Bach Lautenwerk

Bach's 'Lauten Werck'Author(s): Howard FergusonSource: Music & Letters, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Jul., 1967), pp. 259-264Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/732716 .

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BACH'S 'LAUTEN WERCK'

BY HOWARD FERGUSON

IN THE specificatio ofJohann Sebastian Bach's estate, made after his death at Leipzig in I750, there were listed among the musical instruments two Lauten Werk[e] valued at 30 Reichstaler each. We know that these were something other than normal lutes, not only because a lute (valued at 21 Rts.) was included later in the list, but also because Lautenwerke of various kinds are described by several writers both before and after this period, What exactly was the instrument? Our main source of information is a treatise on organs and other keyboard instruments by Jakob Adlung (I699-1762), 'Musica Mechanica Organoedi' (Berlin, 1768), containing additional notes by Johann Friedrich Agricola (I720-74) who was himself a pupil of Bach. In a chapter entitled'VonLautenwerken und Glocken- spielen' (Pt. II, chap. xxv, p. I33) Adlung begins by describing a normal lute with the following specification, the relevance of which will later become apparent:

An 11-course lute, with 22 strings.

tuning: j I H f I playing): , .- r

J -- - 1 'compass: /

As can be seen, each course below the top two consists of a pair of strings, the lowest six tuned as octaves and the remaining three as unisons. Adlung goes on to say that the Lautenwerk must not be confused with the lute-stop of a harpsichord, and describes it as "the most beautiful of all keyboard instruments after the organ". (Agri- cola comments drily: "Not everyone will agree with this opinion".) It is so named, he adds, "because it imitates the lute, not only in tone-quality but also in compass and delicacy". Elsewhere the instrument is referred to variously as the arpicordo leutato, Lauten- Clavier, Lauten-Clavessin or Lautenclavicymbel: that is, the lute-harpsichord.

Before pursuing Adlung's description in greater detail, brief reference should be made to some other relevant sources. The earliest may possibly be Sebastian Virdung's 'Musica getutscht' (Basel, 15 I ), fo. 5v, which mentions a keyboard instrument strung with gut instead of wire (this, as we shall see, is a characteristic of the Lauten- werk). However, Virdung gives no further details, the instrument is unnamed, and the description, such as it is, might refer to either of two neighbouring woodcuts illustrating respectively a clavicimbalum

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(in this case a small rectangular harpsichord) and a claviciterium (an 'upright' harpsichord, here wrongly engraved with the bass to the right and the treble to the left); so we are uncertain whether something like a Lautenwerk is meant or not. Exactly a hundred years later the instrument is actually named in Adriano Banchieri's 'L'Organo suonarino' (2nd ed., Venice, I6II), p. 57. Banchieri (I567-1634), a Bolognese organist, composer and theorist, writes that a year earlier he had heard in Milan an arpicordo leutato made by Michel de Hodes, a Frenchman living in the city. It sounded so pleasing and so like a lute that he designed for de Hodes a bass version of the instrument, in imitation of the chitarrone, by "taking away many upper notes and adding many lower ones". It had 23 white keys and I6 black ones giving a compass of over three octaves:

and it was named the arpitarrone, because the lower registers sounded like a chitarrone and the upper like a harp. Banchieri comments that it was specially useful in concerted music-that is, as a continuo instrument.

In the following century instruments similar to these were made by Johann Christoph Fleischer (b. 1673) of Hamburg, as we learn from the 'Bresslauische Sammlung von Natur- und Medicin- wie auch hierzu geh6rigen Kunst- und Literatur-Geschichten' (Breslau, I718). The smaller of the two types was an 8-ft. pitch Lauten- Clavessin costing 200 Rts., which looked like a rectangular harpsichord, 4 ft. in width, with an oval concave resonator fixed beneath the soundboard. It had two 8-ft. unison registers of gut strings, "with a Small Octave of 4 ft. added in the bass from C to c"'. Though the upward limit of the compass is not specified, we can deduce that the layout was probably as follows:

with two strings tuned an octave apart for each key of the lower two octaves and single strings for the top octave, something after the pattern of the lute (cf. the first example above). The larger instrument was a I6-ft. pitch Theorbenfligel costing 400 Rts., which looked like a normal grand-shaped harpsichord. The keyboard was described as being "of 4 octaves"; but internal evidence shows that this meant it included four C's, and therefore had what we would now call a compass of three octaves:

26: 260



There were three registers, of which two were gut and one was wire. The first was a gut I6-ft. Principal, sounding an octave lower; the second a gut Octave of "8 ft. in the bass, from C tof', followed by a unison of I6 ft.", probably as follows:

and the third a wire Little Octave of 4 ft., sounding an octave above. When the i6-ft. and 4-ft. stops were drawn together (in conjunction with the 8-ft.?) they produced "a delicate, bell-like sound", which (as Banchieri noted earlier) was particularly suited to the continuo in chamber music. The specifications of Fleischer's instruments are quoted in shortened form, in the entry under his name, in Johann Gottfried Walter's 'Musikalisches Lexikon' (Leipzig, 1732), which also mentions a Lauten-Clavier made by Johann Georg Gleichmann (I685-1770). The latter was equipped with a harp-stop, such as found on some harpsichords, which alters the tone by means of buffs or dampers pressed against the strings.

After this brief glance at the instruments mentioned by some earlier writers, we can now pass on to Adlung's much fuller description of the Lautenwerk. He concentrates on the only ones that he himself has seen: namely, those made by Johann Nicolaus Bach (1669-1753), a well-known harpsichord-maker ofJena and a second cousin ofJ. S. Bach. He says that the simplest type looks rather like a single-manual, grand-shaped harpsichord-though other models are also made; and it has similar keys, jacks, quills, wrestpins (i.e. tuning-pins) and soundboard. There are, however, important differences in design that contribute to the lute-like character of the instrument: (I) The compass of the keyboard, as of the lute, is three octaves:

(Adlung, like Fleischer, would call this four octaves). (2) The strings are generally made of gut, not of wire. (3) They must not come in contact with metal. (4) They are more equal in length than those of a harpsichord, hence the tail-end of the instrument is both shorter and blunter than a harpsichord's. (5) The lower two-thirds of the compass has two strings to every key, tuned an octave apart in the lowest octave and as unisons in the next (cf. the specification of a lute, above). Each pair of strings is plucked simultaneously by two jacks, one facing to the right and the other to the left. In the top octave there is only one string and one jack to each key. (6) Instead of the usual continuous hitchpin-bridge, shaped like a flattened-S,

261

3



there is a separate small bridge for the string or pair of strings belonging to each key.

The separate bridges are required because the strings of the Lautenwerk, in length, gauge and tension, more nearly resemble those of the lute than of the harpsichord. Thus, for example, the Gf on the bottom line of the bass stave is produced on the lute by a pair of open strings of equal length tuned:

Therefore the key for this note on the Lautenwerk plays a similar pair of adjacent strings, whose individual length equals the distance between the nut and bridge of the lute. The note a semitone higher, G#, is produced on the lute by stopping the Gt pair of strings at the first fret on the fingerboard. On the Lautenwerk, therefore, the G$ pair of strings is the same overall length as the Gb pair, but the individual bridge belonging to it is placed somewhat closer to the player, so that the distance between it and the wrestpin-bridge is the same as the distance between the lute's bridge and its first fret. This method of determining the length and gauge of the strings and the position of the bridges is followed throughout the compass of the Lautenwerk. Hence the Lautenwerk's individual bridges are placed zigzag-fashion in the lower two octaves, matching the fingering of a chromatic scale on the lute, and in a stepped pattern in the top octave.

Adlung says that a Lautenwerk made thus sounds so like a lute that it can deceive even an experienced lutenist. But it has one great disadvantage: it cannot imitate the lute's dynamic gradations. In order to overcome this limitation, J. N. Bach devised instruments with two or even three keyboards. They have no additional registers of strings, such as are found on harpsichords; but the jacks belonging to each keyboard are so placed that their quills pluck the strings at a different distance from the wrestpin-bridge: the further they are from the bridge, the quieter the tone. The cost of a three-manual instrument of this design, made from ebony and boxwood, is 60 Rts.

(Johann Mattheson in his 'Critica Musica' [Hamburg, 1722-5], i, p. 254, writes that the Lauten-Clavessin ofJ. G. Gleichmann, which has already been mentioned, could also be played forte, piano and pianissimo.) According to Adlung, J. N. Bach also made larger instruments in imitation of the Theorbo (cf. Fleischer's Theorben- flugel), with an extra octave in the bass and an overall compass of four octaves:

'r.- J

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No further details of the specification are given; but Adlung remarks in passing that the tone of any Lautenwerk is improved, as already noted with Fleischer's Lauten-Clavessin, when a resonator shaped like the body of a lute is fixed beneath the soundboard.

Though there is no documentary proof that Johann Sebastian Bach was familiar with any of the instruments so far mentioned, it seems not unlikely that he would have come across at least those made by his second cousin Johann Nicolaus. We do know, however, from a note added by his pupil Agricola to Adlung's book, something about the type of Lautenwerk that he possessed. Agricola writes (?562, p. 139):

The author of these notes remembers having seen at Leipzig in about 1740 a Lautenclavicymbel designed by Herr Johann Sebastian Bach and made by Herr Zacharias Hildebrand. It was smaller in size than a normal harpsichord, but in all other respects was similar. It had two courses (Chore) of gut strings, and a so-called Little Octave of brass strings. In its normal setting-that is, when only one stop was drawn-it sounded more like a theorbo than a lute. But if one drew the lute-stop, such as is found on a harpsichord (see ?56I), together with the cornet-stop [presumably the little 4-ft. brass?], one could almost deceive even professional lutenists. Herr [Christian Ernst] Friederici (I709-80) also made similar instruments, but with certain differences.

We may wish that this note was more explicit; yet if read in conjunction with what Adlung and the rest have written, it does give some idea of the type of instrument designed and owned by Johann Sebastian. Perhaps we could guess, in view of the low valuations in the inventory, that Bach's were two-manual instruments, of small size and restricted compass, something after the following pattern:

gut strings: / brass strings: l

Did Bach write any music specially for this instrument of his own designing? The only work about which we can be reasonably certain is the beautiful but little-known suite in E minor, BWV 996. No autograph exists; but the contemporary manuscript copy that belonged to Bach's pupil Ludwig Krebs has a title-page which reads: 'Preludio con la Svite / da / Gio: Bast. Bach. / aufs Lauten Werck' (Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS. P. 80 , pp. 385-95). The lowest note used is C below the bass stave, and the highest c" on the third space of the treble stave; and this, as we have seen, is precisely the compass of the Lautenwerk as given by Adlung. Further- more, the technical difficulty of the Gigue strongly suggests the use of a keyboard instrument rather than a normal lute.

Besides this work there are others associated with the lute that might have been included in the repertory. On an instrument with

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the same three-octave compass as the above, one could have played the Prelude in C minor, BWV 999, usually printed as No. 3 of the 'Twelve Little Preludes' for clavier, which in the very early Peters edition was headed 'Pour le Luth'. An even more interesting possibility would have been the lute obbligato to the bass arioso 'Betrachte, maine Seel' ', No. 31 of the St. John Passion. The manuscript part for this movement is in Bach's own handwriting and is headed not 'Liuto', as in the copyist's full score, but 'Organo 6 Cembalo'; and there is little doubt that a more satisfactory balance would have been achieved with either of these instruments, or with a Lauten- werk which, in Fleischer's words, was "as powerful as three lutes".

If Johann Sebastian's instrument had a compass of four octaves, like the larger type made by J. N. Bach, or even a downward extension to Gi, an octave below the bass stave-possibilities suggested by Agricola's remark that with only one stop drawn it sounded "more like a theorbo than a lute"-two other works could have been played. First, the obbligato for two lutes in the 'Trauerode'

('Lass, Fiirstin, lass noch einen Strahl', BWv 198), whose balance would benefit, like that of the St. John Passion arioso, by the in- creased power of the instrument. And secondly, the suite in G minor, BWV 995, which is a lute version of the unaccompanied cello suite in C minor, BWv ioII.

A less likely possibility is the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in Eb major, BWV 998, 'pour le Luth 6 Cembal', for this work would

require an upward extension of the compass to eb on the top space of the treble stave, and no surviving specification goes as high as that. As to the problematic lute suite in C minor, BWV 997 (ed. H.

Ferguson; Schott, London I950), not only does it go up to the treble

top-line f, but, as I have shown in my edition, the lay-out of the difficult fugue suggests that this movement at least could not have been intended for a keyboard instrument, unless the width of its octave was much smaller than we are used to.

In conclusion, do we know of any particular occasion on which it seems likely that Bach might have used his Lautenwerk? One

possibility could be during July 1739-that is, in the year before

Agricola's recollection of having seen the instrument-for in that month Bach was visited at Leipzig by his son Wilhelm Friedemann, who brought with him the celebrated lutenists Johan Kropfgans and Silvius Leopold Weiss. We read that there was "something special in the way of music" during their stay; and it is tempting to surmise that the visitors, besides being introduced to Bach's lute

compositions, also listened to, and were perhaps even momentarily deceived by, his performance on the Lautenwerk.

I should like to thank Professor Thurston Dart for helpful suggestions, particularly with regard to the proposed specification of Bach's instrument; and Dr. Nigel Fortune for kindly translating for me a page of Banchieri's book.

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