“With all my heart, Your Majesty,” said Bach, with much emotion. “It is not very easy to follow in the steps of that great man, but I will try with God’s help.”
With deep feeling in his heart he went to the piano. As he rested his fingers upon the keyboard, they moved with the skill and inspiration of a higher world, and the great Reformation hymn rang through the salon with a fervor that uplifted and inspired the souls of all. A devout silence rested upon the assemblage. All eyes were fixed upon the plain, simple man, whose eyes looked upward in a spiritual ecstasy. All listened as if enchanted with the wonderful tones which the gifted master evoked from his instrument. Grander and more majestic still was the effect when he built a fugue upon the Luther hymn. It revealed the lowest depths of the tone-world. The wonderful structure of word and tone rose to the loftiest heights of religious faith; and when at last his hands rested and the last sound had died away, it seemed to the deeply-moved hearers that they had come back from a purer sphere into the atmosphere of this life, with ardent longings for the one they had left.
The King, who was worldly minded and long a stranger to religious faith, was nevertheless greatly moved. The Queen, who was devout of soul, was moved to tears. It was a moment in which all present were lifted above the emptiness of court and everyday life as they had never been before.
Rich with praise and fame, Bach returned to Weimar from the Royal Court, with its exciting life, its splendors and luxury, to the organist’s little house, full of simple happiness, soul-rest, and heart-peace; and with him went the enduring recollection of the tears of the pious Queen and the warm words of gratitude she spoke to him, with pale cheeks and with the deepest emotion, from trembling lips. It was an event never to be forgotten.
Chapter VI
Life and Work in Leipsic
Sebastian’s stay in Weimar ended in the memorable year 1717. The congregation considered him an eminent organist. As the ducal chapelmaster he held a high social position. His Prince let no opportunity pass to express his appreciation of him. But his increasing family, and the growing difficulty of supporting them, made it imperative for him to secure a more remunerative position, and Maria Barbara, though with some regret, appreciated and accepted the situation.
While anxiously looking about him, Bach received a cordial invitation from the music-loving Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen to take the vacant position of court organist and chapelmaster in the capital city.[28] The news was joyfully received at home. As the salary was much larger than he had been getting, Bach could not hesitate about accepting the invitation, and so he resigned his position in Weimar, though not without regret. He was consoled, however, by the thought that as he was bettering his circumstances his action would not be misinterpreted.
It was a still greater consolation to know that his place in Weimar would be filled by one who was competent and thoroughly trained. His accomplished scholar and friend, Johann Martin Schubart, who had been a member of the family for ten years and to whom he was closely attached, was to be his successor. So Sebastian and Maria Barbara quietly left the Ilm city, where they had lived so happily for nine years and where his work had been so successful, and went to their new home with bright hopes for the future. These hopes were mostly realized, and particularly in the improvement of their outward circumstances. His income relieved him from the serious anxieties which had troubled him in Weimar, and thus left him free to work and create. He also enjoyed the unusual appreciation of a music-loving Prince, who not only manifested the highest interest in his work, but bestowed upon him his personal friendship, an advantage of no small value in those days. He was no longer the son of the poor cantor of Eisenach, brought up as a duty by his relatives; no longer the orphan who was censured and lectured by church fathers for his innovations, but a man in the very flower of life, in the full enjoyment of his musical freedom and allowed to work out his ideas in his own way, and a greatly honored composer, whose acquaintance was eagerly sought by prominent people and whose friendship a noble Prince was proud to enjoy. How far he had exceeded the conventional limits of his position is shown by the fact that, when a son was born to him in 1718, the Prince, his brother, August Ludwig of Anhalt, Eleonora Wilhelmina, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, Privy Councillor Von Zanthier, and the Baroness Von Nostiz, stood as sponsors at the christening.
Aided by these favoring circumstances, and particularly by the active sympathy of Prince Leopold, Sebastian, incited by his strong passion for creating, entered upon a new path—that of instrumental composition. It was there that he brought to its highest development that use of the polyphonic style on the organ which was peculiarly his own. In rapid succession he produced those great works for piano, and in chamber and orchestral music, which have been admired from that time to this, viz., the six so-called “Brandenburg Concertos,”[29] several suites,[30] a large number of sonatas[31] and duets, not a few compositions for piano alone, his two-part inventions,[32] and three-part symphonies,[33] and, greater than all these, the first part of that masterly and unrivalled work which is known as the “Well Tempered Clavichord”[34]—a creation of art which required twenty years for completion.
Before this great work was completed, a cruel fate overtook the master—a blow which the loving pair little expected when they began the new life with such bright hopes. During a journey which Sebastian made with the Prince, who was accustomed to take the waters at Carlsbad, his wife was stricken with a sudden and fatal illness, and to the unspeakable grief of the children died in a few days. The mail-service in those days was so wretched and uncertain that letters, especially those sent to foreign countries, were frequently long delayed, so that Sebastian received no tidings of his affliction. Little dreaming of the terrible loss he had sustained, he spent some time with the Prince at Carlsbad, but at last, unable longer to resist his longing for home, he returned, only to make the dreadful discovery that the wife whom he had left so well and happy was in her grave.