We quitted the direct narrative of Bach’s life at the point when the
arrival of the new rector of the Thomasschule gave it an interval of
peace and quietness, an interval of which we took advantage to review
the great ranges of church-music which fell as an official task to the
cantor. The four years of Gesner’s rule are the ripest and busiest in
Bach’s life; not that they include his greatest individual works, with
the notable exception of the _High Mass_, but that they are the most
productive, and of works attaining a more uniform level of first-rate
excellence than any others. After 1735 Bach was content to relax
somewhat, and he employed his time, less in composing new cantatas or
the like, than in revising, solidifying, and balancing his earlier
works. He must also have retired more into the quiet of his family
life, and devoted himself to his private pupils, after the blow struck
at his influence in the school by Gesner’s successor, Ernesti.
Ernesti, a young man of great learning and a good teacher, was
as incapable as his father, the old rector under whom Bach first
taught, of grasping the primary conditions of the school, namely, its
combination of musical with general education. He was jealous of the
predominance of the former, and therefore started with a bias against
Bach. He succeeded in winning a victory for his own schemes, but at
the expense of the ruin of the music. Bach was not the only sufferer;
the same dispute was going on elsewhere in Germany at the time, and
was in fact one of the incidents of a transitional period in the
history of education. The Thomasschule from its double government, the
cantor having an equal supremacy in musical matters with the rector’s
in secular, was peculiarly liable to such a conflict. Unless the two
heads were joined by a strong bond of sympathy, as happened with Bach
and Gesner, rivalry was, perhaps, inevitable. When Ernesti succeeded
to the place, we have not long to wait before the unpleasant spectacle
presents itself.
It is needless to follow the details of the quarrel which kept Bach
in a nervous state of exasperation for nearly two years, and left him
in official discomfort for the rest of his life. Suffice it to say,
that in 1736 Ernesti quite unwarrantably usurped the cantor’s right
of nominating the musical prefects. Bach’s contention was throughout
the just one, only he made the mistake of losing his temper about
it. However, it is to be observed that his language, if occasionally
violent, is consistently to the point, and the musician shews better
breeding than the scholar, who is not ashamed of vulgar abuse, charges
of lying, and like scurrilities. The whole thing, indeed, began by a
scene that tells strongly for Bach’s sense of justice. A prefect had
been, as he believed, wrongly condemned to a public flogging before
the school. Bach, who had had nothing to do with his subordinate’s
crime, interposed by taking the whole blame upon his shoulders. The
rector was in a rage, and refused to remit the punishment: so the
prefect had to leave, and the rector filled up the vacancy. Hence the
quarrel. To Bach it must have been irritating beyond bearing to have a
man, little more than half his age, intruding upon his incontestable
rights, still more to find the Town Council and consistory unscrupulous
in supporting the claim of the stronger, by declining to disturb a
right which had no precedent. It was not until he had appealed to the
King, and delighted him by some evening-music, produced when he was
next at Leipzig, that the matter came for a fair hearing. As often
happens, when we have elaborate documents of the progress of a case,
the conclusion has disappeared, but it is presumed that the royal
judgment was broader than the indecent partiality of the Leipzig
officials, and that the grievance was redressed. But the harm had gone
too far to be undone, and while Bach and Ernesti lived there was no
more unity in the school. How deeply Bach resented the injury is seen
from the eager interest he took in a quarrel that turned on the same
principles as his own, the very year before his death. He not only
had a _critique_ of the offending school-master written and printed
for him but actually changed the phrasing of a secular cantata, _The
Contest of Phœbus and Pan_, when it was next performed, so as to
convey a covert sneer at him and Ernesti jointly.
One more assault came to disturb Bach’s tranquillity a short time
after the controversy with Ernesti had come to an end. This was an
insolent article by Scheibe, a musician not without a superficial
cleverness, whom Bach had rejected as unqualified for a certain
organistship. It appeared anonymously in Scheibe’s own review, the
_Critische Musicus_, in 1737; nor was Bach’s name given, though the
reference was too clear to escape notice. Bach is said to have resented
the attack, which was a mere flippant pasquinade upon his music,
bitterly; and he was almost induced to enter into literary warfare
in defence. Happily we are spared the sight of a master in one art
essaying to use weapons with which he is sure to show to disadvantage;
and it was Bach’s friend, Magister Birnbaum, who took up his cause for
him.
Bach had certainly warm admirers and true friends in Leipzig. His
old pupils remained faithful to him, and one, Altnikol, married his
second daughter. Their number continually increased with the master’s
fame, and among them are reckoned three at least of his kinsmen and
not a few musicians of high repute in the younger generation, such as
J. L. Krebs (afterwards court organist at Altenburg), J. F. Agricola
(capell-meister at Berlin), J. F. Doles (cantor of the Thomasschule),
G. A. Homilius (cantor of the Kreuzschule at Dresden), and J. P.
Kirnberger (a noted contrapuntist, and court musician at Berlin), not
to mention the most eminent of all, Bach’s two eldest sons. Another, J.
T. Goldberg, was the clavichord-player for whom Bach made his _Thirty
Variations_. He was attached to the suite of the Baron von Kayserling,
an invalid who suffered greatly from sleeplessness. The Baron would
often have Goldberg pass the night in a room adjoining his, that he
might play to him when he could not rest. Once he said to Bach that
he should like to have some music “of a soothing and rather cheerful
character, that he might be a little amused by them in his sleepless
nights.”[66] To this request Bach replied by his variations which
combine a monotony of ground-work with an endless variety of treatment,
including canons in all intervals, and winding up with a quodlibet
of delightful freshness.[67] Kayserling was more than amused by the
present. He was never tired of hearing the pieces, and “for a long
time afterwards, when the sleepless nights came, he used to say, _Dear
Goldberg, do play me one of my variations_:”—they were always _his_
variations. He thanked Bach for them with a gold cup filled with a
hundred louis-d’or (or about 75_l._ sterling).
But while students thronged to Bach as a master; and while he was often
assailed by smatterers who only wanted to be known as his pupils—and
were disappointed—his later years were years of declining influence in
Leipzig, precisely in proportion to his increasing celebrity outside.
Like Milton his fame grew when public recognition failed. He became
merely one of the sights of the place. No musician who passed through
or near Leipzig was satisfied without an interview. But when any real
occasion came, when his help and judgment would have been of use, he
was not called. I do not refer to the Society of Musical Sciences, to
which Bach was only admitted years after it was established at Leipzig,
and only as an ordinary member with a canon sent in as testimonial.
Probably its scientific discussions on the theory of music were little
to Bach’s taste: perhaps he declined to join at first; though to a
man of smaller generosity it would have been a blow to see Handel
chosen as an honorary member. The occasion on which even courtesy
should have decided a resort to Bach’s advice and co-operation was the
establishment in 1743 of the Grosse Concert, the parent of the famous
concerts of the Gewandhaus. It was arranged by an association of rich
burghers; and its tendencies were from the outset in a distinctly
modern direction. Rossini—of all people—notes Dr. Spitta, supplanted
Beethoven among contemporaries; and the great Leipzig master became a
stranger in his own town. But the fact that Bach had nothing to do with
the beginning of the decisive musical movement[68] of the town does
a great deal to fix his position in one’s mind. Equally significant
is the circumstance that some time, perhaps some years, after 1736
he resigned the leadership of the Musical Society over which he had
presided since 1729. If he was not to be first, he preferred to retreat
into privacy. This privacy must have become closer when his three
eldest sons left him to follow a musical calling elsewhere, Friedemann
at Dresden and then at Halle, Emanuel at Berlin, and Bernhard at
Muehlhausen. One daughter of his first marriage was all that remained
to him. Of the thirteen children of his second marriage, seven died in
early childhood and one was an idiot. Friedrich and Johann Christian
were the only sons of musical promise; the former became capellmeister
to the Count of Schaumburg at Bueckeburg, the latter made the name of
Bach famous in London drawing-rooms, but only through his own thin
productions. Born in 1735, he was the darling of his father’s old age,
and was the only son who remained with his three sisters in the home
when Bach died.
With Friedemann and Emanuel their father always kept near relations, as
far as the difficulty of travelling allowed. It was through the latter
that Bach came to make his famous visit to the court of Frederick the
Great. The king had often expressed a desire to see him and Emanuel
had informed his father of it. But Bach was usually now too busy to
undertake so long a journey. At last, in 1747, he decided to go, and,
characteristically enough, fetched Friedemann from Halle on the way to
accompany him. I give the account of the interview at Potsdam in the
words of Forkel, who had it from Friedemann himself:—
“At this time the king had every evening a private concert, in which
he himself generally performed some concertos on the flute. One
evening, just as he was getting his flute ready, and his musicians
were assembled, an officer brought him the list of the strangers
who had arrived. With his flute in his hand he ran over the list,
but immediately turned to the assembled musicians, and said, with a
kind of agitation, _Gentlemen, old Bach is come_. The flute was now
laid aside, and old Bach, who had alighted at his son’s lodgings, was
immediately summoned to the Palace.... At that time it was the fashion
to make rather prolix compliments. The first appearance of J. S. Bach
before so great a King, who did not even give him time to change his
travelling-dress for a black chanter’s gown, must necessarily be
attended with many apologies. I will not here dwell on these apologies,
but merely observe, that in William Friedemann’s mouth they made a
formal dialogue between the King and the Apologist.
“But what is more important than this is, that the King gave up his
concert for this evening, and invited Bach, then already called the
Old Bach, to try his fortepianos, made by Silbermann, which stood in
various rooms of the palace,” and numbered fifteen. “The musicians went
with him from room to room, and Bach was invited everywhere to try
and to play unpremeditated compositions.” The king gave him a subject
to develop in fugue, and Bach concluded by adding one that occurred
to himself, which he extemporized in six voices. It was the greatest
display of Bach’s life, and certainly an exhibition that has never been
equalled on its own lines. A permanent record of the visit lies in the
_Musikalische Opfer_, wherein Bach treated the theme which the king had
proposed to him with an exuberance of learning and variety beyond the
possibilities of _ex tempore_ composition. It comprises fugues in three
and six parts, eight canons, and a sonata for three instruments, ending
in a perpetual canon.
The _Musical Offering_ has always been an object of admiration for the
ingenuity of its workmanship. But its object was mainly the display
of contrapuntal learning. It was a _parergon_ to which Bach delighted
himself by applying every resource of musical science; and therefore
stands on a different footing to the three great collections of fugues
which Bach composed, the last of which was his employment almost to the
time of his death. The _Art of Fugue_ stands nearest to the _Musical
Offering_, since it too consists of fugues and canons, all upon a
single subject. It differs from that work inasmuch as here he wrote not
to display his own skill, but to illustrate the final possibilities of
contrapuntal art. But equally it appeals to a very limited class of
musicians; to us in the present moment it is chiefly interesting as
shewing that, if Bach’s productive energy ceased comparatively early,
his power only became the more massive when he chose to use it. Far
otherwise is it with the two sets of preludes and fugues through all
the major and minor keys, called the _Wohltemperirte Clavier_.[69]
These no musician or pianist can ignore with impunity; Schumann
himself, whose style of playing and composing lies at the antipodes of
Bach’s, commends them to “young musicians” as their “daily bread.”[70]
The Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues were begun partly with an
educational purpose. Bach wished to prove the capacity of the
clavichord, now that he had enlarged its sphere by an improved method
of tuning, and to impress this variety upon his pupils. The first
half, to which alone the title _Das Wohltemperirte Clavier_ properly
belongs, was completed in 1722, just before the author left Coethen;
the second was finally arranged some time before 1746, perhaps before
1740. The labour and the years Bach took to mature these great works
seem to indicate that he regarded them as representative works. Not
a bar but was subjected to the most thoughtful remodelling.[71] The
first part in particular needed many a trial before it could find
the master’s approval, and thrice did he transcribe the whole with
his own hand. Every idea that was out of place, every line that led
nowhere, was ruthlessly pruned away. When the root of the piece was
reached, perhaps the motive of the original would germinate afresh,
and the whole would assume a quite new and statelier form. The two
parts are in some measure distinguished by the greater development of
some of the preludes in the second, which are now and then sonatas on
a small scale, and by the technical incompleteness of some fugues in
the first. But, though the latter part is perhaps the richer and more
full of fancy, there is a symmetry about the whole series which makes
inconceivable that Bach should have not intended the two parts to be
combined. Indeed we are told that Bach liked to have the whole played
through at a sitting. The work as it stands bears no trace, except in
its various readings, of the multiple processes through which it has
passed to gain each time in purity and simplicity and freedom.[72]
For it must at the outset be explained that the Forty-Eight were
never intended as model fugues. Learning was to Bach a means to an
end. Except for amusement, as in the _Musikalische Opfer_, he never
let it shew itself. To produce living work it needed the touch of his
imagination and the guidance of his clear artist’s instinct. In fact,
nothing is freer than his management of the several voices of a fugue.
“He considered his parts,” it has been finely said, “as persons, who
conversed together, like a select company. If there were three, each
could sometimes be silent, and listen to the others, till it again
had something to the purpose to say. But, if in the midst of the most
interesting part of the discourse, some uncalled and importunate note
suddenly stepped in, and attempted to say a word, or even a syllable
only, Bach looked on this as a great irregularity, and made his pupils
comprehend that it was not to be allowed.” But “no part, not even a
middle part, was allowed to break off, before it had entirely said what
it had to say.... This high degree of exactness in the management of
every single part is precisely what makes Bach’s harmony a manifold
melody.”
What Forkel here says of Bach’s part-writing in general is true in an
even fuller sense of the fugues. I quote him because he was not only
one of the most learned contrapuntists of his day, but also a man who
discerned clearly the limits of counterpoint and the difference between
musical learning and musical art. His description of the fugues is
concise and plain, and so much to the point that it deserves quotation
here:—
“A highly characteristic theme, an uninterrupted principal melody,
wholly derived from it, and equally characteristic from the beginning
to the end; not mere accompaniment in the other parts, but in each of
them an independent melody, according with the others, also from the
beginning to the end; freedom, lightness, and fluency, in the progress
of the whole, inexhaustible variety of modulation combined with
perfect purity; the exclusion of every arbitrary note, not necessarily
belonging to the whole; unity and diversity in the style, rhythmus,
and measure; and lastly, a life diffused through the whole, so that it
sometimes appears to the performer or hearer, as if every single note
were animated; these are the properties of Bach’s fugue.... All Bach’s
fugues ... are endowed with equally great excellencies, but each in a
different manner. Each has its own precisely defined character; and
dependent upon that, its own turns in melody and harmony. When we
know and can perform one, we really know only one, and can perform but
one; whereas we know and can play whole folios full of fugues by other
composers of Bach’s time, as soon as we have comprehended, and rendered
familiar to our hand, the turns of a single one.”[73]
There is no work that realizes better the conception of a perfect fugue
than that in C sharp minor in the first part of the _Wohltemperirte
Clavier_. That it is in five voices and contains three subjects, are
facts that would by themselves place it among the most vertebrate of
the collection. But least of all does the grandeur of the fugue rest
upon its complexity. It is the character-drawing of the several voices,
and the nobility of them, that make their discourse sublime—three
voices entirely contrasted and entirely blended—each time with a new
and surprising effect, now of pomp, now of tenderest pathos—one a slow
organ-voice, the next delicate and flowing, and the third vehement,
striking hammer-blows. The second and then the last gradually die away;
the solemnity of the original theme communicates itself again to the
whole web of thought, and the end is plaintive and restful.[74]
A story is told which displays in a characteristic way Bach’s
instinctive knowledge of the nature of a fugue. When he happened to
be in a strange church where a fugue was announced, and one of his two
eldest sons stood near him, “he always, as soon as he had heard the
introduction to the theme, said beforehand what the composer ought to
introduce, and what possibly might be introduced. If the composer had
performed his work well, what he said happened: then he rejoiced, and
jogged his son, to make him observe it.” Otherwise, it is added, his
modesty made him the most lenient of critics.
The _Art of Fugue_ has already been mentioned as the last and most
massive of Bach’s works. It must have been begun in 1749, and so
careful was the author of what he wished to be considered as his
masterpiece—in the strict sense—that he had it engraved under his own
eyes.[75] He did not live to see it published[76]; the carelessness or
ignorance of those into whose hands it came allowed it to appear with
several extraneous insertions, and its intended regular structure of
fifteen fugues and four canons upon a single theme in D minor remained
long obscured. Not content with this gigantic fugue—for it is one
fugue through all its fifteen sections—Bach resolved to penetrate
still further into the labyrinth of harmonic combinations, and to
write, so it is said, a fugue in four parts with four subjects, all of
them to be reversed in each of the parts. He had not, however, gone
much beyond the introduction of the third subject, which contained in
the German notation the letters of his own name, when his excessive
application was terminated by a painful disorder in the eyes. He
had always been near-sighted, and now his vision almost failed. He
consulted an English oculist of repute, who was then in Leipzig; but
after two operations he became totally blind, and the medical treatment
he underwent broke his hitherto hale constitution. For half a year
he declined, until he found his rest on the evening of Tuesday, the
28th of July, 1750. Ten days before his death his eyesight for a short
space suddenly returned to him. It was a few days after that strange
illumination that he called Altnikol, his son-in-law, to him, and bade
him write at his dictation the chorale _When we are in the depths
of need_. But death had become a new presence to him. Often had he
lingered upon the idea in chorale and cantata; but now he felt himself
to have passed beyond the gulf. He bade Altnikol set other words at the
head of the music. The words were these: _Herewith I come before thy
throne_.[77]