The Playing of Bach
The Lost Tradition in Music. By Fritz Rothschild. (Black. 63s.) EACH year that carries us further from the nineteenth century carries us also further from the nineteenth century's conception of the past. In the present book Mr. Rothschild goes far towards disproving one of the most universally and tenaciously held opinions about the music of the first half of the eighteenth century, an opinion backed by formidable scholars and generally accepted as an axiom in more humble circles. It has hitherto been accepted as a fact that J. S. Bach and his contemporaries left few or no instructions as to how their music was to be played, and were, therefore, presumably more or less indifferent as to the exact rhythm and tempo adopted by the performer, or at least widely tolerant of various readings,. This was always, on the face of it, most improbable, and now Mr. Rothschild's patient study of the musical texts and contemporary comments and instructions has proved that it was not in fact the case.
In a nutshell, Mr. Rothschild maintains and virtually proves that the tempo and rhythm of any piece were determined by the time- signature in conjunction with the note-values used by the composer 1 and that the structure of the first bar was decisive for the entire piece, since it exposed the number of structural beats intended by the com- poser. This code, by which a musician could tell a work's rhythm and pace at a glance, was already going out of use in Bach's day, and the litalian terms which we. use today to indicate tempo were just acquiring their modern significance. They had begun as indications of mood or style rather than pace, so that a slow allegro was perfectly possible, and, according to the author's definition, the significa- tion of andante was much nearer the modern legato. He is most informative on the different meanings of adagio-and largo in French and Italian music, and here his examples, which are copious and apt throughout the whole book, are especially interesting. He takes, for instance, the slow movement of Bach's two-violin concerto and shows that the 12/8 time-signature combined with largo, ma non Canto, the note-values (with a semi quaver the smallest unit), and the structure of the opening bar indicate that each quaver is accented. This, as he shows, is particularly important in emphasising the dissonances and anticipations which occur in the semiquaver passages.
A chapter is devoted to quotations and comments from writings on music. These are mostly contemporary, though the fact that this musical code was almost a thing of the past even in Bach's day allows Mr. Rothschild to include Thomas Morley among hisauthors. The chapter on dance-forms is in a sense destructive of the little certainty that we have hitherto enjoyed in the performance of old music. Arnold Dolmetsch had already pointed out that a dance might be swift and gay when first introduced and become slow and grave in the course of its development. (We have even had the oppor- tunity in our own lifetimes of observing such metamorphoses in the case of the waltz.) Mr. Rothschild thinks that many dances may have had two versions concurrently, a fast and a slow, and instances the fast sarabandes in Bach's suites. Writing of interpretation he disposes of yet another common opinion. The notes forming discords and anticipations were held slightly longer than other notes, and, since several discords or anticipated time-units could appear in one bar, " playing strictly in time in our modern sense was impossible."
Practically speaking, all Mr. Rothschild's discoveries go to prove what I have often suspected, that on the whole our tempi for the older music are too fast—there is hardly an instance of the " code revealing the intention of a faster tempo than that usually adopted today—and too mechanical. Thus, speaking of. Bach's cantables Spiel he reminds his readers that interpretation in the past was inspired by the art of singing and that " a melodious rendering was required not only for arias ... but also for polyphonic music, such as fugues, etc." A " melodious rendering " somehow suggests a maiden aunt playing Mendelssohn ; but the meaning is clear enough. This is a book for the practising musician and the scholar rather than the musical amateur, but it may slowly revolutionise• our per- formances of Bach and his contemporaries. Meanwhile scholars will certainly enjoy—this race is without pity—tile spectacle of the editors of the Deutsche Bach Gesellschaft and the late Professor Tovey themselves receiving, albeit in a milder form, the rebukes which they did not hesitate to administer to the ignorant and
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