Sebastian Bach

through the stages of chorister, orchestral violinist, and organist: he was now capellmeister in a ducal palace, and, measured by conventional standards of success, he had nothing further to lo

and the confined circle of activity in the chapel at Coethen could satisfy but a part of his complete musician's nature. The years of study and the years of ripe performance mu

cisive-was, that he might do his best for his children's bringing up. His care was always for Wilhelm Friedemann, his eldest and best-loved child; and in this very year we find that h

ained both a choir-school and a grammar-school; and of its seven masters, the cantor, who took a middle place, lowest of the four superiores, had his share of both branches of teaching. He gave a certain number of lessons a week in music and Latin grammar, varied on Sunday evenings by the Latin catechism of Luther. Bach, however, was allowed to pay one of hi

arently, on festivals, in the extra-mural church of S. John too, the cantor had to distribute his choir. The best-trained voices were reserved for S. Thomas's and S. Nicholas', where the services were so arranged that the cantor could preside over the important music at both. The other churches had to be content with the younger and more unskilled choristers. A

man, clergyman and pedant-he was Professor of Poetry in the university-who had lived his seventy years without learning the first secret of acquiring influence over masters or scholars, far less of giving unity or vigour to the management of the school. There was discord everywhere, with its usual accompaniment. The attendance of the scholars fell off, in the lower classes to less than half their former number; and, worse than this, t

rew their choirs from S. Thomas's. If the cantor was mortified at the retrenchment of his authority, it was the school that suffered the most. For its scholars at first spent their holidays in the opera-company; soon the choir of the New Church was absorbed into it. The boys went over altogether, willing enough to abandon the restraints and the severer training of the school, for the freedom and gaiety, not to say the profit, of the career now open to them. And, although Telemann left Leipzig after a year (17

the appointment of Bach as his successor in the cantorate) to the pitifullest of musicians, one Goerner,35 who was to Bach for many years a standing grievance and obstruction. The temporary substitute was tacitly kept on by the indulgent University magnates, and the Thomasschule lost that connexion with the University which gave the only promise for its revival. Moreover, Goerner, who was also organist at S. Nicholas'-afterwards, in 1730, at

the high ambition of re-creating what had been once a true home of musical art, of keeping alive and (as

e declarations of office; the appointment was ratified by the consistor

ces (at the quarterly Acts, the Reformation Festival, and the three high-days of the Church). But of late years there had been a regular Sunday service as well, in the University Church; and this Goerner insisted on appropriating. It was not a mere question of fees that determined Bach's appeal in 1725 to the King-Elector at Dresden; the entire issue as to who should be supreme in matters musical in Leipzig was at stake. A long correspondence as usual brought no practical result. Goerner seems to have retained his weekly services, and even now and then to have encroached on Bach's strict province of composing special odes and the like

f Bach's music is the truest church-music, it contains none the less the elements of independent concert-music as well. Accordingly the titles of Capellmeister of Coethen, which he held when he came to Leipzig, and of Weissenfels, which was conferred upon him in the year of his arrival, Bach bore until his death.

their scope. All through his life he could never get to understand them or the reasons for their action, simply because he knew perfectly that they were incapable of under-* standing him. This much he knew about them, and they gave him ample oppor

of demonstration just when he had brought out The Passion according to Saint Matthew, not to speak of three great church-cantatas at the commemorative festival of the Augsburg confession. The council proceeded to vote that he was not to be trusted even in the choice of choristers for his school. To fill nine vacancies Bach had examined a number of competitors, and sent in a careful report as to their qualifications. The council accepted only five

ied upon varying items, and, as he explained, when a healthy wind blew, he could not count on much from the funerals) and the town very expensive-you could live in Thuringia for half as much-above all, he was under the control of an extraordinary council with little liking for music (eine wunderliche und der Musik wenig ergebene Obrigkeit), with which he stood perforce in contin

een already produced more than once. However, he was not concerned to perform the thing: it would only give him trouble and no profit. He would report to his ecclesiastical superior that the council forbade its performance. In this way he managed to shift the dispute on to the shoulders of the consistory, which had a standing quarrel with the council as to their respective powers o

rightened into docility by a retrenchment of his salary and influence, occupies himself meantime in devising and proving the necessity of a large scheme which should extend the scope of his authority and indirectly augment his income. The reform, of course, never came, and the memoir is only interesting as the reflection of the independent nature of the writer, and

h I have already quoted, he says: I must now acquaint you with somewhat of my domestic estate. For the second time I am married, my first lamented wife having deceased at Coethen. Of her I have living three sons and a daughter, whom your Excellence will kindly remember to have seen at Weimar; of the second marriage there are living a son and two daughters. My eldest son is a student of law, the next two are

l Society of which Bach undertook the management in 1729. We know, from the inventory taken after his death, that he possessed latterly five clavecins (the word must be used inaccurately, and taken to include clavichords) and ten stringed instruments, not counting his three lutes; so that in the house itself there was material for the nucleus of an orchestra, though violinists would probably, and players on wind instruments necessarily, bring their own instruments with them. In all this domestic music his wife took her share, both as player on the clavichord, in which she was his apt pupil, and especially as a singer. It is likely that some church cantatas were written for her and for the eldest daughter Katharina (who sang alto) as may be inferred from the prevalence in such of one solo voice,

had regularly to be copied out. A great deal exists in the delicate hand of Anna Magdalena Bach, who also transcribed many scores for her husband's private use. No one was idle, and