Franz Josef Haydn

Franz Josef Haydn was certainly one of the greatest creative geniuses who ever lived. Born March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria, into a musical family, Haydn received musical training at a very young age. When he was eight years old he was sent to Vienna to sing in the Vienna Boys Choir. When he left the boys choir he became a freelance musician, giving piano lessons, playing organ and violin in church serves, and sometimes playing in the court in Vienna. He tried his hand at composing during those years as a freelance musician and he realized that his counterpoint was weak, so he studied the famous instruction book on counterpoint by Johan Fux. During this time he also made a serious study of the music of other composers, mostly CPE Bach (the eldest son of JS Bach), whose music became a strong influence in his early works.

Haydn was loved and respected from Moscow to London during his lifetime. What composer prior to Haydn could boast such international fame? None, not even Handel had been that universally loved during his life. Haydn was jovial, friendly, and sociable. He was said to have gotten along with everyone, from cooks and stable boys to emperors. His affable nature and fatherly charm earned him the nickname Papa. Everyone called him Papa. He handled his fame and fortune with dignity and stoic equanimity.

Haydn is sometimes called the father of the symphony, though he did not invent the symphony. The symphony came about as a confluence of the French Orchestral Suite and the German Orchestral Serenade, and I don’t think it is known who wrote the first one. The symphony was considered an easy-listening genre at first, but eventually certain composers, such as Abel (1723-1787) and Stamitz (1745-1801) began to take the symphony more seriously and their works were quite popular and were influential on both Haydn and Mozart. It was Josef Haydn who did more for the evolution of the symphony than any other eighteenth century composer, though Mozart made a few outstanding contributions.

Some people are confused by the fact that Haydn is said to have composed 115 symphonies, but his last one is called his Symphony # 104. This discrepancy is resolved by the fact that Haydn’s symphonies were collected and put in chronological order shortly after his death, and many years later some early symphonies were discovered. They were given numbers such as 16a or 12a and 12b and interpolated into his repertoire of symphonies. The same thing happened with Mozart, who composed 55 symphonies, but his last one is called symphony # 40.

Haydn transformed the string quartet the easy-listening genre that it was into something quite artful. Before Haydn transformed it, the string quartet was nothing more than a simple divertimento, with the first violin almost always having the melodic material while the other three instruments accompanied. In 1782 Haydn composed his opus 33, which was a set of six string quartets. When the sixteen year-old Mozart came across Haydn’s opus 33 quartets he was profoundly affected by them. It was not mere hype when Haydn announced that they are in a completely new style. With one set of six quartets Haydn changed the string quartet forever. Rather than being merely in a simple style of melody and accompaniment, these works sound more like a conversation taking place among four instruments. True, the first violin still has the melodic material more often than the other three instruments but these quartets paved the way for the more ‘democratic’ string quartets of Beethoven, in which all four instruments are given almost equal importance. There exist 68 string quartets by Haydn, though he composed somewhat more than that, several having been lost to posterity.

Haydn pioneered such devices as having an accompaniment figure change fluidly and subtly into the principal melodic voice. He was the first composer to really develop his themes in a concentrated manner. His themes are often terse and based on a simple short motif, making them ideal for development. Haydn was much more unconventional than Mozart. He delighted in sudden surprises. Such things as jarringly unexpected changes of harmony, false reprises, and irregular phrase structure, were part of his stock and trade. He loved to shock the listener with sudden and unexpected changes to remote keys. Sometimes he will stun the listener with an abrupt silence that comes without warning. Many of his stylistic techniques can be found in the music of other composers, most notably C.P.E. Bach, but Haydn used these procedures in a more coherent and effective manner. No other composer in history ever had his facility at appealing to the average listener and the music connoisseur at the same time. There is always a superficial attractiveness to his music, making it enjoyable to anyone, but if you listen carefully you will find deeper levels of musical invention.

Haydn loved to break all the “rules.” His earlier works are much more in line with the standard model of sonata form, but one finds in so much of his later works that he creatively distorts, and even sometimes inverts the traditional sections of a sonata form movement. A true bohemian, he was always unconventional, always experimenting, and even when following conventional forms there is usually something of a nonconformist nature in his music.

Haydn was very fond of folk music and incorporated folk songs into some of his symphonies. The theme of the finale of his symphony 104 is my favorite example. It is a catchy and simple melody and Haydn uses it to great effect. Sometimes it is hard to tell when Haydn is using an actual folksong or is using a melody which sounds like a folk song but is actually a melody of his own creation.

A large part of his genius was his ability to make so much out of so little. Many of his works, particularly first movements of symphonies and chamber music, use thematic material that is terse and simple, but pregnant with possibilities, and the development, or working out of these themes is what gives the music so much of its expressiveness. His ability to make a large movement grow out of a simple germ of an idea had a profound effect on Beethoven.

His music is full of wit and humor. There are many places in his symphonies and string quartets where he expected to evoke laughter from the listener, though this is for the most part, lost on modern audiences. His music is almost always jovial, happy, cheerful and exuberant. He seems to have been almost incapable of composing sad music.

Though his operas are considered second-rate and most of his concertos are not well loved, he composed a huge amount of quartets and chamber music that was very popular in his lifetime and still popular today.

In the classical era, the same composers who were good at opera were good at concertos, because a classical concerto movement is more or less the same thing as an opera aria, the only difference being that the star is an instrumentalist, not a singer. Haydn’s only truly great concerto is his trumpet concerto, but it is a rather conventional work for a composer as unconventional as he was. His church music was strongly criticized in his lifetime and deemed inappropriate for the church. His masses are really just symphonies with choir and orchestra. Unlike his younger contemporary Mozart, Haydn did not have a strong grasp of baroque style, and the church did not deem the new classical style as appropriate for ecclesiastical music. His masses contain some moments of beauty, but for the most part do not approach the greatness of his symphonies. In his last mass however, Haydn finally accomplished a true masterpiece. Reacting to the criticism of his church music, Haydn once made the comment that his younger brother Michael was a better church composer than he himself was.

In 1761 Haydn obtained the job of music director and composer for Prince Anton Esterhazy, an immensely wealthy prince who lived in a lavish country estate near Vienna. Haydn worked at the Esterhazy palace for 30 years. The prince played an unusual instrument called the baryton. The baryton was a bowed instrument with sympathetic strings and was about the size of a cello. It has a rather unusual sound. Haydn composed 175 chamber works that include this instrument, 126 of them being trios.

At the Esterhazy palace Haydn was somewhat isolated from the rest of the world, and in a famous quote he attributed that to his originality. He said, “I could make experiments, observe what made an impression and what weakened it… I could run risks. I was set apart from the world with nobody to confuse me and intrude on my development; and so I was compelled to become original.”

Besides symphonies and string quartets, the other genre of music that Haydn perfected was the piano trio. The piano trio is a work that was written for piano, violin, and cello, but is called a piano trio because the piano dominates the musical texture. There are twenty-six piano trios by Haydn and several more spurious ones that are sometimes attributed to him. In Haydn’s piano trios the cello rarely attains an independent role and almost always has the job of doubling the bass line of the piano. Mozart gave the cello much more independence in his piano trios, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily better than Haydn’s. Of the five piano trios by Mozart, only two are masterpieces. The other three are merely charming and pretty. Haydn composed only a few piano trios in his early years and they are rather banal but most of the later ones are outstanding.

As mentioned above, the cello in Haydn’s piano trios has almost no independent parts, but merely doubles the bass line of the piano. Had Haydn been using a modern piano he probably would have given the cello independence in those trios. The fact is, the piano of the time had a rather weak-sounding bass and could not sustain a note, either bass or treble, for any appreciable length. The sound died quickly. In Haydn’s piano trios the cello not only adds strength and fullness to the bass line of the piano, but it is used to sustain notes whenever the music calls for a bass note to be held for any length. In Haydn’s piano trios the violin mostly has the role of accompaniment, but has the melody now and then, usually being doubled by the treble in the piano when it does take the melody. It can be said that his piano trios are actually piano sonatas with a violin and cello helping to overcome the deficiencies of the eighteenth century piano. The artistry and invention in Haydn’s piano trios is far beyond that of his sonatas for solo piano.

I should mention that the stringed instruments and pianos of the eighteenth century created a smoother blend of sound than our modern ones. Players of modern instruments, especially violinists, have to understand this and adjust their playing accordingly when playing these piano trios, or for that matter, any chamber music for piano and strings from the classical period.

Haydn retired in 1790 from his job as director of music at the Esterhazy palace. Feeling somewhat restless, he planned a trip to London. His young friend, Wolfgang Mozart begged him not to go, but off he went. On his way to London he stopped over in Bonn, Germany and met the 19 year-old Beethoven. In London he was a raving success. He composed his symphonies 92-98 while he was there. The British audience was electrified by these symphonies, and in awe of Haydn, who conducted them from the piano as was the custom at the time.

On his return to Vienna in the summer of 1792 he found out that Mozart had died the previous December. Saddened by the loss of his incredibly talented friend, he said, “The world will not see genius like that for another hundred years.”

He returned to London in 1794 and while there composed symphonies 99-104 as well as his most famous piano trio, called the Gypsy Trio because of the use of a gypsy melody as the theme of the last movement. Again he was a smashing success in London. He had retired comfortably from his service at the Esterhazy palace, but his two London trips made him a wealthy man.

Having returned to Vienna in 1795 he spent the remainder of his life there. Baron Von Swieten, a man who was influential to Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, encouraged Haydn to compose an oratorio in the style of Handel. He composed two of them. His oratorios The Creation and The Seasons are among his finest works.

Haydn left the world with fifty-one piano sonatas and numerous other works for solo piano. No composer at that time period treated any form of solo piano music as a serious art form, and Haydn was no exception. The piano of the time was too limited in its ability. It only had five octaves. The sound died quickly, thus it was impossible to achieve a legato sound or to hold a note over several measures. The responsiveness to touch was not very good. For both Haydn and Mozart the music for solo piano is rather simple, but the music for piano in combination with other instruments is much more creative. His last three piano sonatas are an exception, and helped pave the way for Beethoven. He rubbed elbows with the best musicians and composers in England during his two visits and absorbed a certain amount of the English style of piano composition. And he had access to the newest and best pianos in London.

That last point is very important. During the 1790s improvements were constantly being made to the piano. Piano makers added another octave to the piano and they were always looking for ways to make the keys more responsive to touch. London piano makers preferred a louder, more robust instrument than their Viennese counterparts and British Broodwood Company led the way. The clear articulation of the Viennese pianos was not possible on the English Broodwood pianos, but the louder, richer sound of the Broodwoods lent itself to grand gestures such as explosive full-bodied chords, fast runs across the keyboard, and stronger dynamic contrasts. Not only did Haydn find new inspiration from the Broodwood piano and British composers, but he had the luck of meeting a woman in London who was a true piano virtuoso. His last three piano sonatas were composed for this woman, with the new six-octave Broodwood in mind. Thus his last three sonatas go far beyond the simple musical invention of his previous ones.

In 1794 Haydn returned to his old job as director of music at the Esterhazy palace, but only on a part-time basis. Prince Anton had passed away and Prince Nicholas Esterhazy replaced him. The Esterhazy headquarters was moved to Vienna. It was Prince Nicholas who commissioned Haydn’s best masses.

There are extant 13 masses for choir and orchestra by Haydn. The first seven were written before 1782. The last six were written between 1796 and 1802, and were commissioned by Prince Nicholas Esterhazy II for the celebration of the name-day of his wife. These masses are considered by many to be among Haydn’s greatest masterpieces, but they are rather uneven in that there are some great passages here and there, and even some entire movements that sound wonderful throughout, but there is much material that simply doesn’t achieve the greatness that Haydn achieved in other genres, such as the symphony.

The one genre in the classical period that was most problematic for composers is church music. The classical style is a dramatic style and is simply not suited for ecclesiastical service. The Church, both Catholic and Protestant, has always been resistant to stylistic change and innovation, but was particularly resistant to intrusions of the classical style. To make matters worse, the Austrian government, under Joseph II (Emperor of Austria 1780-1790), imposed restrictions on the use of instruments in the church. As mentioned above, Haydn’s masses and other church music were roundly criticized in his life as being trivial works, unsuitable for the church, and still to this day are criticized for the same reasons.

In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, use of the old baroque style in church music was analogous to using old-fashioned language in a sermon, lending a sense of dignity and solemnity. But what significant composer of the late eighteenth century besides Mozart had a good grasp of the baroque ecclesiastic style? Haydn, though familiar with Handel’s output from his trips to London, didn’t imbue his masses with much baroque influence, save for a canon or fugue here and there. Haydn, late in his life, was very much influenced by Handel’s oratorios, but Handel’s oratorios are not true ecclesiastical music; they are stage works, written with a theatrical performance in mind, and are sort of a mixture of opera and a rather dramatized ecclesiastical style. He seems to not have known Handel’s true church music, such as the Chandos Anthems and Dixit Dominus. Unlike Mozart, Haydn was not familiar with the music of J.S. Bach. Haydn’s fugues are completely different from anything by Bach, but sound as if they could have been written by Handel himself.

Haydn’s masses are essentially symphonies with choir and soloists, though a certain amount of concerto-like effects are used in these masses, contrasting the soloists with the choir, as well as contrasting the soloists with the orchestra and the choir with the orchestra. As mentioned above, the concerto was not one of Haydn’s strong points, however he did use the concerto-like contrasts to good effect in his masses. As much as I would like to praise these masses as being great works, I must admit that, like most people, I don’t like them as much as his other music. I find only his operas to be less appealing than his masses, though I must admit I’ve only heard two of his operas.

Haydn’s last two masses are without a doubt his best. The very last one is considered by music historians and critics to be his finest. It is called the Harmoniemesse because of its lavish use of wind instruments (Harmonie is an old-fashioned German word for wind instrument.). It is the longest of the last six masses and is generally considered his best mass, melding the classical style to ecclesiastic music with more perfection than any of his other works. If you choose to listen to only one of Haydn’s masses, this should be the one you choose. In no other mass did Haydn achieve such a high level of artistry and beauty throughout.

Before I end this discussion of Haydn’s church music I would like to mention two ecclesiastical works of Haydn that I find quite enjoyable. The Te Deum is a rather brief work, consisting of three continuous sections, the middle section being a C-minor adagio and the outer two sections in C-major, being very festive, and full of grandeur. This is a splendid work. The other work I would like to mention is The Seven Last Words of Christ and is very different from the Te Deum. This work exists in three versions. The first is an orchestral work from 1785. The second version is a string quartet version from 1787. The final version, and the one I’m familiar with, is the oratorio version. In 1796 Haydn adapted this music to a text and thus created a short oratorio. It has a certain darkness and poignancy not found in Haydn’s other music. The composer himself highly valued this piece of music and it is unique in his output.

In 1797 Haydn set the poem “God save Franz the Emperor” to music, and he later used the same melody for the slow movement of his string quartet Opus 76, #3. In the year 1922 this tune, with new words, became the German national anthem. It also became the Austrian national anthem.

The last five years of Haydn’s life are very sad. He was constantly ill and was so weak that he couldn’t even sit at the piano and compose (Haydn was one of those composers who had the habit of composing at the piano. J.S. Bach had told his students not to compose at the keyboard or your imagination will be fettered by what your fingers can do, but Haydn seemed to do very well with this method). This was very frustrating to him because he kept saying that his head was constantly flooded with new musical ideas but he didn’t have the strength to sit at his piano and work them out. On May 31, 1809, with Napoleon’s army sieging Vienna for the second time, Haydn quietly passed away. Mozart’s Requiem was performed at his funeral. The young Franz Peter Schubert was one of the choirboys in the funeral service.

Haydn’s music was largely forgotten after his death and it wasn’t until the twentieth century that his greatness was once again widely recognized and his popularity restored. Though his influence on Beethoven was profound, he was not much of an influence on other nineteenth century composers, Brahms being perhaps the only exception. Beethoven had deep love and respect for Haydn the man as well as Haydn the composer. A portrait of Joseph Haydn hung in Beethoven’s apartment, staring downward at Ludwig as he composed his titanic masterpieces.

The piano was gaining in popularity, but harpsichords and clavichords could still be found in many households. The first sonatas of Haydn and Mozart were sold as “sonatas for piano or harpsichord” and even their early piano concertos were sometimes performed with harpsichord. Haydn’s early piano trios were marketed as being for piano or harpsichord. Music for solo keyboard (except for the organ) continued to be conceived as easy music for amateurs until Beethoven began composing his piano sonatas in the 90s.

The period from 1730 or so until about 1770 is known as the Rococo period in music (also called the gallant style). It overlaps the baroque and segues into the classical period. The Rococo emphasized lightness and eschewed polyphony. It was a very florid style with much ornamentation. The trend began in France with such composers as Francois Couperin and Rameau, but soon spread to other countries. In Italy, Pergolesi (1710-1736) was composing music in the new style, and in Germany two of J.S. Bach’s sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) and Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) were the main composers of this new style.

Form was becoming more important and music was becoming more homophonic. The concert-going public needed a style that was more direct and simple. The most common form for a sonata in the baroque period was a simple binary form with the first part ending on the dominant. The movement towards the dominant was not dramatically emphasized as it later would be in the classical period, but was more of a subtle drift into the dominant key. The second half went back to the tonic, and of course ended in the tonic, and had a certain amount of what we would today call development. As time went by, development became more important and was concentrated at the beginning of the second half of a binary-form movement. This eventually led to what has become known as sonata form, also called first movement sonata form because it was virtually always used for an opening movement. The use of the word ‘sonata’ in sonata form comes from the fact that this new form was first used in the sonata before it was used in other genres.

The term ‘classical music’ is meant to apply only to that music which was in vogue between 1770 and 1800, and which Beethoven, in his own unique way, composed. Beethoven expanded the proportions of the classical style and kept it alive until his death in 1827 despite the fact that it was no longer the popular style. Sometimes the classical period is given as 1750-1800, but it is more appropriate to demarcate its beginning in 1770 because the years from 1750-1770 were very transitional and nothing like the mature classical style yet existed.

The demise of the baroque style, with the emergence of the rococo and classical styles, represents one of the most radical revolutions in the history of music. Musical styles in Europe underwent pervasive and sweeping changes between 1740 and 1770. No genre was unaffected. Even church music, which has always been resistant to change, could not resist the intrusion of the new style. A brief discussion of the stylistic differences between baroque and classical is in order here. Nothing I say in the comparison below should be construed as a value judgment of one style over the other. I love both styles equally. I’m merely pointing out how they differ.

In baroque music the continuity or flow is rarely interrupted. The music has a fluid, continuous, driving energy that just keeps moving. Continuity is achieved by long, flowing melodies, avoidance of strong cadences until the end. An internal cadence often ends with an inverted chord so as to avoid a strong sense of a closure, and quite often one or more voices will come to the end of a phrase while one or more voices is lagging behind (overlapping phrases). Classical music, on the other hand, is decidedly periodic in nature, and strong cadences are found throughout a movement, thus a classical piece can be easily analyzed by breaking it down into sections, while baroque music doesn’t easily lend itself to such an analysis. Classical music is laid out as a series of articulated events rather than being a cumulative flow like baroque music. Expansion of the center of a musical phrase is basic to the classical style, and not an important aspect of baroque music.

Baroque music almost always keeps the same rhythm throughout a piece whereas classical music utilizes constantly changing rhythmic patterns. In a sonata form movement the use of accelerating the rhythm as well as the harmonic changes, builds excitement and tension which is later released or resolved by slowing down the rate of change. Symmetrical phrase structures and periodic phrasing are basic to the classical style and not important in baroque music.

Baroque composers were more inclined to set up a contrast between sections of relative major and minor(e.g. Cmaj &Amin) while classical composers were more inclined to oppose parallel major and minor (e.g.Cmaj & Cmin) though in both periods ending in the parallel major of a movement in a minor key was common.

The classical style is a style of contrasts. It sets up an opposition of tonic and dominant keys and emphasizes the contrast between them. It emphasizes a contrast of different thematic ideas, different rhythms, different tonalities, different orchestrations, and different dynamics. Changes in dynamics in the baroque period were achieved by adding or subtracting instruments. In keyboard music, there was no change in dynamics. The piano was unpopular in early eighteenth century and pianos of that time had very little dynamic range. The harpsichord was not capable of dynamics. No matter how hard or soft you pressed a key the note had the same loudness. With the expensive harpsichord that had two keyboards, one keyboard could be adjusted to play loudly and the other one, softly, but the player is stuck with only two dynamic levels, and in any case, the two-keyboard harpsichord was mostly used to create two different sonorities in general, rather than two different dynamic levels. Choral music was the only genre in the baroque period in which it was physically possible to utilize extreme dynamics as well as a more nuanced use of dynamics for expression, but this was not done much and certainly not emphasized. The fact that choirs back then were very small may have something to do with it, but the fact remains that dynamics were not an important element of the baroque style.

In the classical period pianos became more popular than harpsichords, and though the dynamic range was small compared to the pianos of a hundred years later, there were improvements in the design that led to more dynamic range than before. Orchestras were getting larger (though still small by today’s standards). Jarring juxtapositions of loud and soft became essential to the new style. The crescendo was first developed in Mannheim, but was little used by Haydn and Mozart, but sudden changes from very loud to very soft are to be found in almost all of their works. Beethoven took this to an extreme (He took everything to an extreme).
The composers of the classical era took the concept of chord progression and elevated it to the concept of “key progression.” Baroque music had excursions into keys other than the tonic, but in the classical era the concept of a sort of structured series of key changes with a sense of direction and flow, with a buildup and release of tension, became central to the style.

Baroque music has an intimate relationship between the top voice and the bass, the bass line having an almost equal melodic importance as the treble. As the top voice became more ornate and florid, the bass was simplified. Much baroque music, especially Bach, has a bass line that is every bit as melodically interesting as the top voice. In the classical style, the bass is much more subordinate to the top voice. Classical music is more homophonic than baroque, though in the mature works, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven incorporated some polyphonic textures into sonata-form movements, usually in the development section.

Baroque music utilizes simple forms. As the texture of music became simplified the form became more complex until a mature sonata had finally evolved. Sonata form, which became the hallmark of the classical style, should not be thought of as a rigid, unyielding form. The concept of sonata form was invented by music theorists, who, after the death of Beethoven were trying to understand and explain the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Rather than think of it as a form, you can think of it as a feeling for proportion, harmonic movement, and a controlled buildup of drama, or a symmetrical buildup and release of tension with a climax in the middle.

In classical music, the beginning and the end of a movement are tonally stable, and the most tonally unstable region is found in the middle. By tonally stable, I mean firmly in the tonic key without even a hint of moving to another key. After firmly establishing the tonic key and introducing one or more (usually one) theme, the music goes to another key, usually the dominant and introduces one or more themes in this key. Sometimes the music will suddenly jump into the new key, sometimes it will modulate subtly into the new key. Sometimes there is a hint of the new key, followed by a pulling back into the tonic, followed by a stronger hint of the new key, and eventually you are firmly in the new key. There is a multitude of different ways of doing it. Mozart, more than any other composer, was a master of subtle nuances of hinting at a key, hinting stronger at it, being in the new key but not strongly in it, being a bit more firmly in the new key, and so forth.

The playing of a second theme or group of themes in the new key (usually the dominant) is always conceived of as a dramatic event. Along with the new key, there is usually something else to set this event into relief so as to emphasize it, a new rhythm, new orchestration, different texture, different dynamic, usually softer and quieter than the first theme.

At the middle of the movement there is usually a repeat sign, and after the repeat the music becomes tonally unstable as if in search of a key. The music returns dramatically to the tonic key no more than halfway through the second half. Any themes that have not been heard in the tonic key are now heard in this key. In short, a sonata form movement starts off with simplicity, builds in complexity, has a climax in the middle, moves back toward simplicity. There are some fluctuations in complexity along the way, but the general outline is always as stated in the previous sentence.

The following paragraphs give a very brief outline of the composers who were most influential in creating the classical style. It seems to me that the general trend throughout history shows that the composers who created a new style were not the ones who wrote great masterpieces in that style. The true masterpieces were created by the generation or generations that followed those groundbreaking composers.

Johann Stamitz, Abel, and Boccherini

Johann Stamitz (1717-1757) was a Czech violinist and composer and was an important figure in the development of the symphony. He composed concertos, symphonies, chamber music, and a small amount of vocal music. In early symphonies the norm was for oboes to double the violins, but he began giving more independent parts to wind instruments. He was the first composer to make consistent use of the four-movement format for the symphony. Over half of his symphonies adopt the format of a fast movement followed by a slow movement, followed by a minuet with trio for middle section, followed by another fast movement. In the first movements of his symphonies he made important contributions to the development of sonata form. His influence on Mozart’s early symphonies is obvious.

Two other composers who were somewhat influential on Mozart and Haydn include Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787). In fact for years one of Abel’s symphonies was attributed to Mozart because the only copy of it known was the one in Mozart’s youthful handwriting. Evidently the eight year-old Mozart had copied a symphony of Abel’s for study purposes.

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (March 1714 – Dec 1788) was the second of the surviving sons of J.S. Bach. He composed mostly in the Rococo style and was one of the key composers in developing the classical style. His essay on the art of playing keyboard instruments broke new ground and the fingering techniques he expounded became the standard and with some modification are still used today. His music is noted for its extreme contrasts and sudden surprises. He delighted in audaciously shocking harmonic surprises, but did not integrate them effectively into a coherent sonata form. He was very influential on both Mozart and Haydn in their early years and was held in high regard by music lovers in the late eighteenth century. Even Beethoven had some good things to say about him.

Johann Christian Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Johann Christian Bach (Sept 5, 1735 – Jan 1782) was the youngest child of J.S. Bach. He lived in Italy for several years, and in 1762 moved to London. He became known as the London Bach because he lived the remainder of his life there. His style was more melodic and homophonic than that of CPE Bach. His balanced, periodic phrasing was quite influential on Mozart and Haydn. When JC Bach was 29 Leopold Mozart brought his two children to London to display their musical talents. Bach was quite impressed with them and especially took a liking to the eight year-old Wolfgang. The two sat at the piano together, playing duets.

The London Bach excelled in keyboard sonatas, keyboard concertos, symphonies, and operas, and his influence on Mozart should not be underestimated. In 1765 the nine-year-old Mozart took three keyboard sonatas of J.C. Bach and transformed them into keyboard concertos. This was Mozart’s first exercise in concerto composition and shows how important and influential the music of J.C. Bach was to him.

J.S Bach’s eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (Nov 1710 – July 1784) mostly composed in the old baroque style and had little influence on future composers. Having mentioned his two brothers I mention him only for the sake of completeness.

Christoph Willibald von Gluck

Born in Bavaria in 1714 Gluck spent several years in Prague in his youth, then traveled to Italy and Vienna. He is primarily known as an opera composer. He set out to reform opera, eschewing the vocal virtuosity that was so popular at the time, and concentrating on pure melody. He was a pioneer in orchestration and the influence of his orchestral innovations was so far-reaching that even Wagner was affected by them. The young Mozart listened to some of his operas and absorbed a certain influence from them.

In my next post (which I haven’t begun writing yet) I will look at the lives and music of the triumvirate of composers of the classical style, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Stay tuned.

Musical Instruments by Evaristo Baschenis(1617-1677) (from Wikipedia)

The period in music, known as the baroque period spans from 1600 to 1750. Though it seems somewhat arbitrary to divide music history into certain periods and it is impossible to say that a particular style was suddenly created during a certain year, there is much justification for these divisions which at first glance seem so arbitrary. Just as the replacement of the ars antiqua by the ars nova was a radical and revolutionary development that took place in a relatively short time, the delineation between Renaissance music and Baroque music marks a very profound revolution in the way music was composed and performed. Both the invention of accompanied melody and the invention of basso continuo occurred right around the year 1600 and mark the beginning of a drastic stylistic change.

The baroque period is usually broken down into early baroque (1600-1650), mid-baroque (1650-1700), and late baroque, (AKA high baroque) (1700-1750). A useful way of defining the baroque period is to say that it is the period in history during which basso continuo was the main compositional device by composers of both sacred and secular music.

In my opinion basso continuo (also called figured bass) is one of the most ingenious and artistically valuable inventions in history. It was invented in the church, but soon spread to secular music and dominated all music composition. Basso continuo was invented in Italy in the 1590s in response to the problem of having an organist or harpsichordist keep a group of singers together and on key. Providing the entire vocal score for the keyboard player was expensive and time consuming. Considering that new music was being composed all the time and the repertoire was huge, this was a real problem. With the deeper understanding of harmony that came about in the late 16th century, and with the desire to solve the above-mentioned problem, some Italian genius whose name is lost to history invented the idea of writing only the bass line, and putting numbers and symbols under the notes to denote such things that we now call inverted chords, 7th chords, chromatically altered chords, 6th chords, suspensions etc. The modern day analog of basso continuo is perhaps the lead sheet which serves as a skeleton for improvisation by a jazz musician.

In basso continuo, the experienced musician will immediately know what notes to add above the bass note by taking notice of any number or symbol such as a sharp, flat, or natural sign, below the note, but the voicing of the chord ( the order from top to bottom in which the notes are stacked) and the order in which each note of the chord is struck (all at once, or maybe the tenor note first and soprano note next, or whatever order you can think of), as well as the relative duration of each note in the chord, are all up to the discretion of the performer. If you hear performances of two different musicians of a work with basso continuo, there will of course, be much similarity because the chord progression is the same, but at the same time you will hear a lot of differences.

Two other important developments occurred right at the cusp of the baroque period, the inventions of accompanied choral music and opera. Choral music accompanied by an orchestra was a radical departure from the Renaissance style. Rather than merely doubling the choral voices, instruments now played parts that accompanied.

The invention of opera in the 1590s planted a seed that eventually bore much superb fruit. Invented in the court of the nobility in Florence, opera never really established itself firmly in the royal court but it soon was transplanted into the theaters in Venice, and anyone who could afford a ticket (prices were very high) could go and see an opera. If you have never heard an opera from the early baroque, then I would advise you, it sounds nothing like what you would expect if your conception of opera is based on 18th and 19th century examples.

It was in the early 17th century that vocal music and instrumental music departed and went their separate ways. In the Renaissance period, apart from simple dance music, music for instruments was no different from music for human voices. Composers began to realize the possibilities that instruments have that are beyond what any singer could do. They began to write idiomatically for instruments, and the art of orchestration, though not fully developed until more than 200 years later, was just beginning to enter the consciousness of composers.

The two most important composers of the early baroque are Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612) and Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). They were pioneers in the art of choral music with orchestral accompaniment. Though not the first composer to write an opera, Monteverdi is considered the first composer to write a good opera.

The most famous composers of the mid-baroque are Jean-Baptiste Lully (1637-1687), Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Henry Purcell (1659-1695), Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), Francois Couperin (1668-1733), and Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706).

Henry Purcell was one of the greatest musical child prodigies who ever lived. As a choirboy at Westminster Abbey he was already composing music. At the age of 18 he was appointed the composer for the Royal Violins, which was a string orchestra that played for the king and at the Chapel Royal. Also in his 18th year he was appointed organist at Westminster Abbey, holding both positions simultaneously. He was a very prolific composer, but unfortunately his life was cut short by an illness, the nature of which is not known.

Purcell composed much fine orchestrated choral music for the church, odes and cantatas, a few operas and plays with music, some instrumental music, and a beautiful elegy for Queen Mary’s funeral. His music was very influential on future composers, particularly Handel. Even the rock group The Who found some inspiration in Purcell’s music and were somewhat influenced by it, according to Pete Townsend.

It is interesting to compare Purcell’s halleluiah choruses with Handel’s. When Purcell sings “Halleluiah” it is somewhat subdued, more of a personal intonation of praise to God, though he was quite capable of composing loud muscular music when he wanted to. When Handel composed a halleluiah chorus, such as the one in his Messiah, which is the most famous one, he storms the heavens with power.

Perhaps one of the biggest ironies of music is that the French national style was created by a transplanted Italian composer. Jean-Baptiste Lully was born in Florence Italy in 1637 but moved to France as a young man and disavowed anything Italian, changing his name from Giovanni Battista Lulli to the French equivlent, Jean-Baptise Lully. He began working for Louis the 14th in the early 1650s, first as a dancer, then as composer. He played guitar and violin. Though he composed music for the church, he is most famous as a composer of the stage. He is considered the founder of French opera, but perhaps his biggest claim to fame is the invention of ballet. After inventing this new art form, Lully went on to compose several ballets for the king. It seems Louis the 14th loved to dance, and evidently was good at it. Lully’s bisexuality and his love affairs with many men and women were quite scandalous and in fact got him into much trouble, but the king kept him in his service because of their friendship and because Lully was immensely talented. In 1687 Lully was conducting a piece of music by beating a long staff on the floor (actually a common practice of the time) and accidently stabbed his right big toe. It became infected. The infection spread to his bloodstream and he died as a result.

Johann Pachelbel was the most important composer of the south German style in his time. He composed a large body of music for the church, as well as much secular music. He is considered the best composer for organ before J.S. Bach and in fact his music was very influential on the young Bach. His most famous work is known as Canon in D, a misnomer, it is really a passacaglia rather than a canon. Everyone knows this piece. It is immensely popular, being played at weddings and other special occasions and exists in numerous arrangements.

High Baroque

As the 17th century drew to a close, instrumental music was becoming more varied and sophisticated. Composers were developing an increasing understanding of harmony. Basso continuo continued to dominate music composition.

Instruments of the time had little dynamic range so dynamic changes were creating by adding and subtracting instruments. This results in what is called terraced dynamics. Much ado is made of the fact that terraced dynamics are an important aspect of the high baroque. In my view, this has been somewhat exaggerated. Dynamics were not nearly as important as they were to become in the classical era and you should keep in mind that in choral music it has always been possible to achieve a gradual crescendo or decrescendo as well as sudden juxtapositions of loud and soft, though that sort of thing was little used in baroque choral music.

Two types of concerto were developed in the baroque period, the concerto grosso, and the concerto for solo instrument. In the concerto grosso a small group of instruments known as the concertino, was contrasted against the full orchestra, or tutti. This was actually somewhat more common than a concerto in which a solo instrument was contrasted with the orchestra. The concerto for solo instrument became much more important to composers in the classical period, and the concerto grosso was out of fashion by 1770.

The composer Johann Joseph Fux [Pronounced Foox] (1660-1741) was an interesting figure. He is better remembered as a music theorist than a composer, though he was a good composer. Perhaps his neglect as a composer comes mainly from the bias that people have concerning music theorists. The idea that music theorists cannot compose music, they are only capable of analyzing it, seems to have hurt his reputation as a composer. During his own lifetime he was quite famous as a composer, but his most enduring legacy seems to be his treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum. This was the book that Joseph Haydn used to teach himself counterpoint. Mozart owned an annotated copy of it, and the aging Haydn recommended it to the young Beethoven. One must wonder how well Beethoven studied this book as his counterpoint was rather weak in his early career.

Another man who was both a composer and theorist was the Frenchman Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). His Treatise on Harmony was largely ignored for almost a century after its publication in 1722, but eventually became the basis by which harmony is understood and taught. In his famous treatise Rameau gave us the concept of the chord, starting with the triad (the most basic chord), and then introducing such concepts as 7th chords, 9th chords, suspended chords, inverted chords, etc. Of course composers had been using chords for a long time, but theoretical concepts of harmony were rather diffuse and ill-defined until Rameau’s book.

Rameau was very much respected and loved in his home town Dijon, but was not known outside its boundaries until he went to Paris at the age of 50 to produce his opera “Hippolyte et Aircie.” Though it was criticized for its radical harmonies, it was loved by many and established his reputation as the greatest French composer of the time. He was an innovative orchestrator and his influence on such composers as Gluck can easily be seen. His orchestration techniques we even somewhat of an influence on Wagner (1813-1883).

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Without a doubt, the most important Italian composer of the entire baroque period was Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). He is most well-known for his concertos. He composed over 500 of them. His sacred music is also much loved, but his operas have been pretty much neglected. He became ordained as a priest in 1703 and was known as Padre Rosa (father red) because of his red hair. In that same year he became employed at the Ospedale della Pieta, which was an orphanage for abandoned children. At the Pieta unwanted infants could be deposited anonymously in a niche outside the main building. The boys were apprenticed into various trades and the girls were instructed in the arts, especially music. It was Vivaldi’s job to teach violin and to compose music for the orphanage. Contemporary accounts tell us that the all-girl orchestra and choir that Vivaldi composed for and led was very talented indeed. The local nobility, diplomats, and various visitors from all over Europe were drawn like magnets to the Ospedali because of its reputation for excellence in music. There are many written accounts of the performances and they all speak of the great talent of the orphan girls as well as the beauty of the music.

Vivaldi eventually gave up the priesthood, supposedly due to health problems. He was very interested in writing and producing operas, something that was very much frowned upon by the church. He was fired from his job six times for taking extended leaves so he could travel to Vienna (with two female opera singers who were rumored to be his mistresses) to produce an opera. He was rehired by the Pieta after each firing because they could find no one whose talent came close to his.

At the Pieta Vivaldi was free to experiment, and was always trying out new combinations of instruments in his concertos. His most famous work is a group of four 3-movement concertos for solo violin, which he titled “The Four Seasons.” Each concerto in this extended work represents a different season and there is much tone painting in them. His mandolin concertos are also popular and are sometimes performed on guitar instead of mandolin. His music is exciting and vibrant with energetic driving rhythms. He was evidently a very good violinist and was obviously very good at writing for violin, but he was also good at writing for other instruments and his concertos are full of contrasts between various combinations of sound created by combining various instruments in different ways.

Though more famous for his concertos, Vivaldi composed a good amount of beautiful choral music for the church. There are over 50 surviving sacred works by him. His most famous work in that genre is his Gloria in D-major (RV642). It begins with an energetic movement with an introduction that has violins jumping up and down in octaves and brief trumpet fanfares. The second movement, Et In Terra Pax in B-minor is the most intensely passionate movement in this work. The fifth movement, Domine Deus, is a lovely soprano solo with obbligato violin (sometimes an oboe is substituted for the violin). The penultimate movement is an abbreviated version of the opening movement. The final movement, Cum Sancto is a wonderful fugue. I would also recommend his Lauda Jerusalem (RV609), his Laudate Dominum (RV606), Beatus Vir (RV597), Magnificat (RV610) and the Vesicle Response (RV593).

The composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was the most successful as well as the most prolific composer of the baroque period, and indeed may be the most prolific composer in history, but that’s hard to determine, because like most composers of that time, many of his works have been lost to posterity. He was highly respected in his own time, and in fact was regarded even more highly than his friend, J.S. Bach. Mostly self-taught, he was thoroughly conversant in the styles of France and Italy, as well as his own country, Germany. He travelled extensively through the countryside of Poland and Morovia (now part of Poland), listening to street musicians and music in taverns, incorporating in his concertos much of what he heard in these rustic Polish pubs and streets. He composed in virtually every genre of the time, both sacred and secular. His music is imaginative and lively. In his own personal way he summed up the styles of France, Italy, and Germany, as did Handel J.S. Bach. Telemann actually had a deeper understanding of the Polish styles than did Bach or Handel.

I’ve listened to a fair amount of Telemann’s instrumental music and I think it’s pretty good, though not quite on the level of Bach (But then, what is?). Nowadays Telemann is mostly thought of as a composer of concertos and other instrumental works, but in his own time he was mostly known for his church music. I have to admit that I have not heard a large number of his choral works, but my favorite ones are Die Donner Ode, St Marks Passion, the Magnificat in C and the Magnificat in G. These works have some beautiful choral music. I have not yet had the opportunity to hear Telemann’s St Mathew Passion but it’s interesting to compare his St Marks Passion with the two passions of Bach as the style is very similar. Listening to Telemann’s St Marks Passion I am impressed now and then with choral music of complex polyphonic texture and exciting rhythms, as good as Bach, or perhaps just a notch below Bach. The problem is, he is not able to sustain it. It seems that when Telemann reaches such extreme levels of textural complexity, he can keep it going for only less than a minute, while Bach can keep the excitement up much longer. And the chorales (Protestant hymns) in Telemann’s St Marks Passion are pretty, but rather bland compared to the chorales of Bach.

When listening to composers of the high baroque I have a tendency to compare them to J.S. Bach. But when I think about it, it isn’t fair to compare any composer to Bach because he was so awesome that even a greatly talented composer will suffer by comparison. Telemann was a great composer who composed a vast amount of great music. Unfortunately for him, as time went on his achievements gradually became eclipsed by Bach and Handel. In my opinion, Telemann is one of the most underappreciated composers in history, a superstar of his own time, a composer of a large repertoire of great music, though now he is sadly neglected.

Dominico Scarlatti (1685-1767) was the son of composer Allessandro Scarlatti. Born in Naples Italy, he spent the last 25 years of his life in Spain. He wrote music in many genres but today is known mostly for his 555 single-movement pieces for solo keyboard that he called ‘studies’ and have become known as sonatas, though they are not true sonatas as they are only single-movement pieces. These so-called sonatas are quite varied in their expression, each one being very distinct. Some of them show daring harmonic audacity. Many of them have striking rhythms or catchy tunes. In many of them the Spanish element can be distinctly heard. Sometimes his keyboard writing betrays an influence of Spanish guitar music, using configurations that are more idiomatic to the guitar than the keyboard.

The year 1685 was a very auspicious year. Dominico Scarlatti, Georg Frederich Handel, and Johann Sebastian Bach were all born that year. To say that these three composers were highly influential on future generations is a big understatement. Scarlatti’s music, though virtually unknown after his death, was known in certain circles before its resurrection in the early 20th century. Chopin was known to admire the keyboard works of Scarlatti. Handel was a tremendous inspiration and influence on such diverse composers as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms. The composer whose influence on future generations of composers was the most profound, yet at the same time, more subtle, was J.S. Bach. More on that later.

George Frideric Handel (1685 -1759)

Georg Frederich Handel (1685-1759) had quite a flare for the dramatic. He is known for his juxtapositions of strongly contrasting textures, his carefully timed use of dynamics, his beautiful melodies, his impeccable counterpoint, and his ability to eke out so much expressiveness from one motif or theme.

In 1706 Handel received an invitation to visit Rome. He spent four years there before returning to his hometown of Halle Germany. While in Rome he met the greatest Italian composers of the time. Among those he met in Rome were Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, and his son Dominico Scarlatti. Handel and Dominico Scarlatti became lifelong friends and corresponded through the mail the rest of their lives.

A keyboard contest between Handel and D Scarlatti was arranged to take place at a certain palace in Rome. The outcome of the contest was that they were considered equals on the harpsichord, but Handel was considered far superior on the organ.

Because there was a ban on opera in Rome during Handel’s stay, he turned to ecclesiastical music. His famous Dixit Dominus was composed there at that time. This striking work for choir, soloists, and orchestra is quite a beautiful and polished work to have come from such a young composer.

On his way back to Germany Handel visited Venice and met Antonio Vivaldi. In 1710 he took on the job of kapellmeister (chapel master) to a prince in Hanover Germany who would later become King George 1st of England. In 1712 he moved to London, which became his home for the remainder of his life.

Handel was not as interested in instrumental music as Bach was but nonetheless gave the world some fine orchestral music, some keyboard suites, numerous concertos, and a few other odds and ends. His two most famous works of purely instrumental music are the Water Music (an early work in London) and Music For The Royal Fireworks from 1749.

When Handel arrived in London in 1712 Italian opera was the latest craze there. He capitalized on its popularity by composing some of his own Italian operas. After have some initial success, he began having trouble filling the theater. In the 1730s opera, particularly Italian opera, was becoming less popular. In 1737, bankrupt, suffering the effects of a stroke which left his right arm temporarily paralyzed, Handel soon reinvented himself. He turned to oratorio as a vehicle for his creative talent. His first oratorio, Ester, from 1732, had been harshly condemned by the church. In 1739 he composed Israel In Egypt, which was also harshly criticized by the church. Church officials tore down advertisements for Israel In Egypt and they disrupted its first performance. Many people, myself included, consider Israel In Egypt to be his best oratorio. Mozart was known to love this one. Mozart loved all of Handel’s music.

I will not to discuss all of his operas and oratorios here because that would take up far more space than I will allow myself. I will mention only the one opera of his that is considered his finest achievement in that genre, Giulio Cesare (Julius Ceasar) which premiered in 1724 and enjoyed immediate success. Had Mozart never composed his Idomeneo, then Handel’s Giulio Cesare would easily be considered the best serious opera from the 18th century. It begins and ends with music for full chorus and the rest is arias and recitative, a couple of duets, and a couple of instrumental interludes. The two choral works that bracket this opera are very simple compared to the choral music that Handel was capable of composing. The scoring for orchestra is the richest of all of Handel’s operas. Many Handel lovers are of the opinion that there is not one boring aria in this entire opera. I’ve heard the entire thing maybe a dozen times and read through the score a few times and I can attest that it is a consummately great work, but there were a few times that I was tempted to click the next-track button while listening.

By far Handel’s most famous work is his oratorio Messiah. The halleluiah chorus that ends the second section of this oratorio in three sections is one of the most well-known pieces of music in history. There are many halleluiah choruses by Handel, but that one is by far the most famous. Messiah was composed in 1741 and is the most thinly scored of his oratorios. Mozart, at the request of Baron Von Swieten modernized the score to Messiah and two other Handel works, adding many instruments that were not in the original score. Mozart’s arrangement and re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah is wonderful, but the original is certainly a masterpiece, even with its rather lean sound.

Solomon is Handel’s most richly scored oratorio and one of my favorites. There are some exquisitely beautiful choruses in Solomon. Another famous oratorio of Handel and one that contains music of much beauty and power is Judas Maccabeus. I would have to say that Solomon, Judas Maccabeus, Messiah, and Israel In Egypt are my favorites, but there are several other great oratorios by Handel, and they are all well worth listening to. A few other notable ones are Saul, Susanna, Sampson, and Semele. His Acis and Galatea, not a true oratorio, is a stunningly beautiful work and one of the ones that Mozart re-orchestrated. It is an early work. Handel composed it in 1718. Mozart, while re-orchestrating this work, added instrumental countermelodies to every aria, thus enhancing the beauty of an already beautiful work. I have to say that the Mozart version of Handel’s Acis and Galatea is one of the most beautiful works I’ve ever heard. Another work of much beauty is L’Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato (usually just called (L’Allegro), which is more of a pastoral ode than an oratorio.

I will only mention a few more works here. The so-called Chandos Anthems are fine examples of British ecclesiastical music. These eleven works contain many fine arias and choruses and were composed for The Duke of Chandos, thus the appellation Chandos Anthems. The four Coronation Anthems are definitely worth listening to as they are consummate masterpieces. They were composed for the coronation celebration of King George the 2nd in 1727. The shortest of these four masterpieces is Zadok the Priest (5min 15 sec on the CD that I have) has become the most famous and has been played at every British coronation ceremony since Handel’s time. The longest, and my personal favorite is called My Heart is Inditing. These coronation anthems use a variety of effects and show Handel’s mastery of choral music at its best.

Handel’s music sums up the styles of France, Germany, Italy and England in his own unique way. His music is informed by the Italian style across the spectrum of his output. He had a firm grasp of Italianate melody, and a firm grasp on German counterpoint. He studied the music of Henry Purcell and thus developed an understanding of the best of the English style. Though the French influence can be felt (mostly in his instrumental music) it does not permeate his music as strongly as the Italian and German styles.

J.S. Bach

The young Johann Sebastian Bach

I am sitting here wondering how I can sum up the music of J.S. Bach in a few paragraphs. It is impossible. His output was immense and a high percentage of his works are supreme masterpieces. Let’s begin by giving a brief comparison between the music of Bach and that of Handel. Though Handel cultivated a concerto that was based largely on the style of Corelli, Bach cultivated a concerto that was based largely on the style of Vivaldi. Handel perfected the Italian opera and the English Oratorio, while Bach perfected the cantata, the German Passion, and the Latin mass. Though he never composed an opera, some of Bach’s cantatas have arias that are in the Italian operatic style and his two passions come close to being operas.

Three important stylistic elements that pervade his music are: the Protestant hymn or chorale, German polyphonic organ music, and dance music. Bach was familiar with all of the dance rhythms of his day and these dance rhythms are pervasive in his music. There are movements in some of his cantatas or in the B-minor Mass that will make you want to get up and dance, or you may find yourself tapping your foot to the beat. In fact, the music of no other composer, except perhaps Vivaldi, is as danceable as Bach’s music.

Bach was highly respected for his virtuosity on the harpsichord and organ, but he was also a fiddle player and it shows in his music. Even in his keyboard music there is much figuration that is more idiomatic to the violin than the keyboard. Another characteristic of his music is a rhythmic displacement that creates a constant syncopation throughout a movement. I am not speaking here of syncopation of single notes, but a syncopation of whole phrases. If you look at almost any score of Bach, or listen to his music, you will see (and hear) that he is constantly offsetting one or more voices with respect to the bar lines, thus creating a sort of syncopated phrasing that permeates the music throughout and adds excitement. That sort of thing is an important element of his style.

The music of J.S. Bach is considered to be the high-watermark of counterpoint in the western hemisphere. I’ve always found it rather curious that Beethoven always referred to Bach as the master of harmony rather than the master of counterpoint. But Bach was a master of both. In Bach’s more polyphonic pieces (far too many to cite an example) the voices are completely independent of each other in their movement and no one voice is more important than another. From moment to moment one voice (sometimes two) is sort of set in relief and the others become background, then that voice blends into the background as another one becomes prominent. Out of this flow of independently moving voices, harmony is created by the fact that at any given moment the notes of the various voices create chords as they blend together. To quote Charles Rosen, it is “….the creation of harmonic unity out of independent parts.”

The polyphony of Bach and his contemporaries is very different from Renaissance polyphony in that the bass line has a more intimate relation to the treble and also forms the basis of the harmony. In fact, music of the high baroque, more than any other style can be analyzed as being constructed from the bass as the starting point. You get a sense of chord progression in the modern sense of the term when you listen to baroque music, while in Renaissance music it seems more of a succession of chords rather than a progression, though in late Renaissance the nascent trend toward our modern idea of chord progression can be heard.

Vanitas Still Life with Musical Instruments by Cornelis de Heem (1631-1685)

Let us now do a bit of comparison between the two most famous composers of baroque music, Bach and Handel.  Handel’s counterpoint was always very good, and Bach could compose nice melodies, but I would say that Handel’s music relies somewhat more on melody and Bach’s relies more on counterpoint. Of course there are many exceptions to that statement but in general it holds up. Another general observation is that Bach relied more on phrasing while Handel relied more on dynamics. If Bach was in a hurry to complete a score he would not put many indications of dynamics in the score, but would always be meticulous about indicating the phrasing. If Handel was in a hurry to complete a score he would not pay much attention to indicating the phrasing, but he was careful to indicate the dynamics.

Bach’s music is more elaborate than Handel’s. His middle voices participate in a much more intricate and lively manner than in Handel where they are mostly filler material. Bach wrote his music out in much more detail than Handel, adding much more ornamentation and giving less liberty to the performer(s). Handel did not add much ornamentation, leaving it up to the performer(s) to add ornamentation. Handel is more concerned with the long, sweeping melodic line, and Bach is more concerned with details and texture.

Although they were both quite adept at using contrasts of texture to create interest, this technique was more important in Handel’s music. Handel’s music, for the most part, is more vocally oriented, and Bach’s music is more instrumentally oriented. They both were masters of the great European styles of their time, but Handel was much more influenced by the Italian vocal style than Bach, and Bach was more influenced by the German style. It should also be mentioned that Handel’s music is easier to perform than Bach’s. This is certainly one reason that Bach’s music was not as popular in his lifetime as was that of Handel. Much of Bach’s output is fiercely difficult to perform.

Bach is, arguably the most universal of all composers. His music has been arranged in the styles of jazz, bluegrass, swing, even rock. His music has been arranged for just about any instrument or group of instruments you can think of, including synthesizer. Nineteenth and twentieth-century orchestras played Bach with modern instruments, using orchestras much larger than Bach would have dared imagine, and with instruments that were not invented until long after his death. With skilled and sensitive musicians Bach always comes off sounding great, no matter what instruments are used.

In his time Bach was mostly known as an organist, consultant to organ builders, and composer of organ music. He composed in the free forms, such as preludes, fantasias, and toccatas, as well as the strict forms of canons and fugues. There exist many chorale prelude arrangements for organ as well. No composer in history created as many masterpieces for organ.

J.S. Bach was by far the greatest composer of fugues. No composer in history wrote as many fugues or came close to the supreme mastery of this art form as Bach. The same thing can be said of canons. Though Handel wrote some fugues, he was more interested in creating works contrasting a fugal section with a more homophonic section rather than writing a full-fledged fugue.

Now I shall give a brief and rather sketchy outline of Bach’s biography. Forgive me for leaving out so many details.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany March 21, 1685. His father and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His mother died in 1694 and his father died 8 months later. He moved in with his older brother in Ohrdruf, who instructed him in music. From his brother he became familiar with South German style, the North German style, and the French style. At 14 he was awarded a scholarship to St Michael’s School in Luneburg, where he sang in the choir and played harpsichord and organ. In 1703 he graduated from St Michael’s and obtained a position as court musician to the Duke of Weimar. In that same year he accepted the post of church organist in Arnstadt. In 1707 he became church organist in Muhlhausen. Less than a year later he returned to Weimar and became organist and concertmaster in the ducal court. In Weimar he got married, having his first child in 1709. He had 7 children with his first wife, four of whom survived into adulthood.

The city of Weimar had close political ties with Venice, Italy. With close political ties come close cultural ties, and in Weimar Bach had access to many scores by such composers as Corelli, Torelli, and Vivaldi. He absorbed a great deal of the Italian style during these years. The concertos of Vivaldi were highly influential on the young Bach. From them he learned how to begin a concerto with a striking theme that instantly seizes your attention and at the same time is pregnant with harmonic possibilities. From Vivaldi he also absorbed a certain dynamic rhythmic vitality and a style with clear-cut harmonic outlines. He imbued these qualities with German-style counterpoint in his own unique way.

In 1717 Bach moved to the city of Kothen, where he served as Kapellmeister to the prince. Despite the title “Chapel Master” He mostly composed secular instrumental music in Kothen. Some of the works from his Kothen period are the four Orchestral Suites, the six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, the Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, and the Brandenburg Concertos.

In July 1720 Bach’s wife died, leaving him a widower with no one to help raise his children. In December 1721 he married a talented soprano named Anna Magdalena Wilcke. Together they had thirteen more children. Six of them survived into adulthood.

In 1723 Bach Moved to Leipzig, where he stayed for the remainder of his life. He was appointed as music director of the principle churches in the city, as well as cantor of the school in St Thomas Church, where he gave singing lessons and wrote compositions. He was also required to teach Latin. Bach taught at the school the way he had taught his children—he taught the older ones and left it to them to teach the younger ones.

In March of 1729, Bach took over his friend Telemann’s position of the private secular music society known as Collegium Musicum. Applicants for this post were required to submit an original musical score and Bach submitted a set of canonic variations for organ. When he took over as leader of Collegium Musicum, a prominent German newspaper lamented that a man of great talent was being replaced by a mediocrity. Few people of the time recognized his supreme greatness as a composer. In his time, Bach was widely considered the greatest organist in the world, and his arrangements of Lutheran chorales were considered to be the best in the world, but somehow, his complete superiority over his contemporaries was overlooked.

In 1747 Bach visited King Frederick the Great of Prussia in his palace in Potsdam. The king took Bach from room to room, showing his collection of keyboard instruments. It may have been the only time in his life that Bach played a piano, a rather unpopular instrument at the time. The king gave Bach a theme to improvise on and Bach made quite an impression with his improvisations. When he returned to Leipzig Bach composed a set of canons and fugues on the regal theme, as well as a trio and a masterful six-part piece known as a ricecare, which is actually a type of fugue. Bach slightly altered the theme to make it more amenable to six-part treatment. Bach had this music printed by a local printer and sent a copy to King Frederick as a gift. It is known as The Musical Offering and is one of Bach’s most famous instrumental pieces.

In his last year Bach was working on a huge compendium of Fugal and canonic technique, which he called The Art of Fugue. This monumental work contains some of his best canons and fugues. Unfortunately he died before he completed it. On July 28, 1750, the greatest master of the art of polyphony, drew his last breath. His grave remained unmarked for nearly 150 years. His legacy is awesome and I apologize for omitting many important works from this brief discussion of Bach.

Certainly one of Bach’s most well-known works is The Well Tempered Clavier. It consists of two books, each containing a pair of preludes and fugues in every major and minor key, thus there are 24 preludes and 24 fugues in each book. The WTC is sometimes called the great 48. He completed book one in 1722. It opens with a simple but beautiful prelude in the key of C-major, in the style of French lute music. The entire prelude is a beautiful flowing arpeggio throughout. This is followed by a fugue in C, then 23 more prelude-and-fugue pairings, covering every major and minor key. The variety of music in both the preludes and fugues is astounding! Book two was completed in 1744. Some of the preludes in book two show an influence of the new rococo style, thus belying the notion that Bach was old-fashioned and did not keep up with the times.

His four Orchestral Suites and the Brandenburg Concertos are among his most popular orchestral works. He also composed some fine organ concertos, one of them being a mere arrangement of a concerto by Vivaldi. There are some concertos for solo harpsichord, notably the one in D-minor. There is a concerto for two harpsichords and one for three. There is a fine concerto for four harpsichords that is actually an arrangement of a concerto by Vivaldi for four violins. These harpsichord concertos were not meant for the concert hall. They sound just fine in modern performances with a large orchestra and the piano replacing the concert hall, but these works were created for a much more intimate setting. Bach composed these harpsichord concertos for performance in a coffee house. The patrons could sit comfortably, sipping their coffee while listening to some of the finest baroque concertos ever composed.

Now let’s talk about 18th century stereophonic sound. When performing a concerto for more than one harpsichord, Bach would place the harpsichords far apart, at opposite ends of the room for the concerto with two harpsichords. Each harpsichordist would have a small group of strings and/or winds standing next to the harpsichord, thus creating a stereo sound effect. With the concerto for four harpsichords Bach placed each harpsichord in a different corner of the room, each with a few musicians standing nearby, thus creating the world’s first quadraphonic sound. In his church music for double choir, each choir would have been placed at opposite sides of the alter, as far apart as he could get them, thus creating a stereo sound. Handel did the same thing in his oratorios, places each choir at opposite ends of the stage in the theater.

Bach is considered to be the greatest composer of music for choir and orchestra. He composed in every style of choral music of his time and his output is huge. He composed over 300 sacred cantatas, of which approximately 100 have been lost. There are some cantatas that have no choral music, but are for soloists only, but it is the ones with choral music that are truly great. The choral music in these cantatas displays a tremendous variety of composition and style. His most famous cantatas are #s, 80, 140, and 147 and these have some great choral music, but so many of his other cantatas also have great choral music that I won’t even attempt to cite examples.

If you want to know the full genius of Bach you must listen to all of the great choral music as well as the instrumental music. Apart from listening to at least a dozen of the great cantatas, the following pieces are a must if you want to know Bach’s true greatness:
The Magnificat, The Christmas Oratorio, The six Motets, The St John Passion and the St Mathew Passion, The B-Minor Mass, The Easter Oratorio, and Ascension Oratorio.

The Magnificat is an early work, but Bach later revised it. The first version is in E-flat and the second one is in the key of D. The second version is the one that is usually performed today and is a more polished work than the first one. Each movement is rather brief and there is music of great beauty here. Many Bach aficionados will tell you that the St Mathew Passion is his greatest masterpiece, though I take issue with that opinion. For me the B-Minor Mass is at least as good. I don’t like comparing apples to oranges anyway.

It was Felix Mendelsohn’s fascination with the St Mathew Passion that led to the Bach revival which began with a performance of the masterpiece in 1829. Though Mendelssohn used a score that he had altered, cutting many pieces and making changes to others, it was an important concert because it jump-started the rediscovery of J.S Bach. The St Mathew Passion is such a huge work that I could take all day discussing it, but let me just say that it is an extraordinary work, a supreme masterpiece. It contains both homophonic and polyphonic choral music and some beautiful arias. Some of Bach’s best chorale arrangements are found here. After the initial composition of this work, Bach spent ten years revising and perfecting it.

The B-minor Mass is another huge work. Like the St Mathew Passion, it contains much music for double choir, and many beautiful arias, but no chorales. With the exception of the chorale, you will find an example of every type of baroque choral music in this mass. With no sense of exaggeration, I would say that Bach’s B-Minor Mass is an incomparable masterpiece, perhaps the greatest artistic achievement in history. In a sense, I would say that Bach’s B-minor Mass is a collection of small masterpieces rather than one large masterpiece, as it consists of many individual pieces, however there they are all in keys closely related to B-minor and there is a sort of harmonic plan to the ordering of the movements.

There are six Motets by J.S Bach, and they are among his finest works. The energy and beauty of these works is sublime! And of course the counterpoint is complex and perfect. Using double choirs again, Bach created deeply complex textures, beautiful harmony, and dynamic rhythmic motion. These Motets were dearly loved by Mozart as well as many other music aficionados. When Brahms died and his friends went into his apartment to gather up his things, what music did they find on his music stand? They found a book containing the six Motets of J.S. Bach, with annotations on the side in Brahms’s handwriting.

The music of J.S Bach sums up the art of the high baroque and is clearly superior to all of his contemporaries (including Handel, Telemann and Vivaldi awesome as they were). His unique blend of German counterpoint and Italian melody, as well as his command of French and English styles, are unsurpassed. His music was seminal in the sense that he was a tremendous inspiration for composers from Mozart through Brahms.

Bach’s biggest influence on future composers was in the masterful polyphonic texture of so much of his music. When Beethoven, in the last decade of his life, decided that he needed much improvement in his counterpoint, it was the mostly the music of Bach to which he turned to help him in this endeavor. When the 26-year-old Mozart began studying Bach, his counterpoint suddenly and dramatically improved. Mendelssohn and Brahms also improved their counterpoint by careful study of Bach’s scores. Schumann was also deeply influenced by his study of Bach’s counterpoint. Chopin was raised on Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier and never stopped playing and studying it. In fact, I would say that every composer after Bach whose music has the characteristic of excellent counterpoint was a disciple of J.S. Bach.

Much of what we have from medieval times comes from the church, but there exists a certain body of secular music from the period. The Troubadours in France and the Minnesingers in Germany were the source of much popular music. When more than one person sang, they either sang in unison or in parallel fourths or fifths, but the art of canon goes back at least to the early 14th century. In a canon, every one sings the same melody, but each singer starts the melody at a different time. Canonic singing and instrumental canons eventually evolved into a very sophisticated art form, culminating in the 18th century with Johann Sebastian Bach.

Music historians make a big deal out of the dying of the ars antiqua (old art) and its replacement by the ars nova (new art). This 14th century change of style marks a radical transformation in music. Freed from the restrictive bondage of singing in parallel fourths or fifths, music could now deepen into a more complex texture. The ars nova began with a treatise written by Philippe de Vitry in Italy and subsequently spread quite rapidly to France. Though it may seem at first glance that de Vitry’s book contained wholly new and original ideas, he was merely describing compositional techniques that the most ingenious and original composers of the time were using. The ebb and flow between composers and theorists is an interesting phenomenon in itself. Theorists describe what composers are doing, then composers read their treatises and cannot help but be influenced by the ideas expounded in these books. They influence each other. But, as Beethoven once pointed out to a friend, it is not the theorists who write the music.

The ars nova brought about many changes. Freed from the chains of parallel fourths and fifths, which were forbidden by the new music theorists, music could become polyphonic. Composers soon learned how to compose in more than just two or three parts. The two leading composers of the ars nova were Guillaume de Machaut and Josquin Deprez. Josquin Deprez was writing beautiful polyphonic music in six parts while other composers were still struggling to create three-part music. His most famous work is his “Missa Pange Lingua.” It is considered by music historians to be a landmark piece, very influential on the next generation of composers and one of the greatest masterpieces in history. It was published posthumously (He died in 1524). Listening to this, and other works by Deprez, you can see where Palestrina got so much inspiration. Missa Pange Lingua” by Josquin Deprez is a stunningly beautiful works that shines like a beacon out of the huge repertoire from the Renaissance period. He could create a richer sonority with 4 voices than most composers could with 6 or even 8 voices. Few composers in history had his facility at counterpoint. You can count them with your fingers. The“Missa Pange Lingua” is serenely beautiful. And it is enduring. Each time you listen you will hear new things. No one knows when Josquin was born, but he was probably in his early 70s when he died. He was in his day considered to be the greatest living composer, and still is considered the greatest composer of the early Renaissance.

In the interest of brevity I will mention only two other composers of the early Renaissance, Dufay and Ockeghem. Ockeghem is noted for composing the first requiem mass. He was not extremely prolific, but composed some beautiful music. Much of it sounds strange to our modern ears, but if we listen enough we will begin to understand its ‘logic’ and appreciate its beauty. In fact I would make that statement about most music of the 15th century. His date of birth is unknown, but he died in 1497. A composer whose influence was probably equal to that of Josquin Deprez was Guillaume Dufay. He was very prolific and most of his music is quite beautiful. He died in 1474. The year of his birth is unknown.

In the course of the 16th century instrumental music was becoming more popular, but mostly it was either simple dance music or transcriptions of vocal music. Gradually instrumental music began to emerge as a serious art, but it wasn’t until the 17th century that it really separated itself completely from vocal music and flourished as an art in its own right. In 16th century sacred music, the mass and the motet were the predominant forms. In secular vocal music the madrigal was very popular. The main difference between a motet and a madrigal is that a motet was meant to be sung by a choir and a madrigal was meant to be sung by one singer for each part. Madrigals were mostly secular in nature, though there are some sacred madrigals from the period.

Over the course of the 16th century a very large repertoire of beautiful choral music was created. In Catholic and Protestant churches alike, there was much glorious music to be heard. The ideal (not always realized) was total independence and equivalency of all of the voices in a composition. In other words, each voice was melodically independent, rhythmically independent, and no voice was to be more prominent than any other voice. When you listen to most choral music of the period you will find that one voice, for a brief duration, is the most prominent and seems to demand your attention while the other voices form a polyphonic background, but a moment later that voice which you had just perceived as the most prominent has blended into the background and another voice has become prominent. Much of the interest that composers created in such music is by way of varying the texture. Variations in texture can be as simple as changing from, say, five part polyphony to two part, then back to five parts, or any other combination of reduction and resumption of parts. Texture can also be varied by creating temporary parallel motion between two voices, e.g. the voices sing in parallel thirds or sixths for several measures and then resume their independence. Another important way that composers of the time varied the texture was to interpolate purely chordal passages into a polyphonic texture. Josquin Deprez was good at this technique, but Palestrina is most well-known for it. Texture can also be varied by compressing or expanding the space the voices occupy. What I mean by that is the entire compass of the voices can span, say less than an octave (compressed space), or there can be more distance in pitch between the voices (expanded space), thus creating a more expansive sound with the voices spanning a larger pitch range. Sometimes only the space between the lower two voices is compressed or expanded.

During the 16th century there were many composers creating beautiful music, but due to space considerations I will only mention a few. In England Thomas Tallis and his pupil William Byrd were undisputedly the best two composers of the period. Tallis’s date of birth is uncertain, but when he died in 1585 he was probably 80 years old. There were many stylistic changes that took place in music in England during his lifetime and his style of composition reflects those changes throughout the years of life. His pupil, William Byrd was immensely talented, and perhaps surpassed his teacher. Byrd [1540-1623] composed a great deal of beautiful polyphonic choral music, madrigals, and some instrumental music.

In 1594 there was a big funeral in Rome. The world’s most famous composer was being laid to rest in his grave. On the side of his coffin it was written in Latin “The Prince of Music.” Thus the body of Pierluigi Giovanni da Palestrina was interred. His music has been loved by millions ever since, and studied by scholars and composers alike. Even Beethoven, while composing his great Mass in D, took the time to study scores of Palestrina. Palestrina’s most famous piece is the “Mass for Pope Marcellus.”When I first heard this magnificent work, I was spellbound by its crystalline beauty. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. I was awed by the extended “Amen” at the end of the Credo section of this mass, thinking to myself as I listened, “This has got to be the most beautiful Amen chorus in the history of music. Now, almost three decades later, I am still of that opinion.

Palestrina’s music in many ways represents the end of a tradition. He was the last of the great a capella composers of the renaissance. He was a master of polyphonic music, but of a kind of polyphony quite different from that of Bach and Handel, who wrote more than a century later. To put it in simple terms, Bach’s polyphony is more harmony-based, and his bass line, though at times quite rhythmically independent of the other voices, always is the basis of the harmony. With Palestrina, the harmony seems more of a secondary quality, the counterpoint more of a primary quality. Of course I don’t mean this in any sort of judgmental way. I’m merely pointing out some technical differences. It is really comparing apples and oranges. And yes, I concur with music historians, all of whom agree that J. S. Bach represents the high water mark of Western Polyphony.

You don’t really get a feeling of harmonic progression in Palestrina’s music, the chords almost seem like they are simply incidental to the voice leading. You sort of hear the harmony as a beautiful flow, but without that sense of direction that you get from later composers. (The same can be said of all Renaissance period music.) His earlier style is actually more polyphonic than his later style. He developed and perfected a style that alternates a polyphonic texture with pure block-chordal texture. Though others even more than a century before Palestrina alternated short sections of polyphonic music with short sections of purely a block-chordal style, no one else did it with such smoothness and sense of flow.

You may find other 16th century composers more interesting because they used more dissonance, Gesualdo, for instance. And you will find much beauty in the music of Tallis, Byrd, and Lassus, as well as other 16th century composers. But no one can match the purity and crystal clear beauty of Palestrina. Using almost no dissonance other than suspensions and the occasional 7th chord he created music of heavenly beauty.
He used a bit more dissonance in certain works, his settings of the “Song of Solomon” being a prime example. Perhaps his most beautiful opus is his requiem mass, composed in 1591, just four years before his death. He may have been keenly aware of the imminence of his own death as he composed this exquisitely beautiful work. He allowed himself somewhat more dissonance in his Requiem, and his resolutions of dissonance in this piece are quite beautiful.

If you’re interested in Renaissance a cappella music, I would recommend Palestrina above all composers. By the way, his real name was Giovanni Pierluigi. He came from a small town called Palestrina and when he moved to Rome where he lived the rest of his life he became known as Palestrina and is still today known by that moniker.

If you want to hear some rather unusual music from the late renaissance then would recommend Gesualdo (1566-1613) He was way ahead of his time harmonically, judiciously spicing his music with such anguished biting dissonance that is jars the senses. His music is by far the most dissonant of all Renaissance composers. His chromaticism is incredible! Such painful dissonance, but always, of course, resolving into consonance. Many of the effects he used were not used again by composers until late 19th century. By the way, Gesualdo didn’t have to compose if he didn’t want to. He was a prince, thus he didn’t need to compose for money.

Every one of his pieces of vocal music is on the subject of death and pain. Sorrow, agony, suffering and death fill every page of his music. When I listen to Gesualdo it is sometimes hard to come to grips with the fact that I am listening to the music of a man who committed murder most foul. He caught his wife in bed with another man and murdered both of them, mutilated their bodies, and left the mutilated corpses in front of his palace for all to see. Worse than that, it is said that he killed the infant son of his second wife because he suspected it was not his baby. Some people say that his music is not very good but it is his bizarre biography that makes people interested in him. Listen for yourself and make your own judgment.

Before I end this section of the Renaissance, I’d like to discuss the origin of the term ‘a cappella.’ In Renaissance period church music, it was strongly desired that the sound should come from the human voice only. Due to the difficulty of keeping everyone on key during long compositions, this ideal was seldom realized. Out of necessity one or more instruments (primarily the organ) were employed to help the singers stay on key. Another problem was the small size of choirs in those days. Even big cathedrals usually did not have more than two singers for each part, yet the sound had to project outward to fill a large space. A bigger volume of sound was created by having an instrument double each voice of the choir. The usual practice was to have a bass trombone double the bass singers, a tenor trombone double the tenors, an alto trombone would double the altos, and a reed instrument would double the sopranos. Keep in mind that this is not the same thing as an instrumental accompaniment. That idea came later. What I am referring to here is an instrumental doubling of each voice in the choir. There was one chapel in Europe where the renaissance ideal of human-voices-only was realized. That was the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was like a magnet that attracted the very best singers in Europe. When choirs in other places were lucky enough to find enough good singers with loud voices and the ability to stay on key without instrumental guidance, and would perform without instruments, they were said to be performing “a cappella de Sistina,” which means “as in the Sistine Chapel.” The term was later shortened to a cappella.

Art by Slawek Wojtowicz, 1997

The concept of parallel universes is not just a whimsical notion found in science fiction. Ever since the early days of quantum physics there have been scientists who take the idea very seriously. Today the idea of an infinite number of parallel universes has become mainstream. Though not yet a proven fact, the concept of parallel universes has broad explanatory power  and reconciles certain contradictions in quantum theory.

Most people believe in at least one parallel universe without even realizing that’s essentially what they are believing. Ask someone where they think they go when they die. Whether they call it heaven or the spirit world, it is in essence a parallel universe. When the Copernican Revolution forced people to abandon the idea that heaven is on the other side of the starry canopy, the canopy itself
being just beyond Saturn (Uranus and Neptune were not discovered yet), the location of heaven became somewhat ill-defined. Where is it? Smells like a parallel universe to me.

There are a few different types of parallel universes postulated by physicists. Some exist as expansions of other big bangs outside of the space-time continuum of our universe. Some exist in other dimensions in certain interpretations of string theory. Some exist on different time-scales (before our universe was born, after it dies), and some exist in the same space as our universe, but are a manifestation of a different branch of the so-called quantum wavefunction. This is the type of parallel universe that I will discuss below.

Now let’s delve just a bit into the weird world of quantum physics. Subatomic particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons are convenient concepts for understanding physical reality. But they exist only in the mind. Without getting too deep into the arcana of quantum physics I will try to explain the concept of the collapse of the wave function.  A subatomic particle does not exist until an act of observation causes it to materialize. OK, I know it sounds weird to those of you who haven’t studied quantum physics, but let me go on. A subatomic particle only exists as a sort of cloud of probabilities defined by what is called the wavefunction. The amplitude of the wave at each location determines the probability of finding the particle at that location. The act of observing with a scientific instrument causes the wavefunction to collapse and the particle comes into existence in a certain location.  For a more detailed account of these concepts you should look up the double-slit-experiment and “Schrodinger’s Cat.”

There has been a great deal of controversy over the seeming randomness of the wave function collapse. This is what provoked Einstein to say that God does not play dice with the universe.  There has perhaps been even more controversy as to what exactly causes the collapse of the wave function. Is it caused by the probing with a scientific instrument or is it caused only by conscious observation? How can all of the subatomic particles in the universe exist only as a waveform of probabilities until an act of observation collapses the waveform? Over fifty years ago physicist Hugh Everett postulated that the quantum waveform exists as a superposition of all possibilities, and the reality we perceive is created by a process he called decoherence. The phenomenon of decoherence was introduced as a way of explaining why the reality perceived by quantum physics experiments looks like it is based on probabilities.  In a sense it is a corollary of another rather arcane quantum concept called entanglement.

I won’t attempt to describe decoherence in detail, mostly because my understanding of it is somewhat limited, but decoherence creates a reality that looks like a random collapse of the wavefunctions of particles, but in fact the wave functions never collapse. The reality we perceive is but one possibility of the wavefunction, every particle immediately (on a timescale unimaginably small) affecting all other particles and causing them to all exist as a manifestation of a certain part of the wavefunction. But the entire wavefunction still exists, and this opens the door to some rather exotic possibilities.

This is all rather bizarre and impossible to really understand, but it is all part of modern physics. The main point I want to make is that the decoherence of the wavefunction opens the door to the concept of one or more parallel universes that exist in the same space-time continuum as ours, but are not perceived by us. Well, not usually perceived by us. Now let me go a bit beyond the science and get really weird.

What if a being from such a universe is able to consciously (or accidently) adjust the quantum wave function of the matter that makes up his body? Could some strange being suddenly materialize in your living room? Could such a theory explain such manifestations as ghosts, poltergeists, UFOs, angels, demons, and even bizarre things like Bigfoot and chupacabra?

Let me end this by saying that our“consensus reality” is not the ultimate reality, but is only one of many realities (infinite?)created and supported by a higher reality or higher consciousness. Our “consensus reality” is like the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave.