J.S. Bach - Vor deinen Thron tret' ich - BWV 668

Here is another of Bach's organ chorale preludes, transcribed for and played on the guitar.

'Vor deinen Thron tret' ich' (Before your throne I now appear) has an interesting story behind it, and although I'm not really in a position to properly explain or analyse the music or its history, I can at least give some notes that help explain what's going on.

BWV 668 is a chorale prelude, meaning that it is a piece of instrumental music which takes as its main thematic material an existing song. In this case the original music that the piece is based upon is a hymn entitled 'Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein', which was originally written by Paul Eber in the 16th century. The source melody (or cantus firmus) was composed by Louis Bourgeois, also in the 16th century. Bach had previously arranged this hymn as BWV 431, as below:



If you listen there, you'll note that there are four main melodies, each separated by a fermata (pause). It is these four which become the source for BWV 668.

Reasonably early in his career, Bach created an organ chorale prelude from this piece, BWV 641, under the original title 'Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein' which I have previously transcribed below:



and as played in the original:



What Bach does with BWV 641 is create an accompaniment which is based upon the melodies of the original hymn, but then adds an ornate cantabile melodic line over the top, which I'm sure you'll agree is rather exquisite.

'Vor deinen Thron tret' ich' actually exists in two different versions. BWV668 is included in the 18 Great Chorale Preludes, and actually consists of a fragment (about two thirds) of the entire composition, copied out by someone other than Bach. BWV668a is the same piece, complete, with slight differences, which was included (under the title 'Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein') in the original publication of Art of Fugue, published after Bach's death in 1751.

There is a story that was perpetuated by Bach's son CPE Bach, that his father dictated the chorale directly from his deathbed. This is now considered to be rather flamboyant myth-making, which gave the piece the nickname 'The Deathbed Chorale'. What is actually now understood to be the case is that BWV668a was a piece that was just lying around (Bach was an inveterate re-worker of old material), which Bach decided to put more work into as he lay dying, meaning that although it was not composed out of nowhere, it was still the very last thing that he worked on, and thus a significant artistic statement.



Musically it's really quite complex. It is built in four sections, all composed from fragments of the original hymn melody, diminished, inverted and contrapuntally developed. These lead into statements of the cantus firmus, clearly taken from BWV 641, albeit with the ornaments and floridity removed, before each time the all but one of the voices drop out for another development section. There's a certain plodding quality to the rhythm, which is pretty uneventful, but the level of harmonic interest is high. This regular and systemic feeling is common to some of Bach's large fugues, and perhaps has a certain mood in common with Beethoven's 'Heiliger Dankgesang', another piece closely linked with illness, which also builds slowly and methodically out of simple contrapuntal blocks.

As for the guitar, it's actually quite interesting how snugly it fits onto the instrument. The piece is in G major, and didn't require transposition to be playable (unlike BWV 641, which needed to be moved to D major). G major on the guitar works reasonably well if the 6th string is tuned to D, which means that a low D (the dominant) can be played open beneath the lowest G on the instrument (which thus occurs at the 5th fret). Very few notes, if any, had to be omitted, although there are problems caused by the occurrence of tones on the organ sustained over multiple bars - on occasion these have been rendered as repeated notes. The sections in four parts are particularly satisfying, although the fact that they are so readily playable on the guitar is perhaps down to the lack of rhythmic variety, rather than any particular skill on my part.

Some idle sketches

So here's a couple of little musical items recently saved to disk.

One is a simple sketch attempting to evoke a certain melancholy, utilising a recording I made of the beautiful people hiding underneath the awnings as the Saturday market got unexpectedly drenched a few weeks ago. The guitar comes from a previous recording of mine, and the voice will be obvious to some and perhaps not to others. Those who recognise the speaker will probably find the whole thing too melodic, but oh well.



And then the other is a hastily recorded attempt at Bach's famous organ chorale prelude 'Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ' BWV 639. This has been transcribed for guitar and recorded by both Paul Galbraith and Alexander Vynograd on their eight-string guitars, and also by Graham Anthony Devine on a standard guitar, and there's probably others I've not heard. My transcription is I suppose closest to Devine's, although I attempt to render ornaments that he leaves out, and we have differing octave shifts at various points (not to mention him being a professional and everything). Anyway, it's too loud, the tempo's all over the place, and there's squeaks aplenty, but it's done.

J.S.Bach - Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein - guitar

It's been half a year since I recorded anything, which surprised me when I realised it. I've been playing in the background, trying to keep practicing, when I can fit it into the gaps between 'real' work and life. I certainly haven't transcribed anything recently, but the other day, when working on 'Ich Ruf' zu dir, herr Jesu Christ', which has been regularly transcribed by others, I had a first listen to the full set of Bach Chorale Preludes, and one in particular just jumped out at me.

'Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein' (When we are in our greatest distress) BWV641 is unique amongst these organ works for its highly ornamented melody, giving it a most cantabile quality, indeed the steadiness of the accompaniment gives me the impression slightly of an operatic recitativo. To me it has a lot in common with the Andante from solo violin sonata BWV1003, with their slow pulses and achingly sad major tonality, and of course, when played on the organ, it has an unmistakably funereal air, and as the highly church-like final cadence fades out I always half expect a minister or priest to commence with a solemn eulogy.

Musically it never strays far from home, only briefly making its way out into the dominant and relative minor keys, but it has certainly hints of that same modal feeling which makes music like the Heiliger Dankgesang so very very powerful, and I'm I can hear hints of the suspensions which mean 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen' makes my hair stand on end every single time.

I swapped the key from G into D, as you so often have to do with the guitar, but I was most surprised to find that the melody was thus reasonably comfortably brought into the range of the instrument. The pedal line only required a few octave jumps to fit, and luckily the important descending melodies didn't have to be broken across octaves. The inner voices required a bit more tweaking - long held notes don't really make sense on a plucked instrument, so the recitativo aspect is more pronounced, and occasionally the voices had to be swapped. It's also not that easy; four part harmony on a guitar never is, even at a slow tempo, so there are the usual scrapes, pauses and mistakes that come from being an amateur. But it's a most exquisite piece of music, and I'm pleased that it can be played on the guitar without too much fuss.

Some notes on Bach.

If it’s alright with you I’d like to share some notes on Bach.

There are a few little interesting historical anomalies that mean that there’s something really rather interesting about playing J.S. Bach on the guitar. The first is the fact that the guitar is a classical instrument which only really became ‘serious’ in the 20th century, meaning that its repertoire is a) distinctly limited, and b) mostly rather lightweight, decorative stuff, even at its peak only rising to a kind of banal romantic whimsy. This has led to the guitar being a predominantly solo instrument: not being part of the romantic orchestra and not having many significant ensemble parts written for it, guitarists generally perform alone, like pianists. Furthermore, if the performer finds the general repertoire uninteresting, then they are forced to play transcriptions of works for other instruments; this has become an integral part of playing the instrument, which my amateur attempts at Chopin’s preludes attest to.

As far as Bach is concerned, there are two things we might note; one of which is that as a Baroque composer, the instrumentation of his works are somewhat malleable- there were far more different instruments in common usage back then, and a great many works are orchestrated for whichever musicians happened to be at court at that time. Furthermore, there are a number of instruments which are somewhat unclear - the mystery five stringed cello from BWV1012 for example, or the debate as to whether or not Bach even wrote music for the lute, or rather the gut-stringed harpsichord called a lautenwerk that he certainly owned a couple of. It seems that there is a certain ‘interchangeability’ to Bach’s music, where, especially with its famous logical consistency, not to mention his own habit of transcribing, it lends itself to being moved from instrument to instrument.

So with this in mind, I’ve recently been playing Bach almost exclusively (bearing in mind any playing at all has to fit in the cracks between Job 1, Job 2, freelance work, not dying, and all the other things I regularly struggle with), and have alighted upon a ‘core’ selection of works to play. Yet another auspicious aspect of Bach’s music is his writing for solo instruments, for so long dismissed as mere studies, but then so unbelievably influential over new music in the 20th century. It is these that form the basis of what I’ve been playing.

Lute Suites BWV995-1000

As I mentioned above, the suites for lute were almost certainly not written for the actual lute, and are actually keyboard music with a lighter polyphonic texture than usual, and I generally play the transcriptions for guitar by Jerry Willard.

BWV 995 is Bach’s own transcription of Cello Suite 5, BWV1011 with added voices, and so I consider it part of that work.

BWV996 is a Suite in E minor, with some very challenging three and four part writing, with the initial Presto and final Gigue really impressive.

BWV997, another suite, is most notable for a long, powerful minor-key fugue.

BWV998 is the serene Prelude, Fugue and Allegro, a beautifully majestic mini-suite which is an absolute joy to play, especially the fugue and its slow build-up of its three parts.

BWV999&1000 are a prelude (akin to a minor key version of the prelude of BWV1007) and a fugue that is based upon the violin fugue from BWV1001, one which was a favourite piece of Julian Bream.

As well as all these, BWV1006a is Bach’s own elaboration of 1006 for the lute, which is best played in place of 1006.

Violin Sonatas and Partitas BWV1001-1006

Where the lute suites are often richly polyphonic, the violin works are much more varied - a great number of them are composed of single lines, where all harmony is implied, while on the other hand, there are a number of pieces which utilise all four strings on the violin, giving serious polyphony. I generally play Tadashi Sasaki’s transcriptions, which maintain all the original keys.

BWV1001 in G minor has an incredible prelude, all ornament and lugubrious harmony, a real joy to play, including just the most exquisite deceptive cadence near the end. It’s followed by a fugue, a siciliana and a solid presto.

BWV1002 is rather long, and contrasts a series of dance movements with Doubles in single lines.

BWV1003 was transcribed by Bach himself for the harpsichord, and so there is a version of much thicker texture and ornaments that the performer can pick and choose from. This sonata is completely dominated by the Andante, a piece of unbelievable spiritual calmness and power, one which Bach actually made worse by elaborating it for the keyboard. I was lucky to hear this played by Frank Peter Zimmerman as an encore this summer at the proms, Mein Gott!

BWV1004 is the D minor partita, which is most famous for the Chaconne, which completely dwarfs all of the movements preceding it, for good reason: without hyperbole, it’s one of the most incredible achievements in all music, grandiose, tortured, passionate, sweeping, emphatic.

BWV1005 is another sonata, with a gigantic fugue as its second movement. What is most exciting about this one though, I would say, is the faltering, heartbeat-like prelude, building from near silence into glorious, churning, four-part grandeur.

The prelude of BWV1006 is a guitar favourite, and for good reason. Its effervescent, joyous, rolling rhythm creates a wonderful web of sound that is ideally suited to the guitar, and as I’ve mentioned, there is a ready-made Bach transcription for multi-stringed instrument. In my opinion, however, the rest of the suite can’t really match up to it, despite its charm.

Suites for unaccompanied cello BWV1007-1012

It’s a little bit harder to do these ones justice, such hallowed works, inextricably tied to Casals and his grainy, over-romantic resurrection of what were once simply practicing etudes. The least polyphonic of Bach’s solo instrumental works (not counting the flute partita), they are also the most awkward to transcribe. Unlike the violin works, which can literally be played off the stave in the original without edits, the cello suites have to be completely transposed in order to fit the guitar. Furthermore, decisions have to be made as to how to treat the texture of the pieces - the guitar, charming though it is, simply cannot compete with the cello in the power of a single line, and so the suites can sound naked in a lot of places if they are not dressed up. However, that opens cans of worms about how much tinkering one is allowed to do to the beauty of the original. I’ve encountered a variety of approaches, and I think it depends upon what each of the suites demands in its own logic.

Everyone knows BWV1007! It’s got to be one of Bach’s most famous pieces, recognisable from a million recordings, the background of a innumerable films and so on. I play a transcription by John Duarte, which has become a classic in its own right. He fills the texture out considerably, making for quite rich and challenging pieces, which I think suits the jovial nature of this suite.

BWV1008 is the opposite - sparse, melancholic and vulnerable, to me it sounds better with its nudity emphasised. I haven’t found a satisfactory transcription of this one, so I’m working on my own at the moment, which I’ll probably continue editing as time goes on.

BWV1009 also has a satisfying edition transcribed by Duarte, with slightly less added texture but still a rich and open sonority is achieved.

BWV1010 is proving slightly tricky. The transcription I’m working with happens to be in the same key as BWV1009, and despite me not playing one after the other, I feel that they ought not to be structured in this way. I’ll have to have a further think about this one.


As I mentioned previously, Bach himself filled out BWV1011 into BWV995, and this is excellent help in deciding how to go about playing the others. This is the home of the sarabande, that timeless single melody which sounds like it could easily have been Webern. It’s hard to achieve the same gravitas on a guitar, but it’s worth trying.

And of course, BWV1012, the mighty end to the suites. This is particularly challenging, featuring quite a lot of passages of incredible speed and difficulty, written as it was for the mystery five-string cello (which some believe might have been more like a viola!). Again, I have no decent transcription to work with, so I’m editing it myself. The highlight just has to be the overwhelming, titanic prelude.

So overall that’s eighty-three movements and almost five and a half hours of music to play through (I haven't included the flute partita because I don't know if I can be bothered at the moment). It’s very comforting music; in turbulent times, both worldly and personally, there’s something steady and firm about Bach’s formality, his a-historicism and pre-modern sensibility, that seems like the right thing for me now. I’m still working on transcriptions but I have much less time for that now. We’ll see what happens, but I’m quite keen, if I get bored of this regime, to start really working on some of the more modern C20th guitar works, of which there’s reassuringly quite a lot. On the other hand I have some transcriptions of Bach's keyboard music (including some quite infamous Well Tempered Clavier transcriptions) which if I'm feeling very confident about I may try to work on in future.

Hauntological Record Breaking

I didn't get a chance to go the Wire's Hauntology Salon a few weeks ago, but I recently listened to the recording of the event from the Wire's website. I was struck by something that Adam Harper said, which was along the lines of "'Indignant Senility's Wagner project is the furthest back that Hauntology has gone". Now, personally I don't think the Indignant Senility record is particularly good, as it brings absolutely nothing to the table that isn't already done better in the Caretaker, and acts as a continuation of the reduction of the interesting aspects of hauntology into a kit of aesthetic parts. This is despite Harper's protestations regarding the 'utopian' aspects of Wagner, which I'm not buying, especially after having just read Adorno's book on Mahler. Adorno's ideas about the inclusive nature of Mahler's sound world are a lot more suitable to Harper's notions of sonic collage, which he points out in Charles Ives, than the doubtless universes of Wagner. Hauntology, when it is interesting, is defined by weakness, a quality almost completely absent in Wagner but continually present in Mahler. While in hauntological music this weakness is often manifested in crackle, dust etc, in the pre-recording music of Mahler it is manifested not only by the use of common tunes inamongst his high art, but also in a continual refusal to make a definitive statement; his pieces are often arguments with themselves, making doubt into a creative force.


Anyway, I was digging around my hard drive today and I found the above piece, which surely must be the earliest hauntological source, unless somebody wants to do Palestrina or John Dowland... It's based on a fragment of Bach's Komm Süßer Tod, (Come, Sweet Death) which is also the source for Knut Nysted's utterly amazing 'Immortal Bach', which I've written about before, and is a lot more interesting than my simple and derivative sketch.