“It’s not that Bach writes music and then sits in an armchair and thinks about God... Bach writing music is Bach thinking about God.”
Individual keys are often loaded with personal significance to the composer. To what extent was Bach thinking of the double sense of Kreuze— both as ‘cross’ and the musical sign for a sharp?
As discussed in the episode, f# minor wasn’t necessarily the key signature with three ‘crosses,’ as Bach’s f# minor looks like this on the page:
Is it more likely that Bach saw b minor as the image of Golgotha on the page? Dare we speculate further and claim that the symmetry of the C# between the two F’s is Christus between the two thieves? Speculation adds nothing of substance… but it’s fun! Bach’s b minor on the page:
In any case, Kreuze was probably never far from Bach’s mind, and f# minor was usually a key for expressing pain and suffering in the cantatas. The fugue from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 859 is full of blatant passion language, seen in the weeping of the countersubject:
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One question I have concerning modern editions is the tenor voice in bar 36. In the earliest version, Bach has given— as a cautionary accidental— D natural:
But in the revision, he forgets the cautionary accidental (or deems it unnecessary.) Does this omission justify D#?! I don’t think so. Both Henle and Bärenreiter suggest D#:
At the end of the episode, we explore the canon from the sonata in A Major for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1015. The third movement (in f# minor) is a strict canon from beginning to end. Check this out:
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Concepts Covered:
Bach and religion, composition as theological thought, the symbolic meaning of musical keys in Bach’s works, f♯ minor & b minor, Calvary or Golgotha. Kreuze in Bach studies: the double meaning of “cross” and the sharp (♯) sign in German language. f♯ minor as a key of suffering and affliction in Bach’s cantatas and keyboard works. Passion rhetoric in BWV 859 (WTC I)
Canon analysis of BWV 1015, the Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord in A major.
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