[Smt-talk] Bach Quiz

[andrew.schartmann at yale.edu]

Olli,

There are some direct fifths in m. 14 of the oft-played C minor prelude (BWV
847), and I know I've come across other examples when playing the preludes and
fugues over the years.

That said, perhaps we're paying too much attention to these minor details of
voice leading. Such "errors" can be found in the work of many great composers,
and I find it hard to believe that they would have regarded them as such. As
you suggest, and as several twentieth-century composers point out (Sessions and
Koechlin come to mind), context trumps any hard-and-fast rules. When ears are
used instead of eyes, certain cases of parallel fifths (or false relations,
voice-crossing, etc.) aren't bothersome at all.

This points to a larger issue that is inherent in theorizing about music. In
order to create systematic categories for understanding large swaths of music
under a single rubric, we are forced to compromise the real-life flexibility of
the musical language itself. One of the many dangers of such systems, at least
in my mind, is that they tempt us to exaggerate the importance of "deviant"
events. It seems to me that some statistically rare things are worth noticing,
while others are not.

>From the standpoint of composition, voice leading is but one of many factors to
consider when writing a given harmonic progression. I wouldn't be surprised,
for example, if the rate of parallel fifths per work is higher in four-voice
chorale textures than in two-voice instrumental ones.

"Ferdinand Ries related a conversation in which he points out the Beethoven a
ase of parallel fifths in [op. 18 no. 4], to which Beethoven replied 'Now, and
who has forbidden them?' To Ries's answer, that this grammatical failing was
forbidden by Marpurg, Kirnberger, Fuchs, and other theorists, Beethoven
defiantly declared 'And so I allow them!'" (from William Kinderman's
"Beethoven")

I highly doubt that Bach's response (adjusting for attitude and historical
context, of course) would have been much different.

Andrew Schartmann
Yale University