Student games at the First Viennese School
Things you might need to know.

- Buxtehude was Bach’s mentor.
- Buxtehude called Bach The Master, and nobody disagreed.
- Mahler was a superb master of key and modulation.
- Bruckner was a superb organist, so much so that it has been said that when he played the orchestra he made it sound like an organ.
- Schubert knew how to modulate but never wrote a successful fugue in his life.
- Palestrina was the father of counterpoint. If it could be counterpointed, then Palestrina knew how to do it, even if he had deemed it would have been quite inappropriate to have done so for his audiences.
- Paul McCartney is a successful song writer unlike Schubert but he neither knew how to write a fugue nor how to modulate, though he could change key.
It was at a gathering of music students and staff of the first Viennese school that the game gained great popularity. It was very much as all student games are full of challenges, where penalties and rewards were handed out to the amusement and humiliation of those who were willing to complete and also on those who refused the invitation to do so. The game was very simple. It was to right(sic.) a fugue. The fugue would be five minutes long, no more no less.
A fugue as you well know is a five part masterpiece. You have a statement, a counter-statement, a, for want of a better word, middle section (some might say a development but that concept was not familiar to all of the members of the first Viennese School as it was an innovation introduced in its, some would say, dotage), a restatement and a coda. In the game each section was to last only one minute.
There were two versions of the game. In one there would be five competitors, and to each was allocated, by lot, a section of the fugue. Each section would be worked out in turn with the intention of ending at a point where the next player could take over, at the end of one minute the adjudicator would halt the player, and allow thirty seconds for the next to take his place for the following section. In the other version you were permitted to volunteer to step in, or to challenge the allotted player, or you may be invited to do so. If you refuse to take part a penalty would be paid. If you take part and fail to do the job then a penalty must be paid. If you succeed you hand over to the next, and if you take the coda to its conclusion you win. So it was quite easy to be penalised, less easy to avoid a penalty and quite difficult to win. Failure was recognised when you could not using the material already provided to move from where the previous player had left you to where you should be at the end of one minute. If no-one challenged you, then you had to continue the next section. Woe betide you if you could not complete it from where you had left it! The worst of all possible penatlies would be applied.
Each game would therefore take a maximum of seven minutes, allowing for the full thirty second interval between the sections.
Haydn was the first play. He was a master of his art. His fugue started as always with at least the feinting echo of a familiar tune. Mozart did not hesitate to follow with a remarkably exquisite counter-statement. Beethoven intervened with characteristic grumpiness and demonstrated how such exquisite familiarity could become something quite extraordinarily violent. How could anyone follow that? the others thought. Prokofieff, being a master of the classical form, which he hardly ever used, was ready to move Beethoven aside and with ingenious facility turned the violence of the middle section into an almost unrecognisable restatement of the first and second subjects combined. Liszt and Paganini were in awe of the classical beauty of the cascade of notes which came from his fingers. There was no hint of chromaticism in the restatement but all the necessary modulation took place, almost imperceptibly. They both itched to be able to go alongside him as he put the restatement of the fugue together. Richard Strauss however beat them to it. He arrived at the keyboard just as Prokofief played his final note and without a moment’s silence proceeded into the coda, where classical elegance slowly drifted into a dreaminess of the later years of the Viennese School, where the familiar tune with which Haydn had begun was heard amid a swirling pianissimo of chromatics as it rose into the stratosphere finally closing a full four octaves above Haydn’s view of the world, barely heard, but every note clearly sounding.
It was an astonishing performance, and completed seamlessly in five minutes. No penalties were awarded, and all five participants were lauded winners.
Next up, five had agreed to take part: Bach, Buxtehude, Monteverdi, Palestrina and Tallis. They were assigned their positions in accordance with the rules of the game.
Tallis was to start. And start he certainly did. By the time thirty seconds had passed it seemed as if he had introduced six parts to the fugue. The others certainly thought so, as could be seen by the length of dismay showing on their countenances, except for Bach who had heard something that the others had not. Mozart appeared not to be listening, but was busy writing in his note book. Beethoven was writing too, but spent more time crossing things out than writing them.
It was time for Monteverdi to take part, at least he thought to himself, I only have to make a counter statement, so he spent fifty seconds of his time using only four parts to take Tallis’s English ideas and counterstate them in an Italianate style. Only in the final few bars did he hint at the fifth and sixth parts.
Palestrina had to take over. Six parts, English and Italian styles, but it was no trouble for him, he had had already worked out what he would do. So had Mozart, for now Mozart was writing in his notebook far more furiously than before. As he wrote Allegri looked over his shoulder and recognised what he had written. It was every note that both Tallis and Monteverdi had played, and as he watched he read what Palestrina was playing, only it was even more astonishing, Mozart was putting the notes onto the paper even before Palestrina had played them.
As Palestrina came to a close Bach walked up to the keyboard and waited. He asked the adjudicator whether he may be permitted to proceed, or was there another who would wish to challenge him for the place? The adjudicator was now obliged to give the thirty seconds for a challenger. Bach waited patiently. Was he working out what he was going to do? Was that the reason for the delay? the others asked themselves. Mozart in the meanwhile had closed his notebook and also waited. Beethoven scribbled a few notes, almost stood up, but then made it appear as if he were just himself getting comfortable.
There was no challenger. Buxtehude however was getting quite fidgety. Bach spoke, Gentlemen, as we have had such a long break, and no challenger has been forthcoming, if I may be permitted I shall repeat what we have just heard and continue with the restatement. Mozart, as if he needed to do so, opened his notebook. Bach played note for note all that Tallis, Monteverdi and Palestrina had played. Mozart was entranced, he turned the pages but hardly ever looked at his book. Then the restatement began. Allegri stretched out his neck as Mozart took up his pen and began to write, but now Mozart was always a bar behind Bach not ahead of him as he had been with Palestrina. Allegri could hardly contain the question he desperately wanted to ask: How did you know what Palestrina would play?
Bach moved skilfully and switfly. The six parts had been reduced to three. Bach had heard the trick that Tallis had used to give the impression of six parts. Monteverdi slapped his own head in an expression of disgust that he had himself, until then, failed to see it. Then the modulation started. Tallis had not strayed far. Monteverdi was simply chromatic. Palestrina had been quite conservative but exceedingly beautiful.
It was Mahler who spotted Buxtehude leaving the hall. Buxtehude, where are you going? he asked. Buxtehude replied, The Master is playing. He is already four cycles away from the tonic. I am up next, and he will be six away before it is my turn. It is too much. I must go.
Then who will play? Mahler asked. You do it. You can take Bach back home, he replied. And with that Buxtehude departed.
Mahler, having been listening carefully as they had talked, with his confident foreboding returned and mistakenly sat where Buxtehude had been.
Bach reached the end as Buxtehude had predicted so far from home that it seemed impossible to return in the one minute available in the coda. All eyes turned to Buxtehude, only to see Mahler sitting there.
Where is Buxtehude? the adjudicator asked, he is up next.
Mahler not wishing to humiliate his friend apologised for him that Some urgent and unexpected business had necessitated his immediate departure.
Then who will step in, or shall we allow Mr Bach to continue?
Now everyone was quite sure that Bach would be able to complete the coda, but none, but one, really wanted it to happen. There had to be a challenger. And they only had thirty seconds to find one.
Mahler, you are in Buxtehude’s seat, you come up! someone called out.
Mahler hesitated. The young man sitting between Mahler and Schubert spoke to him: Go on, you can do it. Remember what you did in your fourth.
Turning to him, Paul, Mahler replied, you are a young man, the fourth was a symphony, I had an hour in which to do as I pleased. This is a five minute fugue with one minute to go. I shall pay the penalty.
Mahler declined the adjudicator’s offer to allow him to play.
Someone else shouted out, Where is Webern? He can do it.
The adjudicator graciously pointed out that Webern belonged to the second not to the first Viennese School.
Paul turned to Schubert. Franz, what about you? You know how to change key. (Remember, Paul does not know what modulation is). Remember your C minor quintet. You can get us back home.
Paul, Schubert replied, I am a song writer like you. I have never written a successful fugue in my whole life.
Five seconds to go, and dismay was falling upon the house. Bach was going to take all.
Mozart had not closed his book, but was waiting, and in the meantime sketching out what he thought he might do to go home from where Bach had left off, but in reality he longed to hear how Bach would do it. He prepared to transcribe what Bach played.
The young man ran over to the organ keyboard, just in time. Thank you, Mr McCartney, the adjudicator rejoined. Herr Bach you may stand down. Mr McCartney you have no experience of this, you are new in the school. Are you sure you wish to take up the challenge?
I am, Sir, and if I may, as The Master did, can I do a quick recap before I begin the coda?
With the permission of the House, you may do so.
Paul sat at the keyboard, found his place, and began. He played the last ten bars of Bach’s restatement, which had ended on a pedal note almost as far removed from home as you could be. He held onto the pedal whilst he brought the statements and counter-statements into line, making use of the syncopation that Bach had introduced but not even attempting to change key.
Mozart had become intrigued. There is no time left. He can’t do it, he thought to himself as he continued to write in his book. Then thirty seconds into the coda abruptly the pedal changed and he was home. The syncopation continued, the statements and counter-statements continued to dance as they faded away and Paul over the last fifteen seconds closed the stops on the organ one by one until only the pan pipe remained at which point he slowly closed the grill on the sound box and all was in silence.
The hall too was in silence, apart from the sound of Mozart’s pen. He was trying to work out what he had missed when the pedal changed. He was completely convinced he had not heard something, but what was it? How did this young man, who only wrote songs, do it? he asked himself.
Bach and Palestrina were in conference. They knew that questions would be asked, and wanted to be ready.
The Classicists, other than Mozart, were furious. He has broken all of the rules, they said. If you want to change key you have to do it properly. To modulate, you prepare for it and then you move.
Schubert broke in, Why? You can change key just for effect, can’t you?
The Late Romanticists replied: Schubert, yes, you did that all the time, but all you did was sidestep and then return home straightaway. You, Classicists, though, you are wrong. Key is fluid, you can move freely between all of them but it should not be obvious, and certainly not abruptly like this. Music is so much more lush when the key is indeterminate, do you not think? The Classicists obviously did not think so. The Romanticists would have done better not to have asked the question, they might then have had their support.
The discussion in the hall was becoming rather heated, until a little understood group of English and Italian musicians began to sing: Dowland led the group, and as they sang they shifted the keys as abruptly as had been done. There was a call for them to be silent until Josquin (desPrés) nodded his approval of the singing. The group then turned to a song which none, except Paul, in the hall knew: Penny Lane. There it was again, the very trick that he had used in the Coda.

Mozart continued to scratch his head. Beethoven meanwhile began to revise the development section of his Eroica
1 You may disagree with the facts. Coco has no claim on their veracity.
2 You may notice, or thingk you have noticed some spelling mistakes, then repent for
- a mistake is only a mistake if it is not deliberate
- you may have misunderstood the meaning and the word is correctly spelt,
- Coco may be making a play on a word, or
- Coco was being lazy or forgetful.
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