Sources, repertory. 1 page

Johann Sebastian Bach

(24) (b Eisenach, 21 March 1685, d Leipzig; 28 July 1750). Composer and organist. The most important member of the family, his genius combined outstanding performing musicianship with supreme creative powers in which forceful and original inventiveness, technical mastery and intellectual control are perfectly balanced. While it was in the former capacity, as a keyboard virtuoso, that in his lifetime he acquired an almost legendary fame, it is the latter virtues and accomplishments, as a composer, that by the end of the 18th century earned him a unique historical position. His musical language was distinctive and extraordinarily varied, drawing together and surmounting the techniques, the styles and the general achievements of his own and earlier generations and leading on to new perspectives which later ages have received and understood in a great variety of ways.

The first authentic posthumous account of his life, with a summary catalogue of his works, was put together by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel and his pupil J.F. Agricola soon after his death and certainly before March 1751 (published as Nekrolog, 1754). J.N. Forkel planned a detailed Bach biography in the early 1770s and carefully collected first-hand information on Bach, chiefly from his two eldest sons; the book appeared in 1802, by when the Bach Revival had begun and various projected collected editions of Bach’s works were under way; it continues to serve, together with the 1754 obituary and the other 18th-century documents, as the foundation of Bach biography.

1. Childhood.

2. Lüneburg.

3. Arnstadt.

4. Mühlhausen.

5. Weimar.

6. Cöthen.

7. Leipzig, 1723–9.

8. Leipzig, 1729–39.

9. Leipzig, 1739–50.

10. Iconography.

11. Sources, repertory.

12. Background, style, influences.

13. Cantatas.

14. Oratorios, Passions, Latin works.

15. Motets, chorales, songs.

16. Organ music.

17. Music for harpsichord, lute etc.

18. Orchestral music.

19. Chamber music.

20. Canons, ‘Musical Offering’, ‘Art of Fugue’.

21. Methods of composition.

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach

Childhood.

The parents of Johann Sebastian were Johann Ambrosius Bach (11) and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt (1644–94), daughter of a furrier and town councillor in Erfurt, Valentin Lämmerhirt (d 1665). Another Lämmerhirt daughter became the mother of Bach’s cousin J.G. Walther, suggesting that Lämmerhirt blood was perhaps not unimportant for the musical talents of the Bach family’s greatest son. Elisabeth’s elder half-sister Hedwig Lämmerhirt was the second wife of Ambrosius Bach’s uncle, Johann Bach (4), organist of the Predigerkirche in Erfurt. Elisabeth and Ambrosius, who had worked in Eisenach since 1671 as Hausmann and also as a musician at the ducal court of Saxe-Eisenach, were married on 8 April 1668, and had eight children, five of whom survived infancy; as well as Johann Sebastian, the last, these were three sons (nos.22, 71 and 23) and a daughter, Maria Salome. The date of Johann Sebastian’s birth, 21 March 1685, was carefully recorded by Walther in his Lexicon, by Sebastian himself in the family genealogy, and by his son as the co-author of the obituary. It is supported by the date of baptism (23 March; these dates are old-style) in the register of St Georg. His godfathers were Johann Georg Koch, a forestry official, and Sebastian Nagel, a Gotha Stadtpfeifer. The house of his birth no longer stands; it is not the handsome old structure (Frauenplan 21) acquired by the Neue Bachgesellschaft in 1907 as the ‘Bachhaus’ and established as a Bach Museum. He would have been born in the house in the Fleischgasse (now the Lutherstrasse) that Ambrosius Bach bought in 1674 after gaining Eisenach citizenship.

After the time of the Reformation all children in Eisenach were obliged to go to school between the ages of five and 12, and (although there is no documentary evidence of it) Sebastian must have entered one of the town’s German schools in 1690. From 1692 he attended the Lateinschule (as had Luther, also an Eisenach boy); this offered a sound humanistic and theological education. At Easter 1693 he was 47th in the fifth class, having been absent 96 half-days; in 1694 he lost 59 half-days, but rose to 14th and was promoted; at Easter 1695 he was 23rd in the fourth class, in spite of having lost 103 half-days (perhaps owing to illness, but probably also to the deaths of his parents). He stood one or two places above his brother Jacob, who was three years older and less frequently absent. Nothing more is known about his Eisenach career; but he is said to have been an unusually good treble and probably sang under Kantor A.C. Dedekind at St Georg, where his father made instrumental music before and after the sermon and where his relation (2) Johann Christoph Bach (13) was organist. His musical education is matter for conjecture; presumably his father taught him the rudiments of string playing, but (according to Emanuel) he had no formal tuition on keyboard instruments until he went to Ohrdruf. He later described Johann Christoph as ‘a profound composer’; no doubt he was impressed by the latter’s organ playing as well as by his compositions.

Elisabeth Bach was buried on 3 May 1694, and on 27 November Ambrosius married Barbara Margaretha, née Keul, the daughter of a former mayor of Arnstadt. Aged 35, she had already been twice widowed. Her first husband had been a musician, Johann Günther Bach (15), and her second a theologian, Jacobus Bartholomaei (both marriages had taken place in Arnstadt), and she brought to her third marriage two little daughters, Catharina Margareta and Christina Maria, one by each of her earlier husbands. A month before Ambrosius's own second marriage, on 23 October 1694, he and his family had celebrated the wedding of the eldest son, Johann Christoph (22) in Ohrdruf. The music on that occasion was by Ambrosius Bach, Johann Pachelbel from nearby Gotha and other friends and family members. This was probably the only occasion on which the then nine-year-old Sebastian met Pachelbel, his brother’s teacher. Barely three months after re-marrying, on 20 February 1695, Ambrosius Bach died after a long and serious illness. On 4 March the widow appealed to the town council for help; but she received only her legal due, and the household broke up. Sebastian and Jacob were taken in by their elder brother Johann Christoph, organist at Ohrdruf.

Both were sent to the Lyceum. Jacob left at the age of 14 to be apprenticed to his father’s successor at Eisenach; Sebastian stayed on until 1700, when he was nearly 15, and thus came under the influence of an exceptionally enlightened curriculum. Inspired by the educationist Comenius, it embraced religion, reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, history and natural science. Sebastian entered the fourth class probably about March 1695, and was promoted to the third in July: on 20 July 1696 he was first among the seven new boys and fourth in the class; on 19 July 1697 he was first, and was promoted to the second class; on 13 July 1698 he was fifth; on 24 July 1699 second, and promoted to the first class, in which he was fourth when he left the school on 15 March 1700 and went to Lüneburg.

In the obituary Emanuel stated that his father had his first keyboard lessons from Christoph, at Ohrdruf; in 1775, replying to Forkel, he said that Christoph might have trained him simply as an organist, and that Sebastian became ‘a pure and strong fuguist’ through his own efforts. That is likely enough; Christoph is not known to have been a composer. Several early biographers told the story of how Christoph would not allow his brother to use a certain manuscript; how Sebastian copied it by moonlight; how Christoph took the copy away from him; and how he did not recover it until Christoph died. Emanuel and Forkel assumed that Christoph died in 1700, and that Sebastian, left homeless, went to Lüneburg in desperation. Later authors, knowing that Christoph lived on until 1721, and that the brothers had been on good terms, have tended to reject the story – perhaps unnecessarily, for it may illustrate contemporary attitudes to discipline and restraint. In fact, the story fits in well with the little that is known of the Ohrdruf years, and with the idea that Sebastian taught himself composition by copying. Most probably he recovered his copy when he went to Lüneburg. As for its contents, Forkel implied that it contained works by seven famous composers, three of them northerners. He probably misunderstood Emanuel’s reply to another of his questions; according to the obituary, the manuscript was mainly southern (Froberger, Kerll, Pachelbel) – as one would expect, since Johann Christoph had been a Pachelbel pupil. (A good idea of its contents can be obtained from a manuscript collection compiled in 1692 by another of Pachelbel’s pupils, J.V. Eckelt.) The larger of the two organs at Ohrdruf was in almost unplayable condition in 1697, and Sebastian no doubt picked up some of his expert knowledge of organ building while helping his brother with repairs.

No documentary evidence exists to establish when Bach started to compose, but it is reasonable to suppose that it was while he lived in Ohrdruf – not least because other contemporaries, and his own sons in due course, began composing original music before reaching the age of 15. The earliest organ chorales in the Neumeister manuscript, as well as such works as bwv749, 750 and 756, provide plausible examples of pieces composed before and around 1700. They are characterized by sound craftsmanship, observance of models provided by Pachelbel (his teacher’s teacher) and everywhere the sense of an endeavour to break away from musical conventions and find independent answers.

Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach

Lüneburg.

According to the school register, Sebastian left Ohrdruf ‘ob defectum hospitiorum’ (‘for lack of board and lodging’); clearly Christoph no longer had room for his brother. Since the latter’s arrival he had had two children; by March 1700 a third was expected; and (if local tradition can be trusted) his house, now destroyed, was a mere cottage. The brothers’ problem seems to have been solved by Elias Herda, Kantor and a master at the Lyceum. He had been educated at Lüneburg, and no doubt it was he who arranged for Sebastian to go north; probably he similarly helped Georg Erdmann, a fellow pupil of Sebastian’s, three years older, who left the school just before Bach (for the same reason). According to the obituary they travelled together. They must have reached Lüneburg before the end of March for both were entered in the register of the Mettenchor (Matins choir) by 3 April 1700 and probably sang in it within a matter of days for Holy Week and Easter.

The Michaeliskirche, Lüneburg, had two schools associated with it: a Ritteracademie for young noblemen, and the Michaelisschule for commoners. There were also two choirs: the ‘chorus symphoniacus’ of about 25 voices was led by the Mettenchor, which numbered about 15, and was limited to poor boys. Members of the Mettenchor received free schooling at the Michaelisschule, up to 1 thaler per month according to seniority, their keep, and a share in fees for weddings and other occasions (Bach’s share in 1700 has been put at 14 marks). From the arrangement of the pay-sheets it has been deduced that they were both trebles. Bach was welcomed for his unusually fine voice; but it soon broke, and for eight days he spoke and sang in octaves. After that he may or may not have sung, but no doubt he made himself useful as an accompanist or string player. As the last extant pay-sheet is that for 29 May 1700, no details are known; but it is clear that the school was short of instrumentalists at just this time.

At school, Bach’s studies embraced orthodox Lutheranism, logic, rhetoric, Latin and Greek, arithmetic, history, geography and German poetry. The Kantor was August Braun, whose compositions have disappeared; the organist, F.C. Morhard, was a nonentity. The organ was repaired in 1701 by J.B. Held, who had worked at Hamburg and Lübeck; he lodged in the school, and may have taught Bach something about organ building. There was a fine music library, which had been carefully kept up to date; but whether choirboys were allowed to consult it is uncertain. If Braun made good use of it, Bach must have learnt a good deal from the music he had to perform; but his chief interests probably lay outside the school. At the Nikolaikirche was J.J. Löwe (1629–1703), distinguished but elderly. The Johanniskirche was another matter, for there the organist was Georg Böhm (1661–1733), who is generally agreed to have influenced Bach. It has been argued that the organist of the Johanniskirche would not have been accessible to a scholar of the Michaelisschule, since the two choirs were not on good terms, and that Bach’s knowledge of Böhm’s music must have come later, through J.G. Walther. But Emanuel Bach stated in writing that his father had studied Böhm’s music; and a correction in a note to Forkel shows that his first thought was to say that Böhm had been his father’s teacher. This hint is supported by the fact that in 1727 Bach named Böhm as his northern agent for the sale of Partitas nos.2 and 3. That seems to imply that the two were on friendly terms; it is likelier that they became so between 1700 and 1702 than at any later date.

Bach went more than once to Hamburg, some 50 km away; probably he visited his cousin Johann Ernst (25), who was evidently studying there about this time. The suggestion that he went to hear Vincent Lübeck cannot be taken seriously, for Lübeck did not go to Hamburg until August 1702, by which time Bach had almost certainly left the area. He may have visited the Hamburg Opera, then directed by Reinhard Keiser, whose St Mark Passion he performed during the early Weimar years and again in 1726; but there is no solid evidence that he was interested in anything but the organ and in particular the organist of St Katharinen, J.A. Reincken, whose influence on the young Bach as both theorist and practitioner it would be difficult to overestimate. Marpurg’s familiar anecdote makes the point neatly: how Bach, returning almost penniless to Lüneburg, once rested outside an inn; how someone threw two herring heads out on the rubbish heap; how Bach – a Thuringian, to whom fish were a delicacy – picked them up to see if any portion were edible; how he found that they contained two Danish ducats, and was thus able not only to have a meal, but also ‘to undertake another and a more comfortable pilgrimage to Herr Reincken’.

J.A. Reincken (?1623–1722), a pupil of Sweelinck and organist of St Katharinen since 1663, was a father figure of the north German school. Böhm may have advised Bach to hear him; and his showy playing, exploiting all the resources of the organ, must have been a revelation to one brought up in the reticent tradition of the south. As for the organ itself, Bach never forgot it; in later years he described it as excellent in every way, said that the 32' Principal was the best he had ever heard, and never tired of praising the 16' reeds. Whether he actually met Reincken before 1720 is uncertain. If he did, Reincken might have given him a copy of his sonatas; Bach’s reworkings of them (the keyboard pieces bwv954, 965 and 966) are more likely to have been made soon after 1700 than 20 years later, when Bach no longer needed to teach himself composition.

The market-place in Lüneburg had been graced since the end of the 17th century by a palace used for the visits of the Duke of Celle-Lüneburg and his court; the principal ducal residence and seat of government lay in Celle, some 80 km to the south. The duke, married to Eléonore d’Olbreuse, a Huguenot of noble birth, was a pronounced francophile and maintained an orchestra consisting largely of Frenchmen, which played in both Celle and Lüneburg. Thomas de la Selle, dancing-master at the Ritteracademie next door to Bach’s school in Lüneburg, was also a member of the Celle orchestra. Emanuel Bach knew that his father was often able to hear this ‘famous orchestra’ and thus to become acquainted with French taste. It cannot be ruled out that Bach occasionally helped out as an instrumentalist when the court orchestra played in the ducal residence in Lüneburg.

The date of Bach’s departure from Lüneburg is not known, but we may suppose that he completed his final school year after two years and left school at Easter 1702. It seems unlikely that he remained in Lüneburg for any length of time after that, for he left without hearing Buxtehude and took extraordinary pains to do so in winter 1705–6. He probably visited relatives in Thuringia after Easter 1702. All that is definitely known is that he competed successfully for the vacant post of organist at St Jacobi in Sangerhausen (the organist was buried on 9 July), but the Duke of Weissenfels intervened and had J.A. Kobelius, a somewhat older man, appointed in November. Bach is next heard of at Weimar, where he was employed at the court as a musician for the first two quarters of 1703; the court accounts have him down as a lackey, but he described himself as a ‘Hofmusikant’ (court musician) in the Ursprung. This was at the minor Weimar court, that of Duke Johann Ernst, younger brother of the Duke Wilhelm Ernst whom Bach served from 1708 to 1717. Possibly the Duke of Weissenfels, having refused to accept Bach at Sangerhausen, found work for him at Weimar; another possibility is that Bach owed his appointment to a distant relation of his, David Hoffmann, another lackey-musician.

Of the musicians with whom Bach now became associated, three are worth mentioning. G.C. Strattner (c1644–1704), a tenor, became vice-Kapellmeister in 1695, and composed in a post-Schütz style. J.P. von Westhoff (1656–1705) was a fine violinist and had travelled widely, apparently as a diplomat, and is said to have been the first to compose a suite for unaccompanied violin (1683). Johann Effler (c1640–1711) was the court organist: he had held posts at Gehren and Erfurt (where Pachelbel was his successor) before coming in 1678 to Weimar, where about 1690 he moved to the court. He may have been willing to hand over some of his duties to Bach, and probably did something of the kind, for a document of 13 July 1703 at Arnstadt, where Bach next moved, describes Bach as court organist at Weimar – a post that was not officially his until 1708.

Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach

Arnstadt.

The Bonifaciuskirche at Arnstadt had burnt down in 1581, and was subsequently rebuilt in 1676–83; it then became known as the Neue Kirche, and so remained until 1935, when it was renamed after Bach. In 1699 J.F. Wender contracted to build an organ, which by the end of 1701 had become usable; on 1 January 1702 Andreas Börner was formally appointed organist. The organ was complete by June 1703, and was examined before 3 July; there were more examiners than one, but only Bach was named and paid, and it was he who ‘played the organ for the first time’. The result was that on 9 August Bach was offered the post over Börner’s head; at the same time, ‘to prevent any such “collisions” as are to be feared’, Börner was given other work. Bach accepted the post ‘by handshake’ on 14 August 1703. The exact date of his removal to Arnstadt is not known, nor is his address. As his last board and lodging allowance was paid to Feldhaus, he probably spent at least that year in either the Golden Crown or the Steinhaus, both of which belonged to Feldhaus. Considering his age, and local standards, he was well paid; and his duties, as specified in his contract, were light. Normally, he was required at the church only for two hours on Sunday morning, for a service on Monday, and for two hours on Thursday morning; and he had only to accompany hymns. He thus had plenty of time for composition and organ playing, and he took as his models Bruhns, Reincken, Buxtehude (all northerners) and certain good French organists. There is no evidence as to whether he took part in the theatrical and musical entertainments of the court or the town.

Bach was in no position to put on elaborate music at Arnstadt. The Neue Kirche, like the other churches, drew performers from two groups of schoolboys and senior students. Only one of these groups was capable of singing cantatas; it was supposed to go to the Neue Kirche monthly in the summer, but there does not appear to have been a duty roster. The performers naturally tended to go to the churches that had an established tradition and friendly organists; and Bach had no authority to prevent this, for he was not a schoolmaster and was younger than many of the students. Further, he never had much patience with the semi-competent, and was apt to alienate them by making offensive remarks. One result was his scuffle with J.H. Geyersbach (b 1682). On 4 August 1705 he and his cousin Barbara, elder sister (aged 26) to his future wife, fell in with six students who had been to a christening feast; one of these was Geyersbach, who asked why Bach had insulted him (or his bassoon), and struck him in the face with a stick. Bach drew his sword, but another student separated them. Bach complained to the consistory that it would be unsafe for him to go about the streets if Geyersbach were not punished, and an inquiry was held. The consistory told Bach that he ought not to have insulted Geyersbach and should try to live peaceably with the students; further, he was not (as he claimed) responsible only for the chorales but was expected to help with all kinds of music. Bach replied that if a musical director were appointed, he would be willing enough.

Bach, unimpressed, asked for four weeks’ leave, and set off for Lübeck – ‘what is more, on foot’, says the obituary, adding that he had an overwhelming desire to hear Buxtehude. Dates and distance cast some doubts on his straightforwardness. He left Arnstadt about 18 October, and was therefore due to be back, or well on his way back, by about 15 November; he would thus have been unable to hear even the first of Buxtehude’s special services, which were given on various dates from 15 November to 20 December. Perhaps, like Mattheson and Handel before him, he went primarily to see if there was any chance of succeeding Buxtehude, and was put off by the prospect of marrying Buxtehude’s daughter, aged 30; in any case, by 1705 there was a rival in the field. However that may be, he stayed almost three months at Lübeck, and was absent altogether for about 16 weeks, not returning to Arnstadt until shortly before 7 February 1706, when he communicated.

On 21 February the consistory asked Bach why he had been away for so long; his replies were unsatisfactory and barely civil. They next complained that his accompaniments to chorales were too elaborate for congregational singing, and that he still refused to collaborate with the students in producing cantatas; further, they could not provide a Kapellmeister for him, and if he continued to refuse they would have to find someone more amenable. Bach repeated his demand for a musical director, and was ordered to apologize within eight days. From the next case that the consistory heard that day it seems that there had been actual ‘disordres’ in the church between Bach and the students. There is no evidence that Bach apologized, and the consistory dropped the matter for eight months. They brought it up again on 11 November, and Bach undertook to answer them in writing. They also accused him of inviting a ‘stranger maiden’ to make music in the church, but for this he had obtained the parson’s permission. The girl in question cannot have been his cousin and future wife, for she had long been resident in Arnstadt and therefore would be unlikely to be described as a stranger.

Neither Bach nor the consistory took further action; no doubt they saw that the problem would soon solve itself. Probably Bach had come back from Lübeck with exalted ideas about church music, requiring facilities that Arnstadt could not provide. His ability was becoming known; on 28 November he helped to examine an organ at Langewiesen. Forkel said that various posts were offered to him; and with the death of J.G. Ahle, on 2 December, a sufficiently attractive vacancy seemed to have arisen.

Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach

Mühlhausen.

Ahle had been a city councillor of Mühlhausen, organist of St Blasius and a composer of minor rank. Musical standards had fallen during his tenure of office, but the post was a respectable one and various candidates gave trial performances. One was to have been J.G. Walther, the future lexicographer; he sent in two compositions for 27 February 1707 (Sexagesima), but withdrew after being told privately that he had no hope. Bach played at Easter (24 April) and may have performed Cantata no.4. At the city council meeting on 24 May no other name was considered, and on 14 June Bach was interviewed. He asked for the same salary that he was receiving at Arnstadt (some 20 gulden more than Ahle’s); the councillors agreed, and an agreement was signed on 15 June. At Arnstadt his success became known; his cousin Johann Ernst (25) and his predecessor Börner applied for the Neue Kirche on 22 and 23 June. He resigned formally on 29 June, and presumably moved to Mühlhausen within a few days. It was perhaps in July that he wrote Cantata no.131; this was clearly intended for a penitential service, perhaps connected with a disastrous fire of 30 May. It was not Bach’s own Pastor Frohne who commissioned this cantata, but Pastor Eilmar of the Marienkirche – a fact whose possible significance will be seen later. Bach’s responsibilities in Mühlhausen included also the convent of Augustinian nuns where there was an organ by Wender without pedals; his principal duty there was to play for special services.

On 10 August 1707 Tobias Lämmerhirt, Bach’s maternal uncle, died at Erfurt. He left Bach 50 gulden, more than half his salary, and thus facilitated his marriage to Maria Barbara (b 20 Oct 1684), daughter of (3) Johann Michael Bach (14) and Catharina Wedemann. The wedding took place on 17 October at Dornheim, a village near Arnstadt; the pastor, J.L. Stauber (1660–1723), was a friend of the family and himself married Regina Wedemann on 5 June 1708. Pupils began to come to Bach at about this time, or perhaps even earlier. J.M. Schubart (1690–1721) is said to have been with him from 1707 to 1717, and J.C. Vogler (1696–1763) to have arrived at the age of ten (at Arnstadt), to have left for a time, and to have returned from about 1710 until 1715. These two were his immediate successors at Weimar; from their time onwards he was never without pupils.

On 4 February 1708 the annual change of council took place, and Cantata no.71 was performed. It must have made an impression, for the council printed not only the libretto, as was usual, but also the music. Bach next drew up a plan for repairing and enlarging the St Blasius organ; the council considered this on 21 February, and decided to act on it. Cantata no.196 may have been written for Stauber’s wedding on 5 June. At about this time Bach played before the reigning Duke of Weimar, Wilhelm Ernst, who offered him a post at his court. On 25 June Bach wrote to the council asking them to accept his resignation.

No doubt the larger salary at Weimar was an attraction, particularly as Bach’s wife was pregnant. But it is clear, even from his tactful letter to these councillors who had treated him well, that there were other reasons for leaving. He said that he had encouraged ‘well-regulated church music’ not only in his own church, but also in the surrounding villages, where the harmony was often ‘better than that cultivated here’ (Spitta found a fragment, bwv223, at nearby Langula). He had also gone to some expense to collect ‘the choicest sacred music’. But in all this members of his own congregation had opposed him, and were not likely to stop. Some people no doubt disliked the type of music that he was trying to introduce. Further, Pastor Frohne may have distrusted his organist; an active Pietist, he was at daggers drawn with the orthodox Pastor Eilmar of the Marienkirche – Bach had begun his Mühlhausen career by working with Eilmar, and they had become intimate enough for Eilmar and his daughter to be godparents to Bach’s first two children.

The council considered his letter on 26 June and reluctantly let him go, asking him only to supervise the organ building at St Blasius. However badly Bach may have got on with his congregation, he was evidently on good terms with the council. They paid him to come and perform a cantata at the council service in 1709, and possibly also in 1710 (all trace of these works is lost). In 1735 he negotiated on friendly terms with the new council on behalf of his son Johann Gottfried Bernhard (47). He is not known to have been paid for supervising or opening the St Blasius organ, but he may have done so.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 693