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HARMONIC FORESHADOWS IN J. S. BACH'S CREATION
Abstract
Bach's genius could be discovered rather in those features of musical language that are no longer contiguous to the pathway initiated by tradition, in those novel solutions which, in spite of displaying a high degree of novelty, are way ahead of their time, foreshadowing evolutions that will become habitual in another stylistic period. One of the elements of the musical language that Bach excels at is harmony which he masters like no other from among his contemporaries. Often a visionary through his manner of approach, Bach, a composer of the Baroque, will foreshadow some innovations specific to the post-romantic or expressionistic stylistics. Aware of the risk of considering Bach's art from too expressionistic an angle, we will separate from the very beginning the late musical Baroque specific to the first half of the 18th century from the musical Post-romanticism and Expressionism of the beginning of the 20th century. They are separated by a precipice too deep to allow somebody to interpret one through the other. Doru Popovici's, Max Eisikovici's or Ovidiu Varga's attempts to anchor some of Bach's creations within the terminology specific to the Viennese musical expressionism represent an unusual fact but we will not follow this path. We would rather shed some light upon those aspects which elude an analysis based on the means of the traditional harmonic language. Sometimes, Bach's sonant evolutions could have constituted among Bach's contemporaries an opportunity for scandal determined by instability, tonal ambiguity or cultivated dissonances. The current study aims at exploring precisely those harmonic evolutions which to Bach were never some mere experiments of sonant nature, but always revealed a more profound significance, strongly connected with the composer's spirituality and religious convictions.
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References4
MARINO, ADRIAN, DicЕЈionar de idei literare (Dictionary of literary ideas), vol. I, Eminescu Publishing House, Bucharest, 1973, p. 236;
ibidem, p. 228;
ibidem, p. 252;
EISIKOVITS, Max, Polifonia barocului – stilul Bachian (Baroque’s polyphony – the Bachian style), Musical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1973, p.479.
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