IV
In a technical work compiled for his son Friedemann, Bach left us an explanation of the signs employed by him to indicate the various ornaments which he calls Manieren. They are thus illustrated:
Trillo. Mordant. Trillo u. Mordant. Cadence. Doppelcadence.
idem. Doppelcadence und Mordant. idem. Accent steigend. (rising.)
Accent fallend. (falling.) Accent u. Mordant. Accent u. Trillo. idem.
The greater number of these ornaments,[190] as we see by the table, do not begin upon the given note. However, if a turn occur at the beginning of a piece, or if it ornament a characteristic interval (as, for example, in the fugue in F minor), the essential note should be struck first; even if such a rendering produce a discord with the other parts.
The mordent—it is the pincé simple or the "pluck" of Chambonnières, Couperin, and Le Bègue, who had borrowed it from lute-players[191]—is generally diatonic, although with this exception: if the note which it affects be marked with an accidental in the same measure, the accidental must be observed in executing the mordent.
These ornaments should be played "with regard for their value and upon the beat";[192] however, an excessive rigor in this respect should not be affected; Bach did not exact such precision, and did not attach to these figures such great importance that he did not feel at liberty to substitute for them, in copies of these same pieces made by himself, other and practically equivalent ones. Certain of them are, moreover, quite rare; for example, the accent. We find it employed, at least in the organ compositions, only in an arrangement of the chorale Allein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr' (Gloria in excelsis). No piece could be more elaborated than this one; and in it are introduced a majority of the signs employed by Bach; we borrow from Mr. E. Dannreuther's interesting work, "Musical Ornamentation,"[193] the transcription of the first six measures of this chorale, fully written out. Such an example will be more instructive than all we could say upon this subject, if the reader will take pains to compare this interpretation with the musical text as found in the well-known editions:[194]
This is evidently a species of appoggiatura, as also in the chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich (Clavierübung, Part III). But in this case, Bach uses a special notation:
In his Method for clavecin Ph. E. Bach, in speaking of a similar figure, thus explains it: "The first note of this figure must not be made too short, if the tempo be slow or moderate; for the second would then be held too long. It should be gently dwelt upon, not suddenly hammered."
"Play flautato," says W. Rust[195] upon the subject of such a fugue in an orchestral part; one should thus anticipate the beat with the flutist's stroke of the tongue, according to Quantz (Essai d'une méthode pour apprendre à jouer de la Flûte traversière. Berlin, 1752); that is to say, that the first of the two notes should be considered as written thus:
In a solfeggio lesson by J.G. Walther,[196] written in 1708, this indication, called punctus serpens, signifies that the notes are to be slurred; that is, bound together, two by two. This is, undoubtedly, the most correct interpretation, which fairly corresponds to what S. Scheidt calls "imitatio violistica."
Analogous notations of Frescobaldi[197] and Muffat[198] indicate a similar manner of execution.
[Appendix]
To facilitate the perusal of our work, we will close with a short sketch of J.S. Bach's life.
Bach was born March 21, 1685, at Eisenach. His father, Ambrosius Bach, was a musician of the town; his uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, an organist.[199]
When Bach was nine years of age his mother died; the next year followed the decease of his father, and the boy was taken in by his elder brother, organist at Ohrdruf. Here he attended the Lyceum, where the teaching of music held an important place; the chorus, formed of the pupils, was renowned. Young Sebastian, gifted with a good soprano voice, was a member of this chorus; and in addition studied the clavecin under the direction of his brother, a pupil of Pachelbel. With such zeal did he devote himself to these studies, that he copied by moonlight a volume of pieces which he had been forbidden to play, his brother wishing to reserve for himself the right to conquer their difficulties.
He did not remain long under the charge of his brother, whose family was gradually increasing. In 1700, undoubtedly upon the recommendation of Elias Herda, cantor of the school in Ohrdruf, Bach was admitted to St. Michael's School in Lüneburg; but he was now no longer a pupil, for in return for the general instruction which he received he was obliged to act as a sort of assistant chorusmaster for his comrades; at least as a leader. When his voice changed, which soon came about, he was charged with the clavecin accompaniment at chorus rehearsals, or with playing a violin part in the orchestra. He had, in fact, studied that instrument since his earliest childhood, his father having been a good violinist. He profited in his new surroundings by the advice of Georg Böhm, organist of St. John's Church in Lüneburg, and a musician of merit, whose influence upon Bach is apparent in many of the latter's earlier compositions, especially in the chorales.
The location of Lüneburg permitted him also, from this time on, to make trips on foot to Hamburg, where he heard Adam Reinken and Vincent Lübeck, or to Celle, where the orchestra of the ducal court performed French music; then the fashion, complains Mattheson, not because of a value whose existence this German critic denied, but simply—the final misfortunes of the reign of Louis XIV. had not yet dimmed this glory—because it was French.
In 1703 Bach left St. Michael's School; he had been so busily occupied with music while there, that he very likely had been unable to exhaust the depths of the general curriculum, which in itself was rather limited. Not that they had been satisfied with giving him instruction of a too elementary nature; but Bach, in point of intellectual culture, was much inferior to most of the great musicians of his time, Mattheson and Händel, for instance, both of whom had attended the University.
In any case, Bach's scant means would have forbidden his availing himself of a university education. On leaving St. Michael's School he was obliged to provide for himself; but here his talent for the violin came to his aid, and procured him admission, at Weimar, not only to the court orchestra, but to an orchestra which Johann Ernst, the brother of the reigning Duke Wilhelm Ernst, maintained at his own expense. He did not remain there long; in the summer of 1703, as a result of a journey to Arnstadt, where he was heard upon the organ of the New Church,[200] the position of organist of this parish was offered him. The place was a modest one (seventy thalers salary), but advantageous for Bach, who at his leisure could perfect himself in organ-playing and practise vocal composition, having a choir to conduct; his first cantata dates from Arnstadt.
Besides, meagre as was his salary, he could save enough for a journey to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude, whom he had long desired to know; for while his brother Christoph had taught him Pachelbel's methods, Georg Böhm, of another school, had already impressed on him that dualism whence was born, when another element was added to it, his own originality. Receiving the favor of a leave of absence for one month, Bach betook himself from Arnstadt to Lübeck the last of October, 1705; he did not return until February, 1706. From this journey he brought back a new virtuosity and the susceptibility of a young artist who from that moment felt himself a master; the former singularly disappointed the parish. He now accompanied the chorale with Buxtehude's exaggerated freedom; the ears of the faithful could not follow such elaborations, and, still worse, their voices lost the clue, and the choir fell into confusion. Hence a scandal, and thereupon a reprimand from the vestry. Moreover, had not Bach singularly outstayed his leave of absence? And again, why should he now neglect his choir? Why no more "music"? and still other grievances. Stung to the quick, Bach answered them by thenceforth affecting the very excesses in accompaniment which had met with such opposition, and by leaving entirely to themselves his choristers, whose sottise and coarseness disgusted him. As to the rest, he explained nothing, but sought another place; more than a year passed in these troubles. Upon the death of G. Ahle, organist of the church of St. Blasius in Mühlhausen, he applied for this position; it fell to his lot as the result of a competition, and he entered upon his duties during the summer of 1707. The same year (October 17) he married his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach.
From a pecuniary point of view the situation was not bad,[201] but the organ was detestable. Bach gave himself no rest until he accomplished its restoration by the council; he himself drew up a scheme for this, which was found to be so practical that it was adopted. But scarcely had the work been commenced, when the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Wilhelm Ernst, offered him the position of court organist (1708). Bach accepted; Mühlhausen was then the scene of sectarian dissensions, pietists and orthodox were in open strife, in which were lost the efforts of Bach to establish a "regular style of music wholly to the glory of God,"[202] as he himself said; to which, moreover, the pietists were by doctrine[203] opposed. An aggravating circumstance was that Frohne, the Oberintendant of the church of St. Blasius, was one of the most ardent disciples of Spener, the founder of the pietists' sect; and Bach had chosen, as godfather for his first child, Eilmar, pastor of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was the defender of the older traditions, to which Bach was devotedly attached.
Bach spent nine years at Weimar; for him this period was the complement of his finished years of study, and was the most brilliant in his career as a virtuoso. He played at neighboring courts, and his reputation was sufficiently great to put to flight Marchand (who was called "le grand Marchand"), who had been invited in 1717 to meet him in a sort of musical tournament. Numerous cantatas, as well as some chamber music, date from this period. In fact, during the last years of his residence in Weimar, Bach had undertaken the duties, without the title, of director of chamber music to the court, in addition to his vocation as organist; succeeding the aged Drese, who was too old to fill the position effectively. Upon the death of the latter, late in 1716, Bach expected the appointment; but nothing came of it, and this lack of recognition caused him to accept the offer he received next year from the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen.
At Cöthen there was no more organ playing to be done; no more church music to direct—the prince was a Calvinist. As to his duties, for which he had been well prepared by his recent experience at Weimar, Bach was content with the composition of most of the suites and sonatas for violin, viola da gamba, flute, and clavecin; further, the first part of the Well-tempered Clavichord dates from Cöthen. This is worthy of note, because of the relationship which can be established between certain organ works and some of those in this volume.
A life which might thenceforward have been so quiet, Bach being treated as a friend by his prince, and having no further care than the performance of music in an intimate manner, was in 1720 crossed by a sudden misfortune; upon his return from a journey to Carlsbad, Bach found his home desolate; his wife, Maria Barbara, was dead.
Despite his grief, Bach recovered himself in a comparatively short time, for in November of the same year he went to Hamburg to conduct the cantata Wer sich selbst erhöhet, der soll erniedriget werden; he drew from Adam Reinken, by his improvisations upon the organ, an outburst of enthusiasm which the old man had never entertained for anyone but himself.
Left alone with his children, who were still young, Bach lost no time in remarrying (December 3, 1721); this time a good musician, Anna Maria Wülken, who acted as his copyist, and for whom he wrote several pieces.
Upon the death of Kuhnau, cantor at St. Thomas' School in Leipzig (1722), Bach advanced his candidacy. He was not unknown in Leipzig, where enough confidence had been reposed in him to cause his summons as an expert, in 1717, to examine with Kuhnau the organ in the University Church.
Meanwhile there were delays; Bach was not installed until May 31, 1723. Beside music lessons, and the direction of the choirs in St. Thomas' and St. Nicholas' Churches, the cantor (the third in the school by order of precedence) was still charged with certain duties of supervision, and in addition had a course in Latin to conduct; the latter Bach avoided as much as possible.
In itself it was not, on the whole, a very advantageous position for Bach, nor one where his independence would be respected; many annoyances, besides an almost overwhelming amount of labor, were caused him by the director, or more indirectly by envious musicians. Despite all these mortifications, and the difficulties of his situation—mitigated, it is true, as long as the celebrated Gessner was at the head of the school—Bach never left it; in soliciting it, he had taken into consideration the advantages it offered for bringing up his family, which was steadily increasing.
We have commented upon the relatively small number of organ compositions which date from this period, but this is not the case with the other religious works; of 295 cantatas, divided among five liturgical years, about 266 were written in Leipzig; five settings of the Passion, the Christmas Oratorio (1734), the Easter (1736), that of the Ascension, and a number of motets, composed between 1723 and 1734—only a few of these are to-day complete; others are apocryphal—four "Missae breves" (short masses), the Mass in B minor, composed between 1730 and 1737, testify to his prodigious activity in this style of music. Further, he did not rest without writing numerous secular works, in particular the concertos for several clavecins; he published some technical studies which he engraved himself; and he completed the second part of the Well-tempered Clavichord. If we add to the time devoted to the composition of these works that given to the duties of his position—to lessons, rehearsals, etc.—and to numerous pupils, we shall realize why this last period is less productive of biographical incidents of note. We may finally mention the famous journey to Berlin in 1740, the last triumph of "Old Bach."
In consequence of this excess of fatigue, Bach was destined to lose his sight during the last years of his life; the unskilfulness of the surgeons did the rest.
Bach passed away July 28, 1750. His remains were interred in St. John's cemetery; but the location of his grave is to-day unknown, because of the transformation which this burying ground underwent at the end of the last century.[204]
[Catalogue]
OF THE
COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
EDITION OF THE BACH-GESELLSCHAFT