Orgelbüchlein

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 bethink you if 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 dgden 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.

About a week later he left Weimar for Köthen, 80 miles to the northeast, with his wife and four children.

End of Part 2 CHAPELMEISTER WITH PRINCE LEOPOLD at girthen he began a new life for one thing he no longer filled the post of organist the court of prince leopold was of the calvinistic faith church services being of a particularly austere nature required no organ playing of a virtuoso type or the production of sacred cantatas such as bach had hitherto been turning out in quantity yet leopold was an ardent music lover whose tastes ran to instrumental composition he maintained an orchestra of eighteen of which bach now became kapellmeister such cantatas as he wrote in curtin were secular ones chiefly in honor of his employer for the most part his creative energies were now concentrated on concertos suites sonatas and clavier works including some of his very greatest instrumental music before bach's day had scarcely achieved what might be called an independent life in the creations of his curtain period we discover in effect the most vigorous roots of our symphonic literature especially in the four suites or overtures as bach called them and the six brandenburg concertos scholars have been unable to decide definitely whether the former were composed in kutten or in leipsic at all events they were performed before the duke and also before the telemann musical society in leipsic of which the composer was subsequently director the third suite in d is the one comprising the exalted and incomparable which achieved long afterwards a popularity of its own in the transcription of it for the g string by the violinist august wilhelm yet every movement of each suite constitutes a priceless jewel of instrumental music the brandenburg concertos are in a somewhat different case they were composed for christian ludwig margrave of brandenburg and a son of the great elector whom bach appears to have met on a journey with prince leopold christian ludwig had a hobby of collecting concertos by various composers and he commissioned bach to write him some pieces in an elaborate preface couched in extraordinary french and dated curtain march twenty fourth seventeen twenty one the composer begged his noble patron to accept these products of his slight talents and to overlook their imperfections whether the private orchestra of the margrave played the works or not we cannot say neither do we know if bach's gift was even acknowledged after christian ludwig died the catalogue of his richly stocked library had no mention of bach's half-dozen trifles the precious masterpieces turned up in a mass of scores offered for sale in job lots it is practically certain however that the brandenburg concertos were performed by the princely capelle at ktten in bach's presence for the composer had been wise enough to make copies of his scores they are not concertos in the modern sense of the term but continuations and developments of those concerti grossi of masters like torelli vivaldi and corelli In various permutations and combinations, they contrast groups of solo instruments, the concertino, with the background of the tutti.

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.

About a week later he left Weimar for Köthen, 80 miles to the northeast, with his wife and four children.

End of Part 2 CHAPELMEISTER WITH PRINCE LEOPOLD at girthen he began a new life for one thing he no longer filled the post of organist the court of prince leopold was of the calvinistic faith church services being of a particularly austere nature required no organ playing of a virtuoso type or the production of sacred cantatas such as bach had hitherto been turning out in quantity yet leopold was an ardent music lover whose tastes ran to instrumental composition he maintained an orchestra of eighteen of which bach now became kapellmeister such cantatas as he wrote in curtin were secular ones chiefly in honor of his employer for the most part his creative energies were now concentrated on concertos suites sonatas and clavier works including some of his very greatest Instrumental music before Bach's day had scarcely achieved what might be called an independent life.