4.1.1. Introduction: Discussion

The concept of musical gesture is usually linked to the experiential or performative aspect of music. In his online lecture series on the subject,[1] Robert Hatten defines “Gesture” as a “movement that may be interpreted as significant” (a definition which closely mirrors the OED’s definition: “A movement expressive of thought or feeling”). He adds that “[m]usical gesture presents more challenging problems, since it must often be inferred from notation and an understanding of performance practice and style” (Hatten 2001, lecture 1). Zohar Eitan goes further, claiming that musical gestures

may be mapped directly onto analogous processes in extra-musical domains. In particular, they may be mapped onto expressive extra-musical patterns, such as bodily gestures or vocalizations. (Eitan 2003, 217; see also Eitan 2000)

Both Eitan and Hatten see gesture as affecting performance and experience more directly than the thematic and harmonic categories of conventional analysis. Similarly, John Rink sees gesture as central to the performer’s conception of the musical work:

Whereas analysts concentrate on musical structure, performers attend primarily to musical ‘shape’, which is analogous to structure but tends to be more dynamic through its sensitivity to momentum, climax, and ebb and flow, comprising an outline, a general plan, a set of gestures unfolding in time. (Rink 1990, 323; cf. le Huray 1990, 19; Eitan 2003, 217)

For these writers, thinking of music in terms of gesture facilitates the appreciation and projection of unity and continuity in analysis, listening and performance alike. It makes it easier for performers to bring out local directionality, creating in the listener certain expectations on how the music will proceed (cf. Cohen 1994, 32-34) and thereby intensifying the sense of forward momentum and (especially when expectations are frustrated) drama.

For Hatten, “gesture” is

a holistic concept, synthesizing what theorists would analyze separably as melody, harmony, rhythm and meter, tempo and rubato, articulation, dynamics, and phrasing into an indivisible whole. [...] For performance, these overlapping strands must be further melded into a smooth, and at some level undivided, continuity. That melding is achieved most efficiently by means of an apparently natural, human gesture. Performers strive to create a shaping and shading of each phrase that is more than the sum of the motivic and harmonic units of which they are composed. (Hatten 2001, lecture 1)

Nonetheless, gestural analysis focuses on short musical events – motifs, figures or short phrases. The sense of unity is forged through a recognition of the gesture’s internal continuity and coherence, and of the interconnections between gestures. This enables performers to recognise – and project – seemingly disparate and distinct “motifs” as manifestations of the same “gesture”.

However, gestural projection of unity often depends on the performers’ willingness to abandon the facile continuity of an unbroken legato. As Hatten observes,

Performers knowledgeable about historical performance practice [...] are more likely to project articulations and subtle details that realize characteristic gestures in a way that is stylistically consistent with their implied expressive meaning and ongoing development. Romantically-schooled pianists are less likely to adjust to these stylistic constraints, perhaps due to differences in the modern piano, a bias toward unbroken continuity of (melodic) line, and/or a bias toward pitch-generated structural motives. (Hatten 2001, lecture 4)

The demand for detailed articulation is particularly emphatic in discourse on the analysis and performance of Baroque music. According to David Schulenberg,

the chief distinction between Baroque and later expression may be that in [the former] the signs are small figures in the surface, while in later music the signs take the form of larger music processes, such as the extended crescendo or the prolonged dissonance. (Schulenberg 1992, 105)

This “atomistic” way of thinking is common to several different approaches to the analysis and performance of Baroque music in general, and Bach’s in particular. Among other things, it is embedded into highly detailed lexical-symbolic analyses of Bach’s music. These analyses can be traced back at least as far as Albert Schweitzer’s Bach monograph (Schweitzer 1966), in which the author sought to assign specific extra-musical meanings to recurring motifs and figures in Bach’s music. Later scholars attempted to develop similar theories on more historically credible grounds, arguing 17th- and 18th-century treatises on musical rhetoric reveal a coherent doctrine of the affections (Affektenlehre) and of meaningful musical figures (Figurenlehre); on this basis, they claimed to reconstruct a “dictionary” of musical “words”. Arnold Schering’s pioneering work in this field (e.g., Schering 1941) was refined and expanded by scholars like Hans-Heinrich Unger (1941) and Arnold Schmitz (e.g., Schmitz 1950, 1970). The wide acceptance of their ideas is attested by their inclusion in the entries on musical-rhetorical figures in the 1955 and 1997 editions of the German music encyclopaedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Schmitz 1955, Krones 1997; see also Blume 1975, 111-117) and in the recently-published Bach-Lexicon (Hartmut Grim, in Heinemann 2000, 35-40, 192-194). This theory inspired the emergence of the rhetorical approach to the performance of Bach’s music.

Much of the discourse on localised detail projection in Baroque performance thus focuses on the analogy between music and speech. The speech-act, however, can be considered a specific type of gesture (Eitan 2000). Historical performers also emphasise, in theory and practice alike, the realisation of dance rhythms and dance-like features, which also relate to physical, bodily gesture.[2]

In recent years, explicit references to the embodied, gestural dimension of Baroque rhetoric and dance gained prominence in verbal discourse on Baroque performance. Bradley Lehman defines musical gestures as follows:

Musical gestures are contrasts of character within a composition, from phrase to phrase and section to section: recognition and expression of great diversity within default continuity. [...] Gestural playing (or singing) is multi-dimensionality. The performer allows the articulation, accentuation, even (somewhat) the tempo to be different on every few notes if that is the natural shape of the lines. Everything is dynamic, fluid, in flux. (Lehman 2004)

Bruce Haynes’s conception of gestural performance is broadly similar. Like Schulenberg, he claims that the phrase as most musicians define it today – a unit lasting several bars – was foreign to Baroque discourse on music:

Melodies in Baroque pieces tend to be complicated, with twists and turns, and this is because their basic structural unit is smaller than the Romantic phrase. (Haynes forthcoming, chapter 11)[3]

Haynes rejects the “long-line phrase”, which creates “a sostenuto effect” by employing “a single breath or bow stroke” throughout the length of the phrase. Instead, he advocates a gestural style, focusing on the shaping of local units, such as short figures, individual notes and the all-important silences between the notes. “The long-line”, he writes,

was designed to promote a legato ambiance, broad movements, and one important point per phrase; gestures, by contrast, promote a series of silences, quick changes of character, and ever-changing detail – a sound kaleidoscope. [...] when each gesture is given its special character, its individual dynamic and rhythmic shape, Baroque lines gain life and logic, while phrases hold the gestures together and give them continuity and coherence. (Haynes forthcoming, chapter 12)

While Lehman’s and Haynes’s explicit emphasis on gesture is an innovation, the approach they advocate has characterised much Baroque performance since the advent of historical performance in the 1960s – and even more prominently since the 1970s and 1980s (for a detailed survey, see Fabian 2003, esp. 205-248; cf. Golomb 1998, forthcoming). Indeed, Haynes’s approach closely resembles Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s (1988, 25, 41ff and passim), even though Harnoncourt does not employ explicitly gestural terminology. Verbal discussion of gestural performance was thus born out of the wish to explain, advocate and intensify a style of performance which had already been established.

Previous arguments in favour of this style relied primarily on rhetorical theory. Several performers – most notably Harnoncourt – endorsed a rhetoric-as-semantics approach, based on a firm belief in the viability of Figurenlehre.[4] Others (e.g., Gustav Leonhardt) adopted a more circumspect, rhetoric-as-speech approach. These musicians argue that Baroque music follows the patterns of speech, and should be articulated accordingly.[5] While rejecting the semantic specificity entailed in Figurenlehre theories,[6] they emphasise the direct, emotive character of Baroque figures and consequently advocate their detailed realisation in performance. The analogy between music and speech entails a rejection of uniform intensity and uninflected, undifferentiated phrasing, and encourages flexibility and attention to detail. This connection between detailed articulation and the arousal of affections is also commented on in several German Baroque treatises (Butt 1990, 19-24). It thus arguably provides a firmer basis for performative expression than arcane conceptions of rhetoric-as-semantics (see also Butt 1990, 12-15, 1991, 84-85; Gustav Leonhardt in Sherman 1997, 196; Koopman 2003, 44-45).

On the other hand, the rhetoric-as-semantics approach did not necessarily result, either in theory or in practice, in gestural performance. Rhetorical or gestural performance was presented from its inception as a necessary correction to the inflexibility and uniformity of the “terraced dynamics” approach (e.g., Wenzinger 1968; cf. Lehman 2004). However, early Figurenlehre theorists often supported the terraced style. Arnold Schering, for example, argued that it is very important to decode Bach’s symbols for listeners’ benefit (Schering 1941, 71-72), but he exhorted performers not to emphasise the musical motifs that supposedly embody these symbols.[7] Even when directly alluding to the concept of musical gestures, he argued that it should not result in gestural performance. Instead, he claims that what is present in the music (+) need not, indeed should not, be emphasised in performance (-); this may be labelled, in schematic abbreviation, as a +/- approach:[8]

Bach’s affect is always identical with a particular melodic gesture. This gesture is so clear that it can always be understood [...] A performer who over-emphasises such clear gestures through exaggerated emotional expression is similar to an actor who accompanies every movement with exaggerated facial and bodily expressions. (Schering 1936a, 188; my translation)[9]

This advocacy of literalism and restraint, and explicit rejection of detailed localised gestures, is also reflected in several traditional performers’ opposition to the gestural detail in HIP (historically-informed performance) interpretations. Helmuth Rilling, for example, writes:

the proponents of the “historical” approach direct their attention too much to microstructure. Short individual notes or groups of notes that are separated after a tie emphasize momentary events and distract one from more important interrelationships. It seems to me that this might be a possibility for small-scale movements, but it is an encumbrance for complexes of large dimensions. (Rilling 1985, 14)

Writers like Hatten and Haynes, by contrast, believe that proper “attention to microstructure” can enhance the projection of “important interrelationships”.

4.1.2. Introduction: Outline

In this paper, I propose to explore some of these issues by examining recordings of the First Kyrie from Bach’s B minor Mass. This is one of Bach’s large-scale movements, and therefore provides a particularly good case-study for examining Rilling’s contention that locally-gestural performances disrupt overall architecture.

The paper is divided into two parts. Part One focuses on the gestural realisation of figures and motives within the movement’s fugal subject, and its potential to enhance or disrupt continuity. Part Two examines how the shaping of local gestures can affect the movement’s overall trajectory, and also whether and how the gestural imagery applied to the movement as a whole (conceiving it in terms of one or two large-scale gestures) can be realised in performance. Both parts rely on my analysis of the First Kyrie, which can be accessed in a [ separate window ].

Within each part of the article, I distinguish between “interpretations in theory” (verbal analyses and commentaries) and “interpretations in practice” (performances); this distinction is akin to Jerrold Levinson’s distinction between CIs (Critical Interpretations) and PIs (Performative Interpretations). Levinson is rightly sceptical of the possibility of one-to-one mapping between the two types of interpretation, though he does not rule out the viability of comparing between them:

When we hear a striking PI of a familiar piece, the question we put to ourselves as interpreters of such interpretations should be not, ‘what CI does that PI embody or convey?’ [...] but instead ‘What CIs might such a PI support or reflect?’ An insightful PI might prompt one to arrive at a new CI, or allow one to confirm the validity of a CI already proposed, or induce one to question a CI regarded as authoritative, and so on, but it cannot itself unambiguously communicate a CI. (Levinson 1993, 57)

As Levinson suggests, relationships between verbal and performative reception are not easy to establish or to interpret. In some cases, a verbal interpretation or analysis might have clear performative implications, and one can point to specific performances that realise these implications. Even in these cases, however, one cannot always assume that the performer was familiar with the analysis (or vice versa). A similarity between a performance and an analysis (or, for that matter, between two performances) might point to convergence – two musicians arriving independently at a similar view of how the music should be understood or performed; and the performers’ view of the music (insofar as they express it in words) might not correspond to the analyst’s view.

Even when the CI and PI can be safely attributed to the same musician, the exact correlation and causation are not easy to establish. It is possible that the performer’s words might represent a post-hoc justification for performative choices, rather than representing the thought processes that shaped the performance. In other cases, the performer’s words and the musical choices documented in the recording are difficult to reconcile with each other.

These points should be kept in mind when reading the analyses contained in this paper. In making comparisons between different interpretations, I have made every effort to cite available evidence for the performers’ intentions. However, I draw attention to distinct correlations between verbal and performative discourse (or between different performances) even when there is no evidence for direct connections between writer and performer (or two performers). At the end of the article, I will try to gauge the possible significance of some of these correlations.

4.2. Part One: Figures and Gestures within the Subject

Fugal subjects are often regarded as anchors of stability: Deryck Cooke (1959, 8) compares them to “a brick or a block of stone [...] something of no importance in itself, only useful as raw material to be built into a structure”. Consequently, it is often assumed that they should maintain a steady character:

Since the basic figure of the subject remains constant, the phrasing of that figure should also remain constant. Thus, throughout a fugue, or any composition built on constant motives, the phrasing for the motives remains unchanged. (Tureck 1960, II, 20)

At their most rigid, realisations of such prescriptions reflect a non-developmental conception: the subject is consistently phrased in an internally stable, unyielding manner. This approach is linked to the “terraced” style, and, at least in its extreme manifestations, stands at odds with the rhetorical-gestural style. It is especially problematic when applied to the First Kyrie’s subject. Cooke himself cites this subject among the exceptions – cases where “the thematic material of polyphony is itself expressive, even highly expressive” (Cooke 1959, 9). Several factors – inner polyphony, harmonically open-ended character, wide range, chromaticism – contribute to its complexity and intensity alike.

4.2.2. Interpretations in Theory: The Internal-Polyphony Approach

The writers discussed so far marginalize the subject’s inner polyphony; they can thus describe the subject as passionate, yet purposeful and devoid of internal conflict. By contrast, Ernst Kurth, in his 1917 treatise Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunktes (Foundations of Linear Counterpoint), claimed that inner tensions – generated by internal polyphony – are a central feature of Bach’s style, and contribute considerably to the expressive power of Bach’s music (Kurth 1991, 72 and passim).

Kurth’s theory was applied to Bach’s choral fugues by his student Eugen Thiele.[12] In his references to the First Kyrie, Thiele draws attention to several figures within the subject (Thiele 1936, 23, 26, 28) – albeit more on a structural than an expressive front. However, he ends up analysing the subject as a single rising gesture – an archetypal example of intensification through combined linear (melodic) and harmonic means (“Ausdruckssteigerung durch linear-harmonische Mittel”; ibid, 37).

More recent writers place a stronger emphasis on the subject’s internal polyphony. John Butt, for example, describes the lower G-F# figure – which he terms a “sigh” figure – as “the most significant component of the opening harmony”, central to the movement’s motivic structure and expressive import alike. He points out that it “acts as a recurring ‘pedal’ in the fugue subject and also constitutes the climax of the phrase in b. 7” (Butt 1991, 87). Part of its effect, however, depends on its performative realisation: when properly articulated, with an accent on the off-beat G, it “rubs against the meter – it’s a metrical and melodic dissonance” (in Sherman 1997, 180; see also Butt 1990, 30).

Other writers view the subject as a series of connected figures. Stauffer (1997, 55-56), relying in part on Blankenburg’s and Butt’s analyses, enumerates five of them: Repercussio (“Kyrie”);[13] a double-layered “wedge” consisting of Blankenburg’s Gradatio in the upper register and Butt’s “sigh” figure in the lower register; a “chromatic digression”; and Blankenburg’s Exclamatio.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, applying a rhetoric-as-semantics approach, discerns yet another figure. In the notes to his 1968 recording, he writes:

The rhythm which pulsates through the entire “Kyrie” I can probably be understood as a very intensive musical and rhetorical gesture of supplication: “Herr, erbarme dich unser” (Lord, have mercy on us). (Harnoncourt 1989, 191; for a different translation, see Harnoncourt 1968, 11)

In the notes to his 1986 recording, he offers a more detailed explication of the gesture’s character and its performative implications alike:

It makes quite a difference if every player realizes that a figure which occurs throughout the Kyrie is a gesture of supplication, and the fact that this has been recognized as such in Western music for many centuries is probably connected with physical imagery. If one is urgently asking for something one drops to one’s knees, tugs at garments, and this gesture of supplication has an element of tugging, even when translated into music. (Harnoncourt 1986, 39)

While Harnoncourt ascribes this gesture to the upper part (ibid, 42; see fuller quotation in Section 4.2.4. below), one could argue that his imagery is equally applicable to the “sigh” figure in the lower register. The Gradatio’s “tugging” potential is stronger, since its downbeats are placed on the strong beats; the sigh’s downward trajectory, however, seems more redolent of supplication, and its attempt to “hold back” the Gradatio’s progression is also consistent with the “tug in the garment” imagery.

In any case, the gesture is heard more clearly outside the subject, in the ritornelli’s F2. Here, the “tug in the garment” is isolated through the insistently mono-rhythmic texture, and (in the stronger beats) played out by the entire orchestra; furthermore, most of its appearances have a downward melodic trajectory even in the upper register.

Harnoncourt’s imagery is reminiscent of Terry’s, insofar as both writers discern a gesture of supplication. Terry’s gesture, however, is ascending, continuous and flowing (cf. Dickinson 1950, 192; Mellers 1980, 164), whereas Harnoncourt’s is descending, halting and hesitant. Furthermore, Terry’s gesture depends on a continuous realisation of the subject as a whole, whereas Harnoncourt’s demands an internal disruption within the subject.

The disruptive potential of realising figures as performative gestures becomes evident in the example below, which brings together the various figures discerned in the subject. This illustration conflates the analyses of Blankenburg, Butt, Harnoncourt and Stauffer, as quoted above. With one exception (Harnoncourt’s “tug in the garment”), all of the figures cited in this example are cited in Stauffer’s analysis:

One would suspect that an attempt to realise all these figures as performative gestures would sound disturbingly fragmentary. The “sigh” figure and the Gradatio interfere with each other’s progression – as Stauffer’s “wedge” imagery implies, they pull in opposite directions. However, an examination of the movement’s recorded performances only partly confirms this expectation.

4.2.3. Interpretations in Practice: Non-Gestural and Anti-Gestural Shaping

This section focuses on the subject’s initial appearances: the opening statement by the first flute and first oboe (bars 5-9) and the tenor’s entry commencing the first fugal exposition (bars 30-33). In these appearances, the subject is sufficiently exposed to allow a listener to detect most details in its shaping. Two things, however, must be mentioned at the outset:

1. The subject never appears entirely in isolation; its character is partly determined by the shaping of other strands in the texture.
2. In most performances, the subject is not shaped identically in all appearances; the statements discussed here are not necessarily representative of their respective renditions.

Within the subject, constituent units can be distinguished by dynamics and articulation alike. The least disruptive option, however, is to avoid these distinctions and perform the subject sempre legato with little or no dynamic inflection. This smoother approach is prevalent among symphonic conductors (e.g., Karajan 1952, 1974; Jochum 1957, 1980; Lehmann; Maazel; Giulini 1972, 1994), as well as pre-1980s modern-instrument Bach and Baroque specialists like Münchinger, Rilling (1977), Corboz and Marriner.[14] In some of these performances, this locally uninflected approach is allied with an attempt to project the movement’s overall structure.

This approach obviates inner conflicts in the subject, even when its internal polyphony is observed. If the upper-register line is not shaped with a Gradatio-like upward trajectory, a slight separation of the lower “sigh” figure does not alter the basic affect: since there is no rising gesture, neither the “sigh” nor the chromatic digression are felt to disrupt it.

The most consistent representative of this approach is Karajan:[] in both his commercial recordings (1952, 1974), the subject is shaped with very little inflection or distinction between components. Most other performances are more varied. For example, Jochum 1957 [] features divisions into short legati in the vocal statement, and a slight crescendo in the Gradatio figure. The “sigh” is slightly distinguished by being sung more piano than its already-soft surroundings. The narrow dynamic range and the gentle, barely-perceptible separation between the legato phrases, however, largely prevent the emergence of distinctive gestures.

Before the advent of HIP, the main alternative to this uninflected approach was the sternly articulated approach, exemplified by conductors like Ramin, Mauersberger, Richter (1961, 1969a, 1969b) and Klemperer (1961, 1967). Ramin and Mauersberger (respectively, erstwhile Kantors of the Leipzig Thomaskirche and the Dresden Kreuzkirche) were primary representatives of the “Leipzig” or “Saxony” school of Bach performance. In the 1930s-1950s, they were regarded as the vanguard of “historical performance”. Their performances were endorsed by musicologists like Arnold Schering and Wilibald Gurlitt, who themselves adopted a strictly x/- approach to Bach performance (see note [8]); this lent an aura of authenticity to their austere aural image of Bach’s music.[15] Their shaping of the First Kyrie’s subject was typical of their general cultivation of uniform intensity, terraced dynamics and literalism. Karl Richter studied with both Ramin and Mauersberger;[16] Klemperer employed Ramin as continuo player and musicological adviser in 1929-1932, and his views on Bach performance were clearly influenced by Ramin’s (Klemperer 1982, 48, translated in Klemperer 1986, 67; Heyworth 1996, 317-319).

The most extreme representative, in this particular case, is Rudolf Mauersberger:[17]

Here, the subject’s constituent elements are separated, but they all seem to have the same character. The “sigh” is distinctly isolated from the higher quaver pairs; the latter, however, are not connected to each other. Due to equalised accentuation and static dynamics, there is little sense of movement. The sharply-etched, static character of each figure is at odds with any gestural approach; some might even consider it anti-gestural.

While this characterisation holds true, in my view, for Richter’s performance of this movement, this is only hinted at by his initial shaping of the subject. The two instrumental statements [] sound meticulously weighted, note-by-note. The vocal shaping [] is initially more expansive: legato articulation in groups of four; individual notes clearly enunciated, but without Mauersberger’s insistent aspiration. The most flexible shaping, however, is reserved for non-subject material (especially in E1 and R2).

In all these interpretations, the detailed yet rigid shaping of the subject is allied with a similarly rigid shaping of the movement as a whole. Klemperer, on the other hand, associates a similar treatment of the subject with a globally-directional shaping of the movement.

4.2.4. Interpretations in Practice: Historical Performance – Rhetoric and Dance

For all the contrasts between them, the “smooth” and “statuesque” approaches both avoid explicit gestural shaping. Performative realisation of the gestures discussed above (the Gradatio, the “sigh” and the “tug in the garment”) only began in earnest with the advent of HIP.

Renditions of the First Kyrie’s subject reveal two contrasting trends within HIP: a mildly-detached, lightweight approach, and the projection of internal tensions. The most extreme realisation of the former tendency, however, comes from a non-HIP recording – Schreier 1982. This reading is closer to the Leipzig tradition, not only in its genealogy [18] but also in its specific musical elements. In all instrumental statements (including the bass in bar 22), it combines insistent staccati on quavers with almost equally incisive articulation in the surrounding texture; dynamics are almost uninflected:

The choral articulation is less incisive, but equally rigid.

Schreier’s reading is reminiscent of Mauersberger’s in its dynamic and articulatory rigidity. The light textures, fast tempo and more incisive articulation, however, are more typical of the then-emerging HIP style, as is the treatment of as a separate figure.

A similar if milder approach can be found in Parrott, Schreier 1991, Eby, Koopman and Fasolis. The articulation is gently detached;[19] the effect is closer to dance-like elegance than to aggressive, harshly-accentuated staccato. This does not depend on articulation alone: an impression of lightness arguably involves lighter texture, avoidance of heavy emphases or harsh downbeat accentuation, and some degree of dynamic and/or tempo flexibility.[20] Thus, Schreier 1982 generates heaviness through rigid dynamics and accentuation, which makes it difficult to describe the resulting interpretation as “gestural”. The dance-like character of the other recordings is more easily associated with human movement. In Parrott’s case, the lightweight effect is more pronounced in the isolated figure (F2, bars 19-21 and simile) than within the subject (where an emphasis on the figure balances the lighter effect in the upper register).

In both Parrott and Koopman ([], []), vocal statements of the subject are less clipped and more dynamically flexible than instrumental statements:[21]

All the above-mentioned performances retain the forward placing of the subject (vis-à-vis other strands in the texture), at least in instrumental statements. This adds to the sense of lightness; the figure’s buoyancy would probably have been softened by a fuller surrounding texture.[22]

More rhetorically-inclined performers draw out several of the figures that have been read out of (or into) the subject in a manner more consistent with the verbal analyses cited in the previous section. Surprisingly, perhaps, the “sigh” figure is not frequently treated as a metric dissonance; even when the slurring of this figure is observed, there is usually little or no emphasis on its first note, and therefore little suggestion of off-beat accentuation. There are occasional hints in several performances (including the pre-HIP Scherchen 1950 and Shaw 1960); in other cases, the figure’s first note is emphasised when the subject is stated in the bass (bars 22-23), but not in other statements (e.g., Rifkin, Gardiner, Leonhardt, Harnoncourt 1968 and 1986, Rilling 1988). The most consistent emphasis on this figure can be found in Hengelbrock’s choral statements.[] [23]

The Gradatio receives more consistent attention from HIP performers (primarily those of rhetorical inclination). Wenzinger (1968, 42) equated Gradatio with crescendo (however, cf. Bartel 1997, 220-225, 267). There are two ways to realise this identification in the Kyrie subject: three separate crescendi; and linked, continuous crescendi, creating a single gesture out of the three disparate pairs. The former approach is reminiscent of Stauffer’s description of the subject as a “wedge”; the latter is reminiscent of Terry’s and Blankenburg’s analyses.

Leonhardt’s performance demonstrates the first approach. In the instrumental statements, dynamic gradation is implied by articulation: a light upbeat followed by an accented, tenuto, downbeat from woodwinds and bass alike.[24] This latter affect contributes to the Gradatio’s prominence by submerging the “sigh” figure.

Leonhardt’s vocal statements are phrased in the standard four-note pattern. Dynamics play a more distinctive role here: a subtle internal echo allowing prominence to the Gradatio’s two-note crescendo.

A similar pattern occurs in Herreweghe 1988,[] albeit with more continuous support from the bass and a clearer tendency towards overall dynamic construction. In the vocal statements, Herreweghe submerges the “sigh” figure by joining it together with the downbeat; the emerging pattern is , rather than the more conventional .

The vocal statements in Herreweghe 1996 provide the clearest illustration of the Gradatio as a single crescendo (and also vividly brings out Blankenburg’s Exclamatio figure).[25] As such, they illustrate Hatten’s claim that gestures are “not necessarily continuous sound, but [can consist of] continuity of shape, curve, motion across silence” (Hatten 2001, lecture 2).

Similar patterns can be found in Jacobs, Hengelbrock [], Koopman [], Brüggen, Christophers, and Jeffrey Thomas. The last mentioned, however, seems closer to the older tradition of viewing the subject as a single rising gesture, especially in the vocal statements:[26]

While not all vocal entries are shaped in precisely this manner, the sense of continuity – within and beyond the phrase – is always palpable. I was unable to find another performance that projects a similar trajectory.

Thomas Hengelbrock projects the Gradatio figure beyond (but not through) the “sigh” figure (and more clearly in vocal than in instrumental statements). However, his shaping of this figure, and of the subject as a whole, is deliberately hesitant. Hengelbrock shapes the vocal entries as a series of legato pairs. This articulation is by no means unique to Hengelbrock (cf. Brüggen’s instrumental statements, Gardiner’s vocal statements). But Hengelbrock’s tempo is slower, his emphases heavier, the breaths separating the pairs more extended, and the dynamic contrast between higher and lower registers more clearly distinct. Thus, his “sighs”, unaccented though they are, still act as interruptions to the Gradatio.

The same factors are also present in Harnoncourt’s 1986 version.[27] Harnoncourt’s tempo ( = 50) is not as slow as Hengelbrock’s ( = 46). On the other hand, Harnoncourt’s emphases and accentuations are heavier, and the separations between phrases often longer. The “tug in the garment” imagery focuses on a particular figure, but its spirit affects the performance even when that figure is absent: there is a sense of something being dragged backwards, tugged in the opposite direction to its purported motion. Thus, the impression of constant, deliberate interruption is even stronger here than in Hengelbrock’s reading.

In the orchestral statements, this effect is further intensified through the independent shaping of the bass. Earlier (note 24 above), I cited examples wherein the bass line supports the subject’s trajectory; here the two are at odds with one another. Harnoncourt does not ignore the strong-weak metric division; but he shapes the bass as an independent melody, whose trajectory only partly coincides with the subject’s. Here, different gestures are employed simultaneously; consequently, as one part of the texture seems to strive forward, another seems to drag backwards.

The effect is somewhat softened in R1’s F2, when the “tug in the garment” figure appears in isolation. Here, Harnoncourt follows the markings in the 1733 Oboe parts in bars 19-20.[28] As he explains,

In the introduction to the first Kyrie there is a continuing insistence, and at the same time the symmetry is quite obvious. Bach creates an upper part out of the quavers which are not slurred and continues it, and this upper part employs the gesture of supplication. The symmetry of the lower parts is slightly impaired by the slurs. Bach seems to have felt that was going too far in the long run. (Harnoncourt 1986, 42)

For that he reason, he contends, Bach added the slurs marked as “Oboe only” in the example below:[29]

this is precisely where the strings play the gesture of supplication, and this is suddenly resolved by brilliant inconsistency in that Bach writes slurs in two places where they would not be expected to occur. (Harnoncourt 1986, 44)

Harnoncourt preserves this inconsistency in his performance, articulating the “tug” gesture () as separate notes in the strings simultaneously with tied quavers in the woodwinds, without accenting the first notes in these slurred pairs. The effect is a softening of a passage which, in many other performances, emerges as more insistent than the rest of the ritornello; the sense of hesitation, however, remains.

In the vocal statements in E1, the sense of hesitation and instability is created primarily through the voices’ detailed articulation and deliberate accentuation of the subject, combined, as before, with the slow tempo.

Across the movement, however, it is the mutual questioning of parts which is predominant.

Harnoncourt’s and Hengelbrock’s questioning manner is an exception; the clearer trajectories of Thomas and Herreweghe (1996), the elegance of Parrott and Koopman, and the calmer renditions of Rifkin, Leonhardt, Herreweghe (1988) and others are more common. It is also these influences that filter beyond HIP into later mainstream renditions. Several pre-1980s performances by Bach and Baroque experts (e.g., Münchinger, Rilling 1977, Marriner, Corboz) are characterised by a flowing, dynamically-narrow approach, with little articulatory inflection. Later readings, however (e.g., Rilling 1988, esp. instrumental statements; Schneidt; Beringer; Abbado; Rilling 1999; Ozawa’s vocal statements) reveal HIP influences through their lighter textures and more detailed articulation (short legati, gently-detached non legato). A few performances (e.g., Biller, Ozawa’s orchestral statements) even approach dance-like elegance.

4.2.5. Interpretations in Practice: Summary

Two prominent tropes in the First Kyrie’s verbal reception (the single rising gesture and the Gradatio) focus on the subject’s overall trajectory. Only in recent years, however, did performers begin to project this trajectory in a clearly audible fashion. HIP musicians, in particular, seem to have explored the performative potential of these tropes, enhancing the sense of movement and directionality which is closely linked with the performative realisation of gestural potential. Few pre-HIP renditions reveal a concern with the subject’s shape; for the most part, they focus on projecting its general character, allowing (at most) a few localised dynamic nuances.

HIP musicians – and those under their influence – produce at least two types of gestures: localised, dance-like elegant movement; and rhetorically-influenced gestures, with a clear trajectory (whether continuous or interrupted) which is reminiscent of expressive or symbolic interpretations of the subject. The most detailed among them (Harnoncourt and Hengelbrock) seem intent on the realisation of several gestures, in close conjunction or even simultaneously, in different strands of the texture. This approach seems to realise the misgivings expressed by Helmuth Rilling (quoted above): while giving coherence to each gesture, they seem content to allow them to clash with each other, threatening to undermine the movement’s overall structure. In Part Two, I will examine the interaction between localised gesture and overall shaping.

4.3. Part Two: The Structure and Shape of the Fugue

Mono-thematic fugues are sometimes cited as the ultimate examples of Baroque Unity of Affect; fugal subjects are viewed, in this context, as the unchanging building-blocks of the fugue as a whole (Neumann 1953, 101-105; Tureck 1960, II, 20; Cone 1968, 70-71). According to this conception, the shaping of the subject determines the character of the entire fugue. In performances of the First Kyrie, this claim might be applicable in terms of affect: how lightly or portentously the subject is performed reliably presages the performance’s general character. But when it comes to predicting the overall shape, a myopic discussion of the subject can be misleading. In particular, several performances which seem utterly un-gestural when one focuses exclusively on their shaping of the subject reveal a keen interest in realising gesture on a larger scale.

4.3.1. Interpretations in Theory

The First Kyrie arguably displays a strong equivalence between the micro- and macro-structure. Terry, for example, seems to consider the movement as a whole – not just its subject – as a single continuous gesture:

First the Tenors, then the Altos, then the Sopranos, and lastly the Basses raise the threnody, which swells with increasing urgency until it reaches its tremendous climax, eight bars from the end, upon the entry of the vocal Basses. (Terry 1924, 33)

Dickinson applied Terry’s imagery of the subject even more explicitly to the movement as a whole, describing it as “a most dramatic image of humanity stretching out to heaven in two large gestures of increasing urgency” (Dickinson 1950, 192). Similarly, Stauffer (1997, 57) directly linked the subject’s complexity with the movement’s “growing urgency” and “rising strength and momentum”.

The two-gesture imagery is more common than Terry’s single-gesture approach. The movement is clearly divided in two parts (see Overview and Analysis in [ separate window ]), the second of which is commonly regarded as more intense. E2 builds up in a composed crescendo, proceeding upwards from the bass (balanced, however, by continued thematic activity in the orchestra’s higher registers: the choir gradually merges into the oboes and violins).[30]

Harmonically, too, E2 features a greater build-up of tension. In E1, the alteration of Dux and Comes is straightforward, and each tonic statement of the subject is firmly supported in B minor. E2, on the other hand, is tonally more active and volatile. There are strong cadences, in the bass, on F#-minor (bars 85/6, 91), E minor (bars 97/8), and A major (bars 93/4, 100), as well as B minor. With one exception, however (the bass’s entry at the beginning of the exposition), these cadences are not aligned with the subject’s entries, which consequently do not receive the same harmonic support as their E1 counterparts. The second soprano’s tonic entry is avoided altogether: instead, it enters in E minor (bar 97). Instead of marking clear points of demarcation, the aforementioned cadences underpin continued activity elsewhere in the texture. This lack of clear cadences across the texture prevents closure and maintains momentum.

In gestural terms, this invites two different interpretations: the location of local dramatic gestures, or the quest for large-scale gestures, of the type suggested in Dickinson’s commentary.

It is possible to locate at least two powerful local gestures in E2: the bass’s entry at the beginning of E2, and the first soprano’s entry at the transition to R3 (bar 102). The latter represents the culmination of a gradual rise-from-the-depths and consequently might be treated as a dramatic climax. Both gestures, however, have a clear beginning but no clear ending; and the soprano entry is not easily treated in isolation. It is questioned both harmonically (a tonic entry of the subject underpinned by a strong applied dominant) and texturally (the entry is disguised by the second soprano’s sustained F#). This increases the dramatic tension at this point, but makes it harder to demarcate a local gesture. There is no sense of closure at this point; tension is maintained throughout the ritornello’s Vordersatz. Full resolution in the tonic is only attained at the ritornello’s Epilog (that is, at the en