Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp minor, Well-Tempered Clavier Book II, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Phil Grant, Piano

If continuing to read this essay from YouTube, scroll down to the dotted line.

The essay below links the composition of this extraordinary work with the sudden death, possibly by suicide, of Bach’s probably most talented son.

Those who, like myself, don’t know where they’d be, if they’d be, if it weren’t for the greatest works of Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert, might be interested in my book, Cabeza and the Meaning of Wilderness: An Exploration of Nature, and Mind, available at www.meaningofwilderness.com. While perhaps only 10 to 20% of the book directly concerns music, all of it, in one way or another, delves deeply into that wilderness of Mind from which all great art arises. Note that if purchased from this site, a risk-free money-back warranty (within 55 days from date of purchase) is offered — and you keep the book.

Also, I encourage anyone with even the slightest interest to visit my webpage, “Learning or Relearning the Piano as an Adult; A Spiritual Endeavor.” Since I myself only started at age 19, I feel I might be able to offer especial insight into the difficulties involved, and how they may be overcome. Also on that page I provide information on the stunning virtual piano I use for recording.

And you may wish to hear my performance, on YouTube, of the Prelude and Fugue in C Major and read my comments thereon, as in a way they are continued in the essay below.

The G-Sharp Minor Prelude and Fugue is, of all the 48, perhaps the most soulful and meaningful. Truth-full — in that it thrusts deep to the heart of the human condition. The first dedication page quote of Cabeza is by Albert Einstein, from a letter written, shortly before his own death, to console someone over the death of a loved one:

"A human being is part of the Whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves . . . to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

The Prelude reveals the prison, the prison of our separate self. We are climbing the walls, bouncing off the bars, desperate to escape. The three note theme, such as it is, tries everything: going up, going down, embellishments with 32nd notes, trills, you name it. Nothing works. The left hand (and later the right) — running 16th notes sharply punctuated by staccato eighths — is attempting the same . . . likewise to no avail. Near the end the “theme” repeats three times with a heartrending harmonic progression leading to a fourth iteration ending with a most soulful— but woefully unfulfilling — diminished seventh chord . . . struck thrice to etch it surely in our minds (3:01/repeat 4:09). The left then echoes this with the sharp dissonance of a major second (3:11/4:13), then even sharper minor second (3:12/4:17), both doubled at the ninth. Finally the piece fades away with a lonely G-sharp in the left-hand (3:13/4:24). It seems to me Beethoven — who learned most of The Well-Tempered Clavier by the age of 11, and called it The Bible — must have been thinking of this Prelude when he composed his final piano masterpiece, Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Opus 111, for the first movement is equally expressive of that same prison and similarly, after a final desperate but futile fluttering, like a bird hopelessly trapped in a net . . . just fades away. Cabeza:

"When I was eight I received a “magic” kit. Included was a small tube of thatched grass of some sort. The trick was to insert your index fingers into each end, and then remove them not using any other part of your hand. The fibers would tighten as you pulled, the diameter of the tube become smaller, and the harder you pulled, the more impossible it became. This, simply put, is the first movement of Sonata No. 32. Resistance. Samsara. Hell.

A Zen koan: What do you do if you are trapped in a burning house with no escape? The answer . . . lies in the second movement. . . ."

But no escape here, not now, not yet, for Bach.

T.S. Eliot wrote at the end of Four Quartets, written to convey the profound understanding that came to him while listening to the Late Beethoven Quartets, “. . . A condition of complete simplicity / (Costing not less than everything).”  The primary theme of the fugue is certainly simplicity itself, going on and on and on, seemingly nowhere — like our own lives? Halfway through a second theme enters (6:46), descending chromatically five steps and then back up to where it began, and just to etch its own futility into our minds, it drops then again down one step (upon which it trills) and back up. 

...............................................................................................................................

Interestingly — importantly — the primary theme follows a very similar melodic contour to that of the great Kyrie of the B Minor Mass, written as much as 10 years earlier in 1732. Both have a profoundly haunting character that goes on . . . and on . . . and on. Nothing short and sweet about them. But in the Kyrie it seems to me perhaps Bach was praying — the words Kyrie Eleison mean, “Lord have mercy” — albeit in the most devout manner possible, but still to the idea of a personal God. While his beloved Maria Barbara had suddenly died in 1720 during his absence (see what I have written regarding the Prelude and Fugue in C Major, Book I, posted here at YouTube), still, he seemingly happily remarried and composed his most devout religious works, The St. John Passion, the St. Matthew Passion, and the B Minor Mass (plus the vast majority of his cantatas) in the following years.

But . . . 1739 . . . there was another loss. The death, I speculate in Cabeza by suicide, of his possibly most talented yet deeply troubled son Bernhard. Bach had done everything he could — so he thought — for him: setting him up in one job as town organist . . . but the officials complained he “played so fiercely they feared for the instrument.” Bach found him another job . . . but, after displaying erratic behavior typical of manic depressives, he suddenly disappeared. A year later he reappeared at an uncle’s . . . only to suddenly die of a “fever,” suicides of that time not being permitted a Christian burial.

Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier came out in 1742, but was likely composed over the entire 20 years since Book I. Since the G-sharp minor is, to my mind, the finest of the collection I have to believe it was one of the last composed. After . . . Bernhard’s death. Somehow I sense in its theme not a prayer, not an asking of anything from some external God, just an outpouring of yearning. Here I am reminded of Zen retreats I attended: During the late 1970s at the Rochester Zen Center, on the last two evenings, as I recall, during rounds of meditation those so inspired were encouraged to vocalize their koan, which for most was attempting to become one with, with all one’s heart and soul, “Mu” (look this up online if you’re interested). I was very bad at this. It was a very self-conscious effort on my part and one of the monitors even came over and put his hands on my shoulders just to shut me up. I had the feeling all the others were so much more ardent than I. But I think the Kyrie was truly Bach’s version of muing, done with a depth of wholehearted feeling even the best of my Zen comrades came nowhere near. And this culminated in the Dona Nobis Pacem which takes one to a profundity of “enlightenment” that even the greatest of Zen Masters, in my humble view, rarely if ever approached. But now, 10 years later, after Bernhard’s death . . . Bach shows us through the G-sharp minor Prelude and Fugue . . . it was not enough. 
 
Perhaps one could say in Bach’s “muing” through the theme he does start off wanting something from an external God, crying out with all the depths of his soul, the emotion building and building and building until it finally culminates in a trill deep in the bass (5:34) . . . but there’s no answer. A quiet sadness ensues, only to build and build again — to sorrow of a depth Brahms, as I have noted, wrote would have driven him mad — again to culminate in a deep bass trill (6:41). Now the second theme enters, but its futility merely supplants that of the first. After passing through the three voices, and taking a few moments of restful release — suddenly it bursts high above us (7:28) in the treble with an intensity one can hardly bear. One cannot bear. When playing this I can’t help but think of Bach calling out to his idea of his personal God: “Please, please, please . . . return my son to me — please!”

There is a parallel here with my own life: My cousin Nell whom I shall write about someday likewise ended her life at the same age as Bernhard . . . and I can’t help thinking of what I might have done to alter that outcome. But it’s over, past, done. No second chances. I failed her, pure and simple. She was probably — not probably but certainly — the blood relative of mine closest to me in spirit. And she’s gone. Long gone. While this may be judged pure speculation, I can’t help but think Bach felt the same regarding Bernhard. Martin Geck writes, in Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work, that Bach’s concern for his sons’ professional accomplishments must have been “intense,” and calls Bernhard’s death, “. . . the capitulation of a young man who was unwilling or unable to comply with the expectations of his times?” Two letters Bach wrote at this time display his heartrending anguish, and one can perhaps read between the lines his thinking “If only, if only, if only . . . I hadn’t pushed him  so hard. If only, if only, if only . . . I’d let him go at his own pace. If only, if only, if only. . . .” And this is what I hear, at this point, in this fugue. Ultimately, and at root, this anguish is the same in all of us, it has the same source, the same cause, the same impetus: we are stuck, trapped, caged, seemingly eternally, in the prison of self, forever longing for reunion with . . . The Whole. 

The anguish, for the moment, fades . . . and on we go. But where? We hardly care. Regardless, the music flows on and now the two themes enter together (8:11), conjoined as they will be to the end, as if they were always naught but one and the same. But suddenly — hope! The bass voice rises stepwise (8:36) in joyful optimism, culminating in an entrance of both themes — for the first time! — in the major mode (842). “What about heaven?!” I speculate comes to Bach’s mind. “We will be reunited! Maria Barbara. Bernhard. All of us!”

But no. Before our very eyes hope fades, dissipates, evaporates with the themes (8:52). Bach knows now without a doubt that such a heaven is but a child’s fairytale. And then, as if all the sorrows of the universe were gathering themselves into these mere three voices, leading them onward towards the most soulful cry of all beings, of all time, and all space . . . thus we come to the ominous penultimate entrance of both themes in the two lower voices (9:16). Halfway through the upper voice enters (9:19), and it’s just with total, absolute, complete . . . despair. The despair that would have driven Brahms mad, or so he thought . . . and so we all think. 

But for Bach . . . there is no choice. He continues, the music continues, flows on and on, and to accompany the final two themes entrance (9:40) there is now an utterly indomitable — utterly intent and relentless — deep bass voice, with a rhythm similar to the inestimably profound Passacaglia in C-minor. . . to which we have no choice but to submit. It’s like the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth upon the draft of which he wrote — well knowing it was perhaps his very greatest work —“ Despair!” The despair of the separate little self. The despair that Beethoven well knew he had no choice but to go through, for he, who called us, “finite beings who are the embodiment of an infinite spirit,” had written eight years earlier, “Man cannot avoid suffering . . . he must endure without complaining and feel his worthlessness, and then again achieve his perfection, that perfection which the Almighty will then bestow upon him.” Surely Bach must sense deep down the same truth since he does not reject it like Brahms. And thus he allows what is perhaps the most succinct answer to the “What do you do in a burning house with no escape” koan: Die, what else? He dies . . . the death of the separate self . . . so that the Whole . . . might be revealed. As it is, not here, not now, not yet in this work . . . but in his ensuing infinitely, unutterably, inestimably profound masterpieces . . . his final legacy to us all . . . The Art of the Fugue, and the Musical Offering (which I shall begin posting in the near future). 

As was written long ago by Aeschylus in Agamemnon: “And even in our sleep, the pain that does not forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God above.”