Johann Sebastian Bach (37 page)

Even if we limit the estimate of Bach's vocal output in Cöthen to the two most prominent and regularly recurring performing dates from January 1718 to through January 1723, the survival rate is devastating. Only nine of the twenty-two works we can reasonably expect Bach to have composed for these occasions left any record of their existence, and actual musical sources, direct or indirect, have come down to us in just five cases (Table 7.3). If we expand the limits and include the five years from 1723 in which Bach had moved to Leipzig but continued to serve the Cöthen court as titular capellmeister, the situation looks even more deplorable. Three reasons help to explain these losses. First, some of the manuscript scores and parts may have been kept in the library of the Cöthen court capelle, which disappeared without a trace. Second, Bach must have retained a substantial portion of these materials himself, since he made later use of them in reworking secular cantatas for the sacred repertoire, though he may have discarded pages he no longer needed. Third, Bach's heirs probably deemed manuscripts containing the mainly secular occasional works to be useless as performance materials and of less interest than those of the sacred cantatas, with the result that they were left to the vagaries of time and circumstance.

We have at best a sketchy musical impression of the vocal repertoire Bach created in Cöthen, but a number of characteristic features stand out. The vocal parts of all secular works are limited to solo singers, often only two. Many of the works, often designed as allegorical dialogues (for example, between Fame and the Fortune of Anhalt in BWV 66a, between Divine Providence and Time in BWV 134a), feature elaborate duets and solos that put considerable technical demands on the court singers, whose professional artistry is often challenged. The orchestral parts, however, are no less demanding, though in contrast to the Weimar repertoire the scoring is more standardized, with four-part string texture as the norm and, in accordance with availability, a more limited use of winds. Moreover, the rhythmic-metric designs of arias and choruses show, in line with the prevailingly secular function of these works, a multiplicity of dance types: for example, BWV 66a/1 includes a Gigue-Passepied; BWV 66a/3 a Pastorale; BWV 173a/6–7 a Bourrée; BWV 184a/4 a Polonaise; 184a/6 a Gavotte; BWV 173a/4 a movement “Al Tempo di Menuetto.” The movements also show a corresponding decrease in the use of imitative textures.

T
ABLE
7.3. Principal Musical Events at the Cöthen Court, 1717–28

The only documented performance of a church cantata within the reformed service at the Cöthen palace church is that of “Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerscharen,” BWV Anh. 5. The Calvinist liturgy left little if any room for concerted church music, so it required some special occasion for a cantata to find its way into the service. An early reprint of Hunold's text indicates that the actual performance of BWV Anh. 5 took place on December 10, 1718, and that the work consisted of an opening chorus (Psalm 103:21) followed by three pairs of recitatives and arias.
²⁰
Performances of similar works may have occurred on the prince's birthdays in other years and, if only rarely, on some other occasions. As Lutherans, Bach and his family did not normally attend the reformed service at the palace church, but the baptism of their son Leopold Augustus was held there on November 17, 1718,
²¹
because the godfather, after whom the baby was named, was Prince Leopold himself—evidence of a personal side to the relationship between the reigning prince and his capellmeister. The child, the only one born to the Bachs in Cöthen, died before his first birthday and was buried on September 28.
²²

Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach, like the families of other Lutheran members of the court capelle (such as the Abels), ordinarily attended the St. Agnus Church in town, where they rented their own pews.
²³
Indeed, Bach's attendance is documented by the entries of his and other family members' names in the register of communicants.
²⁴
The church's organ was built by Johann Heinrich Müller of Aken in 1708. Princess Gisela Agnes had provided 1,000 talers for the new instrument with twenty-eight stops on two manuals
(Hauptwerk
and
Rückpositiv)
and pedal, the best and largest available in Cöthen during Bach's tenure.
²⁵
If Bach wanted to play the organ, or if he needed an instrument for teaching purposes, this was it. Very occasionally, he may also have played this organ at a service, but Christian Ernst Rolle, who—surely on Bach's recommendation—joined the court capelle, was the regular organist at St. Agnus's. The cantor there was Johann Caspar Schulze, who asked Bach to serve as godfather to his daughter Sophia Dorothea in 1722.
²⁶
Bach and members of the court capelle may have performed a cantata now and then at the Lutheran service, though only indirect testimony for Cöthen performances is provided by the sources of a few cantatas (BWV 132, 172, and 199). For example, manuscript evidence shows that the Weimar cantata “Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut,” BWV 199, was performed around 1720 in a modified version, that is, in the key of D minor and with a viola da gamba replacing the obbligato viola in movements 6 and 8. Where the performance of this intimate soprano solo cantata took place is not known—it might have been the Cöthen palace church, the St. Agnus Church, or even a location outside of Cöthen. But since Bach, the gambist Abel, and Bach's second wife, the princely court singer Anna Magdalena Bach, were all members of the Lutheran congregation, a performance at St. Agnus's cannot be ruled out.

The loss of original sources, especially of performing materials, and the absence of information about Bach's regular musical activities at the Cöthen court apart from birthday and New Year's festivities extend to the instrumental repertoire as well. However, there exists virtually no tangible evidence that any of the known concertos, orchestral suites, or sonatas by Bach were actually performed, let alone composed, in Cöthen, with the sole exception of an original set of parts dating from about 1720 for the
Brandenburg Concerto
No. 5, BWV 1050. At the same time, it is inconceivable that capellmeister Bach did not compose most of the standard repertoire that the Cöthen capelle needed for its regular performances, the rest consisting of a broad selection of works by other composers. The capelle kept one salaried copyist and even paid an additional copyist repeatedly from 1719 to 1721, indicating that the preparation of new performing materials required more than one. Moreover, expenses for the music library regularly included bookbinding costs. Curiously, no expenses for the purchase of manuscript or printed music are recorded before 1723, which likely means that most or all of the music was produced by Bach and the other composer-performers of the capelle, such as Joseph Spieß.
²⁷
But the bookbinding costs were considerable; in 1719–20, for example, they amounted to 30 talers, a sum sufficient to bind scores and parts for some fifty ensemble and orchestra works of medium size, or roughly one new work per week.
²⁸
Though this amount represents only a ballpark figure, it looks entirely reasonable—not just for a single year but for the entire period of Bach's capellmeistership—and would anticipate the cantata production schedule Bach later followed in Leipzig. In over five years, from the beginning of 1718 to May 1723, that would have amounted to well over 350 compositions, mainly chamber and orchestral music, but also serenades and other vocal works. And even if only two-thirds of this repertoire stemmed from the capellmeister's pen, the assumed losses would exceed 200 pieces.

More specific information is provided by the printing-cost entries in the court account books. For both the prince's birthday and New Year's Day throughout Bach's tenure, the records identify expenses paid to the printer Löffler in Cöthen. The first entry in 1720 reads, “for printing two New Year
Carmina
for the princely capelle,” evidence that indeed two pieces, presumably one sacred and one secular, were performed. And the fact that the sum paid, 2 talers, is consistently the same implies that two compositions were called for each time (see Table 7.3).
²⁹
The honorarium for the text was usually paid to the capellmeister, who was charged “to solicit the New Year's poem,” that is, to make the necessary arrangements with the poet.
³⁰
Asaresult, Bach had free rein to choose the poet and some say in the text's subject matter.

Further testimony to the affluent musical life at the princely court is furnished by payments for guest musicians—the most significant expense category next to the regular salaries budgeted for the court capelle. Among the instrumentalists and singers from outside who joined the capelle for various performances were a discantist (male soprano or falsettist) from Rudolstadt in October 1719; the discantist Preese from Halle, concertmaster Lienicke from Merseburg (a relative of the Cöthen capellist), and concertmaster Vogler from Leipzig in December 1718 and April 1719; the famous bass Riemschneider for several weeks in 1718–19; a singer from Weissenfels and a foreign musician who played a “bandoloisches instrument,” a variant of the guitar-like Spanish bandurria, in July 1719; a discantist and a lutenist from Düsseldorf in August 1719; a “musician” in October 1719; two horn players in September 1721 and June 1722; and two Berlin musicians in September 1721.
³¹
These guest appearances had at least a twofold purpose: on the one hand, they gave Bach the opportunity of presenting an artist of exceptional talent, perhaps one with a rare instrument, and on the other, they allowed the possibility of hiring soloists for special performances or simply of recruiting additional musicians for larger projects. Horn players, for instance, were ordinarily not available to Bach, so if he wanted to perform a work such as the
Brandenburg Concerto
No. 1, he would have had to turn to guest musicians. Still, for the most part, Bach used singers rather than instrumentalists from outside.

Unlike in Weimar, a vocal ensemble was never an integral part of the core group in the Cöthen capelle, yet singers, especially discantists, were needed not just for the birthday and New Year's festivities but throughout the year, if only irregularly. Among the pieces that would fit the category of general musical entertainment is Bach's cantata “Amore traditore,” BWV 203, for solo bass and concertato harpsichord. The form of this three-movement piece (aria-recitative-aria) closely resembles a prototype cultivated by Bach's predecessor, Reinhard Stricker.
³²
BWV 203, however, replaces the obbligato violin or oboe, typical of the Stricker cantatas, with a brilliant harpsichord solo part, making the work an extraordinary showpiece for two virtuosos. Bach may have written this cantata to take advantage of an unusual situation that occurred at the end of his first year in Cöthen, when the celebrated bass Johann Gottfried (Giovanni Goffredo) Riemschneider—a “virtuoso singer”
³³
who would later be engaged by Handel for the Italian opera in London
³⁴
—arrived for an extended stay at the princely court. At the same time, if BWV 203 was indeed composed for Riemschneider, would Bach not have written more than one work for such a unique talent? This is but another hint at the incalculable riches we are missing from Bach's musical oeuvre.

The dearth of information on details of musical life at the princely court combined with the losses of repertoire, in particular of Bach's own compositions for the Cöthen capelle, does not obscure the fact that Bach found himself in a musically ideal situation. First, he was working with a capelle whose professional core group comprised some of the finest musicians he could wish for. Second, the demands of the office left him considerable time to pursue his own interests. But most important of all, he found himself under the patronage of a supportive and understanding prince whose notions of courtly splendor sought to balance modest understatement with luxurious excess. In a 1730 letter to his Lüneburg classmate Georg Erdmann, Bach seems to wax nostalgic about his time as Cöthen capellmeister: “There I had a gracious Prince, who both loved and knew music, and in his service I intended to spend the rest of my life.”
³⁵
Even if the last phrase is not to be taken literally—for one can hardly imagine Bach not feeling the overall limitations and constraints of the Cöthen scene—it emphasizes his overall satisfaction. On the other hand, the letter goes on to point at a turn of events that soon contributed to Bach's seeking a new venue. “It must happen,” he wrote, “that the said
Serenissimus
should marry a Princess of Bernburg, and that then the impression should arise that the musical interests of the said Prince had become somewhat lukewarm, especially as the new Princess seemed to be an
amusa
.” On December 11, a day after his birthday in 1721, Leopold was married to the nineteen-year-old Friederica Henrietta, princess of Anhalt-Bernburg—another event for which Bach would have been commissioned to write the ceremonial music, but no trace of which has survived. Sometime after the wedding date, Bach noticed a change in the court's attitude toward musical affairs, which he attributed to a negative influence of the unmusical princess on his patron.