_Johann Sebastian Bach_
In families of unusual longevity and fruitfulness, observed Goethe,
Nature has a way of bringing forth in her own good time one figure who
unites all the greatest and most distinctive qualities of his various
forebears. The poet of _Faust_ alluded to this mystic process of
genealogy with reference to Voltaire. Actually, he might with quite as
much reason have been speaking of Bach. For Bach combined and brought
into sharpest focus the musical talents and predilections of almost
three antecedent generations, as well as their physical and moral
sturdiness, their spirituality, their robust clannishness. Yet the
miracle of Johann Sebastian Bach transcends even this amazing fusion
of ancestral traits. It is hardly excessive to look upon him as the
consummation and fulfillment of all the musical trends that went before
him and, in a manner of speaking, the origin of all those that came
after.
There is probably nothing in the history of music to compare with
Bach’s ancestry from the standpoint of fertility, complexity, and
endurance. There can be no question of tracing here its multiple
ramifications and cross currents. Enough that we obtain our earliest
glimpse of Sebastian’s great-great-great-grandfather as far back as
the latter part of the sixteenth century. The direct line of the great
composer did not die out till 1845. Seven generations thus stretch
between the extremes of this genealogical phenomenon. The Thuringian
countryside around Arnstadt, Erfurt, Wechmar, Eisenach, and other
communities of the region cradled the different branches of the family.
Two traits, at least, all of them had in common—their love of music
and their attachment to one another. Some became organists, some
cantors, some town musicians, and their devotion to their craft was so
proverbial that, for years after, all musicians in the town of Erfurt
came to be known as “the Bachs” even if totally unrelated. The real
Bachs felt each other’s company so indispensable that, if the members
of the family could obviously not all live in the same place, they made
it a point to hold periodic reunions. After prayers and hymns they
spent the day in feasting and jolly recreation. One of their favorite
amusements was to extemporize choruses out of popular songs and these
lusty medleys (or, as they called them, “quodlibets”) they would bellow
for hours on end with great good humor, while the listeners laughed
till their sides ached.