Bach obtains a title from the Saxon Court--Plays the organ
at Dresden--Attacked by Scheibe--Mizler founds a musical
society--Further disputes--Bach’s successor chosen during his
life-time--Visit to Frederick the Great--Bach’s sight fails--Final
illness and death--Notice in the _Leipsic Chronicle_--The
Council--Fate of the widow and daughter.
At the end of 1736 Bach went to Dresden where he was given the title
of composer to the Saxon Court. He had applied for a title three years
before, in the hope that it would place him in a better position with
regard to the Council and Consistory; but it was in vain that he hoped
for this. Neither his works nor his titles were able to impress them.
[Sidenote: _An Adverse Criticism_]
We learn from a Dresden newspaper of that date that he played from
two to four in the afternoon of December 1st on the new organ in the
church of St Paul, in the presence of the Russian Ambassador, von
Kayserling, and many artists and other persons who heard him with very
great admiration. In the same year, 1736, was published a book of
hymns with their melodies by Schemelli, as a second volume to the book
of Freylingshausen, to which Bach had in his early days contributed
some of the music. On the 14th of May, 1737, there appeared a severe
criticism of the way in which Bach wrote out all his _manieren_ or
grace notes, instead of leaving them for the performer to add at his
discretion. The music thereby loses all its charm of harmony, says the
critic, and the melody becomes incomprehensible. He wonders that a man
should give himself so much trouble to act against reason. The writer
was J. A. Scheibe, a young man who had failed in a competition for an
organistship in which Bach was one of the examiners. The attack was
answered by Birnbaum, a friend of Bach’s, in an interesting critical
analysis of Bach’s works. This was answered by Scheibe, and the dispute
went on for some time, other writers joining in it, until, as Bitter
remarks, “all their powder was exhausted.” Bach, however, worked away
without troubling himself about the matter.
In 1738 Mizler,[50] a pupil of Bach’s, founded a society for raising
the status of music. Though it was successful, the great musician was
not induced to join it until 1747, nine years later, when he handed
into the society a triple canon in six voices on the chorale “Vom
Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her” as an “exercise.” It is to Mizler’s
society that we owe the preservation of the portrait by Hausmann, now
in the Thomas-schule, which is reproduced in this work: and still
further have we to thank it for the account of his life, on which all
later biographies are based.
[Sidenote: Disputes]
[Sidenote: _A Successor Chosen_]
Spitta gives accounts of further disputes. On one occasion a prefect
having punished some small boys at Bach’s special order, the rector
ordered him to be publicly flogged, whereupon the prefect immediately
left the school rather than suffer such indignity. A boy happening
to pitch a hymn at St Nicholas too low for the congregation to sing,
Bach was summoned before the Council and told to see that it did not
happen again. The rector threatened to confiscate the boys’ money
if they obeyed the cantor and accused Bach of being accessible to
bribery. In the _Leipsic Chronicle_ for 1749 we read that on June 8th
Gottlob Harrer was chosen as the future cantor of St Thomas, “when
Capellmeister and Cantor Herr Sebastian Bach should die.” The text of
the cantata performed before the Council on this occasion was “The rich
man died and was buried.” The Council seemed indeed anxious to get rid
of the great man who had done more than all others to make their city
famous.
[Sidenote: _Visit to Frederick the Great_]
[Sidenote: ‘Only One Bach’]
There is little more to relate. Bach from time to time made his
journeys to various towns, and paid visits to Erfurt, where his cousin,
Joh. Christoph, and Adlung were settled. As he advanced in years he
gave up these journeys. The last he made was to the Court of Frederick
the Great at Potsdam in 1747. His son Emanuel had been capellmeister
to Frederick since 1740; and the king had frequently, and always with
more insistence, thrown out hints that he would like to hear the great
artist. Bach being much occupied, and disinclined for travelling, did
not accede to the king’s wishes until they amounted to a positive
command. Then, taking Friedemann with him, he started for Potsdam,
which he reached early in May. The story of the meeting with Frederick
is variously told. We will tell it in Friedemann’s own words: “When
Frederick II. had just prepared his flute, in the presence of the
whole orchestra, for the evening’s concert, the list of strangers
who had arrived was brought him. Holding his flute in his hand he
glanced through the list. Then he turned round with excitement to the
assembled musicians, and, laying down his flute, said, ‘Gentlemen,
old Bach is come.’ Bach, who was at his son’s house, was immediately
invited to the castle. He had not even time allowed him to take off his
travelling clothes and put on his black Court-dress. He appeared, with
many apologies for the state of his dress, before the great prince,
who received him with marked attention, and threw a deprecating look
towards the Court gentlemen, who were laughing at the discomposure
and numerous compliments of the old man. The flute concerto was given
up for this evening; and the king led his famous visitor into all the
rooms of the castle, and begged him to try the Silbermann pianos,
which he (the king) thought very highly of, and of which he possessed
seven.[51] The musicians accompanied the king and Bach from one room
to another; and after the latter had tried all the pianos, he begged
the king to give him a fugue subject, that he could at once extemporise
upon. Frederick thereupon wrote out the subject (afterwards used in
the musical offering), and Bach developed this in the most learned
and interesting manner, to the great astonishment of the king, who,
on his side, asked to hear a fugue in six parts. But, since every
subject is not adapted for so full a working out, Bach chose one for
himself, and astounded those present by his performance. The king, who
was not easily astonished, was completely taken by surprise at the
unapproachable mastery of the old cantor. Several times he cried ‘There
is only one Bach.’ On the following day he played on all the organs
in the churches of Potsdam, and again in the evening on the Silbermann
pianos. From here he paid a visit to Berlin, where he was shown the
opera house.”[52]
A newspaper account of the visit to Frederick varies in several details
from the above; but as the account of the son, who was with Bach, and
perhaps an eye-witness, is the more trustworthy, we have not thought it
necessary to trouble our reader with the second account.[53]
[Sidenote: _Last Illness_]
In the following year the enormous strain he had all his life put upon
himself began to take its effect. Although of unusual strength, the
work had worn out his body. First his eyes, which had been used day
and night from the time he copied his brother’s book by moonlight,
began to give way. The weakness gradually increased, and pains began
to trouble him, yet he could not believe that he was near his end.
Friends persuaded him to undergo an operation at the hands of an
eminent English oculist, who was then in Leipsic. But the result of two
operations was that he lost his sight altogether, and his health was so
broken down by them that he never again left his house, while he was in
constant pain till his death.
[Sidenote: Death]
But he continued to work, even through his hours of greatest suffering.
He set the chorale “When we are in the greatest need” in four parts,
dictating them to Altnikol, his son-in-law. An extraordinary thing
happened ten days before his death; one morning he was able to see well
and to bear daylight; but a few hours after an apoplectic stroke,
followed by a violent fever, completely overcame him. The attentions of
the two best doctors in Leipsic could not avail against the illness,
and at a quarter past eight o’clock in the evening of July 28, 1750, he
breathed his last.
[Illustration: St John’s Church, Leipsic]
He was buried in St John’s churchyard, and, like that of Mozart, his
grave was forgotten and lost. The churchyard was altered early in the
nineteenth century, to allow of a new road being made, and his bones
with those of many others were removed. Some remains lately discovered
on the south side of the church are supposed with good reason to be
those of Bach; but nothing is known for certain.
On his deathbed he had dictated to Altnikol the chorale “Vor deinen
Thron tret ich hiemit.” The _Leipsic Chronicle_ notices his death as
follows: “July 28, at eight in the evening the famous and learned
musician Herr Joh. Sebastian Bach, composer to His Majesty the King of
Poland and Elector of Saxony; Capellmeister to the Courts of Cöthen and
Weissenfels, Director and Cantor of the school of St Thomas, died.”
Here follows a sketch of his life. “The Bach family came from Hungary,
and all, as far as is known, have been musicians, from which perhaps
arises the fact that even the letters b, a, c, h, form a melodic
succession of notes.”[54]
That is all; not one word of regret. Nor do we find that much notice
anywhere was taken of the death of the great man. A meeting of the
Council took place shortly afterwards in which, while no expressions
of sympathy were heard, the remark was made, “Herr Bach was a great
musician no doubt, but we want a schoolmaster, not a capellmeister”;
and they proceeded at once to arrange for the instalment of Harrer.
[Sidenote: _Fate of the Widow and Children_]
The sons of the first marriage took possession of all music that was of
value, and sold the rest of the property. Görner, Bach’s former rival,
undertook the duties of guardian to his younger children, and seems to
have fulfilled the task with propriety and reverence. Bach’s widow was
allowed her husband’s salary for six months, after which, receiving no
help from her stepsons, she supported her younger children as well as
she could, and becoming gradually poorer, died in an almshouse and was
buried in a pauper’s grave. The youngest daughter, Regina, lived till
1809, and was supported by charity in her old age.
The family of Joh. Sebastian Bach gradually died out, and is now
extinct, the last representative, a farmer of Eisenach, having died in
1846.
Bach’s music fell more and more into oblivion, and for a time his name
seems to have been forgotten. In 1883 a room in the Thomas-schule was
used as the English Church, and on the first floor a smaller room was
used as the vestry. In the latter was a cupboard in which the communion
plate and surplices were kept. The writer was told that this cupboard
had formerly been full of music MSS., and that during the years of
oblivion, whenever a Thomas-schule boy wanted a piece of paper to wrap
up his “Butterbrod” he was allowed to tear out a sheet of paper from
one of Bach’s manuscripts.[55]
Thus after his death were treated the family and works of the man “to
whom music owes as much as religion does to its founder.”
FOOTNOTES:
[50] See Glossary.
[51] These pianos were made in the years 1746-7 after the invention of
Cristofori of Florence, who was the first to use the hammer action.
This action, however, did not suit Bach’s touch, and though he praised
the tone, he does not appear to have become possessed of one. The
writer was shown one of the above-mentioned Silbermann pianos in the
Palace of Sanssouci at Potsdam in 1884.
[52] See page 79.
[53] It can be found in Bitter, vol. ii. p. 317, Spitta, vol. iii. p.
231, and elsewhere.
[54] h being the German term for B♮.
[55] This story may or may not be true--we give it for what it is worth.