Johann Sebastian Bach

by Christoph Wolff

  Here is what we know about the 1702 organist vacancy. Gottfried Christoph Gräffenhayn, principal organist at St. Jacobi, Sangerhausen’s largest church, and town judge in Sangerhausen, was buried on July 9, 1702. In November of that year, Johann Augustin Kobelius was appointed principal organist of St. Jacobi,46 as well as its subsidiary St. Ulrich’s. In this position, he supervised an assistant organist whose responsibility was limited to accompanying congregational hymns for minor services. Although the official search process had originally led the town council formally to elect the seventeen-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach, the twenty-eight-year-old Kobelius was appointed through the intervention of Duke Johann Georg of Saxe-Weissenfels, whose realm at the time included Sangerhausen (which also served as a secondary ducal residence). The new appointee had been trained under the Weissenfels court capellmeister Johann Philipp Krieger, received further credentials in Italy, served until 1702 as a member of the Weissenfels court capelle, and was deemed to be “an excellent composer, for which reason he was also entrusted with the Directorium Chori musici” soon after his appointment.47

  Bach could hardly feel insulted by losing out to an experienced, older, and well-connected musician. Nevertheless, he must have been as deeply disappointed by the turn of events as the town council was embarrassed by the despotic affront to its authority and jurisdiction. After all, the council had taken a considerable risk by unanimously choosing a seventeen-year-old to succeed the seasoned town judge and organist Gräffenhayn—an extraordinary testimonial to the achievements with which Bach impressed town councillors and church officials alike. Among these officials was merchant, postmaster, and church treasurer Johann Jacob Klemm, with whom Bach maintained friendly relations that lasted beyond Klemm’s death to the son, Johann Friedrich, the correspondent of 1736.48

  Apart from Bach’s enduring connections with the Klemm family, the striking evidence of the young musician’s demonstrated skills must not be underestimated. Whatever audition Bach had to pass, he must have exhibited professionalism of the highest caliber in his performance, improvisation, composition, and knowledge of organ technology. He must also have been judged qualified to supervise an assistant organist and to take over, sooner or later, the direction of the chorus musicus, the vocal-instrumental ensemble of the church.

  In considering where Bach learned about the vacancy, who furnished him with recommendations, and when his audition and election took place, we should remember the Bach family network, which undoubtedly played a crucial role in paving the way for one of its most promising offspring. Kobelius’s appointment sometime in November 1702 suggests that Bach’s successful audition took place in September or, more likely, in October, two or three months after Gräffenhayn’s death. In any case, after learning in November that he would not receive the Sangerhausen appointment, Bach had little time to entertain regrets. An opportunity as court musician opened up in Weimar (the same city, incidentally, where his grandfather Christoph Bach (5) had served some sixty years earlier), and in January 1703, he joined the capelle of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. Although Bach would later describe his position as that of Hoff Musicus (court musician),49 the ducal treasury register lists him as “Lackey Baach,”50 indicating that he was hired as a minor court servant. That members of the capelle (except for a few principals) had to perform nonmusical chores and valet services as well may have contributed to Bach’s leaving the Weimar court service after only six months. Then again, he may have been hired as temporary additional help or a substitute in the first place, without any promise of longer-term employment.

  In Weimar, Bach received a quarterly salary of 6 florins 16 groschen and, presumably, free room and board—decent compensation, yet little more than half of what he would later earn as organist in Arnstadt.51 His functions as a member of the court capelle were left unspecified in the appointment documents, and no wonder, considering his lackey status. Since 1683, the Weimar court music had been led by the capellmeister Johann Samuel Drese, a capable but frequently ailing composer. Bach found himself in rarefied company when he took part in performances of both secular and sacred music at the court. Among the most notable members of the ducal capelle were Georg Christoph Strattner, the vice-capellmeister as well as a singer and composer, and Johann Paul von Westhoff, a leading German violinist who was the first to publish unaccompanied works for his instrument. Bach may also have provided some special services for his immediate employer Duke Johann Ernst,52 the younger brother of the reigning Duke Wilhelm Ernst and the person officially in charge of the capelle. Since the smaller court ensembles in central Germany structurally resembled the town music companies, their members were generally required to play several instruments expertly, and Bach would have been expected to display his considerable versatility as an instrumentalist.53 At the same time, his musical activities in Weimar most likely focused on the playing of keyboard instruments, as his particular proficiency in this domain would have been a main attraction for the court.

  The actual Weimar court organist at the time was Johann Effler, the same musician Bach would eventually succeed. Considering that Effler retired prematurely in 1708 because his health no longer permitted him to fulfill his duties, he could very well have needed help in 1702. In any case, his prominent link to the Bach family extended back over thirty years.54 Effler’s distinguished career began as organist in Gehren near Arnstadt, where he was succeeded in 1673 by Johann Michael Bach (14; see Table 1.1), who would later become Sebastian’s father-in-law. Effler left Gehren to take up the organist post at the Prediger Church in Erfurt previously occupied by Johann Bach (4). There he became affiliated with the town music company under the direction of Johann Christian Bach (7), and when he finally moved to Weimar as court organist in 1678, Johann Pachelbel took Effler’s place in Erfurt. The myriad of connections, which are anything but coincidental,55 offer further confirmation of a well-functioning professional and family network that helped launch young Sebastian’s musical career.

  How much Bach actually benefited from his family’s support system is more strikingly evident in the events leading up to his appointment in Arnstadt. Ever since the brothers Christoph (5) and Heinrich Bach (6) were active there in the early 1640s, the town had served as the major hub in the life and musical activities of the family’s Wechmar line. Sebastian’s father Ambrosius had worked there before he joined the Erfurt town band in 1667, and his twin brother Christoph (12) spent virtually his entire career as Arnstadt court and town musician; Ambrosius’s second wife, Barbara Margaretha, née Keul, was an Arnstadt burgomaster’s daughter; Sebastian’s brother Christoph (22) had substituted for their old and ailing uncle Heinrich Bach (6) before moving in 1690 to Ohrdruf; and Christoph’s godfather was the Arnstadt court organist Christoph Herthum, husband of Maria Catharina, one of Heinrich Bach’s daughters. So for Sebastian, Arnstadt represented territory that was thoroughly familiar, although a political connection proved to be even more important.

  In October 1699, the consistory as governing body of the church of the count of Schwarzburg-Arnstadt commissioned a new organ for the rebuilt St. Boniface’s or New Church, from the renowned organ builder Johann Friedrich Wender of Mühlhausen.56 After some delays, the construction took place in 1701–3, and as soon as enough stops were ready for accompanying congregational hymns, Andreas Börner was hired as organist. But Börner had to return the keys to the organ loft after every service to the Arnstadt burgomaster Martin Feldhaus, who personally supervised the work of the organ builder. Feldhaus was the brother-in-law of the two organist brothers Christoph (13) and Michael Bach (14) and was obviously most interested in getting the finest instrument he could for the 800 florins made available for the project. When the organ was finished in the summer of 1703, Feldhaus arranged for its examination. As a local expert, the town and court organist Christoph Herthum, a signatory (and probably coauthor) of the 1699 organ contract,57 would have been called upon, but for outside expertise the burgomaster invited none other than Johann
Sebastian Bach to come from Weimar. Although there were more senior and experienced Bach family members available for this purpose, Feldhaus chose the eighteen-year-old Bach to conduct the official organ examination, in all likelihood his first ever; even at this early stage in his career, Bach was reputed to possess such a phenomenal understanding of organ technology that other family members could be passed over for this task without offending anyone. At the same time, it would have taken the authority of someone of Burgomaster Feldhaus’s stature to persuade not only the organ builder but also the consistory, the church superintendent, and the count of Schwarzburg-Arnstadt to accept the judgment of an eighteen-year-old.

  Bach’s profound knowledge of organ building, which eventually made him one of the most sought-after experts in central Germany, was grounded in many years of hands-on experience, going back to the organ crawls, tunings, and repairs he made in his childhood days. The particular repair needs of the instruments at St. George’s in Eisenach and St. Michael’s in Ohrdruf afforded an excellent set of practical lessons that were supplemented by his more mature experiences in Lüneburg and Hamburg and that were further informed by the shop talk that invariably took place among organ builders and organists. Also, by the time Bach was asked to inspect the new Arnstadt organ, he probably had studied and tried out more instruments, including those of the northern Hanseatic cities, than any of his Thuringian relatives. Most important, he had acquired a solid scientific foundation in the art of organ building by studying Andreas Werckmeister’s manual, Erweiterte und verbesserte Orgelprobe (Quedlinburg, 1698).58 The earliest extant evidence of Bach’s organ expertise, his Mühlhausen organ renovation proposal of 1708,59 demonstrates that in his principles, methods, and terminology he relied heavily on Werckmeister’s influential treatise.60

  The written report of the Arnstadt organ examination has not survived, but the payment record for the examination, entered by Feldhaus into the journal of the Arnstadt consistory, details the financial arrangements: “July 13, 1703. Upon the command of the Consistory of the Count here, Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach, Court Organist to the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, was called hither to inspect the new organ in the New Church, and the costs come to the following amounts: 2 thlr. 16gr. to Georg Christoph Weller for the hire of the horses and messenger’s pay, 4 thlr. to Mr. Bach as compensation, and 1 fl. for the time that he was here, for food and lodging, making a total of 8 fl. 13 gr.”61

  It is apparent from these figures that Bach was treated as a professional in every respect (and even referred to by a title he did not hold). His travel to and from Arnstadt was arranged by private coach, he received a decent per diem (nearly a sixth of his quarterly salary at the Weimar court), and he was paid a reasonable honorarium for the examination. But he not only tested the organ, he also played the dedication recital, for which he received an additional fee of 3 florins 13 groschen “for having to try the new organ and play it the first time.”62

  The recital and examination must have occurred before July 13. According to the 1699 contract with the organ builder, the original completion had been set for St. John’s Day 1701, a feast day on which the principal organists of some Thuringian churches were required to present, after the main service, a recital in order to showcase the continuing progress in their mastery of the instrument. (Such a performance was specified, for example, in Johann Pachelbel’s 1678 contract at the Prediger Church in Erfurt.)63 The actual demonstration of the new Arnstadt instrument, then, was most likely St. John’s Day 1703, June 24. Both the organ examination and the inaugural recital, with all the protection and pitfalls of a “home game,” proved to be nothing less than a public recognition that a new star had risen in the old established family of musicians, an altogether critical event that set Bach’s career on a firm course.

  EARLY MUSICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

  Bach’s dedication recital in Arnstadt may even have represented a formal or disguised audition for the post of organist at the New Church. But both the Sangerhausen test of 1702 and the Arnstadt recital of 1703 raise the question of how and by what evidence the remarkable musical achievements of the ambitious Sebastian at this early juncture can be properly evaluated. The Sangerhausen and Arnstadt authorities accepted him as a finished musician, on a par with older professionals. In terms of keyboard-playing skills, Bach surpassed his competitors, and at age seventeen and eighteen he also matched and possibly exceeded the virtuosic capacities of senior masters like Reinken, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and Böhm. While Bach would certainly not have equaled them in compositional experience and polish, in his own works he clearly accepted the challenge of their mastery and tried to measure up to or even outdo the models they established. We can conclude, then, that Bach’s level of accomplishment around 1702–3 must be considered much higher than the dearth of autograph sources prior to 1714 had led us to believe.64

  The Toccata in D minor, BWV 565, seems a particularly characteristic example of the bold, virtuosic approach of the young Bach, still not quite sure how to manage certain aspects of form and fugal counterpoint. Although the piece is transmitted only in much later copies,65 it bears the hallmark of a youthful and unrestrained piece that fits the manner of what Bach later used to dub, according to Forkel, “Clavier hussars” (see Chapter 6). The opening passagework features persistent octave doubling, for which there is no parallel elsewhere in Bach’s organ music. However, if we consider that Bach’s Arnstadt organ had no manualiter sixteen-foot stops available, the octave doubling reflects an ingenious solution for making up that deficiency and for creating the effect of an organo pleno sound that typically requires a sixteen-foot basis (Exx. 3.1, 3.3, 3.4). And if the rampant figurative materials that shape the entire first section sound as though the composer got carried away, we should note that the figuration patterns remain remarkably well focused; in fact, they can be reduced to a single governing idea, the head motive that opens the work (Ex. 3.2a) and, with its inversion (b), forms the basis for a series of running variations. The intention to achieve structural unity—despite a strong improvisatory impulse—also reaches into the fugue, whose theme (Ex. 3.7) is directly derived from the head motive in both regular and inverted versions; the fugue theme also refers to a central passage from the opening section (Ex. 3.5), which, if notated differently (Ex. 3.6), reveals the relationship even more clearly. Seen in this light, the D-minor Toccata, ostensibly fashioned as a show piece, appears, below its flamboyant surface, much more disciplined and controlled. In many ways, it heralds the brilliant future of Bach’s organistic art.

  It is reasonable to assume that whatever repertoire Bach presented at his Sangerhausen and Arnstadt appearances, the focus of both must have been on his professional command of organ performance and organ composition. Mastery and self-reliance were called for—not the traits of an apprentice, however polished. Bach would have prepared himself thoroughly for these public performances, and although improvisation was always called for, he would certainly have written out core parts of the program with which he wanted to impress his audience in general and the jury in particular.

  In his technical keyboard skills, Bach had progressed significantly beyond the state he had reached in Ohrdruf under the guidance of his older brother. By the age of fifteen, he could play difficult pieces by Johann Jacob Froberger, Johann Caspar Kerll, and Johann Pachelbel contained in the infamous lost manuscript once copied by moonlight, and the presumably corresponding repertoire of preludes, toccatas, fantasias, canzonas, capriccios, and fugues by Froberger and Pachelbel in the Eckelt Tablature of 1692 (see Chapter 2). What the Lüneburg years added were major technical and stylistic dimensions to his performing experience, such as greater manual virtuosity and a more developed pedal technique, as well as north German and French keyboard repertoires; we find evidence for the latter in the Möller Manuscript and Andreas Bach Book (see Chapter 2). Both anthologies contain music materials that would not have been accessible to Christoph Bach—nor are they traceable elsewhere in Thuringia or central Germany—befo
re Sebastian’s return from Lüneburg.

  Considering the high probability that Bach traveled to Ohrdruf after Easter 1702 and that he spent the balance of the year there, the compilation of the two Ohrdruf anthologies appears in a new light. While earlier it was assumed that Sebastian made the new repertoire available to his Ohrdruf brother only after settling in Arnstadt in 1703, it now seems more plausible that on returning to Ohrdruf in 1702 and repossessing the “moonlight manuscript” once confiscated by Christoph, Sebastian paid off with interest the debt he owed his older brother for copying from his treasured collection without permission. Christoph now acquired numerous organ and harpsichord pieces by, among others, the northerners Reinken, Böhm, Buxtehude, and Nicolaus Bruhns and the French Lebègue, Lully, Louis Marchand, and Marais. There is no question that entries in the Ohrdruf anthologies extended over several years and that Sebastian, from nearby Arnstadt, continued to make material available to his brother, but the transfer most plausibly began in the spring of 1702 rather than the fall of 1703.

  The contents of the two anthologies reflect to a considerable extent the repertoire that Bach was able to collect, perform, and study in Lüneburg. However, the technical demands and styles of these pieces not only provide information about Bach’s skills at the keyboard, they serve at the same time as guideposts to his own development as a composer—the processes of copying and playing, studying and composing, always went hand in hand. As the two anthologies also demonstrate, Sebastian furnished his brother with quite a few compositions of his own. These works form clusters of genres and styles that can be lined up chronologically with distinct stages of Bach’s compositional development, beginning with somewhat experimental pieces that probably originated from the late 1690s, before Lüneburg (such as the Fantasia in C, BWV 570—a quasi-exercise, modeled after Pachelbel, in maintaining the simple rhythmic-melodic motif), and concluding with more mature and genuinely sophisticated works likely dating from the later Arnstadt years (such as the Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582—synthesizing and surpassing Buxtehudian and French models) and beyond.