The position and duties of the Cantor of St Thomas’ School
at Leipsic--The condition of the school in 1722--Kuhnau’s
death--Competition and election of two cantors in succession--Bach
offers himself--Is elected--Difficulties with the authorities.
The Council make irritating regulations--Bach endeavours to leave
Leipsic--Election of a new Rector, and temporary disappearance of
Bach’s troubles.
[Sidenote: _St Thomas’ School, Leipsic_]
Of the three ancient schools at Leipsic, St Thomas, dating from the
thirteenth century under the Augustines, was the oldest and most
important. It was endowed with no less than fifty-four scholarships
for the encouragement of church music, and its cantor was a person
of considerable importance, who ranked next below the Rector and
Conrector. These three officials, together with the chief Latin master,
were “Superiores,” who kept apart from the “Inferiores” or lower
masters. The cantor’s duty was to teach singing for seven hours a week,
to take the boys to church on Thursdays at 7 o’clock in the morning,
and to give certain Latin lessons. He had also to take his turn with
the other Superiores in inspecting and examining the boys for one week
in four. The boys lived with them, and the regulations of the school
required all to get up at 5 in summer, 6 in winter, to dine at 10, to
have supper at 5, to go to bed at 8.
[Illustration: The Thomasschule at Leipsic]
The boys of the Thomas-school had to supply the music every Sunday in
four churches, St Thomas, St Nicholas, St Peter and St Matthew; but
at St Peter’s only chorales were sung, so that the younger singers
sufficed for this duty.
A motet or cantata was performed every Sunday at the Thomas-Church and
Nicolai-Church alternately: a custom which still continues; the service
is at 9 A.M., and the cantata, which is always accompanied by the town
orchestra with the organ, takes somewhat the place of the anthem in an
English cathedral. The composition to be performed on each Sunday is
now announced in the previous Saturday’s papers.
[Sidenote: Office of Cantor]
On great festivals the music was performed in both churches at once,
and twice a day. The cantor was responsible for the music at one
church, the choir prefect for that at the other.
In order to lighten the work that this must have imposed on the boys,
the choir that sang at St Thomas in the morning would sing the same
music at St Nicholas in the afternoon; and the cantata which was sung
at St Nicholas in the morning would be repeated at St Thomas in the
afternoon. The rehearsals took place on Saturday afternoons from about
2.30 to 4.
Wedding and funeral music had also to be supplied by the cantor.
Moreover he had not only to choose the music for these occasions, and
teach it to the choir, but appear in person to direct it, though he
frequently left the last duty to the prefect.
The choristers had to take part in certain processions at Michaelmas,
New Year, on St Martin’s and St Gregory’s days: and these performances
were conducted by the prefects. For this purpose they were divided into
four choirs, but the four choirs had only two or three voices for each
part. The cantor had to direct the music in the two other churches,
_i.e._ St John and St Paul, to inspect their organs, and to superintend
the town musicians who took part in the church music.
The holidays consisted of one week during each of the fairs,[39]
followed by a week of half-holidays. In the summer four weeks of
half-holidays. Morning lessons were omitted on Saints’ days, funeral
days, and academical speech days. Four whole holidays in the year took
place on the “Name days” of the four principal masters.
In Lent no church music was performed, except on the festival of the
Annunciation; and on the last three Sundays in Advent there was no
church music.
The above list of holidays may seem at first sight ample; but it
had this great drawback: the masters were never free, as in English
schools, to go away for change of scene. The boys appear to have lived
with them throughout the year. It is possible that German boys do not
cause so much anxiety to their masters as English boys, and that work
was not carried on at such high pressure as nowadays; it is quite
certain that no master of an English public school could pursue his
work continuously, year after year, as these old Germans seem to have
done, without breaking down in health.
The cantor was provided with a residence in the school: the salary
was 100 gülden (about £13), but the whole income from various sources
amounted to about 700 thalers (about £100), together with certain
allowances of corn, wine and firewood. A curious custom, though not
an uncommon one in those days, was, that certain scholars twice a
week went round the town to collect donations for the school; and out
of these, 6 pfennige (about three farthings) per week were taken for
each scholar and divided between the four upper masters. The moneys
collected during the processional singing in the streets, and also the
fees paid for funerals and weddings were divided according to certain
fixed rules. Bach mentions to Erdmann that when the air of Leipsic
is good there are few funerals, and therefore the cantor’s income is
smaller. Many efforts were made by the public to evade these taxes, by
holding funerals and weddings without music; and there arose a certain
feeling of indignation that an important school and church official
should partly derive his means of subsistence from money obtained by
begging.
Owing to the insufficiency of accommodation the school was a centre of
illness, until the building was enlarged.
The Rector, Ernesti, was very old--he was a learned man, but was not
able to control either masters or boys. The former quarrelled among
themselves, and neglected their duties; the boys were undisciplined,
and the many calls on their time for musical performances made their
education difficult. When Ernesti was appointed there were one hundred
and twenty boys in the lower school; there were now only fifty-three.
The scholarships had plenty of applicants, but the better class of
citizens sent their sons to the other schools. The lowest classes of
the Thomas School consisted of boys of the worst character, who went
about the town barefoot and begging.
[Sidenote: _Kuhnau’s troubles_]
All reform which might result in curtailing his salary was opposed by
Ernesti, and the cantor seconded his opposition. Things therefore grew
worse and worse till his death in 1729. In 1730 the superintendent
reported that the school had run wild, and that there were so few
scholars that it was proposed to close the lower classes altogether. As
to the singing, it must have been very bad. The slow processions in the
worst of weather, the running up long flights of stairs to sing before
the doors of the higher “flats” ruined the voices. Kuhnau complained
in 1717 that the trebles lost their voices before they had learned to
use them. In addition to this, they were undisciplined and often feeble
and miserable from illness, so that they did not offer an attractive
material for the cantor to work upon.
Kuhnau worked his hardest to remedy this state of things, but without
avail. In reply to his very reasonable request that at least two
trebles should be set apart for church music only, and not allowed to
run about the streets and attend funerals for money, the Council took
no further steps than to allow 4 gülden for this purpose, and that two
boys should be released from the winter processions.
When from 1693 to 1729 a house in the Brühl, one of the chief streets
of Leipsic, was used for the performance of operas during the fairs,
much damage was done to the musical tendencies of the inhabitants of
Leipsic. The students of the University, who had formerly taken an
important part in the performance of the church cantatas, now left
Kuhnau (after he had been at the trouble of training them), and joined
the chorus of the opera. The trouble was most acute when Telemann was
organist of the Church of St Matthew. He had been a student in the
University, had composed an opera, and had formed a musical society
amongst the students. Looking upon him as one of themselves, they
entirely left Kuhnau, who had to supply the music for the churches
as best he could. A new and operatic style of music came into vogue
under Telemann at St Matthew’s Church, which became very popular;
and his musical society became the most important in Leipsic. There
were sixty members, who practised twice a week from 8 to 10 in the
evening, and their performances, which took place during fair time,
became important. This “Musical Union” practised in the coffee-houses,
and members of the public were admitted; its meetings had none of the
formality of school practice, but were cheerful and attractive. Some of
its better instrumentalists obtained engagements in good bands, as at
Dresden, Darmstadt, Wolfenbüttel and Hamburg.
Telemann’s post, when he left, was successively occupied by good
musicians, and the union and opera were kept up; the cantor had, in
consequence, a hard time of it. At festivals and fairs, when he was
naturally anxious to do well before the public, he had nothing to rely
on but a few inefficient town musicians and unruly schoolboys.
The organ at the Thomas Church was “belaboured first by one, then by
another pair of unwashed hands,” the director of the music being either
unable to play it, or absent. Kuhnau begged that a regular organist
should be appointed, but he begged in vain. The Council, like everyone
else, were more interested in the attractions of the opera than in the
serious music of the two important churches.
[Sidenote: The Thomas School]
At last even the boys took to the opera. Those who had any voices got
engaged by an _impresario_, ran away from school, and returned only to
appear in the theatre during fair time, thus exciting the admiration
and envy of their former school-fellows. The music at the Thomas School
had reached its lowest ebb at the time of Kuhnau’s death.
[Sidenote: _The Successor to Kuhnau_]
Kuhnau, the cantor of this School of St Thomas at Leipsic, died on June
5, 1722. Six candidates applied for the post--Fasch, a former pupil of
Kuhnau, and now capellmeister to the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst; Rolle,
musical director at Magdeburg, and formerly organist of Quedlinburg;
Telemann, who had composed cantatas for St Thomas’ Church, and operas
for the Leipsic theatre, cantor at Hamburg; G. F. Kauffmann, a pupil
of Buttstedt, and organist of Merseburg; Graupner, capellmeister of
Darmstadt; and Schott, the organist of St Matthew’s Church at Leipsic.
Telemann was elected, and arrangements were made for his installation,
when he wrote from Hamburg that he would not accept the office. The
Council were therefore, much against their will, obliged to elect
another, and their choice fell on Graupner, who had been nine years a
boy in the Thomas School, and was a pupil of Kuhnau. He was considered
one of the best composers for the harpsichord of the day. He was
backed by strong recommendations and testimonials from Heinichen, the
capellmeister of Dresden, but the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt refusing
to part with him, he was forced to retire.
[Sidenote: _Bach offers himself_]
At the end of 1722 Bach, after long and anxious deliberation, offered
himself for the appointment.
He did not wish to leave his comfortable post at Cöthen, and moreover
the position of cantor was somewhat less dignified than the office of
capellmeister. On the other hand, the education of his sons could be
better carried out at Leipsic, and the marriage of the Prince had to
some extent put him out of favour. After some three months’ hesitation,
acting on the advice of friends, he went to Leipsic and performed his
test piece, “Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe” (Peters, 1290), on February
7, 1723.
[Sidenote: _The Agreement_]
On the retirement of Graupner Bach was chosen, with the proviso that
if he could not teach all the Latin required, they would pay a deputy
to do it for him. Not wishing to be behind his predecessor Kuhnau,
he undertook all the duties, but soon finding the Latin too much of
a task, he paid his colleague Pezold 50 thalers per annum to relieve
him of this part of his work. He had to sign an agreement to lead
a respectable and sober life; to be faithful and diligent in the
performance of his duties; to have a proper respect for the Council;
not to make the church music too long or too operatic; to instruct
the boys in instrumental as well as vocal music; to treat them with
humanity; not to send incapable singers to the New Church;[40] not to
make any journeys without permission from the Burgomaster; and not to
accept any office in the University without leave from the Council.[41]
After signing this agreement, he had to pass an examination as to his
religious views, and on the 13th of May 1723, he was confirmed in the
appointment: though the installation did not take place till the 31st.
[Illustration: St Thomas’ Church, Leipsic]
Bach’s residence was in the left side of the school buildings: but in
1731 the building was enlarged and he for a year lived in a temporary
residence, for which the Council paid a rent of 60 thalers.
This particular post of cantor was one of the most important in Germany
and had been always held by a distinguished man. The work was not
heavy, though the list of duties seems a long one; and he would have
time for his own engrossing occupation of composing. He still held the
rank of a capellmeister, and in addition to that of Cöthen, he was
given honorary rank as capellmeister of the Court of Weissenfels in the
year he removed to Leipsic.
[Sidenote: _Troubles with the Authorities_]
And with the resumption of church work came difficulties of many kinds.
The authorities never, from first to last, recognised that they had one
of the world’s greatest geniuses to deal with; in fact they did not
require a genius; all they asked was that their cantor should be able
to carry out the church music in a respectable conventional manner.
Bach, with his lofty ideals, was so often at variance with them that
the history of his life at Leipsic seems at first sight to consist of
one long turmoil and trouble.
[Sidenote: Cloud and Sunshine]
Yet there are bright spots in the picture; and nothing was able to
disturb the equanimity with which, in spite of external rubs, he for
twenty-seven years continued to pour forth his marvellous Passion music
and cantatas.
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’s[42] as well as St Thomas and St Nicholas;
and he therefore continued in his post as musical director to the
University.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: ‘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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _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 for this purpose, and for the purchase of
violins, violas, violoncellos for church use; and they allowed Bach
to purchase Bodenschatz’s Florilegium Portense[44] 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.
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _Gesner’s Appreciation_]
[Sidenote: A Vast Combination]
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 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] The three fairs, called “Messe,” are held at Easter, Michaelmas
and New Year. Leipsic is at these times crowded with merchants from all
parts of the world.
[40] _i.e._ the Church of St Matthew.
[41] Spitta, vol. ii. p. 186.
[42] _i.e._ the University Church. In Bach’s time there were six
churches at Leipsic--St Thomas, St Nicholas (or Nicolai), St Paul (or
University Church), St Matthew (or New Church), St Peter (or Petri),
and St John.
[43] According to Spitta, vol. ii. p. 223. But Görner’s name appears in
the “Chronicle” far more often than that of Bach in connection with the
music for these festivals.
[44] See Glossary.
[45] Spitta quotes it in full, vol. ii. p. 253.
[46] Spitta, vol. ii. p. 242.
[47] Quoted by Bitter, vol. i. p. 303. This appreciation of the skill
required to conduct a musical performance is remarkable as coming
from one who, not being musical, might be expected to think, with the
majority of non-musicians, that the conductor merely has to “beat time.”