Kapellmeister with Prince Leopold
At Cöthen he began a new life. For one thing, he no longer filled the post of organist. The court of Prince Leopold was of the Calvinistic faith. Church services, being of a particularly austere nature, required no organ playing of a virtuoso type or the production of sacred cantatas, such as Bach had hitherto been turning out in quantity. Yet Leopold was an ardent music lover, whose tastes ran to instrumental composition. He maintained an orchestra of eighteen of which Bach now became Kapellmeister. Such cantatas as he wrote in Cöthen were secular ones, chiefly in honor of his employer. For the most part his creative energies were now concentrated on concertos, suites, sonatas, and clavier works including some of his very greatest.
Contemporary score for three minuets by Bach.
Instrumental music before Bach’s day had scarcely achieved what might be called an independent life. In the creations of his Cöthen period we discover, in effect, the most vigorous roots of our symphonic literature—especially in the four suites (or “overtures,” as Bach called them) and the six “Brandenburg” Concertos! Scholars have been unable to decide definitely whether the former were composed in Cöthen or in Leipzig. At all events they were performed before the Duke and also before the Telemann Musical Society in Leipzig, of which the composer was subsequently director. The third suite, in D, is the one comprising the exalted and incomparable Air, which achieved, long afterwards, a popularity of its own in the transcription of it for the G string by the violinist August Wilhemj. Yet every movement of each suite constitutes a priceless jewel of instrumental music.
The Brandenburg Concertos are in a somewhat different case. They were composed for Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg and a son of the Great Elector, whom Bach appears to have met on a journey with Prince Leopold. Christian Ludwig had a hobby of collecting concertos by various composers and he commissioned Bach to write him “some pieces.” In an elaborate preface couched in extraordinary French and dated “Cöthen, March 24, 1721,” the composer begged his noble patron to accept these products of his “slight talents” and to “overlook their imperfections.” Whether the private orchestra of the Margrave played the works or not we cannot say. Neither do we know if Bach’s gift was even acknowledged. After Christian Ludwig died, the catalogue of his richly stocked library had no mention of Bach’s half dozen “trifles.” The precious masterpieces turned up in a mass of scores offered for sale in job lots!
It is practically certain, however, that the Brandenburg Concertos were performed by the princely Kapelle at Cöthen in Bach’s presence, for the composer had been wise enough to make copies of his scores. They are not concertos in the modern sense of the term, but continuations and developments of those “concerti grossi” of masters like Torelli, Vivaldi, and Corelli. In various permutations and combinations they contrast groups of solo instruments (the “concertino”) with the background of the “tutti.” The “concerti grossi” of Handel furnish examples of the same principle of balance and diversity. The fact that none of the Brandenburg Concertos is in a minor key and that somber moods are rare, points to the probability that they were written for entertainment purposes.
Their variety is astonishing, with no two quite alike. The first, in F major, is the only one which calls for horns; and for the performance of this concerto two horn players were specially engaged at Cöthen. The second, likewise in F, requires a trumpet—the solitary appearance in the entire set of this instrument. To choose between the Brandenburg Concertos, to determine their relative musical worth is impossible. Yet in some respects the sixth, in B flat, if perhaps the least frequently played, is the most unusual. No violins are used in its scoring. The employment of two violas, two viole da gamba, and cello gives the work a peculiar dark string color wholly its own.
Let us mention here the wondrous concerto for two violins, another sublime inspiration of Bach’s Cöthen days. It is probable that it was played by the concertmaster, Josephus Spiess, and the excellent violinist, Johann Rose (who also played the oboe and taught fencing to the court pages!), with the composer conducting the orchestral accompaniment.
And Prince Leopold, himself, who not only enjoyed music but played it well, doubtless took part in the sonatas for clavier and viola da gamba. He could not do without his musicians apparently and, when, in 1718, he went to take the “cure” at Carlsbad, he had a sextet from his Kapelle accompany him. Bach was one of the retinue. The following year the Kapellmeister made a pilgrimage to nearby Halle in an effort to meet Handel, who had come to the Continent to engage singers for his operatic ventures in London. But neither at this time nor on a subsequent occasion when he tried to make the acquaintance of his great contemporary was he successful. Handel had already returned to England, seemingly far less eager to meet Bach than Bach was to meet him.
In May 1720, Prince Leopold again went to take the Carlsbad waters and once more Bach was in his train. The visit was somewhat longer this time and it ended grievously for the composer. When he set out he left his wife in the best of health and spirits. When he came back he found her dead and buried. With Maria Barbara gone there was, apparently, no one to look after Wilhelm Friedemann, Philipp Emanuel and Johann Gottfried Bernhard, the eldest not more than ten. The blow seems to have struck Bach the more heavily because, engaged in worldly music-making as he now was, he lacked the spiritual consolation of churchly activities and the communion with his inner self which he enjoyed in the organ loft.
An opportunity for a trip to Hamburg was provided by the sudden death of the organist at St. Jacob’s Church of that city. Along with a number of other noted players Bach was invited to pass on the qualifications of new candidates for the post. This gave him a chance to renew old ties and stimulate new interests. Adam Reinken was still alive and in his presence as well as before a number of municipal authorities Bach improvised astounding variations on the chorale “By the Waters of Babylon,” one of Reinken’s specialties, till the veteran conceded in amazement to his younger colleague: “I thought this art was dead, but I see it still lives in you.”
The Hamburg journey was but an interlude, however inspiring. There was no possibility of an organ position in that town. And another problem was now occupying him—the question of his children’s education. Friedemann had received his first clavier lessons from his father shortly before Maria Barbara’s death. The world has been the gainer through this instruction administered the youngster by such a formidable teacher. With his own hands Bach wrote out a Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. On the first page are set down the various clefs. More important for posterity is a transliteration of the ornaments, or “Manieren,” showing precisely how they are to be executed. Then follow exercises in fingering, hand positions, and much else. The little book is a valuable illustration of Bach’s own methods of discipline and pedagogy.
Nor are these the only things for which generations of pianists have to thank the Bach of the Cöthen period. It was for teaching purposes that he composed masterpieces like the Two- and the Three-Part Inventions. To furnish practical illustration of the advantages of the system of equal temperament he advocated for tuning, he composed, while still in Leopold’s service, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, that miraculous series of twenty-four preludes and fugues in all major and minor keys, which is the Bible of pianists to this day. The second book was written in Leipzig many years later.
It was not long before Bach realized that if his children were to be brought up in the traditions of rectitude he had himself inherited, they could not remain without a mother’s care, the more so as his many occupations left him little leisure to oversee a company of lively youngsters. And so on December 3, 1721, Bach took to himself a second wife, Anna Magdalena Wilcken, the daughter of a court trumpeter of Weissenfels. A gentle, lovable soul, musical, devoted to her great husband and the mother of a fresh host of children, she was as ideal a helpmeet for Bach as her predecessor had been.
A week after his Kapellmeister’s marriage, Prince Leopold took a wife in his turn. But the lady, the prince’s cousin, quickly troubled the musical atmosphere of the Cöthen court. Her tastes were for masquerades, dances, fireworks, illuminations and other forms of tinseled show, not for concerts of orchestral and chamber music. Bach called her an “amusa”—a person of no culture. Her installation at Cöthen was the prelude to Bach’s departure. As so often happened in his career, however, a more or less inopportune incident created a situation from which he might profit.