Delphi Masterworks of Johann Sebastian Bach (Illustrated) (Delphi Great Composers Book 3)

by Peter Russell

  It was very important from Bach’s point of view that he should be in a position to control and regulate all the church music that was performed at Leipsic; and for this purpose he was obliged to take steps to obtain control of the students’ chorus, which now sang in the University Church. The organist there was Görner, a conceited and not very competent musician, who had been in the habit of directing the music after Kuhnau’s death.

  Görner persuaded the authorities that the cantor of St Thomas could not possibly serve St Paul’s42 as well as St Thomas and St Nicholas; and he therefore continued in his post as musical director to the University.

  An Appeal to the King

  The music for the University Festivals had, however, been from time immemorial conducted by the cantor; and Bach seems to have gained his way in the matter. The cantor had a special payment for these services; but Görner had appropriated part of it. Bach tolerated this for two years, and then addressed a letter to the King of Saxony explaining that he, by right of office, conducted the music, but was only paid half the official salary. The letter was dated September 14, 1725, and on the 17th the Ministry of Dresden wrote to the University requiring them to restore the salary to the petitioner, or to show their reasons for not doing so.

  The University wrote justifying themselves, whereupon Bach, suspecting that they had not properly stated the case, petitioned the King to allow him to see a copy of their justification. He wrote a refutation of this, and

  the business dragged on till May 23, 1726, when a document, which seems to have been in Bach’s favour, was presented to the University, and the matter appears to have ended. He and Görner were both employed to compose the music for extra festivals, but Bach the more often.43

  Though Bach put all his energy into the music at the two chief churches, he took care not to be merely a cantor. He had formerly been, and still held honorary rank as capellmeister; and having a very proper pride in himself and his profession, he now always called himself Director Musices and Cantor. Considerable importance is attached in Germany to such titles as Professor, Doctor, Capellmeister, Musicdirector, etc., which have a recognised order of precedence; and it is significant of the conditions that prevailed between Bach and his church authorities that the latter nearly always persisted in giving him the lower title of cantor.

  ‘Matthew Passion’ Music

  The first performance of the Matthew Passion music took place in Holy Week of 1729. In his efforts to improve the choir, he had asked the Council to allow nine of the scholarships to be allotted to boys with voices: and he hoped that the magnificent Passion music he had just composed and performed would show them the importance of providing better material; but all was in vain. They took no notice of his request, and showed a complete ignorance of the value of their cantor’s work.

  About this time he became conductor of the Musical Union, which had been founded by Telemann, but even here troubles arose. The Union was expected to strengthen the choir at St Thomas’ Church. No money, however, being available to pay the students who took part, they naturally fell off. Yet when the church music deteriorated the Council were the first to blame the cantor.

  Bach is admonished

  They now began to observe, or imagine they observed, neglect of duty on his part, and addressed various warnings and admonitions to him. He became defiant and refused to explain, whereupon they said that he was incorrigible. The chief trouble arose over the teaching of Latin. We have already seen that the Council had originally offered to pay a deputy to do this part of the cantor’s work, but that Bach had undertaken the whole. Finding it too irksome, however, he had himself paid Pezold to act as his deputy, but the Council, considering Pezold incompetent, wished to employ one Krügel. Instead of settling the matter by insisting on Bach’s doing the work himself, they showed their petulance by bringing charges against him of not having behaved with propriety, of sending a member of the choir into the country without giving notice to the authorities, of going a journey without permission, of neglecting his singing classes, and, in short, of doing nothing properly. At first it was proposed to put him down to one of the lowest classes, next to refuse payment of his salary, and at the same time to admonish him. His doing “nothing” consisted in composing and conducting an enormous number of church cantatas, including the Matthew Passion.

  But the Council merely required hack work of him, and no doubt as they paid him to do hack work (which could probably have been equally well done by an inferior musician) they had a right to demand it.

  He had, it is true, given over half the singing practices to the choir prefect, but this was only in accordance with long established custom, and no one had previously complained. Moreover the Council themselves had refused Bach’s request for a more efficient choir, and it was only natural that he should not take much interest in the drudgery of teaching an unruly rabble, when he was occupied with work which was to prove so much more important to the world at large.

  Vestry Squabbles

  In the constant state of conflict between masters, boys, Council and Consistory, Bach chose to go his own way. With the Rector, Ernesti, who troubled himself little about the musical arrangements, he had been on excellent terms.

  Several stories are told of the petty tyranny sought to be exercised over the great man by an ignorant and fussy vestry. Thus, Bach insisted, for sufficient reasons, on his right of choosing the hymns and ignoring those selected by Gaudlitz, the subdean of St Nicholas. Gaudlitz reported him to the Consistory, who sent him a notice that he must have the hymns sung which were chosen by the preacher. He therefore appealed to the Council, showing that it had been the custom for the cantor to select the hymns. This caused a squabble between the Council and the Consistory, but it is not known how the matter ended.

  Another instance occurred over the announcement of the performance of a Passion music, for which the Council suddenly discovered that their permission was necessary. The work had been performed several times previously, and the irritating restriction was entirely uncalled for. Bach simply reported to the superintendent of the Consistory that the Council had forbidden the performance; and thus produced another quarrel between the two bodies which was to his advantage.

  Inefficiency of Musicians

  Bach had not only to organise and train his choir, but to teach some of his pupils to play on instruments, since the town musicians were only seven in number, four wind and three string players. Money was not forthcoming to pay professional musicians, though there were plenty in Leipsic. Bach therefore got hold of the more gifted of his pupils and taught them instruments, and many of them became accomplished artists.

  The regulations ordered that two hours of singing practice should be held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, from 12 to 2; but as this arrangement interfered with the cantor’s dinner hour, his colleagues petitioned that it should be changed. The Council refused to alter the regulation, and in consequence Bach soon began to absent himself.

  Confiscation of Fees

  As the Council could not withhold his salary, they not only confiscated certain fees collected for various outside duties but also contrived that he should obtain no benefit from a legacy left to be divided among the teachers and poorer scholars of the School. Bach was silent for a time, but, when at last forced to speak, he wrote a long letter, showing how absolutely inadequate were the means placed at his disposal: incompetent town players, with mere boys to complete the bands; singers who, not having had time to be trained, were obliged to be admitted to the vacant places before they had any knowledge of music; choirs with only two voices to a part, one of whom would often be, or pretend to be, ill.

  Bach’s letter irritated the Council, who, however, let the matter drop after expressing their opinion on it.

  The Council acted according to their lights. Though they would not give Bach the means he required for carrying out the music properly, they could understand when an organ required repairing, and voted sums of money from time to time f
or this purpose, and for the purchase of violins, violas, violoncellos for church use; and they allowed Bach to purchase Bodenschatz’s Florilegium Portense44 for the use of the scholars. They did not actively hinder Bach’s development, but they had no conception of the greatness of the man they had to do with. They curtailed his income in a moment of anger, but soon afterwards reinstated it.

  Bach tries to leave Leipsic

  Bach became thoroughly hurt, and sought for a means of leaving Leipsic. The friend of his boyhood, Erdmann, now held a post at Dantzic, under the Emperor of Russia, and to him Bach applied, in an interesting letter which is still extant.45 He describes his wish to leave Leipsic under four heads: (1) that the post was by no means so advantageous as he was led to expect; (2) that many of the fees had been stopped; (3) that the place is very dear to live in; (4) that the authorities were strange people, with small love of music, who vexed and persecuted and were jealous of him. Bach asked Erdmann to find him a post at Dantzic, but nothing came of it, for he remained at Leipsic. In spite of the high prices of necessities, he saved enough to leave behind him a well-furnished house, a sum of money and a collection of instruments and books. Like many other good organists he had his rubs with an unthinking vestry, but got over them.

  The Rector, Ernesti, died in 1729, and in 1730 Bach’s Weimar friend, Gesner, was appointed: a member of the Council saying that he “hoped that they would fare better in this appointment than they had done in that of the cantor.”46

  The new rector was in most respects the opposite of Ernesti. He was energetic; had the power of governing, with a special talent for the management of schoolboys. He was a brilliant scholar, and did much to revive the study of Greek as part of a mental and moral training rather than as a mere intellectual gymnastic.

  The Council were delighted, and did everything for him. As he was in delicate health they not only had him carried to and from the school in a chair, but remitted his duty of inspecting the school once every three weeks. He smoothed over the disputes among the masters so that they were no longer at enmity among themselves; won the affection of his pupils by his new methods of instruction, his interest in their welfare, and the enforcement of discipline and morality.

  The State, he said, had need of every kind of talent: and if he saw boys working at something useful, which was not actually school work, he would encourage them. He also revived the Latin prayers morning and evening, which had been replaced by prayers in the German language.

  Between him and Bach there grew up a strong friendship. He helped the music in every way he could: himself applying to the Council for the books, etc., required by Bach.

  Gesner’s Appreciation

  Gesner, in his appreciation of Bach, appends a note in his edition of the Institutiones Oratoriæ of Quintilianus, to the author’s remark on the capacity of man for doing several things at once, such as playing the lyre, and at the same time singing and marking time with the foot. He says, “All this, my dear Fabius, you would consider very trivial could you but rise from the dead and hear Bach: how he, with both hands, and using all his fingers, either on a keyboard which seems to consist of many lyres in one, or on the

  A Vast Combination

  instrument of instruments, of which the innumerable pipes are made to sound by means of bellows; here with his hands, and there with the utmost celerity with his feet, elicits many of the most various yet harmonious sounds: I say, could you only see him, how he achieves what a number of your lyre-players and six hundred flute-players could never achieve, presiding over thirty or forty performers all at once, recalling this one by a nod, another by a stamp of the foot, another with a warning finger, keeping tune and time; and while high notes are given out by some, deep tones by others, and notes between them by others. Great admirer as I am of antiquity in other respects, yet I am of the opinion that my one Bach, and whosoever there may chance to be that resembles him, unites in himself many Orpheuses, and twenty Arions.”47

  Gesner did all he could to smooth away Bach’s troubles, and probably the latter was much happier than under the disorder which prevailed while J. H. Ernesti was rector. Moreover, after one more dispute, Bach and the Council at last learned to understand one another, and quarrelled no more.

  Chapter VI

  Home life at Leipsic — Personal details — Music in the family circle — Bach’s intolerance of incompetence — He throws his wig at Görner — His preference for the clavichord — Bach as an examiner — His sons and pupils — His general knowledge of musical matters — Visit from Hurlebusch — His able management of money — His books and instruments — The Dresden Opera — A new Rector, and further troubles — Bach complains to the Council.

  Home Life

  Let us now turn for a moment from this account of troubles and see what the man was like in his own home. We have fairly full accounts from which to draw a picture. It was related in chapter i. how the various members of the Bach family clung together, meeting once every year at various towns. The same traits are found in the household. The pupils and sons all loved him. His character was amiable in the extreme, but at the same time such as to command respect from all. Of his hospitality, especially towards artists, we have special mention; no musician passed through Leipsic without visiting him. He never cared either himself to blame, or hear others find fault with, his fellow-musicians. Of the Marchand incident he would never willingly speak. He was modest in the extreme, and never seemed to know how much greater he was than all the musicians he was fond of praising.

  In the midst of all his occupations he found time for music in the family circle, and in later years he used to prefer playing the viola, as he was then “in the midst of the harmony.” He would occasionally extemporise a trio or quartet on the harpsichord from a single part of some other composer’s music: if the composer happened to be present, however, he would first make sure that no possible injury would be done to his feelings.

  Though kindly and generous in his criticisms of others, he would never tolerate superficiality and incompetence. He was therefore looked upon as an excellent examiner when a new organist was to be appointed to a church. He was quick-tempered, like most musicians in matters of music. It is related that on one occasion, when the organist of the Thomas Church, Görner, made a blunder, he pulled the wig off his own head, threw it at Görner, and, in a voice of thunder, cried: “You ought to be a shoemaker.”

  His favourite instrument was the clavichord, on account of its power of expression: and he made his pupils chiefly practise on this. He learned to tune it and the harpsichord so quickly that it never took him more than a quarter of an hour. “And then,” says Forkel, “all the twenty-four keys were at his service: he did with them whatever he wished. He could connect the most distant keys as easily and naturally together as the nearest related, so that the listener thought he had only modulated through the next-related keys of a single scale. Of harshness in modulation he knew nothing: his chromatic changes were as soft and flowing as when he kept to the diatonic genus.”

  Of his conscientiousness in examining organs and organists, Forkel ironically remarks, it was such that he gained few friends thereby. But when he found that an organ-builder had really done good work, and was out of pocket by so doing, he would use his influence to obtain further payment for the man, and in several cases succeeded.

  If he happened to be away from home with his son Friedemann on a Sunday, he would make a point of attending the church service. He would criticise the organist; would tell his son what course the fugue ought to take (after hearing the subject), and would be delighted if the organist played to his satisfaction.

  He did his best for his sons and pupils; in fact he treated the latter as sons. He sent his two eldest sons to the University of Leipsic, and used his influence to get appointments for them and their brothers. On the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth with his pupil Altnikol, he obtained an organistship for him at Naumburg without informing him beforehand.

  Of Many Pa
rts

  Though he would have nothing to say to musical mathematics, his knowledge of everything to do with the art and practice of music was astounding. He was intimate with every detail of organ construction; he not only tuned but quilled his own harpsichords, and, as we shall see later, he invented new instruments. When he was shown the newly built opera house at Berlin, he observed the construction of the dining saloon, and said that if a person whispered in a corner, another person, standing in the corner diagonally opposite would hear every word, though no one else could do so. Experiment proved this to be a fact, though neither the architect nor anyone else had discovered it.

  An amusing story is told of a visit paid to him at Leipsic by one Hurlebusch, a superficial and exceedingly conceited organist. Hurlebusch had the reputation of being angry if his listeners praised him instead of being so overcome with his playing that they could say nothing. His visit to Bach was made, not to hear but to be heard by, and to astonish, the great man. Bach took him to the harpsichord and listened attentively to a very feeble minuet with variations. Hurlebusch, taking Bach’s politeness as a recognition of his great talent, showed his gratitude by presenting Friedemann with a printed collection of very easy sonatas, recommending him to practise them diligently. His host, who could hardly repress a smile, thanked him politely, and took leave of him without in the least betraying his amusement.

  When we think that the education of his large family, the hospitality to strangers, the journeys to try organs in various places, were all accomplished on an income of not much over £100 a year, we must admire the business-like capacity of the man, even though all due allowance is made for the difference in the purchasing power of money in those days.48 But he managed to collect a by no means contemptible library of music and theological books; for in his simple piety he took great interest in religious questions. He also possessed a goodly number of keyboard instruments, several of which he gave to his sons on their obtaining appointments. Of stringed instruments he possessed enough for the performance of concerted music in the home circle. Some few of his personal belongings are preserved in the De Wit collection at Leipsic, not twenty yards from his residence. They consist of his clock, a few pictures and trifles belonging to his study table, and show at once that they come from a house of refinement and comfort.