What becomes evident here is that in the 1730s, Bach’s composing desk became the work site for a creative mind more exploring, self-critical, and far-ranging than ever before. His continuing output of new works was complemented by an intensified review of the extant repertoire, a persistent process of improving smaller and larger details, and a systematically cultivated campaign of parodying and arranging—with the goal not of exploiting or multiplying extant works but rather of opening new horizons for them. For Bach, however, the term “new” was not necessarily synonymous with “progressive,” although he became, notably as a result of the Scheibe attack of 1737, more sensitive and more consciously receptive in this regard. Mizler’s review of the homage cantata BWV Anh. 13 of 1738 specifically emphasizes Bach’s pursuit of the “newest taste” and the intention to “accommodate his listeners.”103 But since the music of this key work is lost, we must depend on inadequate yet critical substitutes, like the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat major for lute, BWV 998 (from the late 1730s), or several chorale settings and the four duets from Clavier-Übung III and the Goldberg Variations from part IV. At the same time, the two Clavier-Übungen, notably part III, document the genuine multidirectional approach taken by Bach. Just as he put himself, with carefully chosen examples, at the forefront of contemporary musical styles, he used other examples to demonstrate to himself, his students, and his audience that traditional genres, styles, and techniques—even such historically distant stile antico settings in the Phrygian mode as the Kyrie chorales, BWV 669–671—still offered many challenges to be mastered. In uncompromising refutation of “those who either do not understand the rules of composition or do not know how to employ them properly,” Bach the scholar and prototype of a composition professor conceived his music for the benefit of those who did not “confuse important ideas with childish notions” and “whose musical hearing is not spoiled by…newfangled taste.”104 Rear view of the St. Thomas School in winter, largely as it was during Bach’s time, with St. Thomas’s Church, the St. Thomas gate, the St. Thomas mill, and the Pleisse River, in a watercolor by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1838), executed from his apartment across the mill stream and opposite the school. Visible are three windows of Bach’s second-floor study at the southwest (right) corner of the school building (above and to the left of the gate).
11
A Singing Bird and Carnations for the Lady of the House
DOMESTIC AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE
FAMILY AND HOME
When portrait painter Elias Gottlob Haußmann depicted the Leipzig town council in 1746, he painted the councillors in their official likenesses—in serious pose, formal attire, periwig, and sometimes with specific attributes identifying their function. So councillor and city librarian Professor Mascov (1749) is posed against a background of library shelves, standing at his desk with ink pot and writing utensils, clutching a closed book in his left hand and pointing at it with his right, thereby identifying himself as an author.1 The same pattern applies to Haußmann’s portrait of Bach (see frontispiece), in which the subject’s right hand holds a page of music, but not just any old music. The cantor shows us a sheet inscribed with three short lines of musical notation and the inscription Canon triplex à 6 Voc[ibus] | per J. S. Bach (triple canon for six voices, by J. S. Bach),2 an encoded text whose complex musical contents would remain obscure to the general viewer and challenge even the well-versed musician. A similar portrait by Haußmann of Johann Gottfried Reiche (1727), senior member of the town music company, shows Reiche holding his trumpet and a sheet of music bearing an extremely difficult passage—one that probably only he could play.3 Bach displays what he considers his trademark, the short but highly sophisticated canon BWV 1076, an emblem of his erudite contrapuntal art. By not having a keyboard instrument included in the picture, he chose to disclaim his fame as a virtuoso performer. And by not clasping a paper roll, the conductor’s attribute (as Johann Hermann Schein, an earlier Thomascantor, does in his portrait),4 Bach elected to play down his office as cantor and music director. The austere expression worn by the composer in this only authentic portrait corresponds well to the musical statement.
In the portrait, Bach the man takes a back seat to his work, and that is how we have always understood him and how we ordinarily see him: compared with his imposing oeuvre, the human being seems of secondary importance. It is, indeed, as hard to gain insight into Bach’s character as it is difficult to glean much detail about his family and everyday life, the environment within which he moved, the external conditions under which he worked, details concerning his professional engagements and private activities. Compounding the scarcity of pertinent historical information is the paucity of personal writings and letters. While the rich correspondence of the Mozart family, for example, opens up many aspects of the composer’s life, thoughts, and experiences, the few extant Bach letters do not, though they raise some questions. Did Bach really limit his writings to organ reports, student recommendations, petitions, and financial receipts? If so, how would we explain the noticeable difference between Bach and his second son, Carl, whose copious body of correspondence ranks among the more interesting and important of such eighteenth-century collections? And if Bach did not engage much in personal correspondence, why did he use a private secretary between 1737 and 1742?
Nephew Johann Elias Bach of Schweinfurt, a grandson of Georg Christoph, Ambrosius Bach’s brother, was a theology student at Jena University when he ran out of money and was hired in the fall of 1737 by Johann Sebastian as his personal secretary and as tutor for his children (two years later, he resumed his theology studies at Leipzig University).5 Elias’s correspondence on behalf of his uncle survives in a copybook, from which we learn about Bach’s travels, publication plans, and lending out of music, among other matters.6 Considering the Thomascantor’s busy schedule, he likely required secretarial assistance both before and after Elias’s stint.7 Moreover, he probably maintained records of his correspondence and kept copybooks, as a letter of October 28, 1730, to his old classmate Georg Erdmann suggests; there Bach writes: “It must be nearly four years since Your Honor favored me with a kind answer to the letter I sent you.”8 Bach had written to Erdmann on July 28, 1726,9 and though Erdmann’s reply has not survived, a note of his on Bach’s letter shows that he answered it on October 22, 1726.10 Bach would have received Erdmann’s reply around November 1, a perfect match for Bach’s reference on October 28, 1730, to “nearly four years” ago. That Bach could pinpoint the date so precisely indicates that he was able to check the dates and contents of earlier letters. We can assume, then, that his correspondence amounted to much more than what has come down to us, that he maintained copybooks of his letters, and that, sadly, the extant materials represent merely haphazard remnants of what once existed.
The entries in Elias Bach’s copybook provide ample evidence of his uncle’s extremely busy schedule. In September 1739, for example, he begs Johann Wilhelm Koch, cantor in Ronneburg,
Not to take it amiss that, on account of the accumulation of work, he cannot thank you with a note of his own this time, since he will begin the Collegium Musicum this Friday and will perform some music in the first week of the Fair for the birthday of His Royal Majesty; it will certainly be worth listening to, and if my Brother could get away, he would certainly not regret having been in the audience. Concerning Your Honor’s first letter, I must report in most obedient reply that the church piece he sent back was duly received, together with the 10 gr., and also that the work of my honored Cousin, engraved on copper, is now ready, and may be obtained from him à 3 rthl. per copy.11
Here, apologies for the impersonal thank-you note are combined with an invitation to a Collegium concert, acknowledgment of a returned cantata and its rental fee, and a suggestion to purchase Bach’s newly published Clavier-Übung, part III. Another letter to the same cantor Koch, this one from January 1741, again concerns borrowed music from Bach, and also refers to canons that Koch had sent, with questions about their resolutions. E
lias writes on behalf of his uncle: “There is no magic involved here, as he put it, and he has written a comment on the large one.” The reference to this comment, which has not survived, is a tantalizing hint of what written documents must once have existed. Completely lost, too, are all family letters. We know, for example, that Bach wrote to his wife during a trip to Berlin in the summer of 1741, when she was pregnant with her last child and apparently became seriously ill. As Elias’s letter of August 9 to Bach in Berlin relates:
Our honored Cousin has been good enough to send his beloved wife another good report, to the relief of us all, and to set the date of his departure [from Berlin]; but great as was the pleasure we derived from this, just so great must be the pain we feel about the increasing weakness of our most honored Mama, for the latter has for a fortnight now not had a single night with one hour’s rest, and cannot either sit up or lie down, so that during last night I was called, and we could not help thinking that, to our great sorrow, we would lose her.12
It is not hard to imagine how alarmed Bach would have been on receiving such news from home; it must have reminded him vividly of the death of his first wife, Maria Barbara, during his stay with Prince Leopold in Carlsbad. Bach returned, and Anna Magdalena recovered slowly, eventually giving birth to a healthy daughter—Regina Susanna—the only one of the Bach children who lived into the nineteenth century. Even so, Anna Magdalena had to cancel a trip to her relatives in Weissenfels, planned for September, as secretary Elias’s draft of a letter for her specifies: “My past and continuing sickly condition robs me, alas, of such pleasant hours, and the advice of my family forbids me to undertake such a journey, on which, in their opinion, might hinge either a noticeable improvement or the complete ruin of my health.”13
Bach’s devotion to Anna Magdalena and their affectionate relationship is evidenced, from the very beginning of their marriage, by the two Clavier Books of 1722 and 1725 dedicated to her. The second continued to be filled until the early 1740s,14 with early compositional attempts by the young Johann Christian among the later entries. Around 1741, Anna Magdalena herself copied into it the Aria of the Goldberg Variations, apparently one of her favorite pieces, changing the notation of the right-hand part from treble to soprano clef in order to make it easier for her, a soprano singer, to play the piece. And a charming love song such as Giovannini’s aria “Willst du dein Herz mir schenken, so fang es heimlich an” (If you want to give me your heart, you must begin so in secret), even though not entered by Bach himself, helps to convey the intimate character of the album. Further, Elias Bach’s copybook—despite the formalities of eighteenth-century correspondence conventions—permits occasional glimpses of Bach’s attentiveness and loving care toward his wife, small yet meaningful gestures to make the lady of the house happy. So a letter of June 1740 to Johann Georg Hille, cantor in Glaucha near Halle, tells us that he had “reported to his beloved wife…that Your Honor possessed a linnet which, as a result of the skillful instruction of its master, made itself heard in particularly agreeable singing. Now, since the honored lady my cousin is a particular lover of such birds…I should inquire whether Your Honor would be of a mind to relinquish this singing bird to her for a reasonable sum, and to send it to her by some sure means.”15
A few months later, Anna Magdalena received a gift of “six most beautiful carnation plants” that gave her the greatest pleasure, as the secretary’s acknowledgment testifies: “With an extended description of the joy that was given thereby to the said lady my cousin I will not burden Your Honor, but will mention only this: that she values this unmerited gift more highly than children do their Christmas presents, and tends them with such care as is usually given to children, lest a single one wither.”16 The flower plants were sent by Simon Friedrich von Meyern of Halle, who apparently had learned from Bach about Anna Magdalena’s desires. Elias himself also knew well what his aunt liked. In a letter he wrote to his mother in Schweinfurt, he asks her to send him a present intended for his substitute parents in Leipzig as an expression of his gratitude: “for my honored cousin a bottle of the brandy made with rose hips and a few, notabene, yellow carnations for our honored aunt, a great connoisseur of gardening.” He did not need to explain that the “Herr Vetter,” his Leipzig cousin, was a great friend of alcoholic libations. Indeed, Bach followed his father’s example by maintaining a special relationship with the folks on the Main, in the center of the Franconian wine region beyond the Thuringian Forest. Bach’s liking for strong waters led to an episode addressed in a letter he wrote later to Elias, who by then had been appointed cantor at St. John’s in his hometown Schweinfurt and had cultivated his own vineyard there:
That you and also your dear wife are still well I am assured by the agreeable note I received from you yesterday accompanying the excellent little cask of wine you sent me, for which I send you herewith the thanks I owe you. It is, however, greatly to be regretted that the little cask was damaged, either by being shaken up in the wagon or in some other way, for when it was opened for the usual customs inspection here it was almost two-thirds empty, and according to the inspector’s report contained no more than six quarts; and it is a pity that even the least drop of this noble gift of God should have been spilled….
Although my Cousin kindly offers to oblige with more of the liqueur, I must decline his offer on account of the excessive expenses here. For since the carriage charges cost 16 groschen, the delivery man 2 groschen, the customs inspector 2 groschen, the inland duty 5 groschen 3 pfennig, and the general duty 3 groschen, my honored Cousin can judge for himself that each quart cost me almost 5 groschen, which for a present is really too expensive.17
Anna Magdalena, sixteen years Bach’s junior, came from a family of musicians and brought to the marriage the background and orientation of a professional singer. Indeed, she regularly performed with her husband in Cöthen and elsewhere until 1725,18 and from the time public singing engagements are no longer recorded, her collaboration as a copyist is well documented. Until the early 1740s, her hand shows up in a variety of manuscripts containing Bach’s music. She prepared, in particular, fair copies of the Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012; the Violin Partitas and Sonatas, BWV 1001–1006; the organ Trio Sonatas, BWV 525–530; major sections of The Well-Tempered Clavier, parts I and II; the Kyrie and Gloria of the B-minor Mass; several cantatas; and other vocal and instrumental works.19 By comparison, Maria Barbara, Bach’s first wife, left few traces. Although she was the product of a musical family as well, there are no references whatsoever to her performing activities, secretarial assistance, or any other semiprofessional ventures, but it is hard to imagine that she would not have been engaged in any.
Although Anna Magdalena in all likelihood continued her professional singing career after 1725, she would have done so on a greatly reduced scale. Opportunities existed in Leipzig within the Collegium Musicum series and in private homes such as the Bose family mansion at the Thomaskirchhof,20 and elsewhere when she accompanied Bach on various trips, especially to her hometown Weissenfels and perhaps also to Dresden.21 An entry by Anna Magdalena in her Clavier Book—an arrangement for soprano solo of the recitative and aria “Ich habe genung” / “Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen,” from cantata BWV 82 of 1727 for solo bass, transposed from C minor/E-flat major to E minor/G major—suggests that she was preparing the piece for public or private performance. Within the family circle, there were unlimited performance possibilities. In his 1730 letter to Erdmann, Bach proudly mentions that his children “are all born musicians, and I can assure you that I can already form an ensemble both vocaliter and instrumentaliter within my family, particularly since my present wife sings a good, clear soprano, and my eldest daughter, too, joins in not badly.”22
Anna Magdalena fulfilled many roles over the years: companion, professional partner, assistant, keyboard student, and maybe also critic, but above all she mothered a large and steadily increasing family. In marrying Bach, she took on a widower with four small children ranging in age
from eleven to six. She then gave birth to thirteen children over nineteen years (see Table 11.1), averaging one a year for most of that span. The baptisms were witnessed by godparents chosen by Bach and his wife from their close family circle and from among good friends, sometimes also to satisfy social honor codes—as, for example, when Prince Leopold and Burgomaster Lange, respectively, stood godfather to the firstborns in Cöthen and Leipzig. Since, by convention, the same person was rarely chosen twice within a family to further as godfather or godmother a child’s Christian upbringing—Anna Magdalena’s Herzens Freundin (friend of heart) and neighbor, Christiana Sybilla Bose,23 being an exception—the overall company of godparents reflects a broad range of personal ties and social connections maintained by the Bach family. Only six of Anna Magdalena’s children outlived early childhood, as did four of Maria Barbara’s. Infant mortality was then a normal fact of life, and staying alive was considered a godsend. Joy and sorrow always stood side by side, with experiences of hardship, illness, and pain usually prevailing. Thus, Bach shared worries and much grief with both of his wives. But in addition to mourning the deaths of so many offspring, he and Anna Magdalena were also deeply concerned about two of their adolescent sons.
TABLE 11.1. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Children
With Maria Barbara
1. Catharina Dorothea, baptized Weimar, December 29, 1708; died Leipzig, January 14, 1774.
Godparents: D. Georg Christian Eilmar (pastor in Mühlhausen), Martha Catharina Lämmerhirt (widow of Tobias Lämmerhirt, brother of Bach’s mother, in Erfurt), Johanna Dorothea Bach (wife of Bach’s elder brother in Ohrdruf).
2. Wilhelm Friedemann (“Friedemann”), born Weimar, November 22, 1710; d. Berlin, July 1, 1784.
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