Johann Sebastian Bach (94 page)

39.
BD
I, p. 124.

40.
NBR
, no. 184, pp. 180f.

41.
A description probably from the circle of C. P. E. Bach: Hilgenfeldt 1850, p. 172 (see also Schulze 1984a, p. 19).

42.
NBR
, no. 409; see also BD III, commentary to no. 973. Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was from 1745 professor of poetics at Leipzig University. Cramer knew well of the existence of the Bückeburg Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach but did not consider him to be in the same league as the others and omits him from the count of Bach's sons.

43.
The St. Thomas School records are missing from 1739, and therefore nothing is known about Christian's progress in school. Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, however, matriculated at Leipzig University in 1749, which suggests that he had graduated from the Thomana earlier that year.
BD
II, no. 628, p. 504. On the gift of instruments to Christian, see Chapter 12, “Estate and Musical Legacy.”

44.
Inventories from 1789 and 1823; see Fröde 1983 and Braun 1995. Earlier descriptions (by Richter and Terry, also in
BD
IV, p. 246) are misleading and erroneous.

45.
BD
II, nos. 291, 296, and 308. The school construction project was first discussed in June 1730 and decided on in September of the same year.

46.
Wilhelm Friedemann's exercise books were found in a closet of this room when the school was torn down in 1902; see
BD
IV, no. 266.

47.
NBR
, no. 279, p. 253.

48.
BD
II, nos. 602–603.

49.
Christoph Daniel Ebeling writing in 1773, based on information provided by C. P. E. Bach (
BD
III, no. 777, p. 250).

50.
After Bach's death, Müthel continued his studies with Altnickol in Naumburg. In May 1751, he and Anna Magdalena Bach served as godparents to Altnickol's daughter Augusta Magdalena;
BDIII, no. 640.

51.
NBR
, no. 312b.

52.
See
NBR
, p. 315.

53.
NBR
, no. 395, p. 400.

54.
NBR
, no. 359.

55.
NBR
, no. 395, pp. 400, 461.

56.
NBR
, no. 303, p. 290.

57.
NBR
, p. 460.

58.
NBR
, no. 209.

59.
NBR
, no. 279.

60.
Thomana Ordnungen
, pp. 27–32; adapted from the summary in Terry 1928, p. 170.

61.
Gesner, in his revised school regulations of 1733, writes that singing after mealtime would contribute to the students' health and well-being (
Thomana Ordnungen
, p. 16).

62.
This pattern was by no means unique. When in 1767 C. P. E. Bach was appointed cantor at the Hamburg Johanneum, the school board urged him to “hold the singing lessons according to the school regulations which Telemann, in an irresponsible way, neglected throughout his tenure” (Miesner 1929, p. 118).

63.
See Marshall 1972, pp. 63–68.

64.
A later version (c. 1746–47) used stationary instruments: 2 litui, 3 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo.

65.
NBR
, no. 250.

66.
NBR
, no. 279; BDII, no. 628, p. 504. Plausible arguments relate the large harpsichord in the Berlin Instrument Collection, built by Johann Heinrich Harrass, to the Bach estate; see Krickeberg 1996.

67.
NBR
, no. 256.

68.
NBR
, no. 140, pertaining to the first installment of Walther's Lexicon, published in 1728.

69.
BD
II, nos. 527–529, 567–568, 363, 373, 492.

70.
BD
III, p. 638.

71.
In 1728, Nicolaus Bach delivered two such instruments to a Hungarian nobleman; the instruments must have been small, because together they cost only 8 talers (
BJ
1989: 214).

72.
NBR
, no. 358e.

73.
Unlike other keyboard experts of the time, Bach paid attention not only to mechanical and acoustical details but also to ergonomic aspects of keyboard design. As Agricola relates: “The semitones must anyway be a little narrower at the top than at the bottom. That is how the late Capellmeister Bach required them to be, and he, for the above-mentioned reasons [the player can go from one manual to the other with much more ease], also liked short keys on the organ.”
NBR, no. 358c.

74.
NBR
, no. 358d.

75.
NBR
, p. 429.

76.
See Drüner 1987; Smith 1998.

77.
NBR
, no. 364.

78.
Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach served as godparents to children of Hoffmann's sisters (see
BD
II, nos. 275, 449); in 1743, both Bach and Hoffmann were godfathers to Johann Sebastian Weyrauch, son of the notary public and lutenist Johann Christian Weyrauch of Leipzig.

79.
BD
II, no. 272; see also Kröhner 1988.

80.
BD
II, nos. 573, 613/613a.

81.
NBR
, nos. 37, 75, 110.

82.
NBR
, p. 436.

C
HAPTER
12

1.
NBR
, no. 208.

2.
See BC D2e. Completing the revision and copying out new performing parts within a time span of ten days would have been extremely difficult. Tying the incomplete revision of BWV 245 to the canceled 1739 performance is, therefore, not without problems.

3.
Kobayashi 1988 provides a survey and chronological list of Bach's compositional and performing activities from 1735 through the 1740s.

4.
BD
III, no. 703.

5.
NBR
, no. 306, p. 297.

6.
Johann Friedrich Agricola, 1768; see
BD
III, no. 740.

7.
NBR
, no. 236.

8.
See Schulze 1967,
NBAV
III/1, and
NBR
, nos. 162, 230, 236–37.

9.
In 1760, Marpurg recalled his “sojourn in Leipzig” when he “discussed with him [Bach] certain materials pertaining to fugue” (
BD
III, no. 701, p. 144); if he heard a performance of cantata BWV 144 (whose fugal texture he describes; see
NBR
, no. 357b) on this occasion, the visit would have taken place around Septuagesimae Sunday, in February 1748 or 1749.

10.
G. de Luchesini, Mizler (permanent secretary), G. H. Bümler, C. G. Schöter, H. Bokemeyer, G. P. Telemann, G. H. Stölzel, G. F. Lingke, M. Spiess, G. Venzky, G. F. Handel (honorary member), U. Weiss, C. H. Graun, J. S. Bach, G. A. Sorge, J. P. Kunzen, C. F. Fischer, J. C. Winter, J. G. Kallenbeck. An invitation to Leopold Mozart as the twentieth and last member to join the society was issued in 1755, but the society disbanded shortly thereafter because of the difficulty of running the business from Mizler's residence in Warsaw.

11.
Tractatus musicus compositorio-practicus (Augsburg, 1745). See NBA/KBVIII/1 (Wolff),
pp. 22, 34.

12.
NBR
, no. 247.

13.
NBR
, no. 306, p. 307.

14.
NBR
, no. 268, for this and subsequent quotations.

15.
NBR
, p. 243.

16.
BD
III, no. 703.

17.
NBR
, nos. 222–23.

18.
BD
II, nos. 489, 540, 548. In 1744, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach dedicated his first published sonata to Stahl (
BD
II, no. 528). Cf. also Miesner 1933.

19.
BD
III, Anh. I, no. 3 (p. 623).

20.
NBR
, no. 239.

21.
NBR,
no. 257.

22.
NBR
, pp. 429f; also the subsequent quotations from Forkel's report.

23.
NBR
, no. 394.

24.
Schramm 1744, 2: 2248, on the Weimar
turris echonica:
“where two persons who stand at opposite ends from one another and speak softly against the wall can understand each other clearly, without those standing in the middle hearing anything.”

25.
NBR
, no. 248.

26.
NBR
, nos. 246, 257.

27.
Why and to what end Questenberg approached Bach remains unknown, also how he came to know about Bach in the first place. Questenberg was well acquainted with the Bohemian count Franz Anton von Sporck, whose relationship with Bach dated back to the 1720s; another possibility consists in the manifold Bohemian-Moravian connections of the Dresden court capelle, notably through Jan Dismas Zelenka. Conceivably, too, the Bach-Questenberg connection predates 1749.

28.
NBR
, no. 261.

29.
See
NBR
, pp. 337–53.

30.
NBR
, no. 344, p. 343.

31.
For a discussion of the genesis of
The Art of Fugue
, see Wolff, Essays, Chapter 20.

32.
First edition: J. S. Bach,
Die Kunst der Fuge
, BWV 1080, vol 1: Earlier Version (Frank furt: C. F. Peters, 1986).

33.
On this point, see
NBR
, nos. 304–305 (Walther, Lexicon).

34.
See facsimiles,
NBR
, p. 259.

35.
The term “contrapunctus” is used in that very sense in the writings of Fux, Heinichen, and other contemporaries; cf. Wolff,
Essays
, p. 277.

36.
NBR
, no. 280.

37.
NBR
, no. 285.

38.
NBR
, no. 306, p. 304.

39.
NBR
, no. 353.

40.
Wollny 1994; see Bach:
Mass in B Minor
, BWV 232, ed. C. Wolff (Frankfurt: C. F. Peters, 1997) pp. 378–83.

41.
Cf. Wolff 1968 and Beißwenger 1992.

42.
For analytical details, see Wolff 1994.

43.
Cf. Wolff,
Essays
, Chapter 26.

44.
NBR
, no. 396, p. 407.

45.
NBR
, no. 306, p. 303.

46.
NBR
, no. 265.

47.
NBR
, no. 266.

48.
Composition is not extant.

49.
NBR
, no. 265.

50.
NBR
, no. 306, p. 303.

51.
NBR
, p. 430.

52.
Proposed by Kranemann 1990, who also discusses older theories and hypotheses.

53.
Surely for reasons of geographic distance, Bach could not travel to Berlin in late September 1748 to attend the christening ceremony for his grandson and godchild, Johann Sebastian, C. P. E. Bach's third child.

54.
NBR
, no. 258.

55.
Facsimile: “Wine and Taxes,” ed. W. H. Scheide (New York, 1970). For a discussion of Bach's late hand, see Kobayashi 1988.

56.
NBR
, no. 261.

57.
BD
II, no. 582.

58.
NBR
, no. 262.

59.
The communion register lists, in a continuing pattern, “Capellmeister Bach and two sons; the last time he partook of the Lord's Supper at St. Thomas's was on December 18, 1749, the 3
^rd
Sunday in Advent” (
BD
II, no. 162).

60.
The libretto for this 1749 service has survived; see
NBA/KBI/40, pp. 225–29.

61.
See Ambrose in
WBK
2: 151. For the textual changes, see NBA/KBI/40, p. 136.

62.
Bach first wrote “Borilius” which he changed to “Birolius.” Spitta does not relate “Birolius” to Brühl; he suggests instead that in mentioning “Hortens,” Bach meant to mock Thomasrector Ernesti, who had published a philological edition of the complete works of Cicero (Spitta II, p. 741). Conceivably, Bach intended to do both.

63.
Wollny 1993, pp. 306–11.

64.
BD
III, no. 703. C. P. E. Bach's autograph score is dated “Potsdam 25. Aug. 1749.” A Leipzig performance is confirmed by Leipzig performance parts; see Wollny 1995.