Bach contemplations – Riemenschneider #205
Passages like this make Bach an endless source of musical contemplation. In a discussion with Stan Kleppinger some time yesteryear, he formulated a wondrous analogue for such seeming eccentricity. In the first years of theory, says Dr. Klepp, when we give you the part writing “rules”, it is like showing you how to juggle with three objects. When we look to Bach, it’s like going to the circus and seeing a master juggling with 7 objects. Indeed.
In particular, consider the tenor line in m. 2-3. I would mark this wrong on a student paper without hesitation. The aerial acrobatics continue in m.3 beat 4 to m. 4 beat 1. This passage from m. 3 to 4 is another case – relatively uncommon, but it does happen – where IV is used as an embellishment of V. This example is particularly “Kinks-ish” because the embellishment is on the strong beat.
It should be noted that this is a chorale-ified version of the Te Deum. Whenever Bach is harmonizing melodies that are pre-tonal, they do tend to be adventurous trips to the Procrustean bed. Dangerous stuff from someone that is clearly working out his own harmonic salvation with fear and trembling.
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Clearly the result of the voice crossing in m. 2. How much tamer would it have been had the alto remained on the D after the appoggiatura E to prepare the suspension on beat 3. The tenor then could have had a conventional leap down to A on beat 1 prepared even in contrary motion and remained there for the bar. This begs the question then of the meaning of this crossing and the resulting acrobatics. The answer to that may well lie beyond the harmonization alone. Bach, often "micro text paints." So it would be worth a look at what these singers are saying.
This is the "Lass uns in Himel haben Teil" strain of that complex chorale, roughly the German equivalent of the "We therefore pray thee, help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood; Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting."
It may be a stretch, but the reason for crossing here might well be the image of having a share of heaven and mingling, as it were, with saints where they might "descend" and "cross" with mortals as do the two enigmatic inner voices.
Haig, I used to think readings like that were a stretch and overly "Romantic". I'm not so sure anymore. I've read enough on Bach's use of symbolism that I'm convinced that he really thought in those terms. In any case, it seems more reasonable than, "I just wanted to write a really awkward tenor line that spanned an octave and a third by leaping down in fourths in the same direction because I thought it would be fun."