Johann Sebastian Bach (59 page)

I. Thomana faculty with university appointments

• Johann Heinrich Ernesti, rector of the St. Thomas School from 1684 until his death in 1729; from 1680 assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy and from 1691 professor of poetics; published numerous works, among them books on Suetonius and on epigrams, and a
  Compendium hermeneuticum. Ernesti's wife, Regina Maria, was
  godmother of Gottfried Heinrich Bach (b. 1724).
  
• Christian Ludovici, conrector from 1697 to 1724, when he resigned from the Thomana and moved full time to the university. From 1693 assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy, from 1699 associate professor of oriental languages and the Talmud, and from 1700 until his death in 1732 professor of logic; served two terms, 1724–25 and 1730–31, as
  rector magnificus
  . Published many works, primarily on Hebrew topics, including a commentary on Rabbi Levi ben Gerson, as well as a
  Compendium logicum.
  
• Johann Christian Hebenstreit, conrector from 1724 to 1731. From 1715 assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy, resigned from the Thomana in 1731 to become associate professor of Hebrew and oriental languages and in 1740 professor of theology; succeeded Salomo Deyling in 1755 as
  professor primarius
  and served 1745–46 as university rector. Author of many philological and theological books. His wife, Christiana Dorothea, was godmother of Bach's daughter Christiana Dorothea (b. 1731).
  
• Johann Matthias Gesner, rector from 1730 to 1734; failed to receive a university appointment in Leipzig and therefore left for Göttingen University, where he became the first professor appointed to the new university and founding dean of the Faculty of Philosophy.
  ⁴⁴
  A prolific author on classical philology—Cicero, Horace, Pliny, Quintilianus, and others—he also published a dictionary of Latin etymology. In his 1738 edition (with commentary) of Marcus Fabius Quintilianus's first-century
  Institutio oratoria
  , a classic treatise of ancient rhetoric, Gesner writes the greatest homage paid to Bach in the eighteenth century, in the form of an address to Quintilianus:
  

You would think but slightly, my dear Fabius, of all these [the accomplishments of the citharists], if, returning from the underworld, you could see Bach (to mention him particularly, since he was not long ago my colleague at the Leipzig St. Thomas School), either playing our clavier, which is many citharas in one, with all the fingers of both hands, or running over the keys of the instrument of instruments, whose innumerable pipes are brought to life by bellows, with both hands and, at the utmost speed, with his feet, producing by himself the most various and at the same time mutually agreeable combinations of sounds in orderly procession. If you could see him, I say, doing what many of your citharists and six hundred of your tibia players together could not do, not only, like a citharist, singing with one voice and playing his own parts, by watching over everything and bringing back to the rhythm and the beat out of thirty or even forty musicians, the one with a nod, another by tapping with his foot, the third with a warning finger, giving the right note to one from the top of his voice, to another from the bottom, and to a third from the middle of it—all alone, in the midst of the greatest din made by all the participants, and, although he is executing the most difficult parts himself, noticing at once whenever and wherever a mistake occurs, holding everyone together, taking precautions everywhere, and repairing any unsteadiness, full of rhythm in every part of his body—this one man taking in all these harmonies with his keen ear and emitting with his voice alone the tone of all the voices. Favorer as I am of antiquity, the accomplishments of our Bach, and of any others who may be like him, appear to me to effect what not many Orpheuses, nor twenty Arions, could achieve.
⁴⁵

Bach, who knew Gesner from Weimar (where the classicist served from 1715 as conrector of the gymnasium and head of the ducal court library), may have been involved in bringing him to Leipzig in 1730, just after he had served for a scant year as rector of the gymnasium in Ansbach. Gesner's wife, Elisabeth Caritas, was godmother of Bach's son Johann August Abraham (b. 1733).

• Johann August Ernesti, conrector from 1731 (
  appointed by Gesner
  ) and rector from 1734 to 1758; from 1742 simultaneously associate professor of ancient classical literature at the university, from 1756 professor of rhetoric, and from 1759, after resigning his Thomana post, professor of theology. One of the most widely published academic authors, he wrote works on Homer, Cicero, New Testament hermeneutics, and many other subjects. In the later 1760s, Goethe attended his lectures.
  ⁴⁶
  Godfather of Bach's sons Johann August Abraham (b. 1733) and Johann Christian (b. 1735).
  
• Johann Heinrich Winckler, instructor at the St. Thomas School from 1731 to 1739 (as
  collega quartus
  , another Gesner appointee); from 1729 (at age twenty-six) assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy, from 1739 associate professor of Greek and Latin, from 1742 professor of logic, and from 1750 professor of physics (successor to Mentz, see below); served three terms as
  rector magnificus
  , 1744–45, 1747, and 1749, and was in 1747 elected to membership in the Royal Society, London. After publishing in philosophy and classics (on Cicero, among others), he turned to scientific subjects and became one of the most influential eighteenth-century German scientists, with ground-breaking publications on experimental physics in general and on electricity in particular, including
  Gedanken von den Eigenschaften, Würkungen und Ursachen der Electricität
  of 1744;
  ⁴⁷
  his
  Anfangsgründe der Physik was
  translated into English (1757) and soon thereafter into French and Russian. As with Ernesti, Goethe studied with Winckler, too.
  ⁴⁸
  In 1732, Winckler wrote the libretto for Bach's cantata “Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden,” BWV Anh. 18 (music lost), performed at the dedication of the renovated and enlarged St. Thomas School. In a 1765 treatise,
  Untersuchungen der Natur und Kunst
  , he mentions in a discussion on acoustical phenomena a “musical connoisseur” whose ears can “differentiate between innumerable tones,” and cites Gesner's comment on Bach.
  ⁴⁹
  

II. Members of the St. Thomas clergy with university appointments

• Urban Gottfried Siber, minister at St. Thomas's from 1714 until his death in 1741; from 1714 simultaneously professor of ancient church history in the Faculty of Theology, as first incumbent of the chair, with a command of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, and Spanish; author of many books. He baptized three Bach children: Gottfried Heinrich (b. 1724), Johann August Abraham (b. 1733), and Johann Christian (b. 1735).
  
• Romanus Teller, minister at St. Thomas's and St. Peter's from 1737 to 1740; from 1738 associate professor of theology, published numerous theological books. Bach chose him as his father confessor, 1738–40.
  ⁵⁰
  
• Christian Weiss, Jr., minister at St. Nicholas's from 1731 to 1737 and from 1740 associate professor of theology at the university. Son of Pastor Christian Weiss, Sr. (Bach's father confessor, 1723–36), he was godfather of Bach's daughter Johanna Carolina (b. 1737). His sister, Dorothea Sophia Weiss, godmother of Bach's son Johann Christoph Friedrich (b. 1732), was married to Johann Erhard Kapp, professor of rhetoric at Leipzig University.
  
• Christoph Wolle, minister at St. Thomas's from 1739; from 1721 assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy, and from 1748 professor of theology. He was a pupil at the St. Thomas School in 1715–18 and sang under Kuhnau. A versatile linguist (he mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, English, and Dutch) and much-appreciated preacher, he was more closely connected with Enlightenment philosophy than any other Leipzig theologian at the time, as reflected in his numerous books on dogmatics, ethics, and hermeneutics. Bach's father confessor, 1741–50.
  ⁵¹
  

III. Members of the Philosophy and Law Faculties

• Johann Jacob Mascov, from 1719 professor of constitutional law and history and member of the city council; from 1735 also head of the council library, and from 1737 city judge. Author of many historical works, mainly on the Holy Roman Empire, from the Middle Ages through the seventeenth century. One of the most illustrious and widely known members of the faculty, he attracted in particular students from aristocratic families, whom he instructed in issues of government. Like Baudis, he participated in Bach's election and remained generally supportive of Bach's decisions that required town council approval, such as appointments to the town music company.
  ⁵²
  
• Johann Christoph Gottsched, from 1725 assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy, from 1730 associate professor of logic, from 1734 professor of poetics, logic, and metaphysics; served four terms as rector: 1738–39, 1740–41, 1742–43, and 1748–49. He was the leading figure in the early German Enlightenment. Particularly influential were two of his early works, which saw several reprints:
  Versuch einer critischen Dichtkunst
  of 1730, a book on literary and linguistic theory and practice, drama, rhetoric, and poetics, and
  Erste Gründe der gesamten Weltweisheit
  of 1733, his chief philosophical work.
  Bach's librettist for BWV 198, Anh. 13 and Anh. 196, he wrote in 1728 that “in Saxony, Capellmeister Bach is head and shoulders above his peers” and later made other favorable references to Bach in several of his publications.
  ⁵³
  Gottsched, himself son of a Lutheran pastor, regularly attended services at St. Thomas's and had in common with Bach two father confessors, deacon Teller and then archdeacon Wolle.
  ⁵⁴
  Louise Adelgunde Victoria Kulmus, a harpsichordist and lutenist, wrote in 1732 to Gottsched, to whom she was engaged and who had mailed her the newly published
  Clavier-Übung
  , part I: “The clavier pieces by Bach that you sent and the lute works by [Johann Christian] Weihrauch are as beautiful as they are difficult. After I played them ten times, I still felt like a beginner. Of these two great masters, I appreciate anything more than their caprices; these are unfathomably difficult.”
  ⁵⁵
  
• Friedrich Mentz, from 1711 assessor in the Faculty of Philosophy, from 1725 professor of logic, from 1730 professor of poetics (Johann Heinrich Ernesti's successor), and from 1739 until his death in 1749 professor of physics; served two terms as rector, 1735–36 and 1743–44. Published on Plato and other subjects.
  Mentz, a book collector, owned a sixteenth-century manuscript
  album amicorum
  that contained a musical entry, dated April 27, 1597, by the composer Teodoro Riccio, in the form of an enigmatic canon. Around 1740, Mentz showed the canon to Bach and apparently asked him to resolve the riddle notation. Bach wrote out the “Resolutio Canonis Ricciani”—a rare example of an augmentation canon, where the note values of the canonic part are doubled—on a separate leaf, which Mentz then added to the album.
  ⁵⁶
  Gottfried Leonhard Baudis, member of the Leipzig town council from 1715 to
  
• 1735 and professor of law from 1734 until his death in 1739; served as counsel to the Leipzig appellate court, from 1736–37 as rector, and published numerous philosophical, legal, and historical books. Baudis's wife, Magdalena Sibylla, was godmother of Bach's son Ernestus Andreas (b. 1727).
  
• Andreas Florens Rivinus, professor of law from 1725 and
  rector magnificus for two
  terms, 1729–30 and 1735–36; left in 1739 for Wittenberg University. Author of many books on historical and contemporary legal problems. He was godfather of Bach's son Ernestus Andreas (b. 1727). His brother, Johann Florens Rivinus, also a lawyer and judge at the Leipzig superior court, was Johann Christian Bach's godfather.
  Bach composed the cantata “Die Freude reget sich,” BWV 36b, for a member of the Rivinus family, most likely for the inauguration of Andreas Florens Rivinus as rector in 1735. An earlier version of this work, “Schwingt freudig euch empor,” BWV 36c, was originally commissioned as a congratulatory piece for an older professor whose identity remains unknown, and may have been re-performed on the birthday of St. Thomas rector Gesner, on April 9, 1731.
  
• Gottlieb Kortte (Corte), professor of law from 1726 until his death in 1731 (at age thirty-three); author of numerous legal and historical works. The cantata “Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten,” BWV 207, was commissioned from Bach as a congratulatory piece to be performed in conjunction with Kortte's appointment to a professorship in December 1726.
  
• August Friedrich Müller, professor of philosophy and law from 1731 and rector for two terms, 1733–34 and 1743–44; published numerous legal treatises. The
  dramma per musica, Der zufriedengestellte Aeolus,
  BWV 205, with a text by Picander, was commissioned for a performance on Müller's name day, August 3, 1725.
  

While there is evidence linking all of the above-named persons in some way to Bach, the information is superficial and based entirely on external data that provide no clues to the character and content of the relationships. Moreover, the professoriate represented but one constituency of the academic community, the circles of which also included Johann Abraham Birnbaum, who obtained a master's degree in 1721 at age nineteen and immediately began teaching rhetoric at the university on a part-time basis, and whose later connections with Bach are amply documented. Similarly, Bach and his wife, Anna Magdalena, frequented the house of the affluent and influential merchant Georg Heinrich Bose, a music lover and next-door neighbor on St. Thomas Square.
⁵⁷
Indeed, close ties of friendship connected the Bach family with the Boses, whose son taught as professor of physics at Wittenberg University. One of their daughters married D. Friedrich Heinrich Graff, judge at the Leipzig superior court and a relative of the Rivinus family of legal scholars. Graff stood godfather to the Bach children Gottfried Heinrich (b. 1724) and Regina Susanna (b. 1742) and in 1750 assisted the family in settling the Bach estate; a copy of the
Clavier-Übung
I in Graff's possession provides evidence of his musical interests.
⁵⁸
All the details of Bach's relationships with these prominent Leipzig citizens do not tell a coherent story, but they demonstrate unmistakably the extent to which Bach moved in an academic atmosphere. Whether performing in churches or other surroundings, his audience likely exerted considerable influence on the conduct of his office, the direction of his musical goals, and conceptual aspects of his composing activities.