The reasons which determined Bach to leave Weimar are not quite clear.
He was in fact one of those quick-tempered men whom a small irritation
might kindle to a resolve of disproportionate gravity. In the present
case he had a real grievance in the appointment of a son as successor
to the old capellmeister, whose work Bach had done for a long time and
the reversion of whose office he might reasonably have counted upon.
Leopold, the reigning prince of Anhalt-Coethen was no stranger at
Weimar. A family alliance connected the two courts, and it is likely
that he had heard Bach there. In any case Bach was known to him by
report, and in 1717 was invited to take the post of capellmeister at
Coethen.
The six years that Bach spent in the service of this prince make a
kind of pause or breathing-space in his life. It is not that he was
idle during this period: his work was different. He had, as it were,
stepped aside from the road upon which he had journeyed all the years
of his manhood, to follow a by-lane where he might loiter if it pleased
him. And if this short abandonment of his peculiar art, dedicated to
the service of the church, in favour of the writing of suites for
strings or clavichord, hardly needs apology, it remains remarkable
that Bach consented to take a position in which church music or even
organ-playing had no place. In no one of the three churches in Coethen
had he any control; perhaps he was not sorry in the present case, since
two of them, with the bulk of the population, belonged to (his special
aversion) the reformed or Calvinistic sect.[22] The Castle Church could
boast but an indifferent organ and was unprovided with a choir; so that
even had Bach wished to overstep the limitations of his duty, there
were no opportunities, but rather discouragement, in Coethen for him to
return to his old work.
He was designated Capellmeister and Director of his Highness’s
Chamber Music, but in the peculiar situation of the Coethen court
the title imperfectly describes the nature of his post. Leopold was
a young bachelor who gave to music the loving worship he had not yet
consecrated to a woman. He cultivated his art with an eager enthusiasm,
sang a full bass, and was no mean performer on violin, viola-da-gamba,
and clavichord. He welcomed Bach as a brother in the craft, and not
only employed him to compose for his varied requirements, but took
him into his familiar fellowship,[23] played with him, sang with him,
insisted on his company whenever, as was his habit, he journeyed abroad.
Before this he had learned some knowledge of the world, had travelled
in England and Italy, and made acquaintance with the music of Rome and
Venice. For the future we find him and Bach making repeated visits
to Karlsbad and other distant places, and the obedient capellmeister
sometimes perhaps a little _ennuyé_, if we may credit a story which
relates that on one of these journeys he consoled himself for the
lack of all musical instruments by striking off the greater part of
the _Wohltemperirte Clavier_. The incongruous performance recalls the
tale of the famous printer, Henry Estiennes, that he divided the New
Testament into verses, the verses which we still retain, on a ride from
Paris to Lyons.
In spite of the widened experience, it was in truth a narrowing
life to Bach. He was not one of a musical group as at Weimar; there
is no record of his having any friends in the place. If he had the
pleasantness of the grateful appreciation of the Prince, he had no
public to sustain his ambition. His days were divided between his house
and the music-room of the castle; and he only came into contact with
the musical society outside by the custom which he still maintained of
employing his holiday in the autumn to visit towns where he was known,
where he was invited to try organs and exhibit his skill, or to produce
occasional cantatas. Once he went to Leipzig to prove the new organ at
the University Church, another time, as has been already mentioned,
to Hamburg. Once again he travelled to Halle in the hope of making
Handel’s acquaintance, but just missed him.
A visit with Prince Leopold to Karlsbad in 1720, was sadly memorable
to Bach. For while he was on his way home and no news could reach him,
his wife suddenly fell sick and died. He arrived only to learn that she
was already buried. How deep a grief this was to the family—the mother
was but thirty-five—we know from the recollection of it which the
second son, Philipp Emanuel, then a child of six, bore more than thirty
years later. His tender, flexible nature reflected hers closely, as his
elder brother Friedemann’s robust vigour did that of his father. And
the fact that the two most striking figures, as also the most musical,
among Bach’s twenty children sprang from this marriage may be taken
in evidence of the near sympathy subsisting between the parents. Else
we know nothing of Maria Barbara, and one is apt to depreciate her by
comparison with the more gifted woman whom Bach chose for his second
wife.
His care was now mainly for the children, four of his seven alone
surviving their infancy. The eldest was a daughter, Katharina Dorothea,
whom we shall hereafter meet again as helping with her voice in the
family concerts; then came three sons, the two already mentioned, and
Johann Gottfried Bernhard.[24] It was Wilhelm Friedemann, now a lad of
ten, who claimed his father’s most anxious attention; and never was
a charge fulfilled with greater love and willingness. In later life
Bach’s relation to him was one of intimate friendship; already the
promise of his musical skill aroused the keenest hopes of his father.
He showed afterwards that he had all the characteristics of Sebastian
accentuated: stolid independence was carried into wilful obstinacy,
hotness of temper into a confirmed irascibility, morose when not
violent. At present he was only the hopeful eldest son, for whose sake
Bach developed a complete scheme of musical training, beginning with
a _Clavier-Büchlein_ of easy pieces, as early as January, 1720. There
is an air of tenderness for the small fingers he loved, and longed to
educate, in the ladder of difficulties he so carefully constructed,
and in the little preface, _in nomine Jesu_. This was followed by
_Inventions_ in two and three parts, designed to cultivate an equable
strength and free motion in all the fingers. The title was apparently
chosen to indicate that beyond this he sought to teach in these pieces
the elements of musical taste, _invention_ in the scholastic sense
being a compound of just disposition of the members and appropriate
expression.[25] The third stage in the course of instruction was
constituted by the preludes and fugues of the _Wohltemperirte Clavier_,
in which technical execution is combined with beauty of form and
expression, each in its finest development. One of the points on which
Bach insisted was that the practice of the clavichord should from the
outset go hand in hand with composition. He assumed that no one should
learn to play who could not _think musically_, as he expressed it; and
he never allowed a pupil to compose at the instrument. He would not,
he said, have him to be a _piano-hussar_, a taunt that might well be
taken to heart by some of our modern composers. A parallel system of
training for the organ was also primarily intended for Friedemann;
and both alike shew the clearness and penetration with which Bach
understood the functions of a teacher.
In after-years the rector of his school at Leipzig, between whom and
Bach there was no love lost, said of him that he was a bad teacher
and could not keep order in class. The latter is likely enough, and
the former may not be without foundation in the particular case. A
man of Bach’s extreme sensibility would certainly appear at his worst
in the irritating surroundings of a rude schoolroom. That he could
teach, however, and teach better than any man of his time, is proved
by the string of distinguished names that appear among his scholars
and by the unbroken succession of pupils whom he had in his house
from his marriage almost to his death, the applicants increasing in
his later days until he was continually forced to turn them back. To
his chosen pupils he was kind and genial, and full of encouragement.
_You have five as good fingers on each hand as I have_, was his answer
to complaints of difficulty. He never set himself up as a model to
which others could not attain: _I was obliged_, he would say, _to be
industrious; whoever is equally industrious will succeed as well_. From
these glimpses of his bearing we may readily conceive the love and
enthusiastic reverence which he aroused in his pupils, and as for his
irritability, the common failing of great artists, experience shews
that at least it does not make a man a bad teacher in private, however
much it may militate against his success in a school.
Bach did not remain long a widower. The tradition of his ancestors
contained no law requiring a year of mourning; indeed his father
married again in seven months. Sebastian was more patient, waited
nearly a year and a half, and chose wisely. His new wife, Anna
Magdalena Wuelken, held a position as singer at the Coethen court; her
father was trumpeter in that of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. She was
twenty-one, fifteen years younger than her husband.
The marriage, which took place on the third of December, 1721, was
entirely happy. Anna Magdalena proved herself no mere _hausfrau_, but a
real companion to Bach in all his tastes, a helper in work and a sharer
in all his pleasures. She had a fine _soprano_ voice, for which her
husband delighted to arrange songs and recitatives. Often she copied
them out for herself, and besides this her clear well-formed hand,
closely resembling Bach’s, occurs constantly in the collections of his
manuscripts. On his side he helped her to master the clavichord. Two
_Clavier-Büchleins_, written for her, exist in his autograph, and to
judge by their handsome bindings and the inscriptions in them, were
intended as gifts to her, one just after their marriage, in 1722, the
other in 1725. She used and added to them afterwards as a sort of
album. They contain a great part of what we now know as the French
suites, with a variety of preludes, arrangements of airs from his
cantatas, &c., and also a set of rules for thorough-bass. It is plain
that if the one was an indulgent teacher, the other was a ready and
diligent pupil.
The beginning of Bach’s new happiness was soon attended with an
unexpected drawback. Prince Leopold married a week after his
capellmeister, and from this time forth his interest in music declined.
His wife, so unlike Bach’s, cared nothing for music the concerts were
still attended, but no longer listened to, and Bach’s work became more
and more irksome to him. He had no outside public to take the place of
the now indifferent court. He continued, however, for a year, until the
death of Kuhnau, the learned and original cantor of the Thomasschule at
Leipzig, offered to him an opportunity of returning to that work in the
service of the church for which he must have longed all these years. He
left Coethen in the summer of 1723, having first composed two church
cantatas, as evidence of his fitness for the post. It is probable that,
in the hope of the election taking place before Easter, he wrote the
_S. John Passion Music_ to grace his arrival, as though to prove that
the divorce from sacred music which he had supported for so long a time
had made his fertility and creative force only the more abundant. But
the delay of the Leipzig authorities postponed the production of this
masterpiece. By a coincidence the Princess of Coethen, the determining
course of Bach’s removal, died just before he left. Perhaps for the
moment he regretted the step he had taken: to us that step is the most
fortunate act in his life and the herald of his greatest triumphs.
As we considered the Weimar time as representative of Bach’s career as
an organist, so Coethen is the scene of his most extensive production
for the clavichord, for the chamber, and for the orchestra. We may
therefore here enumerate the compositions that belong to these classes,
reserving for the present the great collections of fugues contained
in the _Wohltemperirte Clavier_, of which the second half falls under
a later date when the first was alone entirely rearranged and partly
rewritten, and the _Kunst der Fuge_ which was the achievement of Bach’s
last years.
The clavichord works admit of a double classification. On the one
hand we have independent compositions, of which the idea is mostly
derived from the organ-style; on the other stand the _suites_, or sets
of pieces in dance-measures, which are moulded upon Italian models.
Both alike are adapted by Bach to the clavichord in such a manner that
they are completely naturalised in their new-found country. To the
former class belong the following works arranged in conformity with
Dr. Spitta’s critical results; the numbers refer to _Peters’ cheap
edition_:—
_A._ WEIMAR PERIOD.
1. Four _Fantasias_, in D, A minor, G minor, and B minor (211, p. 28;
215, pp. 3, 30; 216, p. 9):[26]
2. Four _Toccatas_, in E minor, D minor, Gr minor and major (210, pp.
3, 30; 211, p. 4; 215, p. 17):
3. Six _Fugues_, two in A, and two in A minor (212, p. 10; 216, p. 20;
212, p. 14; the fourth in MS. at Berlin), together with two, in A and B
minor, on subjects taken from Albinoni (216, p. 25; 214, p. 12):
4. One _Prelude and Fugue_ in A minor (211, p. 14): to these we may
perhaps add the well-known one in B flat of which the subject is on the
(German) notes contained in the name Bach (B flat, A, C, B natural) but
of which the genuineness is suspicious (212, p. 24).
_B._ Coethen Period.
1. A _Fantasia_ in C minor (212, p. 2).
2. Four _Fantasias and Fugues_, in D minor (the famous _Chromatic
Fantasia_), B flat, and D (207, p. 20; 212, pp. 28, 32).
3. Two _Toccatas_, in F sharp minor and C minor (210, pp. 10, 20.)
4. A _Prelude_ in C (printed among the organ works, series v. 8. 3),
and two sets of twelve and six little preludes for beginners (200, pp.
3, 14).
5. Five _Fugues_, in C minor, two in C, and two in D minor (200, pp.
20, 22, 24; 212, pp. 3, 5).
6. Four _Preludes and Fugues_ in D minor, E minor, and two in A minor
(200, pp. 26, 28, 33; 207, p. 36).
_C._ Leipzig Period.
Two _Fantasias and Fugues_ in A minor and C minor (208, p. 22; 207, p.
32 and 212, p. 22, the two parts are separated in the edition).
To this list must be added the two sets of _inventions_ (201) written
at Coethen; and the four great _Duets_ (208 p. 36) in which the idea of
the invention (or _sinfonia_) is treated on a much larger scale.[27]
The duets were written at Leipzig, and it has always been claimed that
no skill could possibly add a third real part to them.
In a similar intermediate position stand the two sets of _Variations_,
one in A minor, a Weimar composition, headed _alla maniera Italiana_
(215, p. 10), the other a great series of thirty variations in G, of
which notice will be taken in connexion with Bach’s life at Leipzig
(209).
The _Suites_ begin at Coethen with the six so-called _French Suites_
(202) and three single sets which probably belong together (214, pp.
18, 26, 32). A solitary suite, in F, bears traces of having been
written at Weimar (215, p. 25). At Leipzig Bach produced six _Great
Suites_, known as the _English_ (203, 204), and an equal number of
sets of _Partitas_ (205, 206). Another partita of the same period, in
B minor, is known from its opening as the _French Overture_ (208, p.
4).[28]
At Coethen Bach also wrote three sonatas, in A minor, C, and D minor
(213, pp. 2, 16, 24), with a fourth which remains only a fragment
(212, p. 18).[29] These sonatas, the title being to some extent
interchangeable with _suite_, have little in common with the form to
which Bach’s son Philipp Emanuel, Haydn, and Mozart (Beethoven can of
course not come into the comparison) developed it. The parent of this
exists also among Bach’s works, but it has a different name, being
distinguished as the _Italian Concerto_ (207, p. 4). It is remarkable
that it should bear a designation properly true of an orchestral
composition, as though in prevision of the unlimited development of
which the form was susceptible.[30] But the feeble internal resources
of the clavichord, Bach’s chosen instrument for study—the harpsichord
was too hard, and the infant pianoforte too coarse for him—prevented
him from himself following up the conception. He preferred to write
music which was independent of so imperfect an exponent; and his
clavichord works are characterised by freedom and delicacy of melody,
infinite fancy, and, as we see specially in his fugues, the fullest
solidity and richness of structure, rather than by any effects which
need a responsive sympathy in the instrument. It is as such that
we ought to judge them, however much their life is broadened by
performance on the piano.
It is difficult to separate Bach’s chamber compositions from those for
orchestra. The orchestras of that day were very small, that at Weimar
consisted but of sixteen performers, and Bach’s matured scheme for
the production of his church music at Leipzig asked only for a band
of twenty. It is wholly uncertain how far it was usual, or considered
necessary, to multiply with the parts; in any case chance might often
reduce the small orchestra to numbers more consistent with chamber
music. That this happened in the concertos which Bach conducted in his
own house we may be pretty sure. There is, therefore, little objection
to our enumerating both forms of composition in one section.
The _Concertos_ are written on various scales, the use of one
instrument _concertante_ being extended to _Concerti Grossi_ requiring
as many as four. For the harpsichord there exists six; for two
harpsichords two, and for three again two. In another concerto he has
combined the harpsichord with two flutes, and in two more with flute
and violin, as the three _obbligato_ instruments.
For the violin Bach composed three concertos, besides one apiece for
two violins, for violin and hautboy, for two flutes and violin, and for
flute, violin, hautboy, and trumpet.
Orchestral works, but for an orchestra of very various constitution,
are three of the so-called _Brandenburg Concertos_,[31] and four
_parties_ or suites which rank among the most flexible and melodious of
all Bach’s creations.[32] The list would be increased by nearly thirty
works if we added the instrumental symphonies which occur in the course
of his cantatas.
As strict chamber music we may reckon his three sonatas or trios, in
which the harpsichord combines respectively with two flutes, flute
and violin,[33] and two violins. For harpsichord and flute there are
six sonatas; for harpsichord and violin a like number, together with
three separate pieces, a sonata, a partie, and a fugue; finally, three
sonatas for harpsichord and viola-da-gamba.
The list of Bach’s instrumental works is completed by two sonatas
for obsolete instruments, one for the lute, the other for his own
invention, the _viola pomposa_, and by the memorable sets, of six
sonatas each, for the violin and violoncello, which are well enough
known in England to render an account of them superfluous.
But a few words are needed in conclusion to mark Bach’s position in
reference to the clavichord. In the first place, being acutely sensible
of the least falsity of tune, he always tuned the instrument himself,
a process which never cost him more than a quarter of an hour. In this
art he introduced a great reform, that of tuning on a basis of equal
temperament. Without such a reform his chromatic music, and notably his
_Chromatic Fantasia_ and the _Wohltemperirte Clavier_, would have been
impossible. Another instance of his fastidious taste is that no one but
himself could adjust the quills of a harpsichord to his satisfaction.
He took great pains in improving the action of the clavichord, and
invented a new instrument, the lute-harpsichord (_lauticlavicymbel_),
with a surprising brilliancy of tone; but the difficulty of tuning it
led to its abandonment.
It would demand too technical a discussion if we were to analyse the
method of playing which Bach introduced. That he was the first to
insist upon an equal use of the thumb with the rest of the hand, and to
act upon the principle that touch proceeds from the lower joints of the
fingers, and not from the wrist or arm, makes him the founder of the
modern art of piano-playing. It is said of him that he “played with so
easy and small a motion of the fingers that it was hardly perceptible.
Only the first joints of the fingers were in motion; the hand retained,
even in the most difficult passages, its rounded form; the fingers rose
very little from the keys, hardly more than in a shake, and when one
was employed, the others remained still in their position. Still less
did the other parts of his body take any share in his play, as happens
with many whose hand is not light enough.”[34] His playing was light,
smooth, swift—powerful or expressive, as he chose—but always without
display or the appearance of effort.