Weimar

Weimar, to which he now removed, became Bach’s home for the next ten years, and here were created some of his mightiest works, particularly those for organ. The town was, even at that period, a cultural center. Its Duke, Wilhelm Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar, a pious, serious-minded ruler, engaged Bach not only as organist, but also as Kammermusikus, i.e., as a member of his household orchestra. A close friendship also developed between Bach and the young but shortlived Johann Ernst, son of Bach’s earlier Weimar patron. Exceedingly musical, the youth was a talented violinist, took lessons from the Kammermusikus, and composed several works of conspicuous merit, three of which Bach later transcribed for clavier and which, for a long time, passed for violin concertos by Vivaldi. The acquaintances and close friendships Bach formed at the Weimar court were numerous and valuable, with musicians, writers and educators prominent among them. The ducal “Kapelle” varied in size and constitution according to circumstances. Sometimes, when opera was performed, it included singers. The instrumentalists proper seem to have numbered eleven. The conductor was one Johann Samuel Drese; the concertmaster, from 1714 on, Bach.

One of the concertmaster’s duties was to provide cantatas for a variety of occasions and, beginning in 1714, he wrote a number of them. His choir consisted of twelve singers. Wilhelm Ernst had from the first been impressed by Bach’s powers as an organist. The musician’s diverse labors were gratifyingly recompensed and in nine years he had doubled his income. At its smallest it was twice as large as at Mühlhausen. It is claimed that never in his life did Bach have at his disposal an organ truly worthy of his powers and even at Weimar the instrument was inferior to that in Mühlhausen. Nevertheless, the organ works he composed at Weimar exceeded anything he had ever done before in sumptuousness of inspiration, imaginative grandeur, and technical exaction.

One hears comparatively little of Maria Barbara. Bach’s wife appears, however, to have been a fitting helpmeet to her busy husband, handling his household and his numerous pupils with tact and discretion and bearing him children with regularity. Some of these died early, others lived till a ripe age. In 1710 was born his oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, a genius in his own right and ever his father’s favorite, but all his life wayward and something of a black sheep. At this stage one might as well mention two other musically outstanding sons of Bach among the twenty children he was to beget. The more prominent of these was Carl Philipp Emanuel, who served Frederick the Great and whose reputation as a pianist and composer was such that, whenever in the latter part of the eighteenth century, it was a question of Bach, people usually meant Philipp Emanuel. Another, Johann Christian (Bach’s son by his second wife), lived and died in London, composed operas, and became an intimate of the youthful Mozart.

During the years of his Weimar residence Bach made three journeys which are conspicuous among the brief ones that punctuated his life. One was to Cassel toward the end of 1714, presumably to examine a new organ. Possibly, too, he accompanied his ducal master on a ceremonial visit. Like Weimar, Cassel had a reputation for culture and evidently the Duke would have been pleased to exhibit the prowess of his own court organist. A reference to Bach’s incredible virtuosity on this visit has come down to us. “His feet, flying over the pedals as though they were winged,” wrote an observer, “made the notes reverberate like thunder in a storm till the prince, confounded with admiration, pulled a ring from his finger and presented it to the player. Now bethink you, if Bach’s skilful feet deserved such bounty what gift must the prince have offered to reward his hands as well?” Other stories of his miraculous playing had long circulated throughout the country. People said it was a habit of his to climb into the organ loft of an inconspicuous rural church and so astound people with his improvisations that the cry would go up: “That must be Bach or the Devil!” The tale, one can depend on it, is a myth.

Another trip was to Halle, birthplace of Handel. True, he did not go there in search of his greatest contemporary (though he made several sincere yet ineffectual attempts to meet him) but to examine a new organ. His playing created so profound an impression that the Collegium Musicum made an earnest effort to secure him for Halle. Bach was flattered but, because of his Weimar connections, unable to accept. The Halle council, believing he was seeking higher pay, was irritated. Nevertheless, a little later it summoned Bach in company with Johann Kuhnau and Christian Friedrich Rolle to inspect the organ of the Church of Our Lady. The officials omitted nothing that might please their distinguished guests. A staff of servants and coachmen was placed at their service, a reception was held at which the chief musical personages of the town were summoned to meet them and, after the organ had been examined in great detail, the visitors were entertained at a banquet whose culinary abundance and gastronomic quality may be judged from the following bill of fare which has come down to us:

As Bach returned safely to Weimar, it may be assumed he passed up a few of the courses! He was even paid a fee for the little outing. It came to $4.50.

The third trip carried him to Dresden. There, under the rule of Augustus II, musical life flourished. In 1717 a season of Italian opera was in full blast. It was not opera, however, which fascinated Bach. He looked upon it with gentle condescension and, even in later years, was in the habit of chaffing his son, Friedemann, with the question: “Well, shall we go over to Dresden and listen to the pretty little tunes?” What did attract Bach was the presence at the Saxon court of the celebrated French clavecinist and organist, Louis Marchand. Bach had studied his compositions closely and admired them. A gifted but intolerably arrogant person, Marchand had fallen into disgrace in Versailles and found it prudent to emigrate. An official of Augustus II conceived the idea of summoning Bach from Weimar and arranging on the spot a musical contest between the two. Such is, at least, the traditional story. Whatever the exact truth may have been, Bach arrived on the scene of the proposed contest at the specified hour but Marchand, afraid of a rival whose prowess he well knew, left Dresden secretly and let the match go by default. Bach thereupon performed alone, stirring his hearers to unlimited admiration. Marchand returned to France where he lived, apparently none the worse for his ignominious failure, till 1732.

Things, however, were shaping for a change in the life of Bach. In 1716 the conductor of the ducal orchestra, Johann Samuel Drese, died. For two years Bach had filled the post of concertmaster and seems to have felt that he was next in line for the conductorship. It went, on the contrary, to Drese’s son, a man of mediocre attainments. Bach was hurt and further embittered by the fact that no more cantatas of his composition were being ordered, and his notorious temper speedily got the better of him. He had made the acquaintance of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, whose sister had married a younger member of Weimar’s ducal family. Intensely musical, that sovereign in the summer of 1717 had asked Bach to become his Kapellmeister. Bach shortly afterwards sent an application for his release to Wilhelm Ernst, apparently mincing no words. The Duke flew into a rage. We read in the diary of one of the court secretaries: “On November 6, 1717, Bach, till now Concertmaster and Court Organist, was put under arrest in the justice room for obstinately demanding his instant dismissal.” The infuriated genius remained a jailbird only till December 2. His detention appears to have been profitably employed for it enabled him to begin work on his Orgelbüchlein. About a week later he left Weimar for Cöthen, eighty miles to the northeast, with his wife and four children.