Is it good?

"Is it good?" I imagine that, in the last century's days of innocence, musicians and listeners rarely had to ask this question. "It may not be to everyone's taste, but of course it's good; that's why we're playing it," the musical canon replied in the past. Since then, Early Music has complicated things: archives have been explored, long-lost works have been revived, and suddenly a wealth of great music has (re)entered the repertoire. Many of these discoveries really are wonderful: composers like Becker, Strungk and Walther absolutely do deserve to be played and heard. Occasionally, however, one suspects that the thrill of discovery (or, let's be honest, the attention we hope to get when we make premiere recordings) has led us to spend a lot of time with music that just isn't worth it.

I've recently found myself facing this question again. The opening concert of "Bach Explored," my soon-to-begin series, will feature one of Johann Paul Westhoff's sonatas for violin and continuo. Unlike Westhoff's brilliant unaccompanied partitas, these works have not yet made it into the mainstream baroque repertoire, and I think it's clear why. Suffice it to say that this sonata is dark, dense, long, serious, and repetitive -- the kind of piece that hugely challenges both the player and the listener.

Although I've been happily practicing this Westhoff since June, I didn't realize until a few days ago that others might not enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoy playing it. Ultimately, how can one really know until one tries it in public? Even so, some of the friends and colleagues who have played through it with me suggest that I either take it off the program, or at least cut it a bit, and thus make it easier to listen to. In this case, though, I think I'll do neither.

So much successful, thought-provoking classical music is dark and difficult, and this Westhoff is no exception. Of course, crucially, it must achieve its expressive heights (and depths) by different means than those used in later music -- his harmonic and melodic language is, after all, of the 1690s. Here, we encounter obsessive repetition, almost constant slow movements, and a seeming-inability to leave D minor. In some sense, these spell disaster; at the same time, though, one does wonder whether Westhoff was pursuing a deeper aesthetic goal, or maybe even producing a spiritual essay set in music (a notion bolstered by the "Imitation of Churchbells" at the work's center). We can observe the opening’s slow, heavenward ascent, and the downward spiral that follows; the liturgical call-and-response of the Largo with its modal, antique counterpoint and tangled repetitions; the stately, yearning, pathos-ridden Adagio. One possibility is that this work dramatizes the ars moriendi: the soul’s initial struggles, the last rites, the pealing of churchbells, the Adagio of death, and then, finally, jubilation. Yet another is that the violin and accompaniment, constantly playing in opposing dialogue, may represent the soul and body, the heavenly and earthly, even a conversation between the soul and Christ (a common trope in German sacred music -- just think of the soprano-bass duets in Bach's cantatas). Of course, we will never know whether the work really "means" anything -- but we can only gain by listening to it.