He made concert trips from here to Dresden and Leipsic, and it was in Dresden that he challenged the proud Marchand, the French organist, to a public improvisation contest on a theme, new to both of them. But the contest never took place, because, unknown to Bach, Marchand heard him play and when the time for the contest came, Marchand had left town hurriedly in an early post-chaise. And strange as it may seem, Emperor Frederick I gave Marchand one hundred ducats and Bach got nothing!
Bach’s new patron was a fine man and a Protestant and gave Bach every chance. At Weimar, he had become well known for his religious works and beautiful playing. But, as he had no organ, he wrote music for harpsichord, violin, chamber music and the orchestra, which was far from “grown up.” Here, too, he wrote the Brandenburg Concertos and the first part of his epoch-making work The Well-tempered Clavichord (48 Preludes and Fugues, 1722) which he finished in 1744. It is still the greatest work of its kind. In it he reaches the highest point of contrapuntal writing.
In 1720, while Bach was traveling with the Prince, his wife died. After a year and a half he married a charming singer, Anna Magdalena Wulkens, one of his pupils. They had twelve children and lived very happily. The lovely little tunes that he wrote for Anna Magdalena and his children have come down to us and many of us have played them in the first years of our music study. Isn’t it wonderful to think that the great Bach, who wrote some of the masterpieces of the world, could also write simple little Minuets and Preludes that any child can play?
But with all Bach’s comfort he missed an organ! Deep in his soul, he craved the making of religious music—it was part of his thinking. His religious ideas tied up with his music, were his life. So we see this saint leaving happiness at Cothen for an ill-paid post in Leipsic, as Cantor (1723) at the school of St. Thomas, where, succeeding Johann Kuhnau, he stayed the rest of his life and wrote his greatest works.
Bach wrote to a friend that he thought a long while before leaving his “gracious, music loving and discriminating Prince ... but it happened that my master married a ... princess who ... weaned my master from the loving interest he had ... toward our glorious art. And so God arranged that the post of Cantor at St. Thomas’ should fall vacant.... I took three months to consider the future and was induced to accept, as my sons were studious and I was desirous ... of gratifying their bent by entering them in the school ... and thus, in the name of the Most High, I ventured and came to Leipsic.”
Note, dear reader, the nobility, spirituality and sweetness here, thinking of his children and not of his career!
He struggled against the unsympathetic town council, the school, and lack of money. He wrote to his friend Erdman, “My present income averages $700. When funerals are numerous I make more, but if the ‘air is healthy’ then my income falls. During the past year I have earned $100 less, owing to the small number of deaths.”
In 1732 he wrote one of his few attempts at comedy.—the Coffee Cantata set to music on a text by Picander. Leipsic had become a slave to the new luxury, coffee, and in this Picander found material for a satire.
Besides his regular work, he had to teach dull, undisciplined pupils, attend to services in four churches, and be satisfied with the few singers and players he found for the performances he directed.
Yet, fed with the spirit of love that was within him, he was happy and his home was a center of joy. He never became too sad until he lost his sight three years before his death. Even then he dictated his compositions and conquered discouragement!