While exploring the tenets that Johann Sebastian Bach was using compositionally in his Well-Tempered Clavier, I became fascinated by how that might have carried forward in the music of Frédéric Chopin.

It is well established that Frédéric Chopin incorporated the use of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier preludes and fugues for himself and also assigned them to his piano students. We have Chopin's annotated copies of.The Well-Tempered Clavier where Chopin was including dynamic markings, tempo markings, articulation details, and so we have a fairly clear idea of how Chopin went about interpreting, making sense and bringing to life Bach’s preludes and fugues, which is a wonderful thing. In addition to The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin routinely assigned sonatas of Mozart as well. So it seemed that from a teaching standpoint, a pedagogical standpoint, The Well-Tempered Clavier and Mozart sonatas, were at the core of a lot of Chopin's own teaching.

Today I’m focusing on the relationship with Bach. Chopin admired Bach's works both for their contrapuntal brilliance, but also their emotional balance, he said. Here’s a wonderfully revealing and helpful quote by Chopin:

“Bach is an astronomer discovering the most marvelous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.”

The Doctrine of Affections

Let's do a little background into the Doctrine of Affections. It has its roots in Greek and Roman medical philosophy, especially the use of various musical sounds to assist in balancing the four humors of the body. Those four humors being blood phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.

This philosophy carried forward into medical practices in medieval Europe as well. This was a continuous thing over centuries. In 1739, the German musical theorist composer and philosopher, Johann Mattheson, wrote a wonderful treatise, The Complete Chapel Master. It's huge!

I've referred to this in a previous video where I discuss that treatise in a little bit more depth and use Johann Sebastian Bach's preludes and fugues as an illustration. In very general terms with the Baroque Doctrine of Affections, especially to our discussion about the preludes and fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach, and then preludes of Frédéric Chopin, the choice of key Intervals that were used, how they were used, especially ascending, descending combinations and tempo they all combine to, in some way, affect the listener to evoke a range of passions. We also need to take into consideration the dynamic expansion and development of various tuning systems at this time because that has a tremendous effect on how we experience the music that we're hearing.

Let's start by hearing a Fugue in G Major by Johann Mattheson. If you're thinking in terms of the Doctrine of Affections, you’re hearing G Major. What intervals am I hearing? And am I hearing, for instance, sequential patterns that tend to primarily rise, primarily fall? Then how does that go about affecting my experience of the piece as the listener? Here we have mostly close interval writing, but we do have sequences that involve especially ascending fourths. So this idea of ascending fourths throughout the fugue have a significant influence on how the fugue moves about.

Let's listen to the Fugue in G Major by Johann Mattheson on harpsichord with a Well-Tempered tuning. A tuning that would have been developed by Johann Kirnberger, one of Mattheson's colleagues during that time period. Enjoy!

An example of Johann Mattheson, who wrote the treatise on the Doctrine of Affections.

There was an important precursor to Mattheson's treatise, and that was written by René Descartes, the French philosopher mathematician, but also later in his life, metaphysical explorer. To that end, in 1649, right towards the end of Descartes' life, he wrote his own rather metaphysically-oriented treatise, The Passions of the Soul, where he goes into some detail identifying and exploring what he saw to be the six primary passions and to try to differentiate between actions in the human experience that were specific, physical, bodily generated, actions and then those actions that were generated by the soul. He goes on to say,

"“Affections are not the same as emotions, however, they are a spiritual movement of the mind.”

I've been delving into Descartes’ treatise recently and trying to understand it more deeply. It's a fascinating treatise, The Passions of the Soul. 1649. He describes the six basic passions. You have admiration, love, hatred, desire, joy, and sorrow, and that the use of certain types of musical sounds, or more to the point, combinations of musical sounds can then affect these passions or evoke an affect within the soul. It's really thought-provoking..

This exploration makes an interesting comparison between Bach and Chopin compositionally. I'll leave you with a little bit of information by the wonderful pianist, author, philosopher Charles Rosen from his book The Romantic Generation, and he's talking a little bit about the relationship, between Chopin and Bach.

*a young Charles Rosen diring a concert performance, circa 1950*

“In the first half of the eighteenth century, the masterpieces of keyboard music appeared for the most part to be works of instruction. Almost all of Bach's published music is printed under the title of keyboard exercises. The Partitas, Italian Concerto, Four Duets, Chorale Preludes and Goldberg Variations, of course, these are instructive works for composers as well as players.
The difference was not marked at the time. To the published music must be added: The Inventions for Two and Three Voices, The Art of Fugue, and, of course, The Well-Tempered Clavier, all of these specifically for the keyboard player and almost all requiring great virtuosity.”

Later on, by the time we get later into the eighteenth century, Rosen states,

“Keyboard music had become more sociable, less professional. The amateur interest was now of primary consideration, particularly if one wished to make a profit from the sale of sheet music.”

We started to have the burgeoning middle class who could afford pianos and then music for them, and there was a huge market for that. Finally we have what Rosen states in terms of comparing Chopin's use of counterpoint in his music with that of Bach’s.

“The wonderful sonority of Chopin's writing, the exquisite spacing, the vibrant inner voices spring from an abstract structure of lines. The pianist is conscious as he is in Bach, both of the way an individual line is sustained and of the passing of the melody from one voice to the other.
It is not only in small details that Chopin displayed this art, but in the general outlines of larger forms, the lyricism and the dramatic shock in his music are equally indebted to this craft. This is the true paradox of Chopin. He is most original in his use of the most fundamental and traditional technique, aka Bach. That is what made him at the same time, the most conservative, and the most radical composer of his generation.”

In the following video, I explore three keys for side-by-side comparisons in detail. Please like and share this video! If you have any other musically minded and geeky friends who would be interested in today's subject matter, I would very much appreciate it and subscribe if you don't already do so.

–Rick Ferguson

In this video, Rick Ferguson performs the following works to illustrate his research:
Mattheson Fugue in G Major
Bach Prelude in G Major, Well-Tempered Clavier Book I
Bach Prelude in G Major, Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
Chopin Prelude in G Major
Bach Prelude in B Minor, Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
Chopin Prelude in B Minor
Bach Prelude in B-Flat Minor, Well-Tempered Clavier Book I
Chopin Prelude in B-Flat Minor

Substack

Tracing the Legacy

Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” and Its Impact on Chopin’s musical Style

The Doctrine of Affections

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