BACH AND AN "EXPLANATION"
»ir,-in your issue of this week your contributor "Marsyas," in referring to my recent performance of Bach’s Organ Prelude in E Flat includes the following comment: The prelude was preceded by an explanation which many listeners must have found distasteful; it was explained in the text-book terms of "A, B, A." If "A, B, A" is all there is in a piece, then it’s not worth playing. If there is something more in it, then. it should be possible to grasp it or else have it explained to you without this "A, B, A" stuff. I do not intend to waste either my time or your space in argument with "Marsyas," but as some of your readers would not hear the "explanation" which I wrote for the recital I should be obliged if you will allow me to reproduce it here and leave others to judge whether the comment was in any way justified. Programme note: Although originally included by the composer in a book of Chorale Preludes this work has no connection with any Chorale. It is a notable example of the Concerto type of composition of the earlyeighteenth century and was probably intended for concert performance rather than for Church use. The work is based on two principal subjects; the first, with which it opens, majestic in
character, and the second, with its rushing scale passage and fugal treatment, distinguished by fire and _ brilliancy.: These two themes are announced and developed in the order A, B, A, B, A. In addition to being a masterpiece of musical construction the Prelude possesses the valuable quality of attractiveness.
JOHN C.
BRADSHAW
(Christchurch )
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 160, 17 July 1942, Page 3
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276BACH AND AN "EXPLANATION" New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 160, 17 July 1942, Page 3
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