BACH, THE PATRIARCH
The genealogy of the Bachs shows them to have been in the habit of
marrying at least two or three times apiece, and of being very prolific.
Johann Ambrosius Bach, the father of "the Father of Modern Music," had a
twin brother, Johann Cristoph. They were astonishingly alike in mind and
manner and mien. They suffered the same disorders and died nearly
together. Their wives, it is said--_horresco referens_!--could not tell
them apart. J. Christoph was sued for breach of promise by a girl whom
he said he had discussed matrimony with and exchanged rings with, but
tired of. The Consistory ordered him to marry her, but he appealed to a
higher court and was absolved from the tenacious woman whom he said he
"hated so that he could not bear the sight of her." He married another
woman four years later.
The great Bach, Johann Sebastian, was the youngest of six children. His
mother died when he was nine years old, but with Bachic haste his
father remarried; the new wife was a widow and seemed to be in the habit
of it, for she buried J. Ambrosius two months after the wedding. The boy
Sebastian was put in charge of an uncle.
At eighteen he was organist at Arnstadt--at twenty-one he went on foot
fifty miles to Lübeck to hear the great Buxtehude play the organ. He had
been given four weeks' leave and took sixteen. He was severely reproved
for this by the Consistory; and the reproof is in existence still. While
they were about it, they reproved him for his wild modulations and
variations, also for having played too long interludes, and then, when
rebuked, playing them too short. He was given eight days to answer, and
waited eight months. Then they remonstrated with him mildly again,
adding, that they "furthermore remonstrate with him on his having
latterly allowed the stranger maiden to show herself and to make music
in the choir." His answer to this was simply that he had spoken about it
to the parson. Further explanation we have none.
Spitta speculates on the identity of this "stranger maiden." In the
older church-cantata women did not sing: in the newer form they
occasionally did. She might have been a professional from the Brunswick
opera. But Spitta decides that it must have been Maria Barbara Bach, his
cousin from a neighbouring town. She is known to have had relatives and
friends in Arnstadt, and Bach married her a year later. Assuming this to
be true, Spitta notes that a delightful episode in the courtship of the
young couple is disclosed to our view. Perhaps, too, when Bach "spoke to
the parson," he confessed his love and his betrothal.
Further Spitta comments: "The plan on which Bach wished to found his own
family shows how he, too, was filled with that patriarchal feeling by
which his race was distinguished and brought to such flourishing
conditions. Without straying into foreign circles he found, in a
relation who bore his name, the person whom he felt to be the most
certain of understanding him. If we must call it a coincidence, it is,
at any rate, a remarkable one, that Sebastian, in whom the gifts of his
race reached their highest perfection, should also be the only one of
its members to take a Bach to wife. If we are right in regarding the
marriage union of individuals from families not allied in blood as the
cause of a stronger growth of development in the children, Bach's choice
may signify that in him the highest summit of a development had been
reached, so that his instinct disdained the natural way of attempting
further improvement, and attracted him to his own race. His second wife,
indeed, was not allied with him in blood, but that with the first he
found, in some respects, his more natural development may perhaps be
concluded from the fact that the most remarkable of his sons were all
the children of his first marriage."
Upton says that Bach loved Maria Barbara when he was only eighteen and
they agreed to wait till he got a better post. This was not till three
years had passed and then his salary was only eighty-five gulden (about
£7, or $35) besides a little corn and wood and some kindling-wood.
It was on October 17, 1707, that, according to the record, "the
respectable Herr J.S. Bach, the surviving lawful son of the late most
respectable Herr Ambrosius Bach, the famous town-organist and musician
of Eisenach, was married to the virtuous maiden Maria Barbara Bach, the
youngest surviving unmarried daughter of the late very respectable and
famous artist Herr Johann Michael Bach."
A little inheritance of fifty gulden (£4 or $20) aided the new couple.
But it is small wonder that we find Bach sighing later: "Modest as is my
way of life, with the payment of house-rent and other indispensable
articles of consumption, I can with difficulty live." A year after his
marriage, however, he was appointed court organist to the Grand Duke of
Weimar, a post he held nine years. Then he became musical director with
the Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. In 1720 he went to Carlsbad with his
prince. When he returned to the bosom of his family, he found that his
wife was not only dead, but buried. Spitta imagines his grief as he
stood over the grave of the woman who had followed him from humility to
success and had not been able to wish him a last Godspeed. She had borne
him seven children, three of whom died; of the sons were Wilhelm
Friedemann, the father's favourite, and Karl Philipp Emanuel, whom the
world long preferred to Sebastian himself, and whom later times
spitefully underrate.
The shock of coming home to his dead wife did not annul Bach's powers,
and his next cantata with the suggestive title, "He that exalteth
himself shall be abased," shows a larger grasp of resource and power. In
the same year he made a sensation by his playing in Hamburg, winning the
high praise of the eminent organist Reinken (whom by the way Mattheson
accused of being "a constant admirer of the fair sex, and much addicted
to the wine-cellar of the Council").
For all they may say of the superior genius of Bach's first wife's
children, it was in his second wife that he seems to have found his more
congenial and appreciative helpmeet. Bach's father had remarried after
seven months of widowering, and lived two months longer. Bach waited
from July 7, 1720, to December 3, 1721, and he lived nearly thirty years
more. His new wife bore him thirteen children, six of them sons, none of
whom were remarkable musically, though their mother was more musical
than the mother of Bach's first children. Perhaps the newcomers thought
it time to take the name out of the rut.
Anna Magdalena Wülken was the daughter of the court trumpeter in the
ducal band at Weissenfels. She was twenty-one years old while Bach was
thirty-six. They were betrothed as early as September, 1721, and
together stood sponsor to the child of the prince's cellar-clerk. The
wedding took place at Bach's own house.
The new wife was very musical, a gifted singer and a devoted student.
She made the Bach home a little musical circle. It is evident that she
kept up her singing, for October 28, 1730, he wrote of his family, "They
are one and all born musicians, and I can assure you that I can already
form a concert, both vocal and instrumental, of my own family,
particularly as my present wife sings a very clear soprano and my eldest
daughter joins in bravely."
Soon after the marriage Sebastian and Anna started to keep a musical
book together. Her name appears in her own hand, then her husband's
cheery note that it was "_Anti-Calvinismus_ and _Anti-Melancholicus_."
In this book and another begun in 1725 are compositions by himself and
other men, copied in the handwritings of both husband and wife. There
are arias written apparently for Anna Magdalena, and when in an
unusually domestic humour he wrote in a song, "Edifying Reflections of a
Smoker" in D minor, she transposed it up to G minor in her own
hand--doubtless that she might sing it to him while he puffed
contentment in uxorious ease. Later on is a wedding-poem, gallantly
beginning,
"Irh Diener, werthe Jungfer Braut
Viel Glücke zur heutgen Freude!"
and exclaiming that at the sight of her in her garland and wedding-garb
the heart laughs out in rapture;--and what wonder that lips and breast
overflow with joy. There are rules he wrote out for her instruction in
thorough-bass with a note that others must be taught orally, and there
is a love-song for soprano, which he must have written for her, to judge
from the words, "Willst du dein Herz mir schenken." Upton declares this
song to have been written during and for their first courtship. A
portrait of this ideal wife was painted by Cristofori and passed into
the keeping of her stepson, Karl Philipp Emanuel Bach, but alas, it is
lost while so many a less interesting face is repeated in endless
pictures.
Twenty-eight years after her marriage this faithful woman stood by her
husband's side in his blindness and through the two operations by the
English surgeon in Leipzig. How must she have rejoiced when on July 18,
1750, he suddenly found that he could see and endure with delight the
blessed sunshine! How her heart must have sunk when a few hours later he
was stricken with apoplexy and a high fever that gave him only ten more
days of life! At his death-bed stood his wife, his daughters, his
youngest son, a pupil, and a son-in-law. An old chorale of his was, as
Spitta says, "floating in his soul, and he wanted to complete and
perfect it." The original name had been, "When we are in the highest
need," but he changed the name by dictation now to "Before thy throne
with this I come" (_Vor deiner Thron tret ich hiemit_). The preacher
said he had "fallen calmly and blessedly asleep in God," and he was
buried in St. Thomas' churchyard; but later the grave was lost sight of,
and his bones are now as unhonoured as his memory is revered.
It is a dismal task to write the epilogue to the beautiful life and
death of this father of music. The woman who had made his life so happy
and aided him with hand and voice and heart,--what had she done to
deserve the dingy aftermath of her fidelity?
Bach left no will, and his children seized his manuscripts; what little
money remained from his salary of 87 thalers a year (£13 or $65) they
divided with the widow, now fifty years old. Her husband's salary was
continued half a year longer, but the sons all went away to other towns,
some of them to considerable success. The mother and three daughters
were left to shift for themselves. Two years later they must sell a few
musical remains and the town must aid them out of its funds.
In the winter ten years after her husband's death, on Feb. 27, 1760,
Anna Magdalena died, an alms-woman. Her only mourners were her daughters
and a fourth of the public school children, who were forced by the
custom of the day to follow to the grave the body of the very poor. In
1801 Bach's daughter Regina was still living, a "good old woman," who
would have starved had there not been a public subscription, to which
Beethoven contributed the proceeds of a composition.
Gradually the name and fame of Johann Sebastian Bach were obliterated
almost from man's memory. Half a century of oblivion was followed by the
great revival and the apotheosis of his genius. In that apotheosis some
radiance must always be vouchsafed the sweet memory of her to whom he
owed so much of his life's delight and his art's inspiration, to whom
also he dedicated his life and his music--Anna Magdalena.