53. BD II, p. 68.
54. See postscript by Christoph Wolff in Plichta 1981, p. 29.
55. Named after Prince Leopold and his brother August Ludwig. Both princes as well as their sister Eleonore Wilhelmina, duchess of Saxe-Weimar, served as godparents, along with the director of the Cöthen-Anhalt government and the wife of the prince’s steward. The baptism with its prominent attendance took place on November 17, 1718, at the castle church (NBR, no. 78).
56. NBR, no. 306, pp. 304f.
57. NBR, no. 80.
58. On Telemann’s Hamburg appointment, see MGG 13 (1966): col. 187. It remains noteworthy that the reputation Bach earned in 1713 in Halle and 1720 in Hamburg helped pave the way, a generation later, for his son Wilhelm Friedemann to succeed Ziegler in Halle and for Carl Philipp Emanuel to obtain Telemann’s position in Hamburg.
59. NBR, no. 306, p. 302. Besides a city dwelling, the affluent Reinken owned a suburban lodge; in one of his homes he kept the group portrait (with himself, Buxtehude, and other musicians) that he had commissioned from Jan Voorhout in 1674; see Wolff 1989.
60. For a corresponding quotation from Quantz (1752), see Chapter 5, p. 136f.
61. Not limited to the opening chorus (Psalm 94:19), the other cantata movements also focus on expressions of grief and consolation, as the text incipits indicate: aria no. 3, “Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not” (Sighs, tears, sorrow, need); aria no. 5, “Bäche von gesalznen Tränen” (Streams of salty tears); duet no. 8, “Komm, mein Jesu, und erquicke” (Come, my Jesus, and refresh); chorale no. 9, “Was helfen uns die schweren Sorgen” (What do heavy sorrows help us).
62. NBR, no. 319.
63. BD II, no. 302. See BWVk, p. 317, for the possibility of Weimar origin of BWV 542/2.
64. Fitting well into the context of Bach’s manifold explorations of the tonal spectrum (Well-Tempered Clavier, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, etc.).
65. Cf. Wolff 1989.
66. NBR, no. 81. The St. Jacobi church body authorized to make the appointment consisted of the senior minister (Neumeister), two town council members residing in the parish, and four sworn members; see Kremer 1993, p. 217.
67. The others being Matthias Christoph Wiedeburg of Gera, Heinrich Zinck of Itzehoe, Vincent Lübeck of Hamburg, Johann Joachim Heitmann of Hamburg, Johann Heinrich Frenkel of Ratzeburg, Hans Heinrich Lüders of Flensburg, and Johann Georg Hertzog of Hamburg.
68. Cantor Joachim Gerstenbüttel and the organists of St. Catharine’s (Johann Adam Reinken), St. Peter’s (Andreas Kniller), and Holy Spirit (Georg Preuß); see NBR, no. 81.
69. See also BD II, p. 79, and Kremer 1993.
70. NBR, no. 82. Mattheson’s reference to Bach’s playing “on the most various and great est organs” may refer to Bach’s undertaking a tour of the city’s organ landscape, probably in the company of a group of musicians and some curious bystanders.
71. See BDII, no. 108. The other godparents included Bach and the chamber musician Lienicke.
72. Personal and family trips are usually not documented. But Bach may have attended the funeral of his oldest brother, Christoph, who died on February 22, 1721, at age forty-nine in Ohrdruf, a two-day trip away from Cöthen. In the spring of 1722, he learned of the death of his brother Jacob in faraway Stockholm, where he had served as royal Swedish court musician.
73. NBR, no. 85. Bach was in Schleiz for several days in early August and stayed at the Inn of the Blue Angel, all expenses paid. The court account books do not specify the purpose of his visit, indicating only that Bach received his fee on August 7, his hotel bill was paid on the 11th (a Monday), and his mail-coach fare on the 13th. The visit probably involved a church performance on August 10 (ninth Sunday after Trinity), especially since the cantor of the Schleiz palace church, Johann Sebastian Koch, seems to have been an old acquaintance of Bach’s; prior to 1711, Koch had served as choir prefect in Mühlhausen.
74. Schubart 1953, p. 48.
75. The Monjou daughters were employed on a part-time basis; see also Smend 1951, p. 35.
76. Schubart 1953, p. 46.
77. Bach is known to have played a guest performance of the cantata “Overgnügte Stunden” (not listed in BWV) on August 9, 1722, the birthday of Prince Johann August, just a few weeks before Johann Friedrich Fasch became capellmeister in Zerbst (BD II, no. 114), but Bach may well have visited and performed in Zerbst before.
78. Indicative of the numerous interfamily connections is the fact that Adam Imanuel Weldig, Bach’s colleague at the Weimar court capelle and later a member of the Weissenfels capelle, was godfather in 1713 to a child born to the Weissenfels trumpeter Georg Christian Meissner and Anna Magdalena’s sister Katharina. A year later, Bach and Weldig exchanged godparentships: Weldig as godfather to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Bach to Johann Friedrich Immanuel Weldig (see BDII, nos. 67–68).
79. Within a few months, her salary matched that of the highest-paid chamber musician, Joseph Spieß (300 talers).
80. BD II, no. 106.
81. NBR, no. 86.
82. BD II, no. 111. On September 26, 1721, the reading of the will of Martha Katharina Lämmerhirt, widow of Bach’s uncle Tobias Lämmerhirt, took place. Bach’s share came to about 50 florins, but it was not paid out to him until 1722. Regarding the complex partition of the Lämmerhirt estate, see BD I, no. 8; BD II, nos. 109, 112, 117, and 118; and NBR, no. 89.
83. Hoppe 1986, pp. 16, 31ff.
84. BD II, no. 158.
85. See Zimpel 1979, p. 104.
86. NBR, no. 152.
87. On Telemann’s Leipzig activities, see Glöckner 1990, pp. 18–39.
88. For the details of the process leading to Bach’s appointment, see Schulze 1977; Schulze 1988; the commentaries to BD I, no. 91, and BD II, nos. 119, 121, 121–125,127; and NBR, nos. 93–95.
89. NBR, no. 94a.
90. BD II, no. 129.
91. Details about their auditions are conflicting. According to the Hamburg newspaper, Der Hollsteinsche Correspondent, Duve and Kauffmann auditioned on November 29 (First Sunday in Advent) at St. Nicholas’s, presenting their cantatas before and after the sermon, while Schott performed his piece on the same day in the Vespers at the New Church. A later issue of the same paper announces for the upcoming period of the New Year’s trade fair the trial performances of Graupner, Kauffmann, and—oddly enough—the Dresden court organist Christian Petzolt, whose candidacy is mentioned nowhere else. See Schulze 1988, p. 3.
92. NBR, no. 94b.
93. First suggested by Hans-Joachim Schulze; BWV 75–76, Bach’s first Leipzig cantatas, seem to have the same author as well. For further details, also regarding the genesis of BWV 22–23, see NBA/KBI/8 (Wolff), p. 23.
94. NBR, no. 152.
95. NBR, no. 95.
96. NBR, no. 94c.
97. NBR, no. 97.
98. NBR, no. 96.
99. NBR, no. 98.
100. NBR, p. 103.
101. NBR, no. 152.
102. Aufrichtige Anleitung, comprising fifteen inventions and fifteen sinfonias, is the title of the collection and not, as usually rendered, the heading of a preface.
103. The 1730 renovation plans for the St. Thomas School provided that “each alumnus receives a sizable cubicle where he can study and, in addition, keep his clavier.” See Braun 1995, p. 55.
104. As reported by his pupil Johann Philipp Kirnberger (NBR, no. 363).
105. See Heinichen, Der General-Bass in der Composition (Dresden, 1728), p. 837.
106. Mattheson, Das beschützte Orchestre (Hamburg, 1717), p. 437.
107. NBR, no. 306, p. 304.
108. The lost autograph of the cello suites would have been called Libro Secondo, corresponding to the Libro Primo (= BWV 1001–1006).
109. On the flauto d’echo, see Rampe-Zapf 1997–98.
110. See Dirksen 1992.
CHAPTER 8
1. NBR, no. 102. Cited from the Hamburg Staatsund Gelehrte Zeitung, but similar reports appeared in various papers.
2. Roth�
��s application letter for the Grimma cantorate specified, “I have not only occupied the Praefectur at the St. Thomas School for 4 years, but also taken over the [music] directorship at both churches for a whole year—if modesty permits, much to the pleasure of the entire citizenry, of each and every high and low inhabitant—after the death of the late music director, Mr. Kuhnau.” The outstanding quality of the prefect is acknowledged in an accompanying recommendation by Christian Ludovici, rector of Leipzig University and former conrector of the St. Thomas School, who points out Roth’s “exceptional experience in instrumental and especially in vocal music, the more so as he conducted the music at the churches here, during the vacancy [after the death] of the late Kuhnau, to the greatest pleasure of the patrons” (Schulze 1998, p. 106). It seems likely that Roth continued as prefect for a while under Bach. From March 1725 to Easter 1726 (when he left for Geringswalde), he studied theology at Leipzig University. Although a pertinent testimonial by Bach is not known, he may have served Bach’s ensemble for almost three years.
3. Czok 1985, p. 146.
4. In 1765, fifty-six publishers and booksellers had their business in Leipzig, in addition to numerous printers, engravers, and bookbinders (Czok 1985, pp. 150, 161).
5. A census of 1753 counted 32,384 permanent residents, leading to a general estimate of between 32,000 and 35,000 for the second quarter of the eighteenth century. In comparison, Dresden had about 52,000 inhabitants in 1750 (c. 46,500 in 1727), and among the 147 cities in electoral Saxony, Chemnitz (population 10,400) followed as a distant third. See Czok 1982; Czok 1985, p. 163.
6. By 1747, local industry comprised nineteen factories, indicating a shift toward increased manufacturing. The printing business and book trade, strongly identified with Leipzig since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, assumed major importance. Cf. Czok 1985, pp. 150ff.; for a detailed summary, see also Stauffer 1994. On Leipzig architecture, see Pevsner 1928.
7. Johann Ernst Hebenstreit, Museum Richterianum (Leipzig, 1743), serves as a catalog of the collection and includes an engraving with an interior view of the museum (reproduced in Wustmann 1897, p. 75).
8. Catalog: Historische Erklärungen der Gemälde, welche Herr Gottfried Winckler in Leipzig gesammelt (Leipzig, 1768).
9. Czok 1985, pp. 175f.
10. First documented in 1768, cited later in Goethe’s Faust; see Gustav Wustmann, Bilderbuch aus der Geschichte der Stadt Leipzig (Leipzig, 1897), p. 99.
11. The history of the Leipzig Collegia Musica that begins in the early seventeenth century is not without interruptions. Görner’s Collegium seems to be the one whose actual origins predate 1700 and that in the 1680s and 90s was under the direction of Kuhnau, when he was a law student at Leipzig University and from 1684 organist at St. Thomas’s.
12. Petzoldt 1998.
13. NBR, no. 101.
14. BD II, no. 135.
15. Theological charter of June 25, 1580, summarizing the central doctrines of the Lutheran Reformation.
16. BD II, no. 136.
17. BD II, nos. 143–146, 148, 152, 175, 177, 178.
18. NBR, nos. 106f.
19. Bach specifically wrote, “I entered upon my university functions at Whitsunday, 1723” (NBR, no. 119c, p. 124).
20. First proposed by Arnold Schering, BJ 1938: 75f.
21. Payable throughout the year; for example, from the Lobwasser legacy he received 2 florins annually; from the Sinner legacy, 10 talers; and from the Mentzel endowment, 2 talers 16 groschen. Most of the legacies related to endowed performances were to take place under the cantor’s direction, so the Rettenbach legacy, for instance, paid for the singing of motets and hymns four times a year in memory of various family members (on January 18, Jacob Handl’s motet “Ecce quomodo moritur” on April 24, the hymn “Herr Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht” on September 9, the hymn “Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele” and on October 26, the hymn “Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr”). The Bose legacy funded the singing of the motet “Turbabor sed non perturbabor” on the donor’s name day. See NBR, no. 109.
22. NBR, no. 110; BD II, nos. 160–161. From 1733 and 1734–35, respectively, Bach no longer received these payments; others were hired for the task.
23. NBR, no. 108.
24. In a memorandum of October 15, 1722, Telemann compares his Frankfurt and Hamburg income with what he was promised in Leipzig (“never under 1,000 talers annually, but ordinarily 1,200 talers and above”), and Graupner’s new salary order at the Darmstadt court of May 3, 1723, makes reference to a Leipzig offer of 1,000 talers as well (see Schulze 1998, p. 104).
25. Cf. Hans-Joachim Schulze, in WBK 3: 111.
26. Cited from the Hamburg Relationscourier; NBR, no. 105.
27. NBR, no. 103.
28. NBR, no. 104.
29. By contract, the cantor was required “not to take any boys into the School who have not already laid a foundation in music, or are not at least suited to being instructed therein” (NBR, no. 100).
30. NBR, nos. 141–145.
31. NBR, no. 151, p. 150.
32. Thomana Ordnungen, 1723 (facsimile edition), p. 12.
33. Transmitted in a copy made in 1738 by Carl August Thieme, pupil at St. Thomas’s in 1735–45. See J. S. Bach’s Precepts and Principles…, translated with facsimile, introduction, and explanatory notes by Pamela L. Poulin (Oxford, 1994).
34. NBR, no. 150
35. Thomana Ordnungen, 1733 (facsimile edition), p. 23.
36. Ibid., p. 22.
37. NBR, no. 100.
38. The 1,500 is a rough estimate, based on some 1,630 regular Sundays and religious feast days celebrated in Leipzig during Bach’s tenure (not including special feasts and events) and taking into consideration occasional absences, illnesses, and two state mourning periods, one of four months’ duration in 1727–28 and another of six months’ in 1733. During Bach’s time, St. Thomas’s had a seating capacity of 2,000–2,100, not counting the considerable standing room; St. Nicholas’s held slightly more. Both churches were ordinarily filled to capacity. See Stiehl 1984, p. 13.
39. NBR, no. 274a.
40. Facsimile in Neumann Texte, pp. 448–55.
41. NBR, no. 113.
42. At the Leipzig main churches, the organ preluded before the congregational hymns, but ordinarily did not accompany them—with the exception of the hymn before the sermon. See Petzoldt in WBK 3: 88.
43. This practice was still being upheld when Lowell Mason reported in 1852 on music in the Leipzig services. After the reading of the Gospel, “the organ burst out in a loud minor voluntary [prelude in the minor key of the following piece], which continued three or four minutes, during which time the violins, violoncellos, double basses, and wind instruments tuned. Yet so carefully was this done, that it was hardly perceptible, for the organ was giving out its full progressive chords, so as to nullify the tuning process, at least upon the ears of the people” (NBR, no. 412, p. 523).
44. For details, see Stiller 1970 and Petzoldt in WBK3.
45. Sermons at St. Nicholas’s and St. Thomas’s for the Sunday and weekday services were assigned according to a fixed schedule. For example, the sermons at the main service on Sundays and feast days were always preached by the senior minister or pastor; archdeacon, deacon, and subdeacon assisted as ministrants for the liturgy of the main service and the administration of the sacrament. The archdeacon at St. Nicholas’s preached on Mondays, the archdeacon at St. Thomas’s on Tuesdays; the deacon at St. Nicholas’s on Fridays, the deacon at St. Thomas’s at Vespers on Sundays and feast days; the subdeacon at St. Nicholas’s was the Vespers preacher and the subdeacon at St. Thomas’s preached the noon sermon on Sundays (see Stiller 1970, pp. 56–58). Except for Vespers, no polyphonic music was sung at these services.
While D. Salomon Deyling served throughout Bach’s Leipzig tenure as senior minister (pastor and superintendent, 1720–55) at St. Nicholas’s, St. Thomas’s had five senior ministers: D. Christian Weiß, 1714–36; Friedrich Wilhelm Schütz, 1737�
�39 (archdeacon at St. Nicholas’s, 1721–37; subdeacon and deacon at St. Thomas’s, 1709–21); D. Urban Gottfried Sieber, 1739–41; Gottlieb Gaudlitz, 1741–45; and Romanus Teller, 1745–50 (subdeacon and deacon, 1737–40). Archdeacons at St. Thomas’s: Johann Gottlob Carpzov, 1714–30; D. Urban Gottfried Sieber, 1730–39 (subdeacon and deacon, 1710–30); Gottlieb Gaudlitz, 1739–41 (deacon, 1731–39; subdeacon at St. Nicholas’s, 1726–31); and Christoph Wolle, 1741–61 (subdeacon, 1739–40).
The St. Thomas Church registered annually between 10,000 and 20,000 communicants, averaging between 150 and 300 per Mass service on Sundays and feast days, fewer at the weekly Mass service (without sermon and music) on Thursdays. Bach and his family took communion at St. Thomas’s about twice a year and always at the Thursday Mass—for the first time in the week of the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity, 1723, and for the last time in the week after the Third Sunday in Advent, 1749 (then with two of his sons). He signed up in advance with his confessors: 1723–36, pastor D. Christian Weiß 1737–40, deacon M. Romanus Teller; 1740–41, subdeacon M. Johann Paul Ram; and 1741–50, archdeacon Christoph Wolle. See BD II, no. 162, and Petzoldt 1985.
46. NBR, no. 137.
47. NBR, no. 138.
48. Facsimiles in Neumann Texte, pp. 422–47. An additional booklet, with texts from the Twenty-second to the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity and the First Sunday in Advent, 1724, has been missing from a St. Petersburg collection since 1919; see Hobohm 1973, p. 7.
49. Details about printrun and sales of regular cantata booklets are not available, but information about a passion booklet printed for a Good Friday performance in 1738 suggests that Bach counted on three hundred salable copies (BDII, no. 416). In 1738, he was invoiced by Breitkopf for 5 talers (paper and printing) and sold these copies at a profit of probably 10 talers or more. Telemann’s Hamburg correspondence reports on his income from similar sales of cantata booklets; see Georg Philipp Telemann, Briefwechsel, ed. Hans Große and Hans Rudolf Jung (Leipzig, 1972), pp. 28–54.
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