“Lenten Prelude” C. Callahan
Susan Addington, Flute
Fugue in Bm, WTC I J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
At age 20, a bright German young man, Georg Neumark (1621-1681), packed his few belongings and left his home in the Thuringian forests. By hard work and frugality, he had saved enough for his first year at the University of Königsberg. Seeking to travel with others because of roving thieves, Georg joined a group of merchants in Leipzig. But after passing through Magdeburg, they were waylaid and robbed on the Gardelegan Heath. Georg lost everything except his prayer book and a few hidden coins.
His university hopes dashed, Georg retraced his way through villages and towns, looking for work. Months passed, and the onset of winter found Georg poorly fed, scantily clothed, cold, and homeless. Just when he was near despair, a pastor named Nicolaus Becker of Kiel befriended him.
Becker wanted to help Georg secure employment, but there was nothing. Then, a position opened unexpectedly — a tutoring job in the home of a local judge named Henning. Georg was hired on the spot, and that very day he composed “If Thou But Trust In God To Guide Thee.” (816 in our hymnal.)
While tutoring, Georg saved his money, and the next year he proceeded to Königsberg and enrolled in the university in June 1643, studying law. Shortly afterward, he again lost everything, this time in a fire. But by now, he had no doubt in God’s ability to both guide and provide.
After graduating in law from the University of Königsberg, Georg found employment in civil service while building a reputation as a poet and hymn writer.
In 1657, “If Thou But Trust In God To Guide Thee” was published in Neumark’s own book of songs, set to a melody he himself had written. He entitled the seven stanzas: “A hymn of consolation. That God will care for and preserve His own in His own time — based on the saying, ‘Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you.’ (PS 55:22)”
In later years, Neumark recorded the circumstances of the hymn, saying that his “good fortune, coming suddenly as if it had fallen from heaven, greatly rejoiced me, and on that very day I composed to the honor of my beloved Lord the well-known hymn, ‘If Thou But Trust In God To Guide Thee.’”
Bach has been generally regarded as ‘old-fashioned’ — even by his contemporaries. But from time to time (with fair frequency) he wrote things far ahead of his time. This morning’s postlude is one of them. But it has a backstory…
There are twelve notes to an octave, giving us twelve “keys”: C, C sharp, D, etc. So we have the “key of C”, the “key of E-flat”, and so on. As it turns out, it’s impossible to tune these twelve notes of the keyboard so that all twelve keys will be in tune. This has been known since Pythagoras, 5th century BCE! When keyboard instruments like organs and harpsichords took their modern form around the 14th century, they tuned them so a few keys would be in really good tune, and the rest would be wildly out of tune. Over time the trend was to try to fudge things, so you could have more keys in imperfect but usable tune. This fudging is called ‘tempering’. By Bach’s day the trend had reached the point where composers wanted to be able to use all twelve keys, and so ‘well-tempering’ was invented where all the keys were a little out of tune, but usable.
To demonstrate the musical possibilities of this, Bach wrote his “Well-Tempered Clavier” (‘clavier’ = ‘keyboard’) in 1722 — 24 Preludes and Fugues, one in each of the 12 major and minor keys. (A prelude & fugue in C major, one in C minor, one in C-sharp major, one in C-sharp minor, etc.) He enjoyed the project so much that he wrote another set twenty years later. He intended these pieces as more than just a demonstration of the possibilities of well-tempered tunings, but also as an encyclopedia of compositional techniques — a pedagogical resource for both players and composers. And indeed it has been — Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, a long list of composers have studied it deeply. (As have I.) Stravinsky would routinely play from the Well-Tempered Clavier before beginning a composing session.
Since this is the very last piece in a set of pieces in all 12 major and all 12 minor keys, we shouldn’t be surprised when Bach uses a fugue subject consisting of all 12 notes in the octave. Which makes for a fugue subject that is rather severe and austere. So Bach alternates between developing the tension of this challenging idea with the repose of a gentle counter-idea. His use of chromaticism (making a point of using all 12 notes of the chromatic scale) was quite advanced for Bach’s time — we have to wait until the late 19th/early 20th century to find music with this same degree of chromaticism.
Since this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’m playing it as the postlude. But to me this is what Lent is about — remembering the dark side of Life. So playing this piece seems an apropos way to conclude Lent.