nd now behold how Heinrich Bach had educated his people into the belief that there was only one way to play, and that was as he did it. It is not at all probable that Heinrich put forward any claims of perfection, but the people regarded his playing as high-water mark, and any variation from his standards was considered fantastic and absurd.
In all of the old German Protestant churches are records kept giving the exact history of the church. You can tell for two hundred years back just when an organist was hired or dismissed; when a preacher came and when he went away, with minute mention as to reasons.
And so we find in the records of the Church at Arnstadt that the organist, Johann Sebastian Bach, took a vacation without leave in the year Seventeen Hundred Five, and further, when he returned his playing was "fantastical."
With the young man's compositions the Consistory expressed echoing groans of dissatisfaction. A list of charges was drawn up against him, one of which runs as follows: "We charge him with a habit of making surprising variations in the chorales, and intermixing divers strange sounds, so that thereby the congregation was confounded."
Bach's answers are filed with the original charges, and are all very brief and submissive. In some instances he pleads guilty, not thinking it worth his while, strong man that he was, to either apologize or explain.
But the most damning count brought against him was this: "We further charge him with introducing into the choir-loft a Stranger Maiden, who made music." To this, young Bach makes no reply. Brave boy!
The sequel is shown that in a few weeks he was married to this "Stranger Maiden," who was his cousin. She was a Bach, too, a descendant of the merry Hans, and she, also, played the organ. But great was the horror of the Arnstadites that a woman should play a church organ. Mein Gott im Himmel—a woman might be occupying the pulpit next!
Johann Sebastian's indifference to criticism is partially explained by the fact that he was in correspondence with the Consistory at Mulhausen, and also with the Duke Wilhelm Ernest, of Saxe-Weimar. Both Mulhausen and Weimar wanted his services. Under such conditions men have ever been known to invite a rupture—let us hope that Johann Sebastian Bach was not quite so human.