Bach on the piano

[Mandryka]

humoristic in Schumann does not mean "humourous". But don't ask me what it means.
But it's not true that the romantics viewed Bach as melody and accompaniment. They were interested in polyphony as well. Besides actual fugues and fughettes or the canonical studies (some of which must be among the more successful combinations of strict? canon and melody since Bach), there are Schumann pieces that sound like a "capsized Bach fugue or invention", e.g. maybe the 7th piece in Kreisleriana (can't exactly recall the examples I used to find most striking). And they were also interested in the motoric aspect of some baroque music, e.g. Schumann's toccata. Or take Mendelssohn's P&F, especially the famous e minor.

tldr I think one should distinguish between the diverse compositorial receptions of Bach by the 19th century romantics and a mid/late 20th century playing style of pianists.

The gallant style was also interested in fugues, but they didn't want the logic of the contrapuntal process to lead the music into dissonance. 

[prémont]

But it's not true that the romantics viewed Bach as melody and accompaniment. They were interested in polyphony as well. Besides actual fugues and fughettes or the canonical studies (some of which must be among the more successful combinations of strict? canon and melody since Bach), there are Schumann pieces that sound like a "capsized Bach fugue or invention", e.g. maybe the 7th piece in Kreisleriana (can't exactly recall the examples I used to find most striking). And they were also interested in the motoric aspect of some baroque music, e.g. Schumann's toccata. Or take Mendelssohn's P&F, especially the famous e minor.

tldr I think one should distinguish between the diverse compositorial receptions of Bach by the 19th century romantics and a mid/late 20th century playing style of pianists.

It is of course true, that some Romantic composers e.g. Mendelssohn and Schumann were interested in Bach and wrote som contrapuntal pieces. But the main part of their production was predominantly homophonic music. And this had never-the-less a long lasting infective effect, so even if a number of the following classical composers sometimes wrote a little contrapuntal music, it is only a few people of to day (classical music listeners as well as and particularly popular music listeners), who are able to listen contrapuntally. The whole idea, so many have, of playing Bach on a modern piano - an instrument essentially created for homophonic music - shows, that polyphonic music is rarely sought after except by nerds like me and like-minded people. That Robert Levin (certainly a HIPster by name) recently recorded the Bach partitas on piano "to meet the listeners expectations" illustrates my point. I feel that many pianists reason for playing in the way they do rests on the same intentions. And often they deliver some blahblah in the CD booklet and programme notes to justify their choices, which essentially are commercially directed.

[Mandryka]

Why should humoristic be romantic? It is a common human affect, used already from the beginning of our musical history.

But I don't know what humorostic means, it's not a word I've ever seen before, maybe it's American, I don't know. Does it mean funny, humorous? That doesn't sound like a basic part of Bach's music to me.

[prémont]

But I don't know what humorostic means, it's not a word I've ever seen before, maybe it's American, I don't know. Does it mean funny, humorous? That doesn't sound like a basic part of Bach's music to me.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humoristic

[Mandryka]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humoristic

OK, but it's extraordinary that Schumann thought that Bach's music was comedic!  The word Schumann used in German is Humoristische, which does seem to mean "amusing"

[Verena]

OK, but it's extraordinary that Schumann thought that Bach's music was comedic!  The word Schumann used in German is Humoristische, which does seem to mean "amusing"

Maybe Schumann had an older (in his times probably already outdated) meaning of the word "Humor" in mind, something like "mood", so he might mean by humoristisch something along the lines of "deeply affecting one's feelings".

[Mandryka]

Maybe Schumann had an older (in his times probably already outdated) meaning of the word "Humor" in mind, something like "mood", so he might mean by humoristisch something along the lines of "deeply affecting one's feelings".

Yes that was my guess, you have a similar thing in English, it's old fashioned but you can still say "he's in bad humour" for "he's in a bad mood" -- and everyone knows about the four humours.

If so what's interesting is that the idea of Bach's music as expressing moods, affekts,  was current in the c19. And that Schumann sees this as of a piece with, for example, Chopin's music, with all its demands for rubato.

[Florestan]

Yes, I know. But the Romantics took this technique to their hearts.

So did Haydn, Mozart, Clementi, Kozeluch and several dozens other Classical-era composers of keyboard music. Heck, even Beethoven's piano music  is mostly "melody with accompaniment". Keyboard polyphony had died long before Romanticism was born.

[Jo498]

There is plenty of baroque music that is melody plus accompaniment, e.g. most slow movements of most Vivaldi concerti.

The "founding innovation" of the baroque around 1600 was not polyphony (that had existed already >300 years) but monody = melody + basso continuo, i.e. the emancipation of the melody usually in a high register of voice or violin.

Heck, the best known example of romantic Bach reception is Gounod turning the C major prelude into an accompaniment for his soppy Ave Maria tune. So Baroque could not only be polyphony or melody + accompaniment, it could even be broken chords accompaniment without melody

[Jo498]

The gallant style was also interested in fugues, but they didn't want the logic of the contrapuntal process to lead the music into dissonance.

I don't even think it was dissonance per se, it was a striving for more simplicity and clarity, stressing the melodic and expressive qualities of a fugal subject in favor of the contrapuntal elaboration. Most of the oft-quoted criticism by 1730-60s contemporaries of JS Bach readily acknowledges his superior skill but they found that it obscured the expression and understandability of the music. Their ideal balance was not necessarily simplistic melody + accompaniment but probably something like the simpler choral fugues of Handel that roughly speaking subordinated contrapuntal development to monumental gestures.

Still, one also has to keep in mind that while choral Handel remained more popular, the "learned" keyboard music of Bach did not fall into obscurity but was known among musicians and already around 1800 we have a strong publicized interest in Bach with Forkel and Naegeli. Beethoven had copies/prints of the most important manualiter keyboard music by Bach in his library.

[Florestan]

There is plenty of baroque music that is melody plus accompaniment, e.g. most slow movements of most Vivaldi concerti.

The "founding innovation" of the baroque around 1600 was not polyphony (that had existed already >300 years) but monody = melody + basso continuo, i.e. the emancipation of the melody usually in a high register of voice or violin.

Indeed, a point well worth stressing.

Re: Schumann/Bach/ Humoristic, we should take into account that as time went by many words have changed their meaning and usage. For instance, sentimental is today a pejorative term while back then in the 1750s it had positive connotations. So, if we want to correctly understand Schumann's remark we must know what Humor / Humoristisch meant in German at the time when he used those words. Frankly, humor / humoristic in the modern English meaning is the last thing I associate with Bach's music, if at all.

On the other hand, the workings of Schumann's mind were not those of an ordinary person, so he might very well detected --- or rather fancied to detect --- humor in that music. When Chopin read his (Schumann's, that is) review of La ci darem la mano Variations he said something to the effect that "the wild imagination of this German made me die of laughter" (quoted from memory).

[prémont]

There is plenty of baroque music that is melody plus accompaniment, e.g. most slow movements of most Vivaldi concerti.

The "founding innovation" of the baroque around 1600 was not polyphony (that had existed already >300 years) but monody = melody + basso continuo, i.e. the emancipation of the melody usually in a high register of voice or violin.

All this is irrelevant in this context, We were talking about Bach and his polyphonic keyboard suites.

[prémont]

Maybe Schumann had an older (in his times probably already outdated) meaning of the word "Humor" in mind, something like "mood", so he might mean by humoristisch something along the lines of "deeply affecting one's feelings".

Interesting. Is this factual knowledge on your part or just something you suppose?

[Mandryka]

Indeed, a point well worth stressing.

Re: Schumann/Bach/ Humoristic, we should take into account that as time went by many words have changed their meaning and usage. For instance, sentimental is today a pejorative term while back then in the 1750s it had positive connotations. So, if we want to correctly understand Schumann's remark we must know what Humor / Humoristisch meant in German at the time when he used those words. Frankly, humor / humoristic in the modern English meaning is the last thing I associate with Bach's music, if at all.

On the other hand, the workings of Schumann's mind were not those of an ordinary person, so he might very well detected --- or rather fancied to detect --- humor in that music. When Chopin read his (Schumann's, that is) review of La ci darem la mano Variations he said something to the effect that "the wild imagination of this German made me die of laughter" (quoted from memory).

Remember John Paul on musical humour

When he measures out the small world, as humour does, against the infinite world and sees them together, a kind of laughter results which contains pain and greatness. Whereas Greek poetry, unlike modern poetry, made men cheerful, humor, in contrast to the ancient jest, makes men partly serious; it walks on the low soccus, but often with the tragic mask, at least in its hand.

I guess the small world is the world I more or less am familiar with. I wonder what the infinite world could be about.

There's also the man  himself on Humoreske

The whole week I sat at the piano in a state and composed, wrote, laughed, and cried; now you can find all this beautifully painted in my Opus 20, the great Humoreske

[Verena]

Interesting. Is this factual knowledge on your part or just something you suppose?

I kind of knew about the older meanings of the word and then checked a German dictionary website, which also includes etymological information:
https://www.dwds.de/wb/Humor
(Unfortunately in German only).
Reading the entries more closely now, the noun "Humor" is still used to refer to "mood" in general in some parts of Germany, but it is outdated (I wouldn't use the word in this sense; I'm a native speaker of German). The etymological dictionary says that in the second half of the 16th century the word entered the German language in this older sense of "mood"; so one could use a phrase such as  "melancholy humour" back then without contradicting oneself. The more modern sense of the word "Humor" can be traced to the influence of the English /Old French word "humour", which had narrowed its original meaning to refer to a special type of "mood" only. This modern sense entered the German language in the middle of the 18th century. But words usually don't completely change their meaning over night, so I guess Schumann had the older sense in mind when using the word, especially given that some Germans use the word in that sense even today.

[prémont]

Thanks, Verena, very informative.

[Florestan]

Thanks, Verena, very informative.

+ 1.

[Verena]

+ 1.

You're both welcome 

[Cato]

Thanks, Verena, very informative.

+ 1.

Concerning Schumann's Humoreske: I have a Duden Herkunftswörterbuch which defines Humoreske as a "kleine humoristische Erzählung" (little, humorous story), the word itself constructed as a parallel from Burleske and Groteske.

Remember John Paul on musical humour

Is that the 19th-century novelist Jean Paul?  My first thought was about the Pope John Paul II.   0:)

[Mandryka]

Excellent work Verena, thank you.

And yes, Cato, Jean Paul!