7. NBR, no. 236.
8. See Schulze 1967, NBAV III/1, and NBR, nos. 162, 230, 236–37.
9. In 1760, Marpurg recalled his “sojourn in Leipzig” when he “discussed with him [Bach] certain materials pertaining to fugue” (BD III, no. 701, p. 144); if he heard a performance of cantata BWV 144 (whose fugal texture he describes; see NBR, no. 357b) on this occasion, the visit would have taken place around Septuagesimae Sunday, in February 1748 or 1749.
10. G. de Luchesini, Mizler (permanent secretary), G. H. Bümler, C. G. Schöter, H. Bokemeyer, G. P. Telemann, G. H. Stölzel, G. F. Lingke, M. Spiess, G. Venzky, G. F. Handel (honorary member), U. Weiss, C. H. Graun, J. S. Bach, G. A. Sorge, J. P. Kunzen, C. F. Fischer, J. C. Winter, J. G. Kallenbeck. An invitation to Leopold Mozart as the twentieth and last member to join the society was issued in 1755, but the society disbanded shortly thereafter because of the difficulty of running the business from Mizler’s residence in Warsaw.
11. Tractatus musicus compositorio-practicus (Augsburg, 1745). See NBA/KBVIII/1 (Wolff), pp. 22, 34.
12. NBR, no. 247.
13. NBR, no. 306, p. 307.
14. NBR, no. 268, for this and subsequent quotations.
15. NBR, p. 243.
16. BD III, no. 703.
17. NBR, nos. 222–23.
18. BD II, nos. 489, 540, 548. In 1744, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach dedicated his first published sonata to Stahl (BD II, no. 528). Cf. also Miesner 1933.
19. BD III, Anh. I, no. 3 (p. 623).
20. NBR, no. 239.
21. NBR, no. 257.
22. NBR, pp. 429f; also the subsequent quotations from Forkel’s report.
23. NBR, no. 394.
24. Schramm 1744, 2: 2248, on the Weimar turris echonica: “where two persons who stand at opposite ends from one another and speak softly against the wall can understand each other clearly, without those standing in the middle hearing anything.”
25. NBR, no. 248.
26. NBR, nos. 246, 257.
27. Why and to what end Questenberg approached Bach remains unknown, also how he came to know about Bach in the first place. Questenberg was well acquainted with the Bohemian count Franz Anton von Sporck, whose relationship with Bach dated back to the 1720s; another possibility consists in the manifold Bohemian-Moravian connections of the Dresden court capelle, notably through Jan Dismas Zelenka. Conceivably, too, the Bach-Questenberg connection predates 1749.
28. NBR, no. 261.
29. See NBR, pp. 337–53.
30. NBR, no. 344, p. 343.
31. For a discussion of the genesis of The Art of Fugue, see Wolff, Essays, Chapter 20.
32. First edition: J. S. Bach, Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080, vol 1: Earlier Version (Frank furt: C. F. Peters, 1986).
33. On this point, see NBR, nos. 304–305 (Walther, Lexicon).
34. See facsimiles, NBR, p. 259.
35. The term “contrapunctus” is used in that very sense in the writings of Fux, Heinichen, and other contemporaries; cf. Wolff, Essays, p. 277.
36. NBR, no. 280.
37. NBR, no. 285.
38. NBR, no. 306, p. 304.
39. NBR, no. 353.
40. Wollny 1994; see Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232, ed. C. Wolff (Frankfurt: C. F. Peters, 1997) pp. 378–83.
41. Cf. Wolff 1968 and Beißwenger 1992.
42. For analytical details, see Wolff 1994.
43. Cf. Wolff, Essays, Chapter 26.
44. NBR, no. 396, p. 407.
45. NBR, no. 306, p. 303.
46. NBR, no. 265.
47. NBR, no. 266.
48. Composition is not extant.
49. NBR, no. 265.
50. NBR, no. 306, p. 303.
51. NBR, p. 430.
52. Proposed by Kranemann 1990, who also discusses older theories and hypotheses.
53. Surely for reasons of geographic distance, Bach could not travel to Berlin in late September 1748 to attend the christening ceremony for his grandson and godchild, Johann Sebastian, C. P. E. Bach’s third child.
54. NBR, no. 258.
55. Facsimile: “Wine and Taxes,” ed. W. H. Scheide (New York, 1970). For a discussion of Bach’s late hand, see Kobayashi 1988.
56. NBR, no. 261.
57. BD II, no. 582.
58. NBR, no. 262.
59. The communion register lists, in a continuing pattern, “Capellmeister Bach and two sons; the last time he partook of the Lord’s Supper at St. Thomas’s was on December 18, 1749, the 3rd Sunday in Advent” (BD II, no. 162).
60. The libretto for this 1749 service has survived; see NBA/KBI/40, pp. 225–29.
61. See Ambrose in WBK 2: 151. For the textual changes, see NBA/KBI/40, p. 136.
62. Bach first wrote “Borilius” which he changed to “Birolius.” Spitta does not relate “Birolius” to Brühl; he suggests instead that in mentioning “Hortens,” Bach meant to mock Thomasrector Ernesti, who had published a philological edition of the complete works of Cicero (Spitta II, p. 741). Conceivably, Bach intended to do both.
63. Wollny 1993, pp. 306–11.
64. BD III, no. 703. C. P. E. Bach’s autograph score is dated “Potsdam 25. Aug. 1749.” A Leipzig performance is confirmed by Leipzig performance parts; see Wollny 1995.
65. The feast of Visitation (July 2, 1750) cannot be totally excluded from consideration but is much less likely, especially in view of the greater time distance following Friedemann’s performance.
66. Wollny 1997, pp. 36–50.
67. NBR, no. 263; facsimile: BJ1988: p. 39.
68. NBR, no. 264; facsimile: BJ1988: p. 41.
69. NBR, no. 267.
70. Cf. Wollny 1997, pp. 36–50, modifying the cut-off date of October 1749 proposed by Kobayashi 1988.
71. NBR, no. 306, p. 303.
72. NBR, no. 269a. Taylor published what was presumably a translation of his lectures given in Germany under the title Tractat von Augenkrankheiten (Frankfurt, 1751).
73. NBR, no. 269b.
74. Krahnemann 1990, pp. 57f. I am indebted to Dr. Firmon Hardenbergh (Harvard University) for helping to interpret ophthalmological and pathological details.
75. Probably written by Professor Samuel Theodor Quellmaltz; BD II, no. 601.
76. Ibid.
77. NBR, no. 270.
78. NBR, no. 306, p. 303.
79. For a more detailed discussion of this point, see Wolff, Essays, Chapter 21.
80. NBR, no. 284.
81. Johann Christoph Altnickol, Johann Nathanael Bammler, and Johann Gottfried Müthel are prime candidates.
82. The manuscript of “Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein,” BWV 668, has not survived, but its version was published in 1751 as an appendix to The Art of Fugue.
83. Known in Bach scholarship as Anonymus Vr. His hand shows up first around 1742 in sources of The Well-Tempered Clavier II and later in manuscripts of BWV 195, 232, and 245. After Bach’s death, he seems to have worked for C. P. E. Bach in Berlin. See Kobayashi 1988, pp. 29–31.
84. The entry of BWV 668a in the manuscript (P271) is incomplete; the page containing the remainder of the chorale was removed at an early point.
85. Including Bach’s two boarding students, Johann Christian Kittel and Johann Gottfried Müthel. The absence of virtually any public reference to Bach’s funeral indicates that neither city nor school, in line with precedents, were interested in mounting anything special. As this book was in page proofs, Reinhard Szeskus discovered at the Leipzig University Archives new documents on Bach’s funeral and Anna Magdalena Bach’s circumstances after her husband’s death, to be published in BJ 2000.
86. See Schulze 1984, pp. 178–81, and Wollny 1997, pp. 49f.
87. Paraphrase of the collect “Excita Domine corda nostra” for the second Sunday in Advent, probably by Martin Luther, first published in the so-called Klugsche Gesangbuch of 1533; Christoph Bach’s motet follows the text version of Henrich Schutz’s motet SWV 381 from Geistliche Chor-Music (1648).
88. The oaken casket pres
umably containing Bach’s remains (only 12 of 1,400 Leipzigers who died in 1750 were buried in oak caskets) was exhumed on October 22, 1894 (see His 1895). The remains were then reburied in a simple stone sarcophagus and placed in a tomb under the altar of St. John’s. The church and the surrounding parts of the cemetery were destroyed in World War II, but the tomb remained intact. In 1950, the two-hundredth anniversary year of Bach’s death, his sarcophagus was transferred to the chancel of the St. Thomas Church.
89. NBR, no. 272.
90. NBR, no. 273.
91. NBR, no. 274a.
92. NBR, no. 276, and BDII, no. 617; BDIII, no. 634. See also Schulze 1998a, p. 105.
93. NBR, nos. 277–288; also BDII, no. 628.
94. NBR, no. 279.
95. BD II, no. 628.
96. BD II, no. 503f.
97. BD III, no. 650.
98. Spitta II, p. 762; Terry 1993, p. 237.
99. C. P. E. Bach: Letters, ed. Clark, p. xxv.
100. BD II, no. 573.
101. BD II, no. 621.
102. A more detailed analysis of transmission patterns is provided by Kobayashi 1989.
103. The bulk of C. P. E. Bach’s estate that remained at the Sing-Akademie, including the Old Bach Archive, had been missing since World War II but was rediscovered in Kyiv, Ukraine, by the present author in June 1999.
104. See Wollny 1995.
105. NBR, p. 472.
106. Fortunate circumstances contributed to this fact: virtually all of the Bachiana remained with C. P. E. Bach’s family and were acquired, almost completely, by the collector Georg Poelchau before 1800.
107. Major sources in his possession: autograph scores of BWV 541 and of part II of The Well-Tempered Clavieras well as A. M. Bach’s copy of part I of the WTC.
108. About a fourth of the scores had earlier been sold to Johann Georg Nacke, cantor in Oelsnitz. See also Kobayashi 1989, p. 70.
109. NBR, no. 391.
110. Kobayashi 1989, pp. 73f.
111. For a comprehensive discussion of the Bach transmission in the eighteenth century, see Schulze 1984a.
112. Some of these questions are pursued by Kobayashi 1989.
113. NBR, no. 306, p. 304.
114. NBR, no. 389b.
115. NBR, no. 385.
116. Performances of BWV 8, 41, 94, 112, 125, and 133 can be ascertained; see BzBF5 (1986): 83.
117. Once again, C. P. E. Bach was among the applicants. While in 1750 Harrer was the candidate imposed on the city council by Count Brühl, in 1755 the city fathers may have been skeptical about considering a court musician for the school post. Doles had previously served as cantor at the gymnasium in Freiberg.
118. NBR, p. 488.
EPILOGUE
1. Bach personally distributed the pamphlet among his friends and acquaintances in January 1738; see BD II, no. 417, p. 313. Since Birnbaum’s second essay of 1739 (responding to Scheibe’s reply to the first defense) was published in two hundred copies at Bach’s own expense (BD II, nos. 437–438), the same may also be true of the first essay.
2. NBR, no. 344. Unless noted otherwise, all subsequent Birnbaum quotes stem from this document.
3. “Kleine Schulrede, worin man die von GOTT bestimmte Harmonie in der Musik beurtheilt,” Musikalische Bibliothek 2.3 (1742): 63f.
4. NBR, no. 344, p. 347.
5. Ibid., p. 345.
6. Marpurg, preface to The Art of Fugue; NBR, no. 374.
7. NBR, no. 344, p. 344.
8. Ibid., p. 342.
9. NBR, no. 306, p. 305.
10. NBR, no. 366.
11. For a discussion of term and concept, see Schmidt 1985; see also Wolff, Essays.
12. C. P. E. Bach to Forkel, 1775; NBR, no. 395, p. 399.
13. NBR, no. 336.
14. NBR, no. 394, p. 397.
15. NBR, no. 395, pp. 398f.
16. NBR, no. 344, p. 345.
17. BD II, no. 441, p. 355.
18. NBR, no. 383.
19. Jenaische Allgemeine Literaturzeitung, 282 (November 1805).
20. NBR, p. 479, slightly revised.
Music Examples
EX. 3.1. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 3.2. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 3.3. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 3.4. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 3.5. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 3.6. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 3.7. Toccata in D minor, BWV 565
EX. 4.1. Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582
EX. 4.2a–b. Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582
EX. 4.2c. Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582
EX. 4.3. Cantata, “Nach dir, Herr, verlange ich,” BWV 150/4
EX. 4.4. Organ chorale, “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr,” BWV 715
EX. 5.1. (a) Toccata, BWV 565; (b) Passacaglia, BWV 5
EX. 6.1. Concerto in F major after Vivaldi, BWV 978/2
EX. 6.2. Concerto in F major after Vivaldi, BWV 978/1
EX. 6.3. Concerto in F major after Vivaldi, BWV 978/1
EX. 6.4. Cantata, “Komm, du süße Todesstunde,” BWV 161/3
EX. 6.5. Cantata, “Komm, du süße Todesstunde,” BWV 161/3
EX. 8.1. Cantata, “Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht,” BWV 105/3
EX. 9.1. Canon trias harmonica, BWV 1072
EX. 10.1. “Confiteor,” Mass in B minor, BWV 232/20
EX. 10.2. Fughetta in E minor, BWV 900/2
EX. 10.3a. Cantata, “Herr, deine Augen sehen nach dem Glauben,” BWV 102/3
EX. 10.3b. “Qui tollis,” Mass in F major, BWV 233/4
EX. 10.4. (a) Cantata, “Schau, lieber Gott,” BWV 153/5; (b) Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248/5
EX. 10.5a. Cantata, “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben,” BWV 169/1, transposed from D major to E major
EX. 10.5b. Harpsichord Concerto, BWV 1053/1
EX. 12.1. The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080
EX. 12.2. Contrapunctus 4, The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080/4
EX. 12.3. “Et incarnatus est,” Mass in B minor, BWV 232/16
Appendix 1: Chronology
March 21 = prior to March 21
March 21 = after March 21
EISENACH AND OHRDRUF (1685–1700)
1685
Mar. 21
Birth of Johann Sebastian, seventh and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach and Maria Elisabeth Bach, née Lämmerhirt
Mar. 23
Baptized at St. George’s, Eisenach’s main church
1690–93
Attends a German school in Eisenach
1693–95
Attends the Latin school in Eisenach, quinta to quarta
1694
May 3
Burial of mother, Elisabeth Bach (age 50)
Oct. 23
Wedding of brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf; Ambrosius Bach, Johann Pachelbel, and others perform
Nov. 27
Ambrosius Bach marries Barbara Margaretha Bartholomaei, née Keul
1695
Feb. 20
Death of father, Johann Ambrosius Bach (age 50); buried Feb. 24
Spring–summer
Johann Sebastian, orphaned at age 10, and his brother Johann Jacob (13) join the household of their oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, in Ohrdruf
1695–1700
Attends the Lyceum in Ohrdruf, tertia to prima
1698–99
An autograph copy of a demanding organ piece by Buxtehude attests to the young Bach’s remarkable proficiency
1700
Feb.–Mar.
Calendar reform*
LüNEBURG AND WEIMAR (1700–1703)
1700
Mar. 15
Leaves Ohrdruf for Lüneburg, St. Midrad’s School
1700–1702
Choral scholar in the prima at St. Michael’s; contact with Georg Böhm in Lüneburg and frequent visits to Johann Adam Reinken in Hamburg
1702
Apr. (Easter)
Graduation from St. Michae
l’s School and return to Thuringia (probably Ohrdruf)
Jul. 9
Successful applicant for the town organist post at St. Jacobi, Sangerhausen; by ducal interference, the post is given to someone else
1703
Jan.–Jun.
Lackey and musician at the court of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar
Jul. 13
Examines the new organ at the New (also St. Boniface’s) Church in Arnstadt
ARNSTADT (1703–1707)
Aug. 14
Acceptance of appointment (dated Aug. 9) as organist at Arnstadt’s New Church
1705
Aug.
Dispute with Johann Heinrich Geyersbach
Nov.
Visit with Dieterich Buxtehude in Lübeck, stays for 3–4 months
Dec. 2–3
Buxtehude’s oratorios Castrum doloris and Templum honoris performed in Lübeck
1706
Feb. 21
Disciplinary problems discussed with Arnstadt Consistory
Nov. 28
Organ examination in Langewiesen, near Gehren
1707
Apr. 24
Easter Sunday: audition for the organist position at St. Blasius’s Church in Mühlhausen; performance of a cantata (BWV 4?)
Johann Sebastian Bach Page 73
