| This study explores and advocates the proposition that Johann Sebastian Bach had knowledge of the proportion of the Golden Section and that he employed it as an architectonic determinant when conceiving the forms and dimensions of his written music.;There are two chains of evidence considered in this study: external documentary evidence in texts available to Bach; and internal, i.e., the proportional architectures in the composer's music. Bach was intimately familiar with the writings of Andreas Werckmeister, who theorized that a musical composition should display the "Natural Order" by which God has organized all Creation. For a specific mathematical illustration of this Natural Order, Werckmeister referred his readers to Kepler's Harmonices mundi of 1619. Kepler's text is the source from which knowledge of the Golden Section, known at the time as the "Divine Proportion," would have been available to Bach and his circle.;The analyses presented illustrate how the Golden Section is manifested in the architecture of Bach's music. The three basic modes, or "species," of how the Golden Section appears are presented and defined. It is then illustrated that these three fundamental species can exist at various levels of disposition. The more complex examples presented illustrate how these three species are combined, overlapped and further manipulated, resulting in highly complex architectures in which the proportional structures originally conceived are not readily perceptible. An attempt has been made to penetrate and reconstruct the composer's conceptual design process. In many cases, the proportional architectures are so integrated and interdependent that one can suggest that they were conceived in a particular sequence.;This study proffers three conclusions. Firstly, many of the proportional architectures are so integrated, and consistent, that it is likely that they were wittingly designed by the composer using the Divine Proportion. Secondly, there is a clear chain of documentary evidence which suggests that the composer had access to knowledge of the Divine Proportion. Finally, the composer's motivation to use the Divine Proportion in his design process would have been rooted in a seventeenth century philosophy of music which was predicated upon theological tenets central to orthodox Lutheranism. |
