Canonical changes

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The canonical changes over a Christmas carol (also canonical changes over Vom Himmel hoch ) are a five-movement organ composition that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote in 1746/47 and published in print in 1748 ( BWV 769). The work is a typical example of the late contrapuntal style that Bach developed in the last years of his life.

Origin and history

The Canonical Changes were made as an annual contribution to Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Corresponding Society of Musical Sciences . Each member of this association was required to publish an essay on music theory once a year up to the age of 65. Instead, Bach could submit a composition that had a corresponding theoretical claim. His inaugural contribution in 1747 was the musical sacrifice , for 1749 he had most likely planned the art of fugue , after which he would have been exempt from further contributions due to his age.

In today's musical life, the work is not on an equal footing with the other compositions from Bach's late work. This may be partly due to the cast, but certainly also to the fact that it does not tempt so much to romantic speculations - the occasion, cast and scope are known; it has neither a mysterious title nor fragmentary elements. The familiarity of the topic and the transparency of the processing allow, by and large, a good comprehensibility of the musical sentence.

Igor Stravinsky arranged the composition for small choir and large orchestra while largely retaining the original musical text.

Frames

Title page

The first print bears the title

“Some canonical changes / about the / Weynacht song: / From heaven high up there / I come here. / in front of the organ with 2nd pianos / and the pedal / by / Johann Sebastian Bach / Königl: Pohl: and Chur-Sæchß: Hoff Compositeur / Capellm. u. Direct. Choir Mus.Lips. / Nuremberg in relocation Balth: Schmids / N. XXVIII "

Bach later revised the work twice. The last version is available in the autograph. In this version, Bach inserted the final movement between the second and third movements, thus changing the entire structure of the work. Since the original final movement forms the contrapuntal climax, a centrally symmetrical arrangement has now emerged from a sequence of movements aimed at increasing.

The title of the autograph reads

"From Hi m el high because co m I ago , by canons. à 2 clav: et pedal. di JSBach "

The late rearrangement of the sentences has often been used as an argument in the long-standing controversy among the editors about the sentence order of the Art of Fugue .

sentences

(Sequence and labeling after the first print)

  • Variatio 1. 1. in Canone all 'Ottava, à 2. Clav: et Pedal. (12/8)
  • Variatio 2. Alio Modo in Canone alla Quinta à 2 clav: et Pedal. (C = 4/4)
  • Variation 3. Canone alla Settima / Cantabile. (C)
  • Variatio 4th à 2 clav. et pedal. by augmentation. in Canone all'ottava. (C)
  • Variatio 5. L'altra Sorte del 'Canone all' rovercio, 1.) alla Sesta, 2) alla Terza, 3) alla Seconda, è 4) alla Nona. (C)

Variation 1

In the rhythm of a stylized gigue reminiscent of the final movement of the Third Brandenburg Concert , the two manual parts perform a two-part canon at octave intervals, in which the pedal adds the chorale - notated in 4/4 time (C) - as a calm (tenor) counterpart Sixteenth notes of the canon parts inserts line by line.

Variation 2

The second movement is laid out similarly to the first, but is a canon in the lower fifth. The motivic material of the upper parts is clearly derived from the first chorale line. In contrast to the previous movement, the function of the cantus firmus , which in turn lies in the pedal, is that of a bass part for the entire movement.

Variation 3

Cantabile is the title of the sentence and, right from the start, focuses on the second voice with an expressive vocal line. The canon in the seventh announced in the title is carried out by two parts notated in the alto and bass clef; To do this, they use a motif developed from the theme and thus establish a layer of evenly and uninterrupted eighth notes, with the alto part sometimes crossing the vocal line. The upper part adds the chorale melody line by line over this network of voices.

Variation 4

The upper part begins with a far-reaching theme, which is answered immediately an octave lower in the canon by augmentation , i.e. in the enlargement. In between a free voice moves and fills the sentence harmoniously, rhythmically and contrapuntally. After a short time, a dense network develops in which the actual canon can hardly be followed by the listener. The pedal adds the chorale theme as a cantus firmus in the tenor. Since the higher canon part is twice as fast as the lower, it can be performed freely and virtuously in the second half of the movement, thus shaping the overall impression of the movement. Meanwhile, the lower voice completes the canon. In bar 39, the notes b, a, c ', h sound in the second part .

Variation 5

In this movement Bach uses the chorale theme itself as canon material. The canon techniques and the processing of the chorale melody are clearly reminiscent of the various canons that Bach entered in his personal copy of the first edition of the Goldberg Variations .

The theme is repeated several times: over a thematically independent bass, the two upper voices first play a two-part mirror canon in the sixth, which is then repeated in double counterpoint, i.e. with swapped voices as a canon in the third. Then bass and tenor set in with a similar canon in the second, here with the added middle voice; at this point the soprano (forte) begins with sweeping virtuoso figures; this section is also repeated with an exchange of votes . The closing bars form a great contrapuntal climax that is unique in Bach's oeuvre, as he layers several chorale lines in three different tempos in the various voices, both original and in reverse. In the final bar, the notes b ', a' / c ", b 'are distributed among two voices .

literature

  • Gregory G. Butler: JS Bach's canonical changes on "Vom Himmel hoch" (BWV 769). A final line under the debate on the question of the "final version". In: Bach Yearbook 2000 , pp. 9–34.
  • Werner Neumann (Ed.): Johann Sebastian Bach. Canonical changes on Vom Himmel hoch da ich hier ich hier BWV 769. Facsimile of the autograph and the first print. Leipzig 1986; see also the introduction by Werner Neumann, pp. 5–8
  • Gerd Zacher : Canonical changes , in: Music Concepts 17/18 , Munich 1981, ISBN 3-88377-057-4 . (This essay assigns each occurrence of a theme to one of its fifteen stanzas and derives the use of rhetorical figures from the stanza text.)

Web links

Commons : Canonical Changes  - collection of images, videos and audio files