c One could say the same of BWV 769, Canonic Variations on ‘Vom Himmel hoch’, which, in David Yearsley’s words, are ‘both galant and highly complex, enigmatic and yet unambiguously clear in their expressive intentions’ (Bach and the Meanings of Counterpoint (2002), p. 120). Whereas Bach’s habit of adding bars and even whole movements when preparing his collections for publication has been well known to scholars for some time, Ruth Tatlow’s research into the construction of the Christmas Oratorio, on the other hand, has produced startling findings. She has shown that in going to the trouble of creating ‘inaudible proportional parallelism by adding bars and movements to already excellent music’ Bach introduced three large-scale 2:1 proportions within a 3,645-bar structure (see ‘Collections, Bars and Numbers: Analytical Coincidence or Bach’s Design?’ in Understanding Bach (2007), Vol. 2, pp. 37–58). The methodological context of her findings and what she sees as ‘the significance and motivational morality in the word “Harmony” in Bach’s time and location’ will be the subject of her forthcoming book. I am grateful to Dr Tatlow for sending me a ‘taster’.
d Six years after Johann Elias’s departure, Bach’s anger spills over in a letter he wrote himself to the Leipzig innkeeper Johann Georg Martius, who had borrowed one of his harpsichords: ‘My patience is now at its end. How long do you think I must wait for the return of my harpsichord? Two months have passed, and nothing has changed. I regret to write this to you, but I cannot do otherwise. You must bring it back in good order, and within five days, else we shall never be friends. Adieu’ (BD III, No. 45c/NBR, pp. 233–4).
e This hobby of Telemann’s was well known to Handel, who wrote to him on Christmas Day 1750 (so maintaining a lifelong correspondence between the two composers of a kind that is conspicuously lacking in Bach’s life): ‘If your passion for exotic plants, etc., could prolong your days and sustain the zest for life that is natural to you, I offer with very real pleasure to contribute to it in some sort. Consequently I am sending you as a present a crate of flowers, which experts assure me are very choice and of admirable rarity. If they are not telling the truth, you will [at least] have the best plants in all England, and the season of the year is still right for their bearing flowers’ (quoted in translation in Donald Burrows, Handel (2001 edn), p. 458).
f An anonymous contribution in 1788 in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek (almost certainly by C. P. E. Bach) made a comparison of Bach and Handel, in which its author suggests that Handel ‘did not trust himself to challenge comparison with J. S. B.’ (BD I II, No. 927 / NBR, pp. 400–409) – any more than Louis Marchand had in Dresden back in 1717 (see Chapter 6, p. 187).
g In conversation Robert Levin used an interesting metaphor for the way individual composers reach their zenith and at some point begin to tail off: they achieve a kind of perfect focus, like the focusing cylinder of a camera (in as much as the lens is within the cylinder, all the focusing needs to be performed by means of the sliding mechanism; and when once the right focus has been found, the cylinder and the camera are firmly locked) and then, having achieved that, they cannot resist giving it a couple or more revolutions, in consequence tipping over into excess or exaggeration of one sort or another. He cites Mozart achieving that perfect focus in Le nozze di Figaro and perhaps losing it in parts of The Magic Flute and La clemenza di Tito. Remarkably, with Bach, as with Rameau and Handel, there seems to be no equivalent diminution in the quality of their final works.
h Albertus Durerus Noricus / ipsum me propriis sic effin / gebam coloribus aetatis / anno XXVIII. There is also a dark sign detectable in the left iris – a reflection of light passing through the crossed bars of a windowpane. Dürer is credited with having invented this device, and he employed it in several of his paintings. Beyond the obvious parallel between that image and the idea of the eye as a window to the soul is the remarkable way Dürer inscribes the sign of the Cross into his eyes: thus his gaze out on to the world, even the looks he exchanges with the beholder of his picture, passes through this arch-symbol of the Christian world. I am grateful to Professor Dr Reinhold Baumstark for this observation.
i The likelihood is that an across-the-board application of such a doctrine and the related method of musical figures (Figurenlehre) was far more irregular in Bach’s Germany than was once thought by pioneers such as Arnold Schering (‘Die Lehre von den musikalischen Figuren im 17. und 18 Jahrhundert’, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch, Vol. 21 (1908)). The enormous increase in recent availability of online source material has meant that rare seventeenth– and eighteenth-century treatises are providing modern scholars with opportunities to reassess the primary materials and for performers to be less reliant on the old nostrums.
j Karl Sabbagh (Remembering Our Childhood: How Memory Betrays Us (2009)) claims that ‘all memory, whatever age it is laid down or recalled, is unreliable.’ ‘It’s unnerving to realize that our stories, feelings, memories of the past are reconstructed over time, and that we make up history as we go along.’ So what is memory for? It is there, he suggests, to help us to adapt to the conditions around us, in other words, it is designed not to be accurate but to be helpful, so we remember things that are useful to us, and our brains contain an apparatus designed to mould memories into useful stories – to give, for example, a favourable spin to our earthly struggles towards self-improvement or auto-didacticism in Bach’s case, even if essentially based on truth and reality (or perhaps not entirely, ‘for memory is false and sells to the highest bidder’).
k The death of Twain’s father – the second of two powerful blows – did not simply hurt; it swept away his confidence and even his hope that life had meaning. Even though Twain’s childhood may have developed differently from Bach’s, it was the loss, pain and sorrow that made no sense to him: ‘It is one of the mysteries of our nature,’ he wrote in his autobiography, ‘that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunderstroke like that and live.’ Thomas Powers tells us (London Review of Books, Vol. 33, No. 9 (28 Apr. 2011)) that Twain was a deeply impressionable boy with indelible memories. ‘The pen was in his hand and the memory was too intense to hold back another minute. He thought continually about the people and incidents of his entire life, not just his childhood, and brooded on their significance.’ He refers to Twain’s nose for the whiff of hypocrisy: ‘he went for it immediately, much as a Jack Russell terrier would snap at the neck of a mewling kitten’ – a description that could apply just as well to Bach in his cantata jeremiads. In 1889 Twain wrote to a friend that too many subjects had escaped his wrath. ‘They burn in me; and they keep multiplying … but now they can’t ever be said. And besides, they would require a library – and a pen warmed-up in hell.’
l Their drooping caused perhaps by a hereditary eye disease called blepharochalasis – a sign of the muscular weakness we are alerted to in the Nekrolog: ‘his naturally somewhat weak eye sight, further weakened by his unheard-of zeal in studying’, which could be traced back to the strain of that illicit nocturnal copying in his brother’s house.
m Dating from 1746 and located in the Stadtmuseum in Leipzig, it has been restored at least four times: after layers of over-painting the canvas is a ruin and the original paint has disappeared in several places (see Plate 18). Controversy still rages over the authenticity of other surviving ‘portraits’ of Bach. The one with the best chances of being accepted as genuine is the so-called ‘Weydenhammer Portrait’, owned by successive generations of the same American family and finally coming to light in 2000. Badly damaged and showing signs of having been cut down from a larger bust portrait, it bears a passable likeness of a man in his thirties who might have aged into the corpulent figure we recognise in the Haussmann portrait, but the eyes are utterly different (see Teri Noel Towe, ‘The Portrait of Bach that Belonged to Kittel’ in The Tracker: Journal of the Organ Historical Society, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct. 2002), pp. 14–18).
n In Las Meninas, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas looking outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where the
viewer would be standing. Like Velázquez, Bach seems to be saying ‘Don’t look at me: look at my music’, in the knowledge that, with the upside-down version in front of him, he is hearing so much more than we ever can.
o The walking bass that constitutes the third part of the triplex canon is one of fourteen based on the first eight notes of the bass of the Goldberg Variations. The same theme is also reminiscent of the chorale theme of BWV 769, Canonic Variations on ‘Vom Himmel hoch’. Bach’s tour de force of canonic counterpoint in his set of variations includes his musical portrait of the notes that spell B-A-c-H at the end. These variations were submitted alongside the triplex canon and the first Haussmann portrait when Bach was admitted to Mizler’s Society for Musical Sciences (Societät der musicalischen Wissenschaften) as its fourteenth member in June 1747.
p Generations of scholars have been puzzled as to why a composer so single-mindedly committed to the cultivation of fugue should have left this climactic exemplar unfinished at the very moment when he was manifestly so close to reaching the finishing line (see Dreyfus, Bach and the Patterns of Invention (1996), pp. 164–8, and Chafe, Tonal Allegory (1991), pp. 54–63). His almost obsessive need for perfection is evident in the fair-copy scores of works that were not to be published until after his death, such as the second volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 870–93) and the Canonic Variations on ‘Vom Himmel hoch’ (BWV 769), where he added bars to already completed scores (see note on p. 532). The extraordinary alto aria in BWV 77/v that we encountered in Chapter 12 (p. 451) sums up one of the underlying contradictions we keep finding – of someone devoting his whole life and creative energies to discovering those eternal rules of music that emulate Godlike Vollkommenheit (‘perfection and completeness’) – and yet, as with the flawed trumpeter required to play a series of near-impossible tones, symbolically exhibiting all the marks of human fallibility in the process. This dichotomy goes to the heart of Bach’s character: self-awareness, with an acknowledgement of human failings (a theme that runs through so many of the cantata texts), and the knowledge that artistic gifts, like life itself, are bestowed by God’s grace.
q Robert Quinney has suggested to me that the ‘heavenly’ counterpoint of Buxtehude’s Mit Fried und Freud settings is recherché, emotionally unreachable by mortals – whereas, presumably, Buxtehude’s father is tapping his feet to it in heaven. It is only the Klag-Lied that we can ‘understand’. The miraculous thing about Bach’s counterpoint, compared to Buxtehude’s, is that it is emotionally reachable: it is not perfection for its own sake, as in the multiple invertible Buxtehude settings of Mit Fried und Freud, but music that reaches out to the listener.
r An example of how adept Bach is at conveying the fragility of life, of how all things ‘snap, break and fall’ when ‘not held by God’s own mighty arm’, comes in the virtuosic, but unlovely, tenor aria in BWV 92, Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn. A later, unforgettable example is to be found in the grand Michaelmas cantata composed in 1726, BWV 19, Es erhub sich ein Streit im Himmel (see Chapter 3, p. 73). There a ravishing siciliano conjures up the watchfulness of the guardian angels in answer to the tenor’s tender plea, ‘Stay, ye angels, stay by me!’ (Bleibt, ihr Engel, bleibt bei mir!).
s But for an alternative possibility, see Chapter 13, p. 507.
t Christoph Wolff’s assumption is based on several factors: the very late preparation of the material (Bach’s shaky handwriting is here even shakier than the last Art of Fugue entries); that the original place of the motet (second Sunday in Advent) could not be accommodated in the Leipzig liturgy; and that the text has a broader meaning which applies well to a Christian’s faith in the face of death. Finally, as Professor Wolff wrote to me, ‘I believe that the cantor didn’t want prefect and choir to fall on their faces by trying a more difficult J. S. B. piece. Even the J. C. B. piece gets colla parte accompaniment.’
u Bach’s first biographer, Forkel, exhorted his fellow Germans in 1802, ‘And this man, the greatest musical poet and the greatest musical orator that ever existed, and probably ever will exist, was a German. Let his country be proud of him; let it be proud but, at the same time, worthy of him!’ (NBR, p. 479). But, as Christoph Wolff commented in a speech given in the Thomaskirche on 28 July 2000 to mark the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, ‘In Germany’s name Bach has been many times misused whenever it would serve a political ideology. Unfortunately this has often been the case at Bach festivals in the anniversary years of the past century: in 1900 as a symbol of nationalistic Wilhelmine arrogance; in 1935 under the racist banner of the Nazi state; in 1950 and 1985 as a manifestation of the proletarian-socialist aims of the GDR.’ Even in 2000 (the 250th anniversary of his death) there were occasional traces of parochial chauvinism.
Chronology
EISENACH
1685 21 March Johann Sebastian Bach is born, seventh and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach and Maria Elisabeth Bach, née Lämmerhirt.
23 March Baptised on the Monday after Oculi, in the Georgenkirche. Godparents: Sebastian Nagel (town musician at Gotha) and Johann Georg Koch (ducal forester of Eisenach).
1686 3 May Bach’s sister, Johanna Juditha, dies at the age of six.
1691 Death of elder brother, Johann Balthazar, born 1673.
1692 Enters the Lateinschule in Eisenach in the spring.
1693 Enrols in the quinta of the Lateinschule in the former Dominican monastery, aged eight. (This implies he was already able to read and write and had probably attended one of the town’s German primary schools from the age of five.) He is marked absent 96 times.
1694 Continues in the quinta, marked absent 59 times.
1 May Death of Elisabeth, his mother, at the age of fifty (buried 3 May).
27 Nov Remarriage of his father, Ambrosius, to Barbara Margharetha, the 35-year-old widow of Ambrosius’s first cousin, Johann Günther.
1695 20 February Death of his father at the age of forty-nine (buried 24 February).
Graduates from the quarta, having been marked absent 103 times.
April After Easter moves with his thirteen-year-old brother, Johann Jacob, to Ohrdruf to live with their eldest brother, Johann Christoph.
OHRDRUF
1695 July Enters the tertia class at the Lyceum Illustre Gleichense in Ohrdruf.
1696 20 July Is placed fourth in the tertia, and first among the newboys.
1697 19 July Placed first of twenty-one students in the tertia and is promoted to the secunda.
1698 18 July Placed fifth in the secunda.
1699 24 July Placed second of eleven students in the secunda and is promoted to the prima at the age of fourteen years and four months.
1700 15 March Placed fourth in the prima. Leaves for Lüneburg with Georg Erdmann without finishing the prima, officially recorded as ob defectum hospitorium (the withdrawal of free board).
LÜNEBURG
1700 April Choral scholar at the Michaelisschule, initially singing in the Mettenchor, which entitles him to free lodging. 3 April receives Mettengeld (salary for singing) for the first time. ‘Some time thereafter’(Nekrolog) his voice breaks.
29 May Receives Mettengeld for the last time. Becomes a student of Thuringian organist-composer Georg Böhm, at whose house he copies Reincken’s chorale prelude An Wasserflüssen Babylon in tablature.
1702 April Graduates from the Michaelisschule.
9 July Applies for and is offered the post of organist at the Jacobikirche, Sangerhausen, but another applicant, Johann Augustin Kobelius, is confirmed instead.
WEIMAR I
1703 20 December–June Employed as musician and ‘lacquey’ at the Weimar Court.
ARNSTADT
1703 Burial of Johann Christoph Bach, the ‘profound composer’, in Eisenach.
13 July Hired to examine and assess the newly built organ at Arnstadt’s Neukirche.
9 August Appointed organist of the Neukirche.
1705 August Bach’s dispute with bassoonist Johann Heinrich Geyersbach.
No
vember Takes four-week leave of absence to travel to Lübeck to observe Buxtehude at work.
1706 7 February Returns to Arnstadt after four months unauthorised absence. Disciplinary procedure initiated by the consistory.
MÜHLHAUSEN
1707 24 April Audition for the post of organist at the Blasiuskirche in Mühlhausen.
14–15 June Appointed organist at the Blasiuskirche at a salary of 85 gulden.
1 July Starts work at the Blasiuskirche.
17 October Marriage to Maria Barbara, aged twenty-three, daughter of Johann Michael Bach of Gehren, at Dornheim near Arnstadt.
1708 4 February Town council election in Mühlhausen. Performance of BWV 71, Gott is mein König, which is printed and published some weeks later.
25 June Released from his post as organist in Mühlhausen following his appointment as organist and chamber musician in Weimar. Formulation of his Endzweck.
WEIMAR 2
1708 14 July Receives gratuity of about 10 gulden for relocation to Weimar, where his salary is 150 florins.
29 December Baptism of eldest daughter, Catharina Dorothea.
1709 4 February Returns to Mühlhausen to perform a cantata (now lost) to mark the town council election.
1710 22 November Birth of son, Wilhelm Friedemann, baptised on 24 or 25 November.
1711 3 June Salary increased from 150 to 200 gulden.
1713 February Journeys to Weissenfels for the birthday of Duke Christian of Sachsen. Performance of BWV 208, the Hunt Cantata.
23 February Birth of twins, Maria Sophia and Johann Christoph. Johann Christoph dies at birth.
15 March Death of remaining twin, Maria Sophia.
28 November Invited to apply for position of organist in Halle.
Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven Page 75
