Nach Bach (German for "After Bach", subtitled Fantasia for harpsichord), is a composition for harpsichord or piano by American composer George Rochberg, written in 1966 and dedicated to his friend Igor Kipnis, who premièred the work in Annenberg Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania on 27 January 1967 (Anon. n.d.; Dixon 1992, 99).
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History
Rochberg composed this piece while still serving as chairman of the music department at the University of Pennsylvania. He had just abandoned serialism three years previously in 1963 (Freedman and Rochberg 1976, 12), the year before his father died, in the spring, and in November of the same year his teenage son, Paul, died because of brain tumor (Dixon 1992, 14). The composer said it was after his son died that
it became crystal clear to me that I could not continue writing so-called 'serial' music... It was finished...hollow...meaningless. It also became clearer than ever before that the only justification for claiming one was engaged in the artistic act was to open one's art completely to life and its entire gamut of terrors and joys (real and imagined); and to find, if one could, new ways to transmute these into whatever magic one was capable of. (Rochberg, quoted in Dixon 1992, 74)
He also said he had found serialism to be a style incapable of expressing "serenity, tranquility, grace, wit, energy and perhaps most importantly, joy" (Reise 1980–81, 397). His last serial work was the Trio for violin, cello, and piano, written in 1963 (Thomas 1987, 9).
Rochberg composed the work at Tanglewood in the summer of 1966, on a commission from the harpsichordist Igor Kipnis. At the time, Rochberg knew virtually nothing about the technical problems of the harpsichord, so before setting to work had a long discussion with Kipnis who demonstrated the use of pedals, the attack and timbral characteristics of the instrument, which enabled the composer to incorporate every possible color combination available on Kipnis's custom-built instrument into the structure of the piece (Dixon & 1987 98–100). The manuscript score is dated July 6, 1966, and at that point was designated only for the harpsichord (Rochberg 1966). The score was revised for publication, to include registration markings for the harpsichord added by the dedicatee, Igor Kipnis, and accommodations for performance on the piano, including dynamic markings, indications for pedaling, and ossia passages (on pages 4.1, 4.2, and 8.2) in which some notes are to be played an octave higher on the piano than in the version for harpsichord (Godwin 1968;Thomas 1987, 126).
Structure
This work is in free form, like many other fantasias, with long sections with durations in unmeasured notation. The composer describes this form as "open, asymmetrical and progressive, i.e., non-repetitive, and so akin, in spirit at least, to the old 'fantasia' idea of Bach and Mozart" (quoted in Dixon 1992, 101). In the score, according to the composer, passages marked in boxes are direct quotes from J. S. Bach's Partita No. 6 in E Minor, BWV 830, and should be played as dramatic "inserts". In addition to these direct quotations, all of which occur in the second of its five main sections, there are many non-literal quotations and pitch segments derived from Bach's composition (Thomas 1987, 135, 140–41) There is also a quotation from a Brahms Intermezzo on the last page (Thomas 1987, 122).
The general texture of the work is freely atonal, with rhythms written in indeterminate notation. One of the most striking features of the work is the contrast between this predominant texture and the quotations from Bach (Thomas 1987, 121). A free-form composition with an improvisatory character, the work nevertheless falls into five large sections, with a transitional passage between sections two and three. The sections are discriminated by the use of strong cadences, long pauses, and changes in texture, density, tempo, mood, and dynamics (Thomas 1987, 127). Dissonances are also used to differentiate the sections.
Although it does not employ twelve-tone technique, several twelve-tone sets occur in the piece, including one that opens the work: B♭, E, B, C♯, D, C, E♭, F, G♭, A, A♭, G, which divides into a pair of [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6] hexachords. Many of the main pitch elements of the piece are derived from this set (Thomas 1987, 132, 138–39, 178). Three further twelve-tone sets occur in the second main section, and two in the third (Thomas 1987, 149–50, 161–62).