Bach

by C. F. Abdy Williams

The trouble with Ernesti was not of an uncommon nature; where there is a want of appreciation of music on the part of learned men, there is very apt to be jealousy of the reputation and influence of its professors. Disputes arising from this cause seem to have been not at all rare in Germany at the time. Ernesti hated music, and was undignified enough to make sarcastic remarks to any boy whom he happened to see practising an instrument. He endeavoured, being young and active, to intermeddle in the musical arrangements, with serious results. There is preserved in the “Acta” of the Town Council, a “Complaint” by Bach, dated August 12, 1736, to the effect that the Rector Ernesti had exceeded his powers by promoting the prefect of the second choir to be prefect of the first. This may appear at first sight an unimportant matter; but, as Bach points out, the prefect of the first choir must not only be chosen on account of his voice and character, but he must also have the ability and knowledge to conduct the music when the cantor is not able to be present. It stands to reason, therefore, that the cantor is the only person who can make the selection. On the following day Bach addressed another letter to the Council saying that Ernesti had threatened to reduce and flog any boys who obeyed the cantor’s directions; that he (Bach) had not allowed the “incompetent Krause” (the prefect chosen by Ernesti) to conduct the

The Appointment of a Choir Prefect

Bitter says that the fault lay as usual on both sides: but with this we cannot agree. Bach was a man nearly twice as old and experienced as the rector; and he was undoubtedly within his rights in insisting on choosing those responsible for carrying out the music. On this occasion Ernesti said he was “too proud to conduct a simple chorale.”

Chapter VII

Bach obtains a title from the Saxon Court—Plays the organ at Dresden—Attacked by Scheibe—Mizler founds a musical society—Further disputes—Bach’s successor chosen during his life-time—Visit to Frederick the Great—Bach’s sight fails—Final illness and death—Notice in the Leipsic Chronicle—The Council—Fate of the widow and daughter.

At the end of 1736 Bach went to Dresden where he was given the title of composer to the Saxon Court. He had applied for a title three years before, in the hope that it would place him in a better position with regard to the Council and Consistory; but it was in vain that he hoped for this. Neither his works nor his titles were able to impress them.

An Adverse Criticism

We learn from a Dresden newspaper of that date that he played from two to four in the afternoon of December 1st on the new organ in the church of St Paul, in the presence of the Russian Ambassador, von Kayserling, and many artists and other persons who heard him with very great admiration. In the same year, 1736, was published a book of hymns with their melodies by Schemelli, as a second volume to the book of Freylingshausen, to which Bach had in his early days contributed some of the music. On the 14th of May, 1737, there appeared a severe criticism of the way in which Bach wrote out all his manieren or grace notes, instead of leaving them for the performer to add at his discretion. The music thereby loses all its charm of harmony, says the critic, and the melody becomes incomprehensible. He wonders that a man should give himself so much trouble to act against reason. The writer was J. A. Scheibe, a young man who had failed in a competition for an organistship in which Bach was one of the examiners. The attack was answered by Birnbaum, a friend of Bach’s, in an interesting critical analysis of Bach’s works. This was answered by Scheibe, and the dispute went on for some time, other writers joining in it, until, as Bitter remarks, “all their powder was exhausted.” Bach, however, worked away without troubling himself about the matter.

In 1738 Mizler,[50] a pupil of Bach’s, founded a society for raising the status of music. Though it was successful, the great musician was not induced to join it until 1747, nine years later, when he handed into the society a triple canon in six voices on the chorale “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm’ ich her” as an “exercise.” It is to Mizler’s society that we owe the preservation of the portrait by Hausmann, now in the Thomas-schule, which is reproduced in this work: and still further have we to thank it for the account of his life, on which all later biographies are based.