Johann Sebastian Bach

by Christoph Wolff

  Still, the most prominent musical activities took place every Sunday and feast day at the services in the two principal churches, St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas’s, under the direction of the St. Thomas School cantor. At his disposal for this purpose were the school’s first cantorei and the city’s small troupe of salaried musicians, town pipers and art fiddlers; for more ambitious programming of sacred music, collaboration with members of the Collegia Musica was deemed essential. Kuhnau, the solid cantor, had largely lost touch with the Collegia, and Bach, the famous capellmeister, was expected to remedy that situation. It was for this reason that in the final selection process of the Kuhnau succession, the town council outflanked the city clergy, which had traditionally set qualifications for the cantorate. Before they were even asked to take part in the decision, Bach was elected to the post, was offered the job, and accepted at the burgomaster’s office on May 5.

  Formalities then had to be observed. On May 7 or 8, Bach underwent a thorough examination, conducted in Latin, to test his theological competence. The examiner appointed by the electoral consistory in Dresden, seventy-three-year-old D. Johann Schmid, professor of theology at Leipzig University and a notoriously tough examiner known to flunk cantorate candidates,12 certified in a statement recorded in Latin and German that “Mr. Jo. Sebastian Bach replies to the questions propounded by me in such a wise that I consider that the said person may be admitted to the post of Cantor in the St. Thomas School.”13 The document—co-signed by D. Salomon Deyling, who had participated in the test as associate judge and who, since 1721, had served as church superintendent of Leipzig and simultaneously as professor of theology at the university—was immediately sent to Dresden. The superintendent’s presentation of Bach’s candidacy to the supervisory authorities concluded with a request for confirmation and ratification of the appointment.14 The latter, dated May 13 and accompanied by a copy of the Formula Concordiae,15 arrived back at the superintendent’s office virtually by return mail.16

  Deyling was miffed by what he considered the town council’s breaches of protocol by consulting him only after Bach had already been offered the cantorate by the burgomaster, who had also permitted Bach to make a private arrangement with Carl Friedrich Pezold, collega tertius and later conrector of the St. Thomas School. Under that agreement, Pezold would teach the five academic classes that ordinarily formed part of the cantor’s assignment: two each in Latin etymology and Latin syntax for the tertia, and one in catechism for the tertia and quarta. Bach benefited here from an understanding reached previously between the burgomaster and Telemann, by which the cantor would cede 50 talers from his salary as recompense for a substitute instructor. In disapproval of the council’s high-handed action, Deyling stayed away from the formal introduction ceremony of the cantor at the St. Thomas School, on Monday, June 1, 1723, and asked the inspector of the school and pastor at St. Thomas’s, Christian Weiss, to serve instead as his deputy. The town council, on the other hand, countered by having councillor Gottfried Conrad Lehmann, who now chaired the board of the St. Thomas School, reproach superintendent Deyling publicly, in front of the faculty and students, for his absence—a skirmish well documented in a small flood of paperwork exchanged among Deyling, Weiss, and the town scribe on behalf of the council.17 More than half a year later, Deyling testified to the Dresden Consistory after obtaining “further information” that the cantor’s private arrangement with Pezold had worked out well and that Bach behaved responsibly in that “when the Third Colleague has had to be absent for illness, or on account of other hindrances, [he] has also visited the class and has dictated an exercise for the boys to work on.”18

  Whether or not Bach was aware of these quibbles among his superiors, he himself played no active role in the affair. Eventually, he would have his own exchanges with the town and church administrations and with yet a third bureaucracy, that of Leipzig University. Indeed, Bach’s first official obligation in his new post, even before he was formally installed as cantor, related to the traditional linkage between the cantorate and the university. Like Kuhnau and his predecessors, Bach assumed responsibility for certain musical functions at the university, in particular at the so-called Old Service at St. Paul’s (University) Church four times a year: on the first days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost and on the Reformation Festival. So he began his university duties on Whitsunday, May 16,19 a full two weeks before his installation as cantor. It remains unclear, however, whether the composition he apparently prepared for this service, the relatively short cantata “Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten,” BWV 59, was performed then. The extant original performing parts of BWV 59 date from 1724, though the autograph score was definitely written in the spring of 1723. Other criteria support the view that this cantata, with a different set of performing parts, was composed for the Pentecost service at the University Church:20 the compact form, with the text taken from Erdmann Neumeister’s Geistliche Poesien of 1714 (abbreviated from seven to four movements); the opening duet relating closely to the duet movements from the Cöthen cantata repertoire; the unusually modest scoring for soprano and bass solo (choir used only for the four-part chorale) and for an instrumental ensemble that includes trumpets and timpani but no other winds. Bach would have had to make the appropriate arrangements for the performance at St. Paul’s with the first prefect of the St. Thomas choir, Johann Gabriel Roth, who had been in charge of the performances at St. Thomas’s and St. Nicholas’s during the interim period since Kuhnau’s illness and death. But Bach had worked with him already the previous February, in conjunction with his audition; and now, as cantor designate, he needed to arrange a smooth transition to a new and orderly regime. The relative proximity of Cöthen facilitated matters considerably and enabled Bach to make the trip to Leipzig during the month following his election (on April 22, 1723) at least four times.

  On the last of these trips, Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach arrived on May 22, the Saturday before Trinity Sunday, with their entire family: five children (including the newborn Christiana Sophia Henrietta, Anna Magdalena’s first child) and Friedelena Bach, their sister-in-law. They moved into the renovated cantor’s apartment in the south wing of the St. Thomas School building on the Thomaskirchhof, the square extending from the south flank of St. Thomas’s Church. The apartment, extending over three floors and apparently ready to accept the contents of the “four wagons loaded with household goods,” may altogether have provided more space than the Bach family had known in Cöthen. The apartment also contained the cantor’s office, the so-called composing room, which also accommodated the school’s large music library (except for the materials that were kept at the churches). From there, Bach, like the rector who resided in the north wing of the school building, had direct access to the school itself, an advantage from which his children benefited as well. The two eldest sons were immediately accepted as externi, that is, nonresident students; twelve-year-old Friedemann entered the tertia and nine-year-old Carl the quinta; their younger brothers would eventually follow. From the outset, Bach must have realized that the broadened educational opportunities for his sons at a Latin school as distinguished as St. Thomas—a school with close links to Leipzig University—would be a major attraction of his new position.

  Bach’s finances did not improve as dramatically as they had with his moves from Mühlhausen to Cöthen and then to Weimar. The main difference was that his fixed annual salary, paid quarterly, amounted to little more than 100 talers, a fourth of what he had earned in Cöthen. However, he received free housing and payments for heat and light, a major advantage, and supplemental income from various special endowment funds,21 as well as from weddings and funerals. Unlike his predecessors, he also received, by virtue of his organological expertise, annual payments for maintaining the church harpsichords.22 In 1730, Bach estimated his annual income from the Leipzig cantorate to be about 700 talers, exactly the sum of his and his wife’s combined salaries in Cöthen.23 Anna Magdalena no longer earned a salary, no
r would she ever again, but Bach knew that Leipzig would offer opportunities for considerable income over and above the figure of 700 talers. On the other hand, when he accepted the Leipzig position, he apparently was led to expect an income of at least 1,000 if not above 1,200 talers in cantorate-related income—figures that must have been mentioned in the verbal negotiations with Burgomaster Lange because that income level had also played a role in the discussions with Telemann and Graupner.24 It seems, therefore, that over the years and certainly by 1730, Bach discovered that his actual earnings from the cantorate did not quite match “the favorable terms” as originally described to him.

  While Bach may have sat in the church on Trinity Sunday 1723 listening critically to the music performed under the direction of the first prefect, Roth, he formally took up his new responsibilities during the following week in order to prepare for the coming Sunday. Then on May 30, the first Sunday after Trinity, Bach produced, for the morning service at St. Nicholas’s, his first Leipzig cantata, “Die Elenden sollen essen,” BWV 75, an extended work in two parts with the sermon intervening. The autograph score suggests that this cantata was composed in Cöthen, though Bach definitely wrote its sister piece, “Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes,” BWV 76, after his arrival in Leipzig. The two works display a similar layout and scoring: 1 trumpet, 2 oboes, strings, and continuo; all four concertists of the choir are called upon for the arias and recitatives. Additionally, BWV 76 introduces the viola da gamba in a solo role, and both cantatas make use of alternating oboes and oboi d’amore, the latter introducing a new sonority in Leipzig churches that was probably heard for the first time in Bach’s audition piece, BWV 23. Both cantatas are based on texts by an unnamed author who seems to have supplied the librettos of the audition cantatas BWV 22 and 23 as well. A good case can be made for authorship by Gottfried Lange, the poet-burgomaster who, after all, bears chief responsibility for launching the Leipzig career of Bach, the capellmeister-cantor.25

  The musical event was duly noted in newspapers and chronicles; the official press release of June 3 reads, “This past Sunday, the Princely Capellmeister, Mr. Bach, who had been called hither from Cöthen by the Honorable and Most Wise Council of this town to fill the vacant post of Mr. Kuhnau, Directoris Chori Musici, who died here last year, presented, in entering upon his office, his music before and after the sermon.”26 And in the Acta Lipsiensium Academica, the university chronicler adds that Bach’s music found general approval (“with good applause”).27 Curiously, the university chronicler also refers to Bach as “the new Cantor and Director of the Collegium Musicum,” surely a misrepresentation of Bach’s official title of Cantor et Director Musices, or Director Chori Musici. Yet, particularly in view of the closeness of the chronicler to the affairs of the university-related Collegium, the reference may imply that the new cantor, for his first Leipzig performance, had been able to mobilize members of the Collegia Musica. That they would rejoin the music making in the city’s two main churches under the cantor’s direction had been a high hope of the town fathers.

  On the Monday following his first performance, Bach was formally introduced at the St. Thomas School by the chair of the school board, councillor Lehmann, in the presence of the faculty and students. According to a report written by the chief town clerk, Lehmann and Bach “were received downstairs by the Rector, Magister Ernesti, and led into the upper auditorium…. Thestudents performed a piece outside the door, and at its conclusion all filed into the auditorium.” Councillor Lehmann then proceeded with the official presentation in which Bach

  was admonished faithfully and industriously to discharge the duties of his office, show the authorities his respect and willingness, cultivate good relations and friendship with his colleagues, conscientiously instruct the youth in the fear of God and other useful studies, and thus keep the School in good repute. The resident students and the others who attend the School were likewise admonished to give obedience and show respect to the new Cantor, and the speech was concluded with a good wish for the welfare of the School.

  The cantor was expected to respond, but on the instruction of superintendent Deyling, pastor Christian Weiss quickly rose to make the presentation and carry out the official installation on behalf of the consistory, an act branded by Lehmann as “an innovation which must be brought to the attention of a Noble Council.” After extending his congratulations to the new cantor, Lehmann put this to the assembly “at once,” having perceived Weiss’s action as an encroachment by the church on the civic authorities, already a sore point between the church consistory and the city council. But before the unexpected interruption led to a sidebar dispute between Lehmann and Weiss,

  the new Cantor expressed his most obliged thanks to a Noble and Wise Council, in that the same had been most graciously pleased to think of him in conferring this office, with the promise that he would serve the same with all fidelity and zeal, would show due respect to his superiors, and in general to conduct himself that his greatest devotion should always be observed. Whereupon the other instructor of the School congratulated him, and the occasion was concluded with another musical piece.28

  St. Thomas’s was established in 1212 by Margrave Dietrich of Meissen as an Augustinian prebend with a convent and hospital. Leipzig, a town without a prince or a bishop in residence, already had an older church of Romanesque origin, St. Nicholas’s, which as templum oppidanum (city temple) continued to serve through the subsequent centuries as the city’s main parish church. In 1240, Dominican monks built another church, St. Paul’s, which in the fifteenth century became the university’s church and simultaneously functioned as its main auditorium. By the time St. Paul’s was erected, the Augustinian prebendaries at St. Thomas’s had founded a school for the poor that selected the most gifted among needy students, primarily from the vicinity of Leipzig but also from farther away. A singing school from the start, the Schola Thomana required the students to earn their stipends by singing at the church services. The school’s first cantor of note was Georg Rhau, who early on joined the Reformation, performed his twelve-voiced Missa de Sancto Spiritu in June 1519 at St. Thomas’s (marking the opening of the theological dispute between Luther, Karlstadt, and Eck), and was dismissed in 1520 by the school he had converted. Rhau subsequently started a successful music editing and publishing business in Wittenberg that later had an immense influence on the dissemination of Protestant musical repertoires throughout the German lands, though it took nearly twenty more years until the Reformation won out and the city officially accepted the Lutheran faith—an occasion marked in 1539 by a sermon delivered by Luther himself on Whitsunday at St. Thomas’s. When the Augustinian prebend was dissolved four years later, the St. Thomas School became a civic institution but continued its social mission, musical tradition, and academic distinction as the area’s most selective Latin school.

  In the middle of the sixteenth century, the choral scholars numbered only twenty-two, but with the school under the jurisdiction of the city council, wealthy citizens began to make charitable gifts and bequests on behalf of needy and gifted boys. The endowment that provided the operational means for the school grew steadily and supported, by the time of Kuhnau and Bach, fifty-five resident students (alumni) in the four upper classes, prima to quarta. In addition, the school accepted about twice that number of qualified nonresident students (externi), who lived with their families in Leipzig. The alumni, however, in exchange for room and board, were obliged to sing at the regular worship services in four of the city’s churches on all Sundays and feast days; they earned supplementary stipends by singing at funerals and weddings, also by Currende singing around New Year’s Day and on other occasions, in the streets of the town and at the houses of affluent citizens. The regular musical functions of the choral scholars made it essential that the cantor play a decisive role in the rigorous admissions process: for the limited number of alumni positions, rector and conrector tested the applicants’ academic qualifications, while the cantor examined their mu
sical background and potential.29

  This committee of three proposed its rank list to the chairman of the board of the St. Thomas School, usually one of the three Leipzig burgomasters. In only a single instance during Bach’s tenure of office has the admissions documentation survived,30 from which we learn that nine spaces for alumni became available in the spring of 1729. Bach tested the twenty-four applicants (who came from as far away as Aurich in east Friesland and whose ages ranged from thirteen to nineteen) and determined that fourteen of them could “be used in music,” meaning in polyphonic music rather than merely in the singing of hymns. Five of those fourteen with additional qualifications, such as “has a good voice and fine proficiency,” were admitted in May (Meißner, Krebs, Kittler, Hillmeyer, and Neucke), along with one after a reexamination (Wünzer: “has a somewhat weak voice, and little proficiency as yet, but he should [if private practice is diligently maintained] become usable in time”), and three who, according to Bach, had “no musical accomplishments” (Dieze, Ludewig, and Zeymer). Ludewig and Zeymer, however, were listed in 1730 among the motet singers,31 indicating that Bach’s training did indeed make a difference. The remaining five among the musically capable applicants (Landvoigt, Köpping, Krause, Pezold, and Scharff) were either admitted as externi or deferred as alumni and admitted later.