Bach's most often-performed piece: Jesu Joy

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In my last post, girls and boys, I gave you two versions of a well-known piece, namely the famous chorale from Cantata No. 147 of Johann Sebastian Bach.

A word about these Cantatas.  Bach wrote close to 200 of these, which were a set of pieces intended to be performed by the choir in Church on Sunday (and other feast days on which the Congregation attended church, such as Christmas and New Year’s Day, which could fall on any day).  The Cantata consisted of possibly an instrumental Overture, then several combinations of a recitative (a sung preamble in free rhythm) followed by an aria (a song), or just an aria by itself, or a chorale (an elaborate setting of a verse of a hymn).  Most people know no Bach chorales at all except for this one example, with words in English beginning with “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring”.  So, to summarize, Jesu Joy (as it is convenient to call it) is just one movement of a long Cantata, consisting of 10 movements (one of Bach’s longest Cantatas).  When Bach died in 1750, his thousand-odd compositions were cataloged (which makes sense, obviously) by various musicologists, the last and greatest of which was Wolfgang Schmeider, who assigned a number to every composition.  Thus, a certain cantata, based on the chorale “How brightly beams the morning star” was assigned number 1, and the cantata which contains Jesu Joy (which is called Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben) is assigned number 147, followed by others, all the way up to Number 212, which is also a cantata (possibly not actually by Bach; these are the things that musicologists try to resolve), after which come the organ pieces, and so on and so forth.  (The Art of Fugue is number 1080.)  The Cantatas were long works: some of them could be as long as half an hour.  But Church in Bach’s day lasted more than an hour (sometimes up to three hours), so there was plenty of time for other less interesting things to be placed in the order of service, so that it was not too terribly delightful, and was an appropriately sober affair, as befitted a sacred duty.

For the purposes of the example I provided in the previous post, I transcribed the entire chorale into my music software as well as I was able.  There are actually 10 parts: the four chorus parts: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass; the Trumpet, which plays along with the Soprano (which you hardly hear, and which I left out), the very audible Oboe, which plays the elaborate counter melody (my wife disapproves of the hyphen, so you see that it has been left out) which is characteristic of this chorale, and chorales that are written in similar style (that’s six parts so far), the three upper string parts: two violins and a viola, of which the first violin plays along with the Oboe (that’s nine, but I left out the first violin), and the Continuo.  The Continuo was any collection of keyboards and bass; in this case it probably consisted of cello, double-bass, and a small organ.  (There were usually at least two organs in most churches back then, and there was a little organ that played along with the choir; this is the one they probably used.  The big organ was generally for congregational singing, and for solo organ music, e.g. the Voluntary, the Offertory, and the Recessional or Postlude.)  I left out the organ as well.  There just isn't a good organ sound in my software.

Being an amateur, I found it very hard to keep all the parts on the screen at once, and the pdf of the score from which I was working (which also looked suspiciously like output from a more powerful version of the very same software I was using).  There is a lot of repetition in this piece, and I was tempted to cut and paste similar-sounding sections, but to my horror I discovered that there were slight but important variations in the segments, so I had to backtrack and re-enter the parts by hand.

Entering the parts by hand entails mousing over to the spot where a note is to be placed, and clicking.  But the note could be a whole note, a half note, a quarter note, and eighth note or smaller, and could be dotted, or tied to the next note.  Each of these things must be set first, before you mouse and click.  It took forever.  As I entered the parts, I remembered the parts I sang as a student: the soprano first, then as my voice dropped, Alto, then Tenor, and finally Bass.  Since I could read music, I was conscripted to teach the parts to the bigger kids, and I remember sitting at the piano for hours, while some thick-skulled tenor tried to get his part straight.

When we sang, of course, the accompaniment was on a piano.  Now I was entering the string parts, and learning how complex and imaginative they were: the second violin and the viola mostly play lines very close together, and in some interesting places, cross parts.  Crossing parts is a very tricky business, and music harmony teachers usually strongly discourage it.  But Bach knew that the lower instruments found it a lot of fun to occasionally play a note or phrase higher than one of the higher-voiced instruments, so the viola was given a number of notes that were higher than those of the violin, usually in a phrase that would be more graceful if it was allowed to rise through the other part.  The violin part sometimes wound down through the viola part for the same reason, to let it play an arpeggio without interruption.

Modern conductors have tended to play this chorale at a very brisk pace, and with a somewhat detached touch:  “BOINK – pink – pink, BOINK – pink – pink,” and so on.  Now, there is absolutely no harm in boinking along like that, but when you copy out the parts over several days, like I did, and listen to them over and over again, you get the distinct impression that the music was written very deliberately to be played legato (connectedly and smoothly) to produce quite the opposite of the detached sound.  You be the judge.  Bach uses a lot of seventh chords (remember them?) which need to resolve, that is they have a strong leaning towards a certain motion, and it seems to me that they resolve more convincingly when the playing is legato, or smooth.  When the playing is detached (staccato), the chords sound actually jazzy, and I don’t think jazziness was intended.  Jazz has a lot of detached chords of the seventh, just for the sound they make, without any purpose of leaning intended at all; in fact it is quite common in Jazz to actually end a piece on a seventh chord.  (By the way, in case you were wondering, this particular cantata was written to be performed on the Feast of the Annunciation, and it was all about the confusion and the ecstasy of the Virgin Mary.)

So here it is.  Listen to it carefully, at a moderately low volume (it sounds better if it isn’t played loud), and feel the complex texture of the interweaving lines under the melody.  Everything is melody, from the oboe to the four choir voices (I should know; every part is equally melodious), and the strings, practically hugging themselves in a frenzy of exaltation.  There is a reason this piece is Bach’s most beloved to modern audiences; he must have enjoyed writing it.  Far more effort and energy was vested in this one movement than a congregation could have appreciated at a single hearing.  I could listen to it ten times, and hear a new texture in it every time.

[Added later:

Some time ago I reported on Stephen Malinowski’s Music Animation Machine.  (Perhaps it’s time I wrote it up again.)  This lovely piece of software enables us to play a MIDI file, and at the same time see a visual interpretation of the music in a number of sophisticated ways.

I exported a MIDI version (MIDI = ‘Musical Instrument Digital Interface’) of the chorale to disk, then played it through the Music Animation Machine, and recorded the video output.  Here is a link to the video.  (Instead of the music being played in the MAM, this is the same music file in the earlier video, an MP3.  The software I usually use does a better job with the sound, while the MAM does a far better job with the visuals.

The video was captured using Debut software.

Inversions, and the Bass

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A couple of posts ago, I was trying to explain the basics of traditional Western harmony.  Harmony is, on the one hand, the chords that go with the tunes that most people notice immediately.  But Harmony is also how the succession of chords, one after the other, creates tunes in the so-called inner parts, or at least the lower voices, which ---even if they're not easily heard as individual melodies--- nevertheless provide a certain texture that contributes to what is called good part-writing, or good counterpoint.

In popular music, for instance, music played on (pop, or non-classical) guitars, at any rate, the harmony is divorced from concerns about good counterpoint, and lovers of pop music are able to enjoy the pure satisfaction of the chords in the abstract, unconcerned about whether the notes played on, say, the second string of the rhythm guitar, taken as a "tune", which it probably isn't, is a good tune.

Anyway, the lower voices in classical music are written carefully to make melodies whenever possible.  Make no mistake: these inner melodies are in no way competitors for melodious excellence with the main melodies of the pieces, generally speaking; it is only rarely that the inner voices get really fabulous melodies, even with a composer like Bach.  (In Sousa, though, you can often hear a middle voice playing a really good counter-melody in a march, for instance.  But that's the exception.)

Most of all, the bass line is written carefully, especially in 18th and 19th century music, to contribute strongly to the overall quality of the piece.  This means that often the bass note of a chord is not the root note.  By root note we mean the note that gives its name to the chord.

The chord I, you will recall, consists of the notes 1-3-5.  Of these, it is the note 1 for which the chord is named.  For instance, in the key of C major, the chord 1-3-5, which is C-E-G in C major, is called the Chord of C (or the chord of C major), especially by guitar players, and others who play block chords.  The chord IV is 4-6-8, which is F-A-C, and is called the chord of F.  The root of the chord is the note that lends its name to the chord, C in the case of C-E-G, and F in the case of F-A-C.  In popular music, the bass guitar will almost invariably play the root note.  When the bass note of a chord is the Root, we say that the chord is being played in root position.

Because some of this is far from clear without an illustration, (and since most of you readers are unlikely to go sit at a piano and try these out,) here is what a chord in root position sounds like, played on French horns, for no particular reason.  Note that this chord is perfectly satisfactory to end a piece of music.  All, or the vast majority of pieces, end with a chord in root position.

You can play that as often as you like.  The graphic I have included shows
(1) all the notes of the C chord, with the actual ones that are sounding a little darker,
(2) the letter names of every note in the chord,
(3) All the C notes colored red or pink, the E notes colored yellow or orange, and the G notes colored light green or dark green.
The lowest note in the example is in fact the lowest note on the graphic, and is in black.  I ought to have made it red, since it is a C note, and it is the Root.

The first inversion is a C chord, but with the "middle" note, E in the bass.  It is sort of traditional not to have the middle note of a major chord doubled too much, so I have taken the E out of the upper voices.  Notice that this chord has a sort of stillness that is a little unsettling, like an elephant balanced on one leg.  It is a powerful inversion, and is the second most frequently used inversion after the Root Position chord.  It is never used to end a piece, since it has a very definite quality of wanting to move onto another chord (at least, this is how this inversion is regarded by traditionalists):


Here, the bass note is E, again colored black.  Note: only the bass note determines the inversion.  There can be any of C, E or G in the upper voices (except for the general guideline of not doubling the middle note, which is called the third).  The chord is played first by French horns, then by bassoons, just so you can satisfy yourself that the instruments don't really play a part in the unique character of the first inversion.  (I apologize; I have forgotten to erase the E note from the Alto in the graphic.  It's gone from the audio; if you have good ears, you would hear that it is present only in the bass instruments.)

We could stop with these two inversions, except for the fact that you would probably wonder: why not talk about the other inversion?  So here it is, the second inversion: it has the G in the bass, or for a I chord, which consists of 1-3-5, the 5, called predictably the fifth of the chord, in the bass.  (As always, the upper voices can contain any of the notes, as long as all three notes are present, and the third is not present in too many of the voices.  Honestly, nobody really cares very much about that rule about not doubling the third.) 

So here it is, the second inversion, played by strings, then by French horns.  I just thought French horns do a good job generally of being both clear and loud:


You will probably agree that the second inversion, too, has an unfinished sound to it.  You will also, probably, not be quite able to put your finger on how you feel about the second inversion, but some things will be clear:

Both the inversions are certainly familiar.  You have heard them in classical music.  Both inversions are distinctive, and sound different from each other, and from the Root Position chord.  And their qualities are so subtle that using them in Popular music would be odd, or risky, or certainly unappreciated.

The second inversion is usually used in two contexts: just before the end of a piece, or when the bass is traveling step by step between two other chords.  It is most definitely a special-purpose chord, whereas the Root Position chord is sort of a general purpose chord.

A really interesting use of the first inversion is in the overture to Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute.  Here is a recording from Laserlight, a company that sells inexpensive recordings of popular works, played by good, but little-known, orchestras.  The opening bars of the overture consists of:
* an enormous I chord in Root Position,
* two enormous VI chord in Root Position,
* and two enormous I chords, this time in first inversion.

The fact that it is a first inversion chord is absolutely unmistakeable.  In my mind, this is the mother of all first inversion chords, and gives this opera a seriousness that it might not have otherwise.  It is claiming quite a lot to say that a single pair of chords can set the tone for an entire opera, but ... you be the judge.  Here is the whole thing: The Overture to The Magic Flute.

The fact that inversions are possible permits much more flexibility in the bass line than would otherwise be available.  In the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, those who love this music come to know just how fabulous his bass lines are.

A well-known piece by Bach, often played at weddings, is actually a piece for a choir and small string orchestra and an oboe (and a trumpet playing softly, actually): Jesu bleibet meine Freude, or Jesus is still my joy, or as it is translated metrically: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring.

Just so see how influential the quality of the bass line is, I'm going to rewrite the bass line of this piece with mostly root position chords.  I'll post the result here as soon as I get it done, what with my busy schedule and all.  (You have no idea...)

O boy, do I ever have an example for you!

I found the sheet music for "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", or BWV 147 (10), on the internet ---it's public domain--- and painfully transcribed the first several bars of it into a music notation program.  Then I rewrote the bass line (the Cello, the Double Bass, and the bass voice), all so that every chord is in root position.  Let me warn you: those of you who are really familiar with this piece will be unhappy---anything from slightly disturbed to deeply pained--- by the vandalism that has resulted.  The sweet tune that the bass line usually sings has been destroyed, just so that all the chords have the root note in the bass.  (Unfortunately this violates other rules of harmony, such as the avoidance of parallel fifths and octaves.)  Still, it is useful to learn just how important the use of inversions was in the music of Bach.  (Instead of voices, I have four French horns.)


Well, I hope you hate that.  (You probably won't; I'm exaggerating the degree to which you're going to be overwhelmed by the "wrong" bass line.)

Here is the original, using my instrumentation.


You can hear the original bass line; if you're dissatisfied with this clip, it's because it's machine-generated, and doesn't have the smoothness and elasticity of a real performance.  To hear a fair version of the piece (which you must have heard a million times, but this performance is likely to be a lot less schmaltzy than a performance at a wedding, for instance.  It is by a Dutch group, conducted by Pieter Leusink:  Jesu bleibet meine Freude.  (In German, nouns are capitalized, hence the capital F in Freude, which means Joy.)  As a bonus, you get Bach's manuscript scrolling along with the music.  Bach's music handwriting is considered to be exceptionally beautiful, but of course standards were different in those days.  In a presentation copy, he used gorgeous musical calligraphy.

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Benjamin Britten

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I have just learned that it is the centenary of the year in which Benjamin Britten was born.

Britten was one of the most important British composers of the 2oth century, and probably one of the greatest composers of his time.  I was reading a biography recently, in which he was reported as having deplored the fact that he had not achieved the "simplicity" to which he aspired, and it is true that one of the characteristics of his music is a certain complexity.  (This is in strong contrast to the simplicity in the music of the more senior British composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, which is sometimes almost too much to bear.)

Benjamin Britten has written a number of compositions that have received critical acclaim and are well loved by the British, but I can only comment on the ones that I know well, or know at least to some degree.

A Ceremony of Carols is a well-loved work, being often performed by choirs of all levels of ability at Christmastime.  Wolcum Yole comes right after the Processional.  Originally written for voices and harp, there are now transcriptions allowing for practically any sort of accompaniment.

A very well-loved piece if Britten's is the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, a tour de force of orchestral effects.  It is in two parts: the first consists of statements of a tune of Henry Purcell by various instruments, covering practically the entire orchestral spectrum.  The second part is a set of variations on an original theme by Britten, where each variation is by a different musical instrument or family.  This, in turn, evolves into a fugue, where each section states the subject, and continues to play behind the next entry, and so forth, forming a very complex tapestry of sound, which is nevertheless transparent enough for the strands of music to continue to be distinguishable.  This fugue gradually transforms itself into a grand final re-statement of the original tune by Henry Purcell, taken from the Suite for Abdelazar, or the Moor's Revenge.  (I have written earlier on both The Young Person's Guide, and Abdelazar, which are both really interesting pieces.  I particularly like the very English original tune by Purcell.)

To Be Continued.

The care and feeding of Batteries

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One of the growing environmental menaces is the increasingly widespread use of rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable batteries are not intrinsically bad for the environment, but they have insidious side-effects.

Look at the chain that brings energy to your device:

1. The Power Company converts either chemical or nuclear energy: uranium, coal, gas, or oil, into electricity.
2. The electricity is piped (along wires) to your home.
3. You connect to the grid, and a battery-charger charges up your battery.
4. The charged battery powers your device.
5. Eventually, you throw the battery in the trash.

In principle, of course, you're not supposed to do (5): throw the battery in the trash.  You're supposed to give the battery to the store where you bought it, or in enlightened states, to some collection center.  If all goes well, the store or the collection agency will carefully recycle the battery.  If all does not go well, and some a*&%$#@ is in charge of the operation, they will throw your battery in the trash, so your eyes will not be hurt by the sight.

This is the weakest link in the environment-related chain of battery-use (for the moment disregarding the poisonous materials used in rechargeable batteries and their manufacture): the fact that today, because of the influence of fiscal conservatives who insist that all government operations should be cost-effective, the local government will only use proper recycling procedures if it is inexpensive.  (Often the operation is outsourced to a private contractor, who has to make a profit.)

The best approach to this, given that you're not going to give up your cordless devices, is to baby your batteries as much as possible, uncompromisingly using whatever techniques are available for making the batteries deliver as much power as possible for as long as possible.  If everybody thought of babying their rechargeable devices as saving money (almost the only way to sell the idea to fiscal conservatives), you might be able to influence quite a lot of people to prolong the lives of their batteries, from laptop battery-packs to cameras, to mp3-players and phones.  (And stop thinking of phones as disposable consumer items; I haven't gone into it, but I'm sure, taking the total cost of trashing a phone into account, that they are a significant burden on the environment.)

I surfed the Web conscientiously, aware of the possibility that my readers might take what I said uncritically, and not pursue their own verification of the facts.  One of the most interesting articles I found was the very first, unfortunately written by what appears to be a non-native English speaker, (or one who was ineptly home-schooled), and whose writing mechanics did not come close to matching the muscularity of his information.  (Do read it; it is from the Battery Barn.)

Mx Battery Barn sets out his or her information very tidily.  There are several types of batteries, and each has its own characteristics.  A while later, I encountered what looks to be the most informed summary of the information I'm seeking to present here, by a gentleman who says that he is a Swiss immigrant currently living in Canada, and whose present occupation appears to be in the battery service industry.  In the article Batteries in a Portable World, the author, Isidore Buchmann, gives more detailed and technical information about the characteristics of the various battery types.  That's probably where you should look, for the reasons behind the recommendations.

Alkaline Batteries of the Nickel-Cadmium type

These were among the earliest consumer rechargeable batteries.  These must be completely charged once you get them (or the device that has them built-in, such as my electric toothbrush), and then used until they're completely drained, and then completely recharged, several times.

Apparently, unless you completely drain them from the word go, they cannot be subsequently used below the level at which you recharged them.  This is affectionately called the "memory problem"; it is as if when you use the battery down to, say, 70%, and then recharge it, it forgets that it can go all the way down to 0%, and ever after, only goes down to 70%.  (Once it's down to 70% charge, it thinks it's completely drained, and refuses to supply power.  In effect you've lost that 70% that you didn't use the first time.)

Many consumers vaguely remember having heard of something like this with their cordless drill, for instance, but unfortunately, they assume that the same is true for their laptop.  Nothing can be further from the truth.

Lithium-Ion Batteries

Laptops, in contrast to (most) power drills, use the lighter Lithium-Ion Batteries.  These do not have the so-called "memory problem" described above; you can use them lightly, and charge them up.  What they do not like (by which I mean the condition that makes them degenerate rapidly, for chemical reasons) is to be stored in a discharged condition.  For maximum life, therefore, you should use your laptop while it is plugged in, or keep it plugged in while not using it, and charge it back up after using it on the battery at the earliest opportunity.  I haven't actually read this anywhere, but it is my belief that the same goes for cell phones.  I have started plugging my cell phone in every chance I get, especially at home.

Note: apparently, some battery chargers have a 'discharge' switch, ostensibly to help discharge Nickel-Cadmium batteries which, having the "memory problem", need to be reminded of their full capacity by being discharged all the way.  I haven't owned this type of battery charger, so I can only guess.  Mx Battery Barn explicitly and repeatedly warns us not to do this for Lithium Ion batteries.  (It is endearing to see the vehemence with which this exhortation is issued, and persuades me that Battery Barn's evangelical manner comes from very deep-held convictions, ideally stemming from an environmental concern, or at any rate, a deep love of batteries in general.  What a wonderful world we live in.)

There are other sorts of batteries, of course: the lowly Lead-Acid car batteries we hardly notice, and Nickel Metal-Hydride batteries, which are a significant improvement over the older Nickel-Cadmium batteries, not least because they don't contain Cadmium, and so do not constitute a heavy-metal threat to landfills.  Unfortunately, I believe, they contain trace elements of Mercury, but I could be completely off-base.  You should check the matter out carefully.

Lead-Acid batteries, too, have specific needs in their use patterns, but as Battery Barn points out, the way we use them normally discharges and re-charges them perfectly, so that they last longer than any other battery type.

Heat is an enemy of all battery types

Everyone knows this, but we forget.  Do not let your laptop overheat; keep it where it can suck in cool air from wherever its air intakes are: usually under the laptop (i.e., your lap), or on one of the sides, and keep the outflow grills unobstructed.  A cool laptop lasts much longer, because the circuits, the hard drive (which has to spin almost constantly, and spinning things need to get rid of their heat), and the battery all need to be cool.

The same goes for your cell phone.  Keeping it close to your heart is probably bad for the battery, and not particularly good for your heart.  Put it on some cool surface when you're settling down for a while, but of course, you must remember to pick it up again.

A systemic, "million-dollar" problem with the cell-phone battery market

Mr Bachmann outlines a pattern in cell-phone battery supply and return which, he claims, constitutes a million-dollar loss for all parties.  It has to do with the conflict between the characteristics of these batteries, and the flow of consumer-rejected batteries to the manufacturer.  This problem leads one to surmise that batteries, speaking generally, are a major econo-environmental problem, and even if it doesn't deserve immediate attention, will soon become so.  Unfortunately, for the reasons I have given above having to do with fiscal conservatism and state and local policy, a problem must become acute before state and local representatives will risk political capital in addressing it, especially since many of these people are career politicians, and hold office not for altruistic reasons, but as their principal income.