Johann Ægidius Bach (No. 8) became director of the town musicians and alto-viola player at Erfurt in succession to his brother Joh. Christian (No. 7) and his cousin Ambrosius (No. 11) when they moved to Eisenach. Like several others of his clan he married the sister of his elder brother’s wife, and soon after became organist of St Michael’s Church, which post he held to an advanced age.
John Nicolaus Bach (No. 9) was a town musician and good performer on the viola-da-gamba. He died of the plague in 1682.
Georg Christoph Bach (No. 10), born at Erfurt, was an usher in a school at Heinrichs near Suhl, but became cantor, first at Themar, near Meiningen, and afterwards at Schweinfurt, where he died. He was a composer, but his works are all lost.
J. Ambrosius Bach
Johann Ambrosius Bach (No. 11), the father of John Sebastian, was twin brother to Johann Christoph (No. 12). The two brothers had a most remarkable likeness, not only externally but in character and temperament. They were both violinists and played in exactly the same style; they thought and spoke alike, and their appearance was so similar that it is said their own wives could not distinguish them apart. They suffered from the same illnesses, and died within a few months of one another.
Ambrosius first settled at Erfurt as an alto-viola[2] player, and was elected a member of the Town Council. Here he married Elizabeth Lämmerhirt, the daughter of a furrier, and a relation of Hedwig the wife of Johann (No. 4). He now moved to Eisenach, and was succeeded at Erfurt by his cousin Ægidius (No. 8). He undertook the care of an idiot sister who died shortly afterwards, and for whom a funeral sermon was preached, in which the Bach brothers are referred to as being “gifted with good understanding, with art and skill, which make them respected and listened to in the churches, schools, and all the township, so that through them the Master’s work is praised.” Little is known of the life of Ambrosius beyond the fact that he is mentioned in the church register at Dornheim as “the celebrated town organist and musician of Eisenach.” Six children were born, the youngest being Johann Sebastian.
Johann Christoph Bach (No. 12) was Court musician to Count Ludwig Günther at Arnstadt. The first thing we hear of him relates to a kind of action for breach of promise of marriage brought before the Consistory at Arnstadt by Anna Cunigunda Wiener, with whom he had “kept company” and exchanged rings. The Consistory (a spiritual court) decided that Bach must marry her, but, with the independence of character which was peculiar to his family, he refused and defied them—an unheard-of thing for a musician to do in those days—declaring that he “hated the Wienerin so that he could not bear the sight of her.”[3] The case lingered for two and a half years, and ended in his favour. He remained single for many years afterwards, marrying eventually a daughter of the churchwarden of Ohrdruf.
Quarrels between Gräser, the town musician, and Johann Christoph Bach led to the dismissal of all the Court musicians on account of the disunion which made it impossible for music to prosper. For a time, therefore, he had to make a meagre living by “piping before the doors,” but after the death of the Count his successor reappointed Bach “Court musician and town piper.” At this time Adam Drese was Capellmeister at Arnstadt, and there exist catalogues of the Court musicians which are of interest as showing the kind of musical establishment that prevailed at the petty courts in Germany. One of these catalogues gives the names of seven singers, four violinists, three viola players, a contrabassist, and the organist Heinrich Bach (No. 6).
The orchestra at Arnstadt
There were trumpeters, and extra singers from the school, who could also play stringed instruments, so that on occasion a very respectable string orchestra was available, consisting of twelve violins, three alto violas, three tenor violas, two bass viols, and a contrabasso. The violoncello does not seem to have been represented. Christoph Bach’s income in later life was sufficient not only to raise him above want, but to enable him to leave something to his family, on his death, in 1694, at the age of forty-eight.