In dulci jubilo

The other day, a colleague asked me about a well-known Bach organ piece, the chorale prelude on the medieval German Christmas carol "In dulci jubilo" from the Orgel-Büchlein, BWV 608:

"What's the current interpretation of Bach's In dulci jubilo in canone all'ottava—the one with quarters in the left hand and 9/8 in the right (3/2 in the pedal)? Can I play the quarters in dotted rhythm, is that a cop-out, or is it considered stylistically correct? My mother played it the other way, and it's a nice challenge, but I'm thinking it's probably out of date."

The colleague asked a bunch of colleagues about this and I think the results will be published in the newsletter of the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists (of which I am, still, a member). But I thought I might put what I wrote here as well. (When playing the piece again the other day I was reminded of some tricky passages and I want to write something about fingerings some time soon—but for now, this is it.) So, here we go.

I don't know what the current interpretation is—that probably depends on the country one lives in, one's teacher, and one's religious views (in matters of performance practice, I mean). To me the question is, What is gained by playing two-against-three? In terms of actual hearing experience, not much, IMHO. In fact, I think a listener in 1715 would have been bewildered by the incomprehensible, "shaky" rhythm and by the de facto strangely arpeggiated chords. It is true that Bach's writing could be unconventional, but he was not an eighteenth-century kind of Stockhausen or Carter.

That two-against-three is hard to play may sound trivial in itself; the real point is not that it's difficult but absurdly difficult in the context of Bach's music (not to mention his contemporaries). In fact, it would make this piece rhythmically the hardest Bach organ piece by far—more so, than, say, the hypercomplex five-part Vater unser from Clavier-Übung III. Bearing in mind that the Orgel-Büchlein was intended (according to Bach's title page) for beginning organists, I simply don't buy that level of complexity. All in all, my best judgement is that it's best to adjust those evenly notated quarters to the triplet movement, taking Bach's hints in mm. 25, 26, 28, 30 (I am aware that one can also use this as evidence to the contrary).

The pedal cantus firmus, BTW, was surely intended to be played an octave lower using a 4-ft. stop; no organ would have had a high F-sharp in Bach's time—in fact, very few European organs do today. The facsimile I have in front of me is to small to see if there's any indication, but I personally think it's quite possible to play the extra tenor voice in the last two measures (dare I call it the quinta vox) in the pedal as well—of course with the same 4-ft. stop and therefore also an octave lower, obviously with the left foot (and yes, I think toe-toe-toe-toe will do fine). Remember that the piece—as almost all of Bach's organ music—was written on two, not three, staves; the separate staff for the pedal is largely a later invention. In any event, the double pedal ending feels very idiomatic to me.

Email from a Student

I have written at least once before about a Very Good Student, and my faithful readers will perhaps remember to imagine the tongue in my cheek when I talk about "good" students (they're all "good," of course, and I like working a lot with all of them!). On the other hand, sometimes students do something that's so nice it's worth blogging (and, I suppose, bragging) about. Here's another of those Great Students I feel really honored to work with.

This young man studies harpsichord with me. Now, from the first moment I heard (and saw) him play the harpsichord, I knew he had a very special gift for the instrument and its repertoire. That is quite remarkable, because from his background, you would not at all expect a special interest in Baroque music (he loves Bach!) and even less a special "feel" for the specific way the harpsichord works. When you see this man play the harpsichord, you realize it's actually a very subtile and sensitive instrument—which of course it is, but only if you're willing to think that way!

So I've been working with this student for a little over a year, and on the whole, he's been great to work with. That's not to say there are no problems, but he's taken on a lot of what I've told him. What's perhaps even more important, he's matured a lot as a music student, taking his work so much more seriously now—which I think is really fantastic.

A while ago, my student was working on a very tricky variation from Bach's "Goldberg" Variations. We disagreed about the interpretation of some of the ornaments, and I suggested he'd look at the facsimile of the first edition. Lo and behold, the next time I saw him he said he'd actually looked for the facsimile in the library, but they didn't have a copy of it. Well, I said, you should have emailed me last night and I would have brought my copy in for you today. Ah, he said, you're right, that would have been good. Even better, we both agreed that, of course, it was his responsibility to ask me.

So the other day, he emails me out of the blue. He's now working on a different Bach piece. He has this great way of emailing me: "Professor?" —as if he's calling me in the corridor in school. Then, in just a few words, he tells me he has trouble with one particular measure in the piece. Can I help him out by suggesting a fingering for this tricky passage?

I so loved getting this question from him that I put off making my fruit salad (we had a birthday in the family) and looked up the piece in question. Within a few minutes, I wrote him back with a fingering for those two measures (you always want to look at a particular measure in its context), but the question inspired me so much that I spent an hour or two looking at that passage in more detail, trying to understand why I actually used that particular fingering by looking a little bit "under the surface" of the notes.

OK, so keyboard fingerings are a huge area of interest to me—as a player, and even more as a teacher, and I'll write a lot more about it some day. But the great thing is that this student asked me for help. So simple, so clear, so straightforward. Wonderful. I love it.