Many numbers of these cantatas would disturb us today in
church; on the other hand we consider them exquisite religious parlor
music--which they were far from being in Bach's day. We are no longer
such a vehemently excitable generation religiously as to be able to
endure Bach's music to its full extent in church; on the other hand, as
individuals, in the family, in society we are infinitely more vehemently
excitable and much higher tuned spiritually as well than were those of
the eighteenth century; we want Bach in the concert hall and in the
parlor. The pious and yet forcible leader of St. Thomas' Choir has been
made a parlor musician by us and for us--but for his own generation he
was not one.
In the last hundred years the compass of pitch of almost all instruments
has been considerably enlarged in the treble. The high registers in
which every ordinary violinist must be able to play nowadays would in
those days have seemed too break-neck for the foremost virtuosos. Men
themselves were not tuned high enough to take pleasure in such poignant
chirping. The flute of the seventeenth century was a fourth lower than
that of the eighteenth. In the flute and the piccolo of the nineteenth
century we have again risen a third, yes, an entire octave above the
eighteenth century! Our great-grandfathers called the bass flute _flauto
d'amore_, the alto oboe, _oboe d'amore_, a bass viol, _viola d'amore_,
because their ear found preferably in the deep middle tones the
character of the tender, the sweet, and the languishing.
Pages:
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608