Famous composers and their works, Vol. 1

by Unknown

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

HE question of physical and mental heredity is one which at the present day not only challenges the investigation of the learned, but is actively discussed in the wider circles of cultivated society. No better example can be cited in support of the affirmative side of this question, than the family of Johann Sebastian Bach, in which, for the space of not less than two hundred and fifty years, musical talent of a high order was transmitted from one generation to another. Displaying itself for the first time in the sixteenth century, the gift grew more and more marked until it reached its culminating point in the subject of this memoir, but began to dwindle in his posterity and disappeared entirely in the last descendant of the race, who died in Berlin in 1845.

For a long time the erroneous idea was almost universally accepted, that the Bachs originated in Hungary and had emigrated to Thuringia in the second half of the sixteenth century. In reality, however, the family was of pure German extraction and had established itself before the time of the Reformation on the northeastern slope of the Thuringian forest. Wechmar, a village in the neighborhood of Gotha, was the residence of the immediate progenitors of Sebastian Bach, and the first of these concerning whose musical proclivities we have any information were Veit and Caspar Bach. The former had learned the trade of a baker and miller, and, while absent on his travels, he took occasion to visit Hungary, but soon returned to his native village. Here, when the labors of the day were ended, he devoted himself to playing on the zither for amusement. Hans Bach, his son, born about 1580, adopted music as a profession, after having received instruction from the town musician of Gotha, Caspar Bach, presumably his uncle, and, by way of subsidiary occupation, he plied the trade of a carpet-weaver. With his cherished violin for a companion, it was his habit to roam far and wide throughout Thuringia, making the strains of his instrument resound wherever a joyous company was found assembled. A jovial fellow, full of merry jests, he soon became universally popular in the region, and the musical importance of the Bach family was perceptibly increased through the inherited ability of his three sons, Johann, Christoph and Heinrich. Several musicians of note are also to be counted among the descendants of a brother of Hans, of whom Johann Ludwig Bach, who died in 1741 while occupying the position of Capellmeister in Meiningen, deserves special mention.

But the gift for music which had impressed its stamp upon the race was exhibited in a still greater degree by the three brothers already referred to, Johann, Christoph and Heinrich Bach. Christoph, born in 1613, became Stadt-Musikant in Erfurt, and later was transferred to Arnstadt, where Heinrich, born in 1615, was established as organist. Johann, born in 1604, discharged the double office of town-musician and organist in Erfurt. All three, it will be seen, united in turning their attention to instrumental music in general and to church music in particular, cultivating more especially the science of organ-playing, and it may here be remarked that no one of their descendants up to the time of Sebastian Bach departed from this sphere of activity. It was in this great man that true German art first sought expression, and therefore the family in its totality must forever be regarded as an embodiment of the artistic aspiration of the nation. Singularly enough, neither the three brothers, nor their sons and grandchildren, were ever moved by the desire to visit Italy, although so many of their comrades in art were constantly repairing thither. The splendors of the royal courts of Germany were equally powerless to attract; they perseveringly employed their talents in the service of their fellow citizens, faithful alike in their ecclesiastical and civil relations, and bearing with patience the privations to which they were often subjected. During the lifetime of the trio of brothers, three principal gathering-places for the continually increasing branches of the family were appointed, at Erfurt, Arnstadt and Eisenach respectively, and between these three towns there was a constant interchange of visits. If a piece of good-fortune came to any one in either place, he called upon the others to follow him, or, falling into distress, he hastened away in order to try his fate anew under the sheltering care of his kinsmen. In this way the bond of family union was closely cemented between them. In Erfurt, the brothers and their children were able to hold in exclusive possession for a century all musical positions in the gift of the government, and even fifty years later, the town musicians in the place continued to be called "the Bachs," although there was no longer any one among them who bore the name. One branch of the family was permanently established in Arnstadt until 1739, another in Eisenach till 1777, where some of its descendants still remained only twenty years ago, though no longer following the profession of their ancestors. In summing up the qualities of this race of musicians, it is not too much to say that they exhibited the most salient features of the Thuringian type of character, and, with the exception of one of the descendants of Christoph Bach, who settled on Frankish soil, no disposition was ever shown to depart from the region which gave them birth. Indeed, so strongly possessed were they by the necessity of occasionally seeing one another face to face, that for a long time it was their custom to appoint a day in every year, on which the masculine members of the family should assemble in one of the chosen centers. The many happy hours which they passed together on these occasions were devoted to the narration of their respective experiences, interspersed with music as a means of recreation. They generally began with the singing of a choral, which was followed by livelier airs, often set to words free and unconstrained. They were especially fond of "quodlibets," a kind of musical medley, more or less skillfully composed of every sort of merry popular melody, or, as frequently happened, the singers depended upon their own powers of improvisation. Taken as a whole, the Bachs were characterized by a strong love of pleasure, which, however, was by no means incompatible with their sincere and fervent piety.

If one takes into account the low order of cultivation prevailing in Germany at that early period, the artistic excellence attained by this family becomes all the more remarkable. Its musical promise was first revealed in the time of the Thirty Years' War, and it was during the second half of the seventeenth century, when the moral, intellectual and material strength of the nation was at its lowest ebb, that the promise was gloriously fulfilled. Simultaneously with the earliest manifestations of activity in other provinces of intellectual life, German music attained in Sebastian Bach a height so lofty that it has never been surpassed, and from this fact two deductions may be drawn: first, in spite of the sufferings consequent upon the Thirty Years' War, there had remained implanted in the inmost hearts of the people a vital germ of great productive power; and, second, the best of which the German nation was capable in the first century after the war, found expression through this family of artists. It is also noteworthy in respect to the German people, that the first creative impulse by which they were stirred was in the direction of music, and that, in the unsounded depths of feeling from which this impulse springs, they found compensation for the loss of those earthly possessions upon which unmerciful fate had laid its destroying hand. Something like a law of nature is moreover to be discovered in the fact that German musical art at that time, whether ecclesiastical or secular in character, developed itself chiefly in the instrumental line. The essential foundation of both these styles is represented by the Volkslied, which must be regarded as the most direct and unperverted utterance of the popular imagination. The Tanzlied, at first sung by the people, but later always played, forms the fundamental element of the instrumental music of that day. The ecclesiastical music of the seventeenth century, however, that which alone has a right to the name in the strictest sense, was developed in and through the science of organ composition. Organ music, on the other hand, derived its greatest inspiration from the religious form of the Volkslied, that is, from the choral melodies of the Protestant church. If the ecclesiastical music of the time reached a higher point of perfection than secular instrumental music, it is because religion offers a broader field for art than any other manifestation of civilized life. For it has everywhere aroused in the heart that profound enthusiasm from which the creative artistic impulse springs. Everywhere the great productions of ecclesiastical art are animated by a freshness and spontaneity, which may be counterbalanced by works of another class, but cannot be effaced by them. The end of the Thirty Years' War was the beginning of a period in which, to such of the German people as had retained in any degree the love of higher things and the consciousness of a connection with the sheltering and protecting power of God, religion must necessarily have appeared to be the only secure possession in life. It was no joyous burst of gratitude which stirred their souls, but from the depths of their misery they looked upward, imploring help. The character of the church music which originated at that time was at first tender and supplicating like the prayer of an invalid, while later, under Sebastian Bach, it gained depth and fervor, but retained its severity and earnestness, the outpouring of a spirit strengthened by misfortune.

If the Bach family is to be regarded as a standard-bearer of culture in the midst of a period of universal desolation, then it is not in the least surprising that its members were greatly superior to their environment, from a moral point of view. This may be explained in part by the fact that many of them were in the service of the church; yet even those who followed another calling revealed a wholesome soundness of nature which stands out in sharp relief against the ruder manners and moral laxity of their contemporaries. Repeated instances of their unselfish devotion and conscientious discharge of duty under the most trying circumstances have been handed down to us, and when we consider the peculiar relation subsisting between members of their profession and the passions of mankind, our admiration of virtues so rare and so austere must necessarily increase. The musicians of that day followed the fashion of all the industrial corporations by forming themselves into a guild, and it was precisely as a guild that they became an object of contempt on account of their extreme demoralization. The better sort, of course, were aware of this, and in the year 1653 a society of musicians was formed in Upper and Lower Saxony, for the purpose of protecting their common interests and of promoting a higher order of morality. The Bachs, however, did not find it necessary to join a union of this sort. With them, the family traditions, so religiously respected, were more binding than the most formal edict issued under the sanction of the Emperor himself. It is surely not to be reckoned among the least of their merits that they preserved their strong independence and integrity of purpose in an age which had no conception of artistic dignity; furthermore, they were citizens of petty states, at whose courts musicians were ranked with lackeys, and for the most part treated as such when attached to the service of the princely chapels.

Johann Bach had several sons, all of whom were musicians in Erfurt. One of his grandchildren, Johann Bernhard Bach, became organist in Eisenach and won a reputation as composer of organ and orchestral music, but no other member of this branch of the family attained celebrity. The descendants of Heinrich Bach, who himself was a fine organist and excelled in composition, were however more prominent in the musical world. His two sons, Johann Christoph and Johann Michael, took higher rank as composers than any of the other ancestors of Sebastian Bach. The former especially must certainly be pronounced the greatest motet composer living at the close of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately only eight of his motets are extant, but in these he shows himself worthy to stand by the side of his predecessor, Heinrich Schütz, and his great successor, Sebastian Bach. Johann Michael (born 1648, died 1694), while inferior to his brother both as regards invention and execution, has still much of the latter's fervency of feeling, and is distinguished by a certain profundity of imagination. He confined himself to instrumental composition more exclusively than Johann Christoph, and devoted himself in addition to the manufacture of clavichords and violins. But few of his instrumental compositions are now extant, and the twelve motets which have been preserved give perhaps no just idea of his artistic personality, taken as a whole.