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Sources, repertory. 2 page

Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach

Weimar.

When he announced his resignation from Mühlhausen, Bach said that he had been appointed to the Duke of Weimar’s ‘Capelle und Kammermusik’, and it was long thought that he did not become organist at once. In fact, Weimar documents show that on 14 July 1708, when his ‘reception money’ was paid over, he was called ‘the newly appointed court organist’, and that he was almost always so called until March 1714, when he became Konzertmeister as well. Effler, it seems, was pensioned off on full salary (130 florins); on 24 December 1709 he received a small gift as ‘an old sick servant’, and he died at Jena on 4 April 1711.

It is said that Bach wrote most of his organ works at Weimar, and that the duke took pleasure in his playing. His salary was from the outset larger than Effler’s (150 florins, plus some allowances); it was increased to 200 from Michaelmas 1711, 215 from June 1713, and 250 on his promotion in 1714. On 20 March 1715 it was ordered that his share of casual fees was to be the same as the Kapellmeister’s. Moreover, he seems to have had a fair amount of spare time, in which, for instance, to cultivate the acquaintance of Telemann while the latter was at Eisenach (1708–12). Together with the violinist Pisendel he copied a concerto in G of Telemann’s (D-Dl), probably during Pisendel’s visit to Weimar in 1709.

Six of Bach’s children were born at Weimar: Catharina (bap. 29 Dec 1708; d 14 Jan 1774); (8) Wilhelm Friedemann (45) (b 22 Nov 1710); twins (b 23 Feb 1713; both died in a few days); (9) Carl Philipp Emanuel (46) (b 8 March 1714); and Johann Gottfried Bernhard (47) (b 11 May 1715). The various godparents show that Bach and his wife kept in touch with relations and friends from Ohrdruf, Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, besides making fresh contacts at Weimar; it is noteworthy that Telemann was godfather to Emanuel.

On 13 March 1709 Bach, his wife, and one of her sisters (probably the eldest, Friedelena, who died at Leipzig in 1729) were living with Adam Immanuel Weldig, a falsettist and Master of the Pages. They probably stayed there until August 1713, when Weldig gave up his house, having secured a similar post at Weissenfels. Weldig was godfather to Emanuel; Bach (by proxy) to a son of Weldig’s in 1714. Weldig’s house was destroyed in 1944; where Bach lived before and after the given dates is not known.

Since 29 July 1707, J.G. Walther (the lexicographer) had been organist of the Stadtkirche; he was related to Bach through his mother, a Lämmerhirt, and the two became friendly. On 27 September 1712 Bach stood godfather to Walther’s son. Forkel told a story of how Walther played a trick on Bach, to cure him of boasting that there was nothing he could not read at sight. Their relations did not deteriorate, as Spitta supposed; in 1735 Bach negotiated on Walther’s behalf with the Leipzig publisher J.G. Krügner, and Walther’s references to Bach in his letters to Bokemeyer carry no suggestion of any coolness. From one such letter it seems that during his nine years at Weimar Bach gave Walther some 200 pieces of music, some by Buxtehude, others compositions of his own.



Of Bach’s pupils, Schubart and Vogler have already been mentioned. The pupil for whom Bach was paid by Ernst August’s account in 1711–12 was not Duke Ernst August himself but a page called Jagemann. J.G. Ziegler (1688–1747) matriculated at the University of Halle on 12 October 1712, but before that he had studied with Bach for a year or so, and had been taught to play chorales ‘not just superficially, but according to the sense of the words’; Bach’s wife stood godmother to his daughter in 1718, and in 1727 Bach employed him as agent, in Halle, for Partitas nos.2 and 3. P.D. Krauter of Augsburg (1690–1741) set out for Weimar in March 1712, and stayed until about September 1713. Johann Lorenz Bach (38) probably arrived in autumn 1713; he may have left Weimar by July 1717. Johann Tobias Krebs (1690–1762) studied with Walther from 1710, with Bach from about 1714 until 1717. Johann Bernhard Bach (41) worked with his uncle from about 1715 until March 1719, alongside Samuel Gmelin (1695–1752), who appears to have left in 1717. C.H. Dretzel of Nuremberg (1697–1775) may have been briefly with Bach. In 1731, when applying for a post, T.C. Gerlach (1694–1768) implied that Bach had been teaching him by correspondence for 14 years, but his confused phraseology should not be taken literally.

The specification of the organ in the castle chapel, published in 1737, has not always been reprinted correctly; in any case, it does not represent the organ that Bach left in 1717. Extensive alterations were made in 1719–30. Still less does the specification represent the organ that Bach was faced with in 1708, for he himself made even more extensive alterations in 1713–14. The organ is said to have been built by Compenius in 1657–8. It was overhauled in 1707–8, and a Sub-Bass added, by J.C. Weishaupt, who carried out further maintenance work in 1712. A contract for alterations had however been signed on 29 June 1712 with H.N. Trebs (1678–1748), who had moved from Mühlhausen to Weimar in 1709. Bach and he had worked together on a new organ at Taubach in 1709–10, opened by Bach on 26 October 1710; in 1711 he gave Trebs a handsome testimonial, and in 1713 he and Walther became godfathers to Trebs’s son. Bach and Trebs collaborated again about 1742, over an organ at Bad Berka. Trebs’s new organ was usable during 1714; he had done 14 days’ tuning by 19 May, and was paid off on 15 September. Of this rebuild nothing is known, except that either Bach or the duke was determined that the instrument include a Glockenspiel; great trouble was taken over obtaining bells from dealers in Nuremberg and Leipzig, and it seems that the original set of 29 (a number hard to account for) had to be replaced because of difficulties over blend and pitch. In 1737 the organ had a Glockenspiel on the Oberwerk, but alterations had been made in 1719–20 and it does not follow that the Glockenspiel of 1714 was on a manual.

In December 1709 and February 1710 Bach was paid for repairing harpsichords in the household of the junior duke, Ernst August and Prince Johann Ernst. On 17 January 1711 he was godfather to a daughter of J.C. Becker, a local burgher. In February 1711 Prince Johann Ernst went to the University of Utrecht. From 21 February 1713 Bach was lodged in the castle at Weissenfels. Duke Christian’s birthday fell on 23 February, and it is now known that Cantata no.208 was performed in this year, not in 1716. The earlier date is stylistically suitable; moreover, it is compatible both with the watermark of the autograph score and with the fact that in this score Bach contradicted sharps by flats rather than by naturals – an old-fashioned habit that he gave up progressively during 1714.

About May 1713 the young prince returned from Utrecht, apparently with a good deal of music, for in the year from 1 June there were bills for binding, copying and shelving (some of the music came from Halle). In February 1713 he had been in Amsterdam, and may have met the blind organist J.J. de Graff who was in the habit of playing recent Italian concertos as keyboard solos. This may have given rise to the numerous concerto arrangements made by Walther and Bach.

On 7 September 1713 Bach was probably at Ohrdruf, standing godfather to a nephew; and on 6 November he took part in the dedication of the new Jakobskirche at Weimar (there is no evidence that he composed any of the music). On 27 November he was at Weimar, as godfather to Trebs’s son. At about this time he seems to have gone to Halle, perhaps to buy music, and to have become accidentally involved with the authorities of the Liebfrauenkirche. The organist there (Zachow, Handel’s teacher) had died in 1712, and the organ was being enlarged to a three-manual of 65 stops. The story has to be pieced together from hints in an incomplete correspondence; but it looks as if the pastor, J.M. Heineccius, pressed Bach to apply for the vacant post. Bach may have been involved in planning the enlargement of the organ, when Zachow became incapacitated; at all events, he stayed in Halle from 28 November to 15 December at the church authorities’ expense. He also composed and performed a cantata (lost), attended a meeting on 13 December 1713, was offered the post, and let the committee suppose that he had accepted it, although he had not had time to find out what his casual fees would amount to. On 14 December they sent him a formal contract. Bach replied on 14 January 1714, saying cautiously that he had not been released from Weimar, was uneasy about his salary and duties, and would write again within the week. Whether he did so is not known; but on February the committee resolved to tell him that his salary was not likely to be increased. Thus at Halle he could expect a slightly smaller salary than he was already getting; the attraction was the organ, more than twice as large. Bach must then have approached the duke, for on 2 March, ‘at his most humble request’, he became Konzertmeister (ranking after the vice-Kapellmeister), with a basic salary of 250 florins from 25 February. In finally refusing the Halle post, he probably mentioned that figure, for the committee accused him of having used their offer as a lever to extract more money from the duke. This he denied on 19 March, in a letter so reasonable and so obviously honest that he remained on good terms with Halle and was employed there as an organ examiner in 1716. Gottfried Kirchhoff had meanwhile been appointed organist on 30 July 1714.

Few cantatas (apart from the secular no.208) can be ascribed to these early Weimar years. Nos.18, 54 and 199 appear to date from 1713 and clearly have no specific connection with the cantatas composed with an eye to the church calendar from March 1714 onwards. The work performed at Halle in December 1713 was formerly thought to be no.21 (see F. Chrysander: G.F. Händel (Leipzig, 1858–67/R)). The idea that it was no.63 no longer stands up, although the forces required for that work make it extremely unlikely that it was written for the Weimar court; a performance in Halle at Christmas 1715 is conceivable.

On 23 March 1714 it was ordered that cantatas should in future be rehearsed in the chapel, not at home or in lodgings; and on Palm Sunday, 25 March, Bach performed no.182. This was the fourth Sunday after his appointment as Konzertmeister, when he had become responsible for writing a cantata every four weeks. As he evidently hoped to complete an annual cycle in four years, he did not keep strictly to this rule; having written a cantata for Advent Sunday in 1714, he wrote for the last Sunday after Trinity in 1715, and for the second Sunday in Advent in 1716 (in 1717 he was in prison). Apart from such intentional irregularities, there are gaps in the series, and the strange thing is that these gaps became suddenly more numerous after the end of 1715. One of the gaps is accounted for by the death at Frankfurt on 1 August 1715 of the musically gifted Prince Johann Ernst, plunging the duchy into mourning from 11 August to 9 November 1715, when not a note of music might be played. From 1717 there are no cantatas at all. A tentative explanation will be suggested for this; but it is hard to see why Bach’s usual allowance of paper was paid for on 16 May 1716 when he is not known to have performed any church cantatas between 19 January and 6 December.

On 4 April 1716 Bach, like the librettist Salomo Franck and ‘the book-printer’, was paid for ‘Carmina’, bound in green taffeta, that had been ‘presented’ on some unspecified occasion – perhaps on 24 January when Duke Ernst August had married Eleonore, sister of the Prince of Cöthen. Ernst’s birthday was celebrated in April; two horn players from Weissenfels came to Weimar, possibly brought over for a repeat performance of Cantata no.208. Meanwhile, the new organ at Halle had been making progress, and on 17 April the council resolved that Bach, Kuhnau of Leipzig and Rolle of Quedlinburg should be invited to examine it on 29 April. They all accepted; each was to receive 16 thaler, plus food and travelling expenses. The examination began at 7 a.m., and lasted three days – until some time on 1 May, when the experts wrote their report, a sermon was preached and fine music was performed. On 2 May the organist and the three examiners met the builder to discuss details. The council, who behaved liberally, gave a tremendous banquet, whose date is usually given as 3 May (1 May seems more likely).

On 31 July 1716 Bach and an Arnstadt organ builder signed a testimonial for J.G. Schröter, who had built an organ at Erfurt. In 1717 Bach was mentioned in print for the first time: in the preface to Mattheson’s Das beschützte Orchestre, dated 21 February, Mattheson referred to Bach as ‘the famous Weimar organist’ saying that his works, both for the church and for keyboard, led one to rate him highly, and asked for biographical information.

It is against this background that Bach’s departure from Weimar has to be considered. In 1703 he had been employed by Duke Johann Ernst; since his return in 1708, by Duke Wilhelm, Johann’s elder brother. The brothers had been on bad terms, and when Johann Ernst died in 1707 and his son Ernst came of age in 1709, things became no better. For some time the ducal disagreements do not seem to have affected Bach; perhaps they were kept within bounds by Superintendent Lairitz, and Ernst’s younger half-brother (Johann, the composer) may have had some influence. But the latter died in 1715, Lairitz on 4 April 1716, and the new superintendent certainly failed to cope with the ‘court difficulties’; like the rest of Wilhelm’s household, he was forbidden to associate with Ernst. The musicians, though paid by both households, were threatened with fines of 10 thaler if they served Ernst in any way.

No extant Bach cantata can be securely dated between 19 January and 6 December 1716; it may seem unlikely that this long, continuous gap was due to casual losses. It is tempting to suppose that Bach found his position embarrassing (owing to his early connection with the junior court) and expressed disapproval of Duke Wilhelm’s behaviour by evading his own responsibilities. In fact, Bach does not seem to have disapproved of the duke’s behaviour until he discovered that a new Kapellmeister was being sought elsewhere. Drese senior died on 1 December 1716; his son, the vice-Kapellmeister, was by all accounts a nonentity. Bach produced Cantatas nos.70a, 186a and 147a for 6, 13 and 20 December (three successive weeks, not months), but there were no more, as far as is known. By Christmas, Bach may have found out that the duke was angling for Telemann. Negotiations with Telemann came to nothing; but apparently Bach now set about looking for a post as Kapellmeister. He was offered one by Prince Leopold of Cöthen, brother-in-law to Duke Ernst (Bach and the prince had probably met at Ernst’s wedding in January 1716) and the appointment was confirmed on 5 August 1717. No doubt Bach then asked Duke Wilhelm’s permission to leave, and no doubt he was refused – the duke being annoyed because his nephew had obviously had a hand in finding Bach a job that carried more prestige and, at 400 thaler, was better paid.

The duke and Bach must nevertheless have remained on speaking terms for the time being, for at some date hardly earlier than the end of September Bach was in Dresden and free to challenge the French keyboard virtuoso Louis Marchand. Versions of this affair differ, but according to Birnbaum (who wrote in 1739, probably under Bach’s supervision), Bach ‘found himself’ at Dresden, and was not sent for by ‘special coach’. Once there, some court official persuaded him to challenge Marchand to a contest at the harpsichord; the idea that they were to compete at the organ seems to have crept in later. Whatever may be the truth about these and other details, it is universally agreed that Marchand ran away.

On his birthday, 30 October 1717, Duke Wilhelm set up an endowment for his court musicians; and the second centenary of the Reformation was celebrated from 31 October to 2 November. Presumably Bach took part in these ceremonies, though there is no evidence that he set any of the librettos that Franck had provided. Emboldened, perhaps, by the Marchand affair, he then demanded his release in such terms that the duke had him imprisoned from 6 November until his dismissal in disgrace on 2 December. The Cöthen court had paid Bach 50 thaler on 7 August. Some have supposed that this was for travelling expenses, and that Bach had his wife and family moved to Cöthen soon after; but it seems unlikely that the duke would have allowed them to move until he had agreed to let Bach go. The younger Drese became Kapellmeister in his father’s place and Bach’s pupil J.M. Schubart became court organist. The post of Konzertmeister disappeared.

Bach, §III: (7) Johann Sebastian Bach

Cöthen.

Except during the few last months of his Weimar period, Bach had been on good terms with Duke Wilhelm; but his relations with that martinet must always have been official. At Cöthen, until the end of 1721, things were different; Prince Leopold was a young man who, as Bach himself said, loved and understood music. He was born in 1694, of a Calvinist father and a Lutheran mother. The father died in 1704, the mother ruled until Leopold came of age on 10 December 1715. There was no court orchestra until October 1707, when Leopold persuaded his mother to take on three musicians. While studying in Berlin in 1708, he met A.R. Stricker; from the end of 1710 to 1713 he was on the usual grand tour, during which he studied with J.D. Heinichen at Rome. He returned capable of singing bass, and of playing the violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord. The Berlin court orchestra had broken up in 1713, and from July 1714 he employed Stricker as Kapellmeister and his wife as soprano and lutenist; by 1716 he had 18 musicians. In August 1717 Stricker and his wife seem to have resigned, leaving the prince free to appoint Bach.

At Cöthen the St Jakob organ was in poor condition. The court chapel was Calvinist; it had an organist, but no elaborate music was performed there, and the two-manual organ had only 13 or 14 stops, though it may have had a complete chromatic compass to pedal e' and manual e'''. The Lutheran St Agnus had a two-manual organ of 27 stops, again with an exceptional pedal compass. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that Bach wrote any particular work to exploit these pedal compasses, but no doubt he used one or both of the organs for teaching and private practice. He communicated at St Agnus, and took part in the baptisms at the court chapel, but had no official duties in either. He may, however, have been involved in the affair of May 1719, when a cantata was put on for the dedication festival of St Agnus, and 150 copies of (presumably) the libretto were printed. The printer’s bill for one thaler and eight groschen was endorsed by the pastor: ‘The churchwardens can give him 16 groschen; if he wants more, he must go to those who gave the order’.

Bach’s basic salary, 400 thaler, was twice Stricker’s, and extra allowances made it up to about 450. Only one court official was paid more, and there is other evidence that Bach was held in high esteem. On 17 November 1718 the last of his children by his first wife (a short-lived son) was named after the prince, who himself was a godfather. Bach’s residence in Cöthen is not definitely known, but it seems likely that he began as a tenant in Stiftstrasse 11; in 1721, when that house was bought by the prince’s mother for the use of the Lutheran pastor, he moved to Holzmarkt 10. The orchestra needed a room for their weekly rehearsals; the prince supplied it by paying rent to Bach (12 thaler a year from 10 December 1717 to 1722). Presumably there was a suitable room in Bach’s first house. Whether he continued to use that room after his move in 1721, and why he was not paid rent after 1722, is not clear.

The date of the first rent payment suggests that Bach and his household moved to Cöthen a day or two after he was released from prison (2 December); and that, after hasty rehearsals, he helped to celebrate the prince’s birthday on 10 December. That would normally have been his duty. The court accounts suggest that something connected with the birthday was either printed or bound in 1717, as also in 1719 and 1720 (Anh.7); Bach certainly wrote a cantata in 1722, and Cantatas nos.66a and Anh.5 in 1718. In 1721 there may have been no birthday celebrations, for the prince was married, at Bernburg, the next day. Cantata no.173a was undoubtedly a birthday work, but Bach probably wrote it after he had left Cöthen; 36a, an arrangement of 36c (1725), was performed at Cöthen on 30 November 1726, for the birthday of the prince’s second wife.

New Year cantatas also were expected. No.134a dates from 1719, Anh.6 from 1720, Anh.8 from 1723. There is no evidence for 1718, 1721 or 1722; printers’ and binders’ bills paid on 5 January 1722 may have been for music performed in December 1721. Bach may well have been unable to put on a wedding cantata, but there seems no reason why he should not have offered something for the prince’s birthday. Nos.184 and 194 (Leipzig, 1724, and Störmthal, 1723) seem to be arrangements of Cöthen works, and so perhaps are parts of no.120. Whether or not Bach performed a cantata at Cöthen on 10 December 1717, he was at Leipzig on 16 December examining the organ at the university church (the Paulinerkirche). The work had been done by Johann Scheibe, with whose son Bach was later in dispute. Bach is not known to have done any other work of this kind while at Cöthen.

On 9 May 1718 the prince went to drink the waters at Carlsbad for about five weeks, taking with him his harpsichord, Bach and five other musicians. Early in 1719 Bach was in Berlin, negotiating for a new harpsichord. About this time he seems to have been busy composing or buying music, for between July 1719 and May 1720 some 26 thaler were spent on binding. During 1719 Handel visited his mother at Halle, only some 30 km away; it is said that Bach tried, but failed, to make contact with him. Bach also disregarded a renewed request from Mattheson for biographical material.

W.F. Bach was nine in 1719; the title-page of his Clavier-Büchlein is dated 22 January 1720. In May Bach again went to Carlsbad with the prince. The date of their return does not seem to have been recorded; but apparently it was after 7 July, for that was the date of Maria Barbara’s funeral, and there is no reason to doubt Emanuel’s story that his father returned to find her dead and already buried. His wife had been nearly 36. Her death may well have unsettled Bach, and even led him to think of returning to the service of the church; but there was a more practical reason for his taking an interest in St Jacobi at Hamburg. The organist there, Heinrich Friese, died on 12 September 1720; Bach had known Hamburg in his youth, and must have been attracted by the organ, a four-manual Schnitger with 60 stops. There is no evidence that Bach was actually invited to apply for the post; but he may well have made inquiries of his own.

At all events, his name was one of eight being considered on 21 November, and he was in Hamburg at about that time. A competition was arranged for 28 November, but Bach had had to leave for Cöthen five days before. Three candidates did not appear, and the judges were not satisfied with the other four. An approach was made to Bach, and the committee met on 12 December; as Bach’s reply had not arrived, they met again a week later, when they found that Bach had refused. Perhaps he was unable, or unwilling, to contribute 4000 marks to the church funds, as the successful candidate actually did.

From the way in which the committee kept the post open for Bach, one may suppose that they had heard his recital at St Katharinen. Exactly how this performance was arranged, no-one knows; but in the obituary Emanuel stated that Bach played before the aged Reincken, the magistracy and other notables; that he played for more than two hours in all; and that he extemporized in different styles on the chorale An Wasserflüssen Babylon for almost half an hour, just as the better Hamburg organists had been accustomed to doing at Saturday Vespers. As a fantasia on this chorale was one of Reincken’s major works, this may seem a tactless choice; but the obituary makes it clear that the chorale was chosen by ‘those present’ and not by Bach himself. Reincken is reported to have said, ‘I thought this art was dead, but I see it still lives in you’, and showed Bach much courtesy. A later remark of Mattheson’s has been taken to imply that Bach also played the G minor Fugue bwv542, but there are good reasons to doubt it.

During 1720 Bach made fair copies of the works for unaccompanied violin, and must have been preparing the Brandenburg Concertos, whose autograph full score was dedicated on 24 March 1721 to the Margrave Christian Ludwig, before whom Bach had played in Berlin while negotiating for the new Cöthen harpsichord, between June 1718 and March 1719. What he played is not known; but he was invited to send in some compositions. As he himself said, he took ‘a couple of years’ over this commission, and then submitted six works written to exploit the resources of Cöthen. Such resources do not seem to have been available to the Margrave of Brandenburg, and it is not really surprising that he did not thank Bach, send a fee or use the score.

One of Bach’s friends at Cöthen was the goldsmith C.H. Bähr; Bach stood godfather to one of Bähr’s sons in 1721, and deputized for a godfather to another in 1723. About the beginning of August 1721 he gave a performance of some unspecified kind for Count Heinrich XI Reuss of Schleiz; this may have been arranged by J.S. Koch, the Kantor there, who had held a post at Mühlhausen, though possibly not in Bach’s time there. On 15 June 1721 Bach was the 65th communicant at St Agnus; one ‘Mar. Magd. Wilken’ was the 14th. This may well have been Bach’s future wife – the mistake in the first name is an easy one – but Anna Magdalena makes no formal appearance until 25 September, when Bach and she were the first two among the five godparents of a child called Hahn. This baptism is recorded in three registers. In two of them Anna is described as ‘court singer’, in the third, simply as ‘chamber musician’ (Musicantin). In September Anna was again a godmother, to a child called Palmarius; again the registers differ in describing her occupation. Her name does not appear in court accounts until summer 1722, when she is referred to as the Kapellmeister’s wife; her salary (half Bach’s) is noted as paid for May and June 1722.

Practically nothing is known of her early years. She was born on 22 September 1701 at Zeitz. Her father, Johann Caspar Wilcke, was a court trumpeter; he worked at Zeitz until about February 1718, when he moved to Weissenfels where he died on 30 November 1731. The surname was variously spelt. Anna’s mother (Margaretha Elisabeth Liebe, d 7 March 1746) was daughter of an organist and sister of J.S. Liebe who, besides being a trumpeter, was organist of two churches at Zeitz from 1694 until his death in 1742. As a trumpeter’s daughter, Anna may well have met the Bachs socially. The stories that she was a public figure, having sung at Cöthen and the other local courts since the age of 15, have been discredited; they are said to have arisen through confusion with her elder brother, a trumpeter. However, she was paid for singing, with her father, in the chapel at Zerbst on some occasion between Easter and midsummer 1721. By September 1721, aged just 20, she was at Cöthen, well acquainted with Bach (aged 36), and ready to marry him on 3 December. The prince saved Bach 10 thaler by giving him permission to be married in his own lodgings. At about this time Bach paid two visits to the city cellars, where he bought first one firkin of Rhine wine, and later two firkins, all at a cut price, 27 instead of 32 groschen per gallon.

On 11 December 1721 the prince married his cousin Friderica, Princess of Anhalt-Bernburg. The marriage was followed by five weeks of illuminations and other entertainments at Cöthen. This was not however an auspicious event for Bach: he was to leave Cöthen partly because the princess was ‘eine Amusa’ (someone not interested in the Muses) and broke up the happy relationship between Bach and her husband. Perhaps her unfortunate influence had made itself felt even before she was married.

A legacy from Tobias Lämmerhirt (Bach’s maternal uncle) had facilitated Bach’s first marriage; Tobias’s widow was buried at Erfurt on 12 September 1721, and Bach received something under her will too, though not in time for his second marriage. On 24 January 1722 Bach’s sister Maria, together with one of the Lämmerhirts, challenged the will, saying that Bach and his brothers Jacob (in Sweden) and Christoph (at Ohrdruf) agreed with them (Christoph had died in 1721). Bach heard of this only by accident; and on 15 March he wrote to the Erfurt council on behalf of Jacob as well as himself. He objected to his sister’s action, and said that he and his absent brother desired no more than was due to them under the will. On 16 April Jacob died; and the matter seems to have been settled on these lines towards the end of the year. Bach’s legacy must have amounted to rather more than a year’s pay.


Date: 2015-12-11; view: 647


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