J. S. BACH BY ALBERT SCHWEITZER DR. THEOL., DR. MED. DR. PHIL.,
STRASBOURG HON, MIT8. DOC, EDINBURGH. HON. D. 0., OXON. HON. LL.
D., ST. ANDREWS TRANSLATED BT ERNEST NEWMAN PREFACE BY C. M. WIDOR
VOLUME I WITH THREE PLATES NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY TO FRAU
MATHILDE SCHWEITZER IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE TRANSLATORS FOREWORD.
Within the last few years Bach research has made a notable advance.
Among the books that have contributed to this progress, that of Dr,
Albert Schweitzer takes a leading place. It is equally valuable on
the xsthetic and the practical sides its convincing demonstration
of the pictorial bent of Bachs mind must necessarily lead to a
reconsideration not only of the older view of Bach as a mainly
abstract musician, but of the aesthetics of music in general while
the chapters on the right manner of per forming Bachs works throw
many a new light on this obscure subject. Most of all are correct
ideas on this latter point invaluable now, when Bach is beginning,
as one hopes, to win his due popularity among not only musicians
but music lovers as a whole, The present translation has been made
from the German version of Dr, Schweitzers book 1908, which is
itself a greatly expanded version of a French original published in
1905, The text, however, has been largely altered and added to at
Dr. Schweitzers request. The English edition is thus fuller and
more correct even than the German. Like most other translators I
have found it convenient - and indeed necessary to preserve the
word clavier to cover all the seventeenth and eighteenth century
instru ments the harpsichord, clavichord, clavicembalo, c of the
type now represented by the pianoforte. For the benefit of the
Englishreader I have given all the references to Spittas Life of
Bach in the correspond ing pages of the English edition of that
book, published by Messrs. Novello Co. The index to the German
original of Dr. Schweitzers book being hardly adequate, I have
prepared a fuller one of my own, which I hope will increase the
usefulness of the volumes. ERNEST NEWMAN PREFACE TO THE GERMAN
EDITION 1 8. In the autumn of 1893 a young Alsatian presented
himself to me and asked if he could play something on the organ to
me, Play what I asked. Bach, of course, was his reply. In the
following years he returned regularly for longer or shorter
periods, in order to habilitate himself as they used to say in
Bachs day in organ playing - under my guidance, One day in 1899,
when we were going through the chorale preludes, I confessed to him
that a good deal in these compositions was enigmatic to me, Bachs
musical logic in the preludes and fugues, I said, is quite simple
and clear but it becomes cloudy as soon as he takes up a chorale
melody. Why these sometimes almost excessively abrupt antitheses of
feeling Why does he add contrapuntal motives to a chorale melody
that have often no relation to the mood of the melody Why all these
incomprehen sible things in the plan and the working-out of these
fan tasias The more I study them the less I understand them .
Naturally, said my pupil, many things in the chorales must seem
obscure to you, for the reason that they are only explicable by the
texts pertaining to them. I showed him the movements that had
ptmlecl me the most he translated the poems into French for me
iroiu memory. The mysteries were all solved. During the next few
afternoons we played through the whole of thechorale preludes.
While Schweitzer for he was the pupil explained them to me one
after the other, 1 made the acquaintance of a Bach of whose
existence I had previously had only the dimmest suspicion, In a
flash it became clear to me that the cantor, of St. Thomass was
much more than an incomparable contrapuntist to whom I had formerly
looked up as one gazes up at a colossal statue, and that his work
exhibits an unparalleled desire, and capacity for expressing poetic
ideas and for bringing word and tone into unity. Preface to the
German Edition 1908...
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