Johann Sebastian Bach (35 page)

We can assume that most members of the Dresden capelle attended Bach's performance at the mansion of Count Flemming. More important, however, Bach was able to get a feel for the vibrant, rich, abundant musical life at the electoral Saxon and royal Polish court of Dresden, a European cultural center on a scale far beyond anything he had known before. In Dresden, unparalleled sums of money were spent for art and entertainment: the personnel budget alone of the Italian opera company amounted to 45,033 talers, the French ballet cost 17,700 talers, and the stage sets, decorations, and costumes for the opera
Giove in Argo
8,578 talers. The salaries for musicians were similarly off chart (and not just reflecting the higher cost of living in the Saxon capital): capellmeister Lotti, along with his wife, the singer Santa Stella, earned 10,500 talers; vice-capellmeister Heinichen made 1,200 talers and concertmaster Woulmyer the same—exactly three times as much as the future Cöthen capellmeister. Of course, Bach would hardly have known of these figures, but his brief first brush with the Dresden court gave him a good idea of conditions in a world-class musical center.

On his return to Weimar, Bach's disappointment over the noncontest with Marchand must have been severely compounded by the loss of the prize he had won, supposedly by a nasty act of embezzlement whose particulars remain obscure. After all, 500 talers represented a large sum of money for Bach, substantially more than twice his current annual salary in Weimar and even 100 talers above his future salary as Cöthen capellmeister. Add to this his frustrations over the capellmeister-less situation at the Weimar court and his own “lame duck” status as concertmaster, and we can imagine his impatience as he anticipated the promising appointment as princely Cöthen capellmeister. Soon after his return from Dresden, he made some demand—for an earlier dismissal, perhaps, or something else related to his imminent departure—that embroiled him in a situation where he lost his temper. Whether he managed to enrage Duke Wilhelm Ernst directly or only a high official in the Wilhelmsburg, nothing apparently could save him from serious trouble; an intervention of his protector, Duke Ernst August, could even have made matters worse. As a result of the incident, “on November 6, the
quondam
concertmaster and organist Bach was confined to the County Judge's place of detention for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal and finally on December 2 was freed from arrest with notice of his unfavorable discharge.”
⁷¹

The wording “
quondam
[erstwhile] concertmaster” suggests that Bach had already quit his Weimar court service by early November, but that his dishonorable release was not yet formally granted until a month later. Apparently for no other reason than a show of anger,
⁷²
the Cöthen capellmeister-designate was kept in jail for nearly four weeks, a period that marked the absolute low point in Bach's professional life. Understandably, the episode is not reported in the Obituary nor in any other early biographical source,
⁷³
although a useful hint is provided by Ernst Ludwig Gerber (whose father, Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber, studied with Bach in Leipzig during the 1720s) when he relates that Bach wrote his
Well-Tempered Clavier
, Part I, “in a place where ennui, boredom, and the absence of any kind of musical instrument forced him to resort to this pastime.”
⁷⁴
Though we cannot take this to mean that the work was begun and completed during Bach's imprisonment, a substantial portion of the twenty-four preludes and fugues may well have originated in this unhappy venue.

After his release from prison on December 2, Bach could not leave Weimar in a great hurry, for he needed to move a family of six. Whether he himself made a quick trip to Cöthen in order to be present, in his capacity as capellmeister, at the festivities on the occasion of Prince Leopold's birthday on December 10 is questionable. But if so, he would have had to combine this trip with a sojourn in nearby Leipzig, where by special invitation of the rector of the university, he spent December 16–18 examining the new large organ made by Johann Scheibe for St. Paul's (University) Church.
⁷⁵

Bach's departure dealt the Weimar court capelle a near-fatal blow that permanently dampened the quality of musical life at the ducal court there. While the death of the old capellmeister Drese, almost exactly a year earlier, did not call for swift action because his absence made no noticeable difference, the loss of Bach left an acute gap. A genuine crisis was at hand, as both Wilhelm Ernst and Ernst August must have recognized. As the members of the capelle fell into the category of joint servants, the decision made after Bach's departure by the co-reigning dukes required a compromise: Johann Wilhelm Drese (presumably Duke Wilhelm Ernst's candidate) was promoted from vice-capellmeister to capellmeister, and Bach's longtime student and assistant Johann Martin Schubart (apparently Duke Ernst August's candidate) was appointed chamber musician and court organist, both on January 5, 1718. The posts of vice-capellmeister and concertmaster remained vacant, but the copyist's fee was now reassigned from Drese to the capellist August Gottfried Denstedt (see Table 6.2), and to avoid a net loss for the capelle, the lutenist Gottlieb Michael Kühnel was hired as an additional court musician.
⁷⁶
However, the salaries of the leadership group of the court capelle were basically what they had been ten years earlier (see Table 6.6). During the intervening years, virtually all incremental funds for the court capelle were spent on Johann Sebastian Bach, as both dukes clearly understood that investing in him would bring them more than their money's worth.

CAPELLMEISTER IN CÖTHEN, 1717–1723

P
RINCELY PATRONAGE

It seems a curious coincidence that Bach, right before settling in Cöthen, spent a few days in Leipzig, where he would eventually move—from Cöthen. As noted earlier, he had been invited by the rector of Leipzig University to examine the recently completed organ at St. Paul's Church (simultaneously the main lecture hall of the university), and his short stay allowed him some time to form at least a superficial impression of Leipzig and perhaps to meet with the old and distinguished cantor at St. Thomas's, Johann Kuhnau. Bach knew Kuhnau as leader of the team that had examined the organ at Our Lady's Church in Halle in 1716 and therefore would certainly have valued his opinion of the new fifty-three-stop Scheibe organ at the University Church. Most of Bach's time, however, was devoted to examining the organ itself, about which he wrote a lengthy report on December 17, the Friday before the third Sunday in Advent.
¹
Although he had found fault with a few details—notably uneven wind pressure, inequality of voicing, and heavy action—he generally praised the organ builder's work and suggested that Scheibe “be held harmless for the parts he has constructed.” Upon submitting his report on December 18, the day of his departure from Leipzig, Bach collected a fee of 20 talers from the rector, Professor Rechenberg—five times as much as he had received some fourteen years earlier for his first organ examination at Arnstadt. Then a mere lackey, he now signed the organ report and the receipt of his fee as “Capellmeister to the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen.” But there was yet another and more significant difference. In 1703, the eighteen-year-old Bach was looking forward to a career as organist; in 1717, he had effectively brought that career to an end, at least in a formal sense, for he would never again hold a post as organist. The chapter as court organist in Weimar was closed, and he had now, at age thirty-two, reached the peak of the conventional musical hierarchy. He was headed for Cöthen to take his place as princely capellmeister.

From Leipzig to Cöthen—the contrast could hardly have been sharper: here a bustling, wealthy metropolis with over thirty thousand inhabitants, a commercial town and seat of the most prestigious German university, there a modest and rather dull residential town of about one-tenth the size (the entire, predominantly agrarian, principality of Anhalt-Cöthen had a population of only ten thousand); here several big Lutheran churches with an active musical life (in one of which Bach had just examined a large, brand-new organ), there, in Calvinist surroundings, a single Lutheran town church with a poorly maintained organ and no musical life to speak of; here a cultural and musical tradition that extended over several centuries, with a notable number of celebrities, especially among the cantors at St. Thomas's, there a tiny, courtly musical establishment, recently installed, that had been abandoned by its capellmeister before it could even begin to flourish. Would Bach, coming from Leipzig and having recently glimpsed unparalleled courtly splendor in Dresden, have had no qualms about going as capellmeister to Cöthen?

But Bach knew that he had no choice and that there was little if any room for doubts. Eager to get away from Weimar, he was looking forward to a unique opportunity: he could expect to work for a patron whose musical background and interests were as strong as he could wish for and whose personal support was unquestionable; he would be one of the best-compensated court officials in the principality,
²
evidence of the prestige that came with the position and of the high priority assigned to it by the reigning prince; and he would be in charge of an elite professional ensemble whose core group of musicians had recently been recruited from Berlin and whose overall caliber by far exceeded that of the Weimar ensemble. Indeed, Bach would find conditions that would encourage him to pursue further “the musical contest for superiority”—a course so forcefully confirmed by his recent experience at the Dresden court. That the actual competition with the French virtuoso Marchand did not materialize would only have intensified his eagerness and impatience to meet his equal and, just as important, to find a match in musical personnel for the proper realization of his musical ideas. In this regard, the Cöthen court capelle would serve him well.

Bach picked up his first pay on December 29, 1717;
³
the wording in the princely account records—“the newly arrived Capellmeister”—suggests that he had arrived just in time for the celebration of New Year's Day, traditionally one of the major musical events at the Cöthen court. Contrary to a long-held view, he did not move to Cöthen right after his release from detention and dishonorable discharge from the Weimar court on December 2, or there would have been an earlier payment record—for example, on a date close to Prince Leopold's birthday on December 10. It is unlikely, then, that Bach was present for the birthday festivities that year even though technically his appointment dated back to August 7, when he signed his Cöthen contract and accepted a gift of 50 talers. And in fact, the December 29 payment was back pay: his basic annual salary of 400 talers prorated for the five months from August through December.
⁴
This means that Bach, who collected his Weimar salary through the third quarter of 1717, was paid twice in August and September. For the fourth (St. Lucia) quarter, he received no pay from the Weimar court, either as additional punishment in conjunction with his arrest, for unauthorized absences from the castle church or from Weimar itself (his trip to Dresden in the fall?), or for both reasons. The last quarter payment went instead to Bach's student and successor Johann Martin Schubart, who probably stood in for him whenever needed.

Relocating his family and personal effects to Cöthen, some seventy miles northeast of Weimar, was a much bigger undertaking than his move nine and a half years earlier from Mühlhausen to Weimar. The family had grown to six, with the oldest daughter, Catharina Dorothea, now nine years old and the three boys, Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Gottfried Bernhard, seven, three, and two, respectively; Maria Barbara's sister Friedelena came along, too. For the first three and a half years, the Bach family rented a spacious apartment in a house close to the main gate of the princely palace (most likely at what is today's parsonage, Stiftstrasse 12) belonging to Elisabeth Regina Schultze, widow of Oberamtmann Johann Michael Schultze. (In the 1690s, before the Agnus Church was built, the house had accommodated the worship services of the small Lutheran congregation in Calvinist Cöthen.) When that house was purchased in 1721 for the Lutheran parson, Bach probably moved to another (unknown) place, likely again no more than a short walk away from the palace.
⁵

First documented in 1115, Cöthen had served since 1603 as the residence for the rulers of the small principality of Anhalt-Cöthen. The larger region of Anhalt, a level area situated between the foot of the lower Harz Mountains and the river Elbe, was once ruled by the Ascanians, one of the most ancient houses of Germany, and was later divided into several principalities held by various branches of the family. The division of 1603 created the almost equally small principalities of Anhalt-Dessau, Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Cöthen, Anhalt-Plötzgau, and Anhalt-Zerbst, which were surrounded for the most part by Saxon and Prussian territories. The town of Cöthen was dominated by its princely palace and gardens, designed by the architect brothers Bernhard and Peter Niuron of Lugano and built in stages between 1597 and 1640. Two prominent staircase towers framed the central structure of the palace. Its southern wing, the
Ludwigsbau
, was named for Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Cöthen, who had laid the foundation for Cöthen's cultural claim to fame in 1617 by establishing the
Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft
, or Fruit-Bearing Society, a literary organization modeled after the Florentine
Accademia della Crusca
whose aim was maintaining the purity of the German language. Under Ludwig's second successor and nephew, Prince Emanuel Leberecht (r. 1691–1704), the cultivation of music found its modest but solid beginnings, even though its further development stagnated for almost ten years after his death until Prince Leopold, his son, completed the father's vision of a prospering court music.
⁶

As hereditary prince, the ten-year-old Leopold succeeded his father immediately, but as a minor, he was placed under the guardianship of his mother, Princess Gisela Agnes, who assumed rule. Small size and relative insignificance prevented the principality from pursuing any real foreign policy. Moreover, although Prince Emanuel Leberecht's will entrusted his wife with the regency, he had resolved that the Prussian king serve as superior guardian.
⁷
This move made internal and local politics loom all the larger; and indeed, during the eleven years of the princess mother's government, religious and social affairs stood very much at the center. In 1596, the still undivided duchy of Anhalt had adopted Calvinism as its state religion, in accordance with the principle
cuius regio, eius religio
(literally, “whose territory, his religion”), an agreement reached under the 1555 Peace of Augsburg by which the ruler's religion was automatically declared the official faith of the region. Of Lutheran descent and landed gentry, Gisela Agnes (née von Rath), however, fiercely observed her own religious beliefs, staunchly championed the principality's Lutheran minority, and showed little interest in dynastic concerns and commitments. After her marriage in 1692 with Prince Emanuel Leberecht, fundamentally a misalliance of birth and religion, she had built—with the express support of her Calvinist husband, who favored the free and public exercise of religious observances—a new church for the Lutherans that was dedicated in 1699 and unsubtly named St. Agnus's Church. Later, as reigning princess mother, she built a school for her fellow Lutherans (which Bach's children attended) and established a foundation for Lutheran girls and women of gentle birth. Fond of an unpretentious life-style, she chose after her husband's death to reside with her children in a modest house across the street from St. Agnus's Church. While she ruled with considerable wisdom, political prudence, and a strong sense of equity and social justice, she also kept a firm grip on everything that would benefit the largely underprivileged Lutherans. Her persistence in championing the cause of her co-religionists eventually created numerous bitter conflicts with her son after he acceded to power, as Leopold strongly upheld the “reformed” Calvinist tradition of his dynasty.

For most of his mother's interregnum, Leopold stayed away from Cöthen. From 1707 to 1710, he attended the
Ritteracademie
in Berlin, one of the preeminent schools for young princes in Germany, to round off his formal education. Following a custom in the higher echelons of the aristocracy, he then set out on a grand tour, escorted by his steward and private tutor, Christoph Jost von Zanthier, who led the princely entourage of seven that included a page who kept the prince's diary.
⁸
In October 1710, Leopold, then almost sixteen, traveled to The Hague and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, then to England, crossed parts of Germany and France, and ended up in Italy. After a visit to Venice and a three-month stay in Rome during the spring of 1712, he returned home in April of the following year by way of Florence, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig.
⁹
Along the way, he enjoyed opera, especially in The Hague and in Venice, and acquired a considerable amount of published music.
¹⁰
Recurring expenses for harpsichord rentals and repairs as well as for strings attest to considerable musical activity,
¹¹
but Leopold also showed a keen interest in art, architecture, and books. For seven months, including a major stretch of his Italian journey, the prince was accompanied by Johann David Heinichen, who worked in Italy for six years before taking up the post of electoral Saxon capellmeister in Dresden at the beginning of 1717. They met in Rome, where Leopold wanted “to accept him as his composer and to take him along on his further travels,” according to Johann Adam Hiller, a musician writing in 1769, who added: “This Prince Leopold was a great connoisseur and champion of music; he himself played the violin not badly and sang a good bass.”
¹²
An inventory of instruments in the prince's private possession, compiled before they were auctioned off after his death, indicates that he also played the harpsichord and the viola da gamba.
¹³
Hiller's general assessment of Leopold's musical interest and competence matches that of Bach, who refers to Leopold in a 1730 letter as one “who both loved and knew music.”
¹⁴
After the prince's formal accession to power on May 14, 1716, he was able to devote full attention to his favorite pastime.

The Cöthen court capelle had its very rudimentary beginnings in 1691, then comprising a mere three trumpets and timpani. Prince Emanuel Leberecht enlarged the ensemble in 1702 to six members and restructured it so that only one trumpeter remained. Christoph Krull, one of the new court musicians, was asked to serve as music instructor for Leopold. Five years later and perhaps at the instigation of her son, the reigning princess mother, not particularly disposed toward the court music, reluctantly appointed three Cöthen town pipers to serve simultaneously as court musicians, two of whom—Wilhelm Andreas Harbordt and Johann Freitag, Sr.—were still active when Bach arrived (see Table 7.1). Bach fired Harbordt after less than a month, but in general, the better Cöthen town musicians continued to complement the court capelle. The woodwind player Johann Gottlieb Würdig even made it to the higher rank of chamber musician.