13 December Appointed organist at the Marktkirche in Halle, contract dated 14 December.
1714 14 January Letter from Bach requesting changes in proposed contract in Halle.
2 March Promoted to Concertmeister of the Weimar Hofcapelle, with an obligation to compose monthly church cantatas. Salary raised to 250 florins.
8 March Birth of son Carl Philipp Emanuel, baptised 10 March. Telemann is one of his godfathers.
19 March Letter from Bach, having declined the Halle post in February, refuting accusations of unfair dealings with the Halle authorities.
25 March BWV 192 performed on Palm Sunday, the first Weimar church cantata written after his new appointment as Concertmeister.
1715 11 May Birth of son Johann Gottfried Bernhard, baptised 12May.
1717 26 March Performance of a lost Passion in Gotha on Good Friday.
Journeys to Dresden for an aborted musical competition with Louis Marchand.
7[5?] August Accepts post of Hofcapellmeister at the princely court of Cöthen. Request to leave Weimar is refused by Duke Wilhelm Ernst.
6 November Arrested in Weimar and detained for four weeks because he ‘too stubbornly’ forced the issue of his resignation.
2 December Dismissed in disgrace from the Weimar Court.
CÖTHEN
1717 10 December Arrives in Cöthen in time for birthday of Prince Leopold.
1718 May-June Accompanies Prince Leopold on a journey to Carlsbad in Bohemia, together with another six court musicians.
15 Nov Birth of his son Leopold Augustus, baptised 17 November.
10 December Birthday of Prince Leopold. Performance of BWV 66a.
1719 June Unsuccessful attempt to meet Georg Friedrich Handel at Halle.
28 September Death of son Leopold Augustus.
1720 Visits Reincken in Hamburg and improvises on the chorale prelude An Wasserflüssen Babylon.
22 January Starts the Clavier-Büchlein for Wilhelm FriedemannBach.
May-July Accompanies Prince Leopold on a second visit to Carlsbad.
7 July Death of Maria Barbara Bach, aged thirty-five, while Bach is away.
November Journeys to Hamburg to audition for organist post at the Jacobikirche. Summoned back to Cöthen on 23 November and declines Hamburg offer.
1721 22 February Death of eldest brother Johann Christoph, aged forty-nine.
24 March Dedicates the manuscript score of the Brandenburg Concertos to Christian Ludwig of BrandenburgSchwedt.
3 December Marries Anna Magdalena Wilke (also known as Wülcken or Wilken), aged twenty.
1722 Starts the Clavier-Büchlein for Anna Magdalena. Completes The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, BWV 846–69.
16 April Death of brother Johann Jacob (born 1682), in Stockholm.
1722 26 October Godfather at baptism of Sophia Dorothea Schultze, daughter of Johann Caspar Schultze, cantor at the Agneskirche in Cöthen.
21 December Applies for the cantorate of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.
1723 7 February Auditions at Leipzig Thomaskirche with performances of BWV 22 and 23.
Spring Birth of daughter Sophia Henrietta.
13 April Gains letter of dismissal from the Prince of Cöthen.
LEIPZIG
1723 19 April Signs provisional contract in Leipzig.
22 April Leipzig Town Council elects Bach as cantor of Thomaskirche, a post he accepts the following day.
5 May Signs final contract.
8 May Takes examination of theological competence to confirm his Lutheran creed.
15 May First payment from Leipzig.
22 May Arrives with his family in Leipzig.
30 May Begins first Leipzig cantata cycle with BWV 75, performed at Nikolaikirche.
14 June Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel enter the Thomasschule.
13 November Publication of the new statutes of the Thomasschule.
25 December First performance of the Magnificat, BWV 243a (version in E with Christmas laudes).
1724 26 February Birth of his son Gottfried Heinrich, baptised on 27 February.
7 April Performance of the John Passion in the Nikolaikirche (1st version).
1724 II June Begins his second (chorale) cantata cycle with BWV 20.
18 July Guest performance with Anna Magdalena in Cöthen.
1725 23 February Guest performance of BWV 249a in Weissenfels for birthday of Duke Christian.
30 March Performance of the John Passion at Thomaskirche (2nd version).
14 April Baptism of son Christian Gottlieb.
19–20 Guest performances at the Sophienkirche in Dresden.
September
December Guest performance in Cöthen (together with Anna Magdalena).
1726 5 April Baptism of daughter Elisabeth Juliana Frederica.
19 April Performance of an anonymous Mark Passion in the Nikolaikirche.
29 June Death of his daughter Christiana Sophia Henrietta, aged three.
1 Nov Publication of Part I of Clavier-Übung, BWV 825–30.
1727 11 April Performance of Matthew Passion at Thomaskirche on Good Friday.
12 April Celebration for the birthday of King August II including performance of BWV Anh. 9 (now lost).
17 October Memorial service of Electress of Saxony, Queen Christiane Eberhardine, at Leipzig Paulinerkirche, including a performance of the Trauer-Ode (BWV198).
30 October Baptism of son Ernestus Andreas (dies on 1 November).
1728 1 January Guest performance in Cöthen.
21 September Death of son Christian Gottlieb aged three (buried on 22 September).
10 October Baptism of daughter Regina Johanna.
1729 12 January Performance of BWV 210a during a visit of Duke Christian of Weissenfels.
23 February Guest performance in Weissenfels. Appointed Capellmeister von Haus aus to Duchy of Weissenfels.
Spring Assumes directorship of Georg Balthasar Schott’s collegium musicum.
23/4 March BWV 244a is performed at funeral service for Prince Leopold in Cöthen.
15 April Good Friday performance of the Matthew Passion (second time).
6 June, Whit Monday As newly appointed head of collegium musicum, performs BWV 174, Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte.
20 October Performance of BWV 226, Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, at funeral of Johann August Ernesti, headmaster of Thomasschule.
1730 1 January Baptism of daughter Christiana Benedicta (dies on 4 January).
7 April Performance of an anonymous Luke Passion (BWV 246) with some additions by Bach, at the Nikolaikirche.
2 Aug Dispute with the Leipzig Town Council about Bach’s teaching duties.
23 Aug Submits petition to the Leipzig Town Council: ‘Entwurff’ (‘Brief but Highly Necessary Draft of a Well-Appointed Church Music’).
1731 18 March Baptism of daughter Christiana Dorothea.
Spring Publication of Clavier-Übung I as Opus I.
23 March Performance of lost Mark Passion (BWV 247) at the Thomaskirche.
14 September Organ recital in the Sophienkirche in Dresden, and attends première of Hasse’s opera Cleofide the previous day.
1732 11 April Perfomance of the John Passion (3rd version) at the Nikolaikirche.
5 June Performance of BWV Anh. 18, Froher Tag, (now lost), at dedication of renovated Thomasschule.
21 June Birth of son Johann Christoph Friedrich, baptised 23June.
31 August Death of daughter Christiana Dorothea.
September Journeys to Kassel (with Anna Magdalena). Examines the renovated organ at the Martinskirche (22 September).
1733 Re-catalogues library, dating his copy of the three-volume Calov Bible.
21 April Ceremony at the Nikolaikirche for loyalty to Friedrich Augustus II following death in February of Elector Friedrich Augustus I.
25 April Death of daughter Regina Johanna, aged four (buried on 26 April).
27 July Journeys to Dresden. Dedicates the Missa BW
V 232 to the new Elector of Saxony, Friedrich Augustus II.
5 Nov Birth and baptism of son Johann August Abraham (dies on 6 November).
8 December Performance of BWV 214, Tönet, ihr Pauken, a dramma per musica for the Queen Maria Josepha.
1734 5 October Alfresco performance of BWV 215 Preise dein Glücke to mark the first anniversary of the Elector Friedrich August II’s accession as Augustus III, King of Poland.
December/January Performance of the Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248, on 25–7 December, 1–2 January and 6 January.
1735 Spring Bach turns fifty. He draws up his family tree with annotated genealogy: ‘Origin of the Bach Family of Musicians’. Publication of Clavier-Übung II.
19 May Ascension Oratorio, Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen (BWV 11), is performed.
5 September Birth of son Johann Christian (baptised on 7 September).
1735/6 Performs Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel’s cantata cycle Das Saiten-Spiel des Herzens.
1736 30 March Performance of the revised Matthew Passion on Good Friday at the Thomaskirche.
1736 July Dispute with Johann August Ernesti, rector of the Thomasschule, over the appointment of prefects.
7 October Birthday cantata for Friedrich Augustus II, BWV 206, Schleicht, spielende Wellen.
19 November Granted honorary non-resident post of Hofcompositeur (Court Composer) at the Dresden Court by Friedrich Augustus II.
1737 4 March Temporarily resigns as director of the Leipzig collegium musicum.
May Journeys to Sangerhausen to visit his son Johann Gottfried Bernhard, appointed organist there in January.
14 May Johann Adolph Scheibe publishes a letter attacking Bach without naming him, referring to him disparagingly as a Musicant – which sparks off the Scheibe-Birnbaum dispute.
30 October Baptism of daughter Johanna Carolina.
1739 17 March Cancellation of the performance of a Passion due to dispute with town council.
27 May Death of son Johann Gottfried Bernhard, aged twenty-four.
12 September Godfather at baptism of Johanna Helena Koch, daughter of Johann Wilhelm Koch, cantor in Ronneburg.
Autumn Publication of Clavier-Übung III.
October Resumes position as director of collegium musicum.
November Journeys to Weissenfels (together with Anna Magdalena) and gives a recital on the Trost organ in Altenburg Castle.
1741 30 May Withdraws as director of collegium musicum.
Summer Journeys to Berlin–Potsdam Court of Frederick the Great. Writes Flute Sonata in E (BWV 1035) for King’s Chamberlain. Performance of BWV 210, O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit.
August Anna Magdalena ill, Bach returns to Leipzig.
September Publication of BWV 988, Goldberg Variations, Part IV of the Clavier-Übung, at time of the Michaelmas Fair.
17 November Returns from journey to Berlin with Count Keyserlink.
1742 22 February Baptism of daughter Regina Susanna.
30 August Performance of BWV 212, Mer hahn en neue Ober-keet, Peasant Cantata, for Count Carl Heinrich von Dieskau in Kleinzschocher.
1744 Autograph date in his copy of a 1704 Merian Bible.
March-May Five-week journey (reason and destination unknown).
3 April Performance of lost Mark Passion (BWV 247) at Thomaskirche.
1745 30 November Birth of first grandchild, Johann Adam (son of C. P. E. Bach).
1747 7 May Journeys to Potsdam and Berlin. Meets with the Prussian King Frederic II at Sanssouci.
8 May Organ recital at Potsdam Heiliggeistkirche.
June Becomes fourteenth member of the Societät der Musicalischen Wissenschaften (Corresponding Society of the Musical Sciences). Canonic Variations on ‘Vom Himmel hoch’, (BWV 769)including his B-A-C- H musical signature, is his contribution to the Society.
7 July Dedicates The Musical Offering (BWV 1079) to King Frederick II of Prussia.
4 April Performance of the John Passion (4th version) at the Nikolaikirche.
May Sudden illness: eye trouble and cataracts.
8 June Gottlob Harrer auditions for Bach’s post as Thomas- cantor in Leipzig.
6 October Baptism of grandson Johann Sebastian Altnickol (son of his daughter Catherina Dorothea). Died 21 December.
1750 28–30 March First eye surgery by the English surgeon Dr John Taylor.
5–8 April Second eye surgery by Taylor.
22 July Bach has a stroke, and receives last communion.
28 July Death at 8.15 in the evening, aged sixty-five.
31 July Burial at the Leipzig cemetery of the Johanniskirche.
POSTHUMOUS
1750 II November Distribution of his estate.
1752 May The Art of Fugue (BWV1080) is published by C. P. E. Bach.
1754 Mizler publishes the Nekrolog (written by C. P. E. Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola in 1750/51) in his Musicalische Bibliothek.
1760 27 December Anna Magdalena Bach dies in Leipzig.
1788 14 December C. P. E. Bach dies in Hamburg. His estate contains many of the most significant compositions of his father in autograph sources and the Haussmann portrait (1748).
1802 Johann Nikolaus Forkel publishes the first biography of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1829 11 March Revival of the Matthew Passion (in a shortened and instrumentally adapted version) by Felix Mendelssohn in the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Robert Schumann, Hegel and others attend.
1841 The major part of Bach’s musical estate is given to the Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin (nowadays Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz).
1850 Beginning of the first complete edition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Werke (finished in 1899).
Glossary
A-B-A: Ternary form – the three-fold structure of a movement, akin to a sandwich, in which the A section repeats after a contrasting, B or middle section in a related key.
a cappella (It. ‘in the chapel style’): A common term for unaccompanied church music for choir.
accompagnato (It. ‘accompanied’): In cantatas (and opera) this is a form of declamatory, speech-like singing with full instrumental accompaniment (usually for strings, occasionally for winds), as opposed to recitativo secco, notated with figured bass for basso continuo only.
Affekt (Ger. ‘feeling’): Originally derived from Greek and Latin doctrines of rhetoric and oratory, the term came to be used by seventeenth-century theorists to categorise the emotional states expressed in vocal music, which led to the convention of expressing a single ‘affection’, or unified mood, within a single movement, determined by details of tempo, dynamic, style or figurae (q.v.).
Alberti bass: Broken chord or arpeggiated accompaniment, named after Domenico Alberti (c.1710–40), in the sequence lowest, highest, middle, highest.
alla breve (It. ‘cut time’): Normally indicates two minim beats in a bar of four crotchets and proportionally twice as fast as the preceding section.
appoggiatura (It. ‘to lean against’): Literally an ornamental leaning note, one which nevertheless creates a harsh or expressive dissonance with the prevailing harmony and resolves by step (up or down) on the following weak beat.
arioso (It. ‘like an aria’): Normally a short melodic section with a regular beat within a recitative of a cantata, though Bach used it also to indicate a short aria or as the equivalent of an accompagnato recitative (q.v.).
ars moriendi (Lat. ‘the art of dying’): Central to the Lutheran tradition, but originally a mid-fifteenth-century tract (illustrated with woodcuts) expounding the concept of a ‘good death’ in response to the ravages of plague and warfare. Bach owned several books on this topic.
bariolage (Fr. ‘variegated sounds’): The rapid alternation often of the same note between open and stopped strings on a violin, creating a vigorous, frenetic effect.
bassetchen (Ger. ‘little bass’): Signals the absence of the normal foundation of the music (an eight-foot organ or cello continuo line) and its migration upwards to the alto line, a
texture used by Bach sometimes to suggest an unearthly (literally ‘groundless’) presence of divine love.
Bierfiedler (Ger. ‘beer fiddlers’): Disparaging term used to describe jobbing untrained musicians hired to play mostly at weddings and parties; considered by professional guild musicians to be dishonourable interlopers.
binary form: The two-fold form of a short movement, usually with an equal length to the sections, the second part (B) in a related key to the first (A).
cadenza (It. ‘cadence’): A solo passage in improvisatory style, either short when within a movement (as in Contrapunctus 2 of The Art of Fugue) or, more usually, in extended form at the penultimate cadence of a solo concerto, as in the fifth Brandenburg Concerto.
canon (‘rule’): A melody designed to be played or sung as a round in the strictest form of contrapuntal imitation. The leading voice (dux) is followed by the second and other voices (comes).
cantabile: (It. ‘song-like’): An instruction requiring a conspicuously expressive and melodious delivery.
cantata (It. ‘sung’): A vocal work, initially secular (and usually for solo voice), later sacred, containing by the eighteenth century a number of movements including arias, duets and choruses. Also referred to as Musik, Concerto, Kirchenstück or just Stück.
cantilena (Lat. ‘song’): A sustained, smooth-flowing melodic line.
cantor: Refers both to the role of director of a church’s music in Lutheran Germany and to that of a schoolteacher (not only of music).
cantus firmus (Lat. ‘fixed song’): A melody extrapolated from plainsong or from a chorale used as the basis of a polyphonic composition and often standing out from it in slow, single lines.
Capellmeister: Director of a court cappella, responsible for its performances and personnel.
cappella (Lat./It. ‘chapel’): An ensemble or group of singers and instrumentalists with, at its head, a Capellmeister (q.v.)
capriccio (It. ‘whim’): In Bach’s time, a keyboard piece not bound by the usual rules of composition, exemplifying perhaps a comment in the Nekrolog that ‘when the occasion demanded [he could] adjust himself, especially in playing, to a lighter and more humorous way of thought.’
chaconne/passacaglia: Seventeenth-century instrumental dance forms in triple time, both of Spanish origin (used in guitar music), founded on a ground bass with a slow harmonic rhythm. Whereas a chaconne (ciaconna in Italian) entails continuous variations based on a chord sequence, a passacaglia implies continuous variations on an ostinato (q.v.) that stays usually in the bass, but can migrate to an upper voice.
Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven Page 76