Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven

by Gardiner, John Eliot

Matthew Passion 10.1n

  and Monteverdi 4.1, 4.2

  Psalms of David

  and Purcell

  Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich 4.1, 4.2

  Schwarzburg of Arnstadt, Count 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4

  Schweitzer, Albert 7.1, 10.1n, 11.1, 12.1

  science

  Sebastiani, Johann 10.1n, 10.2

  Sebelisky, Tobias

  seconda prattica 4.1, 5.1

  Selle, Thomas 10.1n, 10.2

  Seneca 8.1, 8.2

  Senfl, Ludwig

  Shaffer, Peter: Amadeus 6.1

  Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 4th Earl

  Shostakovich, Dmitri 6.1, 7.1, 12.1n

  Sicul, Christoph Ernst n

  Siegele, Ulrich 6.1n, 14.1

  Silesian War, Second

  Singende Muse an der Pleisse

  Smallman, Basil n

  Smend, Friedrich 10.1, 13.1n, 13.2n

  Song of Songs 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 11.1

  Speer, Daniel 6.1, 6.2

  Sperontes (Johann Sigismund Scholze) n

  Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) n

  spirituality

  and Bach’s faith see Bach, Johann Sebastian, man and musician: faith

  and Bach’s works: Actus tragicus and death 5.1, 12.1; B minor Mass 13.1; bridging of heaven and this world 9.1– 9.2, 12.2; cantatas 1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 9.3, 12.3, 12.4, 12.5; integration of Lutheran faith and music 5.5, 10.1, 11.1, 12.6, 12.7, 13.2 (see also specific works); Johannine slant 9.4, 10.2; John Passion 10.3, 359, 10.4; keyboard works prf.1; and Lutheran eschatology 12.8; Matthew Passion 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 11.5, 11.6; motets 12.9, 12.10; musical receptivity and the listener’s religious belief 5.6; and the voice of God 14.1

  within Lutheran Church 2.1; joining of the spiritual and the physical 2.2

  and music as a divine gift 2.1; and a loss of Bach’s sense of propriety 6.1

  and the Song of Songs 3.1

  and theological education

  see also religion

  Spitta, Philipp prf.1, 3.1, 4.1n, 10.1, 10.2n, 12.1, 13.1n

  Spivey, Nigel

  Spohr, Louis

  Stasi n

  Steger, Adrain, burgomaster 6.1, 9.1, 11.1n

  Steiner, George 2.1, 3.1, 11.1

  Stertzing, G. C. 3.1, 3.2n

  Stockigt, Janice 13.1n, 13.2n, 13.3n

  Stockmann, Paul 10.1n, 10.2

  Stokes, Richard n

  Stölzel, Gottfried Heinrich 7.1, 8.1n, 8.2

  Brockes’s Passion setting 10.1, 10.2, 12.1n

  Stradella, Alessandro n

  Stravinsky, Igor

  Oedipus Rex 11.1n

  Strohm, Reinhard n

  superstition 2.1, 2.2

  Tacitus

  Taruskin, Richard 1.1, 12.1

  Tasso, Torquato: Aminta 4.1n

  Tatlow, Ruth n

  Taylor, Sir John 10.1, 13.1, 14.1

  Telemann, Georg Philipp 2.1, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 6.1, 8.1, 8.2, 10.1, 10.2n, 11.1, 14.1

  and Bach

  and Brockes’ Passion setting 10.1, 10.2

  cantatas 14.1; Du aber, Daniel, gehe hin 12.1n; Gleichwie der Regen 12.2

  and Handel n

  and Leipzig 4.1, 4.2, 6.1, 6.2, 8.1, 10.1, 10.2

  Lichtensteger engraving 4.1

  Terence

  Theile, Johann 2.1, 5.1, 10.1n, 10.2

  Harmonischer Baum 5.1

  Thirty Years War 2.1, 22, 4.1, 5.1

  and malaise in the world of music

  and war-scarred landscape and psyche 2.1, 2.2

  Thomas à Kempis

  Thomas, Lewis

  Thomasius, Christian

  Thomasius, Jakob 22

  Thuringia 1.1, 2.1, 22, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5

  and Latin Schools 2.1, 6.1

  Thymich, Paul

  Tilesius, Susanne

  Tinctoris, Johannes

  Tolstoy, Leo 5.1, 9.1

  Tomlinson, Gary n

  Totentanz paintings

  Tovey, Sir Donald Francis 13.1n, 13.2, 13.3n

  Toynbee, Arnold

  tremolo

  Tunder, Franz

  Turks 10.1, 12.1

  Twain, Mark

  Ulm

  Urio, Francesco Antonio n

  Ussher, James

  Valéry, Paul

  Velázquez, Diego 4.1, 14.1n

  Venice 3.1, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3n

  opera 4.1, 4.2, 4.3

  Schütz in

  Verdi, Giuseppe: Requiem 4.1

  Vico, Giambattista 2.1, 2.2, 4.1n, 5.1, 9.1

  Victoria, Tomás Luis de n

  Vierdanck, Johann

  violas d’amore 9.1, 10.1

  violoncello piccolo 7.1, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3

  Virgil

  Vliet, Hendrick van

  Vockerodt, Gottfried

  Vogler, Johann Gottfried n

  Vogt, Mauritius Johann 5.1, 12.1

  Vokaleinbau

  Voltaire: Candide 8.1

  Vonhoff, Bernhard n

  Voyager spacecraft

  Vulpius, Melchior 2.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3

  Wagner, Richard prf.1, 6.1, 11.1

  Wahlkapitulation

  Walsh, Stephen n

  Walter, Bruno 11.1n, 11.2n

  Walter, Johann 2.1, 10.1

  Walther, Johann Gottfried 3.1, 5.1n, 6.1n, 6.2, 9.1n, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3n, 14.1n

  Watkin, David n

  Watteau, Jean-Antoine

  Webber, Geoffrey n

  Weber, Carlo Maria von

  Der Freischütz

  Webern, Anton

  on Bach

  Weckmann, Matthias

  Weg zur Himmelsburg 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 8.1

  Weimar 3.1, 3.2, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 8.1, 9.1, 9.2

  Bach’s cantatas from 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4n, 9.5, 11.1n, 12.1, 12.2, 13.1

  see also Saxe-Weimar Duchy

  Weiss, Christian Snr n

  Weissenfels, Duke of

  Well-Designed and Abridged Housekeeping Magazine

  Wells, H. G.

  Wender, J. F.

  Werckmeister, Andreas 12.1n, 13.1n, 14.1

  Wesley, Samuel

  Westrup, J. A.

  Whirling Dervishes n

  Wilcke, Anna Magdalena see Bach, Anna Magdalena, née Wilcke (second wife)

  Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6

  William III

  Williams, Charles

  Williams, Peter n

  Wilson, Peter H. n

  Winckler, Carl Gottfried

  witchcraft

  Witte, Emanuel de

  Wolff, Christian 2.1, 2.2, 4.1

  epigraph

  Wolff, Christoph 2.1, 8.1n, 9.1n, 9.2n, 13.1n, 13.2, 14.1n

  Wollny, Peter prf.1, 7.1n, 7.2, 7.3n, 12.1n

  Wood, Hugh n

  Worsthorne, Simon Towneley n

  Wroe, Ann n

  Yearsley, David 8.1, 14.1n

  Zachow, Friedrich Wilhelm

  Zedler, J. H. 6.1, 7.1, 8.1

  Zeidler, Christian 2.1, 6.1

  Zelenka, Jan Dismas 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, 13.5, 13.6, 13.7n, 13.8, 13.9, 14.1

  Missa Sanctissima Trinitatis

  Zelter, Carl Friedrich

  Zeuner, Wolfgang n

  Ziegler, Christiane Mariane von 7.1, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.5

  Zimmermann, Gottfried, coffee-house 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5

  Zwingli, Ulrich

  A Note About the Author

  John Eliot Gardiner is one of the world’s leading conductors, not only of Baroque music but across the whole repertoire. He founded the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon, the English Baroque Soloists, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. He has conducted most of the world’s great orchestras and in many of the leading opera houses. He lives and farms in Dorset, England.

  For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com

  Illustrations

  1. Georgenkirche, Eisenach

  Built at the end of the twelfth century,
and after incurring heavy damage during the Peasants’ Revolt, the Georgenkirche was restored and three galleries were added. Both Martin Luther and Bach had deep, formative connections to this church as quondam pupils of the Latin School linked to it and as members of its chorus musicus. (illustration credit 1)

  2a & b. (left & right) Neues vollständiges Eisenachisches Gesangbuch, 1673

  Early exposure to this book with its iconic chorale tunes and emblematic depictions of musicians in the Temple of David and Solomon cemented the connections Bach would go on to make between music and theology, and between the ancient Temple musicians (seen in the left-hand engraving), the landscape of his home town (at its foot) and the choir of his own day (in the right-hand engraving). (illustration credit 2)

  3a. The Whole World in a Cloverleaf

  Map of the world as a cloverleaf, from Bünting’s Itinerarium Sacræ Scripturæ (1592) – ‘a travel book over the whole of Holy Scripture’. (illustration credit 3)

  3b. Buno’s Dragon

  One of an ingenious series of illustrations from Johannes Buno’s Idea historiae universalis (1672), the dragon symbolized the fourth millennium AD and includes smaller images of historical personages and incidents that provide memorable historical nuggets for school pupils to retain. (illustration credit 3b)

  4. Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672)

  This portrait in oils by Christoph Spetner (c. 1660) is of the most influential of Bach’s German seventeenth-century predecessors, a brilliant composer and wordsmith similarly committed to exploring ways that music could expound and underpin Lutheran teaching. (illustration credit 4)

  5a & b. Organ Tablature Transcriptions

  Among the most spectacular discoveries of Bachiana of the past decade, these two transcriptions by the teenage Bach of important organ works by Buxtehude (Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g’mein, BuxWV 201) and by Reincken (Am Wasserflüssen Babylon), were discovered in 2005 in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar by Michael Maul. Together with Peter Wollny (the acclaimed specialist in identifying Bach’s handwriting), he established without reasonable doubt that the first fragment (below) was copied out by Bach as a twelve or thirteen-year old in Ohrdruf when under his elder brother’s tutelage. At the bottom of the second (right) is a note announcing â Dom. Georg: Böhme descriptum ao. 1700 Lunaburgi – ‘written out at the home of Herr Georg Böhm in the year 1700 in Lüneburg’, when Bach had just turned fifteen. (illustration credit 5)

  6. Concordia

  The title page of a cantata by Georg Christoph Bach composed on the occasion of his forty-seventh birthday (6 September 1689), when his twin younger brothers (Johann Christoph and Johann Ambrosius) visited him in Schweinfurt, it illustrates the concordia that existed between the three of them together with its attributes: florens (‘flourishing’), in the form of a three-leaf clover; firma (‘firm’), shown as a padlock binding three chains; and suavis (‘sweet’), illustrated by a triangle with three jingling rings attached. (illustration credit 6)

  7a & b. The Dukes of Saxe-Weimar

  Bach’s twin employers at the court of Saxe-Weimar from 1708 to 1717 were the nephew and uncle team of Duke Ernst August (1688–1748) (left) and Duke Wilhelm Ernst (1662–1728). As co-regents they occupied separate palaces, employed the same musicians and feuded constantly. (illustration credit 7a)

  7c. Wilhelmsburg, Weimar, c. 1730

  This view of the Wilhelmsburg (the palace occupied by the elder duke, Wilhelm Ernst) was painted from the perspective of the Rote Schloss (occupied by his nephew, Ernst August). It shows the ramparts, the spire of the Himmelsburg and the wooden footbridge that connected the two palaces. (illustration credit 7c)

  8. Himmelsburg (interior), c. 1660

  Short for Weg zum Himmelsburg (‘The Way to the Castle of Heaven’), the name referred to the painted cupola depicting the open heavens in the palace church of the Wilhelmsburg, the centre of Duke Wilhelm Ernst’s devotions. Destroyed along with the court music library in the great fire of 1774, it was of unusual design – a tall, three-storeyed structure with a balustraded music and organ gallery (just 13 feet by 10, and 65 feet above floor level), from which ‘heavenly’ sounds would float down upon members of the ducal families, courtiers and guests. (illustration credit 8)

  9. Thomasschule and Thomaskirche, 1723

  This engraving by Johann Gottfried Krügner illustrates the close proximity of school and church. Bach’s private apartments were a mere stone’s throw away in the school building on which his duties as Cantor were centred. But as the town’s director musices these extended equally to the larger Nikolaikirche, the official town church, some seven minutes’ walk away, and to more distant arenas of music-making within and just outside the town walls. (illustration credit 9)

  10. Thomasschule and Thomaskirche, 1749

  This coloured engraving shows the renovated and enlarged Thomasschule (1731–2) in the distance, just to the left of the church. (illustration credit 10)

  11. Six Leipzig Burgomasters

  a. Abraham Christoph Platz (1658–1728)

  Leader of the Estates’ city party, commissioner for the Nikolaikirche, Platz became mayor in 1705 until his death. He opposed Bach’s candidacy as Thomascantor and was the force behind the new Thomasschule statutes and the admission of poor children regardless of musical ability. A philanthropist and Pietist, Platz was a close ally of August Hermann Francke. (illustration credit 11)

  b. Gottfried Lange (1672–1748)

  Leader of the absolutist court party in Leipzig, commissioner for the Thomaskirche from 1719 to his death, Lange became the senior burgomaster after Platz’s death. Initially a staunch supporter and patron of Bach, godfather to his first Leipzig-born son, later, suffering serious illness, he proved to be a lot less supportive.

  c. Adrian Steger (1662–1741)

  Ten years older than Lange and belonging to the same absolutist court party, Steger, as mayor, always stood in Lange’s shadow. He opposed Bach’s candidacy and was his sternest critic, predicting in 1730 that since ‘the cantor did nothing … a break would have to come sometime.’

  d. Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1677–1758)

  As a lawyer Stieglitz was appointed inspector of the Thomasschule in 1729, pushed through the new rules for school admissions and was instrumental in appointing J.A. Ernesti (a close ally, and tutor to his children) as co-rector and later rector. He succeeded Steger as burgomaster in 1741.

  e. Jacob Born (1683–1758)

  Born succeeded Platz in 1728 as leader of the Estates’ city party and as commissioner for the Nikolaikirche. In 1730 he led a campaign to clip Bach’s independent wings by reinstating his teaching duties at the Thomasschule on the grounds that he showed ‘little inclination to work’. Born succeeded Lange as senior burgomaster in 1748.

  f. Gottfried Wilhelm Küstner (1689–1762)

  Küstner was initially the Elector’s favourite to succeed Steger in 1741, and only became burgomaster in 1749, successfully blocking Stieglitz’s reappointment as inspector of the Thomasschule. His wife was godmother to Bach’s daughter Elisabeth Juliana Friderica.

  12. Calov Bible

  The prominent seventeenth-century Orthodox theologian Abraham Calov (1612–86) was the editor of Die Heilige Bibel, a detailed commentary on the Scriptures based on Luther’s writings and translations. It has not so far been established exactly when Bach acquired his copy of the 1681 edition, which was rediscovered in 1934. The monogram ‘JSBach 1733’, in the bottom-right corner of the title page, might simply indicate the date he entered when re-cataloguing his library. (illustration credit 12)

  13. Devotional Music and God’s Grace

  From his annotation of passages in Calov’s Heilige Bibel it is clear that Bach selected passages that gave biblical justification for his chosen profession and for the art of music itself. In response to a section of 2 Chronicles 5, which Calov introduces with the words ‘How the glory of the Lord appeared upon the beautiful music’, Bach adds a comment on the me
taphysical dimension to music-making: ‘NB. Where there is devotional music, God with his grace is always present.’ The very act of music-making, in other words, elicits God’s presence, provided it is andächtig – devotional and mindful. (Images of the Bible commentary of Abraham Calov owned and annotated by J. S. Bach courtesy of Concordia Seminary Library, St Louis, Missouri {all rights reserved}) (illustration credit 13)

  14. The Lutheran Liturgical Year

  Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox. It can vary in date from 22 March to 25 April, and in turn determines the dates of Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Ascension and Pentecost. Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before 25 December, the Sunday from 27 November to 3 December inclusive. (illustration credit 14)

  15. Bach’s First Leipzig Cantata Cycle, 1723/4

  Easter coming late in 1724 meant that Whitsunday and Trinity Sunday overlapped with the Trinity +1 and 2 of the previous year, leaving the following cantatas needing to be included for the cycle to be complete:

  Whitsun 1724 172, 59

  Pentecost II 1724 173

  Pentecost III 1724 184

  Trinity 1724 194, 165

  Key

  The BWV numbers are in different colours:

  Black Newly composed works

  Blue Earlier works revived

  Red Parodies of secular cantatas composed in Cöthen

  Green Bach’s ideal cycle works

  The green outer segment represents cantatas that Bach later considered as belonging to (and completing) this first cycle after its original disruption around Easter 1724. (illustration credit 15)

  16. Bach’s Second Leipzig Cantata Cycle, 1724/5