Johann Sebastian Bach (46 page)

In the sequence of eminent Protestant cantors serving the Thomana since the mid-sixteenth century, Bach was the tenth (see Table 8.1). He was, however, the first one to focus exclusively on the musical education of the upper classes. By special arrangement with the
tertius
, his teaching load was reduced to seven classes. This reduction did not, however, result in a net decrease of Bach's actual teaching functions, because he invested more than any of his predecessors in private vocal and instrumental instruction as well as in rehearsal time—a necessity considering the dramatic increase in the musical demands on his students as compared, for example, with what Kuhnau had required of them. Classes at the St. Thomas School were held weekdays from 7 to 10
A.M
. and from 12 to 3
P.M
.; the remaining unscheduled time was reserved for individual study, in the cubicles for the
alumni
and at home for the
externi
. The cantor taught his “musical exercises with all classes” on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 9 and 12 and on Friday at 12, seven hours per week, at the school's auditorium; he had no scheduled classes on Thursday or Saturday. The classes were compulsory for all resident and nonresident students, altogether some 150 youngsters, so Bach was assisted by the four choral prefects appointed by him from among the senior and musically expert students. We may assume that Bach himself worked mostly with smaller groups of the more advanced students, whom he then coached, perhaps with students in the audience observing, and that he performed regularly, giving explanations and demonstrations of musical concepts. All his teachings were imbued with the educational goals stated in the school's regulations for its preceptors, namely to instruct their students “in the knowledge and fear of God” and “in the vivid knowledge of divine essence and will,” the very same goals with which Bach himself had been raised.
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8.1. Protestant Cantors at the St. Thomas School, to 1800

For the music instruction in the upper classes and for his private lessons, Bach apparently used no textbooks (at Latin schools, musical notation was taught to the younger students before they reached the
quarta
). Instead, he formulated his own rules and principles for theoretical subjects (an example is his
Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen Spielen des General-Baß oder Accompagnement
, Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thoroughbass or Accompanying in Four Parts)
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and focused chiefly on practical examples from the vocal and instrumental repertoire. Since his successors in the St. Thomas cantorate, notably his student Johann Friedrich Doles, made frequent use of the Bach motets for regular choral exercises, it seems likely that Bach himself established this practice. A work such as the eight-voice motet of 1726–27, “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,” BWV 225, may in fact have been composed just for this purpose—no other being known. As a choral etude for double choir, to be sung alternatively with or without instrumental support, it would have given Bach the possibility of training his students in the vocal techniques and genres (movements 1 and 3a: eight-part concerto; 2: four-part aria and four-part chorale juxtaposed; 3b: four-part fugue) that he needed for his demanding cantata repertoire. The motet's biblical texts, from Psalm 98:1–3, “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied” (Sing unto the Lord a new song) and Psalm 150:2 and 6, “Lobet den Herrn in seinen Taten / Alles was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn. Halleluja” (Praise the Lord for His mighty acts / Let everything that has breath praise the Lord), as well as the chorale stanza “Wie sich ein Vater erbarmet” (As a father has mercy / for all his young small children / the Lord will also forgive us / when we as children purely fear Him), would have been particularly appropriate for teaching how such a piece of music fit into the daily lives and duties of the choral scholars. Similarly suitable for pedagogical purposes and regular repeated performances would have been the five-part chorale motet “Jesu, meine Freude,” BWV 227, in which Johann Franck's 1653 hymn is connected with the central doctrinal New Testament passage Romans 8:1, 2, 9–11, “Es ist nun nichts Verdammliches an denen, die in Christo Jesu sind” (There is therefore no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit). This diversified structure of five-, four-, and three-part movements, with shifting configurations of voices and a highly interpretive word-tone relationship throughout, wisely and sensibly combines choral exercise with theological education.

It is clear that the traditional sixteenth-century motets from the standard collections (such as Erhard
Bodenschatz's Florilegium Portense
of 1618), which were still regularly performed at the beginning of services during Bach's time, would have been insufficient to prepare the choral scholars for the challenges they had to meet in Bach's cantatas. It was therefore necessary for Bach to prepare the pupils by way of demanding and interesting pieces that would keep them on their toes. There had been regular complaints during Kuhnau's time about disorder and a lack of discipline among the choral scholars, and both Kuhnau and rector Ernesti were blamed. But no complaints about disciplinary problems are recorded for Bach's classes or performances (although he was reproached in 1729 for negligence in the arrangements regarding academic classes and for canceling singing classes).
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A stiff schedule of fines discouraged students from disturbing performances: for a noticeable (musical) mistake, 1 groschen had to be paid, and for an intentional and mischievous mistake, 3 groschen (1 groschen would buy two quarts of beer). This money was subtracted from the students' extra income from funerals and other services and was used by the cantor for the acquisition of music and the maintenance of instruments.
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In general, the school regulations reminded everyone that “our ancestors have determined that music should be practiced at the St. Thomas School, and that the
alumni
should provide it for all the city's churches. Therefore, they should be mindful of their duty and office by exercising this art as much as possible, and consider that they perform a good deed which the heavenly host pursues with the greatest pleasure.”
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Under his contract, Bach was required to instruct “not only in vocal but also in instrumental music.”
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While most of his instrumental lessons took place in private or small groups, the classroom exercises may also have involved instrumental performances and coaching. The large amount of instrumental music by Bach that was copied in the 1750s by Christian Friedrich Penzel, then one of the school's prefects, suggests that Bach's own ensemble compositions—chamber works for one instrument and harpsichord but also concertos and overtures—may also have played a role in his musical exercises at the school, especially for the training of his best players, whether or not they were needed for the cantata performances. The auditorium was equipped with a small organ and a harpsichord (in his office, on the same floor level, the cantor kept instruments that could be added as needed) and also served as rehearsal space for the church performances. And as noted earlier, each
alumni
cubicle either contained or provided easy access to a keyboard instrument, so that students could prepare for lessons and learn their cantata parts. Lessons and rehearsals had to take place during the daily periods for individual study, outside the scheduled classroom hours. The school's regular teaching schedule was maintained rigidly on all workdays throughout the year, with the exception of the religious holidays and the three periods of the fairs, which usually involved additional musical commitments.

The cantor was in charge of the music in four churches: St. Nicholas's and St. Thomas's, the city's two main parish churches; the New Church, which was the old Franciscan Barfüsser Church, rebuilt in 1699 (renamed St. Matthew's in 1876 and destroyed in World War II); and the smaller St. Peter's Church, built in 1505 and enlarged 1710–12 (torn down in 1886). The fifty-five
alumni
, that is, the resident choral scholars from the upper four classes, were thus divided into four
cantoreien
, with distinct assignments requiring different musical accomplishments (see Table 8.2). Choir I, consisting of the most select singers from the upper classes under the direction of the cantor, provided the cantatas and, in general, the concerted music at the two main churches in an alternating schedule (for details, see the following section, “Mostly Cantatas”). This choir was joined by the town music company for cantata performances conducted by the cantor; it also sang the Introit motet under the direction of the first prefect, a member of this choir. Choir I together with the town musicians also performed four times a year at the Old Service in St. Paul's, where the regular services on high feast days and during the fair periods featured concerted music performed under the direction of its music director by university students who had formed a Collegium Musicum. Choir II served the two main churches and performed in alternation with choir I, under the direction of the second prefect; choir II ordinarily performed only motets, without an instrumental ensemble. Choir III, conducted by the third prefect, served the New Church and sang motets and chorales; concerted music was presented there on high feast days and during the fairs by another Collegium Musicum under the direction of its organist and music director—a tradition established in 1704 by Georg Philipp Telemann. Choir IV, led by the fourth prefect, was responsible merely for hymn singing at St. Peter's.

It was within this fairly tight organizational framework that Bach began, from the moment of his arrival in Leipzig, to take charge of the cantorate in true capellmeisterly fashion. The repertoire of music he created for Leipzig demanded the performing standards he had grown used to in Weimar and Cöthen and was unwilling to relinquish. At the same time, his works offered a richness of ideas, forms, and sonorities that went well beyond established conventions. Focusing initially on a bold program of church music that was unprecedented for Leipzig (or anywhere else, for that matter), he engaged, over his twenty-seven-year tenure, generations of St. Thomas School students, the town music company, and a host of supplementary musicians for a total of some 1,500 performances of cantatas, passions, oratorios, and similar works, playing to a captive audience of more than two thousand each time.
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By the end of the 1720s and after six years in office, Bach the capellmeister-cantor had managed to place himself in a commanding position vis-à-vis Leipzig's music organizations, sacred and secular. When a major reshuffling of important positions took place in 1729 on Georg Balthasar Schott's acceptance of a cantorate in Gera and the death of Christian Gräbner, the St. Thomas organist, Bach claimed for himself the directorship of Leipzig's first and best Collegium Musicum. He also helped reorganize the organists' scene by moving the able Johann Gottlieb Görner from St. Paul's to St. Thomas's and by appointing two capable young musicians, his own students Carl Gotthelf Gerlach and Johann Schneider, as organists at the New Church and St. Nicholas's; all three would remain in their posts for the rest of their careers. Such powerful stature in the city (and consequently within the St. Thomas School as well) bolstered by a steadily growing supra-regional reputation and by princely, ducal, and electoral-royal honorary titles at the courts of Cöthen, Weissenfels, and Dresden, respectively, made Bach practically invulnerable, and probably to some extent ungovernable. It seems to have been the latter quality—not the unique musical achievements of unquestionable value to Leipzig—that prompted Burgomaster Stieglitz, in the city council's talks about the succession after Bach's death, to declare that “the School needed a Cantor and not a Capellmeister.”
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And indeed, never again would the Thomana have a capellmeister.

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8.2. Organization of Leipzig Church Music, 1723–50