Bach, however, admired Marchand's compositions sufficiently to give them to his pupils. See Pirro, p. 52.
Jean-Baptiste Volumier, an acquaintance of Bach, according to Spitta (i. 583). Eitner, Quellen Lexikon. says that he was born in Spain and educated in France. Grove's Dictionary declares him a Belgian. In 1709 he was appointed Concertmeister to the Saxon Court. He died at Dresden in 1728.
It is more probable that Bach was at Dresden either expressly to hear Marchand or upon one of his autumn tours.
Some years earlier Flemming had witnessed Handel's triumphant descent on the Saxon Court, but had failed to establish friendly relations with him. See Streatfield's Handel, p. 87.
The article on Marchand in Grove gives a different version of the affair, based upon Joseph Fétis (1784-1871). According to this story of the event, Bach, summoned from Weimar, attended Marchand's concert incognito, and after hearing Marchand perform, was invited by Volumier to take his seat at the Clavier. Bach thereupon repeated from memory Marchand's theme and variations, and added others of his own. Having ended, he handed Marchand a theme for treatment on the Organ and challenged him to a contest. Marchand accepted it, but left Dresden before the appointed hour.
The Prince was brother-in-law of Duke Ernst August of Saxe-Weimar. Bach was, therefore, already known to him and showed the greatest regard for him both at Cöthen and after he had left his service.
The reason for Bach's migration from Weimar to Cöthen was his failure to obtain the post of Kapellmeister at the former Court upon the death of Johann Samuel Drese in 1716. The post was given to Drese's son. On August 1, 1717, just before or after his Marchand triumph, Bach was appointed Kapellmeister to the Court of Cöthen. Duke Wilhelm Ernst refused to release him from his engagement, and Bach endured imprisonment from November 6 to December 2, 1717, for demanding instant permission to take up his new post. Probably his last work at Weimar was to put the Orgelbüchlein into the form in which it has come down to us (see articles by the present writer in The Musical Times for January-March 1917).
With his departure from Weimar in 1718 Bach left behind him the distinctively Organ period of his musical fertility. Though his compositions were still by no means generally known, as a player he held an unchallenged pre-eminence.
He was appointed to Cöthen on August 1, 1717, and was inducted at Leipzig on May 31, 1723.
The date actually was November 1720. At Cöthen Bach had an inferior Organ and little scope for his attainments; his chief duties were in connection with the Prince's band. The yearning to get back to the Organ, which eventually took him to Leipzig in 1723, shows itself in his readiness to entertain an invitation to Hamburg in 1720.