Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/420

BACH. the office of kapellmeister at Köthen. The Prince, who sang bass and played violin, viola de gamba, and clavichord, warmly welcomed Bach into musical fellowship and made him his companion on various trips. It was the kapellmeister's duty to compose for the instruments on which the Prince played. Accordingly, as Bach's Weimar period is distinguished for his organ compositions, including several of his greatest works for that instrument; so that to his Köthen period belong much of his chamber music and works for clavichord and for orchestra. In a general way, it may be characterized as a lighter period in his life &mdash; a temporary relaxation in his self-imposed, severe course of artistic development before entering, in 1723, on the final and greatest epoch of his career as cantor of the School of Saint Thomas at Leipzig, when he achieved the logical results of a genius trained during thirty-two years of rigid preparation; a prelude which alone would have been a sure foundation for his fame, had he not, later, accomplished so much more in larger musical forms. It was during the Köthen period that Bach's first wife died. Of the 20 children born in his two marriages, the two who achieved greatest fame as musicians, Wilhelm Friedemann and Karl Philipp Emanuel, were of the first. His second wife, Anna Magdelena Wülken, whom he married in December, 1721, was a singer at the Köthen Court, and proved herself, both in his domestic and musical life, a help-meet in the truest sense of the word. Bach's first marriage is known to have been happy, but artistic unions as mutually helpful and felicitous as his second are among the rarities of history.

The post of cantor (or choirmaster) of the School of Saint Thomas in Leipzig was made, through Bach's incumbency of it, one of the most famous in music. The school, which was five centuries old when, in 1723, Bach entered upon his duties, included a choir and a grammar school; and the cantor was supposed to teach in both. Bach, however, assumed the latter duties only when the substitute whom he was allowed to engage was unable to act. Besides teaching the pupils vocal and instrumental music, the cantor had supervision not only of the music in the churches of Saint Thomas and Saint Nicholas, and in less degree in those of Saint Matthew, Saint Peter, and Saint John, but also of the organists and other musicians of the municipality. He was, in fact, Musical Director of Leipzig. But the actual dignity was not so great as this enumeration of his duties would imply. During nearly his whole incumbency of the post, this past-master of his art was harassed by the Town Council, to which he was responsible, and which sought to undermine his authority.

The result was that Bach found his usefulness as a teacher continually hampered. The Council even went so far as to accuse him of being slack; and this shortly after he had produced one of his greatest works, The Passion According to Saint Matthew. On another occasion, when he had nine vacancies to fill among the choristers of his school, from which he supplied the various choirs under his supervision, the Council rejected four of those whom he had examined and nominated, and appointed others whom he had rejected. He was assigned a residence in the left wing of the Thomas building, and

received also the sum of 700 thalers annually. But the Council claimed that he was so unproficient an instructor in music that he must take part in the teaching of the school; and though he avoided this, the Council suspended some of the perquisites of his post. Those who are unfamiliar with Bach's life, or who form an opinion of the Leipzig cantorship from the fame that has come to it through Bach, are apt to imagine that for thirty-seven years he occupied an exalted and congenial position, active as teacher and composer. In point of fact, neither Council nor city appreciated the genius they had within their walls, and not only wholly failed to honor Bach, but even thwarted him in his work. The position of this great man, who was so wholly devoted to his art that the attitude of the Council simply seemed to him &lsquo;wonderful,&rsquo; and puzzled while it irritated him, was, if not downright pitiable, at least deserving of deep sympathy.

There was a brief respite for him of four years during which Johann Matthias Gesner, who seems to have appreciated the genius of the cantor, was rector of the school. In 1729 Bach was made conductor of the Musical Society &mdash; a position which he held until 1736, and his connection with which doubtless accounts for the composition of his secular cantatas. In one of these, The Contest of Phœbus and Pan, he took occasion to change the wording of the libretto so as to convey covert satirical allusions to the hostile rector who had succeeded Gesner, and to one Scheibe, a mediocre musician, whose application for a position as organist Bach had rejected, and who, in consequence, showed his ill will in every way possible. When the quarrels which so harassed Bach are analyzed, it appears that the School of Saint Thomas suffered from the double government of rector and cantor, the one in matters of general education, the other in music; and that in asserting what he deemed his prerogatives, the rector probably went to work more practically than the musician whom his art so deeply engrossed. Moreover, Ernesti, who succeeded Gesner, was a son of the Ernesti who was rector at the time Bach became cantor, so that in a measure he had inherited the quarrel. How little influence Bach had in the musical life of Leipzig is shown by the fact that while the Society of Musical Sciences made Handel an honorary member, Bach was admitted only as an ordinary member, and even that not until he had sent in a trial canon. Nor when, in 1743, the concerts from which developed the famous Gewandhaus concerts were inaugurated, was his advice sought. Yet to this master, whose qualifications as a teacher the Town Council of Leipzig impugned, pupils flocked from outside, and no musician of the day thought of passing through the town without paying his respects to the cantor. Besides his most eminent pupils, his two eldest sons, the list included men like Krebs, Agricola, and Kirnberger, and Altnikol, who became his teacher's son-in-law. His activity as teacher and composer, and, above all, the happiness of his home life, must have offered Bach the needed respite from his worries with the authorities. His wife helped him copy his music. As his pupil she became an apt player on the clavichord; both she and his eldest daughter sang, and there were the sons and pupils from among whom to make up an orchestra in his own