Penelope's Ponderings

When studying Bach’s music, I feel it would be a great help if I knew more about the mindset that produced these masterpieces. I think some clue may be found in looking onto Martin Luther’s philosophy of music, because Bach seems to have held his Lutheran faith very close to his heart and mind.

In ‘Musica Poetica - Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music’ by Dietrich Bartel (University of Nebraska Press, 1997), Bartel argues convincingly for a unique association between music and rhetoric - a predominantly German Baroque phenomenon - called ‘Musica Poetica’, whereby certain musical ‘figures’ (like motives) represented key affections/moods/words.

When studying the violin obbligato sonatas, it seemed curious to me that Bach had chosen such extreme key signatures. Why would he compose in f minor (4 flats) or E major (four sharps) when with the unequal temperament (tuning style of the harpsichord) of the day, these keys would surely sound sour or frankly out of tune at times?

It is tempting to search for musical correlations between the sonatas and certain cantatas, and say with conviction “this instrumental music is talking about … (the crucifixion, the annunciation or whatever)”.