Johann Sebastian Bach (82 page)

Nevertheless, we have indirect evidence that a piece from the Old-Bach Archive, the double-choir motet “Lieber Herr Gott, wecke uns auf “by Johann Christoph Bach, may have been sung at Bach's funeral. Johann Sebastian owned a score of his ingenious uncle's composition, dated December 1672, and a set of vocal parts, both copied by Christoph Bach's father, Heinrich Bach of Arnstadt. Late in 1749 or in the spring of 1750, Johann Sebastian prepared a set of instrumental parts doubling the vocal parts. The extant sources not only document what appear to be among the latest samples of Bach's handwriting,
⁸⁶
they also reveal that the ailing old man clearly had trouble writing: the lettering is unwieldy—uneven, stiff, disproportionately large, and disjunct. Bach also limited himself to writing the absolute minimum, inscribing the complete title only for the wrapper of choir I, writing the instrumental designation at the top of every part (
Coro I: Violino 1–2, Viola, Violoncello, Organ; Coro II: Hautbois 1–2, Taille, Basson, Violone
), indicating the transposing mode so that the G-minor work could be performed in E minor (
tief Cammerthon
, that is, low chamber pitch), and notating the clef followed by a few notes at the beginning of the first staff of each part—specifying just enough so that his assistant, Johann Nathanael Bammler, could copy the parts (see illustrations). Bach had decided on a supporting instrumental complement that required the participation of the whole school, that is, all four choirs (the only parallel case being the motet BWV 226 sung in 1729 at the funeral of Rector Ernesti). Though neither the time nor the occasion can be determined exactly, it is hard to imagine, considering the circumstances, that Bach would undertake such a project unless it meant a lot to him. Conceivably, then, feeling that his end was near and wanting to make deliberate contingency plans, he selected a work by his most distinguished ancestor that set to music a traditional prayer text whose words anticipated life after death:
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No gravestone or other marker signified Bach's final resting place—at least, none was extant by the mid-nineteenth century—but groups of St. Thomas choral scholars paid tribute to their great cantor every year on July 28 for more than a century after Bach's death. It was they who established a tradition that the grave was located about six paces from the southern church door.
⁸⁸

On July 31, the day of the funeral, at the Friday afternoon prayer service, an announcement was read from the pulpit of St. Thomas's: “The Esteemed and Highly Respected Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach, Court Composer to His Royal Majesty in Poland and Serene Electoral Highness in Saxony, as well as Capellmeister to the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen and Cantor in the St. Thomas School, at the Square of St. Thomas's, peacefully and blissfully departed in God; his dead body was this day, in accordance with Christian usage, committed to the earth.”
⁸⁹
With the date of the funeral, newspapers in Leipzig, Berlin, and elsewhere published a short notice that indicates the cause of death but also refers to the eminence of the deceased and to the import of this event in musical circles:

 

Leipzig, July 31. Last Tuesday, that is, the 28
^th
instant, the famous
Musicus Mr. Joh.
Seb. Bach, Royal Polish and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Capellmeister of the Princely Court of Saxe-Weissenfels and of Anhalt-Cöthen, Director Chori Musici and Cantor of the St. Thomas School here, in the 66
^th
year of his age, from the unhappy consequences of the very unsuccessful eye operation by a well-known English oculist. The loss of this uncommonly able man is greatly mourned by all true connoisseurs of music.
⁹⁰

 

The unknown author of this press release apparently knew well that despite the various distinguished titles he carried, Bach understood himself first and foremost as
musicus
, a practical musician of all trades but one who possessed the deepest understanding of music and, until the very end, was still searching for the truth—a genuine musical scholar.

On July 29, the day immediately following Bach's death, the inner city council briefly discussed six applicants for his post: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach of Berlin, Johann Trier of Leipzig, Johann Gottlieb Görner of Leipzig, Gottlob Harrer of Dresden, August Friedrich Graun of Merseburg, and Johann Ludwig Krebs of Zeitz. With Burgomaster Born's statement, however, that “he could hardly disregard the recommendation” of Prime Minister Brühl, the stage was set for the decision to be made later by the entire council. Second burgomaster Stieglitz added a little more flavor: “The School needed a Cantor and not a Capellmeister, although he must understand music. Harrer had made excellent promises and had declared himself agreeable to everything required of him.”
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On August 7, the formal election took place with the expected result, and with little delay, Gottlob Harrer was formally installed on the following St. Michael's Day, September 29—only three months and one day after the death of his predecessor.

E
STATE AND
M
USICAL
L
EGACY

At his death, Bach left behind his wife and nine children, four of them minors. Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christoph Friedrich were gainfully employed, Elisabeth Juliana Friderica was married, but Anna Magdalena, his forty-eight-year-old widow with two sons and three daughters, was unprovided for. On August 15, 1750, she petitioned the Leipzig city council for a bounty, the traditional half-year's grace payment. After some bureaucratic details were clarified, she received two late quarterly installments of the deceased cantor's base salary in September 1750 and January 1751.
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The widow—in consultation with Leipzig University, the appropriate venue of jurisdiction for the Bach family—also arranged for guardianship of her minor children, for which the family friend and Thomasorganist Johann Gottlieb Görner was appointed on October 21, 1750; for the feeble-minded Gottfried Heinrich, the family friend and theology student Gottlob Sigismund Hesemann was appointed trustee.
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In all these arrangements, Anna Magdalena was assisted by a good family friend and godfather of two Bach children, the attorney Dr. Friedrich Heinrich Graff, judge at the Saxon Superior Court in Leipzig. Meanwhile, the large household had to be dissolved as the family needed to vacate the apartment in the St. Thomas School within the statutory six months—no minor task.

On the basis of a detailed inventory, the value of Bach's possessions—including cash; silverware and valuables; pewter, copper, and brass objects; clothing; home furnishings; and theological books—was determined by the university probate court. The hearing took place on November 11, 1750, in the presence of the entire family: Anna Magdalena, who was present but, as a woman, could not legally speak for herself, was represented by Graff as trustee; Carl, who could not attend, was represented by Friedemann as trustee; Lieschen was represented by her husband Johann Christoph Altnickol as trustee; Gottfried Heinrich was represented by Hesemann, and the four minors by Görner.
⁹⁴
Bach had not died a poor man—he even owned a share, valued at 60 talers, in a small mining business—but neither was he wealthy. At the end, he held 231 talers in cash, more than double his annual base salary. His salary and additional earnings had easily supported his large family, and while he could have used excess funds to build up some savings, he chose not to do so. Instead, he bought books and instruments, and surely helped finance his ambitious performances. The grand total of the Bach estate (money, securities, and all movable goods, with the notable exception of music and books on music) came to almost 1,160 talers, from which liabilities of some 152 talers had to be subtracted. Of the entire estate, the widow received one-third, with the remaining two-thirds divided equally among the children.
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The legal procedures of November 11 seem to have gone smoothly and amicably, apart from a minor dispute recorded in the court papers. The three siblings from Bach's first marriage questioned the claim of their youngest stepbrother, Johann Christian, that his father had given him, during his lifetime, three claviers and a set of pedals. (These four instruments had, for this reason, not been included in the inventory's list of seven keyboard instruments.) But since Christel's claim was verified by witnesses (his mother, Altnickol, and Hesemann), the matter was quickly put to rest.
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After Bach's death—perhaps even before, with him having some say—it was arranged that Gottfried Heinrich would live in the Altnickol household at Naumburg, where he died in 1763 at the age of thirty-nine; and that Johann Christian would move with Carl to Berlin, where he remained until 1755, when he left for Italy. Anna Magdalena remained in Leipzig with three daughters, Catharina Dorothea, Johanna Carolina, and Regina Susanna. Next to nothing is known about their lives after Bach's death, but the women seem to have eventually lived together in rather poor circumstances. The inheritance was soon used up, and a payment of 40 talers that the widow received from the city council in 1752 for her gift of several copies of
The Art of Fugue
would not have lasted long either.
⁹⁷
(The figure represented 40 percent of Bach's base salary, though, and the city council's generosity—no matter of course—shows their respect for the deceased.) Anna Magdalena lived on the Hainstrasse, apparently in an apartment at the house of the attorney Graff, where she died on February 27, 1760, at the age of fifty-nine. Listed in the burial registry as
Almosenfrau
, a woman supported by charity, she had, after her inheritance and other means were used up, received some income from the welfare bureau maintained by the city council.
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A mere Quarter School escorted her casket to the same cemetery where, almost ten years earlier, her husband had been buried. In later years, the Bach daughters received monetary support from their brother Carl in Hamburg, who arranged for the payments through his publisher, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf.
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However, when the youngest, Regina Susanna, survived all her sisters and brothers, there was no one to support her until Friedrich Rochlitz, the first editor of the Leipzig
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
and a former choral scholar at the St. Thomas School under the cantor Doles, published a call in the May 1800 issue of his periodical to support the last surviving daughter of the “great Sebastian Bach.” The plea did not fall on deaf ears, and a considerable amount was collected on her behalf by Breitkopf & Härtel (Beethoven never realized his promise to dedicate the proceeds from a publication or concert to this purpose). In the journal's issue of the following May, Regina Susanna publicly and “with tears of joy” expressed her thanks. She died eight years later.

It seems highly peculiar that the most important part of Bach's estate, his compositions and his complete music library (manuscript and printed music, books on music and music theory), were omitted from the estate inventory. We must conclude, then, that these materials were neither evaluated nor distributed according to the established scheme of division. The collection is also conspicuously absent in the probate hearing record. While the documentation of a separate procedure dealing with Bach's compositions and music library may conceivably have been lost, the complete lack of any cross-reference within the detailed court documents speaks against it. We can presume, then, that the distribution of the musical estate was settled separately beforehand, and, more likely than not, was guided by Bach himself. He apparently left no written will, or else the dispute over the keyboard instruments claimed by Johann Christian would hardly have arisen. This son's witnessed statement, on the other hand, that he had received them as a gift from his father indicates that before his death, Bach had made some decisions about what to leave to whom. For the composer himself, there was no question that the musical estate was by far the most valuable part of his bequest. It actually made good sense that the musical instruments, the only portion of the musical estate whose material value could be appraised, were treated as part of the whole estate (and actually made up roughly one-third of its grand total). Similarly, the theological books were added to the saleable part (valued about one-tenth of the instrument collection), whereas the musical treatises and other books on music had an ideal value that, from a musician's point of view, far exceeded their material value. Bach seems to have thought carefully about his musical bequest and perhaps even compared notes with the Leipzig luthier Johann Christian Hoffmann, who was formulating a will in 1748 that included Bach.
¹⁰⁰
How much easier it was to deal with items such as lutes, violins, strings, bows, tools, and wood!

As Bach had himself inherited music from his ancestors and placed great value on it, he could reasonably expect that his children would do the same for his own work and that it would, in fact, become the newest and largest section of the Old-Bach Archive. He may have had this thought in mind when he prepared fair, or “archival,” copies of his principal works, such as the unaccompanied violin pieces,
The Well-Tempered Clavier
, and the
St. Matthew Passion
, and when he made or arranged for duplicate copies of his works. He could feel reasonably sure that the musical tradition would carry on in his family and, considering the stream of students he had taught, that his own work would indeed have a future well beyond the realm of the family.