On May 13, 3:39 pm, "Tom Hens" <tom.h...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> sagespath <sagesp...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote...
> > From earlier composers (Palestrina and Frescobaldi to Buxtehude) Bach
> > learned rigorous craftsmanly standards that were later codified into
> > the five species of counterpoint in 'Gradus ad Parnassum' of J.Fux, a
> > Viennese kapellmeister. This manual was assimilated later by Haydn,
> > Mozart and Beethoven and some later composers. I learned it from
> > Normand Lockwood (1906-2002) who studied with Respighi.
>
> Apparently, Bach himself didn't much care for it. C.P.E. Bach, who never
> had a composition teacher other than his father, wrote about his
practice
> in teaching composition:
>
> "In der Composition gieng er gleich an das N=FCtzliche mit seinen
Scholar=
en,
> mit hinweglassung aller der trockenen Arten von Contrapuncten, wie sie
in
> Fuxen u. anderen stehen." (Bach-Dokumente III/803)
>
> My translation:
>
> "In [teaching] composition, he immediately started his pupils on
> practical work, leaving out all the dry distinctions between types of
> counterpoint, as they can be found in Fux and other authors."
If Fux is so dry, why did Bach produce a richly annotated version of
it in 1736? This has not yet been translated from the German. Bach
considered all of his works as models in composition for his
students. C.P.E Bach paid lip service to his father's disavowal of
Rameau's "Chord of Nature" but in his own works there is no trace of
his father's rigorous practice.
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