousands to hear his playing.\nIn 1867, he had the organ retuned to equal temperament.\nHe remained in his post until 1894, giving performances elsewhere in England, including at the Crystal Palace, [St James's Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-james-s-hall) and the [Royal Albert Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/royal-albert-hall).\nThe St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 was used by Best to start off the series of Popular Monday Concerts at St James's Hall in 1859; and later in 1871 to inaugurate the newly built Willis organ in the Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of Queen Victoria.\n# [Organ in Birmingham Town Hall constructed in 1834 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/William-Hill-organ-Birmingham-Town-Hall-1850.png]\n# [Funeral of the Duke of Wellington in St Paul's Cathedral, 1852, with the Father Smith organ in the background | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Funeral-Wellington-1852-St-Paul%27s.jpg]\n# [Samuel Wesley | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Samuel///Wesley///organist.jpg]\n# [William Crotch | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/William-Crotch-1822.png]\n# [Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, 1830: Hanover Square Rooms | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Hanover-Square-Rooms.png]\n# [Vincent Novello | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Vincent///Novello///by///Edward///Petre///Novello.jpg]\n# [George Shepherd, 1812: Watercolour of Christ Church, Newgate, designed by Christopher Wren | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Christ-Church-Newgate-1812-Shepherd.jpg]\n# [W. Sterndale Bennett | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/William-Sterndale-Bennett-1830-Thomas-Henry-Gregg.jpg]\n# [Ignaz Moscheles | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Ignaz-Moscheles-1820.jpeg]\n# [G. Durand, 1842: engraving of Prince Albert playing the organ in the Old Library in Buckingham Palace in the presence of Queen Victoria and Felix Mendelssohn | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/PrinceAlbert///QueenVictoria///Mendelssohn.jpeg]\n# [St. George's Hall, Liverpool, with organ built by Henry Willis in 1855 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Willis-Organ-St-George%27s-Hall-Liverpool.jpg]\n# [William Thomas Best (1826–1897) | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/William-Thomas-Best.jpg]\n\n### France\nOne day I was passing by the small rooms on the first floor of the Maison Érard, reserved only for great pianists, for their practice and lessons.\nAt the time the rooms were all empty, except one, from which could be heard the great Triple-Prelude in E flat by Bach played remarkably well on a pedalier.\nI listened, riveted to the spot by the expressive, crystal-clear playing of a little old man, frail in appearance, who, without seeming to suspect my presence, continued the piece right to the end.\nThen, turning to me: 'Do you know this music?' he asked.\nI replied that, as an organ pupil in Franck's class at the Conservatoire, I could scarcely ignore such a fine work.\n'Play me something' he added, giving up the piano stool for me.\nAlthough somewhat over-awed, I managed to play quite cleanly the C Major Fugue ... Without comment he returned to the piano saying 'I am Charles-Valentin Alkan and I'm just preparing for my annual series of six 'Petits Concerts' at which I play only the finest things'.\nIn France, the Bach revival was slower to take root.\nBefore the late 1840s, after the upheaval caused by the [French Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-revolution), Bach was rarely performed in public concerts in France and it was preferred that church organists play operatic arias or popular airs instead of counterpoint.\nOne exception was a public performance in the Paris Conservatoire in December 1833, repeated two years later in the Salons Pape, of the opening allegro of Bach's concerto for three harpsichords BWV 1063, played on pianos by [Chopin](https://bliptext.com/articles/chopin), [Liszt](https://bliptext.com/articles/liszt) and [Hiller](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinand-hiller).\n[Berlioz](https://bliptext.com/articles/berlioz) later described their choice as \"stupid and ridiculous\", unworthy of their talents.\n[Charles Gounod](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-gounod), having won the [Prix de Rome](https://bliptext.com/articles/prix-de-rome) in 1839, spent three years in the [Villa Medici](https://bliptext.com/articles/villa-medici) in [Rome](https://bliptext.com/articles/rome), where he developed a passionate interest in the polyphonic music of Palestrina.\nHe also met Mendelssohn's sister Fanny, herself an accomplished concert pianist and by then married to the artist [Wilhelm Hensel](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-hensel): Gounod described her as \"an outstanding musician and a woman of superior intelligence, small, slender, but gifted with an energy which showed in her deep-set eyes and in her burning look\".\nIn response Fanny noted in her diary that Gounod was \"passionately fond of music in a way I have rarely seen before.\"\nShe introduced Gounod to the music of Bach, playing from memory fugues, concertos and sonatas for him on the piano.\nAt the end of his stay in 1842, the twenty-five-year-old Gounod had become a confirmed Bach devotee.\nIn 1843, after a seven-month stay in Vienna, with a letter of introduction from Fanny, Gounod spent 4 days with her brother in Leipzig.\nMendelssohn played Bach for him on the organ of the Thomaskirche and conducted a performance of his Scottish Symphony by the [Gewandhaus orchestra](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig-gewandhaus-orchestra), specially convened in his honour.\nBack in Paris, Gounod took up an appointment as organist and music director in the Église des Missions Étrangères on the rue de Bac, on condition that he would be allowed to have autonomy over the music: Bach and Palestrina figured strongly in his repertoire.\nWhen churchgoers initially objected to this daily diet of counterpoint, Gounod was confronted by the Abbé, who eventually yielded to Gounod's conditions, although not without commenting \"What a terrible man you are!\"\nIn the late 1840s and 1850s a new school of organist-composers emerged in France, all trained in the organ works of Bach.\nThese included [Franck](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-sar-franck), [Saint-Saëns](https://bliptext.com/articles/saint-sa-ns), [Fauré](https://bliptext.com/articles/gabriel-faur) and [Widor](https://bliptext.com/articles/widor).\nIn the aftermath of the [French Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-revolution), there had already been a revival of interest in France in choral music of the baroque and earlier periods, particularly of Palestrina, Bach and Handel: [Alexandre-Étienne Choron](https://bliptext.com/articles/alexandre-tienne-choron) founded the Institution royale de musique classique et religieuse in 1817.\nAfter the [July Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/july-revolution) and Choron's death in 1834, direction of the institute, renamed the \"Conservatoire royal de musique classique de France\", was taken over by [Louis Niedermeyer](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-niedermeyer) and took his name as the École Niedermeyer.\nAlong with the [Conservatoire de Paris](https://bliptext.com/articles/conservatoire-de-paris), it became one of the main training grounds for French organists.\nThe Belgian composer and musicologist [François-Joseph Fétis](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-joseph-f-tis), a contemporary and colleague of Choron in Paris, shared his interest in early and baroque music.\n[Fétis](https://bliptext.com/articles/f-tis) exerted a similar influence in [Brussels](https://bliptext.com/articles/brussels), where he was appointed director of the Royal Conservatory of [Brussels](https://bliptext.com/articles/brussels) in 1832, a position he held until his death in 1871.\nAt the same time, French organ builders most notably [Aristide Cavaillé-Coll](https://bliptext.com/articles/aristide-cavaill-coll) were starting to produce new series of organs, which with their pedalboards, were designed both for the music of Bach as well as modern symphonic compositions.\nThe change in traditions can be traced back to the inauguration in 1844 of the organ for [St Eustache](https://bliptext.com/articles/glise-saint-eustache-paris), built by Doublaine and Callinet.\nThe German organ virtuoso [Adolf Friedrich Hesse](https://bliptext.com/articles/adolf-friedrich-hesse) was invited with five Parisians to demonstrate the new instrument.\nAs part of his recital Hesse played Bach's [Toccata in F major, BWV 540/1](https://bliptext.com/articles/toccata-and-fugue-in-f-major-bwv-540), allowing the Parisian audience to hear pedal technique far beyond what was known in France at that time.\nWhile impressed by his pedal playing, French commentators at the time gave Hesse mixed praise, one remarking that, while he might be the \"king of the pedal ... he thinks of nothing but power and noise, his playing astonishes, but does not speak to the soul. He always seems to be the minister of an angry God who wants to punish.\"\nAnother commentator, however, who had heard Hesse playing Bach on the organ at an industrial exhibition beforehand, noted that \"if the organ of the Doublaine-Callinet firm is perfect from bottom to top, Monsieur Hesse is a complete organist from head to feet.\"\nThe new organ had a short life: it was destroyed by fire from a falling candle in December 1844.\nTwo Belgian organist-composers, Franck and [Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens](https://bliptext.com/articles/jacques-nicolas-lemmens), participated in the inauguration in 1854 of the new organ at St Eustache.\nLemmens had studied with Hesse and Fétis; already in the early 1850s he had started giving public concerts in Paris, featuring Bach's organ music and using the brilliant foot technique he had learnt in Germany.\nAt the same time Lemmens had published 18 installments of an organ manual for the use of \"organistes du culte catholique\", giving a complete introduction to the Bach tradition of organ playing, henceforth adopted in France.\nIn 1855, the piano firm [Érard](https://bliptext.com/articles/s-bastien-rard) introduced a new instrument, the [pedal piano](https://bliptext.com/articles/pedal-piano) (pédalier), a grand piano fitted with a full German-style pedalboard.\nThe French composer, organist and virtuoso pianist [Charles Valentin Alkan](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-valentin-alkan) and Lemmens gave concerts on it, including performances of Bach's toccatas, fugues and chorale preludes for organ.\nIn 1858, Franck, a friend of Alkan, acquired a pédalier for his private use.\nAlkan, a devotee of Bach and one of the first subscribers to the [Bach Gesellschaft](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach-gesellschaft), composed extensively for the pédalier, including in 1866 a set of twelve studies for pedalboard alone.\nIn the 1870s, Alkan, by that time a recluse, returned to give a series of public Petits Concerts each year in the [Salle Érard](https://bliptext.com/articles/salle-rard) using their pédalier: Alkan's repertoire included the St Anne prelude as well as several chorale preludes.\nThere were further indications of changes in taste in France: Saint-Saëns, organist at the [Madeleine](https://bliptext.com/articles/la-madeleine-paris) from 1857 to 1877, refused to perform operatic arias as part of the liturgy, on one occasion replying to such a request, \"Monsieur l'Abbé, when I hear from the pulpit the language of the Opéra Comique, I will play light music. Not before!\"\nSaint-Saëns was nevertheless reluctant to use Bach's music in services.\nHe regarded the preludes, fugues, toccatas and variations as virtuosic pieces for concert performance; and the chorale preludes as too Protestant in spirit for inclusion in a Catholic mass.\nThe St Anne prelude and fugue was often used by Saint-Saëns for inaugurating Cavaillé-Coll organs; in Paris; he played for the inaugurations at [St Sulpice](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-sulpice-paris) (1862), [Notre Dame](https://bliptext.com/articles/notre-dame-de-paris) (1868), [Trinité](https://bliptext.com/articles/glise-de-la-sainte-trinit-paris) (1869), the chapel in [Versailles](https://bliptext.com/articles/versailles-city) (1873) and the [Trocadéro](https://bliptext.com/articles/trocad-ro-paris) (1878).\nThe last two decades of the 19th century saw a revival of interest in Bach's organ music in France.\nThere were public concerts on the new Cavaillé-Colle organ in the concert hall or Salle des Fêtes of the old [Palais du Trocadéro](https://bliptext.com/articles/trocad-ro-paris), built for the [third Paris exhibition](https://bliptext.com/articles/exposition-universelle-1878) in 1878.\nOrganized by the organist [Alexandre Guilmant](https://bliptext.com/articles/alexandre-guilmant), a pupil of Lemmens, in conjunction with [Eugène Gigout](https://bliptext.com/articles/eug-ne-gigout), these started as six free concerts during the exhibition.\nAttracting huge crowds—the concert hall could seat 5,000 with sometimes an extra 2,000 standing—the concerts continued until the turn of the century.\nGuilmant programmed primarily the organ music of the two composers whom he referred to as \"musical giants\", Bach and Handel, still mostly unknown to these mass audiences, as well as the works of older masters such as Buxtehude and Frescobaldi.\nThe St Anne prelude and fugue featured in the concerts, Saint-Saëns playing it in one of the first in 1879 and Guilmant again in 1899, in a special concert to mark the twentieth anniversary of the series.\nThe concerts represented a new fin de siècle cult of Bach in France.\nIt was not without its detractors: the music critic Camille Bellaigue (1858–1930) described Bach in 1888 as a \"first-rate bore\":\n\"Of all the great musicians, the greatest, that is to say he without whom music itself would not exist, the founder, the patriarch, the Abraham, the Noah, the Adam of music, Johann Sebastian Bach, is the most tedious. ... How many times, crushed under these four-square merciless rhythms, lost amid this algebra of sound, this living geometry, smothered by the answers of these interminable fugues, one wants to close one's ears to this prodigious counterpoint ...\"\nThe chorale preludes of Bach were late to enter the French organ repertoire.\nCésar Franck, although only known to have performed one work by Bach in public, often set chorale preludes ([BWV 622](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein) and [BWV 656](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-eighteen-chorale-preludes)) as examination pieces at the [Conservatoire de Paris](https://bliptext.com/articles/conservatoire-de-paris) in the 1870s and 1880s.\nIt was [Charles-Marie Widor](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-marie-widor), Franck's successor on his death in 1890, who introduced the chorale preludes as a fundamental part of organ teaching there, where Bach's other organ works already provided the foundation stone.\nWidor believed that the music of Bach represented\n\"the emotion of the infinite and exalted, for which words are an inadequate expression, and which can find proper utterence only in art ... it tunes the soul to a state in which we can grasp the truth and oneness of things, and rise above everything that is paltry, everything that divides us.\"\nUnlike Saint-Saëns and his own teacher Lemmens, Widor had no objection to playing Bach organ music because of its Lutheran associations: \"What speaks through his works is pure religious emotion; and this is one and the same in all men, in spite of the national and religious partitions in which we are born and bred.\"\nHis student, the blind composer and organist, [Louis Vierne](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-vierne) later recalled:\n\"At the reopening of the class at the beginning of 1892, there occurred an event of considerable importance to our artistic development. I mean the discovery of Bach's chorale preludes. I mean 'discovery', and this is not an exaggeration, as you may judge for yourselves. At the first class in performance, Widor remarked with some surprise that since his arrival at the Conservatoire not one of us had brought in one of the celebrated chorales. For my part I was acquainted with three of them, published in Braille for the edition Franck had prepared for our school. They had seemed to me to have no technical difficulties and I had paid no further attention to them. My classmates did not even know that they existed. On looking through the music cabinet where there were several books in the Richault edition, we discovered three volumes, two of preludes and fugues and one of chorale preludes, the latter completely untouched, its leaves uncut.\nThe Maître spent the entire class playing these pieces to us, and we were bowled over.\nThe most overwhelming parts of the giant's organ works were suddenly revealed to us.\nWe set to work on them at once, and for three months nothing else was heard in class.\nWe all played chorale preludes at the examination in January, and the surprise of the jury was no less great than our own had been.\nUpon leaving the hall I heard Ambroise Thomas remark to Widor, 'What music!\nWhy didn't I know about that forty years ago?\nIt ought to be the Bible of all musicians, and especially of organists.\"\nOn Widor's recommendation, Guilmant succeeded him as professor of organ in the conservatory in 1896.\nIn 1899, he installed a three manual Cavaillé-Coll organ in his home in [Meudon](https://bliptext.com/articles/meudon), where he gave lessons to a wide range of pupils, including a whole generation of organists from the United States.\nAmong his French students were [Nadia Boulanger](https://bliptext.com/articles/nadia-boulanger), [Marcel Dupré](https://bliptext.com/articles/marcel-dupr) and [Georges Jacob](https://bliptext.com/articles/georges-jacob-organist).\nDupré started lessons with Guilmant at the age of eleven, later becoming his successor at the conservatoire.\nIn two celebrated series of concerts at the conservatoire in 1920 and at the Palais du Trocadéro the following year, Dupré performed the complete organ works of Bach from memory in 10 concerts: the ninth concert was devoted entirely to the chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III.\nDupré also taught in [Meudon](https://bliptext.com/articles/meudon), having acquired Guilmant's Cavaillé-Coll organ in 1926.\nThe funeral service for Guilmant at his home in 1911, prior to his burial in Paris, included a performance by Jacob of Aus tiefer Noth BWV 686.\n# [Charles Gounod in his studio in 1893, playing his Cavaillé-Coll organ | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Gounod-1893.jpeg]\n# [Fanny Mendelssohn in a drawing by her future husband Wilhelm Hensel | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Fannymendelssohn-improved.jpg]\n# [Engraving of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. Sulpice, Paris | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/St-Sulpice-Cavaill%C3%A9-Coll-1862.jpg]\n# [Organ at St Eustache, rebuilt in 1989 in the original case designed by Victor Baltard | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Great///organ///Saint-Eustache///Paris.jpg]\n# [Érard pedal piano | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/PianoP%C3%A9dalier.JPG]\n# [Charles Valentin Alkan | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Charles-Henri-Valentin///Morhange///dit///Alkan.jpg]\n# [Cavaillé-Colle organ in the Salle des Fêtes of the Palais du Trocadéro, built in 1878 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Palais-du-Trocadero-Salle-des-Fetes.png]\n# [Camille Saint-Saëns | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Saint-Saens-Meyer-1883.jpeg]\n# [Charles-Marie Widor | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Charles-Marie-WidorWidor.jpeg]\n# [Alexandre Guilmant | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Alexandre-Guilmant-1895.jpeg]\n# [Marcel Dupré at his home in Meudon in front of the Cavaillé-Coll organ previously owned by Guilmant | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Marcel-Dupre-Meudon-1938.jpeg]\n\n# Historic transcriptions\n**Piano**\n**Orchestra**\n**Chamber ensembles**\n# [Adolf Bernhard Marx | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Adolf///Bernhard///Marx.jpg]\n# [Egon Schiele, 1917: Arnold Schoenberg | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Schiele///-///Bildnis///des///Komponisten///Arnold///Sch%C3%B6nberg.///1917.jpg]\n# [Wilhelm Hensel, 1823: Abraham Mendelssohn | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Abraham///Mendelssohn///Bartholdy///-///Zeichnung///von///Wilhelm///Hensel///1823.jpg]\n\n# Recordings","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-26T12:43:09.426Z","updated_at":"2025-01-26T12:43:09.426Z","search_vector":"'clavier':2 'clavier-übung':1 'iii':4 'übung':3","search_content":" \n \n\n# \nThe **Clavier-Übung III**, sometimes referred to as the **German Organ Mass**, is a collection of compositions for organ by [Johann Sebastian Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-sebastian-bach), started in 1735–36 and published in 1739.\nIt is considered Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his most musically complex and technically demanding compositions for that instrument.\nIn its use of modal forms, motet-style and canons, it looks back to the religious music of masters of the [stile antico](https://bliptext.com/articles/prima-pratica), such as [Frescobaldi](https://bliptext.com/articles/girolamo-frescobaldi), [Palestrina](https://bliptext.com/articles/giovanni-pierluigi-da-palestrina), [Lotti](https://bliptext.com/articles/antonio-lotti) and [Caldara](https://bliptext.com/articles/antonio-caldara).\nAt the same time, Bach was forward-looking, incorporating and distilling modern baroque musical forms, such as the French-style chorale.\nThe work has the form of an Organ Mass: between its opening and closing movements—the [prelude and \"St Anne\" fugue in E♭ major, BWV 552](https://bliptext.com/articles/)—are 21 chorale preludes, BWV 669–689, setting two parts of the [Lutheran Mass](https://bliptext.com/articles/mass-liturgy) and six catechism chorales, followed by [four duets, BWV 802–805](https://bliptext.com/articles/).\nThe chorale preludes range from compositions for single keyboard to a six-part fugal prelude with two parts in the pedal.\nThe purpose of the collection was fourfold: an idealized organ programme, taking as its starting point the organ recitals given by Bach himself in Leipzig; a practical translation of [Lutheran](https://bliptext.com/articles/lutheran) doctrine into musical terms for devotional use in the church or the home; a compendium of organ music in all possible styles and idioms, both ancient and modern, and properly internationalised; and as a didactic work presenting examples of all possible forms of contrapuntal composition, going far beyond previous treatises on musical theory.\n# [Johann Sebastian Bach, 1746 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Johann///Sebastian///Bach.jpg]\n\n# History and origins\nNovember 25, 1736, saw the consecration of a new organ, built by [Gottfried Silbermann](https://bliptext.com/articles/gottfried-silbermann), in a central and symbolic position in the [Frauenkirche, Dresden](https://bliptext.com/articles/dresden-frauenkirche).\nThe following week, on the afternoon of December 1, Bach gave a two-hour organ recital there, which received \"great applause\".\nBach was used to playing on church organs in Dresden, where since 1733 his son, [Wilhelm Friedemann Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-friedemann-bach), had been organist at the [Sophienkirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/sophienkirche).\nIt is considered likely that for the December recital Bach performed for the first time parts of his as yet unpublished Clavier-Übung III, the composition of which, according to Gregory Butler's dating of the engraving, started as early as 1735.\nThis inference has been drawn from the special indication on the title page that it was \"prepared for music-lovers and particularly connoisseurs\" of music; from contemporary reports of Bach's custom of giving organ recitals for devotees after services; and from the subsequent tradition among music lovers in Dresden of attending Sunday afternoon organ recitals in the Frauenkirche given by Bach's student [Gottfried August Homilius](https://bliptext.com/articles/gottfried-august-homilius), whose programme was usually made up of [chorale preludes](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-prelude) and a [fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/fugue).\nBach was later to complain that the [temperament](https://bliptext.com/articles/temperament-music) on Silbermann organs was not well suited to \"today's practice\".\n[Clavier-Übung](https://bliptext.com/articles/clavier-bung) III is the third of four books of Bach's [Clavier-Übung](https://bliptext.com/articles/clavier-bung).\nIt was the only portion of music meant for the organ, the other three parts being for harpsichord.\nThe title, meaning \"keyboard practice\", was a conscious reference to a long tradition of similarly titled treatises: [Johann Kuhnau](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kuhnau) (Leipzig, 1689, 1692), [Johann Philipp Krieger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-philipp-krieger) (Nuremberg, 1698), [Vincent Lübeck](https://bliptext.com/articles/vincent-l-beck) (Hamburg, 1728), [Georg Andreas Sorge](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-andreas-sorge) (Nuremberg, 1739) and [Johann Sigismund Scholze](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-sigismund-scholze) (Leipzig 1736–1746).\nBach started composing after finishing Clavier-Übung II—the [Italian Concerto, BWV 971](https://bliptext.com/articles/italian-concerto-bwv-971) and the [Overture in the French style, BWV 831](https://bliptext.com/articles/overture-in-the-french-style-bwv-831)—in 1735.\nBach used two groups of engravers because of delays in preparation: 43 pages by three engravers from the workshop of Johann Gottfried Krügner in Leipzig and 35 pages by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg.\nThe final 78-page manuscript was published in Leipzig in Michaelmas (late September) 1739 at the relatively high price of 3 [Reichsthaler](https://bliptext.com/articles/reichsthaler).\nBach's Lutheran theme was in keeping with the times, since already that year there had been three bicentenary [Reformation](https://bliptext.com/articles/protestant-reformation) festivals in Leipzig.\nIn translation, the title page reads \"Third Part of Keyboard Practice, consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ. Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the chorus musicus, Leipzig. Published by the author\".\nExamination of the original manuscript suggests that the Kyrie-Gloria and larger catechism chorale preludes were the first to be composed, followed by the \"St Anne\" prelude and fugue and the manualiter chorale preludes in 1738 and finally the four duets in 1739.\nApart from BWV 676, all the material was newly composed.\nThe scheme of the work and its publication were probably motivated by [Georg Friedrich Kauffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-friedrich-kauffmann)'s Harmonische Seelenlust (1733–1736), [Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch](https://bliptext.com/articles/conrad-friedrich-hurlebusch)'s Compositioni Musicali (1734–1735) and chorale preludes by [Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl](https://bliptext.com/articles/hieronymus-florentinus-quehl), [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther) and [Johann Caspar Vogler](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-vogler) published between 1734 and 1737, as well as the older Livres d'orgue, the [French Organ Masses](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-organ-mass) of [Nicolas de Grigny](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolas-de-grigny) (1700), [Pierre Dumage](https://bliptext.com/articles/pierre-dumage) (1707) and others.\nBach's formulation of the title page follows some of these earlier works in describing the particular form of the compositions and appealing to \"connoisseurs\", his only departure from the title page of Clavier-Übung II.\nAlthough Clavier-Übung III is acknowledged to be not merely a miscellaneous collection of pieces, there has been no agreement on whether it forms a cycle or is just a set of closely related pieces.\nAs with previous organ works of this type by composers such as [François Couperin](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-couperin), [Johann Caspar Kerll](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-kerll) and [Dieterich Buxtehude](https://bliptext.com/articles/dieterich-buxtehude), it was in part a response to musical requirements in church services.\nBach's references to Italian, French and German music place Clavier-Übung III directly in the tradition of the Tabulaturbuch, a similar but much earlier collection by [Elias Ammerbach](https://bliptext.com/articles/elias-ammerbach), one of Bach's predecessors at the [Thomaskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomaskirche) in Leipzig.\nBach's complex musical style had been criticized by some of his contemporaries.\nThe composer, organist and musicologist [Johann Mattheson](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-mattheson) remarked in \"Die kanonische Anatomie\" (1722):\n\"It is true, and I have experienced it myself, that quick progress ... with artistic pieces (Kunst-Stücke) [i.e., canons and the like] can engross a sensible composer so that he can sincerely and secretly delight in his own work. But through this self-love we are unwittingly led away from the true purpose of music, until we hardly think of others at all, although it is our goal to delight them. Really we should follow not only our own inclinations, but those of the listener. I have often composed something that seemed to me trifling, but unexpectedly attained great favour. I made a mental note of this, and wrote more of the same, although it had little merit when judged according to artistry.\"\nUntil 1731, apart from his celebrated ridiculing in 1725 of Bach's declamatory writing in the cantata [Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21](https://bliptext.com/articles/ich-hatte-viel-bek-mmernis-bwv-21), Mattheson's commentary on Bach had been positive.\nIn 1730, however, he heard by chance that Gottfried Benjamin Hancke had been commenting unfavourably on his own keyboard technique: \"Bach will play Mattheson into a sack and out again.\"\nFrom 1731 onwards, his vanity pricked, Mattheson's writing became critical of Bach, whom he referred to as \"der künstliche Bach\".\nOver the same period Bach's former pupil [Johann Adolf Scheibe](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adolf-scheibe) had been making stinging criticisms of Bach: in 1737 he wrote that Bach \"deprived his pieces of all that was natural by giving them a bombastic and confused character, and eclipsed their beauty by too much art\".\nScheibe and Mattheson were employing practically the same lines of attack on Bach; and indeed Mattheson involved himself directly in Scheibe's campaign against Bach.\nBach did not comment directly at the time: his case was argued with some discreet prompting from Bach by Johann Abraham Birnbaum, professor of rhetoric at the [University of Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/university-of-leipzig), a music lover and friend of Bach and [Lorenz Christoph Mizler](https://bliptext.com/articles/lorenz-christoph-mizler).\nIn March 1738 Scheibe launched a further attack on Bach for his \"not inconsiderable errors\":\n\"This great man has not sufficiently studied the sciences and humanities which are actually required of a learned composer. How can a man who has not studied philosophy and is incapable of investigating and recognizing the forces of nature and reason be without fault in his musical work? How can he attain all the advantages which are necessary for the cultivation of good taste when he has hardly troubled himself with critical observations, investigations and with the rules which are as necessary to music as they are to rhetoric and poetry. Without them it is impossible to compose movingly and expressively.\"\nIn the advertisement in 1738 for his forthcoming treatise, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Mattheson included a letter by Scheibe, resulting from his exchanges with Birnbaum, in which Scheibe expressed strong preference for Mattheson's \"natural\" melody over Bach's \"artful\" counterpoint.\nThrough his friend Mizler and his Leipzig printers Krügner and Breitkopf, also printers for Mattheson, like others Bach would have had advance knowledge of the content of Mattheson's treatise.\nConcerning counterpoint, Mattheson wrote:\n\"Of double fugues with three subjects, there is, as far as I know, nothing else in print but my own work under the name, Die Wollklingende Fingerspruche, Parts I and II, which out of modesty I would commend to no one. On the contrary I would much rather see something of the same sort published by the famed Herr Bach in Leipzig, who is a great master of the fugue. In the meantime, this lack exposes abundantly, not only the weakened state and the decline of well-grounded contrapuntists on the one hand, but on the other hand, the lack of concern of today's ignorant organists and composers about such instructive matters.\"\nWhatever Bach's personal reaction, the contrapuntal writing of Clavier-Übung III provided a musical response to Scheibe's criticisms and Mattheson's call to organists.\nMizler's statement, cited above, that the qualities of Clavier-Übung III provided a \"powerful refutation of those who have ventured to criticize the music of the Court Composer\" was a verbal response to their criticisms.\nNevertheless, most commentators agree that the main inspiration for Bach's monumental opus was musical, namely musical works like the [Fiori musicali](https://bliptext.com/articles/fiori-musicali) of [Girolamo Frescobaldi](https://bliptext.com/articles/girolamo-frescobaldi), for which Bach had a special fondness, having acquired his own personal copy in [Weimar](https://bliptext.com/articles/weimar) in 1714.\n# [The market place and Frauenkirche in Dresden, c 1750, by Bernardo Bellotto | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Canaletto///%28I%29///006.jpg]\n# [Reconstruction of the facade of the Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche, Dresden on which Bach performed on December 1, 1736, a week after its dedication | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Organ-Frauenkirche-Dresden.jpg]\n# [Title page of Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/CU3title.jpg]\n# [Johann Mattheson | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Johann///Mattheson.jpg]\n# [Engraving of the University of Leipzig with the Paulinerkirche, the university church, in the background. In the 1730s both of Bach's friends Mizler and Birnbaum were professors there and Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel was a student. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Paulinercollegium///hof///800.jpg]\n# [Johann Adolph Scheibe | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Johann///Adolph///Scheibe.jpg]\n# [Title page of Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (1739) by Johann Mattheson | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Mattheson-1738-Volkommene-Capellmeister.png]\n\n# Textual and musical plan\nThe number of chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III, twenty-one, coincides with the number of movements in [French organ Masses](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-organ-mass).\nThe Mass and Catechism settings correspond to the schedule of Sunday worship in Leipzig, the morning Mass and afternoon catechism.\nIn contemporary hymn books, the [Lutheran Mass](https://bliptext.com/articles/divine-service-lutheran) comprising the troped German Kyrie and German Gloria fell under the heading of the Holy Trinity.\nThe organist and music theorist [Jakob Adlung](https://bliptext.com/articles/jakob-adlung) recorded in 1758 the custom of church organists playing the two Sunday hymns \"[Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr](https://bliptext.com/articles/allein-gott-in-der-h-h-sei-ehr)\" and \"Wir glauben all an einen Gott\"' in different keys: Bach uses three of the six tonalities between E and B♭ mentioned for \"Allein Gott\".\nThe organ had no role in the catechism examination, a series of questions and answers on the faith, so the presence of these hymns was probably a personal devotional statement of Bach.\nHowever, Luther's [Shorter Catechism](https://bliptext.com/articles/shorter-catechism) (see illustration) centres on the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Office of the Keys and Confession, and the Eucharist, the exact subjects of Luther's own six catechism chorales.\nIn Bach's part of Germany, these catechism hymns were sung at school assemblies on weekdays, with the Kyrie and Gloria on Sundays.\nLuther's hymn book contains all six of the chorales.\nHowever, it is more likely that Bach used these hymns, some of them [Gregorian](https://bliptext.com/articles/gregorian-chant) in origin, as a tribute to the main precepts of Lutheranism during the special bicentenary year of Luther's 1539 sermon in the Thomaskirche, Leipzig.\nThe main texts for Lutherans were the Bible, the [hymn book](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-compositions-by-j-s-bach-printed-during-his-lifetime) and the catechisms: Bach had already set numerous biblical texts in his cantatas and passions; in 1736 he had helped prepare a [hymn book](https://bliptext.com/articles/list-of-compositions-by-j-s-bach-printed-during-his-lifetime) with [Georg Christian Schemelli](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-christian-schemelli); finally in 1739 he set the catechism hymns (see earlier illustration of title page) as organ chorale preludes.\nhas suggested the following features that Clavier-Übung III borrowed from Frescobaldi's Fiori musicali, Bach's personal copy of which was signed \"J.S. Bach 1714\":\nAccording to, Bach had a clear liturgical purpose in his organ compendium, with its cyclic order and plan, clear to the eye if not the ear.\nEven though the manualiter fugues were written at the time as Book 2 of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), only the last fugue BWV 689 has anything in common.\nBach's musical plan has a multitude of structures: the organum plenum pieces; the three styles of polyphony, manualiter and trio sonata in the Mass; the pairs in the Catechism, two with cantus firmus in canon, two with pedal cantus firmus, two for full organ); and the free invention in the duets. The fughetta BWV 681 at the centre of Clavier-Übung III plays a structural role similar to the central pieces in the other three parts of Bach's Clavier-Übung, to mark the beginning of the second half of the collection. It is written using the musical motifs of a [French overture](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-overture), as in the first movement of the fourth of Bach's keyboard [Partitas](https://bliptext.com/articles/partitas-bwv-825-830) BWV 828 (Clavier-Übung I), the first movement of his [Overture in the French style, BWV 831](https://bliptext.com/articles/overture-in-the-french-style-bwv-831) (Clavier-Übung II), the sixteenth variation of the [Goldberg Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/goldberg-variations) BWV 988 (Clavier-Übung IV), marked \"Ouverture.\na 1 Clav\", and Contrapunctus VII in the original manuscript version of Die Kunst der Fuge as contained in P200.\nAlthough possibly intended for use in services, the technical difficulty of Clavier-Übung III, like that of Bach's later compositions—the [Canonic Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/canonic-variations) BWV 769, [The Musical Offering](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-musical-offering) BWV 1079 and [The Art of Fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-art-of-fugue) BWV 1080—would have made the work too demanding for most Lutheran church organists.\nIndeed, many of Bach's contemporaries deliberately wrote music to be accessible to a wide range of organists: Sorge composed simple 3-part chorales in his Vorspiele (1750), because chorale preludes such as Bach's were \"so difficult and almost unusable by players\"; Vogel, Bach's former student from Weimar, wrote his Choräle \"principally for those who have to play in country\" churches; and another Weimar student, [Johann Ludwig Krebs](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-ludwig-krebs), wrote his Klavierübung II (1737) so that it could be played \"by a lady, without much trouble\".\nClavier-Übung III combines German, Italian and French styles, particularly in the opening Preludium, BWV 552/1, whose three thematic groups seem deliberately chosen to represent France, Italy and Germany respectively (see discussion of BWV 552/1 below).\nThis reflects a trend in late 17th- and early 18th-century Germany for composers and musicians to write and perform in a style that became known as the \"mixed taste\", a phrased coined by [Quantz](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-joachim-quantz).\nIn 1730, Bach had written a now-famous letter to the Leipzig town council—his \"Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music\"—complaining not only of performing conditions, but also of the pressure to employ performing styles from different countries:\n\"It is anyway, somewhat strange that German musicians are expected to be capable of performing at once and ex tempore all kinds of music, whether it comes from Italy or France, England or Poland.\"\nAlready in 1695, in the dedication of his Florilegium Primum, [Georg Muffat](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-muffat) had written, \"I dare not employ a single style or method, but rather the most skillful mixture of styles I can manage through my experience in various countries ... As I mix the French manner with the German and Italian, I do not begin a war, but perhaps a prelude to the unity, the dear peace, desired by all the peoples.\"\nThis tendency was encouraged by contemporary commentators and musicologists, including Bach's critics Mattheson and Scheibe, who, in praising the chamber music of his contemporary [Georg Philipp Telemann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-philipp-telemann), wrote that, \"it is best if German part writing, Italian galanterie and French passion are combined\".\nRecalling Bach's early years in the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg between 1700 and 1702, his son [Carl Philipp Emanuel](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-philipp-emanuel-bach) records in the Nekrolog, Bach's obituary of 1754:\n\"From there, through frequent hearing of the then famous orchestra, maintained by the Duke of Celle and consisting largely of Frenchmen, he had the opportunity of consolidating himself in the French style, which in those parts and at that time, was completely new.\"\nThe court orchestra of [Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-william-duke-of-brunswick-l-neburg) was established in 1666 and concentrated on the music of [Jean-Baptiste Lully](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-baptiste-lully), which became popular in Germany between 1680 and 1710.\nIt is probable that Bach heard the orchestra at the Duke's summer residence at [Dannenberg](https://bliptext.com/articles/dannenberg-elbe) near Lüneburg.\nIn Lüneburg itself, Bach would have also heard the compositions of [Georg Böhm](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-b-hm), organist at the Johanniskirche, and of [Johann Fischer](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-ferdinand-fischer), a visitor in 1701, both of whom were influenced by the French style.\nLater in the Nekrolog C.P.E. Bach also reports that, \"In the art of organ, he took the works of Bruhns, Buxtehude, and several good French organists as models.\"\nIn 1775, he expanded on this to Bach's biographer [Johann Nikolaus Forkel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-nikolaus-forkel) noting that his father had studied not only the works of [Buxtehude](https://bliptext.com/articles/buxtehude), [Böhm](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-b-hm), [Nicolaus Bruhns](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolaus-bruhns), [Fischer](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-caspar-ferdinand-fischer), Frescobaldi, [Froberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-jakob-froberger), [Kerll](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kaspar-kerll), [Pachelbel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-pachelbel), [Reincken](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adam-reincken) and [Strunck](https://bliptext.com/articles/delphin-strungk), but also of \"some old and good Frenchmen.\"\nContemporary documents indicate that these composers would have included [Boyvin](https://bliptext.com/articles/jacques-boyvin), [Nivers](https://bliptext.com/articles/guillaume-gabriel-nivers), [Raison](https://bliptext.com/articles/andr-raison), [d'Anglebert](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-henri-d-anglebert), [Corrette](https://bliptext.com/articles/michel-corrette), [Lebègue](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolas-leb-gue), [Le Roux](https://bliptext.com/articles/gaspard-le-roux), [Dieupart](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-dieupart), [François Couperin](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-couperin), [Nicolas de Grigny](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolas-de-grigny) and [Marchand](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-marchand).\n(The latter, according to an anecdote of Forkel, fled from Dresden in 1717 to avoid competing with Bach in a keyboard \"duel\".) At the court of Weimar in 1713, [Prince Johann Ernst](https://bliptext.com/articles/prince-johann-ernst-of-saxe-weimar), a keen musician, is reported to have brought back Italian and French music from his travels in Europe.\nAt the same time, or possibly earlier, Bach made meticulous copies of the entire Livre d'Orgue (1699) of de Grigny and the table of ornaments from d'Anglebert's Pièces de clavecin (1689), and his student Vogler made copies of two Livres d'Orgue of Boyvin.\nIn addition, at Weimar, Bach would have had access to the extensive collection of French music of his cousin [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther).\nMuch later, in the exchanges between Birnbaum and Scheibe over Bach's compositional style in 1738, while Clavier-Übung III was in preparation, Birnbaum brought up the works of de Grigny and Dumage in connection with ornamentation, probably at the suggestion of Bach.\nApart from the elements of \"French ouverture\" style in the opening prelude BWV 552/1 and the central manualiter chorale prelude BWV 681, commentators agree that the two large-scale five-part chorale preludes—Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot' BWV 678 and [Vater unser im Himmelreich](https://bliptext.com/articles/vater-unser-im-himmelreich) BWV 682—are partly inspired by the five-part textures of Grigny, with two parts in each manual and the fifth in the pedal.\nCommentators have taken Clavier-Übung III to be a summation of Bach's technique in writing for the organ, and at the same time a personal religious statement.\nAs in his other later works, Bach's musical language has an otherworldly quality, whether modal or conventional.\nCompositions apparently written in major keys, such as the trio sonatas BWV 674 or 677, can nevertheless have an ambiguous key.\nBach composed in all known musical forms: fugue, canon, paraphrase, cantus firmus, ritornello, development of motifs and various forms of counterpoint.\nThere are five polyphonic stile antico compositions (BWV 669–671, 686 and the first section of 552/ii), showing the influence of Palestrina and his followers, Fux, Caldara and Zelenka.\nBach, however, even if he employs the long note values of the stile antico, goes beyond the original model, as for example in BWV 671.\ndescribes one aim of Clavier-Übung III as being to provide an idealized programme for an organ recital.\nSuch recitals were described later by Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel:\n\"When Johann Sebastian Bach seated himself at the organ when there was no divine service, which he was often requested to do, he used to choose some subject and to execute it in all the forms of organ composition so that the subject constantly remained his material, even if he had played, without intermission, for two hours or more. First he used this theme for a prelude and fugue, with the full organ. Then he showed his art by using the stops for a trio, quartet, etc., always upon the same subject. Afterwards followed a chorale, the melody of which was playfully surrounded in the most diversified manner with the original subject, in three or four parts. Finally the conclusion was made by a fugue, with the full organ, in which either another treatment only of the first subject predominated, or one or, according to its nature, two others were mixed with it.\"\nThe musical plan of Clavier-Übung III conforms to this pattern of a collection of chorale preludes and chamber-like works framed by a free prelude and fugue for organum plenum.\n# [Title page of the small catechism of Martin Luther, 1529, intended for use by children | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Small-Catechism-Luther-1529.jpg]\n# [Title page of Fiori Musicali by Girolamo Frescobaldi, 1636 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Frescobaldi-Fiori-musicali-title-page.jpg]\n# [Engraving of Celle by Matthäus Merian, 1654 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Celle-1654-Merian.jpg]\n# [Title page of Premier Livre d'Orgue, the French organ Mass by Nicolas de Grigny, Paris 1699 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Premier///Livre///d%27Orgue///Nicolas///de///Grigny///1699.jpg]\n# [Table of ornaments from d'Anglebert's Pièces de Clavecin. copied by Bach in Weimar between 1709 and 1716 in the same manuscript as his copy of Grigny's Livre d'Orgue | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/D%27Anglebert-Bach.png]\n\n# Numerological significance\nhas given an analysis of the numerology of Clavier-Übung III.\nAccording to Wolff there is a cyclic order.\nThe opening prelude and fugue frame three groups of pieces: the nine chorale preludes based on the kyrie and gloria of the Lutheran Mass; the six pairs of chorale preludes on the Lutheran catechism; and the four duets.\nEach group has its own internal structure.\nThe first group is made up of three groups of three.\nThe first three chorales on the kyrie in the stile antico hark back to the polyphonic Masses of Palestrina, with increasingly complex textures.\nThe next group consists of three short versets on the kyrie that have progressive time signatures, , and.\nIn the third group of three [trio sonatas](https://bliptext.com/articles/trio-sonata) on the German gloria, two manualiter settings frame a trio for two manuals and pedal with a regular progression of keys, F major, G major and A major.\nEach pair of catechism chorales has a setting for two manuals and pedal followed by a smaller scale manualiter fugal chorale.\nThe group of 12 catechism chorales is further broken up into two groups of six grouped around pivotal grand plenum organum settings (Wir glauben and Auf tiefer Noth).\nThe duets are related by the successive key progression, E minor, F major, G major, and A minor.\nClavier-Übung III thus combines many different structures: pivotal patterns; similar or contrasting pairs; and progressively increasing symmetry.\nThere is also an overriding numerological symbolism.\nThe nine Mass settings (3 × 3) refer to the three of the Trinity in the Mass, with specific reference to Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the corresponding texts.\nThe number twelve of the catechism chorales can be seen as a reference to the usual ecclesiastical use of the number 12, the number of disciples.\nThe whole work has 27 pieces (3 × 3 × 3), completing the pattern.\nHowever, despite this structure, it is unlikely that the work was ever intended to be performed as a whole: it was intended as a compendium, a resource for organists for church performances, with the duets possibly accompaniments for communion.\ncomments on the occurrences of the [golden ratio](https://bliptext.com/articles/golden-ratio) in Clavier-Übung III pointed out by various musicologists.\nThe division of bars between the prelude (205) and fugue (117) provides one example.\nIn the fugue itself the three parts have 36, 45 and 36 bars, so the golden ratio appears between lengths of the middle section and outer sections.\nThe midpoint of the middle section is pivotal, with the first appearance there of the first subject against a disguised version of the second.\nFinally in BWV 682, Vater unser in Himmelreich (the Lord's Prayer), a pivotal point, where the manual and pedal parts are exchanged, occurs at bar 41, which is the sum of the numerical order of letters in JS BACH (using the Baroque convention of identifying I with J and U with V).\nThe later cadence at bar 56 in the 91 bar chorale prelude gives another instance of the golden ratio.\n91 itself factorises as 7, signifying prayer, times 13, signifying sin, the two elements—canonic law and the wayward soul—also represented directly in the musical structure.\n# [A baroque number alphabet in the Cabbalologia of Johann Henning, 1683 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Cabalistic-Gematria.png]\n\n# Prelude and fugue BWV 552\n\n## BWV 552/1 Praeludium\nTogether with the [Toccata in F major BWV 540](https://bliptext.com/articles/toccata-and-fugue-in-f-major-bwv-540), this is the longest of Bach's organ preludes.\nIt combines the elements of a French overture (first theme), an Italian concerto (second theme) and a German fugue (third theme), although adapted to the organ.\nThere are the conventional dotted rhythms of an ouverture, but the alternation of themes owes more to the tradition of contrasting passages in organ compositions than the solo-tutti exchanges in a Vivaldi concerto.\nOriginally possibly written in the key of D major, a more common key for a concerto or ouverture, Bach might have transposed it and the fugue into E♭ major because Mattheson had described the key in 1731 as a \"beautiful and majestic key\" avoided by organists.\nThe piece also has three separate themes (A, B, C), sometimes overlapping, which commentators have interpreted as representing the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the Trinity.\nOther references to the Trinity include the three flats in the key signature, like the accompanying fugue.\nAs the prelude progresses, the reprises of the first theme are shortened, as in a typical Vivaldi concerto; that of the second theme is simply transposed to the dominant; and those of the third theme become more extended and developed.\nThere are no toccata-like passages and the musical writing is quite different from that of the period.\nFor each theme the pedal part has a different character: a baroque [basso continuo](https://bliptext.com/articles/thorough-bass) in the first theme; a quasi-pizzicato bass in the second; and a stile antico bass in the third, with notes alternating between the feet.\nAll three themes share a three semiquaver figure: in the first theme in bar 1, it is a figure typical of a French ouverture; in the second theme in bar 32, it is an echo in the [galant](https://bliptext.com/articles/galante-music) Italian style; and in the third theme in bar 71, it is a motif typical of German organ fugues.\nThe three themes reflect national influences: the first French; the second Italian, with its galant writing; and the third German, with many elements drawn from the tradition of North German organ fugues.\nThe markings of forte and piano in the second theme for the echos show that at least two manuals were needed; Williams has suggested that perhaps even three manuals could have been intended, with the first theme played on the first keyboard, the second and third on the second and the echos on the third.\n**First theme: God, the Father**\nThe first theme has the dotted rhythms, marked with slurs, of a French ouverture.\nIt is written for five parts with complex suspended harmonies.\nThe first reprise (A2) of the theme in the minor key contains typically French harmonic progressions:\n**Second theme: God, the Son**\nThis theme, representing God, the Son, the \"kind Lord\", has two bar phrases of staccato three-part chords in the galant style, with echo responses marked piano.\nThis is followed by a more ornate syncopated version which is not further developed during the prelude:\n**Third theme: the Holy Ghost**\nThis theme is a [double fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/double-fugue) based on semiquavers, representing \"the Holy Ghost, descending, flickering like tongues of fire.\"\nThe semiquavers are not marked with slurs, according to North German conventions.\nIn the final development (C3) the theme passes into E♭ minor, presaging the close of the movement, but also harking back to the previous minor episode and anticipating similar effects in later movements of Clavier-Übung III, such as the first duet BWV 802.\nThe older style two- or three-part writing forms a contrast to the harmonically more complex and modern writing of the first theme.\nThe semiquaver subject of the fugue is adapted for the pedal in the traditional way using alternating foot technique:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bwv552i-A.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Bwv552i-G.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Bwv552i-B.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bwv552i-C.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Bwv552i-D.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Bwv552i-E.png]\n\n## BWV 552/2 Fuga\nThe triple fugue ... is a symbol of the Trinity.\nThe same theme recurs in three connected fugues, but each time with another personality.\nThe first fugue is calm and majestic, with an absolutely uniform movement throughout; in the second the theme seems to be disguised, and is only occasionally recognisable in its true shape, as if to suggest the divine assumption of an earthly form; in the third, it is transformed into rushing semiquavers as if the Pentacostal wind were coming roaring from heaven.\nThe fugue in E♭ major BWV 552/2 that ends Clavier-Übung III has become known in English-speaking countries as the \"St. Anne\" because of the first subject's resemblance to a hymn tune of the same name by [William Croft](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-croft), a tune that was not likely known to Bach.\nA fugue in three sections of 36 bars, 45 bars and 36 bars, with each section a separate fugue on a different subject, it has been called a [triple fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/fugue).\nHowever, the second subject is not stated precisely within the third section, but only strongly suggested in bars 93, 99, 102–04, and 113–14.\n**The number three**\nThe number three is pervasive in both the Prelude and the Fugue, and has been understood by many to represent the Trinity.\nThe description of [Albert Schweitzer](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-schweitzer) follows the 19th-century tradition of associating the three sections with the three different parts of the Trinity.\nThe number three, however, occurs many other times: in the number of flats of the key signature; in the number of fugal sections; and in the number of bars in each section, each a multiple of three (3 × 12, 3 x 15), as well as in the month (September = 09 or 3 x 3) and year (39 or 3 x 13) of publication.\nEach of the three subjects seems to grow from the previous ones.\nIndeed, musicologist [Hermann Keller](https://bliptext.com/articles/hermann-keller) has suggested that the second subject is \"contained\" in the first.\nAlthough perhaps hidden in the score, this is more apparent to the listener, both in their shape and in the resemblance of the quaver second subject to crotchet figures in the countersubject to the first subject.\nSimilarly, the semiquaver figures in the third subject can be traced back to the second subject and the countersubject of the first section.\n**Form of the fugue**\nThe form of the fugue conforms to that of a 17th-century tripartite [ricercar](https://bliptext.com/articles/ricercar) or [canzona](https://bliptext.com/articles/canzona), such as those of Froberger and Frescobaldi: firstly in the way that themes become progressively faster in successive sections; and secondly in the way one theme transforms into the next.\nBach can also be seen as continuing a Leipzig tradition for contrapuntal compositions in sections going back to the keyboard ricercars and fantasias of [Nicolaus Adam Strungk](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolaus-adam-strungk) and [Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-zachow).\nThe tempo transitions between different sections are natural: the minims of the first and second sections correspond to the dotted crotchets of the third.\n**Source of the subjects**\nMany commentators have remarked on similarities between the first subject and fugal themes by other composers.\nAs an example of stile antico, it is more probably a generic theme, typical of the fuga grave subjects of the time: a \"quiet \" time signature, rising fourths and a narrow melodic range.\nAs points out, the similarity to the subject of a fugue by [Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch](https://bliptext.com/articles/conrad-friedrich-hurlebusch), which Bach himself published in 1734, might have been a deliberate attempt by Bach to blind his public with science.\nRoger Wibberly has shown that the foundation of all three fugue subjects, as well as of certain passages in the Prelude, may be found in the first four phrases of the chorale \"O Herzensangst, O Bangigkeit\".\nThe first two sections of BWV 552/2 share many affinities with the fugue in E♭ major BWV 876/2 in [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), Book 2, written during the same period.\nUnlike true triple fugues, like the F♯ minor BWV 883 from the same book or some of the contrapuncti in [The Art of the Fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-art-of-the-fugue), Bach's intent with BWV 552/2 may not have been to combine all three subjects, although this would theoretically have been possible.\nRather, as the work progresses, the first subject is heard singing out through the others: sometimes hidden; sometimes, as in the second section, quietly in the alto and tenor voices; and finally, in the last section, high in the treble and, as the climactic close approaches, quasi-ostinato in the pedal, thundering out beneath the two sets of upper voices.\nIn the second section it is played against quavers; and in parts of the last, against running semiquaver passagework.\nAs the fugue progresses, this creates what Williams has called the cumulative effect of a \"mass choir\".\nIn later sections, to adapt to triple time, the first subject becomes rhythmically syncopated, resulting in what the music scholar [Roger Bullivant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sheffield-bach-choir) has called \"a degree of rhythmic complexity probably unparalleled in fugue of any period\".\n**First section**\nThe first section is a quiet five-part fugue in the stile antico.\nThe countersubject is in crotchets.\nThere are two [stretto](https://bliptext.com/articles/stretto) passages, the first in thirds (below) and the second in sixths.\n**Second section**\nThe second section is a four-part double fugue on a single manual.\nThe second subject is in running quavers and starts on the second beat of bar 37.\nThe first subject reappears gradually, first hinted at in the inner parts (bars 44–46)\nthen in the treble of bar 54\nbefore rising up from the lower register as a fully fledged countersubject (bars 59–61).\n**Third section**\nThe third section is a five-part double fugue for full organ.\nThe preceding bar in the second section is played as three beats of one minim (a [hemiola](https://bliptext.com/articles/hemiola)) and thus provides the new pulse.\nThe third subject is lively and dancelike, resembling a gigue, again starting on the second beat of the bar.\nThe characteristic motif of 4 semiquavers in the third beat has already been heard in the countersubject of the first section and in the second subject.\nThe running semiquaver passagework is an accelerated continuation of the quaver passagework of the second section; occasionally it incorporates motifs from the second section.\nAt bar 88, the third subject merges into the first subject in the soprano line, although not fully apparent to the ear.\nBach with great originality does not change the rhythm of the first subject, so that it becomes syncopated across bars.\nThe subject is then passed to an inner part where it at last establishes its natural pairing with the third subject: two entries of the third exactly match a single entry of the first.\nApart from a final statement of the third subject in the pedal and lower manual register in thirds, there are four quasi-ostinato pedal statements of the first subject, recalling the stile antico pedal part of the first section.\nAbove the pedal the third subject and its semiquaver countersubject are developed with increasing expansiveness and continuity.\nThe penultimate entry of the first subject is a canon between the soaring treble part and the pedal, with descending semiquaver scales in the inner parts.\nThere is a climactic point at bar 114—the second bar below—with the final resounding entry of the first subject in the pedal.\nIt brings the work to its brilliant conclusion, with a unique combination of the backward looking stile antico in the pedal and the forward looking stile moderno in the upper parts.\nAs Williams comments, this is \"the grandest ending to any fugue in music\".\n# [Part of the third section of the Fuga BWV 552 from the 1739 print | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/BWV552-fuga-manuscript.png]\n# [Hubert Kratz, c 1880: Eastward view of interior of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where Martin Luther preached in 1539 and where Bach served as cantor from 1723 until his death in 1750. The main organ was at the west end of the church with a smaller swallow's nest organ at the east end. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Thomaskirche-1885.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Bwv552ii-A.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Bwv552ii-stretto.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Bwv552ii-B.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Bwv552ii-first-subject-hidden.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Bwv552ii-first-subject-soprano.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Bwv552ii-section-2-countersubject.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Bwv552ii-C.png]\n# [800px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Bwv552ii-3-first-subject.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Bwv552ii-D.png]\n\n# Chorale preludes BWV 669–689\n\n## Chorale preludes BWV 669–677 (Lutheran Mass)\nThese two chorales—German versions of the Kyrie and Gloria of the Lutheran missa brevis — have here a peculiar importance as being substituted in the Lutheran church for the two first numbers of the mass, and sung at the beginning of the service in Leipzig.\nThe task of glorifying in music the doctrines of Lutheran christianity which Bach undertook in this set of chorales, he regarded as an act of worship, at the beginning of which he addressed himself to the Triune God in the same hymns of prayer and praise as those sung every Sunday by the congregation.\nIn 1526, [Martin Luther](https://bliptext.com/articles/martin-luther) published his Deutsche Messe, describing how the Mass could be conducted using congregational hymns in the German vernacular, intended in particular for use in small towns and villages where Latin was not spoken.\nOver the next thirty years numerous vernacular hymnbooks were published all over Germany, often in consultation with Luther, [Justus Jonas](https://bliptext.com/articles/justus-jonas), [Philipp Melanchthon](https://bliptext.com/articles/philipp-melanchthon) and other figures of the [German Reformation](https://bliptext.com/articles/german-reformation).\nThe 1537 [Naumburg](https://bliptext.com/articles/naumburg) hymnbook, drawn up by Nikolaus Medler, contains the opening Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit, one of several Lutheran adaptations of the [troped](https://bliptext.com/articles/trope-music) Kyrie summum bonum: Kyrie fons bonitatus.\nThe first Deutsche Messe in 1525 was held at Advent so did not contain the Gloria, explaining its absence in Luther's text the following year.\nAlthough there was a German version of the Gloria in the Naumburg hymnal, the 1523 hymn \"[Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr](https://bliptext.com/articles/allein-gott-in-der-h-h-sei-ehr)\" of [Nikolaus Decius](https://bliptext.com/articles/nikolaus-decius), also adapted from plainchant, eventually became adopted almost universally throughout Germany: it first appeared in print with these words in the 1545 Magdeburg hymnal Kirchengesenge Deudsch of the reformist Johann Spangenberg.\nA century later, Lutheran liturgical texts and hymnody were in wide circulation.\nIn Leipzig, Bach had at his disposal the Neu Leipziger gesangbuch (1682) of Gottfried Vopelius.\nLuther was a firm advocate of the use of the arts, particularly music, in worship.\nHe sang in the choir of the Georgenkirche in [Eisenach](https://bliptext.com/articles/eisenach), where Bach's uncle [Johann Christoph Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christoph-bach) was later organist, his father [Johann Ambrosius Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-ambrosius-bach) one of the main musicians and where Bach himself would sing, a pupil at the same Latin school as Luther between 1693 and 1695.\n# [Martin Luther, 1526: Title page of Deutsche Messe | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Luther-Deutsche-Messe-Wittemberg-1526.png]\n# [Title page of the hymn book in Latin and German of Johann Spangenberg published in Magdeburg in 1545 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Spangenberg-1545.png]\n\n### Pedaliter settings of Kyrie BWV 669–671\nThe Kyrie was usually sung in Leipzig on Sundays after the opening organ prelude.\nBach's three monumental pedaliter settings of the Kyrie correspond to the three verses.\nThey are in [strict counterpoint](https://bliptext.com/articles/strict-counterpoint) in the stile antico of Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali.\nAll three have portions of the same melody as their cantus firmus – in the soprano voice for \"God the Father\", in the middle tenor voice (en taille) for \"God the Son\" and in the pedal bass for \"God the Holy Ghost\".\nAlthough having features in common with Bach's vocal settings of the Kyrie, for example in his Missa in F major, [BWV 233](https://bliptext.com/articles/bwv-233), the highly original musical style is tailored to organ technique, varying with each of the three chorale preludes.\nNevertheless, as in other high-church settings of plainsong, Bach's writing remains \"grounded in the unchangeable rules of harmony\", as described in Fux's treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum.\" The solidity of his writing might have been a musical means of reflecting 'firmness in faith'. As observes, \"Common to all three movements is a certain seamless motion that rarely leads to full cadences or sequential repetition, both of which would be more diatonic than suits the desired transcendental style.\"\nBelow is the text of the three verses of Luther's version of the Kyrie with the English translation of [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\n Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit,\ngroß ist dein Barmherzigkeit,\naller Ding ein Schöpfer und Regierer.\neleison!\nChriste, aller Welt Trost\nuns Sünder allein du hast erlöst;\nJesu, Gottes Sohn,\nunser Mittler bist in dem höchsten Thron;\nzu dir schreien wir aus Herzens Begier,\neleison!\nKyrie, Gott heiliger Geist,\ntröst', stärk' uns im Glauben\nallermeist daß wir am letzten End'\nfröhlich abscheiden aus diesem Elend,\neleison!\n O Lord the Father for evermore!\nWe Thy wondrous grace adore;\nWe confess Thy power, all worlds upholding.\nHave mercy, Lord.\nO Christ, our Hope alone,\nWho with Thy blood didst for us atone;\nO Jesu!\nSon of God!\nOur Redeemer!\nour Advocate on high!\nLord, to Thee alone in our need we cry,\nHave mercy, Lord.\nHoly Lord, God the Holy Ghost!\nWho of life and light the fountain art,\nWith faith sustain our heart,\nThat at the last we hence in peace depart.\nHave mercy, Lord.\nBWV 669 is a [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) for two manuals and pedal in time.\nThe four lines of the cantus firmus in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of G are played in the top soprano part on one manual in semibreve beats.\nThe single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus.\nThe writing is in [alla breve](https://bliptext.com/articles/alla-breve) strict counterpoint, occasionally departing from the modal key to B♭ and E♭ major.\nEven when playing beneath the cantus firmus, the contrapuntal writing is quite elaborate.\nThe many stile antico features include inversions, suspensions, strettos, use of [dactyls](https://bliptext.com/articles/dactyl-poetry) and the canone sine pausa at the close, where the subject is developed without break in parallel thirds.\nLike the cantus firmus, the parts move in steps, creating an effortless smoothness in the chorale prelude.\nBWV 670 is a [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) for two manuals and pedal in time.\nThe four lines of the cantus firmus in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of G are played in the tenor part (en taille) on one manual in semibreve beats.\nAs in BWV 669, the single fugal theme of the other three parts, two in the second manual and one in the pedal, is in minim beats and based on the first two lines of the cantus firmus.\nThe writing is again mostly modal, in [alla breve](https://bliptext.com/articles/alla-breve) strict counterpoint with similar stile antico features and a resulting smoothness.\nIn this case, however, there are fewer inversions, the cantus firmus phrases are longer and freer, and the other parts more widely spaced, with canone sine pausa passages in sixths.\nBWV 671 is a [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) for organum plenum and pedal.\nThe bass cantus firmus is in semibreves in the pedal with four parts above in the keyboard: tenor, alto and, exceptionally, two soprano parts, creating a unique texture.\nThe subject of the four-part fugue in the manuals is derived from the first two lines of the cantus firmus and is answered by its inversion, typical of the stile antico.\nThe quaver motifs in ascending and descending sequences, starting with dactyl figures and becoming increasingly continuous, swirling and scalelike, are a departure from the previous chorale preludes.\nAmong the stile antico features are movement in steps and syncopation.\nAny tendency for the modal key to become diatonic is counteracted by the chromaticism of the final section where the flowing quavers come to a sudden end.\nOver the final line of the cantus firmus, the crotchet figures drop successively by semitones with dramatic and unexpected dissonances, recalling a similar but less extended passage at the end of the five-part chorale prelude O lux beata of [Matthias Weckmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/matthias-weckmann).\nAs suggests, the twelve descending chromatic steps seem like supplications, repeated cries of eleison—\"have mercy\".\n# [The Lutheran Kyrie, an adaptation of the Catholic Kyrie fons bonitatis, from the 1537 Naumburg hymnbook | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Kyrie-Gott-Naumburg-1537.png]\n# [Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1527: woodcut of the Creation | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Creation-Luther-Lucas-Cranach-Elder-1527.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Bwv669-preview.png]\n# [Sebald Beham, 1527: woodcut of Christ carrying the Lamb | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Luther-prayerbook-Beham-1527.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Bwv670-preview.png]\n# [Lucas van Leyden, 1514: woodcut of Pentecost | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Pentecost-Lucas-van-Leyden-1514.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Bwv671-preview.png]\n\n### Manualiter settings of Kyrie BWV 672–674\nPhrygian is no other key than our A minor, the only difference being that it ends with the dominant chord E–G♯–B, as illustrated by the chorale Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein [Cantata 153].\nThis technique of beginning and ending on the dominant chord can still be used nowadays, especially in those movements in which a concerto, symphony or sonata does not come to a full conclusion ... This type of ending awakens a desire to hear something additional.\nThe three manualiter chorale preludes BWV 672–674 are short fugal compositions within the tradition of the chorale fughetta, a form derived from the [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) in common use in Central Germany.\n[Johann Christoph Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christoph-bach), Bach's uncle and organist at [Eisenach](https://bliptext.com/articles/eisenach), produced 44 such fughettas.\nThe brevity of the fughettas is thought to have been dictated by space limitations: they were added to the manuscript at a very late stage in 1739 to fill space between already engraved pedaliter settings.\nDespite their length and conciseness, the fughettas are all highly unconventional, original and smoothly flowing, sometimes with an other-worldly sweetness.\nAs freely composed chorale preludes, the fugue subjects and motifs are based loosely on the beginning of each line of the cantus firmus, which otherwise does not figure directly.\nThe motifs themselves are developed independently with the subtlety and inventiveness typical of Bach's later contrapuntal writing.\nhas suggested that the set might have been inspired by the cycle of five manualiter settings of \"[Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland](https://bliptext.com/articles/nun-komm-der-heiden-heiland)\" in Harmonische Seelenlust, published by his contemporary [Georg Friedrich Kauffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-friedrich-kauffmann) in 1733: BWV 673 and 674 employ similar rhythms and motifs to two of Kauffmann's chorale preludes.\nThe Kyries seem to have been conceived as a set, in conformity with the symbolism of the Trinity.\nThis is reflected in the contrasting time signatures of, and.\nThey are also linked harmonically: all start in a major key and move to a minor key before the final cadence; the top part of each fughetta ends on a different note of the E major triad; and there is a matching between closing and beginning notes of successive pieces.\nWhat has called the \"new, transcendental quality\" of these chorale fughettas is due in part to the modal writing.\nThe cantus firmus in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of E is ill-suited to the standard methods of counterpoint, since entries of the subject in the dominant are precluded by the mode.\nThis compositional problem, exacerbated by the choice of notes on which the pieces start and finish, was solved by Bach by having other keys as the dominating keys in each fughetta.\nThis was a departure from established conventions for counterpoint in the phrygian mode, dating back to the mid-16th century ricercar from the time of Palestrina.\nAs Bach's pupil [Johann Kirnberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kirnberger) later remarked in 1771, \"the great man departs from the rule in order to sustain good part-writing\".\nBWV 672 is a fughetta for four voices, 32 bars long.\nAlthough the movement starts in G major, the predominant tonal centre is A minor.\nThe subject in dotted minims (G–A–B) and the quaver countersubject are derived from the first line of the cantus firmus, which also provides material for several cadences and a later descending quaver figure (bar 8 below).\nSome of the sequential writing resembles that of the B♭ major fugue BWV 890/2 in the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier).\nSmoothness and mellifluousness result from what has called the \"liquefying effect\" of the simple time signature of ; from the use of parallel thirds in the doubling of subject and countersubject; from the clear tonalities of the four-part writing, progressing from G major to A minor, D minor, A minor and at the close E major; and from the softening effect of the occasional chromaticism, no longer dramatic as in the conclusion of the previous chorale prelude BWV 671.\nBWV 673 is a fughetta for four voices, 30 bars long, in compound time.\nIt has been described by as \"a movement of immense subtlety\".\nThe subject, three and a half bars long, is derived from the first line of the cantus firmus.\nThe semiquaver scale motif in bar 4 is also related and is much developed throughout the piece.\nThe countersubject, which is taken from the subject itself, uses the same syncopated leaping motif as the earlier Jesus Christus unser Heiland BWV 626 from the [Orgelbüchlein](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein), similar to gigue-like figures used earlier by Buxtehude in his chorale prelude Auf meinen lieben Gott [BuxWV](https://bliptext.com/articles/buxwv) 179; it has been interpreted as symbolising the triumph of the risen Christ over death.\nIn contrast to the preceding fughetta, the writing in BWV 673 has a playful lilting quality, but again it is modal, unconventional, inventive and non-formulaic, even if governed throughout by aspects of the cantus firmus.\nThe fughetta starts in the key of C major, modulating to D minor, then moving to A minor before the final cadence.\nFluidity comes from the many passages with parallel thirds and sixths.\nOriginal features of the contrapuntal writing include the variety of entries of the subject (all notes of the scale except G), which occur in stretto and in canon.\nBWV 674 is a fughetta for four voices, 34 bars long, in compound time.\nThe writing is again smooth, inventive and concise, moulded by the cantus firmus in E phrygian.\nThe quaver motif in the third bar recurs throughout the movement, often in thirds and sixths, and is developed more than the quaver theme in the first bar.\nThe constant quaver texture might be a reference to the last eleison in the plainchant.\nThe movement starts in G major passing to A minor, then briefly C major, before moving back to A minor before the final cadence to an E major triad.\nAs explains, \"The so-called modality lies in a kind of diatonic ambiguity exemplified in the cadence, suggested by the key signature, and borne out in the kinds of lines and imitation.\"\n# [Second Kyrie in the phrygian mode of E from the Missa Sanctorum Meritis by Palestrina, 1594 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Palestrina-Missa-Sanctorum-Meritis-Kyrie-II-1594.png]\n# [The Kyrie settings of Bach have similarities with two manualiter settings of \"Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland\" from Harmonische Seelenlust by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, 1733 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/GFKauffmann-Nun-komm-der///Heiden///Heiland-1733.png]\n# [Kyrie Gott Vater BWV 672 in the original printing of 1739 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/BWV672-manuscript.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Bwv672-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Bwv673-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Bwv674-preview.png]\n\n### Allein Gott in der Höh' BWV 675–677\nAlmost invariably Bach uses the melody to express the adoration of the Angelic hosts, and in scale passages pictures the throng of them ascending and descending between earth and heaven.\nHerr Krügner of Leipzig was introduced and recommended to me by Cappelmeister Bach, but he had to excuse himself because he had accepted the Kauffmann pieces for publication and would not be able to complete them for a long time.\nAlso the costs run too high.\nBach's three settings of the German Gloria/Trinity hymn Allein Gott in der Höh' again make allusion to the Trinity: in the succession of keys—F, G and A—possibly echoed in the opening notes of the first setting BWV 675; in the time signatures; and in the number of bars allocated to various sections of movements.\nThe three chorale preludes give three completely different treatments: the first a manualiter trio with the cantus firmus in the alto; the second a pedaliter trio sonata with hints of the cantus firmus in the pedal, similar in style to Bach's [six trio sonatas for organ](https://bliptext.com/articles/organ-sonatas-bach) BWV 525–530; and the last a three-part manualiter fughetta with themes derived from the first two lines of the melody.\nEarlier commentators considered some of the settings to be \"not quite worthy\" of their place in Clavier-Übung III, particularly the \"much-maligned\" BWV 675, which Hermann Keller considered could have been written during Bach's period in [Weimar](https://bliptext.com/articles/weimar).\nMore recent commentators have confirmed that all three pieces conform to the general principles Bach adopted for the collection, in particular their unconventionality and the \"strangeness\" of the counterpoint.\nand have pointed out the possible influence of Bach's contemporaries on his musical language.\nBach was familiar with the eight versions of Allein Gott by his cousin [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther) as well as the Harmonische Seelenlust of [Georg Friedrich Kauffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-friedrich-kauffmann), posthumously printed by Bach's Leipzig printer Krügner.\nIn BWV 675 and 677 there are similarities with some of Kauffmann's galant innovations: triplets against duplets in the former; and explicit articulation by detached quavers in the latter.\nThe overall style of BWV 675 has been compared to Kauffmann's setting of Nun ruhen alle Wälder; that of BWV 676 to the fifth of Walther's own settings of Allein Gott; and BWV 677 has many details in common with Kauffmann's fughetta on Wir glauben all an einen Gott.\nBelow is the text of the four verses of Luther's version of the Gloria with the English translation of [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\n Allein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr'\nund Dank für seine Gnade,\ndarum daß nun und nimmermehr\nuns rühren kann kein Schade.\nein Wohlgefall'n Gott an uns hat,\nnun ist groß' Fried' ohn' Unterlaß,\nall' Fehd' hat nun ein Ende.\nWir loben, preis'n, anbeten dich\nfür deine Ehr'; wir danken,\ndaß du, Gott Vater ewiglich\nregierst ohn' alles Wanken.\nganz ungemeß'n ist deine Macht,\nfort g'schieht, was dein Will' hat bedacht;\nwohl uns des feinen Herren!\nO Jesu Christ, Sohn eingebor'n deines himmlischen Vaters,\nversöhner der'r, die war'n verlor'n, du Stiller unsers Haders,\nLamm Gottes, heil'ger Herr und Gott,\nnimm an die Bitt' von unsrer Not,\nerbarm' dich unser aller!\nO Heil'ger Geist, du höchstes Gut,\ndu allerheilsamst' Tröster,\nvor's Teufels G'walt fortan behüt',\ndie Jesus Christ erlöset\ndurch große Mart'r und bittern Tod,\nabwend all unsern Jamm'r und Not!\ndarauf wir uns verlaßen.\n To God on high all glory be,\nAnd thanks, that He's so gracious,\nThat hence to all eternity\nNo evil shall oppress us:\nHis word declares good-will to men,\nOn earth is peace restored again\nThrough Jesus Christ our Saviour.\nWe humbly Thee adore, and praise,\nAnd laud for Thy great glory:\nFather, Thy kingdom lasts always,\nNot frail, nor transitory:\nThy power is endless as Thy praise,\nThou speak'st, the universe obeys:\nIn such a Lord we're happy.\nO Jesus Christ, enthroned on high,\nThe Father's Son beloved\nBy Whom lost sinners are brought nigh,\nAnd guilt and curse removed;\nThou Lamb once slain, our God and Lord,\nTo needy prayers Thine ear afford,\nAnd on us all have mercy.\nO Comforter, God Holy Ghost,\nThou source of consolation,\nFrom Satan's power Thou wilt, we trust,\nProtect Christ's congregation,\nHis everlasting truth assert,\nAll evil graciously avert,\nLead us to life eternal.\nBWV 675, 66 bars long, is a two-part invention for the upper and lower voices with the cantus firmus in the alto part.\nThe two outer parts are intricate and rhythmically complex with wide leaps, contrasting with the cantus firmus which moves smoothly by steps in minims and crotchets.\nThe time signature has been taken to be one of the references in this movement to the Trinity.\nLike the two preceding chorale preludes, there is no explicit manualiter marking, only an ambiguous \"a 3\": performers are left with the choice of playing on a single keyboard or on two keyboards with a 4 ft pedal, the only difficulty arising from the triplets in bar 28.\nThe movement is in [bar form](https://bliptext.com/articles/bar-form) (AAB) with bar lengths of sections divisible by 3: the 18 bar stollen has 9 bars with and without the cantus firmus and the 30 bar abgesang has 12 bars with the cantus firmus and 18 without it.\nThe invention theme provides a fore-imitation of the cantus firmus, subsuming the same notes and bar lengths as each corresponding phase.\nThe additional motifs in the theme are ingeniously developed throughout the piece: the three rising starting notes; the three falling triplets in bar 2; the leaping octaves at the beginning of bar 3; and the quaver figure in bar 4.\nThese are playfully combined in ever-changing ways with the two motifs from the counter subject—the triplet figure at the end of bar 5 and the semiquaver scale at the beginning of bar 6—and their inversions.\nAt the end of each stollen and the abgesang, the complexity of the outer parts lessens, with simple triplet descending scale passages in the soprano and quavers in the bass.\nThe harmonisation is similar to that in Bach's Leipzig cantatas, with the keys shifting between major and minor.\nBWV 676 is a trio sonata for two keyboards and pedal, 126 bars long.\nThe melody of the hymn is omnipresent in the cantus firmus, the paraphrase in the subject of the upper parts and in the harmony.\nThe compositional style and detail—charming and galant—are similar to those of the trio sonatas for organ BWV 525–530.\nThe chorale prelude is easy on the ear, belying its technical difficulty.\nIt departs from the trio sonatas in having a ritornello form dictated by the lines of the cantus firmus, which in this case uses an earlier variant with the last line identical to the second.\nThis feature and the length of the lines themselves account for the unusual length of BWV 676.\nThe musical form of BWV 676 can be analysed as follows:\nBWV 677 is a double fughetta, 20 bars long.\nIn the first five bars the first subject, based on the first line of the cantus firmus, and countersubject\nare heard in stretto, with a response in bars 5 to 7.\nThe originality of the complex musical texture is created by pervasive but unobtrusive references to the cantus firmus and the smooth semiquaver motif from the first half of bar 3, which recurs throughout the piece and contrasts with the detached quavers of the first subject.\nThe contrasting second subject, based on the second line of the cantus firmus, starts in the alto part on the last quaver of bar 7:\nThe two subjects and the semiquaver motif are combined from bar 16 to the close.\nExamples of musical iconography include the minor triad in the opening\nsubject and the descending scales in the first half of bar 16—references to the Trinity and the [heavenly host](https://bliptext.com/articles/heavenly-host).\n# [Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, an adaptation of the Gloria in excelsis by Nikolaus Decius (1522), from Johann Spangenberg's Kirchengesenge Deudsch (Magdeburg, 1545) | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Allein-Gott-Spangenberg-1545.png]\n# [Fifth setting of Allein Gott by Johann Gottfried Walther, 1736 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Walther-Allein-Gott-5.png]\n# [Wir glauben all an einen Gott by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, 1733–36 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Kauffmann-Wir-Glauben.png]\n# [Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1512: woodcut of the Holy Trinity | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Trinity-1513-Lucas-Cranach-elder.jpg]\n# [Silbermann organ (1710–1714) in Freiberg Cathedral | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Fotothek///df///ps///0002744///Kirchen///%5E///Dome.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Bwv675-preview.png]\n# [Detail of the Silbermann organ in Freiberg Cathedral | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Fotothek-detail-Silbermann-organ-Freiberger-Dom.jpg]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Bwv676-preview.png]\n# [BWV 677, after conclusion of BWV 676, from 1739 print | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/BWV677-manuscript.png]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/BWV676-end.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Bwv677-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/BWV677-excerpt.png]\n# [Luther's Large Catechism, Leipzig 1560 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Luther-Catechism-1560-Leipzig.png]\n# [The Ten Commandments in the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Luther-Walter-Ten-Commandments-1524.png]\n\n## Chorale preludes BWV 678–689 (Luther's catechism chorales)\nCareful examination of the original manuscript has shown that the large scale chorale preludes with pedal, including those on the six catechism hymns, were the first to be engraved.\nThe smaller manualiter settings of the catechism hymns and the four duets were added later in the remaining spaces, with the first five catechism hymns set as three-part fughettas and the last as a longer four-part fugue.\nIt is possible that Bach, in order to increase the accessibility of the collection, conceived these additions as pieces that could be played on domestic keyboard instruments.\nEven for a single keyboard, however, they present difficulties: in the preface to his own collection of chorale preludes published in 1750, the organist and composer Georg Andreas Sorge wrote that, \"the preludes on the catechism chorales of Herr Capellmeister Bach in Leipzig are examples of this kind of keyboard piece that deserve the great renown that they enjoy,\" adding that \"works such as these are so difficult as to be all but unusable to young beginners and others who lack the considerable proficiency they require\".\n\n### The Ten Commandments BWV 678, 679\nBelow is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nThe prelude is in the [mixolydian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/mixolydian-mode) of G, ending on a [plagal cadence](https://bliptext.com/articles/plagal-cadence) in G minor.\nThe ritornello is in the upper parts and bass on the upper manual and pedal, with the cantus firmus in canon at the octave on the lower manual.\nThere are ritornello episodes and five entries of the Cantus firmus, yielding the number of commandments.\nThe distribution of parts, two parts in each keyboard and one in the pedal is similar to that of the de Grigny Livre d'Orgue, although Bach makes much greater technical demands on the right hand part.\nCommentators have seen the canon as representing order, with the pun on canon as \"law\".\nAs also expressed in Luther's verses, the two voices of the canon have been seen as symbolising the new law of Christ and the old law of Moses, which it echoes.\nThe pastoral quality in the organ writing for the upper voices at the opening has been interpreted as representing the serenity before the [Fall of Man](https://bliptext.com/articles/fall-of-man); it is followed by the disorder of sinful waywardness; and finally order is restored in the closing bars with the calm of salvation.\nThe upper part and pedal engage in an elaborate and highly developed fantasia based on motifs introduced in the ritornello at the beginning of the chorale prelude.\nThese motifs recur either in their original form or inverted.\nThere are six motifs in the upper part:\nand five in the bass:\nThe writing for the two upper voices is similar to that for obligato instruments in a cantata: their musical material is independent of the chorale, The opening pedal G on the other hand can be heard as a foretaste of the repeated Gs in the cantus firmus.\nIn between the cantus firmus is sung in canon at the octave on the second manual.\nThe fifth and final entry of the cantus firmus is in the distant key of B♭ major (G minor): it expresses the purity of the Kyrie eleison at the end of the first verse, which brings the prelude to a harmonious close:\nThe lively gigue-like fughetta has several similarities to the larger chorale prelude: it is in the mixolydian mode of G; it starts with a pedal point of repeated Gs; the number ten occurs as the number of entries of the subject (four of them inverted); and the piece ends on a plagal cadence.\nThe motifs in the second half of the second bar and the countersubject are extensively developed.\nThe liveliness of the fughetta has been taken to reflect Luther's exhortation in the Small Catechism to do \"cheerfully what He has commanded.\"\nEqually well, Psalm 119 speaks of \"delighting ... in His statutes\" and rejoicing in the Law.\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Bwv678-preview.png]\n# [Sebald Beham, 1527: woodcut in Luther's prayer book of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Ten-Commandments-Luther-Beham-1527.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Bwv678-excerpt.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Bwv679-preview.png]\n\n### The Creed BWV 680, 681\nBelow is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nThe chorale prelude in four parts is a fugue in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of D, with the subject based on the first line of Luther's hymn.\nThe prominent counter-subject is first heard in the pedal bass.\nAccording to [Peter Williams](https://bliptext.com/articles/peter-williams-musicologist), the chorale prelude is written in the stilo antico Italian style reminiscent of [Girolamo Frescobaldi](https://bliptext.com/articles/girolamo-frescobaldi) and [Giovanni Battista Bassani](https://bliptext.com/articles/giovanni-battista-bassani).\nItalian elements are apparent in the trio-sonata structure, which combines the upper fugal parts with the ostinato figured bass; and in the ingenious use of the full range of Italianate semiquaver motifs.\nThe five notes in the original hymn for the opening [melisma](https://bliptext.com/articles/melisma) on Wir are expanded in the first two bars and the remaining notes are used for the countersubject.\nThere is exceptionally no [cantus firmus](https://bliptext.com/articles/cantus-firmus), probably because of the exceptional length of the hymn.\nFeatures of the remainder of the hymn, however, suffuse the writing, in particular the scale-like passages and the melodic leaps.\nThe fugue counter-subject is adapted to the pedal as a vigorous striding bass with alternate footwork; its quasi-[ostinato](https://bliptext.com/articles/ostinato) character has been consistently interpreted as representing a \"firm faith in God\": a striding bass line was often used by Bach for [Credo](https://bliptext.com/articles/credo) movements, for example in the [Credo](https://bliptext.com/articles/credo) and Confiteor of the [Mass in B Minor](https://bliptext.com/articles/mass-in-b-minor).\nAfter each occurrence of the ostinato counter-subject in the pedal, there is a semiquaver bridging passage (bars 8–9, 19–20, 31–32, 44–45, 64–66) in which the music modulates into a different key while the three upper parts play in [invertible counterpoint](https://bliptext.com/articles/invertible-counterpoint): in this way the three different melodic lines can be freely interchanged between the three voices.\nThese highly original transitional passages punctuate the work and give a coherence to the whole movement.\nAlthough the added G♯ makes it difficult to recognize the chorale melody, it can be heard more clearly later on, singing out in the tenor part.\nIn the final manualiter episode (bars 76–83) the ostinato pedal figures are taken up briefly by the tenor part before the movement draws to a close over a final extended restatement of the fugue counter-subject in the pedal.\nThe American musicologist David Yearsley has described the chorale prelude as follows: \"This energetic, syncopated counterpoint is elaborated above a recurring two-bar theme in the pedal that acts like a ritornello whose continual reappearances are separated by lengthy rests. The ostinato remains constant through the various key-changes that present it in both major and minor mode [...] The shape of the pedal line suggests an archetypal narrative of ascent and descent in perfect symmetry [...] The figure forcefully projects the movements of the feet into the church; heard on full organ (In Organo pleno, according to Bach's own performance direction) with a registration of all due Gravitas, the feet move with real purpose [...] Wir glauben all' is truly a walker's piece at the organ.\"\nThe manualiter fughetta in E minor is both the shortest movement in Clavier-Übung III and the exact midpoint of the collection.\nThe subject paraphrases the first line of the chorale; the two-bar passage later in the movement leading to two dramatic diminished seventh chords is constructed over the second chorale line.\nAlthough not strictly a French ouverture, the movement does incorporate elements of that style, in particular the dotted rhythms.\nHere Bach follows his custom of beginning the second half of a major collection with a French-style movement (as in the other three Clavier-Übung volumes, in both volumes of Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, in the early manuscript version of Die Kunst der Fuge and in the group of five numbered canons in the Musikalisches Opfer).\nIt also complements the preceding chorale prelude by following an Italian style with a contrasting French one.\nAlthough still evidently written for organ, in style it most resembles the Gigue for harpsichord from the first [French Suite](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-suites-bach) in D minor BWV 812.\n# [Wir glauben in the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Luther-Walter-Wir-glauben-1524.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of God, the Creator | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Catechism-Creator-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [First page of original print of BWV 680 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/BWV680-manuscript.jpg]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Bwv680-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Bwv681-preview.png]\n\n### The Lord's Prayer BWV 682, 683\nBelow is the text of the first verse of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\n Vater unser im Himmelreich,\nder du uns alle heissest gleich\nBrüder sein und dich rufen an und willst das Beten vor uns ha'n, gib, dass nicht bet allein der Mund,\nhilf, dass es geh' aus Herzensgrund.\n Our Father in the heaven Who art,\nWho tellest all of us in heart\nBrothers to be, and on Thee call,\nAnd wilt have prayer from us all,\nGrant that the mouth not only pray,\nFrom deepest heart oh help its way.\nLikewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.\nVater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682 in E minor has long been considered the most complex of Bach's chorale preludes, difficult at the levels of both understanding and performance.\nThrough a ritornello trio sonata in the modern French [galante](https://bliptext.com/articles/galante-music) style, the German chorale of the first verse is heard in canon at the octave, almost subliminally, played in each hand together with the obligato instrumental solo.\nBach had already mastered such a compound form in the choral fantasia opening his cantata [Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78](https://bliptext.com/articles/jesu-der-du-meine-seele-bwv-78).\nThe canon could be a reference to the Law, the adherence to which Luther saw as one of the purposes of prayer.\nThe galante style in the upper parts is reflected in their [lombardic rhythms](https://bliptext.com/articles/lombard-rhythm) and detached semiquaver triplets, sometimes played against semiquavers, typical of French flute music of the time.\nBelow, the pedal plays a restless continuo, with constantly changing motifs.\nOn the technical side, the suggestion of the German musicologist Hermann Keller that BWV 682 required four manuals and two players has not been accepted.\nAs Bach emphasised to his students, however, articulation was all-important: dotted figures and triplets had to be distinguished and should only come together when the \"music is extremely fast\".\nThe theme in the upper parts is an elaborate [coloratura](https://bliptext.com/articles/coloratura) version of the hymn, like the instrumental solos in the slow movements of trio sonatas or concertos.\nIts wandering, sighing nature has been taken to represent the unsaved soul in search of God's protection.\nIt has three key elements which are developed extensively in the prelude: the lombardic rhythms in bar 3; the chromatic descending phrase between bars 5 and 6; and the detached semiquaver triplets in bar 10.\nBach already used lombardic rhythms in the early 1730s, in particular in some early versions of the Domine Deus of the [Mass in B minor](https://bliptext.com/articles/mass-in-b-minor-structure) from his cantata [Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191](https://bliptext.com/articles/gloria-in-excelsis-deo-bwv-191).\nThe mounting lombardic figures have been interpreted as representing \"hope\" and \"trust\" and the anguished chromaticism as \"patience\" and \"suffering\".\nAt the climax of the work in bar 41, the chromaticism reaches its most extreme in the upper parts as the lombardic rhythms pass to the pedal:\nThe otherworldly way in which the solo parts weave around the solo lines of the chorale, almost hiding them, has suggested to some commentators \"groanings which cannot be uttered\"—the mystical nature of prayer.\nAfter its first statement the ritornello recurs six times but not as a strict repeat, instead the order in which the different motifs are heard constantly changes.\nThe manualiter chorale prelude BWV 683 in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of D is similar in form to Bach's earlier composition BWV 636 on the same subject from the [Orgelbüchlein](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein); the lack of a pedal part allows more freedom and integration of parts in the latter work.\nThe cantus firmus is played without interruption in the uppermost part, accompanied by three-part counterpoint in the lower parts.\nThe accompaniment uses two motifs: the five descending semiquavers in the first bar, derived from the fourth line of the chorale \"und willst das beten von uns han\" (and wishes us to pray); and the three quaver figure in the alto part in the second half of bar 5.\nThe first motif is also inverted.\nThe quiet and sweetly harmonious nature of the music is evocative of prayer and contemplation.\nIts intimate scale and orthodox style provide a complete contrast to the previous \"larger\" setting in BWV 682.\nAt the beginning of each line of the chorale, the musical texture is pared down, with more voices added towards the end of the line: the long very first note of the chorale is unaccompanied.\nThe prelude comes to a subdued conclusion in the lower registers of the keyboard.\n# [Vater unser im Himmelreich from Luther's prayerbook of 1545 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Luther-Vater-unser-1545.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Bwv682-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Bwv682-chorale.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of Christ teaching His disciples the Lord's Prayer | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Vater-Unser-Catechism-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Bwv682-excerpt-41.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Bwv683-preview.png]\n\n### Baptism BWV 684, 685\nBelow is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn \"Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\" with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\n Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\nnach seines Vaters Willen,\nvon Sanct Johann die Taufe nahm,\nsein Werk und Amt zu 'rfüllen,\nDa wollt er stiften uns ein Bad,\nzu waschen uns von Sünden,\nersaüfen auch den bittern Tod\ndurch sein selbst Blut und Wunden;\nes galt ein neues Leben.\nDas Aug allein das Wasser sieht,\nwie Menschen Wasser gießen;\nder Glaub im Geist die Kraft versteht\ndes Blutes Jesu Christi;\nund ist vor ihm ein rote Flut,\nvon Christi Blut gefärbet,\ndie allen Schaden heilen tut,\nvon Adam her geerbet,\nauch von uns selbst begangen.\n To Jordan when our Lord had gone,\nHis Father's pleasure willing,\nHe took His baptism of St John,\nHis work and task fulfilling;\nTherein He would appoint a bath\nTo wash us from defilement,\nAnd also drown that cruel Death\nIn His blood of assoilment:\n'Twas no less than a new life.\nThe eye but water doth behold,\nAs from man's hand it floweth;\nBut inward faith the power untold\nOf Jesus Christ's blood knoweth.\nFaith sees therein a red flood roll,\nWith Christ's blood dyed and blended,\nWhich hurts of all kinds maketh whole,\nFrom Adam here descended,\nAnd by ourselves brought on us.\nWhen in the arrangement of the chorale \"Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\" an unceasing figure of flowing semiquavers makes itself heard, it needs no skilled critic of Bach's works to find in this an image of the river Jordan.\nBach's real meaning, however, will not reveal itself thoroughly to him until he has read the whole poem to the last verse, in which the water of baptism is brought before the believing christian as a symbol of the atoning Blood of Christ\nThe chorale prelude Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam BWV 684 has a trio sonata like ritornello in C minor in the three parts of the manuals with the cantus firmus in the tenor register of the pedal in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of C. Bach specifically stipulates two keyboards to give different sonorities to the imitative upper parts and the bass part.\nThe undulating semiquavers in the bass, usually interpreted as representing the flowing waters of the Jordan, imitate a [violine](https://bliptext.com/articles/violine) continuo, according to the model of Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust.\nThe musical content of the ritornello contains explicit allusions to the melody of the chorale, sometimes hidden in the semiquaver passage work and motifs.\nThe chorale prelude on baptism, \"Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam\", ... represents running waters ... in the last verse of the chorale, baptism is described as a wave of salvation, stained with the Blood of Christ, which passes over humanity, removing all blemish and sin.\nThe small version of the chorale prelude ... is a curious miniature ... four motifs come forward simultaneously: the first phrase of the melody and its inversion; and the first phrase of the melody in a faster tempo and its inversion ... Is not this the case of a very literal observation?\nDo we not believe that we see waves rising and falling, with the faster waves tumbling over the slower waves?\nAnd is not this musical imagery addressed more to the eye than the ear?\nThe manualiter chorale prelude BWV 685, despite being only 27 bars long and technically speaking a three-part fughetta, is a complex composition with dense fugal writing.\nThe subject and countersubject are both derived from the first line of the cantus firmus.\nThe compact style, imitative contrapuntal writing and sometimes capricious touches, such as repetition and the ambiguity in the number of parts, are features that BWV 685 shares with the shorter chorale preludes in Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust.\nThe contrary motion between the parts in bar 9 harks back to the compositions of [Samuel Scheidt](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-scheidt).\nhas given a precise analysis of the fughetta:\nThere have been many attempts to interpret the musical iconography of BWV 685.\nAlbert Schweitzer suggested that the subject and countersubject gave the visual impression of waves.\nHermann Keller suggested that the three entries of the subject and countersubject, and the three inversions, represent the three immersions at baptism.\nOthers have seen allusions to the Trinity in the three voices.\nThe subject and countersubject have been seen as representing Luther's baptismal themes of Old Adam and New Man.\nWhatever the intended symbolism, Bach's most probable compositional aim was to produce a shorter chorale prelude contrasting musically with the preceding longer setting.\n# [Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam from a 1577 edition of Luther's hymnbook | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Luther-Christ-unser-Herr-zum-Jordan-kam.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Bwv684-preview.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of the Baptism of Christ | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Baptism-Catechism-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [600px | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Bwv685-preview.png]\n\n### Confession BWV 686, 687\nBelow is the text of the first and last verses of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\n Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir,\nHerr Gott, erhör mein Rufen.\nDein gnädig Ohren kehr zu mir\nund meiner Bitt sei öffne;\ndenn so du willst das sehen an,\nwas Sünd und Unrecht ist getan,\nwer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben?\nDarum auf Gott will hoffen ich,\nauf mein Verdienst nicht bauen;\nauf ihn mein Herz soll lassen sich\nund seiner Güte trauen,\ndie mir zusagt sein wertes Wort;\ndas ist mein Trost und treuer Hort,\ndas will ich allzeit harren.\n Out of the depths I cry to Thee,\nLord, hear me, I implore Thee!\nBend down Thy gracious ear to me,\nLet my prayer come before Thee!\nIf Thou rememberest each misdeed,\nIf each should have its rightful meed,\nWho may abide Thy presence?\nAnd thus my hope is in the Lord,\nAnd not in mine own merit;\nI rest upon His faithful word\nTo them of contrite spirit;\nThat He is merciful and just—\nHere is my comfort and my trust,\nHis help I wait with patience.\nIt is significant of Bach's manner of feeling that he should choose this chorale for the crowning point of his work.\nFor it cannot be questioned that this chorale is its crowning point, from the ingenuity of the part-writing, the wealth and nobility of the harmonies, and the executive power which it requires.\nEven the Northern masters had never attempted to write two parts for the pedals throughout, though they had first introduced the two-part treatment of the pedals, and Bach did them full justice in this piece.\nThe chorale prelude Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir BWV 686 is a monumental [chorale motet](https://bliptext.com/articles/chorale-motet) in the [phrygian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/phrygian-mode) of C. The climax of Clavier-Übung III, it is composed in the strict polyphonic stile antico of [Palestrina](https://bliptext.com/articles/giovanni-pierluigi-da-palestrina) using [florid counterpoint](https://bliptext.com/articles/counterpoint).\nThis is Bach's unique six-part composition for organ, if the [Ricercar](https://bliptext.com/articles/ricercar) a 6 from the [Musical Offering](https://bliptext.com/articles/musical-offering) BWV 1079 is discounted.\nGerman organ writing for double pedal (doppio pedale) can be traced back to [Arnolt Schlick](https://bliptext.com/articles/arnolt-schlick) and [Ludwig Senfl](https://bliptext.com/articles/ludwig-senfl) in the 16th century; to [Samuel Scheidt](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-scheidt) in two settings from his Tabulatura Nova in the early 17th century; and in the baroque period to Buxtehude, Reincken, Bruhns, Tunder, Weckmann and Lübeck.\nIn France, among the composers to have written double pedal parts were [François Couperin](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-couperin), in his organ Mass des paroisses, and [Louis Marchand](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-marchand).\nThe first verse of Luther's hymn had already been set by Bach in the cantata [Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38](https://bliptext.com/articles/aus-tiefer-not-schrei-ich-zu-dir-bwv-38) (1724).\nThe fact that the setting in BWV 686 flows more easily, has more countersubjects, has more novel features and has typically organ figurations in the final section has suggested that in this case the whole of Luther's text was taken into account and that it is a purer version of the stile antico.\nFollowing the huge scale of the opening, Bach highly inventively incorporates motifs from the cantus firmus into the countersubjects of the seven sections (counting the repeat), resulting in a constantly changing musical texture.\nThe widest range in pitch between upper and lower parts occurs exactly halfway through at bar 27.\nAt the end of each line the cantus firmus is taken up in the left (lower) pedal, which, without break, then plays the countersubject while above the right (upper) pedal concludes the section by playing the cantus firmus in the tenor register in [augmentation](https://bliptext.com/articles/augmentation-music) (i.e., with doubled note lengths).\nThe proliferation of [dactyl](https://bliptext.com/articles/dactyl-poetry) \"joy\" motifs (a crotchet followed by two quavers) in the last section of the prelude reflects the optimism in the last verse.\nhas given the following analysis of the seven sections:\nThis smaller manualiter setting of Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu dir is a four-part chorale motet in the key of F♯ minor, with the augmented cantus firmus in the phrygian mode of E in the uppermost soprano part.\nThe strict contrapuntal writing is denser than that of BWV 686, although it adheres less to the stile antico and has a more uniform texture.\nCommentators have suggested that the continual responses to the fugue subjects by their inversion signify confession followed by forgiveness.\nhas pointed out the following musical features in the seven sections of BWV 687:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Bwv686-preview.png]\n# [Interior of the Sophienkirche, Dresden, in 1910 showing the 1720 organ of Gottfried Silbermann destroyed by bombing in World War II | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Sophienkirche-Dresden-Silbermann-Organ.jpg]\n# [Title page of Part III of Samuel Scheidt's Tabulatura Nova, 1624. The Modum ludendi and Benedicamus had six parts with double pedal | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Scheidt-Tabulatura-Nova-III.png]\n# [Scheidt's Modus Pleno Organo Pedaliter: Benedicamus, 1624 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Scheidt-Tabulatura-Nova-III-Benedicamus.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Bwv687-preview.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut of the Fall of Man in Luther's Bible | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Fall-of-Man-Bible-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n\n### Communion BWV 688, 689\nBelow is the full text of Luther's hymn with the English translation by [Charles Sanford Terry](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-sanford-terry-historian):\nThese grand pieces are at the same time eloquent witnesses to his depth of nature, both as a poet and as a composer.\nBach always deduced the emotional character of his organ chorales from the whole hymn, and not from its first verse alone.\nIn this way he generally obtained from the poem some leading thought, which seemed to him of particular importance, and in accordance with which he gave to the composition a poetic and musical character of its own.\nWe must follow out his method in detail in order to have been sure that we have grasped his meaning.\nIn the hymn for the Holy Communion, \"Jesus Christus unser Heiland,\" the counterpoint, with its broad, ponderous progressions, may, to the superficial observer, seem unsuitable to the character of the hymn.\nThe attentive reader of the words will, however, soon find the passage that gave rise to this characteristic musical phrase ... the fifth verse.\nFaith, lively and immovable, together with the solemnity of a consciousness of sin, are the two elements which constitute the emotional groundwork of the piece.\nThe chorale prelude Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 688 is a trio sonata with the upper voices in quavers and semiquavers the manuals and the cantus firmus in minims in the pedal in the [Dorian mode](https://bliptext.com/articles/dorian-mode) of G, like a [Gregorian chant](https://bliptext.com/articles/gregorian-chant).\nThe eccentric angularity of the keyboard subject with its great widening or narrowing leaps is derived from the melody.\nIt has prompted much speculation as to its iconographic significance.\n\"Unwavering faith\" has been taken to be the underlying theme by many commentators, including Spitta and Schweitzer, who compared the unsteady theme to the vision of a sailor seeking a firm foothold on a stormy deck (un marin qui cherche un appui solide sur une planche roulante).\nOthers have interpreted the leaping theme as representing Man's parting from and return to God; or as the \"great agony\" (großer Arbeit) of the sixth verse; or as the anger of God appeased by the suffering of Christ (the theme followed by its inversion); or as a reference to the treading of the winepress in the passage\n\"'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.'\"\nfrom [Isaiah](https://bliptext.com/articles/book-of-isaiah) 63:2–3, signifying victory over the Cross.\nIt has similarly been suggested that the semiquaver passages are a reference to the flowing wine-blood of the communion.\nVisually, the quaver theme might contain a cross motif and might form an elongated [Christogram](https://bliptext.com/articles/christogram) on the Greek letters [iota](https://bliptext.com/articles/iota) and [chi](https://bliptext.com/articles/chi-letter) in certain sections of the score.\nWhatever the religious significance, the musical development from the motifs is ingenious and subtle, constantly varying.\nThe material in the semiquaver [codetta](https://bliptext.com/articles/codetta) (bar 6) of the fugue subject and of the countersubject (bars 7–9) is used and developed extensively throughout BWV 688, sometimes in inverted form.\nThe theme itself is transformed in all sorts of ways, including inversion, reflection, reversal and syncopation, the variety increased by how the two upper voices combine.\nOnce started, the semiquaver figures form a [moto perpetuo](https://bliptext.com/articles/moto-perpetuo).\nAt some points, they contain hidden versions of the quaver fugue subject; but as the work progresses, they gradually simplify to scale passages.\nEven the ending is unconventional, with a simulated [ritardando](https://bliptext.com/articles/ritardando) in the last bars with the pedal silent.\nThe chorale prelude is thus composed from a few organic motifs heard already in the first few bars.\nThe unprecedented novelty and musical originality of such a self-generated composition might have been Bach's main intention.\nImprovising fugues was part of the organist's stock in trade ... The present fugue is an almost unimaginably transfigured version of this genre, which Bach also resuscitated and handled less radically elsewhere in the Clavierübung.\nIt must also be one of the most dramatic, in the sense of eventful, fugues Bach ever wrote.\nThe drama begins in a mood of sobriety and pain and ends in transcendence.\nThe last manualiter four-part chorale prelude, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 689 in C minor, is marked \"Fuga super Jesus Christus, unser Heyland\" in the 1739 print.\nIn contrast to the previous fughettas in the previous five manualiter settings of the catechism hymns, it is a long and complex fugue of great originality, a tour de force in the use of [stretti](https://bliptext.com/articles/stretto).\nThe fugue subject is derived from the first line of the chorale.\nIn order to facilitate the stretti which underlie the whole conception of BWV 689, Bach chose to transform the modal melody by sharpening the fourth note from a B♭ to a B♮, a modification already found in 17th-century hymnbooks.\nThis change also allowed Bach to introduce dissonances, imbuing the work with what the French organist and musicologist [Norbert Dufourcq](https://bliptext.com/articles/norbert-dufourcq) called \"tormented chromaticism\".\nThe quaver countersubject and its inversions are used and developed throughout the fugue.\nIt resembles some of Bach's other keyboard fugues, in particular the antepenultimate fugue in B♭ minor BWV 891/2 of the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), composed at roughly the same time.\nThe inversion of the countersubject in bar 5, omitting the first note, plays a significant role later in the fugue (bar 30):\nThe stretti occur at intervals of varying length; in addition to the fugue subject, there are also imitations and stretti both for the semiquaver figure in the subject (and its inversions) and the figure above derived from the countersubject.\nhas given the following summary of the stretti for the fugue subject:\nThe last entry of the fugue subject in the tenor voice gives the impression of the return of a conventional cantus firmus; the coda over the tenor's sustained F is built on the motifs of the countersubject.\nThe different types of stretti result in a large variety of harmonisations of the theme and musical textures throughout the chorale prelude.\nhas given a detailed analysis of BWV 689 from the perspective of Bach's keyboard fugues:\n# [Jesus Christus, unser Heiland from the 1524 hymnbook of Luther and Walter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Luther-Walter-Jesus-Christus-unser-Heiland-1524-1.png]\n# [Christian Gottlob Hammer, 1852: The Sophienkirche in Dresden where Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann was appointed organist in 1733 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Christian///Gottlob///Hammer///-///Sophienkirche///1852.jpg]\n# [Arp Schnitger organ constructed in 1693 in the Jacobikirche, Hamburg, one of the organs Bach played in 1720 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Arp///Schnitger///organ///St.///Jacobi///Hamburg.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Bwv688-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Bwv688-excerpt.png]\n# [Hans Brosamer, 1550: woodcut in Luther's Small Catechism of the Last Supper | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Sacrament-Catechism-Luther-Brosamer-1550.jpg]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Bwv689-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Bwv689-excerpt.png]\n# [Organ in the Johanniskirche, Lüneburg, where Bach heard Georg Böhm play | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/St.///Johannis///L%C3%BCneburg///-///Orgel.jpg]\n\n# Four duets BWV 802–805\nThe four duetti BWV 802–805, in the successive tonalities of E minor, F major, G major and A minor, were included at a fairly late stage in 1739 in the engraved plates for Clavier-Übung III.\nTheir purpose has remained a source of debate.\nLike the beginning prelude and fugue BWV 552 they are not explicitly mentioned on the title page and there is no explicit indication that they were intended for organ.\nHowever, as several commentators have noted, at a time when Bach was busy composing counterpoint for the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier) and the [Goldberg Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/goldberg-variations)\n(Clavier-Übung IV) using a very wide harpsichord range, Bach wrote the duets to lie comfortably in the range C to c in [Helmholtz pitch notation](https://bliptext.com/articles/helmholtz-pitch-notation) (C2 to C6 in [scientific pitch notation](https://bliptext.com/articles/scientific-pitch-notation)), so within the relatively narrow compass of almost every organ of the time.\nThe pieces can nevertheless be played on any single keyboard, such as a harpsichord or [fortepiano](https://bliptext.com/articles/fortepiano).\nThe use of the term duetto itself is closest to that given in the first volume of the Critica Musica (1722) of [Johann Mattheson](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-mattheson): a piece for two voices involving more than just \"imitation at the unison and the octave\".\nIt was Mattheson's view that \"a composer's true masterpiece\" could rather be found in \"an artful, fugued duet, more than a many-voiced alla breve or counterpoint\".\nIn choosing the form of the compositions, which go considerably beyond his [Two part inventions](https://bliptext.com/articles/two-part-inventions) BWV 772–786, Bach might have been making a musical contribution to the contemporary debates on the theory of counterpoint, already propounded in the tracts of [Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-marpurg) and of [Johann Fux](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-fux), whose [Gradus ad Parnassum](https://bliptext.com/articles/gradus-ad-parnassum) had been translated by Bach's friend Mizler.\nhas suggested that it may have been a direct response to the ongoing argument on musical style between Birnbaum and Scheibe: Bach combines the simple and harmonious styles advocated by his critics Mattheson and Scheibe with a more modern chromatic and often dissonant style, which they regarded as \"unnatural\" and \"artificial\".\nDespite many proposed explanations—for example as accompaniments to communion, with the two parts possibly signifying the two sacramental elements of bread and wine—it has never been determined whether Bach attached any religious significance to the four duets; instead it has been considered more likely that Bach sought to illustrate the possibilities of two-part counterpoint as fully as possible, both as a historical account and \"for the greater glory of God\".\n# [Gradus ad Parnassum, the 1725 treatise on counterpoint by Johann Fux, Austrian composer and music theorist | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Fux-Gradus-ad-Parnassum.jpg]\n\n## Duetto I BWV 802\nThe first duet in E minor is a double fugue, 73 bars long, in which all the musical material is invertible, i.e. can be exchanged between the two parts.\nThe first subject is six bars long broken up into one bar segments.\nIt is made up of one bar of demisemiquaver scales leading into four bars where the theme becomes angular, chromatic and syncopated.\nIn the sixth bar a demisemiquaver motif is introduced that is developed later in the duet in a highly original way; it also serves as a means of modulation after which the parts interchange their roles.\nThe contrasting second subject in quavers with octave leaps is a descent by a [chromatic fourth](https://bliptext.com/articles/chromatic-fourth).\nThe harmonies between the two chromatic parts are similar to those in the A minor prelude BWV 889/1 from the second book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), presumed to have been composed at roughly the same time.\nBWV 802 has been analysed as follows:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Bach-Duet1-preview.png]\n\n## Duetto II BWV 803\nThe A section of the F major Duetto is everything that Scheibe could have asked for—and that is not enough for Bach, who moves here far beyond the clarity and unity of the F major invention.\nWithout the B section the Duetto is the perfect work of 1739, completely in and of its time.\nIn its entirety however the piece is a perfect blasphemy—a powerful refutation indeed of the progressive shibboleths of naturalness and transparency.\nThe second duet in F major BWV 803 is a fugue written in the form of a [da capo aria](https://bliptext.com/articles/da-capo-aria), in the form ABA.\nThe first section has 37 bars and the second 75 bars, so that with repeats there are 149 bars.\nThere is a sharp contrast between the two sections, which has suggested might have been Bach's musical response to the acrimonious debate on style being conducted between Scheibe and Birnbaum at the time of composition.\nSection A is a conventional fugue in the spirit of the [Inventions and Sinfonias](https://bliptext.com/articles/inventions-and-sinfonias), melodious, harmonious and undemanding on the listener—the \"natural\" cantabile approach to composition advocated by both Mattheson and Scheibe.\nSection B is written in quite a different way.\nIt is severe and chromatic, mostly in minor keys, with dissonances, strettos, syncopation and canonic writing—all features frowned upon as \"artificial\" and \"unnatural\" by Bach's critics.\nSection B is divided symmetrically into segments of 31, 13 and 31 bars.\nThe first subject of section A is heard again in canon in the minor key.\nThe character of the first subject undergoes a complete transformation, from bright and effortless simplicity to dark and strained complexity: the strettos in the first subject produce unusual [augmented triads](https://bliptext.com/articles/augmented-triad); and a new chromatic countersubject emerges in the central 13-bar segment (which begins in bar 69, the fifth bar below).\nThe musical structure of Section A is as follows:\nThe musical structure of Section B is as follows:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Bach-Duet2-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Bwv803-excerpt1.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Bwv803-countersubject.png]\n\n## Duetto III BWV 804\nThe third duet BWV 804 in G major, 39 bars long, is the simplest of the four duetti.\nLight and dance-like, it is the closest in form to Bach's Two Part Inventions, of which it most closely resembles the last, No.15 BWV 786.\nThe bass accompaniment in detached quavers of the subject does not appear in the upper part and is not developed.\nWith very little modulation or chromaticism, the novelty of BWV 804 lies in the development of the semiquaver passagework.\nApart from a contrasting middle section in E minor, the tonality throughout is resolutely that of G major.\nThe use of broken chords recalls the writing in the first movements of the sixth trio sonata for organ BWV 530 and the third [Brandenburg Concerto](https://bliptext.com/articles/brandenburg-concertos) BWV 1048.\nBWV 804 has the following musical structure:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Bach-Duet3-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Bwv804-excerpt.png]\n\n## Duetto IV BWV 805\nBWV 805 is a fugue in strict counterpoint in the key of A minor, 108 bars long.\nThe 8 bar subject starts in minims with a second harmonic half in slow quavers.\nBach introduced further \"modern\" elements in the semitone drops in the subject and later motifs (bars 4 and 18).\nAlthough all entries of the subject are either in A minor (tonic) or E minor (dominant), Bach adds chromaticism by flattening notes in the subject and sharpening notes during modulating passages.\nDespite being a rigorous composition with carefully devised invertible counterpoint, i.e. with parts that can be interchanged, in parts its style is similar to that of the [bourée](https://bliptext.com/articles/bour-e) from the [Overture in the French style, BWV 831](https://bliptext.com/articles/overture-in-the-french-style-bwv-831) from Clavier-Übung II.\nThere are three episodes which move between different keys and combine three new pairs of motifs, either 2 bars, 4 bars or 8 bars long, in highly original and constantly changing ways.\nThe first episode starts in bar 18 below with the first pair of new motifs, the upper one characterised by an octave drop:\nAt the end of the first episode, the second harmonious pair of motifs is introduced:\nThe third pair of motifs, which allows significant modulation, appears for the first time in the second half of the second episode and is derived from the second half of the subject and countersubject:\nThe musical structure of BWV 805 has been analysed as follows:\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Bach-Duet4-preview.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Bwv805-excerpt-second-motif.png]\n# [Clavier-Übung III | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Bwv805-excerpt-third-motif.png]\n\n# Reception and influence\n\n## Eighteenth century\nFinally, Mr. ——— is the most eminent of the Musikanten in ———.\nHe is an extraordinary artist on the clavier and on the organ, and he has until now encountered only one person with whom he can dispute the palm of superiority.\nI have heard this great man play on various occasions.\nOne is amazed at his ability, and one can hardly conceive how it is possible for him to achieve such agility, with his fingers and with his feet, in the crossings, extensions, and extreme jumps that he manages, without mixing in a single wrong tone, or displacing his body by any violent movement.\nThis great man would be the admiration of whole nations if he had more amenity, if he did not take away the natural element in his pieces by giving them a turgid and confused style, and if he did not darken their beauty by an excess of art.\nIn 1737, two years before the publication of Clavier-Übung III, [Johann Adolf Scheibe](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adolf-scheibe) had made the above notoriously unfavourable comparison between Bach and another composer of the time, now identified as [Georg Frideric Handel](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-frideric-handel).\nHis comments represented a change in contemporary musical aesthetics: he advocated the simpler and more expressive [galant](https://bliptext.com/articles/galant) style, which after Bach's death in 1750 would be further developed during the [classical period](https://bliptext.com/articles/classical-period-music), in preference to fugal or contrapuntal writing, which by then was considered old-fashioned and out-moded, too scholarly and conservative.\nAlthough Bach did not actively participate in the ensuing debate on musical styles, he did incorporate elements of this modern style in his later compositions, in particular in Clavier-Übung III.\nBach's musical contributions, however, could only be properly assessed at the beginning of the 19th century, when his works became more widely available: up until then much of his musical output—in particular his vocal works—was relatively little known outside Leipzig.\nFrom 1760 onwards a small group of ardent supporters became active in [Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/berlin), keen to preserve his reputation and promulgate his oeuvre.\nThe group centred around his son [Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-philipp-emanuel-bach), who in 1738 at the age of 24 had been appointed court harpsichordist at [Potsdam](https://bliptext.com/articles/potsdam) to [Frederick the Great](https://bliptext.com/articles/frederick-ii-of-prussia), then crown prince before his accession to the throne in 1740.\nC.P.E. Bach remained in Berlin until 1768, when he was appointed Kapellmeister in [Hamburg](https://bliptext.com/articles/hamburg) in succession to [Georg Philipp Telemann](https://bliptext.com/articles/georg-philipp-telemann).\n(His brother [Wilhelm Friedemann Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-friedemann-bach) moved to Berlin in 1774, although not to general acclaim, despite his accomplishments as an organist.) Other prominent members of the group included Bach's former pupils [Johann Friedrich Agricola](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-agricola), court composer, first director of the [Royal Opera House](https://bliptext.com/articles/berlin-state-opera) in Berlin and collaborator with Emanuel on Bach's obituary (the Nekrolog, 1754), and more significantly [Johann Philipp Kirnberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-philipp-kirnberger).\nKirnberger became Kapellmeister to the court in 1758 and music teacher of Frederick's niece, [Anna Amalia](https://bliptext.com/articles/duchess-anna-amalia-of-brunswick-wolfenb-ttel).\nNot only did Kirnberger build up a large collection of Bach's manuscripts in the Amalien-Bibliothek, but with [Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-marpurg) he promoted Bach's compositions through theoretical texts, concentrating in particular on counterpoint with a detailed analysis of Bach's methods.\nThe first of the two volumes of Marpurg's Treatise on fugue (Abhandlung von der Fuge, 1753–1754) cites the opening segment of the six-part fugal chorale prelude Aus tiefer Noth BWV 686 as one of its examples.\nKirnberger produced his own extensive tract on composition Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (The true principles for the practice of harmony), twenty years later, between 1771 and 1779.\nIn his treatise Marpurg had adopted some of the musical theories on the [fundamental bass](https://bliptext.com/articles/figured-bass) of [Jean-Philippe Rameau](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-philippe-rameau) from his Treatise on Harmony (1722) in explaining Bach's fugal compositions, an approach which Kirnberger rejected in his tract:\n\"Rameau filled this theory with so many things that had no rhyme or reason that one must certainly wonder how such extravagant notions can have found belief and even champions among us Germans, since we have always had the greatest harmonists among us, and their manner of treating harmony was certainly not to be explained according to Rameau's principles. Some even went so far that they preferred to deny the soundness of a Bach in his procedure with respect to the treatment and progression of chords, rather than admit that the Frenchman could have erred.\"\nThis led to an acrimonious dispute in which both claimed to speak with Bach's authority.\nWhen Marpurg made the tactical error of suggesting that, \"His famous son in Hamburg ought to know something about this, too,\" Kirnberger responded in the introduction to the second volume of his tract:\n\"Moreover, what Mr. Bach, Capellmeister in Hamburg, thinks of the excellent work of Mr. Marpurg, is shown by some passages from a letter that this famous man has written to me: 'The behaviour of Mr. Marpurg towards you is execrable.' Further: 'You may loudly proclaim that my basic principles and those of my late father are anti-Rameau.'\"\nThrough Bach's pupils and family, copies of his keyboard works were disseminated and studied throughout Germany; the diplomat [Baron van Swieten](https://bliptext.com/articles/baron-van-swieten), Austrian envoy to the Prussian court from 1770 to 1777 and afterwards patron of [Mozart](https://bliptext.com/articles/mozart), [Haydn](https://bliptext.com/articles/haydn) and [Beethoven](https://bliptext.com/articles/beethoven), was responsible for relaying copies from Berlin to Vienna.\nThe reception of the works was mixed, partly because of their technical difficulty: composers like Mozart, Beethoven and [Rust](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wilhelm-rust) embraced these compositions, particularly [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier); but, as [Johann Adam Hiller](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-adam-hiller) reported in 1768, many amateur musicians found them too hard (\"Sie sind zu schwer! Sie gefallen mir nicht\").\nTwenty-one prints of the original 1739 edition of Clavier-Übung III survive today.\nBecause of its high price, this edition did not sell well: even 25 years later in 1764, C.P.E. Bach was still trying to dispose of copies.\nBecause of changes in popular tastes after Bach's death, the publisher [Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottlob-immanuel-breitkopf), son of [Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf](https://bliptext.com/articles/bernhard-christoph-breitkopf), did not consider it economically viable to prepare new printed editions of Bach's works; instead he retained a master copy of Clavier-Übung III in his large library of original scores from which handwritten copies (hand-exemplar) could be ordered from 1763 onwards.\nA similar service was provided by the musical publishers Johann Christoph Westphal in Hamburg and [Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-carl-friedrich-rellstab) in Berlin.\nBefore 1800, there are very few reports of performances of Bach's works in England or of manuscript copies of his work.\nIn 1770, [Charles Burney](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-burney), the musicologist and friend of [Samuel Johnson](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-johnson) and [James Boswell](https://bliptext.com/articles/james-boswell), had made a tour of France and Italy.\nOn his return in 1771 he published a report on his tour in The Present State of Music in France and Italy.\nLater that year in a letter to [Christoph Daniel Ebeling](https://bliptext.com/articles/christoph-daniel-ebeling), the music critic engaged in translating this work into German, Burney made one of his first references to Bach:\n\"A long & laboured Fugue, recte et retro in 40 parts, may be a good Entertainment for the Eyes of a Critic, but can never delight the Ears of a Man of Taste. I was no less surprised than pleased to find Mr. C.P.E. Bach get out of the trammels of Fugues & crowded parts in which his father so excelled.\"\nIt was, however, only in the following year, during his tour of Germany and the [Low Countries](https://bliptext.com/articles/low-countries), that Burney received a copy of the first book of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier) from C. P. E. Bach in Hamburg; according to his own reports, he was only to become familiar with its contents over thirty years later.\nHe reported on his German tour in The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and United Provinces in 1773.\nThe book contains the first English account of Bach's work and reflects the views commonly held at the time in England.\nBurney compared the learned style of Bach unfavourably with that of his son, whom he had visited:\n\"How he formed his style, where he acquired all his taste and refinement, would be difficult to trace; he certainly neither inherited nor adopted them from his father, who was his only master; for that venerable musician, though unequalled in learning and contrivance, thought it so necessary to crowd into both hand all the harmony he could grasp, that he must inevitably have sacrificed melody and expression. Had the sone chosen a model, it would certainly have been his father, whom he highly reverenced; but as he has ever disdained imitation, he must have derive from nature alone, those fine feelings, that variety of new ideas, and selection of passages, which are so manifest in his compositions.\"\nBurney summarised the musical contributions of J.S. Bach as follows:\n\"Besides many excellent compositions for the church, this author produced Ricercari, consisting of preludes, fugues, upon two, three and four subjects; in Modo recto & contrario and in every one of the twenty-four keys. All the present organ-players of Germany are formed upon his school, as most of those on the harpsichord, clavichord and piano forte are upon that of his son, the admirable Carl. Phil. Emanuel Bach ; so long known by the name of Bach of Berlin, but now music-director at Hamburg.\"\nAs it is known that at the time Burney knew hardly any of Bach's compositions, it appears that his opinions of Bach came second-hand: the first sentence was almost certainly lifted directly from the French translation of Marpurg's Treatise on fugue, to which he had referred earlier in the book for biographical details; and in 1771 he had acquired Scheibe's writings through Ebeling.\nIn Germany Burney's book was not well received, infuriating even his friend Ebeling: in a passage that he changed in later editions, he had repeated without attribution comments from a letter of Louis Devisme, British plenipotentiary in Munich, that, \"if innate genius exists, Germany is certainly not the seat of it; though it must be allowed, to be that of perseverance and application.\"\nOnce aware of the offence this might cause to Germans, Burney had marked with pencil the offending passages in the copy of his daughter [Fanny Burney](https://bliptext.com/articles/fanny-burney), when in 1786 she became lady-in-waiting to [Queen Charlotte](https://bliptext.com/articles/charlotte-of-mecklenburg-strelitz), wife of [George III](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-iii-of-the-united-kingdom).\nLater that year, to Fanny's horror, the Queen requested that Fanny show her copy to her daughter Princess Elizabeth.\nThe book was viewed by both the King and Queen, who accepted Fanny's hastily invented explanations of the markings; she similarly managed to excuse herself when Princess Elizabeth later read all the marked passages assuming them to be Fanny's favourites.\nBurney was aware of George III's preference for Handel when in 1785 he wrote in his account of the 1784 [Handel Commemoration](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-commemoration) that \"in his full, masterly and excellent organ-fugues, upon the most natural and pleasing subjects, he has surpassed Frescobaldi, and even Sebastian Bach, and others of his countrymen, the most renowned for abilities in this difficult and elaborate species of composition.\"\nHis account was translated into German by Hiller.\nWriting anonymously in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek in 1788, C.P.E. Bach angrily responded that \"there is nothing to be seen but partiality, and of any close acquaintance with the principal works of J.S. Bach for organ we find in Dr. Burney's writings no trace.\"\nUndeterred by such comments in 1789, a year after C.P.E. Bach's death, Burney echoed Scheibe's earlier comparison of Bach and Handel when he wrote in his General History of Music:\n\"The very terms of Canon and Fugue imply restraint and labour. Handel was perhaps the only great Fughuist, exempt from pedantry. He seldom treated barren or crude subjects; his themes being almost always natural and pleasing. Sebastian Bach, on the contrary, like Michel Angelo in painting, disdained facility so much, that his genius never stooped to the easy and graceful. I never have seen a fugue by this learned and powerful author upon a motivo, that is natural and chantant; or even an easy and obvious passage, that is not loaded with crude an difficult accompaniments.\"\nBurney reflected the English predilection for opera when he added:\n\"If Sebastian Bach and his admirable son Emmanuel, instead of being music-directors in commercial cities, had been fortunately employed to compose for the stage and public of great capitals, such as Naples, Paris, or London, and for performers of the first class, they would doubtless have simplified their style more to the level of their judges; the one would have sacrificed all unmeaning art and contrivance, and the other have been less fantastical and recherché; and both, by writing a style more popular, would have extended their fame, and been indisputably the greatest musicians of the eighteenth century.\"\n[Johann Nikolaus Forkel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-nikolaus-forkel), from 1778 the director of music in the [University of Göttingen](https://bliptext.com/articles/university-of-g-ttingen), was another promoter and collector of Bach's music.\nAn active correspondent with both of Bach's sons in Berlin, he published the first detailed biography of Bach in 1802, Bach: On Johann Sebastian Bach's Life, Art and Works: For Patriotic Admirers of True Musical Art, including an appreciation of Bach's keyboard and organ music and ending with the injunction, \"This man, the greatest orator-poet that ever addressed the world in the language of music, was a German! Let Germany be proud of him! Yes, proud of him, but worthy of him too!\"\nIn 1779, Forkel published a review of Burney's General History of Music in which he criticized Burney for dismissing German composers as \"dwarves or musical ogres\" because \"they did not skip and dance before his eyes in a dainty manner\"; instead he suggested it was more appropriate to view them as \"giants\".\nAmong his criticisms of Bach in the 1730s, Scheibe had written, \"We know of composers who see it as an honour to be able to compose incomprehensible and unnatural music. They pile up musical figures. They make unusual embellishments. ... Are these not truly musical Goths!\"\nUntil the 1780s, the use of the word \"gothic\" in music was pejorative.\nIn his entry for \"harmony\" in the influential Dictionnaire de Musique (1768), [Jean-Jacques Rousseau](https://bliptext.com/articles/jean-jacques-rousseau), a fierce critic of Rameau, described counterpoint as a \"gothic and barbaric invention\", the antithesis of the melodic galante style.\nIn 1772, [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe) gave a fundamentally different view of \"gothic\" art that would achieve widespread acceptance during the classical-romantic movement.\nIn his celebrated essay on the [cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/strasbourg-cathedral) in [Strasbourg](https://bliptext.com/articles/strasbourg), where he was a student, Goethe was one of the first writers to connect gothic art with the sublime:\n\"The first time I went to the minster I was full of the common notions of good taste. From hearsay I respected the harmony of mass, the purity of forms, and I was the sworn enemy of the confused caprices of Gothic ornament. Under the term gothic, like the article in a dictionary, I threw together all the synonymous misunderstandings, such as undefined, disorganized, unnatural, patched-together, tacked on, overloaded, which had gone through my head. ... How surprised I was when I was confronted by it! The impression which filled my soul was whole and large, and of a sort that—since it was composed of a thousand harmonizing details—I could relish and enjoy, but by no means identify and explain. ... How often have I returned from all sides, from all distances, in all lights, to contemplate its dignity and magnificence. It is hard on the spirit of man when his brother's work is so sublime that he can only bow and worship.\nHow often has the evening twilight soothed with its friendly quiet my eyes, tired-out with questing, by blending the scattered parts into masses which now stood simple and large before my soul, and at once my powers unfolded rapturously to enjoy and understand.\"\nIn 1782, [Johann Friedrich Reichardt](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-reichardt), since 1775 the successor to Agricola as Capellmeister in the court of Frederic the Great, quoted this passage from Goethe in the Musicalisches Kunstmagazin to describe his personal reactions to the instrumental fugues of Bach and Handel.\nHe prefaced his eulogy with a description of Bach as the greatest counterpuntalist (\"harmonist\") of his age:\n\"There has never been a composer, not even the best and deepest of the Italians, who so exhausted all the possibilities of our harmony as did J. S. Bach. Almost no suspension is possible that he did not make use of, and he employed every proper harmonic art and every improper harmonic artifice a thousand times, in earnest and in jest, with such boldness and individuality that the greatest harmonist, if called upon to supply a missing measure in the theme of one of his greatest works, could not be entirely sure of having supplied it exactly as Bach had done. Had Bach had the high sense of truth and the deep feeling for expression that animated Handel, he would have been far greater even than Handel himself; but as it is, he is only much more erudite and industrious.\"\nThe unfavourable comparison to Handel was removed in a later reprinting in 1796, following adverse anonymous remarks in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek.\nReichardt's comparison between Bach's music and the Gothic cathedral would often be repeated by composers and music critics.\nHis student, the writer, composer and music critic [E.T.A. Hoffmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/e-t-a-hoffmann), saw in Bach's music \"the bold and wonderful, romantic cathedral with all its fantastic embellishments, which, artistically swept up into a whole, proudly and magnificently rise in the air\".\nHoffmann wrote of the sublime in Bach's music—the \"infinite spiritual realm\" in Bach's \"mystical rules of counterpoint\".\nAnother musician in C.P.E. Bach's circle was his friend [Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-friedrich-christian-fasch), son of the violinist and composer [Johann Friedrich Fasch](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-fasch), who, on the death of Kuhnau in 1722, had turned down the post, later awarded to Bach, of [kantor](https://bliptext.com/articles/cantor-church) at the [Thomaskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomaskirche), where he himself had been trained.\nFrom 1756 Carl Fasch shared the role of harpsichord accompanist to Frederick the Great at Potsdam with C.P.E. Bach.\nHe briefly succeeded Agricola as director of the Royal Opera in 1774 for two years.\nIn 1786.\nthe year of Frederick the Great's death, Hiller organised a monumental performance in Italian of Handel's [Messiah](https://bliptext.com/articles/messiah-handel) in a Berlin cathedral, recreating the scale of the 1784 London [Handel Commemoration](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-commemoration) described in Burney's detailed account of 1785.\nThree years later in 1789, Fasch started an informal group in Berlin, formed from singing students and music lovers, that met for rehearsals in private homes.\nIn 1791, with the introduction of a \"presence book\", it became officially known as the [Sing-Akademie zu Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/sing-akademie-zu-berlin) and two years later was granted its own rehearsal room in the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin.\nAs a composer, Fasch had learnt the old methods of counterpoint from Kirnberger and, like the Academy of Ancient Music in London, his initial purpose in founding the Sing-Akademie was to revive interest in neglected and rarely performed sacred vocal music, particularly that of J.S. Bach, Graun and Handel.\nThe society subsequently built up an extensive library of baroque music of all types, including instrumental music.\nDespite Burney's antipathy towards Bach prior to 1800, there was an \"awakening\" of interest in the music of Bach in England, spurred on by the presence of émigré musicians from Germany and Austria, trained in the musical tradition of Bach.\nFrom 1782 [Queen Charlotte](https://bliptext.com/articles/charlotte-of-mecklenburg-strelitz), a dedicated keyboard player, had as music teacher the German-born organist [Charles Frederick Horn](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-frederick-horn); and in the same year [Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/augustus-frederic-christopher-kollmann) was summoned by George III from the [Electorate of Hanover](https://bliptext.com/articles/electorate-of-hanover) to act as organist and schoolmaster at the [Royal German Chapel](https://bliptext.com/articles/queen-s-chapel) at St James's Palace.\nIt is probable that they were instrumental in acquiring for her in 1788 a bound volume from Westphal of Hamburg containing Clavier-Übung III in addition to both books of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier).\nOther German musicians moving in royal circles included [Johann Christian Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christian-bach), [Carl Friedrich Abel](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-friedrich-abel), [Johann Christian Fischer](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-christian-fischer), [Frederick de Nicolay](https://bliptext.com/articles/nicolay-family), [Wilhelm Cramer](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-cramer) and [Johann Samuel Schroeter](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-samuel-schroeter).\nMore significant for the 19th-century English Bach revival was the presence of a younger generation of German-speaking musicians in London, well versed in the theoretical writings of Kirnberger and Marpurg on counterpoint but not dependent on royal patronage; these included John Casper Heck (c. 1740 – 1791), [Charles Frederick Baumgarten](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-frederick-baumgarten) (1738–1824) and Joseph Diettenhofer (c. 1743 – c. 1799).\nHeck in particular promoted fugues in his treatise \"The Art of Playing the Harpsichord\" (1770), describing them later as \"a particular stile of music peculiar to the Organ than the Harpsichord\"; in his biographical entry for Bach in the 1780s in the Musical Library and Universal Magazine, he gave examples of counterpoint from Bach's late period ([Canonic Variations](https://bliptext.com/articles/canonic-variations), [The Art of Fugue](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-art-of-fugue)).\nDiettenhofer prepared A Selection of Ten Miscellaneous Fugues, including his own completion of the unfinished Contrapunctus XIV BWV 1080/19 from The Art of Fugue; prior to their publication in 1802 these were \"tried at the Savoy Church, Strand before several Organists and eminent Musicians ... who were highly gratified and recommended their Publication.\"\nThe enthusiasm of these German musicians was shared by the organist Benjamin Cooke and his student the organist and composer John Wall Calcott.\nCooke knew them through the [Royal Society of Musicians](https://bliptext.com/articles/royal-society-of-musicians) and had himself published a version of The Art of Fugue.\nCalcott corresponded with Kollmann about the musical theories of the Bach school.\nIn 1798, he was one of the founding members of the Concentores Society, a club with a limited membership of twelve professional musicians, dedicated to composition in counterpoint and the stile antico.\n# [C. P. E. Bach | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Carl///Philipp///Emanuel///Bach.jpg]\n# [Johann Kirnberger | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Kirnberger-gallica.jpeg]\n# [Friedrich Marpurg | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Marpurg-Kauke-Berol-1758.jpeg]\n# [Charles Burney | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Charles///Burney.jpg]\n# [Fanny Burney | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Frances///d%27Arblay///%28%27Fanny///Burney%27%29///by///Edward///Francisco///Burney.jpg]\n# [Johann Nikolaus Forkel | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Forkel///1790.jpg]\n# [J. W. von Goethe | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Goethe%2C///Georg///Oswald///May%2C1779.jpg]\n# [J. F. Reichardt | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Reichhardt-1796.png]\n# [Carl Fasch | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Carl-Friedrich-Christian-Fasch.jpeg]\n# [Interior of the Royal German Chapel, St James's Palace | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Charles-Wild-Royal-German-Chapel-1816.png]\n# [Thanksgiving service in 1789 for the recovery of George III in St Paul's Cathedral. The Grand Organ, built by Father Smith with a case designed by Christopher Wren, can be seen in the background. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Father-Smith-Organ-St-Paul%27s-1789.jpg]\n\n## Nineteenth and early twentieth century\n\n### Germany\nBut it is only at his organ that he appears to be at his most sublime, most audacious, in his own element.\nHere he knows neither limits nor goals and works for centuries to come.\nA new printed \"movable type\" edition of Clavier-Übung III, omitting the duets BWV 802–805, was produced by [Ambrosius Kühnel](https://bliptext.com/articles/ambrosius-k-hnel) in 1804 for the Bureau de Musique in Leipzig, his joint publishing venture with [Franz Anton Hoffmeister](https://bliptext.com/articles/franz-anton-hoffmeister) that later became the music publishing firm of [C.F. Peters](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-f-peters).\nPreviously in 1802 Hoffmeister and Kühnel and had published a collection of Bach's keyboard music, including the [Inventions and Sinfonias](https://bliptext.com/articles/inventions-and-sinfonias) and both books of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier), with [Johann Nikolaus Forkel](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-nikolaus-forkel) acting as advisor.\n(The first prelude and fugue BWV 870 from The Well-Tempered Clavier II was published for the first time in 1799 by Kollmann in London. The whole of Book II was published in 1801 in Bonn by [Simrock](https://bliptext.com/articles/nikolaus-simrock), followed by Book I; slightly later Nägeli came out with a third edition in Zürich.) Hoffmeister and Kühnel did not take up Forkel's suggestion of including in their fifteenth volume the four duets BWV 802–805, which were only published by Peters much later in 1840.\nNine of the chorale preludes BWV 675–683 were printed in the four volume [Breitkopf and Härtel](https://bliptext.com/articles/breitkopf-and-h-rtel) collection of chorale preludes prepared between 1800 and 1806 by [Johann Gottfried Schicht](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-schicht).\nForkel and Kollmann corresponded during this period: they shared the same enthusiasm for Bach and the publication of his works.\nWhen Forkel's biography of Bach appeared in Germany in 1802, his publishers Hoffmeister and Kühnel wished to have control over translations into English and French.\nNo complete authorized English translation was produced at the time.\nIn 1812, Kollmann used parts of the biography in a long article on Bach in the Quarterly Musical Register; and an unauthorized anonymous English translation was published by [Boosey & Company](https://bliptext.com/articles/boosey-hawkes) in 1820.\nIn Berlin, on the death of Fasch in 1800, his assistant [Carl Friedrich Zelter](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-friedrich-zelter) took over as the director of the Sing-Akademie.\nThe son of a mason, he himself had been brought up as a master mason, but had cultivated his musical interests in secret, eventually taking composition classes with Fasch.\nHe had been linked to the Sing-Akademie for years and had acquired a reputation as one of the foremost experts on Bach in Berlin.\nIn 1799, he started a correspondence with Goethe on the aesthetics of music, particularly the music of Bach, which was to last until both friends died in 1832.\nAlthough Goethe had a late training in music, he considered it an essential element in his life, arranging concerts at his home and attending them elsewhere.\nIn 1819, Goethe described how the organist from [Berka](https://bliptext.com/articles/bad-berka), Heinrich Friedrich Schütz, trained by Bach's student Kittel, would serenade him for hours with the music of the masters, from Bach to Beethoven, so that Goethe could acquaint himself with music from a historical perspective.\nIn 1827, he wrote:\n\"On this occasion I recalled the good organist of Berka; for it was there, in perfect repose without extraneous disturbance, that I first formed an impression of your great maestro. I said to myself, it is as if the eternal harmony were conversing with itself, as it may have done in God's breast before the creation of the world; that is the way it move deep within me, and it was if I neither possessed or needed ears, nor any other sense—least of all, the eyes.\"\nCommenting in the same year on Bach's writing for the organ, Zelter wrote to Goethe:\n\"The organ is Bach's own peculiar soul, into which he breathes immediately the living breath. His theme is the feeling just born, which, like the spark from the stone, invariably springs forth, from the first chance pressure of the foot upon the pedals. Thus by degrees he warms to his subject, till he has isolated himself, and feels alone, and then an inexhaustible stream passes out into the ocean.\"\nZelter insisted on the pedals as the key to Bach's organ writing: \"One might say of old Bach, that the pedals were the ground-element of the development of his unfathomable intellect, and that without feet, he could never have attained his intellectual height.\"\nZelter was instrumental in building up the Sing-Akademie, broadening their repertoire to instrumental music and encouraging the growing library, another important repository for Bach manuscripts.\nZelter had been responsible for Mendelssohn's father [Abraham Mendelssohn](https://bliptext.com/articles/abraham-mendelssohn) becoming a member of the Sing-Akademie in 1796.\nAs a consequence, one of the major new forces behind the library became [Sara Levy](https://bliptext.com/articles/itzig-family), the great-aunt of [Felix Mendelssohn](https://bliptext.com/articles/felix-mendelssohn), who had assembled one of the most-important private collections of 18th-century music in Europe.\nAn accomplished harpsichordist, Sara Levy's teacher had been [Wilhelm Friedemann Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-friedemann-bach) and she had been a patroness of [C.P.E. Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-p-e-bach), circumstances which gave her family close contacts with Bach and resulted in his music enjoying a privileged status in the Mendelssohn household.\nFelix's mother Lea, who had studied under Kirnberger, gave him his first music lessons.\nIn 1819, Zelter was appointed as the composition teacher of Felix and his sister [Fanny](https://bliptext.com/articles/fanny-mendelssohn); he taught counterpoint and music theory according to the methods of Kirnberger.\nFelix's piano teacher was [Ludwig Berger](https://bliptext.com/articles/ludwig-berger-composer), a pupil of [Muzio Clementi](https://bliptext.com/articles/muzio-clementi), and his organ teacher was [August Wilhelm Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/august-wilhelm-bach) (unrelated to J.S. Bach), who had himself studied musical theory under Zelter.\nA.W. Bach was organist of the [Marienkirche, Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-mary-s-church-berlin), which had an organ built in 1723 by [Joachim Wagner](https://bliptext.com/articles/joachim-wagner).\nMendelssohn's organ lessons were conducted on the Wagner organ, with Fanny present; they commenced in 1820 and lasted for less than two years.\nIt is probable that he learnt some of J. S. Bach's organ works, which had remained in the repertoire of many Berlin organists; his choice would have been limited, because at that stage his pedal technique was still rudimentary.\nIn autumn 1821 the twelve-year-old Mendelssohn accompanied Zelter on a trip to [Weimar](https://bliptext.com/articles/weimar), stopping on the way in Leipzig where they were shown the cantor's room in the choir school of the Thomaskirche by Bach's successor Schicht.\nThey stayed two weeks in Weimar with Goethe, to whom Mendelssohn played extensively on the piano each day.\nAll Mendelssohn's music lessons stopped by summer 1822 when his family left for Switzerland.\nIn the 1820s, Mendelssohn visited Goethe four more times in Weimar, the last time being in 1830, a year after his resounding success in reviving Bach's [St Matthew Passion](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-matthew-passion) in Berlin, with the collaboration of Zelter and members of the Sing-Akademie.\nOn this last trip, again by way of Leipzig, he stayed two weeks in Weimar and had daily meetings with Goethe, by then in his eighties.\nHe later gave an account to Zelter of a visit to the church of St Peter and St Paul where Bach's cousin [Johann Gottfried Walther](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-gottfried-walther) had been organist and where his two eldest sons had been baptized:\n\"One day Goethe asked me if I would not care to pay a compliment to craftsmanship and call on the organist, who might let me see and hear the organ in the town church. I did so, and the instrument gave me great pleasure ... The organist gave me the choice of hearing something learned or for the people ... so I asked for something learned. But it was not much to be proud of. He modulated around enough to make one giddy, but nothing unusual came of it; he made a number of entries, but no fugue was forthcoming. When my turn came, I let loose with the D minor toccata of Bach and remarked that this was at the same time something learned and for the people too, at least some of them. But see, I had hardly started to play when the superintendent dispatched his valet downstairs with the message that this playing had to be stopped right away because it was a weekday and he could not study with that much noise going on.\nGoethe was very much amused by this story.\" In 1835, Mendelssohn was appointed director of the [Gewandhaus Orchester](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig-gewandhaus-orchestra) in [Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig), a post he held until his death in 1847 at the age of 38. He soon met other Bach enthusiasts including [Robert Schumann](https://bliptext.com/articles/robert-schumann), one year his junior, who had moved to [Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig) in 1830. Having been taught piano by J.G. Kuntsch, organist at the Marienkirche in [Zwickau](https://bliptext.com/articles/zwickau), Schumann seems to have started developing a deeper interest in Bach's organ music in 1832. In his diary he recorded sightreading the six organ fugues BWV 543–548 for four hands with [Clara Wieck](https://bliptext.com/articles/clara-wieck), the twelve-year-old daughter of his [Leipzig](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig) piano teacher [Friedrich Wieck](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wieck) and his future wife. Schumann later acknowledged Bach as the composer who had influenced him most. In addition to collecting his works, Schumann started with [Friedrich Wieck](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-wieck) a new fortnightly music magazine, the [Neue Zeitschrift für Musik](https://bliptext.com/articles/neue-zeitschrift-f-r-musik), in which he promoted the music of Bach as well as that of contemporary composers, such as Chopin and Liszt.\nOne of the main contributors was his friend [Carl Becker](https://bliptext.com/articles/carl-ferdinand-becker-organist), organist at the [Peterskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-peter-leipzig) and in 1837 the [Nikolaikirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-nicholas-church-leipzig).\nSchumann remained as editor-in-chief until 1843, the year in which Mendelssohn became the founding director of the [Leipzig Conservatory](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig-conservatory).\nSchumann was appointed professor for piano and composition at the conservatory; other appointments included [Moritz Hauptmann](https://bliptext.com/articles/moritz-hauptmann) (harmony and counterpoint), [Ferdinand David](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinand-david-musician) (violin) and Becker (organ and music theory).\nOne of Mendelssohn's regrets since 1822 was that he had not had sufficient opportunity to develop his pedal technique to his satisfaction, despite having given public organ recitals.\nMendelssohn explained later how difficult gaining access to organs had already been back in Berlin: \"If only people knew how I had to plead and pay and cajole the organists in Berlin, just to be allowed to play the organ for one hour—and how ten times during such an hour I had to stop for this or that reason, then they would certainly speak differently.\"\nElsewhere, on his travels, he had only sporadic opportunities to practice, but not often on pedalboards matching the standard of those in northern Germany, especially in England.\nThe English organist Edward Holmes commented in 1835 that Mendelssohn's recitals in [St Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral) \"gave a taste of his quality which in extemperaneous performance is certainly of the highest kind ... he has not we believe kept up that constant mechanical exercise of the instrument which is necessary to execute elaborate written works.\"\nIn 1837, despite having performed the St Anne prelude and fugue in England to great acclaim, on his return to Germany Mendelssohn still felt dissatisfied, writing that, \"This time I have resolved to practice the organ her in earnest; after all, if everyone takes me for an organist, I am determined, after the fact, to become one.\"\nIt was only in the summer of 1839 that an opportunity arose when he spent six weeks on holiday in Frankfurt.\nThere he had daily access to the pedal piano of his wife Cécile's cousin Friedrich Schlemmer and, probably through him, access to the organ in the [Katharinenkirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-catherine-s-church-frankfurt) built in 1779–1780 by Franz and Philipp Stumm.\nAugust 1840 saw the fruits of Mendelssohn's labour: his first organ recital in the [Thomaskirche](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomaskirche).\nThe proceeds from the concert were to go towards a statue of Bach in the vicinity of the Thomaskirche.\nMost of the repertoire in the concert had been played by Mendelssohn elsewhere, but nevertheless as he wrote to his mother, \"I practised so much the previous eight days that I could barely stand on my own two feet and walked along the street in nothing but organ passages.\"\nThe concert was wholly devoted to Bach's music, except for an improvised \"free fantasy\" at the end.\nIn the audience was the elderly [Friedrich Rochlitz](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-friedrich-rochlitz), founding editor of the [Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung](https://bliptext.com/articles/allgemeine-musikalische-zeitung), a journal that had promoted the music of Bach: Rochlitz is reported to have declared afterwards, \"I shall depart now in peace, for never shall I hear anything finer or more sublime.\"\nThe recital started with the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552.\nThe only chorale prelude was Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele BWV 654 from the [Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-eighteen-chorale-preludes), a favourite of both Mendelssohn and Schumann.\nUntil that time very few of these or the shorter chorale preludes from the [Orgelbüchlein](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein) had been published.\nMendelssohn prepared an edition of both sets that was published in 1844 by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig and by Coventry and Hollier in London.\nAt about the same time the publishing house of Peters in Leipzig produced an edition of Bach's complete organ works in nine volumes edited by [Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl](https://bliptext.com/articles/friedrich-konrad-griepenkerl) and Ferdinand Roitzsch.\nThe E flat prelude and fugue BWV 552 appears in Volume III (1845), the chorale preludes BWV 669–682, 684–689 in Volume VI and VII (1847) and BWV 683 in Volume V (1846) with chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchlein.\nIn 1845, while Robert was recovering from a nervous breakdown and a few months prior to the completion of his [piano concerto](https://bliptext.com/articles/piano-concerto-schumann), the Schumanns rented a pedalboard to place under their upright piano.\nAs Clara recorded at the time, \"On April 24th we got on hire a pedal-board to attach below the pianoforte, and we had great pleasure from it. Our chief object was to practice organ playing. But Robert soon found a higher interest in this instrument and composed some sketches and studies for it which are sure to find high favour as something quite new.\"\nThe pedalflügel base on which the piano was placed had 29 keys connected to 29 separate hammers and strings encased at the rear of the piano.\nThe pedal board was manufactured by the same Leipzig firm of Louis Schöne that had provided the grand pedal piano in 1843 for the use of students at the Leipzig Conservatory.\nBefore composing any of his own fugues and canons for organ and pedal piano, Schumann had made a careful study of Bach's organ works, of which he had an extensive collection.\nClara Schumann's Bach book, an anthology of organ works by Bach, now in the archives of the [Riemenschneider Bach Institute](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-riemenschneider), contains the whole of Clavier-Übung III, with detailed analytic markings by Robert Schumann.\nOn the centenary of Bach's death in 1850, Schumann, Becker, Hauptmann and [Otto Jahn](https://bliptext.com/articles/otto-jahn) founded the [Bach Gesellschaft](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach-gesellschaft), an institution dedicated to publishing, without any editorial additions, the complete works of Bach through the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel.\nThe project was completed in 1900.\nThe third volume, devoted to keyboard works, contained the [Inventions and Sinfonias](https://bliptext.com/articles/inventions-and-sinfonias) and the four parts of the Clavier-Übung.\nIt was published in 1853, with Becker as editor.\nAt the end of September 1853, having been recommended by the violinist and composer [Joseph Joachim](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-joachim), the twenty-year-old [Johannes Brahms](https://bliptext.com/articles/johannes-brahms) appeared on the doorstep of the Schumann's home in [Düsseldorf](https://bliptext.com/articles/d-sseldorf), staying with them until early November.\nLike Schumann, perhaps even more so, Brahms was deeply influenced by Bach's music.\nShortly after his arrival he gave a performance on the piano of Bach's organ toccata in F BWV 540/1 in the house of [Joseph Euler](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-euler), a friend of Schumann.\nThree months after Brahms' visit, Schumann's mental state deteriorated: after a [suicide attempt](https://bliptext.com/articles/suicide-attempt), Schumann committed himself to the sanitorium in [Endenich](https://bliptext.com/articles/endenich) near [Bonn](https://bliptext.com/articles/bonn), where, after several visits from Brahms, he died in 1856.\nFrom its inception, Brahms subscribed to the Bach-Gesellschaft, of which he became an editor in 1881.\nAn organist himself and a scholar of early and baroque music, he carefully annotated and analysed his copies of the organ works; he made a separate study of Bach's use of parallel fifths and octaves in his organ counterpoint.\nBrahms' Bach collection is now preserved in the [Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde](https://bliptext.com/articles/gesellschaft-der-musikfreunde) in [Vienna](https://bliptext.com/articles/vienna), of which he became musical director and conductor in 1872.\nIn 1875, he conducted a performance in the [Musikverein](https://bliptext.com/articles/musikverein) of an orchestral arrangement by [Bernhard Scholz](https://bliptext.com/articles/bernhard-scholz) of the prelude in E flat BWV 552/1.\nIn 1896, a year before he died, Brahms composed his own set of [eleven chorale preludes](https://bliptext.com/articles/eleven-chorale-preludes) for organ, Op.122.\nLike Schumann, who turned to Bach counterpoint as a form of therapy in 1845 during his recovery from mental illness, Brahms also viewed Bach's music as salutory during his final illness.\nAs Brahms' friend and biographer [Max Kalbeck](https://bliptext.com/articles/max-kalbeck) reported:\n\"He complained about his situation and said 'It's lasting so long.' He also told me that he was not able to listen to any music. The piano remained closed: he could only read Bach, that was all. He pointed to the piano, where on the music stand, which stood on top of the closed cover, lay a score of Bach.\"\n[Max Reger](https://bliptext.com/articles/max-reger) was a composer whose dedication to Bach has been described as a \"monomaniacal identification\" by the musicologist Johannes Lorenzen: in letters he frequently referred to \"Allvater Bach\".\nDuring his life, Reger arranged or edited 428 of Bach's compositions, including arrangements of 38 organ works for piano solo, piano duet or two pianos, starting in 1895.\nAt the same time he produced a large number of his own organ works.\nAlready in 1894, the organist and musicologist [Heinrich Reimann](https://bliptext.com/articles/heinrich-reimann), reacting to modernist trends in German music, had encouraged a return to the style of Bach, stating that, \"Beyond this style there is no salvation ... Bach becomes for that reason the criterion of our art of writing for the organ.\"\nIn 1894–1895 Reger composed his first suite for organ in E minor which was published in 1896 as his Op.16 with a dedication \"To the Memory of Johann Sebastian Bach\".\nThe original intention was a sonata in three movements: an introduction and triple fugue; an adagio on the chorale [Es ist das Heil uns kommen her](https://bliptext.com/articles/es-ist-das-heil-uns-kommen-her); and a [passacaglia](https://bliptext.com/articles/passacaglia).\nIn the final version, Reger inserted an [intermezzo](https://bliptext.com/articles/intermezzo) (a scherzo and trio) as the third movement and expanded the adagio to contain a central section on the Lutheran hymns Aus tiefer Not and [O Haupt voll Blut und Bunden](https://bliptext.com/articles/o-sacred-head-now-wounded).\nIn 1896, Reger sent a copy of the suite to Brahms, his only contact.\nIn the letter he asked permission to dedicate a future work to Brahms, to which he received the reply, \"Permission for that is certainly not necessary, however! I had to smile, since you approach me about this matter and at the same time enclose a work whose all-too-bold dedication terrifies me!\"\nThe overall form of the suite follows the scheme of the eighth organ sonata Op.132 (1882) of [Joseph Rheinberger](https://bliptext.com/articles/joseph-rheinberger) and the symphonies of Brahms.\nThe final passacaglia was a conscious reference to Bach's organ [passacaglia in C minor](https://bliptext.com/articles/passacaglia-and-fugue-in-c-minor-bwv-582) BWV 582/1, but has clear affinities with the last movements of both Rheinberger's sonata and [Brahms' fourth symphony](https://bliptext.com/articles/symphony-no-4-brahms).\nThe second movement is an adagio in [ternary form](https://bliptext.com/articles/ternary-form), with the beginning of the central section directly inspired by the setting of Aus tiefer Not in the pedaliter chorale prelude BWV 686 of Clavier-Übung III, paying homage to Bach as a composer of instrumental counterpoint.\nIt has a similarly dense texture of six parts, two of them in the pedal.\nThe outer sections are directly inspired by the musical form of the chorale prelude O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß BWV 622 from the Orgelbüchlein.\nThe suite was first performed in the [Trinity Church, Berlin](https://bliptext.com/articles/holy-trinity-church-berlin) in 1897 by the organist [Karl Straube](https://bliptext.com/articles/karl-straube), a student of Reimann.\nAccording to a later account by one of Straube's students, Reimann had described the work as \"so difficult as to be almost unplayable\", which had \"provoked Straube's virtuosic ambition, so that he set about mastering the work, which placed him before utterly new technical problems, with unflagging energy.\"\nStraube gave two further performances in 1898, in the cathedral at [Wesel](https://bliptext.com/articles/wesel), where he had recently been appointed organist, and prior to that in [Frankfurt](https://bliptext.com/articles/frankfurt), where he met Reger for the first time.\nIn 1902, Straube was appointed organist at the Thomaskirche and in the following year cantor; he became the main proponent and performer of Reger's organ works.\n# [Kollmann, 1799: Engraving of the Sun with Bach at the centre, included by Forkel in the Allgem. Mus. Zeitung | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Kollmann-Sun.png]\n# [Sing-Akademie in 1843 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Gaertner2.jpg]\n# [Carl Friedrich Zelter | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Carl-Friedrich-Zelter.jpeg]\n# [Felix Mendelssohn | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Mendelssohn-Jaeger-1870.jpg]\n# [Organ in the Marienkirche, Berlin | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Wagner-Orgel///in///der///Marienkirche///zu///Berlin.jpg]\n# [Engraving of the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Weimar, 1840 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Weimar-1840-Herderplatz-Oeder.jpg]\n# [Felix Mendelssohn, 1836: watercolour of the Gewandhaus | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Gewandhaus-1836.jpg]\n# [Robert Schumann | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Robert///Schumann///1839.jpg]\n# [Original Leipzig Conservatory in the courtyard of the Gewandhaus | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Leipziger///Konservatorium///der///Musik.JPEG]\n# [Organ in the Katharinenkirche, Frankfurt in 1900 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Frankfurt///Katharinenkirche///Orgel///um///1900.jpg]\n# [Eduard Holzstich, 1850: watercolour of the Bach Memorial (1843) in front of the Thomaskirche | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Altes///Bachdenkmal///%28Leipzig%29///-///Holzstich.jpg]\n# [Programme for Mendelssohn's concert in the Thomaskirche In August 1840 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Mendelssohn-Thomaskirche-1840.png]\n# [Clara Wieck | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/JH///Schramm///-///Clara///Wieck///%28Zeichnung///1840%29.jpg]\n# [Johannes Brahms at the age of 20 in a drawing made in 1853 at Schumann's home in Düsseldorf by the French organist-artist Jean-Joseph Bonaventure Laurens | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Brahms-Laurens-1853.png]\n# [Musikverein in Vienna | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Wiener///Musikverein///1.jpg]\n# [Max Reger | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/N%C3%B6lken%2C///Reger.jpg]\n# [Central section of the adagio from Reger's first suite for organ, Op. 16 (1896) | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Reger-Aus-tiefer-Not-Op16.png]\n\n### England\nThe people who did attend appeared very much delighted, & some of them (especially the Visitors from Norwich) were good Judges, & of course tickled with such a Row as we gave them upon the most magnificent Organ I have yet heard, & I think in which you would agree with me.\nYour MS. Music Book has been of special Service to us: the triple fugue in E♭ was received with the same kind of Wonder that people express when they see an Air Balloon ascend for the first time: Smith I believe planted two or three Spies to watch the Effects of such Sound upon their Countenance, & consequently Mind.\nApart from prevailing musical tastes and the difficulty in acquiring manuscript copies, a fundamental difference between the design of English and German organs made Bach's organ output less accessible to English organists, namely the absence of [pedalboards](https://bliptext.com/articles/pedal-keyboard).\nHandel's principal works for organ, his [organ concertos Op. 4](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-organ-concertos-op-4) and [Op. 7](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-organ-concertos-op-7), with the possible exception of op.7 No.1, all appear to have been written for a single manual [chamber organ](https://bliptext.com/articles/chamber-organ).\nUntil the 1830s, most church organs in England did not have separate pedal pipes and before that the few organs that had pedalboards were all pull-downs, i.e. pedals that operated pipes connected to the manual stops.\nPedalboards rarely contained more than 13 keys (an octave) or exceptionally 17 keys (an octave and a half).\nPull-down pedalboards became more common from 1790 onwards.\nThe pedaliter chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III require a 30-key pedalboard, going from CC to f. It is for this reason that the Bach awakening in England started with clavier compositions being played on the organ or organ compositions being adapted either for piano duet or for two (or sometimes three) players at an organ.\nThe newfound interest in Bach's organ music, as well as the desire to reproduce the grand and thunderous choral effects of the 1784 [Handel Commemoration](https://bliptext.com/articles/handel-commemoration), eventually influenced organ builders in England.\nBy the 1840s, after a series of experiments with pedals and pedal pipes starting around 1800 (in the spirit of the [Industrial Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/industrial-revolution)), newly constructed and existing organs started to be fitted with dedicated diapason pipes for the pedals, according to the well-established German model.\nThe organ in [St Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral) commissioned in 1694 from [Father Smith](https://bliptext.com/articles/bernard-smith-organ-builder) and completed in 1697, with a case by [Christopher Wren](https://bliptext.com/articles/christopher-wren), had exceptionally already been fitted with a 25-key pedalboard (two octaves C-c') of pull-down German pedals in the first half of the 18th century, probably as early as 1720, on the recommendation of Handel.\nBy the 1790s, these had been linked to separate pedal pipes, described with detailed illustrations in [Rees's Cyclopædia](https://bliptext.com/articles/rees-s-cyclop-dia) (1819).\nThe four-manual \"monster\" organ in [Birmingham Town Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/birmingham-town-hall), constructed in 1834 by William Hill, had three sets of pedal pipes connected to the pedalboard, which could also be operated independently by a two-octave keyboard to the left of the manual keyboards.\nHill's experiment of installing gigantic 32-foot pedal pipes, some currently still present, was only partially successful, as their scale did not permit them to sound properly.\nThe organist, composer and music teacher [Samuel Wesley](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-wesley-composer-born-1766) (1766–1837) played a significant role in awakening interest in Bach's music in England, mostly in the period 1808–1811.\nAfter a lull in his own career, in the first half of 1806 he made a hand copy of Nägeli's Zürich edition of [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-well-tempered-clavier).\nIn early 1808 Wesley visited [Charles Burney](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-burney) in his rooms in Chelsea where he played for him from the copy of Book I of the '48' that Burney had received from [C.P.E. Bach](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-p-e-bach) in 1772.\nAs Wesley later recorded, Burney \"was very delighted ... and expressed his Wonder how much abstruse Harmony & such perfect & enchanting Melody could have been so marvelously united!\" Wesley subsequently consulted Burney, now a convert to the music of Bach, on his project to publish his own corrected transcription, stating, \"I believe I can fairly securely affirm that mine is now the most correct copy in England.\"\nThis project was eventually undertaken in with [Charles Frederick Horn](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-frederick-horn), published in four installments between 1810 and 1813.\nIn June 1808 after a concert the [Hanover Square Rooms](https://bliptext.com/articles/hanover-square-rooms) during which Weseley performed some excerpts from the '48', he commented that, \"this admirable Musick might be played into Fashion; you see I have only risked one modest Experiment, & it has electrified the Town just in the way that we wanted.\"\nFurther concerts took place there and in the Surrey Chapel with [Benjamin Jacob](https://bliptext.com/articles/benjamin-jacob), a fellow organist with whom Wesley corresponded copiously an effusively about Bach.\nThe musicologist and organist [William Crotch](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-crotch), another advocate of Bach, lectured on Bach in 1809 in the Hanover Square Rooms prior to publishing his edition of the E major fugue BWV 878/2 from The Well-Tempered Clavier II.\nIn the introduction, after commenting that Bach fugues were \"very difficult of execution, profoundly learned and highly ingenious\", he described their \"prevailing style\" as \"the sublime\".\nBy 1810, Wesley had stated his intention to perform the E flat fugue BWV 552/2 from Clavier-Übung III in [St. Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral).\nIn 1812, in the Hanover Square Rooms he performed an arrangement of the E flat prelude for organ duet and orchestra with the arranger [Vincent Novello](https://bliptext.com/articles/vincent-novello), founder of the music publishing firm [Novello & Co](https://bliptext.com/articles/novello-co), that would later bring out an English edition of Bach's complete organ works.\nIn 1827, the E flat fugue had been arranged for organ or piano duet by Jacob and was even performed by three players two years later on the organ in St. James, Bermondsey, where the pedal could be played on a supplementary keyboard.\nIt had also been used for auditions for organists: Wesley's son [Samuel Sebastian Wesley](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-sebastian-wesley) himself played it in 1827, when seeking employment (unsuccessfully).\nThe chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III were also performed during this period: in his letters to Benjamin, Wesley mentions in particular Wir glauben BWV 680, which had become known as the \"giant fugue\", because of the striding figure in the pedal part.\nBy 1837, pedal technique on the organ had developed sufficiently in England that the composer and organist Elizabeth Stirling (1819–1895) could give concerts in [St Katherine's, Regent's Park](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-katharine-s-by-the-tower) and [St. Sepulchre's, Holborn](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-sepulchre-s-holborn) containing several of the pedaliter chorale preludes (BWV 676, 678, 682, 684) as well as the St Anne Prelude BWV 552/1.\n(These were the first public recitals in England by a female organist; in 1838 she performed BWV 669–670 and the St Anne fugue BWV 552/2 at St Sepulchre's.) In the same year Wesley and his daughter were invited to the organ loft of [Christ Church, Newgate](https://bliptext.com/articles/christ-church-newgate) for a Bach recital by [Felix Mendelssohn](https://bliptext.com/articles/felix-mendelssohn).\nAs Mendelssohn recorded in his diary,\n\"Old Wesley, trembling and bent, shook hands with me and at my request sat down at the organ bench to play, a thing he had not done for many years. The frail old man improvised with great artistry and splendid facility, so that I could not but admire. His daughter was so moved by the sight of it all that she fainted and could not stop crying and sobbing.\"\nA week later, Mendelssohn played the St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 on the organ in Birmingham Town Hall.\nPrior to the concert, he confided in a letter to his mother:\n\"Ask Fanny, dear Mother, what she would say if I were to play in Birmingham the Bach organ prelude in E flat major and the fugue that stands at the end of the same volume. I think she will grumble at me, but I think I would be right all the same. The prelude especially would be very acceptable to the English, I would think, and both in the prelude and in the fugue one can show off the piano, pianissimo, and the whole range of the organ—and it is not a dull piece either in my view!\"\nWesley died the following month.\nMendelssohn made a total of 10 visits to Britain, the first in 1829, the last in 1847.\nHis first visit, when he stayed with his friend the pianist and composer [Ignaz Moscheles](https://bliptext.com/articles/ignaz-moscheles), had been a resounding success and Mendelssohn had been embraced by all strata of British musical society.\nOn his fourth trip to Britain in 1833 he was accompanied by his father and heard the seventeen-year-old pianist-composer [William Sterndale Bennett](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-sterndale-bennett) performing his first piano concerto.\nA musical prodigy like Mendelssohn, at the age of 10 Sterndale Bennett had entered the [Royal Academy of Music](https://bliptext.com/articles/royal-academy-of-music), where he had been taught by Crotch.\nHe was also an accomplished organist, familiar with the works of Bach.\n(After brief appointments as organist, he subsequently practised on the organ in Hanover Square Rooms, later surprising his son with his mastery of the harder pedal passages on a pedal-piano.) Mendelssohn immediately invited him to Germany.\nReportedly when Sterndale Bennett asked to go as his student, Mendelssohn replied, \"No, no, you must come to be my friend.\"\nSterndale Bennett eventually visited Leipzig for 6 months from October 1836 to June 1837.\nThere he made friends with Schumann, who became his soul mate and drinking partner.\nSterndale Bennett made only two further trips to Germany during the lifetimes of Mendelssohn and Schumann, in 1838–1839 and 1842, although he retained their friendship and helped arrange Mendelssohn's visits to Britain.\nHe became a firm proponent of Bach, organising concerts of his chamber music in London.\nHe was one of the founders in 1849 of the original [Bach Society](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach-society) in London, devoted to the performance and collection of Bach's works, principally choral.\nIn 1854, he staged the first performance in England of the [St. Matthew Passion](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-matthew-passion) in the Hanover Square Rooms.\nAlready in 1829, Mendelssohn had become friends with [Thomas Attwood](https://bliptext.com/articles/thomas-attwood-composer), who had studied with Mozart and since 1796 had been organist of St Paul's Cathedral.\nThrough Attwood Mendelssohn gained access to the organ at St Paul's, which was suitable for Bach, despite the unusual alignment of the pedalboard.\nIn 1837, however, during a recital at St Paul's, just before playing to Wesley, the air supply to the organ had suddenly been interrupted; in a later account, that he had to retell annoyingly often, Mendelssohn related that George Cooper, the sub-organist,\n\"ran off like a madman, quite red with anger, was a way a little while, and finally returned with the news that during the performance the organ-blower—on the instructions from the beadle, who had not been able to get people to leave the church and was forced to stay on longer against his will—had left the bellows, locked the door to them and left ... Shame! Shame! was called out from all sides. Three or four clerics appeared and tore into the beadle furiously in front of all the people, threatening him with dismissal.\"\n[Cooper's son](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-cooper-organist), also called George, became the next sub-organist at St Paul's. He promoted the organ music of Bach and in 1845 produced the first English edition of the chorale prelude Wir glauben BWV 680 from Clavier-Übung III, published by Hollier & Addison, which he dubbed the \"Giant Fugue\" because of its striding pedal part.\nIn the second half of the 19th century, this became the best-known of all the pedaliter chorale preludes from\nClavier-Übung III and was republished separately several times by Novello in organ anthologies at an intermediate level.\nMendelssohn's eighth visit occurred in 1842 after the accession of [Queen Victoria](https://bliptext.com/articles/queen-victoria) to the throne.\nHer husband [Prince Albert](https://bliptext.com/articles/albert-prince-consort) was a keen organist and, under his influence, the music of Bach started to be performed at royal concerts.\nOn the second of his two invitations to [Buckingham Palace](https://bliptext.com/articles/buckingham-palace), Mendelssohn improvised on Albert's organ and accompanied the queen in two songs by Fanny and himself.\nBetween these two visits, he once more performed the St Anne prelude and fugue, this time before an audience of 3,000 in [Exeter Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/exeter-hall) in a concert organized by the Sacred Harmonic Society.\nIn London there were few church organs with German pedal boards going down to CC: those which did included [St. Paul's Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-paul-s-cathedral), [Christ Church, Newgate](https://bliptext.com/articles/christ-church-newgate) and [St. Peter's, Cornhill](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-peter-s-cornhill), where Mendelssohn frequently performed solo recitals.\nDuring his last visit in 1847, he once more entertained Victoria and Albert in Buckingham Palace in May before playing a few days later the prelude and fugue on the name of \"BACH\" BWV 898 on the barely functional organ in Hanover Square Rooms during one of the Ancient Concerts organized by Prince Albert, with [William Gladstone](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-ewart-gladstone) in the audience.\nIn the late 1840s and early 1850s, organ building in England became more stable and less experimental, taking stock of traditions in Germany and innovations in France, particularly from the new generation of organ builders such as [Aristide Cavaillé-Coll](https://bliptext.com/articles/aristide-cavaill-coll).\nOne of the main names in organ building in England in the second half of the 19th century was [Henry Willis](https://bliptext.com/articles/henry-willis).\nThe manner in which the organ for [St. George's Hall, Liverpool](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-george-s-hall-liverpool) was planned and constructed marks the transition from what Nicholas Thistlethwaite calls the \"insular movement\" of the 1840s to the adoption of the established German system.\nPlanning formally started on the organ in 1845: the main advisor to [Liverpool Corporation](https://bliptext.com/articles/liverpool-corporation) was [Samuel Sebastian Wesley](https://bliptext.com/articles/samuel-sebastian-wesley), son of Samuel Wesley and an accomplished organist, particularly of Bach.\nHe worked in consultation with a panel of university professors of music, who often disagreed with his eccentric suggestions.\nWhen Wesley tried to argue about the range of manual keyboards, justifying himself by the possibility of playing octaves with the left hand, he was reminded by the professors that the use of octaves was more common among pianists than first-rate organists and moreover that when he had been organist at Leeds Parish Church, \"the dust on the half-dozen lowest keys on the GG manuals remained undisturbed for months.\"\nWillis was commissioned to build the organ only in 1851, after he had impressed the committee with the organ for [Winchester Cathedral](https://bliptext.com/articles/winchester-cathedral) he had on display at [The Crystal Palace](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-crystal-palace) during the [Great Exhibition](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-exhibition).\nThe completed organ had four manual keyboards and a thirty key pedalboard, with 17 sets of pedal pipes and a range from CC to f. The instrument had unequal temperament and, as Wesley had stipulated, the air supply came from two large underground bellows powered by an eight horse-power steam engine.\nAmong the innovations introduced by Willis were the cylindrical pedal-valve, the pneumatic lever and the [combination action](https://bliptext.com/articles/combination-action), the latter two features being adopted widely by English organ builders in the second half of the 19th century.\nThe organ was inaugurated in 1855 by [William Thomas Best](https://bliptext.com/articles/william-thomas-best), who later that year was appointed resident organist, attracting crowds of thousands to hear his playing.\nIn 1867, he had the organ retuned to equal temperament.\nHe remained in his post until 1894, giving performances elsewhere in England, including at the Crystal Palace, [St James's Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-james-s-hall) and the [Royal Albert Hall](https://bliptext.com/articles/royal-albert-hall).\nThe St Anne prelude and fugue BWV 552 was used by Best to start off the series of Popular Monday Concerts at St James's Hall in 1859; and later in 1871 to inaugurate the newly built Willis organ in the Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of Queen Victoria.\n# [Organ in Birmingham Town Hall constructed in 1834 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/William-Hill-organ-Birmingham-Town-Hall-1850.png]\n# [Funeral of the Duke of Wellington in St Paul's Cathedral, 1852, with the Father Smith organ in the background | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Funeral-Wellington-1852-St-Paul%27s.jpg]\n# [Samuel Wesley | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Samuel///Wesley///organist.jpg]\n# [William Crotch | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/William-Crotch-1822.png]\n# [Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, 1830: Hanover Square Rooms | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Hanover-Square-Rooms.png]\n# [Vincent Novello | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Vincent///Novello///by///Edward///Petre///Novello.jpg]\n# [George Shepherd, 1812: Watercolour of Christ Church, Newgate, designed by Christopher Wren | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Christ-Church-Newgate-1812-Shepherd.jpg]\n# [W. Sterndale Bennett | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/William-Sterndale-Bennett-1830-Thomas-Henry-Gregg.jpg]\n# [Ignaz Moscheles | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Ignaz-Moscheles-1820.jpeg]\n# [G. Durand, 1842: engraving of Prince Albert playing the organ in the Old Library in Buckingham Palace in the presence of Queen Victoria and Felix Mendelssohn | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/PrinceAlbert///QueenVictoria///Mendelssohn.jpeg]\n# [St. George's Hall, Liverpool, with organ built by Henry Willis in 1855 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Willis-Organ-St-George%27s-Hall-Liverpool.jpg]\n# [William Thomas Best (1826–1897) | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/William-Thomas-Best.jpg]\n\n### France\nOne day I was passing by the small rooms on the first floor of the Maison Érard, reserved only for great pianists, for their practice and lessons.\nAt the time the rooms were all empty, except one, from which could be heard the great Triple-Prelude in E flat by Bach played remarkably well on a pedalier.\nI listened, riveted to the spot by the expressive, crystal-clear playing of a little old man, frail in appearance, who, without seeming to suspect my presence, continued the piece right to the end.\nThen, turning to me: 'Do you know this music?' he asked.\nI replied that, as an organ pupil in Franck's class at the Conservatoire, I could scarcely ignore such a fine work.\n'Play me something' he added, giving up the piano stool for me.\nAlthough somewhat over-awed, I managed to play quite cleanly the C Major Fugue ... Without comment he returned to the piano saying 'I am Charles-Valentin Alkan and I'm just preparing for my annual series of six 'Petits Concerts' at which I play only the finest things'.\nIn France, the Bach revival was slower to take root.\nBefore the late 1840s, after the upheaval caused by the [French Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-revolution), Bach was rarely performed in public concerts in France and it was preferred that church organists play operatic arias or popular airs instead of counterpoint.\nOne exception was a public performance in the Paris Conservatoire in December 1833, repeated two years later in the Salons Pape, of the opening allegro of Bach's concerto for three harpsichords BWV 1063, played on pianos by [Chopin](https://bliptext.com/articles/chopin), [Liszt](https://bliptext.com/articles/liszt) and [Hiller](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinand-hiller).\n[Berlioz](https://bliptext.com/articles/berlioz) later described their choice as \"stupid and ridiculous\", unworthy of their talents.\n[Charles Gounod](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-gounod), having won the [Prix de [Rome](https://bliptext.com/articles/rome)](https://bliptext.com/articles/prix-de-rome) in 1839, spent three years in the [Villa Medici](https://bliptext.com/articles/villa-medici) in [Rome](https://bliptext.com/articles/rome), where he developed a passionate interest in the polyphonic music of Palestrina.\nHe also met Mendelssohn's sister Fanny, herself an accomplished concert pianist and by then married to the artist [Wilhelm Hensel](https://bliptext.com/articles/wilhelm-hensel): Gounod described her as \"an outstanding musician and a woman of superior intelligence, small, slender, but gifted with an energy which showed in her deep-set eyes and in her burning look\".\nIn response Fanny noted in her diary that Gounod was \"passionately fond of music in a way I have rarely seen before.\"\nShe introduced Gounod to the music of Bach, playing from memory fugues, concertos and sonatas for him on the piano.\nAt the end of his stay in 1842, the twenty-five-year-old Gounod had become a confirmed Bach devotee.\nIn 1843, after a seven-month stay in Vienna, with a letter of introduction from Fanny, Gounod spent 4 days with her brother in Leipzig.\nMendelssohn played Bach for him on the organ of the Thomaskirche and conducted a performance of his Scottish Symphony by the [Gewandhaus orchestra](https://bliptext.com/articles/leipzig-gewandhaus-orchestra), specially convened in his honour.\nBack in Paris, Gounod took up an appointment as organist and music director in the Église des Missions Étrangères on the rue de Bac, on condition that he would be allowed to have autonomy over the music: Bach and Palestrina figured strongly in his repertoire.\nWhen churchgoers initially objected to this daily diet of counterpoint, Gounod was confronted by the Abbé, who eventually yielded to Gounod's conditions, although not without commenting \"What a terrible man you are!\"\nIn the late 1840s and 1850s a new school of organist-composers emerged in France, all trained in the organ works of Bach.\nThese included [Franck](https://bliptext.com/articles/c-sar-franck), [Saint-Saëns](https://bliptext.com/articles/saint-sa-ns), [Fauré](https://bliptext.com/articles/gabriel-faur) and [Widor](https://bliptext.com/articles/widor).\nIn the aftermath of the [French Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/french-revolution), there had already been a revival of interest in France in choral music of the baroque and earlier periods, particularly of Palestrina, Bach and Handel: [Alexandre-Étienne Choron](https://bliptext.com/articles/alexandre-tienne-choron) founded the Institution royale de musique classique et religieuse in 1817.\nAfter the [July Revolution](https://bliptext.com/articles/july-revolution) and Choron's death in 1834, direction of the institute, renamed the \"Conservatoire royal de musique classique de France\", was taken over by [Louis Niedermeyer](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-niedermeyer) and took his name as the École Niedermeyer.\nAlong with the [Conservatoire de Paris](https://bliptext.com/articles/conservatoire-de-paris), it became one of the main training grounds for French organists.\nThe Belgian composer and musicologist [François-Joseph Fétis](https://bliptext.com/articles/fran-ois-joseph-f-tis), a contemporary and colleague of Choron in Paris, shared his interest in early and baroque music.\n[Fétis](https://bliptext.com/articles/f-tis) exerted a similar influence in [Brussels](https://bliptext.com/articles/brussels), where he was appointed director of the Royal Conservatory of [Brussels](https://bliptext.com/articles/brussels) in 1832, a position he held until his death in 1871.\nAt the same time, French organ builders most notably [Aristide Cavaillé-Coll](https://bliptext.com/articles/aristide-cavaill-coll) were starting to produce new series of organs, which with their pedalboards, were designed both for the music of Bach as well as modern symphonic compositions.\nThe change in traditions can be traced back to the inauguration in 1844 of the organ for [St Eustache](https://bliptext.com/articles/glise-saint-eustache-paris), built by Doublaine and Callinet.\nThe German organ virtuoso [Adolf Friedrich Hesse](https://bliptext.com/articles/adolf-friedrich-hesse) was invited with five Parisians to demonstrate the new instrument.\nAs part of his recital Hesse played Bach's [Toccata in F major, BWV 540/1](https://bliptext.com/articles/toccata-and-fugue-in-f-major-bwv-540), allowing the Parisian audience to hear pedal technique far beyond what was known in France at that time.\nWhile impressed by his pedal playing, French commentators at the time gave Hesse mixed praise, one remarking that, while he might be the \"king of the pedal ... he thinks of nothing but power and noise, his playing astonishes, but does not speak to the soul. He always seems to be the minister of an angry God who wants to punish.\"\nAnother commentator, however, who had heard Hesse playing Bach on the organ at an industrial exhibition beforehand, noted that \"if the organ of the Doublaine-Callinet firm is perfect from bottom to top, Monsieur Hesse is a complete organist from head to feet.\"\nThe new organ had a short life: it was destroyed by fire from a falling candle in December 1844.\nTwo Belgian organist-composers, Franck and [Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens](https://bliptext.com/articles/jacques-nicolas-lemmens), participated in the inauguration in 1854 of the new organ at St Eustache.\nLemmens had studied with Hesse and Fétis; already in the early 1850s he had started giving public concerts in Paris, featuring Bach's organ music and using the brilliant foot technique he had learnt in Germany.\nAt the same time Lemmens had published 18 installments of an organ manual for the use of \"organistes du culte catholique\", giving a complete introduction to the Bach tradition of organ playing, henceforth adopted in France.\nIn 1855, the piano firm [Érard](https://bliptext.com/articles/s-bastien-rard) introduced a new instrument, the [pedal piano](https://bliptext.com/articles/pedal-piano) (pédalier), a grand piano fitted with a full German-style pedalboard.\nThe French composer, organist and virtuoso pianist [Charles Valentin Alkan](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-valentin-alkan) and Lemmens gave concerts on it, including performances of Bach's toccatas, fugues and chorale preludes for organ.\nIn 1858, Franck, a friend of Alkan, acquired a pédalier for his private use.\nAlkan, a devotee of Bach and one of the first subscribers to the [Bach Gesellschaft](https://bliptext.com/articles/bach-gesellschaft), composed extensively for the pédalier, including in 1866 a set of twelve studies for pedalboard alone.\nIn the 1870s, Alkan, by that time a recluse, returned to give a series of public Petits Concerts each year in the [Salle Érard](https://bliptext.com/articles/salle-rard) using their pédalier: Alkan's repertoire included the St Anne prelude as well as several chorale preludes.\nThere were further indications of changes in taste in France: Saint-Saëns, organist at the [Madeleine](https://bliptext.com/articles/la-madeleine-paris) from 1857 to 1877, refused to perform operatic arias as part of the liturgy, on one occasion replying to such a request, \"Monsieur l'Abbé, when I hear from the pulpit the language of the Opéra Comique, I will play light music. Not before!\"\nSaint-Saëns was nevertheless reluctant to use Bach's music in services.\nHe regarded the preludes, fugues, toccatas and variations as virtuosic pieces for concert performance; and the chorale preludes as too Protestant in spirit for inclusion in a Catholic mass.\nThe St Anne prelude and fugue was often used by Saint-Saëns for inaugurating Cavaillé-Coll organs; in Paris; he played for the inaugurations at [St Sulpice](https://bliptext.com/articles/st-sulpice-paris) (1862), [Notre Dame](https://bliptext.com/articles/notre-dame-de-paris) (1868), [Trinité](https://bliptext.com/articles/glise-de-la-sainte-trinit-paris) (1869), the chapel in [Versailles](https://bliptext.com/articles/versailles-city) (1873) and the [Trocadéro](https://bliptext.com/articles/trocad-ro-paris) (1878).\nThe last two decades of the 19th century saw a revival of interest in Bach's organ music in France.\nThere were public concerts on the new Cavaillé-Colle organ in the concert hall or Salle des Fêtes of the old [Palais du Trocadéro](https://bliptext.com/articles/trocad-ro-paris), built for the [third Paris exhibition](https://bliptext.com/articles/exposition-universelle-1878) in 1878.\nOrganized by the organist [Alexandre Guilmant](https://bliptext.com/articles/alexandre-guilmant), a pupil of Lemmens, in conjunction with [Eugène Gigout](https://bliptext.com/articles/eug-ne-gigout), these started as six free concerts during the exhibition.\nAttracting huge crowds—the concert hall could seat 5,000 with sometimes an extra 2,000 standing—the concerts continued until the turn of the century.\nGuilmant programmed primarily the organ music of the two composers whom he referred to as \"musical giants\", Bach and Handel, still mostly unknown to these mass audiences, as well as the works of older masters such as Buxtehude and Frescobaldi.\nThe St Anne prelude and fugue featured in the concerts, Saint-Saëns playing it in one of the first in 1879 and Guilmant again in 1899, in a special concert to mark the twentieth anniversary of the series.\nThe concerts represented a new fin de siècle cult of Bach in France.\nIt was not without its detractors: the music critic Camille Bellaigue (1858–1930) described Bach in 1888 as a \"first-rate bore\":\n\"Of all the great musicians, the greatest, that is to say he without whom music itself would not exist, the founder, the patriarch, the Abraham, the Noah, the Adam of music, Johann Sebastian Bach, is the most tedious. ... How many times, crushed under these four-square merciless rhythms, lost amid this algebra of sound, this living geometry, smothered by the answers of these interminable fugues, one wants to close one's ears to this prodigious counterpoint ...\"\nThe chorale preludes of Bach were late to enter the French organ repertoire.\nCésar Franck, although only known to have performed one work by Bach in public, often set chorale preludes ([BWV 622](https://bliptext.com/articles/orgelb-chlein) and [BWV 656](https://bliptext.com/articles/great-eighteen-chorale-preludes)) as examination pieces at the [Conservatoire de Paris](https://bliptext.com/articles/conservatoire-de-paris) in the 1870s and 1880s.\nIt was [Charles-Marie Widor](https://bliptext.com/articles/charles-marie-widor), Franck's successor on his death in 1890, who introduced the chorale preludes as a fundamental part of organ teaching there, where Bach's other organ works already provided the foundation stone.\nWidor believed that the music of Bach represented\n\"the emotion of the infinite and exalted, for which words are an inadequate expression, and which can find proper utterence only in art ... it tunes the soul to a state in which we can grasp the truth and oneness of things, and rise above everything that is paltry, everything that divides us.\"\nUnlike Saint-Saëns and his own teacher Lemmens, Widor had no objection to playing Bach organ music because of its Lutheran associations: \"What speaks through his works is pure religious emotion; and this is one and the same in all men, in spite of the national and religious partitions in which we are born and bred.\"\nHis student, the blind composer and organist, [Louis Vierne](https://bliptext.com/articles/louis-vierne) later recalled:\n\"At the reopening of the class at the beginning of 1892, there occurred an event of considerable importance to our artistic development. I mean the discovery of Bach's chorale preludes. I mean 'discovery', and this is not an exaggeration, as you may judge for yourselves. At the first class in performance, Widor remarked with some surprise that since his arrival at the Conservatoire not one of us had brought in one of the celebrated chorales. For my part I was acquainted with three of them, published in Braille for the edition Franck had prepared for our school. They had seemed to me to have no technical difficulties and I had paid no further attention to them. My classmates did not even know that they existed. On looking through the music cabinet where there were several books in the Richault edition, we discovered three volumes, two of preludes and fugues and one of chorale preludes, the latter completely untouched, its leaves uncut.\nThe Maître spent the entire class playing these pieces to us, and we were bowled over.\nThe most overwhelming parts of the giant's organ works were suddenly revealed to us.\nWe set to work on them at once, and for three months nothing else was heard in class.\nWe all played chorale preludes at the examination in January, and the surprise of the jury was no less great than our own had been.\nUpon leaving the hall I heard Ambroise Thomas remark to Widor, 'What music!\nWhy didn't I know about that forty years ago?\nIt ought to be the Bible of all musicians, and especially of organists.\"\nOn Widor's recommendation, Guilmant succeeded him as professor of organ in the conservatory in 1896.\nIn 1899, he installed a three manual Cavaillé-Coll organ in his home in [Meudon](https://bliptext.com/articles/meudon), where he gave lessons to a wide range of pupils, including a whole generation of organists from the United States.\nAmong his French students were [Nadia Boulanger](https://bliptext.com/articles/nadia-boulanger), [Marcel Dupré](https://bliptext.com/articles/marcel-dupr) and [Georges Jacob](https://bliptext.com/articles/georges-jacob-organist).\nDupré started lessons with Guilmant at the age of eleven, later becoming his successor at the conservatoire.\nIn two celebrated series of concerts at the conservatoire in 1920 and at the Palais du Trocadéro the following year, Dupré performed the complete organ works of Bach from memory in 10 concerts: the ninth concert was devoted entirely to the chorale preludes from Clavier-Übung III.\nDupré also taught in [Meudon](https://bliptext.com/articles/meudon), having acquired Guilmant's Cavaillé-Coll organ in 1926.\nThe funeral service for Guilmant at his home in 1911, prior to his burial in Paris, included a performance by Jacob of Aus tiefer Noth BWV 686.\n# [Charles Gounod in his studio in 1893, playing his Cavaillé-Coll organ | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Gounod-1893.jpeg]\n# [Fanny Mendelssohn in a drawing by her future husband Wilhelm Hensel | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Fannymendelssohn-improved.jpg]\n# [Engraving of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. Sulpice, Paris | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/St-Sulpice-Cavaill%C3%A9-Coll-1862.jpg]\n# [Organ at St Eustache, rebuilt in 1989 in the original case designed by Victor Baltard | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Great///organ///Saint-Eustache///Paris.jpg]\n# [Érard pedal piano | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/PianoP%C3%A9dalier.JPG]\n# [Charles Valentin Alkan | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Charles-Henri-Valentin///Morhange///dit///Alkan.jpg]\n# [Cavaillé-Colle organ in the Salle des Fêtes of the Palais du Trocadéro, built in 1878 | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Palais-du-Trocadero-Salle-des-Fetes.png]\n# [Camille Saint-Saëns | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Saint-Saens-Meyer-1883.jpeg]\n# [Charles-Marie Widor | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Charles-Marie-WidorWidor.jpeg]\n# [Alexandre Guilmant | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Alexandre-Guilmant-1895.jpeg]\n# [Marcel Dupré at his home in Meudon in front of the Cavaillé-Coll organ previously owned by Guilmant | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Marcel-Dupre-Meudon-1938.jpeg]\n\n# Historic transcriptions\n**Piano**\n**Orchestra**\n**Chamber ensembles**\n# [Adolf Bernhard Marx | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Adolf///Bernhard///Marx.jpg]\n# [Egon Schiele, 1917: Arnold Schoenberg | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Schiele///-///Bildnis///des///Komponisten///Arnold///Sch%C3%B6nberg.///1917.jpg]\n# [Wilhelm Hensel, 1823: Abraham Mendelssohn | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Abraham///Mendelssohn///Bartholdy///-///Zeichnung///von///Wilhelm///Hensel///1823.jpg]\n\n# Recordings","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}