Mühlhausen

He tarried there, not without profit, for almost a quarter of a year and then returned to Arnstadt.

In the year 1707, he was called as organist to the church of St. Blasius in Mühlhausen.

But this town was not to have the pleasure of holding him long, for in the following year, 1708, he undertook a journey to Weimar, had the opportunity to be heard by the reigning duke, and was offered the post of chamber and court organist in Weimar, of which post he immediately took possession.

The pleasure his grace took in his playing fired him with the desire to try every possible artistry in his treatment of the organ.

John George would descend from being one of the first of the German princes to a mere second-rate position.

John George was not to be won for nothing, and at an assembly held at Mühlhausen in March of 1620, the League promised that they would never attempt to recover by force the lands of the Protestant administrators or the secularized lands in the northern territories as long as the holders continued to act as loyal subjects, and this promise was confirmed by the emperor.

That this engagement was not enough, later events were to show.

For the present, it seemed satisfactory to John George, and Maximilian was able to turn his attention to the actual preparations for war.

And if he was to fight at all, there could be no question on which side he would be found.

There was a certain heroism about him, which made him love to look upon himself as the champion of high causes and the promoter of noble aims.

To such an one it would seem to be altogether debasing to hold his bishopric on the mere tenure of the agreement of Mühlhausen, to be debarred from taking the place due to him in the diet of the empire, and to be told that if he was very loyal and very obedient to the emperor, no force would be employed to wrest from him that part of the property of the church which he held through a system of iniquitous robbery.

Then, too, came a visit to The Hague, where the bright eyes of his fair cousin, the titular Queen of Bohemia, chained him forever to her cause, a cause which might soon become his own.

that he exhibited his own powers on the lbeck organ and profited by the example and suggestions of boxtehude is clear forgetting the flight of time and his obligations in arnstadt bach let the winter months slip by it is even possible that he weighed the question of stepping into the shoes of the seventy-year-old master but there was a condition attached to that which made him hesitate as it had handel and matteson before him whoever wanted buxtehude's job had to take buxtehude's daughter in the bargain the lady it appears was not especially well favoured and she was all of twenty-eight scarcely the most alluring prospect to a young man only twenty and one which involved the further possibility of having to house the father-in-law for as long as the lord might choose to spare him the year of seventeen o six had dawned before bach turned reluctantly toward anstatt once more he took occasion to make a few side trips on the way stopping over at hamburg and lneburg to greet old associates and friends by the end of january he was back in the organ loft of st boniface his return was not exactly a love-feast the congregation and consistory were looking for a capable mild-mannered organist not a disquieting virtuoso but in a relatively short period bach had become just that he was plainly above the musical heads of the townsfolk there were murmurings of discontent which were duly brought to his attention he paid not the slightest heed till finally the consistory proceeded to lay down the law the authorities had quite a number of bones to pick with their refractory young genius they had given him a leave of one month not of four he answered that he imagined his substitute was competent to fill his shoes for the extra time far from being placated the worthy elders then reproached him for accompanying the church hymns with all sorts of brilliant and audacious improvisations full of unexpected harmonies and variations which left the congregation groping blindly for the melody when people had remonstrated that his preludes interludes and postludes were too long he had gone to the other extreme and made them too short and there was worse to come when he was practising at st boniface people had been scandalised to overhear the voice of a strange maiden singing to his accompaniment such things could not be tolerated any more than an organist whose relations with his choir were so bad that he refused to rehearse it so he could take his choice either do what the consistory required or else bach did neither one thing nor the other but lived for a while in an uneasy state of compromise he was not in the least minded to renounce the company of the strange maiden probably the same one he was seeing home the night geyersbach and his rowdies attacked him she was none other than his cousin maria barbara and daughter of bach's uncle michael from nearby it was not long before he proposed to the musically talented girl and was accepted the first case of intermarriage between two of the bach stock in the fulness of time she became the mother of two of bach's most gifted sons we have not alluded so far to the compositions which had their origin during bach's einstadt sojourn nor are they obviously among his most memorable one however occupies a place of its own among his clavier works it is the famous capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother a piece of program music clearly based on the example of the bibel sonatas of johann the occasion of the capriccio was the forthcoming journey of bach's brother johann jacob to take service with charles the twelfth of sweden then campaigning in poland the work in four movements is of a pricelessly humorous character the first part represents the traveller's friends a nervous company apparently who try to dissuade him from an adventure which they regard as full of hazards in the second movement one person after another points out the assorted dangers he anticipates and does so in a fugue of delightfully comic effect this is followed by a slow movement adagissimo built over a pathetic ground bass in which sobbing chromatic phrases lament the inability of the friends to change the wanderer's mind as they groan and wail bach drowns out their noisy sorrows in a lively fugue on the postilion's horn and the beloved brother is off on what promises to be a wholly pleasant and profitable journey bach's arnstadt days were drawing to a close this is not to intimate that when he left it or any other town in which he had filled positions he never returned to them throughout his life he traveled repeatedly over familiar ground either to participate in family meetings to inspect organs give recitals or engage in other social or professional activities to be sure these wanderings were limited to a few hundred miles in central and northern germany but such as they were he took them often and gladly either alone or with members of his family year at mhlhausen at mhlhausen in thuringia the death of johann georg ahl in december seventeen o six left a void in the organ loft of the church of st blasius it was not long before bach was asked on what terms he would take over the post of his renowned predecessor he asked a larger sum than the salary paid to all but substantially the same as he had been earning at arnstadt also a quantity of firewood to be delivered at his door some corn and a conveyance to move his household goods by june seventeen o seven the appointment was his the town obviously so eager to secure him that it wasted no time in negotiations conceivably the arnstadt consistory was not dissatisfied to be so conveniently rid of an irascible and trouble-making hothead mullhausen had an impressive background of musical traditions but bach entertained nobler aims for the church of st blasius than the more easy-going ideals of all for this purpose he went to a not inconsiderable private expense to improve the organ and enlarge the musical library of mullhausen's churches the town council seconded his efforts in many ways even if some people resented the independence and progressive though disturbing projects of a young man of twenty-two at this period he inherited a respectable sum of money from a maternal uncle in erfurt and the chances are that the magnificent cantata numbered one o six and entitled god's time is the best was composed for the funeral of this tobias lemmerhit which bach dutifully attended soon afterwards he retraced his steps to arnstadt and there on october seventeenth seventeen o seven in the neighboring village of dornheim he married maria barbara their honeymoon was devoted to visiting different members of the bach family scattered through the neighboring countryside The goodwill of the community made it possible for Bach to demand repairs and improvements on the organ of St. Blasius.

Moreover, he was called upon to compose a work for a highly important Mühlhausen civic function, the annual election of the town councillors.

It was for this event that he wrote a grandiose Ratswahlkantata, whose music exhibits the influence of Buxtehude, heightened by his own incomparable genius.

in a burst of generosity the city fathers voted to publish the work it was the only one of bach's cantatas printed in his lifetime otherwise there is no record that aside from the cantata god is my king a single such work of his was given in the mulhausen churches though from the creative standpoint he can scarcely have been idle despite the high esteem bach enjoyed in mühlhausen he remained there only a year the municipal heads and the authorities of the church of st blasius regretted his going but were unable to prevent it he conceded frankly that he wanted to improve his material position yet a deeper reason lay at the back of his departure it was at the bottom the byproduct of a religious question.

For some time a reaction had been developing against certain dogmatic formularies in the Lutheran body.

The dissidents, known as pietists, gradually came to swords points with the orthodox sect, and Mühlhausen especially became a hotbed of pietism whose adherents strongly opposed the use of music in public worship.

this of course flew violently in the face of bach's ideal which was the betterment of music in the church and its heightened employment to sacred ends it became solely a question of time when such a situation would render his position at st blasius untenable the consistory was so well disposed to bach that it promptly agreed to a variety of modifications in the organ which he had recommended before these were carried out he had given notice of his departure and his employers realized they could do nothing about it he promised however to come over to mulhausen from near by weimar in order to see how the alterations were being executed weimar weimar to which he now removed became bach's home for the next ten years and here were created some of his mightiest works particularly those for organ the town was even at that period a cultural centre its duke wilhelm ernst of sachsenweimar a pious serious-minded ruler engaged bach not only as organist but also as kammermusikus i e as a member of his household orchestra a close friendship also developed between bach and the young but short-lived johann ernst son of bach's earlier weimar patron exceedingly musical the youth was a talented violinist took lessons from the kammermusikus and composed several works of conspicuous merit three of which bach later transcribed for clavier and which for a long time passed for violin concertos by vivaldi the acquaintances and close friendships bach formed at the weimar court were numerous and valuable with musicians writers and educators prominent among them the ducal capelle varied in size and constitution according to circumstances sometimes when opera was performed it included singers the instrumentalists proper seem to have numbered eleven the conductor was one johann samuel dres the concert-master from seventeen fourteen on one of the concertmaster's duties was to provide cantatas for a variety of occasions and beginning in seventeen fourteen he wrote a number of them his choir consisted of twelve singers wilhelm ernst had from the first been impressed by bach's powers as an organist the musician's diverse labors were gratifyingly recompensed and in nine years he had doubled his income at its smallest it was twice as large as any at mühlhausen it is claimed that never in his life did bach have at his disposal an organ truly worthy of his powers and even at weimar the instrument was inferior to that at mühlhausen nevertheless the organ works he composed at weimar exceeded anything he had ever done before in sumptuousness of inspiration imaginative grandeur and technical exaction one hears comparatively little of maria barbara bach's wife appears however to have been a fitting helpmeet to her busy husband handling his household and his numerous pupils with tact and discretion and bearing him children with regularity some of these died early others lived till a ripe age in seventeen ten was born his oldest son wilhelm friedemann a genius in his own right and ever his father's favorite but all his life wayward and something of a black sheep at this stage one might as well mention two other musically outstanding sons of bach among the twenty children he was to beget the more prominent of these was carl philip emanuel who served frederick the great and whose reputation as a pianist and composer was such that whenever at the latter part of the eighteenth century it was a question of bach people usually meant philip emanuel another johann christian bach's son by a second wife lived and died in london composed operas and became an intimate of the youthful mozart during the years of his weimar residence bach made three journeys which are conspicuous among the brief ones that punctuated his life one was to cassel toward the end of seventeen fourteen presumably to examine a new organ possibly too he accompanied his ducal master on a ceremonial visit like weimar cassel had a reputation for culture and evidently the duke would have been pleased to exhibit the prowess of his own court organist a reference to bach's incredible virtuosity on this visit has come down to us his feet flying over the petals as though they were winged wrote an observer made the notes reverberate like thunder in a storm till the prince confounded with admiration pulled a ring from his finger and presented it to the player now but think you of bach's skilful feet deserve such bounty what gift must the prince have offered to reward his hands as well end quote other stories of his miraculous playing had long circulated throughout the country people said it was a habit of his to climb into the organ loft of an inconspicuous rural church and so astound people with his improvisations that the cry would go up that must be bach or the devil the tale one can depend on it is a myth another trip was to halle birthplace of handel true he did not go there in search of his greatest contemporary though he made several sincere yet ineffectual attempts to meet him but to examine a new organ his playing created so profound an impression that the collegium musicum made an earnest effort to secure him for halle bach was flattered but because of his weimar connections unable to accept the halle council believing he was seeking higher pay was irritated nevertheless a little later it summoned bach in company with johann gunau and christian friedrich rolle to inspect the organ of the church of our lady the officials omitted nothing that might please their distinguished guests a staff of servants and coachmen was placed at their service a reception was held at which the chief musical personages of the town were summoned to meet them and after the organ had been examined in great detail the visitors were entertained at a banquet whose culinary abundance and gastronomic quality may be judged from the following bill of fare which has come down to us one piece of boeuf a la mode pike with anchovy butter sauce one smoked ham one dish of peas one dish of potatoes two dishes of spinach with sausages one quarter of roast mutton one boiled pumpkin fritters candied lemon peel preserved cherries warm asparagus salad lettuce salad radishes fresh butter roast veal as bock returned safely to weimar it may be assumed he passed up a few of the courses he was even paid a fee for the little outing it came to four dollars and fifty cents the third trip carried him to dresden there under the rule of augustus second musical life flourished in seventeen seventeen a season of italian opera was in full blast it was not opera however which fascinated bach he looked upon it with gentle condescension and even in later years was in the habit of chaffing his son friedemann with the question well shall we go over to dresden and listen to the pretty little tunes what did attract bach was the presence at the saxon court of the celebrated french clavecinist and organist louis marchand bach had studied his compositions closely and admired them a gifted but intolerably arrogant person marchand had fallen into disgrace in versailles and found it prudent to emigrate an official of augustus second conceived the idea of summoning bach from weimar and arranging on the spot a musical contest between the two such is at least the traditional story whatever the exact truth may have been bach arrived on the scene of the proposed contest at the specified hour but marchand afraid of a rival whose prowess he well knew left dresden secretly and let the match go by default bach thereupon performed alone stirring his hearers to unlimited admiration marchand returned to france where he lived apparently none the worse for his ignominious failure till seventeen thirty two things however were shaping for a change in the life of bach in seventeen sixteen the conductor of the ducal orchestra johann samuel dres died for two years bach had filled the post of concert master and seems to have felt that he was next in line for the conductorship it went on the contrary to dres's son a man of mediocre attainment bach was hurt and further embittered by the fact that no more cantatas of his composition were being ordered and his notorious temper speedily got the better of him he had made the acquaintance of prince leopold of anhalt grtens whose sister had married a younger member of weimar's ducal family intensely musical the sovereign in the summer of seventeen seventeen had asked bach to become his kapellmeister bach shortly afterwards sent an application for his release to willem ernst apparently mincing no words the duke flew into a rage we read in the diary of one of the court secretaries on november sixth seventeen seventeen a bach till now concert-master and court organist was put under arrest in the justice room for obstinately demanding his instant dismissal The infuriated genius remained a jailbird only till December 2nd.

His detention appears to have been profitably employed, for it enabled him to begin work on his Orgelbuchlein.

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Year at Mühlhausen.

At Mühlhausen in Thuringia, the death of Johann Georg Ahl in December 1706 left a void in the organ loft of the Church of St. Blasius.

It was not long before Bach was asked on what terms he would take over the post of his renowned predecessor.

He asked a larger sum than the salary paid to Ahl, but substantially the same as he had been earning at Arnstadt.

By June 1707, the appointment was his, the town obviously so eager to secure him that it wasted no time in negotiations.

Conceivably, the Arnstadt consistory was not dissatisfied to be so conveniently rid of an irascible and troublemaking hothead.

Mühlhausen had an impressive background of musical traditions, but Bach entertained nobler aims for the Church of St. Blasius than the more easygoing ideals of Ahl.

Well, that was indeed how I started.

Um, I started just going from Frankenhausen, from Mühlhausen to Frankenhausen, and that was the route that the revolutionary leader and preacher Thomas Müntzer went when he went from Mühlhausen to Frankenhausen where w- the f- the final battle that he was involved in was fought.

It's not the only battle.

There were at least a dozen, depending on how you count them, there may be 20.