The Rector, Ernesti, died in 1729, and in 1730 Bach’s Weimar friend, Gesner, was appointed: a member of the Council saying that he “hoped that they would fare better in this appointment than they had done in that of the cantor.”[46]
The new rector was in most respects the opposite of Ernesti. He was energetic; had the power of governing, with a special talent for the management of schoolboys. He was a brilliant scholar, and did much to revive the study of Greek as part of a mental and moral training rather than as a mere intellectual gymnastic.
The Council were delighted, and did everything for him. As he was in delicate health they not only had him carried to and from the school in a chair, but remitted his duty of inspecting the school once every three weeks. He smoothed over the disputes among the masters so that they were no longer at enmity among themselves; won the affection of his pupils by his new methods of instruction, his interest in their welfare, and the enforcement of discipline and morality.
The State, he said, had need of every kind of talent: and if he saw boys working at something useful, which was not actually school work, he would encourage them. He also revived the Latin prayers morning and evening, which had been replaced by prayers in the German language.
Between him and Bach there grew up a strong friendship. He helped the music in every way he could: himself applying to the Council for the books, etc., required by Bach.
Gesner’s Appreciation
Gesner, in his appreciation of Bach, appends a note in his edition of the Institutiones Oratoriæ of Quintilianus, to the author’s remark on the capacity of man for doing several things at once, such as playing the lyre, and at the same time singing and marking time with the foot. He says, “All this, my dear Fabius, you would consider very trivial could you but rise from the dead and hear Bach: how he, with both hands, and using all his fingers, either on a keyboard which seems to consist of many lyres in one, or on the
A Vast Combination
Gesner did all he could to smooth away Bach’s troubles, and probably the latter was much happier than under the disorder which prevailed while J. H. Ernesti was rector. Moreover, after one more dispute, Bach and the Council at last learned to understand one another, and quarrelled no more.