Four, perhaps only three, contemporary portraits of Bach are known. One is in the [pg 47] possession of the firm of Peters at Leipzig and once belonged to Carl Philipp Emmanuel's daughter, who with inherited impiety sold it to a Leipzig flute player. The second hung in St. Thomas' School and is reproduced at p. 48 of this volume. It was painted in 1746 and restored in 1913. Both portraits are by Elias Gottlieb Haussmann, Court Painter at Dresden. The third portrait belonged to Bach's last pupil, Kittel, and used to hang on the Organ at Erfurt, whence it disappeared after 1809, during the Napoleonic wars. Recently Professor Fritz Volbach of Mainz has discovered a fourth portrait, which is printed at p. 92 of the present volume. He supposes it to be none other than the Erfurt portrait, as indeed it well may be, since it represents a man of some sixty years, austere in countenance, but of a dignity that is not so apparent in Haussmann's portraiture.[116]
Bach left no will. In consequence his widow, Anna Magdalena, burdened with the charge of a step-daughter and two daughters, was entitled to only one-third of her husband's estate. Neither [pg 48] Carl Philipp Emmanuel nor Wilhelm Friedemann was her own child. But the fact cannot excuse gross neglect of their father's widow. Her own sons were in a position to make such a contribution to her income as would at least have kept want from her door. In fact she was permitted to become dependent on public charity, and died, an alms-woman, on February 27, 1760, nearly ten years after her great husband. The three daughters survived her. One died in 1774, the second in 1781. The third, Regine Susanna, survived them, her want relieved by gifts from a public that at last was awakening to the grandeur of her father. Beethoven contributed generously. Regine Susanna died in December 1809, the last of Bach's children. In 1845 her nephew, Johann Christoph Friedrich's son, also died. With him the line of Johann Sebastian Bach expired.
Johann Sebastian Bach, circa 1746. From the picture by Haussmann.
CHAPTER III. BACH AS A CLAVIER PLAYER
As a Clavier player Bach was admired by all who had the good fortune to hear him and was the envy of the virtuosi of his day. His method greatly differed from that of his contemporaries and predecessors, but so far no one has attempted to explain in what the difference consisted. The same piece of music played by ten different performers equally intelligent and competent will produce a different effect in each case. Each player will emphasise this or that detail. This or that note will stand out with differing emphasis, and the general effect will vary consequently. And yet, if all the players are equally competent, ought not their performances to be uniform? The fact that they are not so is due to difference of touch, a quality which to the Clavier stands as enunciation to human speech. Distinctness is essential for the enunciation of vowels and consonants, and not less so for the articulation of a musical phrase. But there are gradations of distinctness. If a sound is emitted indistinctly it is comprehensible only [pg 50] with effort, which occasions us to lose much of the pleasure we should otherwise experience. On the other hand, over-emphasis of words or notes is to be avoided. Otherwise the hearer's attention will be diverted from the tout ensemble. To permit the general effect to be appreciated every note and every vowel must be sounded with balanced distinctness.
I have often wondered why Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach's Essay on the Right Manner of playing the Clavier[117] does not elucidate the qualities that constitute a good touch. For he possessed in high degree the technique that made his father pre-eminent as a player. True, in his chapter on “Style in Performance,” he writes, “Some persons play as if their fingers were glued together; their touch is so deliberate, and they keep the keys down too long; while others, attempting to avoid this defect, play too crisply, as if the keys burnt their fingers. The right method lies between the two extremes.” But it would have been more useful had he told us how to reach this middle path. As he has not done so, I must try to make the matter as clear as is possible in words.
Bach placed his hand on the finger-board so that his fingers were bent and their extremities poised perpendicularly over the keys in a plane [pg 51] parallel to them.[118] Consequently none of his fingers was remote from the note it was intended to strike, and was ready instantly to execute every command. Observe the consequences of this position. First of all, the fingers cannot fall or (as so often happens) be thrown upon the notes, but are placed upon them in full control of the force they may be called on to exert. In the second place, since the force communicated to the note needs to be maintained with uniform pressure, the finger should not be released perpendicularly from the key, but can be withdrawn gently and gradually towards the palm of the hand. In the third place, when passing from one note to another, a sliding action instinctively instructs the next finger regarding the amount of force exerted by its predecessor, so that the tone is equally regulated and the notes are equally distinct. In other words, the touch is neither too long nor too short, as Carl Philipp Emmanuel complains, but is just what it ought to be.[119] Many advantages arise from holding the hand in Bach's position and from adopting his touch, [pg 52] on the Clavichord and Harpsichord,[120] and on the Organ as well. I point out merely the most important of them. To begin with, if the fingers are bent, their movements are free. The notes are struck without effort and with less risk of missing or hitting too hard, a frequent fault with people who play with their fingers elongated or insufficiently bent. In the second place, the sliding finger-tip, and the consequently rapid transmission of regulated force from one finger to another, tend to bring out each note clearly and to make every passage sound uniformly brilliant and distinct to the hearer without exertion. In the third place, stroking the note with uniform pressure permits the string to vibrate freely, improves and prolongs the tone, and though the Clavichord is poor in quality, allows the player to sustain long notes upon it. And the method has this advantage: it prevents over-expenditure of strength and excessive movement of the hand. We gather that the action of Bach's fingers was so slight as to be barely perceptible. Only the top joint seemed to move. His hand preserved its rounded shape even in the most intricate passages. His fingers rested closely upon the keys, very much in the position required for a “shake.” An unemployed finger remained in a [pg 53] position of repose. It is hardly necessary to say that that other limbs of his body took no part in his performance, as is the case with many whose hands lack the requisite agility.[121]