The Arnstadt organist had held his public audition for the Mühlhausen post on Easter Sunday, April 24, about a month before the meeting and almost two months after Walther’s canceled date. There is reason to believe that Bach performed the Easter cantata “Christ lag in Todes Banden,” BWV 4, a setting of all seven stanzas of the Easter hymn in as many movements, preceded by an instrumental sinfonia (see Table 4.4). And although no pre-Leipzig sources survive for the cantata,59 for stylistic reasons it belongs unquestionably to the pre-Weimar repertoire. We don’t know whether Bach submitted a score of BWV 4 along with some other piece as part of his application, or whether he sent in two altogether different works and composed the Easter cantata ad hoc for the audition, after he had learned of its date. There is in any case no question about the attraction the vocal dimension of the Mühlhausen post held for Bach, nor about his solid preparation as a composer of vocal works before the Mühlhausen audition, nor, for that matter, of the outstanding impression he made with his abilities in the vocal realm. As he would hardly have risked presenting a half-baked product, any of the works listed in Table 4.4 could have qualified as a viable submission to the search committee. At the same time, their generally mature quality implies not only that examples may once have existed of a lesser-developed technique, but also that Bach must have devoted considerable time and effort in Arnstadt toward gaining compositional experience in vocal music.
Bach needed permission to be absent for the Mühlhausen audition, and the Arnstadt church authorities could not have been much pleased to see a substitute take the appointed organist’s place once again on major holidays, as one had in the 1705–6 Christmas season. But they also must have understood that he was on the lookout for a new position and may even have offered him encouragement. When they learned of his successful audition, they could not have been surprised when Bach, after a second short trip in mid-June to Mühlhausen to negotiate his new appointment, indicated his intention to resign his post at the New Church. That decision was made official on June 29, when Bach appeared before the Arnstadt consistory with a formal request for his dismissal and to return the keys of the organ.60 By that date, both cousin Johann Ernst Bach, Sebastian’s loyal Arnstadt substitute, and Andreas Börner, organist of the Lower Church, had already submitted their applications for the desirable organist post at the New Church.61 But although Bach started in Mühlhausen on July 1,62 the Arnstadt consistory took an agonizingly long time in deciding on a successor to this musician whose exceptional talents outweighed his occasional refusal to collaborate with an undisciplined student choir. Perhaps Count Anton Günther II himself, to whose personal attention Andreas Börner had sent his own application, was dissatisfied with the talent search under way; perhaps the extended Bach clan had to sort out things between two family members—one a Bach (and so far unemployed), the other related by marriage (with a current job in Arnstadt). Whatever the case, it took nearly a year, until the following May 14, before Ernst Bach was finally appointed—at a substantial reduction in salary compared with his predecessor’s.63
Mühlhausen represented a step up for Bach, in both its location and its importance. The city was, after Erfurt, Thuringia’s second largest, an entity of considerable historical and political importance, and the closest equivalent in central Germany to the free imperial cities of Hamburg and Lübeck. Independent of princely rule since the early thirteenth century, the city council reported directly to the emperor in Vienna. Like Erfurt’s, Mühlhausen’s skyline was dominated by its many church spires. No fewer than thirteen churches could be found within its walls, with St. Mary’s and St. Blasius’s the largest and most important. After adopting the Lutheran Reformation in 1557—quite a bit later than the surrounding principalities—Mülhausen had established a peculiar balance of power between its church and civic governments. The superintendent, as head of the church government, had his base at St. Blasius’s, while the city council, as the civic government, considered St. Mary’s its principal house of worship. In October-November 1627, for instance, amid the violent turbulence of the Thirty Years’ War, the electoral assembly chaired by Emperor Ferdinand II met in Mühlhausen, and the ceremonial opening service was held at St. Mary’s, with the electoral Saxon Ober-Capellmeister Heinrich Schütz conducting his grand polychoral concerto “Da pacem, Domine,” SWV 465, written for this very occasion.
Except for such major state events, however, the musical center lay at St. Blasius’s, where the organist and composer Joachim a Burck, who served there from 1566 to 1610 as the first Lutheran musician, established a distinguished tradition of church music. Remnants at the St. Blasius archive of a once-rich choir library still provide vivid testimony of that heritage.64 Moreover, since Joachim a Burck’s time, the St. Blasius organist also functioned as municipal music director, even though he did not carry that title. It became even clearer during the long tenure of the two Ahles that official musical events connected to the city council were invariably delegated to them. Bach savored his new responsibilities and opportunities, which far exceeded those of his junior position in Arnstadt. At St. Blasius’s, the city’s senior minister, Superintendent Johann Adolph Frohne, officiated, and Bach held the senior musical post. By appointing him, the Mühlhausen authorities demonstrated great confidence in the ability of this twenty-two-year-old to provide musical leadership. He was also expected to collaborate with the town musicians as well as with the chorus musicus and the (vocal-instrumental) chorus symphoniacus of the Mühlhausen gymnasium, the Latin school that served the two main churches. In the interest of orderly arrangements, the gymnasium assigned two of its teachers to the two churches as cantors. In Bach’s time, Johann Bernhard Stier served as quartus and cantor at St. Blasius’s, while Johann Heinrich Melchior Scheiner worked as cantor with the organist Johann Gottfried Hetzehenn at St. Mary’s.65
Much as in Arnstadt, Bach’s Mühlhausen contract did not specify the organist’s involvement with vocal music in general or the choral and instrumental ensembles in particular. It merely required that, besides loyally serving the city’s authorities and working for its best interests, he “show himself willing in the execution of the duties required of him and be available at all times, particularly attend to his service faithfully and industriously on Sundays, Feast Days, and other Holy Days, keep the organ entrusted to him in at least good condition, call the attention of…the appointed supervisors to any defects found in it, and industriously watch over its repairs and music.”66 The phrase “duties required of him,” however, suggests that these were verbally outlined to Bach and that he had agreed to them at the meeting of the parish convent, where he had appeared in person on June 14, 1707.67 At the same meeting, he was also asked “what he would ask for the position,” and the details had apparently been worked out before the meeting with the town scribe Bellstedt. Bach did not bargain but asked basically for what he had received in Arnstadt, 85 florins in cash—20 florins more than Ahle was paid. Additionally, Bach received considerable allowances (fifty-four bushels of grain, two cords of firewood, and six times threescore kindling—all delivered to his door) that were not available to him in Arnstadt. However, as there was nothing similar to the Feldhaus home in Mühlhausen, he would now have to take care of his own household. Since he also requested “the assistance of a wagon to move his effects,” he must by then have accumulated enough furniture, musical instruments, books, scores, clothing, and other household goods to fill such a wagon. Moreover, Maria Barbara Bach, his young wife to be, would join him soon. Although the wedding date may not yet have been set, Bach had no reason to withhold his marriage plans—which the town scribe Bellstedt, related by marriage to Maria Barbara’s family, would probably have known anyway. By a happy coincidence, Bach inherited 50 florins from the estate of his Erfurt uncle Tobias Lämmerhirt, his mother’s brother, who died on August 10, 1707—a sum that would help him considerably to establish his own household or to acquire, if needed, a larger and better harpsichord for his studio.
Because Bach’s contract with the St. Blasius Parish Convent concerning his overall duties and earnings was vague on specifics, it fails to mention that he also held a subcontract, as his predecessors had, with St. Mary and Magdalen’s Church of the Augustinian Convent, the so-called Brückenhof Church.68 This smaller church, attached to the St. Mary and Magdalen’s School for girls (founded at the old St. Augustine’s nunnery in 1565, in anticipation of the Lutheran Reformation’s acceptance), contained a new one-manual organ, built for 228 florins by Johann Friedrich Wender in 1701–2, at the same time the organ at the New Church in Arnstadt was under construction.69 Traditionally, the organists of St. Blasius’s and St. Mary’s Churches alternated playing the weekly services for the girls’ school, each receiving annually 4 florins 16 groschen, plus four bushels of wheat and sixteen “malters” of rye. Bach participated in this rotation from the very beginning, as his first payment is recorded for the Holy Cross quarter (July-September) of 1707.
Similar alternating arrangements for the two principal town organists existed with three other churches—St. Kilian’s, All Saints, and Holy Cross—again with additional remuneration. Although payment records have not survived, a more detailed contract set up for Bach’s second successor, Christoph Bieler, provides the necessary information and also tells us about the organist’s duties at St. Blasius’s. According to this 1730 document, the organist was expected “to play figural[iter] and choral[iter]”—that is, to perform preludes, fugues, and chorale elaborations as well as accompany congregational hymns—“on all Sundays and feast days and extraordinary holidays [Marian feasts and those commemorating the apostles] at the Matins, morning, and afternoon services of St. Blasius’s, and at the so-called week churches [where no Sunday services were held] of St. Mary-Magdalen’s, St. Kilian’s, All Saints, and Holy Cross in alternation with the organist at B[eatae] Mar[iae] Virg[inis].”70 Not specifically mentioned are two services at St. Blasius’s on Tuesdays and Fridays, nor is it noted that Matins services were not held on most Sundays and feast days. In a normal week, then, Bach was responsible for altogether six services—two more than in Arnstadt, though for some additional pay. Furthermore, since Mühlhausen provided many more opportunities for weddings, funerals, and other special services at extra pay, his total income was considerably greater than it had been before.71
Bach’s increased workload may have been partially offset with the help of assistants. The first documented pupil “who learned the playing of the clavier from Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach, and stayed with him the whole time from 1707 until 1717,” was Johann Martin Schubart,72 although the much younger Johann Caspar Vogler is reported to have received Bach’s instruction in Arnstadt as a ten-year-old.73 Both gifted youngsters certainly worked with Bach in Mühlhausen, inaugurating a steady stream of private students that ended only with his death. Schubart later succeeded Bach in Weimar, and after Schubart’s early death in 1721, Vogler became his successor. Typically among professional musicians, pupils who achieved a certain proficiency could serve as apprentices and associates, roles that Schubart may have filled to ease his teacher’s burdens.
The structure of the divine service in Mühlhausen did not differ much from that in Arnstadt. The service followed either the Schwarzburg Agenda of 1675, prescribed for the three Schwarzburg counties of Rudolstadt, Arnstadt, and Sondershausen but widely adopted throughout Thuringia, or the electoral-Saxon Agenda, Das ist, Kirchen-Ordnung (Leipzig, 1691).74 The electoral-Saxon formulary differed from the Schwarzburg (Table 4.2) in only minor musical aspects:
the Kyrie and Gloria were preceded by a polyphonic Introit motet for the specific Sunday or feast day (choir);
the Sanctus was performed polyphonically, on high feast days only (choir);
one of two Communion hymns, “Jesus Christus unser Heiland” or “Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeiet,” was sung (congregation and organ).
The local hymnbook in use was the Vermehrtes Gesang-Buch of 1686, containing texts without melodies, and edited by Superintendent Frohne’s father, Johann Bernhard Frohne, reissued in 1697 and 1703 and revised by Johann Adolph Frohne himself in 1713.
Both principal churches of the city, St. Blasius’s in the lower part (Unterstadt) and St. Mary’s in the upper part (Oberstadt), were originally built in the thirteenth century. The first reference to St. Blasius’s stems from 1227, and the oldest bell in one of the two massive church towers bears a casting mark of 1281. In 1560–63, after the late-Gothic hall church had been enlarged, Jost Pape of Göttingen built an organ on a separate gallery at the west end of the central aisle, the instrument Joachim a Burck first played. After extensive but apparently ineffective repairs executed in 1676 by Jost Schäfer of Langensalza, the organ was substantially rebuilt and enlarged in 1687–91 by Mühlhausen’s own Johann Friedrich Wender, according to plans drawn up by Johann Georg Ahle.
This fairly large instrument, with thirty stops on two manuals (Oberwerk and Rückpositiv) and pedal, was the organ Bach played the most in Mühlhausen, and it served him well. That he found small defects here and there should not surprise, considering that major parts were by then almost 150 years old. However, that Bach could persuade the parish convent to undertake a large-scale renovation and further expansion of the organ less than twenty years after the previous major overhaul speaks for the respect and admiration the young organist had won during little more than half a year in the job. On February 21, 1708, consul Conrad Meckbach, who had also been a council member when the rebuilding under Johann Georg Ahle was undertaken, submitted for discussion Bach’s new plans for the organ. The following day, organ builder Wender was queried about Bach’s design and estimated a cost of 250 talers for materials and labor. After further discussion and negotiations, all within only two days, a sum of 230 talers was approved for the ambitious project.75
Bach’s “Project for New Repairs to the Organ” demonstrates thorough technological expertise and great musical imagination.76 He deals with problems of the wind chests and stresses the importance of stable and stronger wind pressure, especially for a new thirty-two-foot pedal sub-bass stop that he proposed in order to give the organ “the most solid foundation” and for the larger pipes he requested for the sixteen-foot pedal Posaune. A thirty-two-foot stop must have been a particular dream of his ever since he encountered such a stop as part of Reinken’s organ in Hamburg (in 1768, Johann Friedrich Agricola quotes Bach as giving “assurance that the 32-foot Principal and the pedal Posaune in the organ of St. Catharine’s in Hamburg spoke evenly and quite audibly right down to the lowest C”).77 Bach suggests replacing a few old stops with new ones that would offer a more varied sound, in particular “a Fagotto of 16-foot tone…which is useful for all kinds of new inventiones and sounds very fine in concerted music.” Special effects would be created by a new set of chimes (Glockenspiel) in the pedal that, according to Bach, was “desired by the parishioners.” The most important matter, however, was the addition of an entire third manual (Brustpositiv) with seven carefully chosen metal and wood stops of different pitches, shapes, scales, and sound qualities—giving the whole organ more character, timbre, and flexibility for both solo and accompanying purposes.
The approval of these renovations apparently occurred at a most opportune moment for Bach, when major church and city officials were very proud of their new organist. Less than three weeks earlier, on February 4, 1708, he had presented his first large-scale vocal-instrumental composition at the annual inauguration of the city council, honoring the newly elected burgomasters, Adolf Strecker and Georg Adam Steinbach, and the forty-eight council members (elected for life). The ceremonial service took place at St. Mary’s, but according to established tradition, the town council election music, known as the “little council piece,” was always repeated at St. Blasius’s on the following Sunday in the Vespers service.78 Since in 1708 February 4 fell on a Saturday, the two performances of the state music, whose text also included a reference to Emperor Joseph I, took place on successive days. On February 11,
Bach collected the honorarium of 3 talers that his predecessor Ahle had also received annually for the same purpose.79 However, the expenses for the customary publication of the text booklet and the music—10 talers for the printer and 8 groschen for the bookbinder—were much higher than in previous years.80 Bach had composed a work of unusual proportions and complexity that made the performances of earlier council pieces pale by comparison, as most everyone would have immediately noticed. Ahle’s council pieces generally consisted of strophic arias with instrumental accompaniment. No longer a little piece, Bach’s “Gott ist mein König,” BWV 71, was a full-fledged multimovement cantata, a “Congratulatory Church Motet” according to its original title.81
The large St. Mary’s Church with its several galleries and lofts had long invited polychoral music. But never before had the four-hundred-year-old church witnessed a performance with as spectacular and diversified a vocal-instrumental ensemble as it did that February in 1708, under the skilled direction of its new organist. Bach had taken a newer kind of compositional structure as his model: Buxtehude’s famous Lübeck Abend-Musiken, which were known to have featured polychoral design. The autograph score of BWV 71 clearly lays out its polychoral plan, involving altogether seven different performing units:
Instrumental choir I:
Trumpet I–III, timpani
Instrumental choir II:
Violin I–II, viola, violone
Instrumental choir III:
Oboe I–II, bassoon
Instrumental choir IV:
Recorder I–II, violoncello
Vocal choir I:
SATB solo
Vocal choir II:
SATB ripieno (ad libitum)
Johann Sebastian Bach Page 18