Note 136 — Chapter VII

See, especially the attractive book of André Pirro, L'Esthétique de J. S. Bach (1907), and also Albert Schweitzer, J. S. Bach (1908), especially chapters xix.-xxiii. 'Concrete things,' says Ernest Newman, summarising some of these results (Nation, December 25, 1909), 'incessantly suggested abstract ideas or inward moods to Bach, and vice versâ. He would time after time use the same musical formula for the same word or idea. He first suggests the external concepts of "high" and "low," as other composers have done, by high or low notes, and motion up or down by ascending or descending themes. But Bach correlates with the outward, objective thing a whole series of things that are purely subjective. Thus moods of elation or of depression are to him the mental equivalents of the physical acts of going up or down. So he gives us a whole series of ascending themes to words that express "mounting" states of mind, as it were—such as pride, courage, strength, resolution—and descending themes to words that express "declining" states of mind—such as prostration, adoration, depression, discouragement, grief at sin, humility, poverty, fatigue, and illness. For the two sets of concepts, internal and external, he will use the same musical symbols. To represent the physical concept of "surrounding," again, he adopts the device of a circling or undulating theme. A crown or a garland suggests the same idea to him, so for this, too, he uses the same kind of theme. But the correspondence goes still further; for when he comes to the word "considering," he uses the same curving musical symbol once more—his notion of "considering" being that of looking round on all sides. Again, a word of purely external signification that suggests something twisted will have an appropriately twisted theme. Then come the subjective applications of the theme—the same disordered melodic outline is used to express a frame of mind like anxiety or confusion, or to depict the wiles of Satan. Careful study of the vocal works of Bach, and especially of the cantatas, has revealed a host of these curious symbols.' The whole subject, it may be added, has been briefly and suggestively discussed by Goblot, 'La Musique Descriptive,' Revue Philosophique, July 1901.