Introduction

My dissertation, which is currently in progress, attempts to reconstruct the compositional pedagogy of Johann Sebastian Bach using historical sources.[2] In the course of my research I have come across four manuscript sources linked to Bach. Since I have outlined the historical and music-theoretical context of Bach’s pedagogy in greater detail elsewhere,[3] such commentary is kept to a minimum here.

The four sources are:

1. Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius (1623–1695): Kurtzer doch gründlicher Unterricht vom General-Baß (c. 1655–95); D-W, 2-3-10-musica;[4]

2. Johann Valentin Eckelt (1675–1732): Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht wie man eine Fuga oder Præludium formiren und einrichten soll (1722); A-Wmk, 221/27;

3. Johann Valentin Eckelt: Kurtzer unterricht was einen Organist[en] nötig zu wißen seÿ (n.d.); A-Wmk, 546/39;

4. Johann Christian Kittel (1732–1809): Generalbass Schule (c. 1786–89); US-NH, LM 3911, ma21y11k652.

Not only do all four sources share an indirect relationship to J. S. Bach, they are also thematically and methodologically united in their use of keyboard thoroughbass as a pedagogical tool in the context of practical, example-based instruction. This commonality is of central importance for the reconstruction of Bach’s compositional pedagogy, since accounts of Bach’s teaching and surviving documents suggest that he too emphasized practical matters in his teaching.[5] More importantly, Bach explicitly associated composition with thoroughbass and the keyboard. In a recommendation dated 1727, Bach attested that his student, Friedrich Gottlieb Wild (1700–1762), “has taken special instruction from me in the clavier, thoroughbass, and the fundamental principles [Fundamental-Regeln] of composition which are derived from them.”[6] Yet unfortunately, Bach left only two brief sets of rules outlining his thoroughbass pedagogy.[7] Moreover, the anonymous Vorschriften und Grundsätze (also called the Generalbasslehre of 1738 or the “Precepts and Principles”), which borrows sections from Friedrich Erhard Niedt’s Musicalische Handleitung (1700–17), cannot be conclusively attributed to Bach.[8] The lack of robust evidence stemming directly from Bach forces any attempt to reconstruct his teaching to examine documents from his wider sphere of influence – hence the publication of the above four manuscript sources.

Overview of the Provenance and Content of Each Source

Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius (1623–1695): Kurtzer doch gründlicher Unterricht vom General-Baß (c. 1655–95); D-W, 2-3-10-musica

This brief treatise is the sixth in a volume belonging to Friedrich E. Praetorius (full contents listed below). Praetorius was cantor of the Lüneburg Michaeliskloster from 1655 to 1695. The Unterricht has not been dated with any more precision than to the dates of his time as a teacher there.[9] Its significance for the present article is that the teenage Bach attended this school from 1700 to late 1702 or early 1703. Thus, although Praetorius’s years did not overlap with Bach’s, Praetorius’s treatise is useful in defining the type of thoroughbass instruction typical of the generation before Bach. Whether some of Praetorius’s materials remained in use during Bach’s tenure in Lüneburg remains uncertain.

In general, seventeenth-century German thoroughbass is characterized by its status as mere accompaniment, subsidiary to the inherited tradition of Renaissance vocal composition.[10] In contrast, by the end of the century, musicians in German-speaking lands increasingly attributed central importance to thoroughbass as a conceptual framework for composition itself. A series of treatises published after c. 1700 can be understood as a turning point in this development.[11] In this respect, F. E. Praetorius’s Unterricht is normative in that it treats thoroughbass primarily as accompaniment.[12] It was also common for seventeenth-century German thoroughbass manuals to combine staff notation for the bassline with realizations in New German Tablature, as Praetorius does in the Unterricht and his Exempla (no. 3 below).[13] What distinguishes the Unterricht, however, is that it is the earliest extant treatise to associate the trias harmonica with thoroughbass.[14] Thus, it exists at the confluence of seventeenth-century German speculative and practical traditions.

The Unterricht appears as the final item in a volume containing the following treatises:

1. Johann Andreas Herbst, Musica Practica (Nürnberg, 1642) with manuscript additions by F. E. Praetorius;

2. Johann Andreas Herbst, Musica Poëtica (Nürnberg, 1643);

3. Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius, Exempla auf den Bassum Continuum (manuscript);[15]

4. Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius, Kurtzer Bericht vom Monochordo (manuscript);

5. Esaias Compenius, Kurtzer Bericht waß bey überliefferung einer […] Orgel […] examiniret werden muß (manuscript after Michael Praetorius’s Syntagma Musicum);

6. Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius, Kurtzer doch gründlicher Unterricht vom General-Baß (manuscript).

While F. E. Praetorius is not named within nos. 3, 4, and 6 on their respective title pages, the volume’s main index identifies him as the author of all three treatises.[16]

Johann Valentin Eckelt (1675–1732): Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht wie man eine Fuga oder Præludium formiren und einrichten soll (1722); A-Wmk, 221/27

Johann Valentin Eckelt was an organist in central Germany who studied with Johann Pachelbel for a few months in 1690 and eventually settled in Sondershausen in 1701, where he remained until his death.[17] J. S. Bach’s older brother, Johann Christoph Bach, also studied with Pachelbel between 1686 and 1689. In 1695, the orphaned J. S. Bach went to Ohrdruf to live with his brother, from whom he received his first musical instruction.[18] As Michael Belotti has argued, it is likely that the instruction Johann Sebastian received from his brother may have been modeled after Pachelbel’s teachings.[19] Thus, Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht may shed light on J. S. Bach’s early education.

The scribe of Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht is Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber (1702–1775), who studied with Eckelt beginning in 1721 and transcribed the Unterricht in 1722. According to Gerber’s son, Eckelt was more of a theorist than an artist, and since there was little that his father could learn from Eckelt, the elder Gerber went to Leipzig in 1724 to study with Bach.[20] Yet the practical orientation of the Kurtzen Unterricht seems to portray a different image of Eckelt. Indeed, in § 11, for example, Eckelt explicitly omits further theoretical explanation because he wishes to maintain a practical orientation. He refers the reader to another unnamed treatise, which may be a reference to one of his other three surviving manuscript treatises, all located at A-Wgm:

• Prolegomena de musica in genere;

• Experimenta musicæ compositæ;

• Curtzer unterricht, was eines Organisten nötig zu wißen sey.

Transcriptions and/or translations of these works would surely cast more light on the pedagogy of Pachelbel’s circle, and perhaps on Bach’s early education as well.[21]

Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht is divided into two parts. The first begins by addressing the topic of preluding according to the eight “church tones,” including brief incipits demonstrating each tone.[22] The tables showing primary (scale degrees , , ) and secondary cadences (scale degrees , ) that conclude part one represent a blend of modal and tonal theory. On the one hand, the modal tradition of taking degrees , , and as primary modulatory goals goes back at least as far as the first edition of Zarlino’s Istitutioni harmoniche in 1558.[23] On the other hand, Eckelt’s tables do not use traditional modal names for keys. Instead, they merely identify the type of third – either major or minor – a clear reflection of the emerging tonal system. For instance, in the title page of the Well-Tempered Clavier I (1722), J. S. Bach identifies major and minor keys based solely on their type of third.[24] The second part of Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht addresses how to arrange the dux and comes (subject and answer) of a fugue based on the incipit of a chorale melody. Possible models for such fugues can be found in the Weimar Tablature, which originates from Pachelbel’s circle of pupils.[25]

For Eckelt, both praeludiren (part one of his treatise) and fugieren (part two) are conceived in terms of the practical, improvisatory skills necessary for an organist to develop. Regarding the difference between the two, I believe Konrad Küster is correct distinguishing between the two genres of Vorspiel (melody presented clearly) and Prelude (melodically free; only defining the key).[26] Note that the number of voices in Eckelt’s non-imitative examples fluctuates mostly between three and four, which implies a lack of strictness in his conception of voice-leading. This contrasts with C. Ph. E. Bach’s description of his father’s teaching, which emphasizes “pure four-part thoroughbass” (“reinen 4stimmigen Generalbaß[]”[27]). Bach’s corrections of Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber’s thoroughbass realization of a violin sonata by Tomaso Albinoni also reveal a preference for four-voice textures in thoroughbass realization.[28]

Johann Valentin Eckelt: Kurtzer unterricht was einen Organist[en] nötig zu wißen seÿ (n.d.); A-Wmk, 546/39

Unlike Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht, neither the date nor the scribe of Kurtzer unterricht is known. Kurtzer unterricht is the longer of the two. The section on preluding and the modes is mostly the same as in Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht. However, the fact that they are not identical, but actually contain very many spelling differences and a few different words, suggests that Eckelt may have dictated his treatises to his pupils. That the instruction on the third mode is out of order in Kurtzer unterricht implies that Eckelt may have initially skipped over it by accident.

On the one hand, Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht contains the tables described above explaining modulation not present in Kurtzer unterricht. On the other hand, Kurtzer unterricht contains two additional sections on thoroughbass and suspensions not present in the other treatise. The additional sections in Kurtzer unterricht are notable in that Eckelt combines the traditional dyadic conception of dissonance typical of the seventeenth-century reception of Renaissance practice (as seen in the treatises of Sweelinck, Bernhard, Printz, and Walther) with thoroughbass instruction. In this view, a chord is considered dissonant when it contains a dissonant interval, usually measured against the bass. This dissonance – either a transitus (passing or neighbor) or syncopatio (suspension) – is treated as a dyadic event between two voices, not as the delay of a chord tone, as later theories tend to conceive of suspensions. Eckelt’s dyadic conception can be seen, for instance, when he emphasizes on two occassions that double thoroughbass figures (like 9/7) are derived from single ones (9 and 7) – each dissonant interval being judged independently against the bass. The most important treatise to combine a traditional dyadic conception of dissonance with thoroughbass is Johann David Heinichen’s Der General-Bass in der Composition (1728), which, notably, Bach sold out of his home in Leipzig, likely on commission.[29] Whether this implies Bach’s endorsement of Heinichen’s music-theoretical views is a question I address in my forthcoming dissertation. The only external source Eckelt names in either treatise is Caspar Kerll’s Modulatio organica (1686), a set of brief Magnificat verses that Eckelt recommends for further instruction regarding keys and key relationships. Eckelt also mentions Christoph Bernhard and Girolamo Frescobaldi by name. As in Diesen Kurtzen Unterricht, Eckelt closes Kurtzer unterricht with a section on fugue.

Johann Christian Kittel (1732–1809): Generalbass Schule (c. 1786–89); US-NH, LM 3911, ma21y11k652

Johann Christian Kittel received his initial musical instruction from Jacob Adlung (1699–1762) and later from J. S. Bach in the years 1748–50.[30] Kittel’s Generalbass Schule is in the hand of his pupil, Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770–1846), who studied with Kittel in Erfurt from 1786 to 1789. Susan McCormick, who has briefly described the contents of the Generalbass Schule, concludes that it likely dates from Rinck’s time as Kittel’s pupil.[31]

The Schule itself is 257 pages long, the majority of which comprise musical examples. The present edition reproduces only the first 49 folios, since these contain the only textual instruction in the entire source. A facsimile of the entire source is available online.[32] Folios 1–49 consist of ten “rules,” one for each type of thoroughbass figure, mostly focusing on defining the proper auxiliary voices (Hülffs-Stimmen or Neben-Stimmen) and how to avoid voice-leading errors. Each rule is illustrated by examples, nearly all of which are in four-voice Griffnotation (three notes in the right hand in close position, the bass in the left), which appears to have been the standard realization strategy in Bach’s pedagogy and in early eighteenth-century Germany.[33]

Several of Kittel’s examples include some of the most characteristic eighteenth-century sequences. Many other examples are chorale-based, some with written-out Zwischenspiele (interludes), indicating that Kittel’s intended audience included church organists who needed to accompany congregational singing. That Kittel, a Bach pupil, would teach thoroughbass using chorales, seems to suggest that Kittel’s Generalbass Schule may reproduce some aspects of Bach’s own teaching. For instance, like J. S. Bach’s own instruction, Kittel sometimes gives only the outer voices for a chorale.[34] But Kittel also gives non-chorale-based thoroughbass exercises with an upper voice (as on p. [27]). Another similarity with Bach is that Kittel is strict about maintaining a four-voice texture throughout most of his examples. One wonders whether all the upper voices stem directly from Kittel, since on pages [44] to [47] there is an exercise with an incomplete realization. Are some of the realizations Rinck’s? If so, did Kittel correct them? It may be impossible to know for sure.

Like Niedt, Heinichen, and C. Ph. E. Bach, Kittel emphasizes that the pupil should be able to transpose exercises in all three right-hand positions (Lagen).[35] Kittel’s cycling through these positions as an exercise for beginners (pp. [5]–[8]) and the appearance of the term Fundament-Noten to refer to structural tones (p. [19]) both appear in Heinichen’s two treatises as well (1711; 1728). Moreover, like Heinichen, Kittel allows for the dissonances of a fourth, diminished fifth, and seventh to enter unprepared. As mentioned already, J. S. Bach acted as agent for Heinichen’s treatise.[36] Taken together, all these similarities suggest a degree of continuity between Heinichen, J. S. Bach, C. Ph. E. Bach, and Kittel’s pedagogical methods. Indeed, the end of the Generalbass Schule reproduces basses from C. Ph. E. Bach’s instruction on free fantasy, which confirms that Kittel oriented his instruction in part around C. Ph. E. Bach’s.[37]

I have left the word Accord (pl. Accorde) untranslated in Kittel’s treatise. It generally refers to a 5/3 with doubled bass – the so-called “ordinary chord”, or 8/5/3. English-speaking readers may be surprised to see that, as was common at the time, Kittel only recognizes three types of motion: motus rectus, motus obliquus, and motus contrarius. Motus rectus subsumes the two categories of similar and parallel. As was also common, Kittel judges polyphonic textures in terms of the contrapuntal motion between the outer voices, conceived as “right hand vs. left hand.” In Griffnotation, such thinking greatly simplifies improvised thoroughbass realization.

Notes on the transcriptions

An effort was made to reproduce the original sources as faithfully as possible. This includes preserving original spelling (e.g. “Qvint” instead of “Quint”); however, the distinction between “s” and “ʃ” was not preserved. Bars over individual letters signaling the doubling of consonants have been omitted throughout. Non-German words are generally not given in italics, even though the italicization of Latin words was common in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century printed works. The reason for this is that all four sources are manuscripts, where the difference between standard and italic scripts can hardly (if at all) be recognized. Numbers appearing in text are generally transcribed as text (terza = third), while numbers given as Arabic numerals are transcribed as numerals. Square brackets [ ] designate editorial remarks and are also used to indicate the beginning of each page number in the original source. The original punctuation, although sometimes not entirely consistent, has largely been maintained.

Musical examples are given in their original note values and beaming. Note, however, that all treble clefs were originally soprano (or, in rare cases, alto) clefs in the original sources (this change being introduced for greater legibility for today’s readers). Despite this change of clef, all notes are reproduced on their original staff. Stem direction indicating separate voices has been maintained, but stem direction in general could not always be maintained due to the change from soprano to treble clef. In rare cases, double bar lines have been added to distinguish more clearly between separate examples on the same line. All small note heads are editorial additions. Dashed slurs are also editorial. Hypothetical thoroughbass realizations are occasionally given for convenience. Parenthesis ( ) indicate editorial accidentals. Octave designations are C, c, c¹, c², c³, where A=440 Hz is a¹.

Notes on the translations

The following commonly recurring terms are occasionally left untranslated, particularly in the Kittel treatise, where they appear quite often.

• dur = major

• moll = minor

• -is = sharp

• -es/-s = flat

• B = B-flat

• H = B

• vel = or.

Appendix

The following overview of the contents of LM 3911 (Johann Christian Kittel, Generalbass Schule) is largely a translation of an unpublished handout prepared by Jörg-Andreas Bötticher (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Switzerland) on January 21, 2014.[38]