BEETHOVEN AND BACH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 450, 6 February 1948, Page 5

BEETHOVEN AND BACH

Sir,-I can appreciate the feelings of your "Naive Listener" who questions the reverential awe given to Bach rather than to Beethoven. It is right that the ascendancy of the All-Time Stars should be overhauled now and then. However, I cannot agree with his opinions. Ags a listener even more naive than he, I was first introduced to Bach through the film Fantasia, at a time when "classical" music meant practically nothing to me. Since that time, the vitality and beauty of Bach’s music have always exerted a hold over me to an extent that Beethoven’s does not-yet, anyway. Unless whistling musical themes by ear makes one an executant, I cannot claim to have performed Bach. I am a "plain ornery" music-lover, untouched by ‘the taint of the "more exalted musical circles." I doubt whether it is ultimately possible to give convincing reasons for the supremacy of either Beethoven or Bach. After all, what explanation can be given

in any field of art for people’s preference of Milton to Dante, of Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington, or of Bach to Beethoven? If analysts claim that Bach’s music is more intellectual in conception and Beethoven’s more specifically emotional, I can only state my own experience of tremendous emotion in listening to Bach-a grandeur and power which, far from being lacking in feeling, is the very source of emotion at. its deepest. That is my musical confession. For further explanations of our difference in musical allegiance, a psycho-analyst will probably be helpful.

BACH FAN

(New Plymouth).

Sir,-Your correspondent, "Naive Listener," is not in agreement with the contention that Bach is the greatest composer. "The trained ear," he states, "can doubtless perceive the various permutations, but to the majority of listeners it is just aural mathematics." By trained ear, I assume he refers to musicians, and if they place Bach on the highest pedestal are they not the best judge and authority? I am not writing as a professional musician, but simply as a music lover (not exclusively a Bach lover) and find that the old Capellmeister has written some very lovely and exciting stuff. For instance, to me, the Sanctus from the B Minor Mass is anything but "dreary and monotonous." Bach can become a source of sublime satisfaction to anyone with musical inclinations. Beethoven is, perhaps, my favourite composer, but I know his limitations. In their greatest moments Bach and Beethoven are about equal, technically and aesthetically, but Beethoven does descend to banality and crudity at times while Bach maintains a remarkable

uniformity of quality throughout his works. It is in this uniform excellence of form and content that Bach shows his superiority. Technique is, and always should be, only the means to an end.

G. W.

BARLOW

(Palmerston North),

Sir-yYour correspondent "Naive Listener" strikes a welcome if controversial note when .he refers to portions of Bach, éspecially fugue, as "aural mathematics." There seems to me to be an extremely elusive (but nevertheless real) distinction between that music which we listen to for its beauty and form, and that which impresses us because of the amount of time and work the composer, has put into it. Some time ago a contributor gave a view which loses nothing in being repeated. This was that the fundamental test for jany composition is simply whether or not we like it. Not, you will notice, whether or not we can

------ educate ourselves to like it, which is synonymous with learning to appreciate the ability of the composer, but whether we like it now. If the music fails this test, which is an individual one, and not a matter of a consensus of opinion or a majority vote, then surely it can have no further aesthetic value to us.

R.

WARD

(Takapuna)

Sir,-Your correspondent "Naive Listener" seems to have the illusion that the two composers Beethoven and Bach can be compared. Such a process is quite impossible, as both belong to entirely different schools of music, Bach to the Baroque, and Beethoven to a mixture of Classical and Romantic. They thus have completely diverse _qualities and approaches toward their art. ° Bluntly to assert that Bach has nothing of interest to’ non-technical musiclovers is both sweeping and intolerant. "Naive Listener" complains about "long-drawn-out fugal development" which sounds like "aural mathematics." He is apparently incapable of. feeling the emotional experience in the gradual climax of a Bach fugue, as in the "Thema Fugatum" from the Passiicaglia, or the well known Toccata and Fugue in. D Minor. Admittedly, one does derive more pleasure from listening to a fugue if one has some knowledge of form, but this does not mean that depth and emotion are lacking in the fugue. The samé is true of the Theme and Variations form, a favourite with Beethoven himself. I doubt that there are many. true music-lovers who are content to remain in ignorance of the mechanics of music, in any case. Again, I am sure that if "Naive Listener" found the B Minor Mass boring, he would have found the Solemn Mass in D Major just as tiresome.

Beethoven is emotional, often ‘rough, usually noble, and rarely complicated. Bach is austere, often inspiring, always ingenious, and usually very beautiful. It all depends which you prefer, the sun or the stars. I love both.

H. J.

STEELE

(Wellington),