Bach—The Giant
Bach and Handel rescued the Germans from the reputation of being musical
barbarians, for Germany had not had a Lully or a Palestrina! But just in
time, Bach and Handel entered and Bach carried composition to maturity
and religious musical art to its highest point, while Handel was one of
the foremost opera and oratorio composers of his day.
And indeed not until Mozart’s day did the Italians think that Germany
was anything but barbarous, not in fact until they were outranked in
Italian Opera by a German.
Of all the unassuming men of genius Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) is
the most lovable. Never did he seem to realize that he was doing
anything, but the will of God, never did he seem to care what people
thought of his work, but went on composing, supporting twenty children,
often with so little money that he tutored and played at funerals to eke
out a living. In his life there was little glitter. Bach was a saint, if
there was ever a saint. Although some few admired Bach during his
lifetime, it was not until one hundred years after his death that his
works were known and that he received the fame he deserved.
The Bach family for six generations were musicians, beginning with his
grandfather “to the 5th power,” Veit Bach, a Thuringian baker in the
16th century whose pleasure “was to use a small zither, which he took
with him to play, while the mill was moving.” All his descendants became
musicians down to and beyond Johann Sebastian.
The Bachs were great family lovers and every year they held reunions, at
which all of the different members living in various parts of Germany,
met together and enjoyed a jolly time singing and playing.
Sebastian was born in 1685 in Eisenach, the town where Martin Luther
wrote his stirring chorales. His father Ambrosius began very early to
teach him music, the family profession, and Sebastian started with the
violin.
But the poor little boy lost both father and mother when only ten years
of age, and he was left to be brought up by his elder brother, Johann
Christopher. Sebastian was passionately fond of music and although
Christopher taught him to play the clavier, nevertheless this sad little
tale is told:
Sebastian had seen Christopher with a book of music including pieces by
Froberger, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, and others. Sebastian was very anxious
to get it and play bits from it. Christopher forbade him to touch it and
put it away in a cupboard, which fortunately had a lattice door, for
Sebastian, every night during the full moon, (because he did not dare to
use a candle), copied the book note for note. When Christopher
discovered this, the little lad was soundly scolded and was witness to
Christopher’s burning it before his poor eyes!
It did not seem to daunt him, for from this time on, he copied the great
works whenever he could.
It became necessary for Sebastian to earn money to save Christopher’s
purse, and in 1700 he became a choir boy at St. Michael’s in Lüneburg,
where he received lessons without paying for them. He was happy here,
with a library where he could copy music to his heart’s content, and
every vacation he went on foot to Hamburg to learn of the great
organist, Reinken. He visited too the court of Celle where he heard
Couperin’s music, which no doubt helped to develop his style.
Soon he left Lüneburg and went to Saxe-Weimar where he entered the
orchestra of Prince Johann Ernst. But his interest was in the church and
when he was eighteen he tried for the post of organist in the Church at
Arnstadt. He played so delightfully, despite his youth, that he was
accepted at the first hearing!
He composed many works here and learned much about the organ, that was
to be valuable to him and to us. He was well liked, too, and his playing
was enjoyed. Nevertheless, his interest in others was so great, that he
decided to go to see Buxtehude in Lübeck, and he was so interested in
the master’s art that he forgot about his church in Arnstadt and stayed
four months instead of one! When he returned he was severely
reprimanded. Later, he received a second reprimand which is of
tremendous interest for he was accused of “interspersing the chorale
with many strange variations and tones, to the confusion of the
congregation.” He was charged with the crime of being original!
Due to this lack of sympathy, he accepted a post as organist at
Mühlhausen in 1707 and later in the year married his cousin, Maria
Barbara, with great rejoicings. They had seven children, two of whom
were the famous Wilhelm Friedemann and Karl Philip Emanuel.
The next year he became Concertmaster (first violinist), to the Duke of
Weimar and remained there until 1718. This was a very fruitful composing
period, for he had no money worries. He studied the Italian masters,
especially Vivaldi, and wrote some excellent cantatas. However, he went
soon to the Prince of Anhalt-Cothen, as Court Choir Master.
He made concert trips from here to Dresden and Leipsic, and it was in
Dresden that he challenged the proud Marchand, the French organist, to a
public improvisation contest on a theme, new to both of them. But the
contest never took place, because, unknown to Bach, Marchand heard him
play and when the time for the contest came, Marchand had left town
hurriedly in an early post-chaise. And strange as it may seem, Emperor
Frederick I gave Marchand one hundred ducats and Bach got nothing!
Bach’s new patron was a fine man and a Protestant and gave Bach every
chance. At Weimar, he had become well known for his religious works and
beautiful playing. But, as he had no organ, he wrote music for
harpsichord, violin, chamber music and the orchestra, which was far from
“grown up.” Here, too, he wrote the Brandenburg Concertos and the first
part of his epoch-making work _The Well-tempered Clavichord_ (48
Preludes and Fugues, 1722) which he finished in 1744. It is still the
greatest work of its kind. In it he reaches the highest point of
contrapuntal writing.
In 1720, while Bach was traveling with the Prince, his wife died. After
a year and a half he married a charming singer, Anna Magdalena Wulkens,
one of his pupils. They had twelve children and lived very happily. The
lovely little tunes that he wrote for Anna Magdalena and his children
have come down to us and many of us have played them in the first years
of our music study. Isn’t it wonderful to think that the great Bach, who
wrote some of the masterpieces of the world, could also write simple
little Minuets and Preludes that any child can play?
But with all Bach’s comfort he missed an organ! Deep in his soul, he
craved the making of religious music—it was part of his thinking. His
religious ideas tied up with his music, were his life. So we see this
saint leaving happiness at Cothen for an ill-paid post in Leipsic, as
Cantor (1723) at the school of St. Thomas, where, succeeding Johann
Kuhnau, he stayed the rest of his life and wrote his greatest works.
Bach wrote to a friend that he thought a long while before leaving his
“gracious, music loving and discriminating Prince ... but it happened
that my master married a ... princess who ... weaned my master from the
loving interest he had ... toward our glorious art. And so God arranged
that the post of Cantor at St. Thomas’ should fall vacant.... I took
three months to consider the future and was induced to accept, as my
sons were studious and I was desirous ... of gratifying their bent by
entering them in the school ... and thus, in the name of the Most High,
I ventured and came to Leipsic.”
Note, dear reader, the nobility, spirituality and sweetness here,
thinking of his children and not of his career!
He struggled against the unsympathetic town council, the school, and
lack of money. He wrote to his friend Erdman, “My present income
averages $700. When funerals are numerous I make more, but if the ‘air
is healthy’ then my income falls. During the past year I have earned
$100 less, owing to the small number of deaths.”
In 1732 he wrote one of his few attempts at comedy.—the _Coffee Cantata_
set to music on a text by Picander. Leipsic had become a slave to the
new luxury, coffee, and in this Picander found material for a satire.
Besides his regular work, he had to teach dull, undisciplined pupils,
attend to services in four churches, and be satisfied with the few
singers and players he found for the performances he directed.
Yet, fed with the spirit of love that was within him, he was happy and
his home was a center of joy. He never became too sad until he lost his
sight three years before his death. Even then he dictated his
compositions and conquered discouragement!
Bach’s life was made happier when Philip Emanuel became Court musician
and clavier player to Frederick the Great, and he talked so much of his
father that Bach was invited to Potsdam.
When Frederick the Great, who was playing the flute in his orchestra,
heard that Bach was in Potsdam, he put down his flute and interrupted
the concert saying, “Gentlemen, old Bach has arrived.” Bach appeared in
his traveling clothes and was invited to improvise a fugue in six parts,
which he did to the great admiration of all.
Yet many felt that his writings were lacking in charm! This was no doubt
because people were getting accustomed to the Italian melodies which had
become popular in Germany. Furthermore, when he wrote “The Art of Fugue”
his son could sell but thirty copies and finally sold the plates for the
mere cost of the metal! Students are grateful that copies of this work
were saved, for it is still the greatest authority on fugue writing.
In 1749, Bach underwent an operation on his eyes but lost his sight and
in 1750 died of apoplexy. So little was he appreciated that his grave
was destroyed in the renovation of the Johanneskirche grounds. His
supposed remains were discovered in 1894 and re-interred one hundred and
forty-four years after his death. But—what remains of Bach, no known or
unknown grave can bury.
A quarter of a century after Bach’s death, Mozart said, on hearing a
Bach Cantata, “At last I have heard something new and have learned
something.” Then later Mendelssohn re-discovered him, and Schubert, too,
helped to bring him to the world’s notice. And not until 1850, a century
after his death, was the Bach Society formed to honor Bach, the
corner-stone of modern music.
Bach was a stalwart man with fine deep eyes, broad forehead and a grave
face, lit with kindly humor. He had dignity and calm, was always
courteous, and criticised only his pupils whom he wanted to help. When
asked one time, how he played so well, he remarked, “I always have had
to work hard.” He could stand no one who was pretentious and conceited.
He wanted his rights but never boasted. One year besides fulfilling his
other duties he wrote a cantata every Sunday! He wrote them as a
preacher writes sermons. They had to be done and he never neglected his
duty.
Bach was a devoted father and husband and his home was one of the
happiest of any great genius. Many of his children were musical and he
said that he had an orchestra in his own home!
Even his little half-witted son had genius and during the last years of
Bach’s life when the dear old man had become blind, the little boy sat
at the clavier, Bach’s favorite instrument, and improvised to the joy of
his father.
BACH’S WORKS
It is impossible to describe in words just what Bach accomplished, so
surpassing in beauty are his best works.
He brought the art of polyphonic writing to its highest and most sublime
point. His value to the student cannot be exaggerated, for he is the
musical Bible to all who would be musicians.
The organ was the core of his musical thinking and it is in the things
which center about the organ that his art is loftiest.
Although he was most ingenious in writing counterpoint, he was never dry
and tricky as were other writers. His subjects were always original and
his melodic line always of rare beauty.
His works are most varied: fugues, motets, cantatas, passions,
oratorios, concertos, sonatas and suites. He was a radical in his day,
for he threw over conventional notions of harmony as to proper keys and
insisted upon a new system of tuning the clavier, so as to use the whole
range of tones. The “Well-tempered Clavichord,” two groups of 24
Preludes and Fugues in 24 keys, was the outcome of this. It was so
called because it was written to show the possibilities of a clavier (or
clavichord) tuned according to an idea of his, enabling one to play in
all keys. This was one of the greatest discoveries in the whole story of
music, for it made possible all the music which has followed. The
keyboard was divided into equal half-steps. This made twelve half-steps
within each octave and thus all the intervals became fixed, and
modulation from key to key was possible. Heretofore, if one went from
one key to another, the instrument sounded out of tune, but now
instruments were tuned, as we glibly say, “to scale.”
He invented a new fingering in which the thumb and little finger were
used for the first time. We wonder why the thumb had been snubbed!
The pianoforte was just coming into prominence in Bach’s day but he
preferred the clavier, on which he felt he could play with more
expression.
He developed the fugue to its highest point. A fugue is an enlarged
canon in which the fragments of theme or melody are taken up and
answered by two, or more, voices. One voice declares the subject and the
answer is repeated usually in the dominant key a fifth above, while the
first voice gives the counter-subject. There are various kinds of
fugues, depending on their construction. After the voices have all
entered, separated sometimes by little passages called “episodes,” a
section in which the subject is freely developed comes, and then the
stretto, in which all the parts enter racing and overlapping, building
up to a climax; then follows the cadence or ending.
To write a noble or lofty fugue, neither dry nor pedantic, takes art to
the _nth_ power! Bach had the art that touched Heaven’s borders! In
truth you can safely divide fugues into two classes—Bach’s and all
others!
None of Bach’s works were published until he was forty years old, and
most of them not until long after his death, and many of his manuscripts
were lost and never published at all.
The list of his works is stupendous; the Bach Gesellschaft (Bach
Society, 1850) published them in sixty volumes! Among them were the 48
Preludes and Fugues (The Well-tempered Clavichord Collection); 12
Suites; many Inventions in 2 and 3 parts; partitas; 12 concertos for 1,
2, 3 and 4 claviers with orchestra; many sonatas and concertos for
violin, flute, viola da gamba, clavier, and orchestra; several overtures
for orchestras; vocal works; 200 motets and cantatas; 5 _Passions_, of
which the greatest are the St. Matthew and the St. John; 5 masses of
which his _B Minor Mass_ is a world masterpiece; oratorios; magnificats;
many organ works, and old German chorales harmonized for voices.
When you can, try to hear Wanda Landowska play Bach compositions on the
harpsichord. It is a glimpse into the beauty of the saintly Bach.
Also try to hear the great Bach Festival, directed by Frederick Wolle
held yearly in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Moravian Church.
In a list of great men, Bach would be classed with Euripides, Sophocles,
Shakespeare, Milton, da Vinci, Michael Angelo and Goethe.
Bach did not write for people, he wrote for his own soul. He never
seemed able to write theatric music, for his was the drama of the
spirit. Always, his music was the result of his musings, the confessions
of his ideals. So he attained a loftiness, grandeur and sublimity far
removed from even some of the most dramatic writers.
BACH’S SONS
Bach’s sons reached great eminence. The eldest was Wilhelm Friedemann
(1710–1784), an unusually talented man on whom the father built great
hopes. But while Friedemann inherited his father’s musical talent he did
not have his character, and was looked upon as a disgrace to the family
on account of his dissolute ways. He was the greatest organist of his
time and most of his compositions, which were considered very fine, have
been lost to the world, for he did not take the trouble even to write
them down, but played them from memory.
The third son, Karl Philip Emanuel (1714–1788), although trained to be a
lawyer, could not resist the urge of music, and after going through two
universities decided to become a musician to Frederick the Great. He was
“general manager” of all the music at court until the Seven Years’ War
put an end to his position after almost thirty years’ service. He then
spent the rest of his life in Hamburg. As composer, conductor, teacher
and critic his influence was great. He was loved and respected by the
whole city. In his day he was regarded as being as important as his
father, but we know that he was not in the same class, although he was
the greatest of his contemporaries. He did not imitate his father’s
style but developed the sonata into the form that Haydn, Mozart and
Beethoven perfected. He was an innovator, not only in form, but in the
treatment of melody and harmony. His best sonatas were written at the
court of Frederick the Great.
In the growth of music he is the link between his immortal father and
Haydn. Haydn was more gifted than he and made the seeds planted by
Philip Emanuel blossom luxuriantly.
Johann Christoph (1732–1795) was an upright, modest, amiable man, and a
splendid musician keeping up the family traditions.
Johann Christian (1735–1782), the youngest of those who outlived the
father, might be called the Italian Bach, because he went to Italy in
1754, became organist of the Milan Cathedral, and wrote vocal music in
the Neapolitan style. He left his position as organist, married an
Italian prima donna, wrote many operas and spent the last twenty years
of his life in London, as director of concerts.
Curious as it may seem, the great and gifted Bach family died out in
1845, with a grandson of Johann Sebastian. Out of twenty children there
seems not to have been one to carry the line to the present day.