Here the minutes break off, with the sixty-five-year-old Abraham Christoph Platz recalling what he had heard about someone whose name he could not remember: Christian Heckel, cantor in Pirna, who seemed competent in teaching both music and academic subjects (Latin grammar and Luther’s Catechism were traditionally the cantor’s domain). Platz urged the council to turn away from the best musicians (like Telemann, Graupner, Bach, Kauffmann, and Schott) and instead look for the best teachers, even if their musical qualifications were only “mediocre.” Though the rest of the arguments pro and con remain unknown, Lange and his followers somehow persuaded the council to reach a compromise with respect to the teaching function and to make Bach an offer. Having learned a lesson about unpredictable sovereign rulers, the council invited Bach back to Leipzig and asked him to sign a preliminary pledge that he would
not only within three or, at the most, four weeks from this date make myself free of the engagement given me at the Court of the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen, but also, when I actually enter upon the duties of the said post of Cantor, conduct myself according to the School Regulations now in effect or to be put into effect; and especially I will instruct the boys admitted into the School not only in the regular classes established for that purpose but also, without special compensation, in private singing lessons. I will also faithfully attend to whatever else is incumbent upon me, and furthermore, but not without the previous knowledge and consent of a Noble and Wise Council, in case someone should be needed to assist me in the instruction in the Latin language, will faithfully and without ado compensate the said person out of my own pocket.97
On April 19, when Bach put his signature under this pledge, he already knew that his patron had generously granted him the dismissal: a letter, signed by Prince Leopold on April 13, was in the mail. It refers to the service of “the Respectable and Learned Johann Sebastian Bach, since August 5, 1717, as Capellmeister and Director of Our Chamber Music,” and states “that we have at all times been well content with his discharge of his duties, but the said Bach, wishing now to seek his fortune elsewhere, has accordingly most humbly petitioned Us to grant him a most gracious dismissal, now therefore We have been pleased graciously to grant him the same and to give him highest recommendation for service elsewhere.”98
On April 22, shortly after the arrival of the prince’s letter, the entire city council, this time in a joint assembly of all three councils, moved to proceed with Bach’s election. First, Burgomaster Lange summarized the long process by recounting how Telemann “had not kept his promise” and by clarifying that Graupner had privately (but never formally) been offered the job, but that “he could not obtain his dismissal.” He then turned to the new candidate: “Bach was Capellmeister in Cöthen and excelled on the clavier. Besides music he had the teaching equipment; and the Cantor must give instruction in the Colloquia Corderi[a textbook of piety, letters, and behavior] and in grammar, which he was willing to do. He had formally undertaken to give not only public but also private instruction. If Bach were chosen, Telemann, in view of his conduct, might be forgotten.”99
Councillor Platz spoke next, emphasizing that Bach “must accommodate himself to the instruction of the youth. Bach was fitted for this and willing to do it, and accordingly he cast his vote for him.” Since the two antagonists had now reached agreement, the entire council voted unanimously for Bach. The burgomaster concluded the meeting, but not without mentioning another crucial point that spoke in favor of Bach. He noted that “it was necessary to be sure to get a famous man, in order to inspire the [university] students.” Because the church music in Leipzig traditionally depended on qualified student performers, whom Johann Kuhnau had had trouble attracting, Lange was confident that the new appointment would change that situation for the better and that things generally “would turn out well.” And he must then have appreciated the letter that Christoph Graupner, after learning the outcome, wrote on May 4, assuring the city council that Bach is “a musician just as strong on the organ as he is expert in church works and capelle pieces,” and one who “will honestly and properly perform the functions entrusted to him.”100
Not all the technical details of the appointment were settled when Bach returned to Cöthen to inform his patron of his official election to the distinguished post at St. Thomas’s and to prepare himself and his family for a major, almost instant change in their lives. About two and a half months earlier, on his way home after the Leipzig audition, the outcome had been uncertain. He may then have thought back to Hamburg in 1720, Halle in 1713, and even Sangerhausen in 1702 and realized that he had never lost an audition, however complicated the subsequent deliberations had become. And complicated they became once again, but the outcome was finally clear and right. What may have gone through his mind is hinted at in his 1730 letter to Erdmann: “it pleased God that I should be called hither to be Director Musices and Cantor at the St. Thomas School.”101
A CANON OF PRINCIPLES, AND PUSHING THE LIMITS
In the fall of 1722, when Bach submitted his application for the Kuhnau succession, he must have realized that he would need to present his credentials as a competent instructor of music. A simple declaration of willingness and readiness to teach would not suffice, and evidence of pertinent experience would be due at the interviews conducted, at the time of the public audition, by the rector of the St. Thomas School, M. Johann Heinrich Ernesti, and possibly by members of the inner council. There was certainly no need to prove himself as a musician outside the audition, but he held no university degree, nor had he ever studied at a university. His academic background was shaped by the excellent schools he had attended; he had received top grades and, after all, graduated from the acclaimed St. Michael’s School in Lüneburg, an institution of supra-regional reputation—although by now, his education lay twenty years back. In the meantime, while he had never engaged in any school or classroom teaching, he had nonetheless developed considerable experience in the private instruction of individual students. Having attracted private pupils early on and having maintained an active and growing teaching studio ever since, he knew well that he was a passionate and successful teacher. But how could he demonstrate this to his examiners?
In reviewing his studio practices, Bach probably realized that he could, in fact, produce tangible evidence of having developed innovative and unparalleled instructional materials. Always, his teaching of keyboard instruments went well beyond the drill of mere technical skills and included an introduction to basic musical systems, especially to the principles of musical composition. With particular care, he had prepared the instruction of his ten-year-old firstborn with the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1720). He began with a quick review of the tone system (clefs, pitches, and registers of voices), ornaments, and fingering, spending no more than three pages on these preliminary matters. He then turned to little preludes, chorale elaborations, dance settings, a group of more substantial preludes in different keys (including such remote and difficult keys as C-sharp minor and E-flat minor), a simple fugue, fifteen praeambula in strict two-part counterpoint (all in different keys, in ascending and descending order), followed by fifteen strict three-part fantasias (organized in the same manner), and suites by Telemann, Johann Christoph Richter, and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel—all interspersed with the young student’s own exercises in composition. The various compositional models, examples of which are found in this Little Clavier Book, he had either already collected elsewhere more systematically (for example, the short chorale preludes of the Weimar Orgel-Büchlein) or would soon undertake to compile (as in The Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of preludes and fugues written over the years that included some of the preludes from the Friedemann Bach Book and the Aufrichtige Anleitung[Upright Instruction],102 a revised version of the praeambula and fantasias from the Friedemann Bach Book).
The manuscript sources themselves provide no conclusive information on how far The Well-Tempered Clavieror the Aufrichtige Anleitung had progressed by th
e time Bach began preparing himself as a candidate for St. Thomas’s. Both autograph scores are fair copies and dated 1722 and 1723, respectively. The context clearly suggests, however, that the two manuscripts were completed in the fall and winter of 1722–23 and that their corresponding title pages, including that added to the Orgel-Büchlein, were conceived in conjunction with Bach’s application to the cantorate. All three elaborate titles emphasize the pedagogical intent and method of the materials contained in the volumes and introduce Bach as the author of exemplary and serviceable textbooks.
(1) “The Well-Tempered Clavier, or preludes and fugues through all the tones and semitones, both as regards the tertia major or Ut Re Mi and as concerns the tertia minor or Re Mi Fa. For the use and profit of the musical youth desirous of learning as well as for the pastime of those already skilled in this study” [a volume of 90 pages in folio format, dated 1722].
(2) “Aufrichtige Anleitung, wherein the lovers of the clavier, and especially those desirous of learning, are shown a clear way not only (1) to learn to play clearly in two voices but also, after further progress, (2) to deal correctly and well with three obbligato parts; furthermore, at the same time not only to have good inventiones but to develop the same well and, above all, to arrive at a singing style in playing and at the same time to acquire a strong foretaste of composition” [a volume of 62 pages in quarto format, dated 1723].
(3) “Orgel-Büchlein, in which a beginner at the organ is given instruction in developing a chorale in many divers ways, and at the same time in acquiring facility in the study of the pedal since in the chorales contained therein the pedal is treated as wholly obbligato.
In Praise of the Almighty’s will
and for my neighbor’s greater skill.”
[A volume of 182 pages (many unfilled) in quarto format; undated and primarily written in Weimar; the title page was added in Cöthen, ca. 1722–23.]
None of these collections was specifically composed for Leipzig, but the final preparation of the fair copies of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Aufrichtige Anleitung and, in particular, the carefully coordinated phraseology of all three title pages would have gone a long way toward impressing the authorities in Leipzig, especially an experienced master teacher like rector Ernesti. Bach’s organist, concertmaster, and capellmeister background would have sufficed to establish his credentials as music director and leader of vocal-instrumental ensembles, but private instrumental lessons and especially keyboard instruction was an integral part of the cantor’s daily activity at St. Thomas’s. (Indeed, most resident students of the school had a keyboard instrument in their study cubicles.)103 Therefore, these keyboard volumes epitomizing a fundamentally pragmatic approach to musical science would not only demonstrate Bach’s didactic experience but, more important, underscore his stature as musical scholar, deemed essential for a successor to the learned Johann Kuhnau and for as ambitious and demanding an academic environment as St. Thomas’s.
Not without reason did Prince Leopold, in his wonderfully supportive letter of dismissal, characterize Bach as “well learned” in order to introduce him into his new Latin school ambience: the new cantor, ranking in the faculty hierarchy of the school immediately below the rector and conrector, deserved proper recognition as musicus bene doctus or musicus pereruditus. At the time, Leopold knew and understood his capellmeister better than most, and he could genuinely appreciate the kind of musical science represented in a work such as The Well-Tempered Clavier. The three collections offer a systematic exploration of clearly defined musical goals in the form of well-structured, sophisticated keyboard exercises and lessons addressing the various needs of “the musical youth,” the “beginner at the organ,” and generally “those desirous of learning.” And the Orgel-Büchlein’s title page summarizes Bach’s pedagogical credo in a homespun poetic two-liner: “in Praise of the Almighty’s will / and for my neighbor’s greater skill” (“Dem Höchsten Gott allein zu Ehren / dem Nechsten, draus sich zu belehren”).
In the Aufrichtige Anleitung, Bach demonstrates, in two sets of fifteen contrapuntal pieces, how a coherent musical setting can be developed out of a single short and clearly delineated yet freely conceived idea (inventio, or invention), first in the form of strict two-part compositions (one voice each for the right and left hands) with emphasis on voice leading; then in the form of strict three-part compositions, with emphasis on triadic harmonies, that is, on three voices “sounding together” (sinfonia, from the Greek symphonia). At the same time, the book teaches basic keyboard technique and fingering—in the first in vention, for example, the basic motive demands through out the absolutely equal use of all five fingers of both hands—as well as a “singing style” of performance. Additionally, Bach explores the diatonic range of the tonal system without straying beyond the traditional framework of the fifteen keys (not exceeding four sharps or flats) that are playable in unequal temperament (a system of tuning in which the octave had not yet been divided into twelve equal semitones) and that endow each key with a distinct character. In the Aufrichtige Anleitung, Bach decided to organize the inventions and sinfonias systematically in an ascending key scheme; the earlier version of the collection presented the pieces in ascending and descending order, pursuing a different kind of structural logic—six ascending “white” keys, C to A, with their “natural” root triads (C major, D minor,…to A minor) followed by nine descending keys, B to C, with root triads requiring sharps and flats (B minor, B-flat major,…to C minor; see Table 7.6).
The revised key structure of the Aufrichtige Anleitung conforms to the uniformly ascending key scheme of The Well-Tempered Clavier, but illustrates how to differentiate between the conventional diatonic scheme, on the one hand, and the fully developed chromatic scheme of twenty-four keys based on the premise of equal temperament, on the other. Bach’s use of Andreas Werckmeister’s term “well-tempered” (wohl temperirt) indicates his preference for a slightly modified system of tuning with “all the thirds sharp,”104 enabling him to play in all twenty-four keys without losing the characteristic features of individual keys—a loss that occurs if the octave is divided into absolutely equal semitones (what was to become a new standard would have been regarded then as a serious drawback). Bach’s primary purpose in writing The Well-Tempered Clavier, then, was to demonstrate in practice the musical manageability of all twenty-four chromatic keys, a system that earlier had been considered only theoretically. Before and around 1700, the general spirit of discovery spurred by the Scientific Revolution had prompted a new spurt of mathematical and physical research, predominantly by German scholars like Werckmeister, to expand and systematize the conventional tonal system. Johann David Heinichen, a student of the Thomascantor Kuhnau, had by 1710 devised the circle of fifths, clarifying the harmonic interrelationships within a system of twenty-four modes or keys,105 and several composers wrote small experimental pieces in remote keys. But as late as 1717, Johann Mattheson still deplored that “although all keys can now, per temperament [tuning], be arranged in such a way that they can be used very well, diatonically, chromatically, and enharmonically,” a true demonstratio was lacking.106 It fell to Bach, who accepted this challenge, to demonstrate the compositional practicability of the new system of twenty-four keys, and he did so on an unparalleled level of compositional refinement and technical perfection.
The Well-Tempered Clavier established the parameters of a twenty-four-key system, with twelve major and minor modes (since the terms “major” and “minor” were not yet in general use, Bach’s title describes the modes in terms of the determining interval of a major or minor third). The “theme” of every Prelude and Fugue, therefore, is first and foremost its key, as shown in the most basic form at the beginning of the collection. The first Prelude introduces the C-major key in its most rudimentary form, the C-major triad, as a point of departure; the Fugue then completes the demonstration by introducing C major in terms of horizontal harmony, that is, by way of a linear subject that defines the key. This qu
asi-system of vertical and horizontal definition of the keys is pursued throughout the work. Bach also shows how to preserve the idiosyncrasies of the individual keys: in E minor, for example, he continues a tendency to stress the old Phrygian subsidiary “dominants” of the key—A minor and C major—that resulted from the need to avoid the B-major triad, which sounds extremely harsh in unequal temperament. The unique collection of twenty-four preludes and fugues also aspires to a second goal, the juxtaposition of two fundamentally different kinds of polyphonic musical settings: improvisatory and free-style scoring in the preludes versus thematically controlled and strict contrapuntal voice leading in the fugues. The preludes therefore present a wide variety of textural choices, from rudimentary chordal models (such as the arpeggiando and perpetuum mobile styles of the first two) to dance-type and imitative polyphonic settings. Fugal technique, on the other hand, is presented in various kinds of scoring, using two (1 fugue), three (11 fugues), four (10 fugues), and five voices (2 fugues). Additionally, the use of all metric categories (, , 3/4, 3/8, 6/4, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, 12/16, 24/16), different stylistic models, and a multiplicity of special compositional features contributes to the overall kaleidoscopic spectrum of the collection.
More than any other of Bach’s works composed before 1722, the preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier manifest his resolve to leave nothing untried, even if it meant exploring avenues where no one had gone before. In demonstrating that the tonal system could be expanded to twenty-four keys not just theoretically but practically, Bach set a milestone in the history of music whose overall implications for chromatic harmony would take another century to be fully realized. He set the stage by exploiting fully the chromatic and enharmonic potential of the keys, especially in pieces such as the fugues in C-sharp minor (BWV 849/2), E Minor (BWV 855/2), F minor (BWV 857/2), F-sharp minor (BWV 859/2), and B minor (BWV 869/2). Each individual piece, whether prelude or fugue, helped push the limits of musical composition, resulting in twenty-four diverse yet internally unified structures of musical logic. Simultaneously, standards of musical performance were brought to a new high if only in the necessary and uncompromising application of all ten fingers of the keyboard player.
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