Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians — Sebastian Bach, Part 2

* * * * * Sebastian Bach was such a useful member of the choir at Luneburg that the town musician from Weimar, who happened to be going that way, induced him to go home with him as assistant organist.

This was a definite move in the direction of fame and fortune.

Men who can make themselves useful are needed--there is ever a search for such.

They wanted Bach at Weimar.

Johann Sebastian Bach, aged eighteen, was wanted because he did his work well.

After three or four months at Weimar he made a visit to Arnstadt, where his uncle had so long been organist.

His name at Arnstadt was a name to conjure with, and in fact throughout all that part of the country, whenever a man proved to be a musician of worth and power the people out of compliment called him a "Bach."

Johann Sebastian was invited to play for the people, and all were so delighted that they insisted he should come and fill the place made vacant by the death of the "Great Bach."

So he came and was duly installed.

And the young man drilled his chorus, wrote cantatas, and arranged chants and hymns.

But he was far from contented.

He was being pushed on by a noble unrest.

It was not so very long before we find him packing off to Denmark, with little ceremony, to listen to the playing of Buxtehude, the greatest player of his age.

Bach had been quite content to tiptoe into the church when Reinke played, grateful for the privilege of listening, half-expecting to be thrust out as an interloper.

He had gained confidence since then, and now introduced himself to Buxtehude and was greeted by the octogenarian as a brother and an equal, although sixty years divided them.

His visit extended itself from one week to two, and then to a month or more, and a message came from his employers that if he expected to hold his place he had better return.

Bach's visit to Buxtehude formed another white milestone in his career.

He came back filled with enthusiasm and overflowing with ideas and plans that a single lifetime could not materialize.

Those who have analyzed the work of Buxtehude and Bach tell us that there is a richness of counterpoint, a vigor of style, a fulness of harmony, and a strong, glowing, daring quality that in some pieces is identical with both composers.

In other words, Bach admired Buxtehude so much that for a time he wrote and played just like him, very much as Turner began by painting as near like Claude Lorraine as he possibly could.

Genius has its prototype, and in all art there is to be found this apostolic succession.

Bach first built on Reinke; next he transferred his allegiance to Buxtehude; from this he gradually developed courage and self-reliance until he fearlessly trusted himself in deep water, heedless of danger.

And it is this fearless, self-reliant and self-sufficient quality that marks the work of every exceptional man in every line of art.

"Here's to the man who dares," said Disraeli.

All strong men begin by worshiping at a shrine, and if they continue to grow they shift their allegiance until they know only one altar and that is the Ideal which dwells in their own heart.

* * * * * And now behold how Heinrich Bach had educated his people into the belief that there was only one way to play, and that was as he did it.

It is not at all probable that Heinrich put forward any claims of perfection, but the people regarded his playing as high-water mark, and any variation from his standards was considered fantastic and absurd.

In all of the old German Protestant churches are records kept giving the exact history of the church.

You can tell for two hundred years back just when an organist was hired or dismissed; when a preacher came and when he went away, with minute mention as to reasons.

And so we find in the records of the Church at Arnstadt that the organist, Johann Sebastian Bach, took a vacation without leave in the year Seventeen Hundred Five, and further, when he returned his playing was "fantastical."

With the young man's compositions the Consistory expressed echoing groans of dissatisfaction.

A list of charges was drawn up against him, one of which runs as follows: "We charge him with a habit of making surprising variations in the chorales, and intermixing divers strange sounds, so that thereby the congregation was confounded."

Bach's answers are filed with the original charges, and are all very brief and submissive.

In some instances he pleads guilty, not thinking it worth his while, strong man that he was, to either apologize or explain.

But the most damning count brought against him was this: "We further charge him with introducing into the choir-loft a Stranger Maiden, who made music."

To this, young Bach makes no reply.

Brave boy!

The sequel is shown that in a few weeks he was married to this "Stranger Maiden," who was his cousin.

She was a Bach, too, a descendant of the merry Hans, and she, also, played the organ.

But great was the horror of the Arnstadites that a woman should play a church organ.

Mein Gott im Himmel--a woman might be occupying the pulpit next!

Johann Sebastian's indifference to criticism is partially explained by the fact that he was in correspondence with the Consistory at Mulhausen, and also with the Duke Wilhelm Ernest, of Saxe-Weimar.

Both Mulhausen and Weimar wanted his services.

Under such conditions men have ever been known to invite a rupture--let us hope that Johann Sebastian Bach was not quite so human.

* * * * * Michelangelo never married, but Bach held the average good by marrying twice.

He was the father of just twenty children.

His first wife was a woman with well-defined musical tastes, as was meet in one with such an illustrious musical pedigree.

It wasn't fashion then to educate women, and one biographer expresses a doubt as to whether Bach's first wife was able to read and write.

To read and write are rather cheap accomplishments, though.

Last year I met several excellent specimens of manhood in the Tennessee Mountains who could do neither, yet these men had a goodly hold on the eternal verities.

We know that Bach's wife had a thorough sympathy with his work, and that he used to sing or play his compositions to her, and when the children got big enough, they tried the new-made hymn tunes, too.

These children sang before they could talk plain, and the result was that the two elder sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Phillip Emmanuel, became musicians of marked ability.

Half a dozen other sons became musicians also, but the two named above made some valuable additions to the music fund of the world.

Haydn has paid personal tribute to Emmanuel Bach, acknowledging his obligation, and expressing to him the belief that he was a greater man than his father.

The nine years Bach spent at Weimar, under the patronage of the Duke Wilhelm Ernest, were years rich in results.

His office was that of Concert Master, and Leader of the Choir at Ducal Chapel.

The duties not being very exacting, he had plenty of time to foster his bent.

Freed from all apprehension along the line of the bread-and-butter question he devoted himself untiringly to his work.

It was here he developed that style of fingering that was to be followed by the players on the harpsichord, and which further serves as the basis for our present manner of piano-playing.

Bach was the first man to make use of the thumb in organ-playing, and I believe it was James Huneker who once said that "Bach discovered the human hand."

Bach made a complete study of the mechanism of the organ, invented various arrangements for the better use of the pedals, and gave his ideas without stint to the makers, who, it seems, were glad to profit by them.

Even then Weimar was a place of pilgrimage, although Goethe had not yet come to illumine it with his presence.

But the traditions of Weimar have been musical and artistic for four hundred years, and this had its weight with Goethe when he decided to make it his home.

In Bach's day, pilgrims from afar used to come to attend the musical festivals given by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar; and these pilgrims would go home and spread the name of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Many invitations used to come for him to go and play at the installation of a new organ, or to superintend the construction of an organ, or to lead a chorus.

Gradually his fame grew, and although he might have lived his life and ended his days there in the rural and peaceful quiet of Weimar, yet he harkened to the voice and arose and went forth with his family into a place that afforded a wider scope for his powers.

As Kapellmeister to the Court at Kothen he had the direction of a large orchestra, and it seems also supervised a school of music.

When the Court moved about from place to place it was the custom to take the orchestra, too, in order to reveal to the natives along the way what good music really was.

This was all quite on the order of the Duke of Mantua, who used to travel with a retinue of two hundred servants and attendants.

On one such occasion the Kothen Court went to Carlsbad.

The visit extended itself to six months, when Bach became impatient to return to his family, and was allowed to go in advance of the rest of the company.

On reaching home he found his wife had died and been buried several weeks before.

It was a severe shock to the poor man, but fortunately there was more philosophy to his nature than romance, which is a marked trait in the German character.

All this is plainly evidenced by the fact that in many German churches when a good wife dies, the pastor, at the funeral, as the best friend of the stricken husband, casts his eyes over the congregation for a suitable successor to the deceased.

And very often the funeral baked meats do coldly furnish forth the marriage feast.

Man is made to mourn, but most widowers say but a year.

The prompt second marriage of Bach was certainly a compliment to the memory of his first wife, who was a most amiable helpmeet and friend.

No soft sentiment disturbed the deep immersement of this man in his work.

He was as businesslike a man as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who arranged his second marriage by correspondence, and then drove over in a buggy one afternoon to bring home the promised bride, making notes by the way on the Over-Soul and man's place in the Universal Cosmos.

Events proved the wisdom of Johann Sebastian Bach's choice.

His first wife filled his heart, but this one was not only to do as much, but often to guide his hand and brain.

He was thirty-eight with a brood of nine.

Anna Magdalena was twenty-three, strong, fancy-free, and by a dozen, lacking one, was to increase the limit.

As the years went by, Bach occasionally would arise in public places, and with uncovered head thank God for the blessings He had bestowed upon him, especially in sending him such a wife.

Anna Magdalena Wulken was a singer of merit, a player on the harp, and a person of education.

She certainly had no seraglio notions of wanting to be petted and pampered and taken care of, or she would not have assumed the office of stepmother to that big family and married a poor man.

Bach never had time to make money.

Very soon after their marriage Bach began to dictate music to his wife.

A great many pieces can be seen in Leipzig and Berlin copied out in her fine, painstaking hand, with an occasional interlining by the Master.

Other pieces written by him are amended by her, showing plainly that they worked together.

As proof that this was no honeymoon whim, the collaboration continued for over a score of years, in spite of increasing domestic responsibilities.

From Kothen, Bach was called to Leipzig and elected by the municipal authorities the Musical Director and Cantor of the Thomas School.

For twenty-seven years he labored here, doing the work he liked best, and doing it in his own way.

He escaped the pitfalls of petty jealousies, into which most men of artistic natures fall, by rising above them all.

He accepted no insults; he had no grievances against either man or fate;

earnest, religious, simple--he filled the days with useful effort.

He was so well poised that when summoned by Frederick the Great to come and play before him, he took a year to finish certain work he had on hand before he went.

Then he would have forgotten the engagement, had not his son, who was Chamber Musician to the King, insisted that he come.

In the presence of Frederick it was the King who was abashed, not he.

He knew his kinship to Divinity so well that he did not even think to assert it.

And surely he was one fit to stand in the presence of kings.

For number, variety and excellence, only two men can be named as his competitors: these are Mozart and Handel.

But in point of performance, simplicity and sterling manhood, Bach stands alone.

[Illustration: FELIX MENDELSSOHN]