Johann Sebastian Bach (15 page)

One can hardly imagine a greater asymmetry than that between Reinken and Bach—between the wealthy Hamburgian and the poor Thuringian, the almost-octogenarian and the teenager. But they must have discovered a mutual affinity that encouraged Bach to visit the elderly musician time and again, and that also led to a reencounter between the two when Reinken was ninety-seven. Reinken represented a versatile and colorful musical personality, a musician with high intellectual ambitions and an avid collector of older practical and theoretical musical literature, such as the keyboard works of Frescobaldi and the harmony treatise of Zarlino—someone who, to the young Bach, truly personified history.

Reinken's musical influence on Bach manifested itself in several ways. The old master offered direct access to the main repertoire of north German organ literature, its principles, its relationship to a specific type of instrument, and its manner of performance. Included in this repertoire was the large and encompassing oeuvre of Dieterich Buxtehude, organist in Lübeck. The close personal connections between the famous organist and Reinken allowed Bach, in Lüneburg and Hamburg, more exposure to Buxtehude than he could have gained through his Ohrdruf brother and the Pachelbel school.
³²
Also, Bach may well have met Buxtehude at Reinken's house; his later trip to Lübeck (see Chapter 4) may even have resulted from an invitation issued earlier, when he could not afford to undertake such travel.

The number of Reinken's known keyboard compositions is small—nine, to be exact—but five of them are found in the two Ohrdruf anthologies of Bach's brother: two suites, a ballet, the Toccata in G major, and the Partita “Schweiget mir vom Weiber nehmen.” What's missing is Reinken's impressive large-scale Chorale Fantasia “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” one of the key works of the north German organ style and a piece Bach knew well. It served not only as a model for his “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern,” BWV 739, a chorale setting on a smaller yet technically no less ambitious scale, but also as a reference for his elaborate homage to Reinken, the organ Chorale “An Wasserflüssen Babylon,” BWV 653. Of particular importance for Bach's development as a composer were his keyboard Fugues BWV 954, 965/2, and 966/2 based on material from Reinken's trio-sonata collection,
Hortus musicus
(Hamburg, 1687).
³³
These fugues number among the earliest specimens in which Bach deals with tightly constructed the matic-motivic elaboration and with the principle of double counterpoint—that is, the combination of two musical voices in which either one can function as an upper or a lower voice. Reinken's Italianate trio-sonata fugues provided Bach with the challenge of transcribing, modifying, and developing these models of permutation technique into genuine keyboard fugues.
³⁴
These pieces, along with similar Italian models by such composers as Arcangelo Corelli, Tomaso Albinoni, and Giovanni Legrenzi, trained the young Bach in consistent and logical part writing, the design of closed and rounded movements, the differentiation between thematic expositions and related yet nonthematic episodes, and the integrated use and expansion of sequential patterns.

The Obituary makes no mention of the Hamburg opera or its conductor, Reinhard Keiser,
³⁵
suggesting that Bach at the time had no particular interest in opera. But it does mention that in Lüneburg Bach “had the opportunity to go and listen to a then famous band kept by the Duke of Celle, consisting for the most part of Frenchmen; thus he acquired a thorough grounding in the French taste, which, in those regions, was at the time something quite new.”
³⁶
This formative experience occurred, however, not at Celle, which lay twice as far from Lüneburg as Hamburg, but at the newly built Lüneburg castle, the secondary residence of Duke Georg Wilhelm.
³⁷
As it happens, the dancing master of the
Ritter-Academie
, Thomas de la Selle, served in the ducal court capelle;
³⁸
so it seems likely that the noblemen of the academy regularly attended courtly events at the ducal castle in Lüneburg. Selle or one of the academy students could have provided Bach and other St. Michael's students with access to the restricted castle. Thus was Bach brought into first-hand contact with genuine French musical style and manners of performance. The experience ideally complemented his study of French keyboard suites, overtures, and ballets. Moreover, Bach's musical talents probably appealed to the aristocratic students at the
Ritter-Academie
, where French taste prevailed and where he could provide musical entertainment for a fee to supplement his stipend.

T
HE
I
NTERIM
: T
HURINGIAN
O
PPORTUNITIES

After graduating from St. Michael's School in Lüneburg in the spring of 1702 (the Easter date that year was April 16),
³⁹
Bach was no longer entitled to receive free room and board or any monetary support. He now had to find a way of keeping expenses to a minimum and of making a living by accepting temporary chores and part-time engagements, all in preparation for seeking a regular position. Increased living costs in a city of Lüneburg's size and the limitations imposed on freelance activities make it unlikely that he would have stayed there any longer than he had to.
⁴⁰
He knew he would be much better off returning to his native Thuringia, where he could find shelter and a viable support system provided by the extended Bach family of professional musicians. In that setting, his qualifications as a well-trained musician and versatile instrumentalist, as well as his exceptional keyboard skills, virtually assured him of procuring temporary musical assignments and, more important, gave him the perfect venue from which to monitor opportunities for regular employment.

The two most convenient and suitable places for this kind of sojourn would have been the homes of his older siblings: Marie Salome, who was married to the well-to-do Erfurt furrier Johann Andreas Wiegand, and Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf.
⁴¹
Ohrdruf is plausible for several reasons. First, he had lived with his brother before and may even have left behind some of his belongings, such as a harpsichord, other instruments, books, or items he had inherited from his parents' household in Eisenach. Second, his Ohrdruf brother's situation had improved remarkably upon the death, only a few months after Sebastian left town, of the
quinta
teacher at the Lyceum, whose position Christoph then took over.
⁴²
His overall economic circumstances—he owned a house and a small farm—were such that after turning down an offer to succeed Pachelbel in Gotha, he apparently never again thought of leaving Ohrdruf for greener pastures. Sebastian might have offered some welcome assistance for a few months in 1702, as a farmhand if not organist.

In the Genealogy, Bach lists as his first professional job “Court Musician, in Weimar, to Duke Johann Ernst, Anno 1703,”
⁴³
making no mention of any activities between his graduation from St. Michael's in Lüneburg and his entry into this Weimar post in January 1703. Bach may never have related any particulars about this period, for Carl Philipp Emanuel reported to Forkel, “Nescio [I do not know] what took him from Lüneburg to Weimar.”
⁴⁴
Carl may not have known that in 1702 his father applied for an organist post at the St. Jacobi Church in the Thuringian town of Sangerhausen, yet not with the desired success. We know this from Bach's correspondence many years later with the merchant Johann Friedrich Klemm, an influential town councillor who became burgomaster of Sangerhausen. Bach was seeking Klemm's support in securing the same organist post for his third-born son, Johann Gottfried Bernhard, which Bernhard then indeed obtained. In a letter of November 18, 1736, Bach entertains the hope that the Sangerhausen town council “is now in a better position, by choosing one of my children, to keep the promise made to my humble self almost 30 years ago, in conferring the post of organist then vacant, since at that time a candidate was sent to you by the highest authority of the land, as a result of which—although at that time, under the régime of the late Burgomaster Vollrath, all the votes were cast for my humble self—I was nevertheless, for the aforementioned
raison
, not able to have the good fortune of emerging with success.”
⁴⁵

Here is what we know about the 1702 organist vacancy. Gottfried Christoph Gräffenhayn, principal organist at St. Jacobi, Sangerhausen's largest church, and town judge in Sangerhausen, was buried on July 9, 1702. In November of that year, Johann Augustin Kobelius was appointed principal organist of St. Jacobi,
⁴⁶
as well as its subsidiary St. Ulrich's. In this position, he supervised an assistant organist whose responsibility was limited to accompanying congregational hymns for minor services. Although the official search process had originally led the town council formally to elect the seventeen-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach, the twenty-eight-year-old Kobelius was appointed through the intervention of Duke Johann Georg of Saxe-Weissenfels, whose realm at the time included Sangerhausen (which also served as a secondary ducal residence). The new appointee had been trained under the Weissenfels court capellmeister Johann Philipp Krieger, received further credentials in Italy, served until 1702 as a member of the Weissenfels court capelle, and was deemed to be “an excellent composer, for which reason he was also entrusted with the
Directorium Chori musici
” soon after his appointment.
⁴⁷

Bach could hardly feel insulted by losing out to an experienced, older, and well-connected musician. Nevertheless, he must have been as deeply disappointed by the turn of events as the town council was embarrassed by the despotic affront to its authority and jurisdiction. After all, the council had taken a considerable risk by unanimously choosing a seventeen-year-old to succeed the seasoned town judge and organist Gräffenhayn—an extraordinary testimonial to the achievements with which Bach impressed town councillors and church officials alike. Among these officials was merchant, postmaster, and church treasurer Johann Jacob Klemm, with whom Bach maintained friendly relations that lasted beyond Klemm's death to the son, Johann Friedrich, the correspondent of 1736.
⁴⁸

Apart from Bach's enduring connections with the Klemm family, the striking evidence of the young musician's demonstrated skills must not be underestimated. Whatever audition Bach had to pass, he must have exhibited professionalism of the highest caliber in his performance, improvisation, composition, and knowledge of organ technology. He must also have been judged qualified to supervise an assistant organist and to take over, sooner or later, the direction of the chorus musicus, the vocal-instrumental ensemble of the church.

In considering where Bach learned about the vacancy, who furnished him with recommendations, and when his audition and election took place, we should remember the Bach family network, which undoubtedly played a crucial role in paving the way for one of its most promising offspring. Kobelius's appointment sometime in November 1702 suggests that Bach's successful audition took place in September or, more likely, in October, two or three months after Gräffenhayn's death. In any case, after learning in November that he would not receive the Sangerhausen appointment, Bach had little time to entertain regrets. An opportunity as court musician opened up in Weimar (the same city, incidentally, where his grandfather Christoph Bach
(5)
had served some sixty years earlier), and in January 1703, he joined the capelle of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. Although Bach would later describe his position as that of
Hoff Musicus
(court musician),
⁴⁹
the ducal treasury register lists him as “Lackey Baach,”
⁵⁰
indicating that he was hired as a minor court servant. That members of the capelle (except for a few principals) had to perform nonmusical chores and valet services as well may have contributed to Bach's leaving the Weimar court service after only six months. Then again, he may have been hired as temporary additional help or a substitute in the first place, without any promise of longer-term employment.

In Weimar, Bach received a quarterly salary of 6 florins 16 groschen and, presumably, free room and board—decent compensation, yet little more than half of what he would later earn as organist in Arnstadt.
⁵¹
His functions as a member of the court capelle were left unspecified in the appointment documents, and no wonder, considering his lackey status. Since 1683, the Weimar court music had been led by the capellmeister Johann Samuel Drese, a capable but frequently ailing composer. Bach found himself in rarefied company when he took part in performances of both secular and sacred music at the court. Among the most notable members of the ducal capelle were Georg Christoph Strattner, the vice-capellmeister as well as a singer and composer, and Johann Paul von Westhoff, a leading German violinist who was the first to publish unaccompanied works for his instrument. Bach may also have provided some special services for his immediate employer Duke Johann Ernst,
⁵²
the younger brother of the reigning Duke Wilhelm Ernst and the person officially in charge of the capelle. Since the smaller court ensembles in central Germany structurally resembled the town music companies, their members were generally required to play several instruments expertly, and Bach would have been expected to display his considerable versatility as an instrumentalist.
⁵³
At the same time, his musical activities in Weimar most likely focused on the playing of keyboard instruments, as his particular proficiency in this domain would have been a main attraction for the court.