Tactus and Tempo in Organ Music from the German Baroque: a Study of Sources and Scores

Abstract

Before the advent of the metronome (which was used to accurately gauge the speed of a composition) around the turn of the nineteenth century, Baroque composers used a system of time signatures, note values, and tempo words to encode relative tempo. This thesis traces tempo changes in German baroque organ music starting from Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) and working to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Praetorius lived on the cusp of the renaissance and baroque periods, in which music was changing from being largely understood as having an immutable tactus (beat), to one in which tempo shifts were desired and even demanded to accomplish the goals of polychoral music. Praetorius codified and systematized a vastly chaotic system in which many composers had their own variants of the renaissance tempo notation system. While the number of time signatures increased beyond those discussed by Praetorius as the baroque period progressed, the principles behind these signatures can always be traced back to the recommendations Praetorius made in the early seventeenth century. This thesis extrapolates on Praetorius’ theories in order to understand later treatise writings, and then applies these theories to the organ music of this period. Where the treatise theory offers no explanation as to the tempo signification of an organ work, direct analysis of the scores is undertaken to further illuminate notational conventions of this time period and repertoire. For instance, in the case of Matthias Weckmann’s particular tempo notation of stylus phantasticus, it is shown that while cut time and sixteenth notes in the treatises denoted a very fast tempo, for Weckmann it denoted a slower tempo. This conclusion can be drawn by analysing the particular triple meter (tripla) Weckmann used, by tactus indicators in organ tablature (lines and ticks), and from the proposed origins of stylus phantasticus in the homorhythmic chorale settings, among other parameters. While Bach used a visually identical notation, the meaning of his notation conformed to the standard treatise explanation (i.e., very fast). However, as time went on, he gradually dispensed with this notation in order to bring the late baroque tempo notation back into a logical cohesion it had started to lack about one hundred years after Praetorius. As the baroque period progressed, there was less and less need for tempo changes within a composition, which was so much a part of seventeenth-century style. As such, the system begun by Praetorius underwent a decline. Nevertheless, the theory is proffered here that Bach was very well aware of the (Praetorian) tempo implications of time signatures and note values as it can be shown that he composed a general deceleration in the autograph version of the Kunst der Fuge (P 200), in which each successive fugue or canon is slower than its antecedent. Bach later abandoned this order in the posthumous edition published by his son C.P.E. Bach.