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96 The Triumph of “Instrumental Melody” Aspects of Musical Poetics in Bach’s St. John Passion Laurence Dreyfus H ow does J. S. Bach set poetry to music? It is not a question one asks very often. Yet if we want to understand Bach’s aims in his vocal music, we need to pay attention to his attitudes toward poetic verse, querying the compositional actions he takes with respect to it. It is fair to say—despite the proliferating interpretations treating Bach’s passions and cantatas—that this methodological concern has been given relatively short shrift in the literature. It is often tacitly assumed, for example, that one can ignore the specific poetic articulation of madrigalian verse, yet at the same time have direct access to its meaning. Instead of engaging with the poetry, we are often content to devise a condensed digest of its import, and then—moving on to what really interests us—observe how the musical conduit of Bach’s craft, genius, and religiosity conveys this sense into a legible amalgam of words and sounds. Things are never that simple, however, and I suggest that Bach was in fact an unusually wayward setter of texts, a composer whose musical praxis both obscures and undermines a straightforward translation of literary ideas. For if one exhibits even the slightest sympathy for the poetry that precedes the compositional invention, it is easy to show that Bach defies virtually every rule of musical propriety advocated by his contemporaries, whether literati or musicians. We need, therefore, to confront his obstructive attitude toward language and diction, and ask what it signifies in the early eighteenth century. Far from wishing to deprive anyone of aesthetic pleasure or theological edification found in Bach’s vocal music, I try to peel off a veneer of misplaced respect attached to Bach’s compositions so as to grasp what is so extraordinary about music that has outlived its original function. Some arias from the St. John Passion suggest how Bach not only fails to reflect his texts in a conventionally appropriate manner, but has an unusual way of overshadowing—even eclipsing—the representation of their assembled and explicit meanings. In the interplay between musical processes and the poetic verse, one can see how Bach’s music invariably “says” something different from 97 Musical Poetics in Bach’s St. John Passion the accompanying words. To the extent that Bach has crafted a distinctly new experience , therefore, it is worth assessing the curious features of his musical poetics. Before turning to Bach’s peculiarity, it is useful to describe a conventional and respectful attitude toward poetry. To this end, I turn briefly to an aria from Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1724), where the linking of text and music differs so strikingly from Bach’s. The text for the first part of an aria sung by Sesto (act 1, scene 4) reads as follows: Svegliatevi nel core Awaken in my heart Furie d’un alma offesa, Ye furies of an offended soul, A far d’un traditor To take upon a traitor Aspra vendetta! Bitter vengeance! When Sesto enters, he closely shadows the first four bars of the opening ritornello represented in Example 1. The music skillfully mimics key aspects of the poetic structure, rushing headlong from the first line into a syncopated emphasis on the “furie”—the furies or the wrath—of the second line. The music even helps the emphatic rendition of the fourth line, setting it off by inserting a short breath after “traditor.” The elaboration in sixteenth notes in the remaining bits of the ritornello—one finds out later—serves, not surprisingly, to depict the “furore”—a furious backdrop against which the stage character declaims his incensed imperative to cease lamentations and turn to avenging his father. Even the continuo line subsequently sets the word “svegliatevi” in a clear echo of the singer. There can be no doubt that the music not only elaborates, but also adheres to the text. The notes become a transparent cipher for the words: we hear the music but think the meaning of the poetry. So when literal repetitions or reformulated passages occur later in the aria, Handel refers us back to the aria text as a primary source of meaning. This effective representation and enhancement of the text is exactly what enlightened critics of the time demanded and precisely what Handel supplies. If one follows Johann Mattheson’s rules of clarity in composing arias found in Der vollkommene Capellmeister...

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