St John’s Smith Square
David Titterington
11th August 2020
Arts of Fugue
Programme Notes
PREMIERE at 8pm on Tuesday 11th August: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJE2jQ1MenY
Little could Johann Sebastian Bach have known – his fame during his lifetime being primarily centred around his virtuosity as a keyboard player – that it was his reputation as a composer which would endure centuries later. He drew inspiration from those he admired, and from the compositional practices of the time, but it was his own creative output and contrapuntal artistry which was to have a profound influence on generations of musicians to follow, a legacy which has lasted centuries.
Born in Eisenach to Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt, Johann Sebastian Bach worked as organist and choir master at churches and royal courts in Weimar, Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Köthen and, most famously as cantor at the Thomaskirke in Leipzig, a post he held until his death in 1750. He married his first wife, Maria Barbara, in 1706, and it was during his Weimar years that his first four children were born, including Carl Philipp Emanuel.
C.P.E. Bach (Emanuel) was one of four of J.S. Bach’s children who were to become professional musicians, and, after studying law at the University of Leipzig, he moved to Berlin where he spent some thirty years working for the royal orchestra and gained an international reputation for his incredible talent on the harpsichord and clavichord. He received great inspiration from Georg Philipp Telemann (his godfather) and enjoyed the rich cultural environment which eighteenth-century Berlin provided. In 1768 he succeeded Telemann as Kapellmeister of the principal churches in Hamburg, a post not dissimilar to that which his father had held in Leipzig, and which was similarly effective in encouraging the composition of regular liturgical works. Indeed, from this period came a huge number of motets, cantatas, settings of the Passion, and even an oratorio. He died in December 1788 and is buried in Hamburg’s Michaeliskirke.
It is believed that Emanuel Bach’s first compositions dated from around 1730, most likely to be short keyboard pieces and chamber music. The Fantasias and Fugues were published in 1765 as part of a set of miscellaneous works, the Clavierstücke verschiedener Art. The Fantasia in C minor contrasts melodically flowing quavers with bold and dramatic chords; these in turn give way to improvisatory flourishes, before this brief movement comes to an end. The subject of the four-part Fugue, marked Allegretto, begins with three lively repeated quaver notes which are to become such a valued feature of this charming work. The countersubject is pleasingly chromatic and smooth by comparison, creating an enjoyable tension which helps build up the energy as we approach the final entries. These give way to a series of concluding chords, resolving the work firmly in the tonic key of C minor.
Some twenty years after the death of C.P.E. Bach, in the town of Zwickau in what is now central Germany, Robert Schumann was born. He, too, studied law before pursuing a career in music: he had ambitions to be a virtuoso pianist, much like his contemporaries Chopin and Liszt, but on injuring a finger on his right hand when aged 21, he was forced to put these aspirations aside, and instead focused on composition. Having been pretty much self-taught up until this point, he elected to study music theory and counterpoint with the music director of the Leipzig Opera, Heinrich Dom. Naturally he was drawn to composing for the piano initially, but he was also heavily inspired by poetry and art, and this manifested itself in a huge number of solo songs, most notably his Dichterliebe.
Considered to be one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, it is sometimes surprising to discover quite how much Schumann was influenced by the music and disciplines of J.S. Bach. In a letter to his old piano teacher in 1832, he said “above all, Sebastian Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier is my textbook – the best there is. I have analysed the fugues one by one in the closest detail, which is of immense value and seems to strengthen one’s whole moral fibre. Bach was a real man, a man through and through; there are no half-measures about him, nothing morbid – he composed everything as though for eternity.”
Although Schumann was not an organist himself, he held the instrument in high regard, since it was the instrument for which “the greatest composer in the world wrote much of his most sublime music”. The Six Fugues on BACH, Opus 60, were composed in 1845, and represented for Schumann the culmination of his composing career. They, along with a number of other works written around the same time, are scored for organ, or for pedal-piano – an instrument which had become fashionable as a rehearsal instrument for organists in the 19th Century and whose profile Schumann wanted to increase. Each fugue subject is based upon the four notes which spell out the name Bach (noting that B natural in Germany is ‘H’, and B flat is ‘B’, so in English it is B flat-A-C-B natural), and each fugue is given a very specific character, be it the dark and brooding mood of the first movement, the nimble second movement, the scherzo-like fourth movement, or the third of the set, Mit sanften Stimmen, which, set in the gentle key of G minor, enjoys its chromaticism with a gentle elegance. In this movement, the countersubject enters almost immediately, giving a warmth to the air right from the outset. Where other slow movements in this set have about them a dark or sad quality, here we have a fugue which is relaxed, with flowing quavers and large melodic leaps giving the piece a quiet optimism. Sure enough, it comes to a serene and almost timeless conclusion.
It is well-documented that J.S. Bach was, himself, hugely influenced by the playing and compositional expertise of Dietrich Buxtehude: while Bach was organist at the New Church in Arnstadt, he was so keen to learn from Buxtehude that he allegedly took four weeks’ leave from his post, walked from Arnstadt to the northern city of Lübeck to study with Buxtehude, only to return some four months later. Whilst Buxtehude’s Passacaglia in D minor is clearly on a different scale to that of Bach’s, there can be no doubt that it acted as an inspiration to Bach when he composed his great Passacaglia in C minor, thought to have been shortly after returning from his visit to Lübeck.
Bach’s Passacaglia begins with the eight-bar theme stated in the pedals; from there follow twenty variations which Schumann himself described as “intertwined so ingeniously that one can never cease to be amazed”. The variations begin as homophonic interjections to the bass part’s statement of the theme, before the accompanying parts themselves become busier and gradually take over the thematic material. The initial textures are replaced with free-flowing polyphony, which in turn gives way to solo lines accompanied by articulated chords in the accompanying parts. Further broken chords, reminiscent of harpsichord flourishes, give way to richer textures, and eventually the variations finish and seamlessly break into a double fugue, in which the first half of the Passacaglia theme provides the subject, and a transformed version of the second part of the Passacaglia theme provides the second subject. The fugue brings with it a new harmonic freedom, venturing into related major keys for the first time since the piece began. Interrupted in its final strides to make way for a classic ‘Neopolitan chord’, the piece comes to a triumphant end in a resounding C major.
David Titterington is Head of Organ at the Royal Academy of Music and a Professor of the University of London, Artistic Director of St Albans International Organ Festival, and organ curator at St John’s Smith Square. He was an Organ Scholar at the University of Oxford before continuing his organ studies in Paris with Marie-Claire Alain and Susan Landale at the Conservatoire de Reuil-Malmaison where he won a Premier Prix a l’unanimité avec les félicitations du Jury and later with the distinguished Czech composer, Petr Eben.
He appears in recitals and concertos at major festivals worldwide including the bicentennial Festival of Sydney, and the international festivals of Hong Kong, New Zealand, Adelaide, Tokyo, Guelph, Schleswig Holstein, Israel, Istanbul, City of London, Belfast, Brighton, Cheltenham, Harrogate. For eighteen years, he gave masterclasses and recitals at the Dartington International Summer School.
He made his debut at the BBC Proms in 1990 with a solo recital that featured a Proms commission from Diana Burrell, Arched Forms with Bells. At the BBC Proms 2000, he played in the UK premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s 9th Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and gave his second Proms solo recital in 2009, performing works by Elgar and Peter Dickinson. Royal Festival Hall performances include his debut in 1986 followed by a recital in the 50th anniversary recital series at which he premiered Stephen Montague’s Toccare Incandescent. A recital in February 2016, included the world premiere of a Southbank-commissioned work by Sally Beamish. In 1998, he gave the New Zealand premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement – “a performance of spellbinding authority…Titterington giving us a performance of staggering intensity and brilliance” (The Dominion, Wellington)
Throughout his career, Titterington has worked closely with many composers across a wide range of styles including commissioned works, first performances and in recital with works by Mauricio Kagel, Diana Burrell, Lyell Cresswell, Peter Dickinson, Jonathan Dove, Paul Patterson, Giles Swayne, Per Nørgård. In performance, he has worked with such distinguished soloists, orchestras as Hakan Hardenberger, Christian Lindberg, John Wallace, Thomas Sanderling, Ingo Metzmacher, City of London Sinfonia, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, La Camerata of Athens, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
He has been awarded numerous honours and awards including Fellowship (honoris causa) of the Royal College of Organists, a Doctorate (honoris causa) and Honorary Professorship by the Liszt Ferenc State University, Budapest. Honorary doctorates have also been conferred by the Universities of Huddersfield and Bolton. David Titterington is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and, in 2016, was elected Fellow Commoner of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
Recent engagements include recitals at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the Dresden Musikfestspiele, Sogakudo Hall, Tokyo and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National University of the Arts, Tokyo, Yonsei University, Seoul, and the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory.
Plans include recitals at the MUZA Kawasaki Concert Hall in Japan, the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, and the Grand Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.
Ó Simon Hogan
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If you have enjoyed this programme you may like to explore the following links:
David Titterington: http://www.owenwhitemanagement.com/artist/david-titterington/?doing_wp_cron=1597134499.7184700965881347656250
The Bach Archive in Leipzig: https://www.bach-leipzig.de/en/bach-archiv
CPE Bach – The Complete Works: https://cpebach.org/index.html
Robert Schumann and the Organ: https://www.orgelwettbewerb.at/en/composers/robert-schumann-2/