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The ''Clavier-Übung III'', sometimes referred to as the ''German Organ Mass'', is a collection of compositions for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, started in 1735–36 and published in 1739. It is considered Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his musically most complex and technically most demanding compositions for that instrument. In its use of modal forms, motet-style and canons, it looks back to the religious music of masters of the stile antico, such as Frescobaldi, Palestrina, Lotti and Caldara. At the same time, Bach was forward-looking, incorporating and distilling modern baroque musical forms, such as the French-style chorale. The work has the form of an ''Organ Mass'': between its opening and closing movements—the prelude and "St Anne" fugue in E-flat, BWV 552—are 21 chorale preludes, BWV 669–689, setting parts of the Lutheran mass and catechisms, followed by four duets, BWV 802–805. The chorale preludes range from compositions for single keyboard to a six-part fugal prelude with two parts in the pedal. The purpose of the collection was fourfold: an idealized organ programme, taking as its starting point the organ recitals given by Bach himself in Leipzig; a practical translation of Lutheran doctrine into musical terms for devotional use in the church or the home; a compendium of organ music in all possible styles and idioms, both ancient and modern, and properly internationalised; and as a didactic work presenting examples of all possible forms of contrapuntal composition, going far beyond previous treatises on musical theory. ==History and origins== November 25, 1736 saw the consecration of a new organ, built by Gottfried Silbermann, in a central and symbolic position in the Frauenkirche, Dresden. The following week, on the afternoon of December 1, Bach gave a two-hour organ recital there, which received "great applause". Bach was used to playing on church organs in Dresden, where since 1733 his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, had been organist at the Sophienkirche. It is considered likely that for the December recital Bach performed for the first time parts of his as yet unpublished ''Clavier-Übung III'', the composition of which, according to Gregory Butler's dating of the engraving, started as early as 1735. This inference has been drawn from the special indication on the title page that it was "prepared for music-lovers and particularly connoisseurs" of music; from contemporary reports of Bach's custom of giving organ recitals for devotees after services; and from the subsequent tradition among music lovers in Dresden of attending Sunday afternoon organ recitals in the Frauenkirche given by Bach's student Gottfried August Homilius, whose programme was usually made up of chorale preludes and a fugue. Bach was later to complain that the temperament on Silbermann organs was not well suited to "today's practice". ''Clavier-Übung III'' is the third of four books of Bach's Clavier-Übung. It was his published music for organ, the other three parts being for harpsichord. The title, meaning "keyboard practice", was a conscious reference to a long tradition of similarly titled treatises: Johann Kuhnau (Leipzig, 1689, 1692), Johann Philipp Krieger (Nuremberg, 1698), Vincent Lübeck (Hamburg, 1728), Georg Andreas Sorge (Nuremberg, 1739) and Johann Sigismund Scholze (Leipzig 1736–1746). Bach started composing after finishing ''Clavier-Übung II''—the Italian Concerto, BWV 971 and the Overture in the French style, BWV 831—in 1735. Bach used two groups of engravers because of delays in preparation: 43 pages by three engravers from the workshop of Johann Gottfried Krügner in Leipzig and 35 pages by Balthasar Schmid in Nuremberg. The final 78-page manuscript was published in Leipzig in Michaelmas (late September) 1739 at the relatively high price of 3 Reichsthaler. Bach's Lutheran theme was in keeping with the times, since already that year there had been three bicentenary Reformation festivals in Leipzig. In translation, the title page reads "Third Part of Keyboard Practice, consisting of various preludes on the Catechism and other hymns for the organ. Prepared for music-lovers and particularly for connoisseurs of such work, for the recreation of the spirit, by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister and director of the ''chorus musicus'', Leipzig. Published by the author". Examination of the original manuscript suggests that the Kyrie-Gloria and larger catechism chorale preludes were the first to be composed, followed by the "St Anne" prelude and fugue and the ''manualiter'' chorale preludes in 1738 and finally the four duets in 1739. Apart from BWV 676, all the material was newly composed. The scheme of the work and its publication were probably motivated by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann's ''Harmonische Seelenlust'' (1733–1736), Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch's ''Compositioni Musicali'' (1734–1735) and chorale preludes by Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl, Johann Gottfried Walther and Johann Caspar Vogler published between 1734 and 1737, as well as the older ''Livres d'orgue'', the French organ masses of Nicolas de Grigny (1700), Pierre Dumage (1707) and others. Bach's formulation of the title page follows some of these earlier works in describing the particular form of the compositions and appealing to "connoisseurs", his only departure from the title page of ''Clavier-Übung II''. Although ''Clavier-Übung III'' is acknowledged to be not merely a miscellaneous collection of pieces, there has been no agreement on whether it forms a cycle or is just a set of closely related pieces. As with previous organ works of this type by composers such as François Couperin, Johann Caspar Kerll and Dieterich Buxtehude, it was in part a response to musical requirements in church services. Bach's references to Italian, French and German music place ''Clavier-Übung III'' directly in the tradition of the ''Tabulaturbuch'', a similar but much earlier collection by Elias Ammerbach, one of Bach's predecessors at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Bach's complex musical style had been criticized by some of his contemporaries. The composer, organist and musicologist Johann Mattheson remarked in "Die kanonische Anatomie" (1722): Until 1731, apart from his celebrated ridiculing in 1725 of Bach's declamatory writing in Cantata No.21, Mattheson's commentary on Bach had been positive. In 1730, however, he heard by chance that Gottfried Benjamin Hancke had been commenting unfavourably on his own keyboard technique: "Bach will play Mattheson into a sack and out again." From 1731 onwards, his vanity pricked, Mattheson's writing became critical of Bach, whom he referred to as "der künstliche Bach". Over the same period Bach's former pupil Johann Adolf Scheibe had been making stinging criticisms of Bach: in 1737 he wrote that Bach "deprived his pieces of all that was natural by giving them a bombastic and confused character, and eclipsed their beauty by too much art." Scheibe and Mattheson were employing practically the same lines of attack on Bach; and indeed Mattheson involved himself directly in Scheibe's campaign against Bach. Bach did not comment directly at the time: his case was argued with some discreet prompting from Bach by Johann Abraham Birnbaum, professor of rhetoric at the University of Leipzig, a music lover and friend of Bach and Lorenz Christoph Mizler. In March 1738 Scheibe launched a further attack on Bach for his "not inconsiderable errors": In the advertisement in 1738 for his forthcoming treatise, ''Der vollkommene Capellmeister'' (1739), Mattheson included a letter by Scheibe, resulting from his exchanges with Birnbaum, in which Schiebe expressed strong preference for Mattheson's "natural" melody over Bach's "artful" counterpoint. Through his friend Mizler and his Leipzig printers Krügner and Breitkopf, also printers for Mattheson, like others Bach would have had advance knowledge of the content of Mattheson's treatise. Concerning counterpoint, Mattheson wrote: Whatever Bach's personal reaction, the contrapuntal writing of ''Clavier-Übung III'' provided a musical response to Scheibe's criticisms and Mattheson's call to organists. Mizler's statement, cited above, that the qualities of ''Clavier-Übung III'' provided a "powerful refutation of those who have ventured to criticize the music of the Court Composer" was a verbal response to their criticisms. Nevertheless, most commentators agree that the main inspiration for Bach's monumental opus was musical, namely musical works like the ''Fiori musicali'' of Girolamo Frescobaldi, for which Bach had a special fondness, having acquired his own personal copy in Weimar in 1714.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Clavier-Übung III」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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