Johann Sebastian Bach

by Christoph Wolff

  TABLE 5.3. Bach’s Organ Projects and Examinations

  In his report on the Hildebrandt organ at St. Wenceslas’s in Naumburg, which he tested in 1746 together with Gottfried Silbermann, Bach writes that in a regular examination “every part specified and promised by the contract” had to be inspected, “namely keyboards, bellows, wind chests, channels, pedal and manual action, with its various parts, registers and stops pertaining thereto, both open and stopped, as well as reeds.”51 Accordingly, he notes in the same report that “each and every part has been made with care” and that “the pipes are honestly delivered in the material specified,” but suggests that the organ builder “go through the entire organ once more, from stop to stop, and watch out for more complete equality both of voicing and of key and stop action.” The Scheibe organ at St. Paul’s Church in Leipzig showed more deficiencies; Bach suggests precautions “to forestall sudden blasts of wind” remedies “in respect to inequality of voicing” so that the lowest pipes of several stops “shall not speak so coarsely and noisily, but rather produce and maintain a clear and firm tone” and adjustments so that “the touch of the organ” be made “somewhat lighter” and “the keys not go down so far.”52 He could also look well beyond the customary aspects, as he does in the same 1717 report, where he finds fault with “the whole structure of the organ” and the fact “that it will be hard to get at every part,” yet sympathizes with the organ builder because “he was not granted the additional space he requested in order to arrange the structure more conveniently.” He also advises that the part of a window that “extends behind the organ should be shielded on the inside by a little wall, or by a heavy piece of sheet iron, to avoid further threatened damage from the weather.” Bach never dealt unfairly with organ builders, whom he considered to be close colleagues. On the contrary, “his justice to the organ builders…went so far that, when he found the work really good and the sum agreed upon too small, so that the builder would evidently have been a loser by this work, he endeavored to induce those who had contracted for it to make a suitable addition, which he, in fact, obtained in several cases.”53

  Most important, Bach knew how to get patrons and congregations pleased and excited about their new organ by demonstrating what might be done with it, however unconventional. A posthumous report on Bach’s 1739 dedication of the Trost organ at the Altenburg palace church reads:

  For an organist, to yield to the singing congregation is better than to have it his way. Only a few are able to direct the congregation as the old Bach could do, who, on the great organ in Altenburg, played the Credo hymn [“Wir glauben all an einen Gott”] in D minor, but for the second stanza lifted the congregation to E-flat minor, and for the third one even up to E minor. That, however, only a Bach and an organ in Altenburg could make happen. This, all of us are not, and have not.54

  6

  Expanding Musical Horizons

  CONCERTMASTER IN WEIMAR, 1714–1717

  A CAREER CHOICE

  “On Friday, March 2, 1714, His Serene Highness the Reigning Duke most graciously conferred upon the quondam Court Organist Bach, at his most humble request, the title of Concertmaster, with official rank below that of Vice-Capellmeister Drese, for which he is to be obliged to perform new works monthly. And for rehearsals of those, the musicians of the capelle are required to appear on his demand.”1 It was apparently Bach himself who requested this promotion to the newly created post of concertmaster of the Weimar court capelle. He was in a position to do so because he had been offered the post of organist and music director at Our Lady’s Church in Halle. The exact spelling-out of the Weimar rank indicates that the duke was unwilling to put Bach on an equal footing with the vice-capellmeister, even though Bach’s salary since the spring of 1713 had risen even above that of the capellmeister.

  Bach’s formal charge to perform newly composed church pieces once a month was based on a model created in 1695 for then vice-capellmeister Georg Christoph Strattner, which regulated the monthly division of labor for Sunday performances at the palace church in such a way that the capellmeister Johann Samuel Drese was responsible for three Sundays and the vice-capellmeister Strattner for one. We can assume that this schedule continued when Drese’s son Johann Wilhelm attained the vice-capellmeistership after Strattner’s death in 1704. With Bach now entering the scheme of alternation, it seems that he asked for an equal share with the vice-capellmeister, so that the two of them were assigned to one monthly performance each as the aging and increasingly impaired capellmeister reduced his load. Prior to this formal arrangement, Bach was probably asked to take over a Sunday performance only occasionally, when a special need arose—a situation he would have chafed at as being inadequate—so he now aimed at regularizing both his role and his schedule.

  Rather than having two vice-capellmeisters with one simultaneously serving as court organist and thereby holding a more privileged position, the court administration agreed to Bach’s “humble request” to reshape his original appointment and include him as concertmaster in the leadership team of the court capelle. It was an ingenious solution. Creating a new position with a respectable title was in itself a novel idea at the Weimar court, and while the duties attached to the job cut into those of the capellmeister and vice-capellmeister, their ranks at the top of the court capelle hierarchy could remain intact. But what were the specific functions of the concertmaster? Beginning in the later seventeenth century, the larger court establishments employed for their capelle a “Maitre de Concert,” or “Concert-Meister,” as leader of the instrumentalists—“Regente bey der Instrumental Music,” as Johann Mattheson put it.2 Musicians appointed to such a post would discharge their primary duties from the first-violin chair; they were also responsible for all technical aspects of the performances, from making up the ensemble according to the varying requirements to organizing the rehearsals, positioning the players, and conducting performances, especially those of a purely instrumental nature.

  The reference to rehearsals in the concluding sentence of his appointment notification confirms that Bach was indeed put in charge of these tasks. Additional instructions from the court at the time of Bach’s promotion seem to reflect certain demands he had made for improving the quality of the performances. For example, the court issued a directive that “the rehearsing of the pieces at the home [of the capellmeister] has been changed, and it is ordered that it must always take place at the Kirchen-Capelle[the music gallery in the palace church], and this is also to be observed by the Capellmeister.” It is clear that this new regulation refers not just to performances of pieces composed by the concertmaster but to all pieces. Bach must have stood behind this major change, which reflects nothing less than an indirect reprimand of the capellmeister and, by extension, of the vice-capellmeister for maintaining too lax a regime. That Bach claimed and was given more authority is reflected in the order that “the musicians of the capelle are required to appear on his demand”—apparently in order to improve discipline and achieve better musical results. Although the wording of the promotion announcement and the changing of rehearsal venue applied specifically to church music, the consequences were surely felt throughout the activities of the court capelle. Through the duke’s discreet yet forceful action, the balance of power within the capelle had definitely shifted to Bach. At the same time, the fact that the upper ranks remained unchanged likely remained a source of continuing troubles and frustrations for him.

  The concertmaster appointment was the result of negotiations that extended over at least three months. It all began with the attractive offer to succeed Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, Handel’s teacher, who for twenty-eight years had occupied the distinguished post once held by Samuel Scheidt at Our Lady’s in Halle. After a lengthy search process, the Halle church board elected Bach as Zachow’s successor on December 13, 1713; a proffer agreement was negotiated the following day and approved by the board on January 11, 1714. The contract then was sent to Bach in duplicate by special courier, with the expec
tation that he would immediately return one signed copy. Instead, and apparently while the courier was waiting,3 Bach wrote back to August Becker, chairman of the church board, on January 14, informing him about a delay in his “final decision” for the following reasons:

  First, that I have not yet received my definite dismissal and, second, that in one and another respect I should like to have some changes made, in respect of the salary as well as of the duties; concerning all of which I will inform you in writing in the course of this week. Meanwhile, I am returning the one copy [of the agreement], and since I have not yet received my definite dismissal, you will not take it amiss, my Most Honored Sir, that I am at the moment not yet able to engage myself elsewhere by signing my name before I am really released from service here. And as soon as we can agree upon the station, I shall appear at once in person and show by my signature that I am really willing to engage myself in Your Honors’ service. Meanwhile, I beg you, Most Honored Sir…to make my excuses to [the church board] that at the present moment time has not allowed me to give any categorical decision, both because of certain obligations at Court in connection with the Prince’s birthday and because the church services in themselves did not permit it; but it shall be given this week formally and without fail.4 Bach was buying time, and he had good reasons for doing so. The weeks after December 14 were indeed filled with major obligations: first, the festivities on Christmas Day, marking the seventeenth birthday of Prince Johann Ernst, which because of the prince’s keen musical interests may well have developed into a minor music festival; and second, the frequent church services during the Christmas season. Asking for his dismissal from court service at such a time would have been particularly awkward, so it made sense to postpone the matter until the middle of January. He is, in fact, unlikely to have formally requested his dismissal before January 14, but since his visit to Halle (lasting over two weeks) could not have been a secret at the Weimar court, he may only have hinted at his success and then received a signal that his salary might be increased. The promised letter to Halle is lost, but the minutes of the church board meeting of February 1 allude to Bach’s attempt at renegotiating the agreement and mention a request for “a supplement to the salary,” which was refused. Instead, Bach was given an ultimatum “to make a definite decision within two days.” Again, his reply has not survived, but at a meeting of the board on March 1, it was recorded that Bach had “declared himself negatively.”5

  This decision created great disappointment in Halle and some consternation among the church board members, who sensed deceptive dealings on Bach’s part. Reacting to their astonishment, Bach reminded August Becker in a sternly worded letter of March 19 that he had not, after all, applied for the post. “The Most Honored Collegium applied to me,” he wrote, and only then “I presented myself.” How Bach’s invitation to present himself in Halle came about may be surmised, with the chief pastor of Our Lady’s, D. Johann Michael Heineccius, playing a decisive role. Earlier, Heineccius supported an ambitious project of Zachow’s to have a new organ built for the church; Zachow, however, did not live to see his project through. A contract with the organ builder Christoph Cuntzius of Halle was finally signed on September 30, 1712, just seven weeks after Zachow’s death, calling for a very large instrument comprising sixty-five stops on three manuals and pedal and an equally enormous fee of 6,300 talers. As things stood, this project of unprecedented size and expense—for the organ builder as well as for the city of Halle—would have to be undertaken without close supervision by a competent resident organist. Clearly, a well-recognized consultant was needed, and the Weimar court organist Bach was only about sixty miles away, half a day’s coach trip. Heineccius might have learned about Bach and his reputation as an organ expert from Weimar’s general superintendent Lairitz, from theological colleagues, or from the organ builder Cuntzius and his network.6 Although Bach’s consultantship in Halle has not been documented,7 his presence there for more than two weeks in late 1713 and the special treatment he was to receive there can hardly be explained otherwise; moreover, Bach later served, along with Johann Kuhnau of Leipzig and Christian Friedrich Rolle of Quedlinburg, on the committee to examine the finished organ in the spring of 1716.

  Bach’s trip to Halle at the invitation of the church board, sometime between November 28 and December 1, 1713, was not intended to promote him as a candidate for the Zachow post, although he must have known that the vacancy had not yet been filled. Four distinguished organists who made the final cut, Gottfried Kirchhoff of Quedlinburg, Valentin Haußmann of Schafstädt, Melchior Hoffmann of Leipzig, and Simon Conrad Lippe of Magdeburg, had already auditioned for the job before the process was interrupted: King Frederick I of Prussia died on February 25, 1713. During the subsequent state mourning period (one year), which affected Halle as part of electoral Brandenburg, public performances of concerted music were prohibited. The church board, eager to save money, saw no reason to seek a quick solution to the Zachow succession and put the matter on hold. Melchior Hoffmann, organist of the New Church in Leipzig, was commissioned to set to music a mourning text by pastor Heineccius and to present the work at the official state memorial service for the Prussian king on May 1. The choice of Hoffmann for this important and highly visible event indicates that he was then considered the leading candidate. Yet the position was still open when Bach traveled to Halle, presumably to advise on the large-scale organ project. He was put up at the city’s most luxurious hotel, the Inn of the Golden Ring, located on the market square right across from Our Lady’s Church. All his expenses were paid, as the innkeeper’s itemized invoice to the church board shows.8

  Expenses Mr. Pach [sic] has incurred

  For food

  2 rthl.

  16 gr.

  For beer

  18 gr.

  For brandy

  8 gr.

  For heat

  1 rthl.

  4 gr.

  For lodging and light

  2 rthl.

  For tobacco

  4 gr.

  Summa

  7 rthl.

  2 gr.

  [signed:] Joh. Sebast. Bach

  J. H. Eberhardt [innkeeper]

  Bach ate and drank well—his 18 groschen would buy thirty-two quarts of beer at retail price. While there, he was apparently approached about the vacant position at Our Lady’s and asked “to present himself,” which he did. But as he indicated in his letter of January 14, he had planned to leave directly afterward: “I, after presenting myself, should immediately have taken my leave if the request and courteous invitation of D. Heineccius had not compelled me to compose and to perform the piece you know of.”9 So Bach agreed to a formal audition, and on the spot—presumably in his comfortable and well-heated hotel room, cheered by tobacco and brandy—he composed a cantata to a text provided by pastor Heineccius, prepared the performing materials, rehearsed the piece, and performed it. The church board managed to circumvent the restrictions of the ongoing state mourning period either by staging a nonpublic performance at the church or, more likely, by finding a way to lift the restrictions for a public performance on the second Sunday in Advent, December 10 of that year, or during a weekday service. Moreover, Bach was paid an honorarium of 12 talers for his audition piece,10 a gesture entirely out of line with established practices. In every way, Bach’s treatment by the church and town authorities proves that they attached extraordinary importance to having the court organist, organ expert, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach in town.

  The identity of the test cantata Bach wrote in Halle has, unfortunately, not been established,11 but it impressed the church authorities so deeply that they chose to ignore the previous list of candidates, including Melchior Hoffmann, and elected Bach as Zachow’s successor, on December 13. The minutes of the church board meeting record not only the majority vote but also that Bach was asked to appear, probably on the following day, and that “the organist post was offered to him, for which he duly thanked the Collegium and accep
ted the position.”12 On the next day, December 15, Bach returned to Weimar.

  The contract that was drawn up after Bach left but predated to December 14 specified the official duties of the organist in five paragraphs:13 (1) to play the organ at the regular services on Sundays, Saturdays, and feast days; (2) “on high and other feasts, as well as on every third Sunday, to present with the cantor and choir students, as well as with the town musicians and other instrumentalists, a moving and well-sounding sacred work; and on particular occasions such as the second and third days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, to perform short concerted pieces with the cantor and the students, and also at times with some violins and other instruments” (3) “to communicate in good time to the chief pastor…D. Heineccius, for his approval, the texts and music chosen” (4) “to accompany attentively the regular chorales and those prescribed by the minister…slowly and without embellishment, in four and five parts, on the Diapason, to change the other stops at each verse, also to use the Quintaden and the reeds, the Gedackt, as well as syncopations and suspensions, in such a manner that the congregation can take the organ as the basis of good harmony and unison tone” and (5) to take good care of “the large and small organs, as well as the Church regal and other instruments belonging to the Church.” Finally, the contract set the annual salary at the rate of 140 talers, to which were added 24 talers for housing and 7 talers 12 groschen for firewood. Catechism and wedding services would be paid separately at the rate of 1 taler each. However, “secondary employment during the present engagement” would not be permitted.