Enlightenment.

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THE AGE OF REASON:

an essay by Irene Girton for the Art of Fugue CD-ROM project

I. Introduction.

Although Bach had little interest in "dry mathematical matters," according to his son Carl Philipp
Emmanuel, it is certain nevertheless that Bach had a profoundly systematic, rational mind, and
stood with both feet firmly in the Age of Reason. Throughout his long career he worked in a
wide variety of musical styles and forms, producing hundreds of chorales and cantatas and many
concertos, sets of variations, and pairs of preludes and fugues; in these pieces he experimented
with every facet of compositional technique and texture, from cantus firmus to trio sonata to
fugue.

Like the encyclopedic view he took of his art, Bach's life-long fascination with numerology is
another connection to the Age of Reason.

II. What is the Age of Reason?

The 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries witnessed the flowering of a brilliant new philosophical turn
of mind, known as Rationalism, which credited the human gift of reason with the ability to
discover the profound truths that govern religion, science, and society. Early Rationalists
believed that the world, Earth itself, was created by a God possessed of a "divine intellect," an
infinite mind, capable of devising its own "divine mathematics." In the 17th and 18th centuries,
the Age of Reason was also known as the Enlightenment.

III. Who were some Rationalist thinkers?

Copernicus and Galilei [attach to III.1]

Sir Isaac Newton and Johann Keppler [attach to III.2]
René Descartes [attach to III.3]
Gottfried Leibniz [attach to III.4]
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson [attach to III.5]
The Encyclopedists [attach to III.6]
Immanuel Kant [attach to III.7]

1. Scientific Rationalism of the 16th and 17th centuries attracted great thinkers like Nicolaus
Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, who proved that the Earth moved around the Sun and not the
other way around -- with this observation, they showed that Man is far from being fixed at the
center of the universe, at least in any physical sense. With the help of the telescope, invented by
Galilei, long-standing beliefs about the behavior of celestial bodies were forcefully disproved,
although his efforts resulted in his imprisonment and excommunication as a heretic by
disapproving Church authorities.

2. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) extended Galilei's work, showing that natural and universal
laws could be proven mathematically. The German astronomer Johann Kepler (1571-1630)
refined the findings of Copernicus concerning the manner in which planets revolve around the
sun. In other sciences, like chemistry and physics, rational proof by logic and mathematics
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gradually replaced magic and alchemy as the source for explanation and knowledge.

3. René Descartes (1596-1650), often called the father of modern philosophy, based his entire
belief system on the irrefutable knowledge that he existed; his proof of this was, quite simply,
that he was capable of thought. Cogito, ergo sum -- I think, therefore I am. He went about his
attempt to formulate a comprehensive theory of being and knowing by questioning everything he
had been taught, and eventually concluded that all knowledge begins with "first truths,"
fundamental a priori principles, which could then form the basis for understanding.

4. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) was, like Descartes, a philosopher-mathematician, responsible

for formulating a language of symbolic logic which he applied to his understanding of the
universe. Here is an example of the application of logic to prove that comets do not have curly
tails, expressed first in English, and then in symbolic logic:1

1) No terriers wander among the signs of the

zodiac.
2) Nothing that does not wander among the
signs of the zodiac is a comet.
3) Nothing but a terrier has a curly tail.
4) Therefore, no comet has a curly tail.
1) (X)(terrier(X) → ~wander(X))
5. In America, statesmen like Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790) and Thomas
Jefferson (1743-1826) were firmly
convinced of the power of democracy --
government by the people, not by an elite
aristocracy. Both of these men, not
surprisingly, were sympathetic to the
American and French Revolutions (1775-
1781 and 1789-1804, respectively), and
were instrumental in the drafting of the
American Declaration of Independence.

2) (X)(~wander(X) → ~comet(X)) 6. In France a group known as the

Encyclopedists, led by Denis Diderot,
3) (X)(curly_tail(X) → terrier(X)) compiled the first comprehensive "guide
to useful knowledge," the Encyclopédie
4) (X)(comet(X) → ~curly_tail(X)) au Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences,
des arts, et des métiers (1751-1772).
They believed that, in order for people to
exercise reason and banish superstition and ignorance, the available body of knowledge must not
only be widened, it must be made available to everyone.

7. Most of these Rationalists largely disdained empirical observations (observations made by the
senses, without benefit of logical proof), recognizing as true only that which could be expressed
logically or mathematically. In this, they were at odds with Empiricists like Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804), who, in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), stressed the value of experience and

1
Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass,
was also a mathematician. This example of symbolic logic is taken from his book, Symbolic Logic,
pp. 113ff, as quoted in Benson Mates, Elementary Logic, p. 131.
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observation in the quest for understanding fundamental truths.

IV. How did the Age of Reason change the way we think?

1. Church opposition.

Because Rationalism placed man, not God, at the center of progress and understanding, the
Church opposed it vigorously. During the Middle Ages, the Church gradually surfaced as the
central power in European life, floating high above the nobility and controlling the moral,
political, economic, and social life of citizens. Faith, not reason, was the foremost determinant
of human behavior. As the Church Fathers became more and more corrupt during the 14th and
15th centuries, however, a separation between Church and state came under animated discussion,
leading to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The Reformation, led by Martin
Luther in Germany, sought to remove any churchly intermediaries between a man and his God,
thereby weakening the power of the clergy. Still, religious faith was regarded as primary in a
man's search for understanding and salvation.

2. Reason over faith.

It took the Age of Reason to elevate the human mind to a position equivalent to, or superior to,
that of religious faith as the determinant of human destiny. With Galilei's discoveries about
universal relationships, the way people in the 17th century lived in and responded to their world
could never be the same again. It was no longer enough to accept basic premises as true without
logical proof: 17th-century men said, "If God exists, prove it!"

3. The Social Contract.

Society as well as religion took on a new cast: instead of being God-, clergy-, and nobility-
centered, it gradually became people-centered, thanks to such documents as Jean-Jacques
Rousseau's Social Contract (1762). In this work, Rousseau argued that the natural state is one in
which all men are equal, and that a just government is one which is based upon attention to the
"general will," not the will of the privileged few. This is the kind of thinking that fueled both the
American and the French Revolutions, of course, and changed global politics forever.

V. Life in a pre- and post-Enlightenment world.

1. Divine right of kings.

Life in pre-Rationalist France for the average member of society meant complete subjugation to
the will of the monarchy; ordinary citizens had no part whatsoever in the creation of laws. Louis
XIV, king of France between 1643 and 1715, went so far as to declare, "L'état, c'est moi" (I am
the state), and he truly believed that in exercising his political power he was fulfilling his duty to
God. He wrote of himself in his memoirs, "... he alone receives all respect; he alone is the object
of all hopes .. no one can raise himself but by gradually coming close to the royal person or
estimation." The French peasantry paid by far the most of any social class in taxes while the
aristocracy fiercely guarded its unfair economic and social privileges.
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2. Social unrest leads to the French Revolution.

During the course of the 18th century, social tensions and near-starvation because of bad
harvests brought the lower and middle classes to the boiling point. Finally, in July of 1789, riots
broke out in Paris and the gilded lives of the upper classes and the nobility changed forever.
Louis XVI was executed in 1793 and, although years of political and social turmoil ensued, a
new post-revolutionary France eventually emerged, with laws, taxation, banking, and education
revised to fit a more democratic society.

For a striking example of the difference in attitude between a person whose behavior is governed
by reason and one whose life is one long unexamined party, we can compare the words of the
English social reformer Jeremy Bentham with those of the French Queen Marie-Antoinette,
Louis XVI's wife, in the same year, 1789: Bentham believed that "the greatest happiness of the
greatest number" should determine how individuals and governments act, while Marie
Antoinette, upon learning that the peasants were staging a revolt because they lacked enough
bread to eat, reportedly said, "Let them eat cake!"2

VI. Bach and the Age of Reason.

Let's get back to Bach. What does the Age of Reason have to do with Bach and the Art of
Fugue?

1. Lorenz Mizler's Society.

Bach's friend and former student, Lorenz Mizler, was at the head of a select group of highly
Rationalist thinkers. In 1747 Bach became the 14th member of this organization, Mizler's
Corresponding Society for Musical Sciences (korrespondierende Societät der musikalischen
Wissenschaften), right around the time the Art of Fugue was composed. It is thought that he
delayed his entry into the group until he could be the 14th member; because, in the number
alphabet, the letters of his name (J.S. Bach) add up to 14, this was a very special number for
Bach. Mizler's Society, founded in 1738, boasted as members the composers Telemann, Stölzel,
Handel, and Graun, and devoted itself to the study of the very essence of music. Mizler and his
Society delighted in the attempt to discover those a priori truths which, Rationalists believed, lay
at the foundation of all knowledge.

2. What was Mizler like?

Lorenz Mizler, who studied with Bach briefly during the 1730's, was a veritable polymath, a real
scholar. He was proficient in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and possibly English, in addition to
his native German tongue; he was, probably, a rather mediocre composer and an amateur flautist
as well (and possibly a member of Bach's Collegium musicum in Leipzig); he studied law,
theology, philosophy, music of course, mathematics, and medicine! Despite this truly awesome
cloak of education, his principal gift lay in his ability to stimulate discussion about topics of deep

2
Although this statement is often attributed to Marie-Antoinette, it, or a variant, has also been
attributed to Louis XIV's wife, Marie-Thérèse (1638-1683).
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intellectual interest to thinkers of his time.

Mizler had a long-standing commitment to the elevation of music to a position comparable to

that of philosophy or law. In fact, his thesis, That Music is a Science and a Part of Philosophical
Instruction (Quod musica ars sit pars eruditionis philosophicae), Leipzig 1734, sought to
establish that, if musical principles could be shown to be true by the application of logical
argument, then music is indeed a science, and should stand equal to theology, philosophy, law,
and medicine. Society focused its attention on a wide variety of musical and musico-scientific
matters, from theory to history to anatomy and even composition itself.

3. Mizler's publications.

The proceedings of his Society were published on a regular basis as part of his journal, the
Newly-opened musical library (Neu-eröffnete musikalische Bibliothek). In the 15 issues of this
magazine published between 1736 and 1754, articles on any number of fascinating topics
appeared, reflecting the immense breadth of knowledge to which Mizler laid claim. There were
translations of 16th, 17th, and 18th century treatises on matters of music-theoretical interest,
reports of current events, polemics, and as well as accounts of the activities of the members of
the Society.3 One delightful article gives the Society's specifications for composing church
music: "It must not last too long, being shorter in winter when around 350 measures or 25
minutes is appropriate, and long in summer when about 400 measures or an addition of 8-10
minutes is long enough. If the music should not last too long, then the text should be arranged so
that the composer need not compose so much."4

One of Lorenz Mizler's own programmatic compositions is described in detail: M[agister]

Lorenz Mizler's Musical Fantasy on the Kaiser's War with the Three United Crowns. "Since
France was the greatest power it was assigned the bass tone; Spain, as a lesser power was the
fifth; Sardinia, the third. Prussia acted as the octave, and England the 7th. As the bass moved
diatonically down to the 5th and back to the tonic in the key of C major, the other ‘powers’
followed with more or less appropriate voice leading. Dissonances and resolutions are
encountered along the way, the most dissonant moment occurring when England enters the
fray."5

Other articles include a detailed description of the anatomy of the ear ("Dissection of the Ear
According to Heister"), a translation of a treatise on tuning ("Printz's Exercitationum musicarum
theoretico-practicarum curiosarum secunda de octave"), and a description of a curious machine
that Mizler built for the purpose of explaining the mathematical basis for playing
accompaniments on a keyboard instrument (thoroughbass realization).

Overlapping with the Newly-opened musical library, Mizler published another journal, The

3
Sandra Pinegar, Perspectives on the Musical Essays of Lorenz Christoph Mizler, Master's
Thesis, North Texas State University, 1984, p. 76 et passim.
4
Pinegar, p. 105.
5
Pinegar, p. 88.
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musical eye-opener (Der musikalisher Staarstecher) during a brief period between 1739 and
1740. The complete title of this magazine, The Musical Eyeopener, in which Honest Mistakes of
Good Musical Sense are Noted, [and] the Imagined and Self-perpetuating Folly of So-called
Composers will yet be made Ridiculous, is ample proof of Mizler's devotion to the "ideals of
enlightened Rationalism. .. all the mysteries of life, the world, and even the universe were
yielding to the strength of men's minds."6

In its very first issue, Mizler lays out his beliefs concerning the scientific basis for music.

He writes, "Finally, the age has come in which contemplation of the beautiful, noble, excellent
science of music begins. The learned truly begin to worry about the history of this thoughtful art,
as they also begin to examine its mathematics in detail. There is even a society of musical
sciences to improve music, undertaken from a noble urge. Magnificent monument to reason -- if
it is allowed to destroy ignorance, foolishness, delusion, pride and obstinacy as hated disgraces
of men. All sciences and arts are in such a state … that a healthy reason, a high-thinking
understanding, a fiery wit can always still improve itself, set down, and invent."7

VII. Conclusion.

Whether or not Bach agreed completely with Mizler's passionate philosophical speeches, he
definitely shared Mizler's commitment to the art and the science of music. Bach's composition
of cycles of pieces like the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations, the Musical
Offering, the Canonic Variations for organ on vom Himmel hoch, and of course, the Art of
Fugue, each demonstrating an almost unimaginable wealth of compositional invention and
sensitivity, attests to his fascination with the laws which underlie his art.

6
Pinegar, p. 114.
7
Pinegar, pp. 116-117.