Johann Sebastian Bach (22 page)

 

“Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich,” BWV 150, Bach's earliest surviving cantata, surprises us in many ways. First, it offers refined and complex chromaticism in the opening chorus (“For thee, Lord, is my desire”). Then it presents one of Buxtehude's favorite devices—a passacaglia for chorus and orchestra, “Meine Tage in den Leiden / endet Gott dennoch in Freuden” (All my days, which pass in sadness, / God will end, at last, in gladness), which Brahms chose as the bass theme for the Finale of his Fourth Symphony; the French-style triple meter adds, however, a new facet distinct from Buxtehude. Finally, the cantata features a vocal tercet, “Zedern müssen von den Winden / oft viel Ungemach empfinden” (Cedars must, from blowing zephyrs, / often suffer strains and stresses), for alto, tenor, bass, and a differentiated continuo (cello embellishing the bassoon/organ part), followed by a chorus with an elaborate accompaniment performed by the entire instrumental ensemble. Especially impressive is the beginning of the middle chorus, “Leite mich in deiner Wahrheit” (Lead me in thy truth), whose structure—derived from the keywords “lead” and “truth”—is based on a strict ascending scale that penetrates all participating voices, first vocal then instrumental, and brings form and content into absolute congruence (Ex. 4.3).

T
ABLE
4.4. Bach's Earliest Cantatas

The advanced temperament in which Bach's organ was tuned allowed him to chart a daring harmonic course and to explore advanced chord progressions for which there were no precedents whatsoever. A characteristic example is found at the end of “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr,” BWV 715, one of several early chorale harmonizations, in which Bach exploits for a plain G-major tune all twelve notes of the chromatic scale (Ex. 4.4)—within the space of two measures. Such experiments won for him remarkable command over a widened tonal spectrum, so that in movements 2 and 6 of the cantata BWV 150 he was able to employ virtually the entire chromatic-enharmonic scale, including pitches as far off the beaten path as B-sharp. Similarly, the bold harmonic design of the
Actus tragicus
, BWV 106, ranges through the flat keys, movement by movement: E-flat major / C minor / F minor / B-flat minor / A-flat major / E-flat major. In both instances, Bach explored a tonal range and applied a harmonic language that had no parallel among his predecessors or contemporaries; they are impressive evidence of how little the modest means and restrained conditions under which the earliest cantatas were created kept the composer from venturing well beyond established musical conventions.

A
T THE
B
LASIUS
C
HURCH IN
M
ÜHLHAUSEN

Word of the death in early December 1706 of Johann Georg Ahle, the well-known organist at St. Blasius's Church in the free imperial city of Mühlhausen, must have reached Bach in Arnstadt fairly soon. After all, the Mühlhausen town scribe was Johann Hermann Bellstedt, whose brother was not only the town scribe in Arnstadt but was also related by marriage to the Bach family (see Table 4.3). The news may also have been passed on to Bach by the Mühlhausen organ builder Johann Friedrich Wender, who had built Bach's organ at the New Church. For Johann Gottfried Walther, a distant cousin of Bach's, claimed that Wender proposed that he (Walther) apply for the Mühlhausen post.
⁵⁵
Walther submitted his application along with “two church pieces of my own work,” that is, two cantatas he had composed. His public audition was scheduled for Sexagesimae Sunday (February 27, 1707), but he withdrew from his candidacy because, as he later put it, “some (perhaps self-interested) acquaintances viewed such a plan as unsuitable.”

Who were these acquaintances? Did Bach have anything to do with Walther's withdrawal? Unlikely, considering that Bach was more than just an acquaintance—his mother and Walther's, both Lämmerhirts from Erfurt, were cousins—and he and Walther subsequently developed a cordial and long-standing friendship. In any case, Walther's account of the events, though written more than thirty years later, illuminates how the search for a new organist at St. Blasius's proceeded, including the requirement that the candidates submit two vocal compositions. The position had, for more than a half century, been in the “possession” of father and son Ahle, both natives of Mühlhausen and both later elected members of its city council. Johann Rudolf, noted composer and theorist and eventually first burgomaster of the city as well, held the post beginning in 1654; Johann Georg, also an active composer and even more illustrious as poet laureate,
⁵⁶
succeeded him in 1673. Both Ahles had left a long list of vocal compositions, many of them published,
⁵⁷
and because the ceremonial music for the annual town council election service at St. Mary's Church was traditionally assigned to the St. Blasius organist, it is understandable that the Mühlhausen authorities were seeking a musician with proven abilities in vocal music.

The council records that document the Mühlhausen organist search mention no name other than Bach's, suggesting that he was the only candidate seriously considered. On May 24, 1707, at a meeting of St. Blasius's Parish Convent—a body comprising the members of the city council who resided in the parish—the influential senior consul and previous burgomaster, Dr. Conrad Meckbach, asked without any preliminaries “whether consideration should not first be given to the man named Pach [sic] from Arnstadt, who had recently done his trial playing at Easter.”
⁵⁸
Without any further deliberation, the parish convent quickly commissioned the town scribe Bellstedt to work out an agreement with Bach.

The Arnstadt organist had held his public audition for the Mühlhausen post on Easter Sunday, April 24, about a month before the meeting and almost two months after Walther's canceled date. There is reason to believe that Bach performed the Easter cantata “Christ lag in Todes Banden,” BWV 4, a setting of all seven stanzas of the Easter hymn in as many movements, preceded by an instrumental sinfonia (see Table 4.4). And although no pre-Leipzig sources survive for the cantata,
⁵⁹
for stylistic reasons it belongs unquestionably to the pre-Weimar repertoire. We don't know whether Bach submitted a score of BWV 4 along with some other piece as part of his application, or whether he sent in two altogether different works and composed the Easter cantata
ad hoc
for the audition, after he had learned of its date. There is in any case no question about the attraction the vocal dimension of the Mühlhausen post held for Bach, nor about his solid preparation as a composer of vocal works before the Mühlhausen audition, nor, for that matter, of the outstanding impression he made with his abilities in the vocal realm. As he would hardly have risked presenting a half-baked product, any of the works listed in Table 4.4 could have qualified as a viable submission to the search committee. At the same time, their generally mature quality implies not only that examples may once have existed of a lesser-developed technique, but also that Bach must have devoted considerable time and effort in Arnstadt toward gaining compositional experience in vocal music.

Bach needed permission to be absent for the Mühlhausen audition, and the Arnstadt church authorities could not have been much pleased to see a substitute take the appointed organist's place once again on major holidays, as one had in the 1705–6 Christmas season. But they also must have understood that he was on the lookout for a new position and may even have offered him encouragement. When they learned of his successful audition, they could not have been surprised when Bach, after a second short trip in mid-June to Mühlhausen to negotiate his new appointment, indicated his intention to resign his post at the New Church. That decision was made official on June 29, when Bach appeared before the Arnstadt consistory with a formal request for his dismissal and to return the keys of the organ.
⁶⁰
By that date, both cousin Johann Ernst Bach, Sebastian's loyal Arnstadt substitute, and Andreas Börner, organist of the Lower Church, had already submitted their applications for the desirable organist post at the New Church.
⁶¹
But although Bach started in Mühlhausen on July 1,
⁶²
the Arnstadt consistory took an agonizingly long time in deciding on a successor to this musician whose exceptional talents outweighed his occasional refusal to collaborate with an undisciplined student choir. Perhaps Count Anton Günther II himself, to whose personal attention Andreas Börner had sent his own application, was dissatisfied with the talent search under way; perhaps the extended Bach clan had to sort out things between two family members—one a Bach (and so far unemployed), the other related by marriage (with a current job in Arnstadt). Whatever the case, it took nearly a year, until the following May 14, before Ernst Bach was finally appointed—at a substantial reduction in salary compared with his predecessor's.
⁶³

Mühlhausen represented a step up for Bach, in both its location and its importance. The city was, after Erfurt, Thuringia's second largest, an entity of considerable historical and political importance, and the closest equivalent in central Germany to the free imperial cities of Hamburg and Lübeck. Independent of princely rule since the early thirteenth century, the city council reported directly to the emperor in Vienna. Like Erfurt's, Mühlhausen's skyline was dominated by its many church spires. No fewer than thirteen churches could be found within its walls, with St. Mary's and St. Blasius's the largest and most important. After adopting the Lutheran Reformation in 1557—quite a bit later than the surrounding principalities—Mülhausen had established a peculiar balance of power between its church and civic governments. The superintendent, as head of the church government, had his base at St. Blasius's, while the city council, as the civic government, considered St. Mary's its principal house of worship. In October-November 1627, for instance, amid the violent turbulence of the Thirty Years' War, the electoral assembly chaired by Emperor Ferdinand II met in Mühlhausen, and the ceremonial opening service was held at St. Mary's, with the electoral Saxon
Ober-Capellmeister
Heinrich Schütz conducting his grand polychoral concerto “Da pacem, Domine,” SWV 465, written for this very occasion.

Except for such major state events, however, the musical center lay at St. Blasius's, where the organist and composer Joachim a Burck, who served there from 1566 to 1610 as the first Lutheran musician, established a distinguished tradition of church music. Remnants at the St. Blasius archive of a once-rich choir library still provide vivid testimony of that heritage.
⁶⁴
Moreover, since Joachim a Burck's time, the St. Blasius organist also functioned as municipal music director, even though he did not carry that title. It became even clearer during the long tenure of the two Ahles that official musical events connected to the city council were invariably delegated to them. Bach savored his new responsibilities and opportunities, which far exceeded those of his junior position in Arnstadt. At St. Blasius's, the city's senior minister, Superintendent Johann Adolph Frohne, officiated, and Bach held the senior musical post. By appointing him, the Mühlhausen authorities demonstrated great confidence in the ability of this twenty-two-year-old to provide musical leadership. He was also expected to collaborate with the town musicians as well as with the chorus musicus and the (vocal-instrumental) chorus symphoniacus of the Mühlhausen gymnasium, the Latin school that served the two main churches. In the interest of orderly arrangements, the gymnasium assigned two of its teachers to the two churches as cantors. In Bach's time, Johann Bernhard Stier served as
quartus
and cantor at St. Blasius's, while Johann Heinrich Melchior Scheiner worked as cantor with the organist Johann Gottfried Hetzehenn at St. Mary's.
⁶⁵

Much as in Arnstadt, Bach's Mühlhausen contract did not specify the organist's involvement with vocal music in general or the choral and instrumental ensembles in particular. It merely required that, besides loyally serving the city's authorities and working for its best interests, he “show himself willing in the execution of the duties required of him and be available at all times, particularly attend to his service faithfully and industriously on Sundays, Feast Days, and other Holy Days, keep the organ entrusted to him in at least good condition, call the attention of…the appointed supervisors to any defects found in it, and industriously watch over its repairs and music.”
⁶⁶
The phrase “duties required of him,” however, suggests that these were verbally outlined to Bach and that he had agreed to them at the meeting of the parish convent, where he had appeared in person on June 14, 1707.
⁶⁷
At the same meeting, he was also asked “what he would ask for the position,” and the details had apparently been worked out before the meeting with the town scribe Bellstedt. Bach did not bargain but asked basically for what he had received in Arnstadt, 85 florins in cash—20 florins more than Ahle was paid. Additionally, Bach received considerable allowances (fifty-four bushels of grain, two cords of firewood, and six times threescore kindling—all delivered to his door) that were not available to him in Arnstadt. However, as there was nothing similar to the Feldhaus home in Mühlhausen, he would now have to take care of his own household. Since he also requested “the assistance of a wagon to move his effects,” he must by then have accumulated enough furniture, musical instruments, books, scores, clothing, and other household goods to fill such a wagon. Moreover, Maria Barbara Bach, his young wife to be, would join him soon. Although the wedding date may not yet have been set, Bach had no reason to withhold his marriage plans—which the town scribe Bellstedt, related by marriage to Maria Barbara's family, would probably have known anyway. By a happy coincidence, Bach inherited 50 florins from the estate of his Erfurt uncle Tobias Lämmerhirt, his mother's brother, who died on August 10, 1707—a sum that would help him considerably to establish his own household or to acquire, if needed, a larger and better harpsichord for his studio.