Beams, beams, beams everywhere (Vogler, Jesu Leiden, Pein und Tod, BWV Anh II 57)

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As you probably well know, music not of different length, have a different look. There's the beve, the semi-breve or whole note, the half note and the quarter note. And each one has half of the length pf the preceding one.

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Dividing the quarter note again in half gives us the eigth note, which looks just like the quarter note, nut has a flag added. And each further halvation of duration a flag get added, so the sixteenth note has two flags and a thirtysecond note has three.

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Writing consequetive flagged notes, is done by beaming the flags together.

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Generally, a thirtysecond note is already pretty short and having several of them in a row means some rapid playing. Where sixteenth notes are pretty common, thirdysecond notes are already a bit rare. Though certainly not uncommon. The next halvation, the sixtyfourth note, is already becoming rather unique, and seldomly seen in musique, certainly in Baroque musique. Therefore, coming across Johan Caspar Vogler's prelude to the choral "Jesu Leiden, Pein und Tod" is a bit of a shock. Vogler takes the beaming to a pretty unrealistic level. In this composition Vogler uses the coloratura technique and heavily embellishes the choral melody. Si, for example, in a place where the choral melody moves in quarter notes from a flat to g, Vogler writes:

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Count the beams: one, two, three, four and yes, five! That is a bunch of onehundredandtwentie-eight notes! And this is not even the most extreme example. That one comes in the sixth bar where the chorale melody has two consequtive e flat notes (in quarter notes). Nothing really happening, you might think. Well, this is what Vogler writes:

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Yes, that's six beams! This piece is certainly not easy to play at first sight. You are constantly busy counting the beams.

Johann Caspar Vogler (1696 – 1763) was a German organist and composer. He was born in Hausen, near Arnstadt. Vogler studied with Johann Sebastian Bach, first in Arnstad when Bach was organist there, and later again in Weimar from 1710 to 1715. Vogler was appointed organist at Stadtilm in 1715, leaving in May 1721 to take up Bach's former post of organist at the Weimar court. He remained there for the rest of his life.

Most of Vogler's compositions are lost nbowadays. Only three compositions for organ remain, of which this choral prelude is one. Vogler modelled his composition on Bach's O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß, BWV 622. Both are written in E flat major and both feature a heavily embellished choral melody, though the one by Bach is not nearly so extreme as the one by Vogler.

There was a time the piece was though to be possibly composed by Bach, hence it's inclusion in the second appendix of the catalogue of Bach works.

The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Sonus Paradisi, of the Janke organ in the Stadtkirche of Bückeburg (https://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/germany/buckeburg-janke-organ.html).

Score available here: http://partitura.org/index.php/johann-caspar-vogler-jesu-leiden-pein-un-d-tod-bwv-anh-ii-57-emans-115



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Yes, that's six beams! This piece is certainly not easy to play at first sight. You are constantly busy counting the beams.

Huh, yes. The trick is that we organize them in our mind, it can be done by previously analyzing it but when sight-reading, lol, it's funny 😂

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