The Clavier-Übung III, sometimes referred to as the German Organ Mass, is a collection of compositions for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, started in 1735–36 and published in 1739. It is considered Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his most musically complex and technically demanding compositions for that instrument.

In its use of modal forms, motet-style and canons, it looks back to the religious music of masters of the stile antico, such as Frescobaldi, Palestrina, Lotti and Caldara. At the same time, Bach was forward-looking, incorporating and distilling modern baroque musical forms, such as the French-style chorale.^[1]

The work has the form of an Organ Mass: between its opening and closing movements—the prelude and "St Anne" fugue in E♭ major, BWV 552—are 21 chorale preludes, BWV 669–689, setting two parts of the Lutheran mass and six catechism chorales, followed by four duets, BWV 802–805. The chorale preludes range from compositions for single keyboard to a six-part fugal prelude with two parts in the pedal.

The purpose of the collection was fourfold: an idealized organ programme, taking as its starting point the organ recitals given by Bach himself in Leipzig; a practical translation of Lutheran doctrine into musical terms for devotional use in the church or the home; a compendium of organ music in all possible styles and idioms, both ancient and modern, and properly internationalised; and as a didactic work presenting examples of all possible forms of contrapuntal composition, going far beyond previous treatises on musical theory.^[2]

History and origins

November 25, 1736, saw the consecration of a new organ, built by Gottfried Silbermann, in a central and symbolic position in the Frauenkirche, Dresden. The following week, on the afternoon of December 1, Bach gave a two-hour organ recital there, which received "great applause". Bach was used to playing on church organs in Dresden, where since 1733 his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, had been organist at the Sophienkirche. It is considered likely that for the December recital Bach performed for the first time parts of his as yet unpublished Clavier-Übung III, the composition of which, according to Gregory Butler's dating of the engraving, started as early as 1735. This inference has been drawn from the special indication on the title page that it was "prepared for music-lovers and particularly connoisseurs" of music; from contemporary reports of Bach's custom of giving organ recitals for devotees after services; and from the subsequent tradition among music lovers in Dresden of attending Sunday afternoon organ recitals in the Frauenkirche given by Bach's student Gottfried August Homilius, whose programme was usually made up of chorale preludes and a fugue. Bach was later to complain that the temperament on Silbermann organs was not well suited to "today's practice".^[3][4][5]

Clavier-Übung III is the third of four books of Bach's Clavier-Übung. It was the only portion of music meant for the organ, the other three parts being for harpsichord. The title, meaning "keyboard practice", was a conscious reference to a long tradition of similarly titled treatises: Johann Kuhnau (Leipzig, 1689, 1692), Johann Philipp Krieger (Nuremberg, 1698), Vincent Lübeck (Hamburg, 1728), Georg Andreas Sorge (Nuremberg, 1739) and Johann Sigismund Scholze (Leipzig 1736–1746). Bach started composing after finishing Clavier-Übung II—the Italian Concerto, BWV 971 and the Overture in the French style, BWV 831—in 1735. Bach used two groups of engravers because of delays in preparation: 43 pages by three engravers from the workshop of Johann Gottfried Krügner in Leipzig and 35 pages by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg. The final 78-page manuscript was published in Leipzig in Michaelmas (late September) 1739 at the relatively high price of 3 Reichsthaler. Bach's Lutheran theme was in keeping with the times, since already that year there had been three bicentenary Reformation festivals in Leipzig.^[6]

In translation, the title page reads "Third Part of Keyboard Practice, consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ. Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the chorus musicus, Leipzig. Published by the author".^[7]

Examination of the original manuscript suggests that the Kyrie-Gloria and larger catechism chorale preludes were the first to be composed, followed by the "St Anne" prelude and fugue and the manualiter chorale preludes in 1738 and finally the four duets in 1739. Apart from BWV 676, all the material was newly composed. The scheme of the work and its publication were probably motivated by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann's Harmonische Seelenlust (1733–1736), Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch's Compositioni Musicali (1734–1735) and chorale preludes by Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl, Johann Gottfried Walther and Johann Caspar Vogler published between 1734 and 1737, as well as the older Livres d'orgue, the French organ masses of Nicolas de Grigny (1700), Pierre Dumage (1707) and others.^[8][9] Bach's formulation of the title page follows some of these earlier works in describing the particular form of the compositions and appealing to "connoisseurs", his only departure from the title page of Clavier-Übung II.^[10]

Although Clavier-Übung III is acknowledged to be not merely a miscellaneous collection of pieces, there has been no agreement on whether it forms a cycle or is just a set of closely related pieces. As with previous organ works of this type by composers such as François Couperin, Johann Caspar Kerll and Dieterich Buxtehude, it was in part a response to musical requirements in church services. Bach's references to Italian, French and German music place Clavier-Übung III directly in the tradition of the Tabulaturbuch, a similar but much earlier collection by Elias Ammerbach, one of Bach's predecessors at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.^[11]

Bach's complex musical style had been criticized by some of his contemporaries. The composer, organist and musicologist Johann Mattheson remarked in "Die kanonische Anatomie" (1722):^[12]

It is true, and I have experienced it myself, that quick progress ... with artistic pieces (Kunst-Stücke) can engross a sensible composer so that he can sincerely and secretly delight in his own work. But through this self-love we are unwittingly led away from the true purpose of music, until we hardly think of others at all, although it is our goal to delight them. Really we should follow not only our own inclinations, but those of the listener. I have often composed something that seemed to me trifling, but unexpectedly attained great favour. I made a mental note of this, and wrote more of the same, although it had little merit when judged according to artistry.

Until 1731, apart from his celebrated ridiculing in 1725 of Bach's declamatory writing in the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21, Mattheson's commentary on Bach had been positive. In 1730, however, he heard by chance that Gottfried Benjamin Hancke had been commenting unfavourably on his own keyboard technique: "Bach will play Mattheson into a sack and out again." From 1731 onwards, his vanity pricked, Mattheson's writing became critical of Bach, whom he referred to as "der künstliche Bach". Over the same period Bach's former pupil Johann Adolf Scheibe had been making stinging criticisms of Bach: in 1737 he wrote that Bach "deprived his pieces of all that was natural by giving them a bombastic and confused character, and eclipsed their beauty by too much art".^[13] Scheibe and Mattheson were employing practically the same lines of attack on Bach; and indeed Mattheson involved himself directly in Scheibe's campaign against Bach. Bach did not comment directly at the time: his case was argued with some discreet prompting from Bach by Johann Abraham Birnbaum, professor of rhetoric at the University of Leipzig, a music lover and friend of Bach and Lorenz Christoph Mizler. In March 1738 Scheibe launched a further attack on Bach for his "not inconsiderable errors":

This great man has not sufficiently studied the sciences and humanities which are actually required of a learned composer. How can a man who has not studied philosophy and is incapable of investigating and recognizing the forces of nature and reason be without fault in his musical work? How can he attain all the advantages which are necessary for the cultivation of good taste when he has hardly troubled himself with critical observations, investigations and with the rules which are as necessary to music as they are to rhetoric and poetry. Without them it is impossible to compose movingly and expressively.

In the advertisement in 1738 for his forthcoming treatise, Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Mattheson included a letter by Scheibe, resulting from his exchanges with Birnbaum, in which Scheibe expressed strong preference for Mattheson's "natural" melody over Bach's "artful" counterpoint. Through his friend Mizler and his Leipzig printers Krügner and Breitkopf, also printers for Mattheson, like others Bach would have had advance knowledge of the content of Mattheson's treatise. Concerning counterpoint, Mattheson wrote:

Of double fugues with three subjects, there is, as far as I know, nothing else in print but my own work under the name, Die Wollklingende Fingerspruche, Parts I and II, which out of modesty I would commend to no one. On the contrary I would much rather see something of the same sort published by the famed Herr Bach in Leipzig, who is a great master of the fugue. In the meantime, this lack exposes abundantly, not only the weakened state and the decline of well-grounded contrapuntists on the one hand, but on the other hand, the lack of concern of today's ignorant organists and composers about such instructive matters.

Whatever Bach's personal reaction, the contrapuntal writing of Clavier-Übung III provided a musical response to Scheibe's criticisms and Mattheson's call to organists. Mizler's statement, cited above, that the qualities of Clavier-Übung III provided a "powerful refutation of those who have ventured to criticize the music of the Court Composer" was a verbal response to their criticisms. Nevertheless, most commentators agree that the main inspiration for Bach's monumental opus was musical, namely musical works like the Fiori musicali of Girolamo Frescobaldi, for which Bach had a special fondness, having acquired his own personal copy in Weimar in 1714.^[8][14][15]

Textual and musical plan

The number of chorale preludes in Clavier-Übung III, twenty-one, coincides with the number of movements in French organ masses. The Mass and Catechism settings correspond to the schedule of Sunday worship in Leipzig, the morning mass and afternoon catechism. In contemporary hymn books, the Lutheran Mass comprising the troped German Kyrie and German Gloria fell under the heading of the Holy Trinity. The organist and music theorist Jakob Adlung recorded in 1758 the custom of church organists playing the two Sunday hymns "Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr" and "Wir glauben all an einen Gott"' in different keys: Bach uses three of the six tonalities between E and B♭ mentioned for "Allein Gott". The organ had no role in the catechism examination, a series of questions and answers on the faith, so the presence of these hymns was probably a personal devotional statement of Bach. However, Luther's Shorter Catechism (see illustration) centres on the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Office of the Keys and Confession, and the Eucharist, the exact subjects of Luther's own six catechism chorales. In Bach's part of Germany, these catechism hymns were sung at school assemblies on weekdays, with the Kyrie and Gloria on Sundays. Luther's hymn book contains all six of the chorales. However, it is more likely that Bach used these hymns, some of them Gregorian in origin, as a tribute to the main precepts of Lutheranism during the special bicentenary year of Luther's 1539 sermon in the Thomaskirche, Leipzig. The main texts for Lutherans were the Bible, the hymn book and the catechisms: Bach had already set numerous biblical texts in his cantatas and passions; in 1736 he had helped prepare a hymn book with Georg Christian Schemelli; finally in 1739 he set the catechism hymns (see earlier illustration of title page) as organ chorale preludes.^[16]

Williams (1980) has suggested the following features that Clavier-Übung III borrowed from Frescobaldi's Fiori musicali, Bach's personal copy of which was signed "J.S. Bach 1714":

• Intent. The Fiori were written "mainly to assist organists" with compositions "corresponding to mass and vespers".
• Plan. The first of the three sets of the Fiori consists of a Toccata before the mass, 2 Kyries, 5 Christes, followed by a further 6 Kyries; then a Canzone (after the Epistle), a Ricercare (after the Credo), a Toccata Cromatica (for the Elevation) and finally a Canzona (after the post-communion).
• Polyphony. Frescobaldi's short Kyries and Christes are written in four-part stile antico counterpoint. Many of them have a constantly running cantus firmus or pedal point.
• Structure. The mutations and combination of themes in fugue BWV 552/2 are closely matched by the closing canzona in the first set and the alternative ricercare in the second set of the Fiori. Similarly, the ostinato bass of the fugue BWV 680 is prefigured by a ricercare fugue with a five-note ostinato bass in the Fiori.

According to Williams (2003), Bach had a clear liturgical purpose in his organ compendium, with its cyclic order and plan, clear to the eye if not the ear. Even though the manualiter fugues were written at the time as Book 2 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, only the last fugue BWV 689 has anything in common. Bach's musical plan has a multitude of structures: the organum plenum pieces; the three styles of polyphony, manualiter and trio sonata in the Mass; the pairs in the Catechism, two with cantus firmus in canon, two with pedal cantus firmus, two for full organ); and the free invention in the duets. The fughetta BWV 681 at the centre of Clavier-Übung III plays a structural role similar to the central pieces in the other three parts of Bach's Clavier-Übung, to mark the beginning of the second half of the collection. It is written using the musical motifs of a French overture, as in the first movement of the fourth of Bach's keyboard Partitas BWV 828 (Clavier-Übung I), the first movement of his Overture in the French style, BWV 831 (Clavier-Übung II), the sixteenth variation of the Goldberg Variations BWV 988 (Clavier-Übung IV), marked "Ouverture. a 1 Clav", and Contrapunctus VII in the original manuscript version of Die Kunst der Fuge as contained in P200.

Although possibly intended for use in services, the technical difficulty of Clavier-Übung III, like that of Bach's later compositions—the Canonic Variations BWV 769, The Musical Offering BWV 1079 and The Art of Fugue BWV 1080—would have made the work too demanding for most Lutheran church organists. Indeed, many of Bach's contemporaries deliberately wrote music to be accessible to a wide range of organists: Sorge composed simple 3-part chorales in his Vorspiele (1750), because chorale preludes such as Bach's were "so difficult and almost unusable by players"; Vogel, Bach's former student from Weimar, wrote his Choräle "principally for those who have to play in country" churches; and another Weimar student, Johann Ludwig Krebs, wrote his Klavierübung II (1737) so that it could be played "by a lady, without much trouble".^[17]

Clavier-Übung III combines German, Italian and French styles, particularly in the opening Preludium, BWV 552/1, whose three thematic groups seem deliberately chosen to represent France, Italy and Germany respectively (see discussion of BWV 552/1 below). This reflects a trend in late 17th- and early 18th-century Germany for composers and musicians to write and perform in a style that became known as the "mixed taste", a phrased coined by Quantz.^[18] In 1730, Bach had written a now-famous letter to the Leipzig town council—his "Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music"—complaining not only of performing conditions, but also of the pressure to employ performing styles from different countries:

It is anyway, somewhat strange that German musicians are expected to be capable of performing at once and ex tempore all kinds of music, whether it comes from Italy or France, England or Poland.

Already in 1695, in the dedication of his Florilegium Primum, Georg Muffat had written, "I dare not employ a single style or method, but rather the most skillful mixture of styles I can manage through my experience in various countries ... As I mix the French manner with the German and Italian, I do not begin a war, but perhaps a prelude to the unity, the dear peace, desired by all the peoples." This tendency was encouraged by contemporary commentators and musicologists, including Bach's critics Mattheson and Scheibe, who, in praising the chamber music of his contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann, wrote that, "it is best if German part writing, Italian galanterie and French passion are combined".

Recalling Bach's early years in the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg between 1700 and 1702, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel records in the Nekrolog, Bach's obituary of 1754:

From there, through frequent hearing of the then famous orchestra, maintained by the Duke of Celle and consisting largely of Frenchmen, he had the opportunity of consolidating himself in the French style, which in those parts and at that time, was completely new.

The court orchestra of Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg was established in 1666 and concentrated on the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully, which became popular in Germany between 1680 and 1710. It is probable that Bach heard the orchestra at the Duke's summer residence at Dannenberg near Lüneburg. In Lüneburg itself, Bach would have also heard the compositions of Georg Böhm, organist at the Johanniskirche, and of Johann Fischer, a visitor in 1701, both of whom were influenced by the French style.^[19] Later in the Nekrolog C.P.E. Bach also reports that, "In the art of organ, he took the works of Bruhns, Buxtehude, and several good French organists as models." In 1775, he expanded on this to Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel noting that his father had studied not only the works of Buxtehude, Böhm, Nicolaus Bruhns, Fischer, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Kerll, Pachelbel, Reincken and Strunck, but also of "some old and good Frenchmen."^[20]

Contemporary documents indicate that these composers would have included Boyvin, Nivers, Raison, d'Anglebert, Corrette, Lebègue, Le Roux, Dieupart, François Couperin, Nicolas de Grigny and Marchand. (The latter, according to an anecdote of Forkel, fled from Dresden in 1717 to avoid competing with Bach in a keyboard "duel".)^[19] At the court of Weimar in 1713, Prince Johann Ernst, a keen musician, is reported to have brought back Italian and French music from his travels in Europe. At the same time, or possibly earlier, Bach made meticulous copies of the entire Livre d'Orgue (1699) of de Grigny and the table of ornaments from d'Anglebert's Pièces de clavecin (1689), and his student Vogler made copies of two Livres d'Orgue of Boyvin. In addition, at Weimar, Bach would have had access to the extensive collection of French music of his cousin Johann Gottfried Walther. Much later, in the exchanges between Birnbaum and Scheibe over Bach's compositional style in 1738, while Clavier-Übung III was in preparation, Birnbaum brought up the works of de Grigny and Dumage in connection with ornamentation, probably at the suggestion of Bach. Apart from the elements of "French ouverture" style in the opening prelude BWV 552/1 and the central manualiter chorale prelude BWV 681, commentators agree that the two large-scale five-part chorale preludes—Dies sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot' BWV 678 and Vater unser im Himmelreich BWV 682—are partly inspired by the five-part textures of Grigny, with two parts in each manual and the fifth in the pedal.^{[21][22][23][24][25]}

Commentators have taken Clavier-Übung III to be a summation of Bach's technique in writing for the organ, and at the same time a personal religious statement. As in his other later works, Bach's musical language has an otherworldly quality, whether modal or conventional. Compositions apparently written in major keys, such as the trio sonatas BWV 674 or 677, can nevertheless have an ambiguous key. Bach composed in all known musical forms: fugue, canon, paraphrase, cantus firmus, ritornello, development of motifs and various forms of counterpoint.^[17] There are five polyphonic stile antico compositions (BWV 669–671, 686 and the first section of 552/ii), showing the influence of Palestrina and his followers, Fux, Caldara and Zelenka. Bach, however, even if he employs the long note values of the stile antico, goes beyond the original model, as for example in BWV 671.^[17]

Williams (2007) describes one aim of Clavier-Übung III as being to provide an idealized programme for an organ recital. Such recitals were described later by Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel:^[26]

When Johann Sebastian Bach seated himself at the organ when there was no divine service, which he was often requested to do, he used to choose some subject and to execute it in all the forms of organ composition so that the subject constantly remained his material, even if he had played, without intermission, for two hours or more. First he used this theme for a prelude and fugue, with the full organ. Then he showed his art by using the stops for a trio, quartet, etc., always upon the same subject. Afterwards followed a chorale, the melody of which was playfully surrounded in the most diversified manner with the original subject, in three or four parts. Finally the conclusion was made by a fugue, with the full organ, in which either another treatment only of the first subject predominated, or one or, according to its nature, two others were mixed with it.

The musical plan of Clavier-Übung III conforms to this pattern of a collection of chorale preludes and chamber-like works framed by a free prelude and fugue for organum plenum.

Numerological significance

Wolff (1991) has given an analysis of the numerology of Clavier-Übung III. According to Wolff there is a cyclic order. The opening prelude and fugue frame three groups of pieces: the nine chorale preludes based on the kyrie and gloria of the Lutheran mass; the six pairs of chorale preludes on the Lutheran catechism; and the four duets. Each group has its own internal structure. The first group is made up of three groups of three. The first three chorales on the kyrie in the stile antico hark back to the polyphonic masses of Palestrina, with increasingly complex textures. The next group consists of three short versets on the kyrie that have progressive time signatures ⁶
₈, ⁹
₈, and ¹²
₈. In the third group of three trio sonatas on the German gloria, two manualiter settings frame a trio for two manuals and pedal with a regular progression of keys, F major, G major and A major. Each pair of catechism chorales has a setting for two manuals and pedal followed by a smaller scale manualiter fugal chorale. The group of 12 catechism chorales is further broken up into two groups of six grouped around pivotal grand plenum organum settings (Wir glauben and Auf tiefer Noth). The duets are related by the successive key progression, E minor, F major, G major, and A minor. Clavier-Übung III thus combines many different structures: pivotal patterns; similar or contrasting pairs; and progressively increasing symmetry. There is also an overriding numerological symbolism. The nine mass settings (3 × 3) refer to the three of the Trinity in the mass, with specific reference to Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the corresponding texts. The number twelve of the catechism chorales can be seen as a reference to the usual ecclesiastical use of the number 12, the number of disciples. The whole work has 27 pieces (3 × 3 × 3), completing the pattern. However, despite this structure, it is unlikely that the work was ever intended to be performed as a whole: it was intended as a compendium, a resource for organists for church performances, with the duets possibly accompaniments for communion.^[27]

Williams (2003) comments on the occurrences of the golden ratio in Clavier-Übung III pointed out by various musicologists. The division of bars between the prelude (205) and fugue (117) provides one example. In the fugue itself the three parts have 36, 45 and 36 bars, so the golden ratio appears between lengths of the middle section and outer sections. The midpoint of the middle section is pivotal, with the first appearance there of the first subject against a disguised version of the second. Finally in BWV 682, Vater unser in Himmelreich (the Lord's Prayer), a pivotal point, where the manual and pedal parts are exchanged, occurs at bar 41, which is the sum of the numerical order of letters in JS BACH (using the Baroque convention^[28] of identifying I with J and U with V). The later cadence at bar 56 in the 91 bar chorale prelude gives another instance of the golden ratio. 91 itself factorises as 7, signifying prayer, times 13, signifying sin, the two elements—canonic law and the wayward soul—also represented directly in the musical structure.^[29]

Prelude and fugue BWV 552

The descriptions below are based on the detailed analysis in Williams (2003).

BWV 552/1 Praeludium

Prelude in E♭ major, BWV 552/1

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Together with the Toccata in F major BWV 540, this is the longest of Bach's organ preludes. It combines the elements of a French overture (first theme), an Italian concerto (second theme) and a German fugue (third theme), although adapted to the organ. There are the conventional dotted rhythms of an ouverture, but the alternation of themes owes more to the tradition of contrasting passages in organ compositions than the solo-tutti exchanges in a Vivaldi concerto. Originally possibly written in the key of D major, a more common key for a concerto or ouverture, Bach might have transposed it and the fugue into E♭ major because Mattheson had described the key in 1731 as a "beautiful and majestic key" avoided by organists. The piece also has three separate themes (A, B, C), sometimes overlapping, which commentators have interpreted as representing the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the Trinity. Other references to the Trinity include the three flats in the key signature, like the accompanying fugue.

As the prelude progresses, the reprises of the first theme are shortened, as in a typical Vivaldi concerto; that of the second theme is simply transposed to the dominant; and those of the third theme become more extended and developed. There are no toccata-like passages and the musical writing is quite different from that of the period. For each theme the pedal part has a different character: a baroque basso continuo in the first theme; a quasi-pizzicato bass in the second; and a stile antico bass in the third, with notes alternating between the feet. All three themes share a three semiquaver figure: in the first theme in bar 1, it is a figure typical of a French ouverture; in the second theme in bar 32, it is an echo in the galant Italian style; and in the third theme in bar 71, it is a motif typical of German organ fugues. The three themes reflect national influences: the first French; the second Italian, with its galant writing; and the third German, with many elements drawn from the tradition of North German organ fugues. The markings of forte and piano in the second theme for the echos show that at least two manuals were needed; Williams has suggested that perhaps even three manuals could have been intended, with the first theme played on the first keyboard, the second and third on the second and the echos on the third.