Delphi Masterworks of Johann Sebastian Bach

by Peter Russell

  Duke Wilhelm Ernst, in 1714, raised him to the position of Head-Concert Master, a position which offered added privileges. Every autumn he used his annual vacation in traveling to the principal towns to give performances on organ and clavier. By such means he gained a great reputation both as player and composer.

  On one of these tours he arrived in Dresden in time to learn of a French player who had just come to town. Jean Marchand had won a great reputation in France, where he was organist to the King at Versailles, and regarded as the most fashionable musician of the day. All this had made him very conceited and overbearing. Every one was discussing the Frenchman’s wonderful playing and it was whispered he had been offered an appointment in Dresden.

  The friends of Bach proposed that he should engage Marchand in a contest, to defend the musical honor of the German nation. Both musicians were willing; the King promised to attend.

  The day fixed for the trial arrived; a brilliant company assembled. Bach made his appearance, and all was ready, but the adversary failed to come. After a considerable delay it was learned that Marchand had fled the city.

  In 1717, on his return from Dresden, Bach was appointed Capellmeister to the young Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. The Prince was an enthusiastic lover of music, and at Cöthen Bach led a happy, busy life. The Prince often journeyed to different towns to gratify his taste for music, and always took Bach with him. On one of these trips he was unable to receive the news that his wife had suddenly passed away, and was buried before he could return to Cöthen. This was a severe blow to the whole family.

  Four years afterward, Bach married again, Anna Magdalena Wülkens was in every way suited for a musician’s wife, and for her he composed many of the delightful dances which we now so greatly enjoy. He also wrote a number of books of studies for his wife and his sons, several of whom later became good musicians and composers.

  Perhaps no man ever led a more crowded life, though outwardly a quiet one. He never had an idle moment. When not playing, composing or teaching, he would be found engraving music on copper, since that work was costly in those days. Or he would be manufacturing some kind of musical instrument. At least two are known to be of his invention.

  Bach began to realize that the Cöthen post, while it gave him plenty of leisure for his work, did not give him the scope he needed for his art. The Prince had lately married, and did not seem to care as much for music as before.

  The wider opportunity which Bach sought came when he was appointed director of music in the churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas in Leipsic, and Cantor of the Thomas-Schule there. With the Leipsic period Bach entered the last stage of his career, for he retained this post for the rest of his life. He labored unceasingly, in spite of many obstacles and petty restrictions, to train the boys under his care, and raise the standard of musical efficiency in the Schule, as choirs of both churches were recruited from the scholars of the Thomas School.

  During the twenty-seven years of life in Leipsic, Bach wrote some of his greatest works, such as the Oratorios of St. Matthew and St. John, and the Mass in B Minor. It was the Passion according to St. Matthew that Mendelssohn, about a hundred years later discovered, studied with so much zeal, and performed in Berlin, with so much devotion and success.

  Bach always preferred a life of quiet and retirement; simplicity had ever been his chief characteristic. He was always very religious; his greatest works voice the noblest sentiments of exaltation.

  Bach’s modesty and retiring disposition is illustrated by the following little incident. Carl Philip Emmanuel, his third son, was cembalist in the royal orchestra of Frederick the Great. His Majesty was very fond of music and played the flute to some extent. He had several times sent messages to Bach by Philip Emmanuel, that he would like to see him. But Bach, intent on his work, ignored the royal favor, until he finally received an imperative command, which could not be disobeyed. He then, with his son Friedmann, set out for Potsdam.

  The King was about to begin the evening’s music when he learned that Bach had arrived. With a smile he turned to his musicians: “Gentlemen, old Bach has come.” Bach was sent for at once, without having time to change his traveling dress. His Majesty received him with great kindness and respect, and showed him through the palace, where he must try the Silbermann pianofortes, of which there were several. Bach improvised on each and the King gave a theme which he treated as a fantasia, to the astonishment of all. Frederick next asked him to play a six part fugue, and then Bach improvised one on a theme of his own. The King clapped his hands, exclaiming over and over, “Only one Bach! Only one Bach!” It was a great evening for the master, and one he never forgot.

  Just after completing his great work, The Art of Fugue, Bach became totally blind, due no doubt, to the great strain he had always put upon his eyes, in not only writing his own music, but in copying out large works of the older masters. Notwithstanding this handicap he continued at work up to the very last. On the morning of the day on which he passed away, July 28, 1750, he suddenly regained his sight. A few hours later he became unconscious and passed in sleep.

  Bach was laid to rest in the churchyard of St. John’s at Leipsic, but no stone marks his resting place. Only the town library register tells that Johann Sebastian Bach, Musical Director and Singing Master of the St. Thomas School, was carried to his grave July 30, 1750.

  But the memory of Bach is enduring, his fame immortal and the love his beautiful music inspires increases from year to year, wherever that music is known, all over the world.

  Johann Sebastian Bach by Louis C. Elson

  From ‘University Musical Encyclopedia, Great Composers: A Series of Biographical Studies’

  For nearly two centuries the genealogy of the Bach family presents an almost unbroken series of German musicians; but it is in Johann Sebatian Bach, whose magnificent gifts made its name immortal, that the genius of the race is concentrated as in a focus, to be diminished and dispersed through the line of his descendants. His great-great-grandfather, Veit Bach, miller and baker of Wechmar in Thuringia, was a man of musical tastes, of whom the legend survives that he enlivened the monotony of watching the grinding of his corn by playing to himself upon the cithara. His son Hans was a violinist, whose musical instruction was undertaken by another Bach who was then town piper at Gotha; and so on, through the widely spreading family, the talent for music spread and was fostered, till in the quiet Thuringian valleys the Bachs formed almost a musical guild among themselves.

  This closeness of the family tie among the various branches not only afforded opportunity for mutual encouragement in their art, but was even more value as a moral safeguard at such times as lawlessness and corruption raged unchecked. To these predisposing influences, no doubt, was due the patriarchal simplicity of character which distinguishes the greatest of their line, his uprightness and devotion to his art.

  Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisensach, Saxe-Weimar, Germany, March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was one of twin brothers; a violinist; twice married and blessed with a large family — two conditions in which his son was destined to follow his example. Both he and his wife died when Sebastian was ten years old; and the boy, who had already acquired from his father the rudiments of the violin, was taken into the house of Johann Christoph, the eldest son of the family, who was then organist at Ohrdruf. Here the young Bach lived for five years, learning the clavier under his brother’s tuition, and showing so marked an ability for music as to bring upon himself his instructor’s jealous severity, to the point of injustice and hardship. A manuscript collection of contemporary music, belonging to his brother, was especially coveted by him, but was relentlessly kept from his sight. His pertinacity was, however, not to be daunted; he succeeded at night in dragging the precious manuscript out through the latticed door of the cupboard in which it was locked, and surreptitiously made a copy of its contents by moonlight, a task which took him six months. Discovery followed, and his copy, the result of so much labor, w
as ruthlessly taken from him; nor did he see it again until after his brother’s death.

  It must have been a welcome escape from this jealous supervision when, at the age of fifteen, his fine treble voice gained him admission to the choir of the Convent of St. Michael at Lüneburg. As a consequence he received free schooling, as well as a training in vocal music; he perfected his studies in the clavier and the violin, and what was dearest to him of all, he became a proficient performer upon the organ. During the three years that ensued, his attention was mainly centered upon organ music, practical and theoretical, his idol being Reinken, who was then organist at Hamburg.

  After his voice broke he held for a few months (in 1703) the post of court violinist at Weimar, in the service of the brother of the reigning Duke; but a visit paid by chance to the town of Arnstadt, in the autumn of the same year, resulted, to his great joy, in his appointment as organist to the “new church” there. Here the reputation he acquired gained for him, although but a boy of eighteen, indulgences which are a proof of the estimation in which his skill was held. Various irregularities — such as laxity in his training of the church choir, and a too close devotion of unduly extended leisure to his theoretical studies — reached their climax in the unauthorized protraction (into an absence of three months) of a one month’s leave granted to him to study the organ under the famous master Buxtehude at Lübeck.

  On his return to Arnstadt his reprimand from the Consistory, besides laying stress upon his neglect of his duties, maintained that “the organist Bach” had, in his conduct of church services, “made sundry perplexing variations and imported divers strange harmonies, in such wise that the congregation was thereby confounded.” The upshot of the matter was that in the autumn of 1707 he accepted an invitation to fill the vacant post of organist at Mühlhausen on his own terms. These he made modestly low, stipulating merely for the same sum that he had received at Arnstadt. He remained a year at Mühlhausen, during which time he was married to Maria Barbara, daughter of another Bach who was at that time organist at Gehren.

  His first position of real distinction was reached in 1708, when, at the age of twenty-three, he was elected organist to the Ducal Chapel at Weimar, a town already famous as a musical center. Six years later he was appointed Hof-concertmeister to the Duke. At the time of his going to Weimar Bach’s musical studies were complete, and he was already famous as one of the first organists of his day. Now began his activity as a composer, the finest of his organ works being written during the nine years at Weimar. His compositions fall, roughly speaking, into three divisions, corresponding with the three chief episodes of his life: the organ works belonging to the Weimar period, the instrumental works to the six years subsequently spent at Köthen, and the choral works to the last twenty-seven years of his life, passed at Leipzig. He seems to have had but little direct instruction in composition, and to have arrived at the fullness of his powers by means of diligent study of the best existing models. Upon the result of this his original genius worked in such a manner as to win for him from posterity the title of the “Father of music,” and to justify Schumann’s saying that “to Bach music owes almost as great a debt as a religion owes to its founder.”

  Of the details of Bach’s life at Weimar little is known. Its sober routine, eminently acceptable to one so essentially bound up in his home life, was broken by yearly visits to other towns — Halle, Cassel, Leipzig, and Dresden. In his double official capacity as organist and master of court music he was required, besides directing secular performances, to provide a certain number of Church compositions; to this we owe the magnificent series of organ works, as well as a few of his finest Church cantatas.

  The last of his annual expeditions from Weimar was made to Dresden, where he was challenged to a trial of skill by a famous French harpsichord-player, Marchand. The challenge was accepted, and Bach duly presented himself for a contest which was awaited with eager anticipation by the musical world at Dresden. At the last moment, however, no Marchand appeared; and inquiry ascertained that he had hurriedly left Dresden that morning, tacitly according the victory to Bach. To the credit of Bach it is recorded that the incident in no way affected his generous appreciation of the graceful compositions of the French master.

  What caused Bach to leave Weimar is not very clear, save that real or imaginary grievances as to his treatment at the Duke’s hands seem to have irritated his naturally quick temper. In any case, he accepted in 1717 the post of master of music to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, who had been a frequent visitor at the court of Weimar. At Köthen Bach remained for six years. Being no longer organist, but director of the Prince’s court music, his attention during this period was mainly directed to instrumental compositions; and to the period between 1717 and 1723 belong his concerti, sonatas, and suites for the clavier, as well as the first part of “Das wohltemperirte Clavier,” the most masterly collection of preludes and fugues in existence.

  In 1719 Bach was at Halle, whither he had traveled in the hope of making the acquaintance of Handel, who was there on a visit to his family. He unfortunately arrived just after Handel had left; a second attempt, ten years later, to meet his famous contemporary was equally unsuccessful.

  It was while Bach was with his princely patron at Carlsbad that news reached him of the death of his wife, whom he had left in perfect health. He returned to Köthen to find her already buried. Only four of her seven children had survived their infancy, and to these their father’s care was now mainly directed. Of the musical ability of his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedmann, Bach had great hopes, and his “Clavier-Büchlein,” “Inventions” for clavier, and the first part of “Das wohltemperirte Clavier” were designed as a progressive course of instruction for the youth.

  Two years after his first wife’s death, Bach married Anna Magdalena Wülkens, daughter of a court musician at Weissenfels. He was again entirely happy in his marriage. His wife, who bore him thirteen children, was a fine singer and a musician of cultivated tastes. In many details of his work, such as the copying out of his scores, she was of immense assistance to him.

  While at Köthen, Bach had applied for the post of organist to the Jacobi Kirche at Hamburg, but was unsuccessful; the appointment was given to an entirely unknown musician who, as afterward transpired, had gained it through flagrant bribery. Pleasant as was his intercourse with his patron, Bach seems to have felt the need of a wider public and a wider sphere of work than was attainable at the Köthen court. Moreover, the Prince had followed his kapellmeister’s example and taken to himself a wife. She had no taste for music, a fact which inevitably tended to breed indifference to Bach’s efforts in that direction; and a year later Bach returned to the welcome atmosphere of Church music as successor to the famous Kuhnau, cantor to the Thomasschule at Leipzig.

  This position, which he occupied for the rest of his life, Bach took up in May, 1723. His duties at Leipzig were not those of organist; but he had sole direction of the musical instruction, theoretical and practical, in the school, and also of the music at the four chief churches in the town. Despite the importance of his post, he seems to have enjoyed ample leisure for composition; and these last twenty-seven years of his life the world is indebted for the greatest of his works, including the Passions, the mass in B minor, the Christmas Oratorio, the Magnificat, and upward of two hundred Church cantatas.

  In common with nearly all great minds, Bach was in many respects in advance of his age. We are now able to appreciate the extent to which he anticipated (in elementary fashion, it is true) many of the developments which his art was afterwards to undergo. To take a single instance: a suite, written at the time of the departure of a favorite brother from home, is one of the earliest examples of what is now known as “programme music.” The united laments of the family are heard in protestation at the traveler’s farewell, but their efforts are useless, and the music changes to a bustling finale of departure through which is heard the call of a postilion’s horn. In the Passions — even in the gre
at Mass — occur what one is tempted to call operatic effects; and it may have been this tendency to descriptiveness (engendered, no doubt, by Bach’s close study of contemporary opera) that led to his being obliged, before entering upon his duties as cantor at Leipzig, to subscribe to a variety of conditions, one of which required him not to make the music in church too long, nor “too operatic,” but rather “such as to encourage the hearers to devotion.”

  Bach’s years at Leipzig, fill as they were of musical activity, were also full of feuds and friction with the authorities, who seem to have been incapable of understanding the greatness of the man with whom they were dealing; while he adopted toward them an independent attitude little calculated to smooth away points of difference. At the time of his going to the Thomasschule, affairs in that institution were falling from bad to worse. Bach threw himself heart and soul into the task of reorganization, but neither his work in that quarter nor his attempts to widen his musical influence in Leipzig met with their due recognition.

  Whatever were Bach’s relations with the outside world, his own home continually furnished him with consolation and content. With the aid of the musical talents of his wife and children he had made of his house a renowned musical center, and there amidst his family and his friends he found an encouragement ever ready to counteract any external disappointment. Nor was he without formal honors. He was presented with honorary court appointments by the Elector of Saxony and the Duke of Weissenfels, and three years before his death received and accepted a flattering invitation to visit the court of Frederick the Great at Berlin, where his son Emanuel held a musical post. The King, who held no mean opinion of his own musical powers, received Bach with marked respect and kindness, as a return for which Bach subsequently worked out in considerable elaboration a theme given him by the King, and dedicated it to him as a “Musicalisches Opfer.”