To augment the Town Musicians the Cantor has been wont in the past to employ University students and instrumental players in the School. Upon the former “at all times” he relies for Viola, Violoncello, and Contrabasso, and “generally” for the second Violins. But the Council, by its recent resolution, no longer affords the Cantor the means to employ them. To place the scholars in the orchestra weakens the choir, to which they naturally belong.
By presenting to foundation scholarships boys unskilled and ignorant of music, the resources at the Cantor's disposal are still farther lessened.
Hence, Bach concludes, “in ceasing to receive my perquisites I am deprived of the power of putting the music into a better condition.”
No answer was made to Bach's memorial, and he contemplated resigning his position. But with the advent of Johann Matthias Gesner as Rector in September 1730 a happier period dawned upon the “incorrigible” Cantor. In 1732 Gesner procured the withdrawal of the Council's ban on Bach's perquisites. The fallen fortunes of the School revived, and Bach did not again make an effort to leave Leipzig. In 1736 the grant of the [pg 42] post of Hof-Componist to the Saxon Court gave him at length a title which compelled the deference of his civic masters.
Bach's early misunderstanding with the University cut him off from association with the most dignified, if not the most important, institution in Leipzig, and deprived him of opportunity to display his genius beyond the radius of his Church duties. The situation changed in 1729, when he became director of the University Society, and he held the post for about ten years. The Society gave weekly concerts on Fridays, from 8 to 10, and an extra concert, during the Fair season, on Thursdays at the same hour. It performed vocal and instrumental music and was the medium through which Bach presented his secular Cantatas, Clavier and Violin Concertos, and Orchestral Suites to the public. The proficiency of his elder sons and pupils, and his wife's talent as a singer, were a farther source of strength to the Society, whose direction undoubtedly made these years the happiest in Bach's life. He took his rightful place in the musical life of the city, and relegated to a position of inferiority the smaller fry, such as Görner, who had presumed on Bach's aloofness from the University and Municipality to insinuate themselves. His increasing reputation as an organist, gained in his annual autumn tours, also enlightened his fellow-townsmen regarding the superlative worth of one whom at the outset [pg 43] they were disposed to treat as a subordinate official.
The Leipzig of Bach's day offered various opportunities for musical celebration; official events in the University, “gratulations” or “ovations” of favourite professors by their students, as well as patriotic occasions in which town and gown participated. The recognised fee for piecès d'occasion of a public character was fifty thalers. Bach's conductorship of the University Society enabled him to perform festival works with the resources they required, and to augment the band and chorus needed for their adequate performance.
Even before he undertook the direction of the University Society, Bach more than once provided the music for University celebrations. On August 3, 1725, his secular Cantata, Der zufried-engestellte Aeolus, was performed at the students' celebration of Doctor August Friedrich Müller's name-day. In 1726 he revived an old Cantata[115] to celebrate the birthday of another of the Leipzig teachers. In the same year the appointment of Dr. Gottlieb Kortte as Professor of Roman Law was celebrated by Bach's Cantata Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten. In 1733 the birthday of another Professor was marked by the performance of the Cöthen Cantata to yet another text (Die Freude reget sich). On November 21, [pg 44] 1734, the lost Cantata Thomana sass annoch betrübt was sung at the induction of Gesner's successor, Johann August Ernesti, as Rector of St. Thomas' School.
But Bach's activity as a secular composer at Leipzig was chiefly expended on patriotic celebrations. His compositions of this character are particularly numerous during the years 1733-36, while he was seeking from the Dresden Court the post of Hof-Componist. The first of these celebrations took place on May 12, 1727, the birthday of Augustus II. of Poland-Saxony, when Bach's Cantata, Entfernet euch, ihr heitern Sterne, was performed in the Market Place by the University Society. The King was present and listened to the performance from a convenient window. The music is lost. Six years elapsed before Bach was invited to collaborate in another celebration of the royal House. On September 5, 1733, less than two months after his application for the post of Hof-Componist, the University Society celebrated the eleventh birthday of the Electoral Prince by performing Bach's dramma per musica, Die Wahl des Herkules, or Herkules auf dem Scheidewege. Barely three months later, on December 8, 1733, Bach produced another Cantata in honour of the royal family, Tönet, ihr Pauken, erschallet Trompeten, of which he was both author and composer. On no less than three occasions in 1734 Bach did [pg 45] homage to his unheeding sovereign. In January the University Society, under Bach's direction, performed his Cantata Blast Larmen, ihr Feinde to celebrate the coronation of Augustus III. The music had already done duty in Dr. Müller's honour in 1725. On the following October 5, 1734, when the King visited Leipzig, Bach's hurriedly written Cantata, Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, whose first chorus became the Osanna of the B minor Mass, was performed in the Market Place. Two days later, on October 7, 1734, the King's birthday was celebrated by another Bach Cantata, Schleicht spielende Wellen, performed by the Collegium Musicum. In 1738, having received the coveted title of Hof-Componist in the interval (1736), Bach performed a work—Willkommen, ihr herrschenden Götter der Erden—now lost, in honour of the marriage of the Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony to Charles of Sicily, afterwards Charles III. of Spain.
Apart from his musical activities and the house in which he lived there is little that permits us to picture Bach's life at Leipzig. Association with his friends Johann Christian Hoffmann, Musical Instrument Maker to the Court, Marianne von Ziegler, J. C. Gottsched and his musical wife, Johann Abraham Birnbaum, among the Professoriate, Picander and Christian Weiss, Bach's regular librettists, suggests the amenities of an academic and literary circle. But the claims of [pg 46] his art and the care of his large family had the first call upon Bach's interest. And few men had a happier home life. While his elder sons were at home the family concerts were among his most agreeable experiences. As his fame increased, his house became the resort of many seeking to know and hear the famous organist. Late in the thirties he resigned his directorship of the University Society. His sons were already off his hands and out of his house, and he turned again to the Organ works of his Weimar period. Their revision occupied the last decade of his life, and the hitherto constant flow of Church Cantatas ceased. Pupils resorted to him and filled his empty house, to one of whom, Altnikol, he gave a daughter in marriage.
A man of rigid uprightness, sincerely religious; steeped in his art, earnest and grave, yet not lacking naive humour; ever hospitable and generous, and yet shrewd and cautious; pugnacious when his art was slighted or his rights were infringed; generous in the extreme to his wife and children, and eager to give the latter advantages which he had never known himself; a lover of sound theology, and of a piety as deep as it was unpretentious—such were the qualities of one who towers above all other masters of music in moral grandeur.