J. S. Bach's Youth Author(s): Friedrich Blume and Wilburn W. Newcomb Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 54, No.

1 (Jan., 1968), pp. 1-30 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/741080 . Accessed: 27/06/2011 18:23
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~OR

Vol. LIV, No. 1

L
CIiaf

JANUARY, 1968

THE

MUSICAL

QUART
J. S. BACH'S YOUTH
By FRIEDRICH BLUME ECENT research pertaining to Bach has concentrated primarily on

how his works have been handed down to us, i.e., on the origin and interdependence of the sources, on the original and variant versions of the works, on questions of chronology, authenticity, etc. It is only natural that in this respect scholars have stuck to the three creative periods of Bach's life: the Weimar (1708-1716) and C,6then (17121723) periods and the twenty-seven years in Leipzig (1723-1750) where he was "Cantor at St. Thomas' and Director Chori Musici Lipsiensiss." In contrast to these, Bach's earlier period-from the beginning of his musical education to maturity and mastery-has for some time now received little attention. Bach's childhood and youth comprise the years from 1685 to 1703, years which he spent in Eisenach, Ohrdruf, and Liineburg. He was eighteen when his apprenticeship and journeyman's travels in a literal sense began. They led him to Weimar for a few months (1703), then to Arnstadt for several years (1703-1707), and then for another year to Miihlhausen (1707-08). All of these places were small, modest Thuringian towns and courtly residences without any particular musical distinction, with the exception of Liineburg, which at that time was a small center of music in northern Germany. When Bach, at the
Copyrighto 1968 by G. Schirmer, Inc.

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age of twenty-three, was called to the court of the Duke of Weimar, the years of mastery began almost at once. It is not the purpose of this study to describe Bach's early childhood, although many aspects of the traditionally accepted picture need correcting. Instead, the main attention will be focused on those years during which Bach made a musician of himself and paved the way to mastery of his art. As a starting point one can take a very simple question: When, where, with whom, and how did Bach actually acquire his musical education? Where did his skill on the violin come from, or for that matter, on the viola? Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach tells us that his father loved to sit down in the middle of an ensemble and play the viola. How did he acquire his "gute Singart," i.e., his technique of singing, which his son also mentions? Where and when did he develop that stupendous virtuosity on the keyboard which gained him the highest fame throughout his life? Where did he learn the theory of music, not to mention his knowledge of musical rhetoric, for which Master Birnbaum later praised him so highly? How and with whom did he study composition? Where did he get his profound knowledge of organ building which was later to make him a feared inspector of newly built organs? Basically we have no correct answers to all these questions. What we do know is that at the age of ten, when he lost his father, Sebastian was sent to Ohrdruf to live with his older brother Johann Christoph, who had been the organist in this little country town since 1690. We may assume that he was already well versed in the rudiments of singing and playing on instruments. It is possible that he received his first lessons in voice and violin from his father, Ambrosius, who was employed by the city of Eisenach and by the court as a professional musician; the city fathers deemed him an excellent musician "vocaliter" as well as "instrumentaliter." Since Ambrosius had accepted two apprentices and two journeymen into his home, no doubt little Sebastian occasionally sat in on their lessons. But we have no proof of it and not one detail is known. It is just as possible that he learned the elements of keyboard playing (excluding the organ, which hardly comes into question for a boy of ten) from his uncle Johann Christoph, who was the organist of the main church in Eisenach, St. George's. Almost all biographers assume as much, although absolutely nothing has been proved. Ambrosius and his cousin Johann Christoph were apparently not on particularly intimate terms; one hears of no connection between the two. Our knowledge of this stage in Bach's youth therefore remains indefinite. One would, in the

J. S. Bach's Youth

final analysis, do well to relegate all of those garnishments of Bach's childhood in Eisenach-so beloved v bliogoraphers-to the realm of fantasy. Life was very modest in the home of Ambrosius Bach and it was certainly not always a bed of roses. His social status was somewhat comparable to that of a craftsman. The old Latin school which Martin Luther had attended could offer Selbastian no more than any othrc of the numerous Lutheran Latin schools in Thuringia. We are therefore limited to mere speculation about Bach's childhood. What he was able to sing or play when he came to Ohrdruf at the age of ten we do not know; and even if upon leaving approximately five years later he is supposed to have composed the capriccio (BWV 993) in honor of Johann Christoph Bach, one must nevertheless say that he was not yet, at the age of fifteen, a finished composer by any means. It is after all a rather modest piece. On the other hand what we do know is that as early as his year at Miihlhausen (1707/08) Bach became an outstanding, even a virtuoso organist, an expert in organ building, and a full-fledged composer, even if he still wrote in an older style. His knowledge of organ building and of church music has been documented; to testify to his ability as a composer there are works dating from this period which will be discussed below. From all of this the following can be concluded: The thirteen years between 1695, i.e., Bach's arrival at Ohrdruf from Eisenach, and 1708, his departure from Miihlhausen for Weimar, are his years as an apprentice and journeyman. Bach was twenty-three when he attained to complete mastery. Where did all that come from? His fellow countryman and exact contemporary, Handel, had had a first-rate teacher in Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow before he settled down in Hamburg at the age of eighteen; and he was still much younger than Bach when a year later he stepped into the limelight with an opera of recognized merit (1704, Hamburg). Christoph Graupner, two years older than Bach, had studied with such important figures as Johann Schelle, Johann David Heinichen and Johann Kuhnau. Georg Philipp Telemann, four years older than Bach, never had a teacher of any note and had already composed voluminously as a student; in fact he wrote a Latin treatise on music in 1702. So various were the paths of development. At any rate, a teacher has never clearly emerged from the historical data surrounding Bach's early years. He was by nature, origin, and the profession of his forefathers, predestined to music; he lived exclusively in musical family environments. We must therefore proceed

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on the assumption that in the main Bach developed on his own the talents he had inherited and the influences he had received from his environment. During the five years Sebastian spent in Ohrdruf, his brother, Johann Christoph, apparently gave him lessons on the keyboard or organ. At least this is what Johann Nikolaus Forkel states. Carl Philipp Emanuel, in a letter to Forkel (1775), accepts this as a possibility but goes no further into the matter. In his father's obituary notice, which he wrote in collaboration with Johann Friedrich Agricola, Philipp Emanuel tells the touching anecdote of how Bach as a boy copied works of great composers out of a forbidden music book by moonlight until he was caught and his treasure taken away. Whether true or not, this much can be said: We cannot speak of any methodical or rapid progress in Bach's education while he was living with his brother. He sang in the school choir and in the poor boys' choir where he earned some money singing in the streets, but he cannot have learned much there. He obviously was not initiated in the art of composition. Johann Christoph himself had been a pupil of Johann Pachelbel, and if he composed organ or keyboard music it is reasonable to assume that it would have been close to Pachelbel's style. Nothing has been preserved, however, even if it ever existed, and, besides, Pachelbel's style was widespread at that time among Thuringian organists. If Sebastian felt the urge to compose, he must have helped himself by copying music and imitating (which we know he did later in life), and therein may lie the true kernel of that anecdote. At any rate the five years in Ohrdruf passed without leaving us the slightest evidence of Bach's musical progress. In school he stood among the best in his class, and his basic knowledge of theology presumably goes back to this time. That is, however, all that we know. When on the 15th of March 1700, the fifteen-year-old youth transferred from Ohrdruf to Liineburg along with his eighteen-year-old schoolmate Georg Erdmann, it was not to receive further musical education but ob defectum hospitorium, i.e., because he could no longer live in his brother's house or find lodgings any place else in Ohrdruf, and also because the cantor in Ohrdruf, Elias Herda, who originally came from Liineburg, was able to obtain accommodations and scholarships there at St. Michael's School for both boys. Unfortunately, we also lack any source of information from Liineburg about Bach's musical education. He attended the Michaelisschule, served in the choir and in small chamber groups, but we have no details

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concerning his duties. Gustav Fock in his study of Bach in Liineburg (1950), still a basic work, was also unable to give any specific details. Sebastian certainly did not play any leading role there, say, as prefect. Every biographer still tacitly accepts the conjecture that Bach took up organ playing in this city, which was rich in the organ tradition; presumably this was in St. Michael's or St. Nicolas' or in the magnificent late Gothic Johanneskirche with its especially famous organ. But there is no documentary proof. Ever since Philipp Spitta's great biography it has been assumed, almost as a matter of course, that Bach received instruction from the organist of St. John's, Georg BOihm.Boihm was a Thuringian and had connections in Ohrdruf and also with the Bach family. That Bach was his pupil is, however, sheer conjecture, and the lone fact that there exist a few chorale partitas by Bach written in the style of B6hm (the authenticity of which is still controversial) provides very weak support. To be sure, Philipp Emanuel testified in a letter to Forkel (1775) that his father had "loved and studied" B6hm's works; however in the same sentence the very same thing is said of a whole series of older masters. It would be remarkable indeed if Philipp Emanuel, who mentions Georg Bihm in this letter and who in the necrology (1754) describes briefly his father's stay in Liineburg, would have omitted any personal connection his father might have had with this composer. It is certainly tempting to suppose that Sebastian knew and had heard Georg Bbhm, but there is no mention anywhere of studies with him, and one can justifiably doubt whether the great organ of St. John's was at the neophyte's disposal. Gustav Fock adopted the view that B6hm's works for keyboard or organ were preserved only in the copies made by Sebastian Bach. This is, however, unproven and actually very unlikely because a number of these works presumably were composed in a period after Bach's stay in Liineburg. It is even more improbable that while in Liineburg Bach had any connection with the seventy-two-year-old organist of St. Nicolas', Johann Jakob Loewe ("from Eisenach"; he did not, however, come from Eisenach). There was an organ composer of some importance named Peter Morhardt who was organist at St. Michael's and therefore belonged officially to Bach's school; but he had already died the year Bach was born. Bach is said to have traveled to Hamburg "occasionally" (as it reads in the necrology) and to have heard the organist at St. Katharina's, Jan Adams Reinken, who belonged to the old Sweelinck school and was at that time almost seventy years old. In 1720 Bach was to pay his respects

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to him and to the great tradition which he embodied. We do not know anything more definite than this, however, about the Hamburg journeys. That Bach knew the organist at St. Nicolas' in Hamburg, -Vincent Liibeck (which is occasionally asserted as early as Spitta), is unlikely, for Liibeck was not called to Hamburg until 1702, and we are not even sure whether Bach was still in Liineburg then. Here, however, is a remarkable gap in our knowledge which has been all but ignored by most Bach biographers. The necrology lists specifically several trips to Hamburg but mentions only the visits to Reinken. Now Hamburg was in those years one of the German metropolises of music in a great number of areas: opera, church music, chamber and orchestral music, song, etc. Are we to believe that Bach, when he took such pains to travel repeatedly all the way to Hamburg (ca. 31 miles away), would actually have limited his interest to the representative-no matter how highly respected-of an organ tradition which was two generations older than his? Would he have overlooked the overwhelming musical life of a great city, which must surely have been a revelation for a fifteen or seventeenyear-old student used to provincial Thuringian conditions? It is true, of course, that the first great epoch of the opera and municipal music, with such personalities as Johann Theile, Nikolaus Adam Strunck, Johann Wolfgang Franck, Johann Philipp F6rtsch and Johann Sigismund Kusser, had already passed. Franck had composed at-least sixteen operas for Hamburg and was in charge of the cathedral music. The sources of F6rtsch's opera libretti ranged from Bostel, Postel, and Elmenhorst to Minato, Marlowe, and Cervantes. This first heyday was now gone. Active in Hamburg, however, from 1696 or '97 on was Reinhard Keiser, who was known all over Germany as one of the leading opera composers of his age. Mattheson maintained that by 1713 he had no less than forty or fifty complete operas produced. In 1701 Bach could have heard both parts of Keiser's St6rtebecker und Jodge Michaels, a rather bloodcurdling work in the popular taste of the time, in 1702 his Circe, Penelope, and Orpheus (also in two sections). Johann Mattheson produced his Porsenna in 1702 and was active in all areas of music, animating and inspiring everyone. The magnetism of the Hamburg Opera was strong enough to attract the eighteen-year-old Handel from Halle in 1703; he made his debut in 1705 with Almira. The Johannespassion (1704) allegedly by Handel with aria texts by Postel is almost certainly spurious. However, in Hamburg around 1700 there came about, largely through Christian Hunold, that reform in Passion poetry which brought with it

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a fundamental revival of the genre similar to the reforms of Neumeister in the field of the Protestant cantata. Hunold's and Keiser's Bleeding and dying Jesus set the model in 1704 for numerous later Passion compositions. This is the same Hunold, a great number of whose cantata librettos Bach set to music for ducal festivities later in his Cithen period. Also in Hamburg were such writers, literary figures, and poets as Lucas von Bostel, Christian Postel, Heinrich Elmenhorst, and Barthold Feindt, who were working actively with musicians. The important song collection on Elmenhorst's poems originated here; the 1700 edition was printed in Liineburg and contains around 100 melodies by Johann W. Franck, Georg B6hm, and Laurentius Wockenfuss (from Kiel). It is one of the most beautiful sacred songbooks of the age. B6hm himself had come to Liineburg after having worked in Hamburg at the Opera. Elmenhorst exercised a great influence as a poet and musical preacher and was one of the co-founders and librettists of the Opera. Is one to suppose that this whole glittering world was unknown to the youthful Bach, if he really was in Hamburg on several occasions? Numerous stylistic similarities have often been pointed out between his later works and those of Franck and Keiser especially (Hellmuth Christian Wolff, Die Barockoper in Hamburg, I, 1957, passim). Bach wrote out in his own hand the parts of a St. Mark Passion by Keiser. Whether or not these connections are to be attributed to such an early period, whether Bach observed the musical life of Hamburg at first hand, whether he received there anything more than stimuli for his organ composing, all of this still remains completely undecided. There are no relevant reports from any source. As a hypothesis, however, there remains the possibility that the youthful Bach may have absorbed influences here that did not bear fruit until later in his life, an assumption that is all the more likely since from 1714 on Bach reveals himself in his cantatas as a dramatist of high rank, and also since he could scarcely have had any other opportunity between 1702 and 1714 to become familiar with the operatic world. In his cantatas it can be seen on many a page that this world was not foreign to him. Where else could he have gotten to know it if not from his Liineburg period and from his trips to Hamburg? All of this is at best conjecture, a more or less well-founded hypothesis. Most biographers have mistaken wishful thinking for reality and have confounded what little is actually verifiable with nebulous fantasies. The simple truth is that we know very little for certain about Bach's musical activities and education during the Liineburg years and least of

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all about the area of keyboard music. The widely held opinion that the organ was Bach's point of departure is based on the assumption that he played the organ in Liineburg or that he received useful instruction on that instrument. Even this view, however, is completely unproven. When he came to Arnstadt in 1703 he must have been already well-versed in organ playing; but when and where he learned the art and whether it occurred in the Liineburg years has remained up to the present without the slightest trace of concrete evidence. One is tempted to assume that while in Liineburg he studied the unique collection of organ tablatures, one of the greatest monuments of the cultivation of that instrument in northern Germany in the 17th century. Most of these works stem from the period around 1650-60 and the collection contains a great number of the usual "intabulations" (i.e., transcriptions or arrangements for the organ in tablature notation) of dances, songs, motets, madrigals, vocal concertos, Magnificats, etc., many of whose models go back as far as Orlando di Lasso. Most of them, however, were by celebrated masters of the early 17th century such as Monteverdi, Alessandro Grandi, Hans Leo Hassler, among many others. These tablatures, moreover, constitute a mine of information concerning the work of lesser known German and Italian composers. Of primary importance in the Liineburg tablatures, however, are the numerous original compositions for organ such as preambles, fantasias, ricercars, and organ chorales, by Sweelinck and by other important north German organ composers of the two generations before Bach: Heinrich Scheidemann, Christian Flor, Jakob Praetorius, Samuel Scheidt, Melchior Schildt, Delphin Strunck, Franz Tunder, Matthias Weckmann, and so on; in other words, precisely that music we must assume Bach studied sometime and somewhere. It would illuminate our ignorance of Bach's background like a bolt of lightning if we knew that he actually used this unique source of German organ tablatures to play from or for his studies. Regrettably, however, even here there is a large gap in our knowledge. We do not know, for instance, whether the manuscripts were already in Liineburg when Bach was there or when they might have arrived there. It is not until 1845 that we have our first report: they were deposited in the city council's library in that year. Where were they before that? In the possession of some church or private person? In Hamburg? A Hamburg provenience is highly likely, since the names of organists active there (such as Scheidemann, Weckmann, Kortkamp, among others) occur with particular frequency in these tablatures. That does not exclude

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the possibility that the collection, or parts of it, had already reached Liineburg in the 17th century. It would be too risky, however, to support one pillar of Bach's artistic development on such a hypothetical base. For the time being things still stand at the "We-simply-don't-know" stage, and we are also left with the lingering doubt that young Bach ever had anything to do with the organ in Liineburg. It is much more reasonable to seek the clues to Bach's musical education in two other areas during the Liineburg years: in the field of vocal music and French instrumental music. St. Michael's School had in its archive a large quantity of printed music which was described in a report from the year 1870. This report still exists but unfortunately the prints have disappeared. In addition, the school also possessed one of the largest manuscript collections of contemporary vocal music. This has also been lost, but Max Seiffert published an inventory of it in 1907-08. There were no less than 1102 individual pieces in manuscripts, which the cantor at St. Michael's, Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius, and his predecessors had collected. Praetorius left them to the school when he died in 1695, that is, only five years before Bach's arrival. The Liineburg archive therefore constitutes a counterpart to the other great manuscript collections of the time, like the music archive of the Marienkirche in Liibeck during Dietrich Buxtehude's time (which has also been lost), or the Diiben collection in Stockholm (which has been preserved in its entirety in the University Library of Uppsala). The breadth of the Liineburg-St. Michael's repertory is amazing. It extends from pieces in three and four parts with basso continuo to pieces in twenty-two and twenty-four parts with full orchestra, from pure choral music to vocal concertos with solo voices, choruses and instrumental ensembles. It lists compositions by St. Michael's cantor, August Braun, and its organist Peter Morhard, as well as by some of the most famous contemporaries, such as Heinrich Schiitz, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenmiiller, Sebastian Kniipfer, the brothers Johann and Johann Philipp Krieger, Johann Schelle, Thomas Selle, Johann Theile, including many native north German masters or those who were active in north Germany such as Dietrich Becker, Christoph Bernhard, Werner Fabricius, Christian Flor, Kaspar Fibrster, Georg Osterreich, Augustin Pfleger, David Pohle, Johann Martin Rubert, Melchior Schildt, Nathanael Schnittelbach, Nikolaus Adam Strunck, Johann Vierdanck, Matthias Weckmann, Andreas Werkmeister, Christoph

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Werner; middle and south German composers are also well represented. These, as well as the names of many Italians such as Albrici, Bontempi, Carissimi, Casati, Cazzati, Finetti, Grandi, Gratiani, Merula, Monteverdi, Peranda, Francesco della Porta, Rovetta, Scacchi, Torri, Uccellini, Valentini, and others, give ample proof that one was not limited to the narrow confines of the north German school and that the attitude was anything but provincial. Another striking aspect of this repertory is the concentration on the period from approximately 1630 to around 1690, i.e., on the immediately contemporary music. In contrast to the organ tablatures, the St. Michael's collection contains no earlier composers. Obviously, almost everything in the collection is church music, German and Latin. The inventory is of the greatest importance for our knowledge of the practical pursuit of music at a school of that time. The loss of the collection-even if most of the pieces can be found in other sourcesis an incalculable setback to musical research, if only because of the many unica it contained. One can hardly doubt that a young musician like Sebastian Bach, at most seventeen years of age, who was so eager to learn, would have educated himself with the aid of these vocal works. We know that Bach esteemed many of the "old masters" whose works he knew, and they were primarily of the 17th century, not older. This curiosity and appreciation he retained into his Leipzig period. For this reason the objection Gustav Fock made against presupposing the use of this archive by Bach does not seem to be very sound. Where the collection was kept at that time is not so important; one is entitled to assume in any case that this voluminous mass of contemporary church music was then used for practical purposes and not stored away somewhere. It would be applying a modern museum standard to suppose that the collection was brought together out of some sort of scientific interest or out of sheer passion for collecting. Schiitz in Dresden, Buxtehude in Liibeck, Diiben in Stockholm, Erlebach in Rudolstadt (see further below) started their collections at that time, as did Pisendel somewhat later in Dresden, not for the purpose of preservation but for the practical purpose of making music. Cantor Friedrich Emanuel Praetorius and his predecessors would not have done it otherwise. The assumption (by G. Fock) that Bach was not yet interested in vocal music in Liineburg lacks any sort of foundation in fact. The St. Michael's collection offers precisely the foundation for assuming that Bach studied it before he himself proceeded to write cantatas and other vocal music. Until evidence is brought forth to the contrary, one has to conjecture that Bach made

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11

use of the extraordinary advantage afforded by his years in Liineburg to study this collection for his own education. The other area in which Bach became well-versed from the Liineburg period on was French instrumental music and performance practices. To be sure we are only very meagerly informed about this also. The necrology tells us laconically that Sebastian, ever since his stay in Liineburg, had the opportunity "to learn the French taste [style], which at that time was something altogether new to those regions, by frequently hearing a famous orchestra which the Duke of Celle kept and which consisted for the most part of Frenchmen." Here we must note that the French "taste" was at that time not "altogether new" in Germany; ever since 1670 it had spread throughout Germany by the most various routes. It is correct, however, to say that Duke Georg Wilhelm of Celle and Liineburg maintained a primarily French orchestra, which in its heyday comprised sixteen members, including seven oboists (not counting trumpeters). The court Kapellmeister was Philippe La Vigne. To Gustav Fock goes the credit for discovering the man who provided the connection between Bach and Celle: Thomas de la Selle, a member of the orchestra and at the same time a dance instructor at the Ritterakademie (Knights' Academy) in Liineburg, which was related to St. Michael's School. Even if the French orchestral and keyboard practices were not "totally new" for the time, they were new to Bach. How deep an impression they made on him can be seen in large portions of his later works. It is reasonable to assume that Bach also made the acquaintance of local German church musicians on his visits to Celle. The town cantor at that time was one Johann Georg Kiihnhausen, a composer of some significance. The town organist (and later court organist) was Wolfgang Wessnitzer, the editor of Das Grosse Zellische Gesangbuch (1696), an important Lutheran song collection; and court organist during Bach's time was Melchior Brunckhorst, well known both as a performer and composer. We have no actual report, however, of any such contacts, no matter how likely they appear. The Duke also kept an Italian opera troupe for a while; but that was dissolved one year before Bach arrived in Liineburg. Any contact with Italian opera in Celle is therefore out of the question. We are thus left with the conclusion based on the necrology that while in Celle, Bach heard only the French orchestra and French music. The bare fact is, however, the only thing we know; what French

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music this was can only be surmised; concrete evidence is lacking. The repertory of the Celle court orchestra is not known, nor is any music collection mentioned anywhere. That French operas were performed in the castle theater is of course to be assumed but is not definitely known. French orchestral music, dances, overture-suites for concert performances, were widely known at that time in north Germany. Sigismund Kusser (active in Hamburg up to 1695 or 1696), who had been a pupil of Lully's in Paris between 1674 and 1682 and later appeared as a composer of operas, serenades, and overtures, was highly praised by Mattheson as an excellent trainer of orchestras. Another notable composer, Johann Fischer, who for five years in Paris adapted himself to the "sweet Lullian manner," showed up temporarily in Liineburg in 1701 and dedicated a few works to St. Michael's School, among which was the French suite "To the world famous Liineburg salts," in the performance of which Bach as a pupil might have taken part. Numerous musicians from north Germany were under French influence, not the least of whom was Georg B6hm. It is not likely that French sacred music would have been performed in these circles; most probably it was exclusively secular compositions, music for social occasions, operas, dances, arias and such. B6hm and Kusser, incidentally, both came directly from the opera, which to a great extent went along French lines in Stuttgart as well as in Hamburg. And ever since Agostino Steffani's time the musical taste at the court of Hanover had been strongly French oriented. It was therefore not Celle alone that guided young Bach in this direction. Proof of a French repertory in Celle or Liineburg is, however, not at hand. It would be of the greatest interest to know just how much contact Bach had with French keyboard music during his years at Liineburg, regardless of whether it was at the court of Celle or through other channels. All of the Bach literature from Spitta to Karl Geiringer accepts such a contact without question. Guy Ferchaut (in the Bach-Gedenkschrift, 1950) suggested that the court organist of Celle, Charles Gaudon, could have been the one who introduced Bach to this domain. As possible composers he lists: Louis Marchand, Jacques Boyvin, Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, Andre' Raison, Jean Henri d'Anglebert, Pierre d'Andrieu, Michel Corrette, Nicolas Le Begue, Gaspard Le Roux, Charles Dieupart and Fran?ois Couperin le Grand. Bach could not have known a number of these until later simply for chronological reasons. Marchand was probably not known in Germany until he journeyed there sometime after

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13

1706; his printed keyboard books date from 1702 on. Of the two Correttes, even the father, Gaspard, comes too late for Bach's Liineburg period. The book of keyboard music by LeRoux did not appear in print until 1705. Dieupart's suites, two of which Bach copied in his own hand, can have become known to him only considerably later. The designation "English" suites supposedly goes back to these because Dieupart resided in London. Couperin's "Pieces d'orgue" date of course from 1690, but his books of harpsichord music do not begin to appear until 1713 and L'Art de toucher le clavecin in 1716. The copies of Couperin's music in Bach's hand date from the same period as the notebooks for Friedemann and Anna Magdalena, i.e., not until after 1720; and the model for Bach's Aria in F major for organ (BWV 587), a trio of Couperin's, appears for the first time in 1726 in Les Nations. The only French musicians remaining on Ferchaut's list from Bach's early period are: Boyvin (pririted organ and harpsichord works from 1689 onward), Nivers (from 1665), Raison (from 1688), d'Anglebert (1689), d'Andrieu (the 1690s) and Le Begue (after 1676). The only printed work by Nicolas de Grigny (Livre d'orgue, 1699) is said to have been copied by Bach in its entirety; and one can well imagine that he felt just as attracted to de Grigny's intricate fugal texture and to his contrapuntal settings of hymns, among other things, as he did to Le Begue's versets "pour les savants." Nevertheless that entire area of Bach's handwritten copies of Grigny, Dieupart, Couperin and others (Spitta already mentions some, but he had not seen them) is in the first place quite nebulous, and one would do well to be skeptical of all reports leaning in that direction. Even if such autograph copies were actually traceable, it would still be most doubtful if any of those fell into this early phase of Bach's education. The question still remains unanswered, however, as to what role this entire French invasion into his middle German tradition played in the youthful Bach's development. Clearly, French substance penetrated deeply into his later works, and not only the instrumental. Moreover, the widely diffused copies of French compositions by Bach's pupils are very suggestive. Nevertheless this aspect of Bach's youth also allows us nothing more than supposition. With that the subject of Bach's musical development up to this time has been exhausted. We do not even know precisely when he left Liineburg. He must have applied in 1702 for the organist's post at St. James' in Sangerhausen (in 1736 he recalls this in a letter upon recommending his son Bernhard for the same position); he had no luck however. On

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the 4th of March 1703 (according to Jauernig) he entered the service of Prince Johann Ernst of Weimar. Fock has nevertheless cogently stated the possibility that Bach had already left the school in 1702. His whereabouts during this year are still obscure. Whatever brought Bach to Weimar was no longer known to Philipp Emanuel, and what he did there during his four-month stay is unknown. It is obvious that the eighteen-year-old boy considered himself an accomplished musician-and he was, to a certain extent. At first he was probably employed as a violinist, then he became the deputy of court organist Johann Effler, even used his title, and at eighteen (which is almost incredible) received the commission to test and examine the great organ that Friedrich Wender had just installed in St. Boniface's church at Arnstadt. This is proof that by that time, Bach had not only acquired a profound knowledge of organ building but had also already become known for it. It remains a riddle just how he arrived at such a stature. It is nevertheless entirely possible that the few months Bach spent in Weimar were very instructive for him. At the court of Weimar there still lived the violinist Paul Westhoff who, though retired, was nevertheless important as one of the standard-bearers of the German tradition in virtuoso solo violin playing, notably in the art of double-stopping. One should not reject the possibility that Bach heard him and was stimulated by techniques that were later reflected in his sonatas and partitas for solo violin. He is not supposed to have come in contact with equally important violinists until later when, for example in 1709, he became acquainted with J. Georg Pisendel (who was two years younger than Bach) and during his Leipzig period the concertmaster of the Dresden orchestra, Jean-Baptiste Volumier. Without being able to produce any proof, one would like to assume that at least the German tradition of violin playing embodied in Westhoff had just as formative an influence on Bach as the Torelli-Vivaldi school had later through Pisendel, since Westhoff was one of the last masters of that tradition, and Bach could hardly have acquired it from anyone else. Still another circumstance points in a similar direction. It is possible that as early as that time Italian music and concerted music was performed at the court of Prince Johann Ernst. It is known that the prince's younger son, also called Johann Ernst, distinguished himself later on as a composer of violin concertos in the Italian style. He died at the age of nineteen in 1715 and was only seven when Bach was in Weimar. Telemann published six of the concertos posthumously in 1718, and

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Bach arranged three as keyboard concertos (BWV 982, 984, 987), provided that the arrangements really stem from him. Naturally that can have happened only after 1708, during Bach's later sojurn there. We should, however, not exclude the possibility that he took part in chamber music and violin concertos of the Italian sort already in 1703 during his first stay at the princely court. Vivaldi's L'Estro armonico, printed in 1712, had been known in Germany since at least 1710 (according to Karl Heller, Die deutsche Vivaldi- Uberlieferung, 1965). In Leipzig in 1709 Pisendel played a concerto by Giuseppe Torelli in public. A few Vivaldi concertos spread around in manuscript could have been known in Weimar even before this; that is all the more to be assumed in the case of Torelli. The violin sonatas (op. 5) of Arcangelo Corelli appeared in print in 1700, the Concerti di Sonate (Op. 4) by Tommaso Antonio Vitali in 1701. It is therefore entirely plausible that as a young violinist Bach occupied himself with Italian chamber music in Weimar in 1703. If this assumption is correct then we would have to place Bach's introduction to Italian instrumental music (which was just emerging in Germany) in Weimar immediately after his confrontation with French music in Celle. This too is a hypothesis, albeit an illuminating one. A most recent discovery in the field of vocal music constitutes a striking parallel to this; more about this below. While the brief stay in Weimar in 1703 worked out very favorably for Bach in the area of chamber music, any sort of activity or study in the vocal sphere during these few months is manifestly out of the question. Reinhold Jauernig's supposition that Bach had written his first cantata for Weimar (Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Halle lassen, BWV 15) as early as Easter, 1703 has been invalidated by recent research; the piece, which has been shoved around quite a bit in the chronology of Bach's works, stems not from J. S. but from Ludwig Bach, as William H. Scheide has convincingly shown. The new organ at Arnstadt that Bach examined must have strongly attracted him; it was, in point of fact, the most beautiful instrument he, in an official position, ever had under his fingers. On the 9th of August 1703 he was officially installed, and remained as organist of the relatively small Arnstadt church until the 29th of June 1707, when he took his leave in due form. Here he had no other obligations than playing the organ. Even conducting a choir did not count among his immediate duties; nevertheless, he was expected to perform "pieces," i.e., concerted church music. He conducted at most only two years until he had a

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thorough falling out with the students. Added to these quarrels were the complaints from the consistory about his inordinately long interludes in the chorale and his accompaniment of congregational singing in the "tonus peregrinus" and "tonus contrarius." (In our terminology that means something like too bold a harmony and an unsettling use of chromaticism.) Then there was also the irritation of the same church officials over Bach's arbitrary extension of his leave when he journeyed in the winter of 1705-06 to Liibeck to hear Dietrich Buxtehude; and, finally, the reproach that Bach had allowed his cousin (and future wife) to sing in the church. The measure of patience that Bach could muster was never very great throughout his entire life: he resigned his post. It is precisely these four years in Arnstadt, however, that seem to have been particularly important for Bach's further development. In 1754, the necrology says:
Here [in Arnstadt] he actually revealed the first fruits of his industriousnessin the art of organ playing and composing which he had learned for the most part only through the examination of works by thorough composers famous at that time and through the application of his own powers of reflection. For the organ he took as his models the works of Bruhns, Reinken, Buxtehude, and a few good French organists.

We finally have some tangible evidence. It confirms that Bach studied the masters of the preceding generation (or generations), German and French (although among the Germans only north Germans are named), the "famous" and "thorough," i.e., the "strong fugue-writers" or strict contrapuntalists-as Philipp Emanuel called them in a letter to Forkel in 1775. It further confirms that he acquired his art through "examination"-we would say by analysis of his models-and through the "application of his own powers of reflection;" this expression should be interpreted to mean that he imitated his models and by his own efforts sought to transcend them. Philipp Emanuel, answering a question put to him by Forkel in 1775, said his father formed his tastes by adding his own efforts to the models; analysis and using his own powers of reflection should have made a "strong fugue-composer" out of him already in his youth. Both statements agree perfectly and hint at a thoroughgoing process of self-education. Here we also see for the first time his knowledge of French organ music documented; however, he could have acquired this knowledge only in Liineburg-Celle, certainly not in Weimar or Arnstadt. French music for the organ could hardly have been common at that time in the little cities and residences of middle Germany. Many scholars date Bach's organ fantasia in G major (BWV 572) from Arnstadt; that

J. S. Bach'sYouth

17

would tally with the statements of Philipp Emanuel since this work has its origin in an organ Mass by Fran?ois Couperin in the same key. The necrology mentions in one breath the report of Bach's further development in Arnstadt and the trip he made to Liibeck "in order to hear as many good organists as possible" and "[particularly] the famous organist there at the Marienkirche, Dietrich Buxtehude." Even here as in the case of the journeys to Hamburg and Celle, the report in the necrology is limited to one single purpose. While in Liibeck Bach probably "listened" to more than organ playing. On the 2nd and 3rd of December 1705 he most certainly heard the Castrum doloris, the mourning music for Emperor Leopold I, and the Templum honoris, the music in tribute to Emperor Joseph I, celebrated in the Marienkirche with extraordinary splendor. These were veritable operas commemorating the funeral as well as the new accession to the throne (G. Karstaidt, Die "extraordinairen" Abendmusiken, 1962). He was also no doubt interested in other things. Whether any sort of connection sprang up between the sixty-six-year-old Buxtehude and the Arnstadt organist, forty-six years his junior, whether Bach copied Buxtehude's compositions, or even played the organ in Liibeck is not known. The collection of texts of the "Abendmusiken" from the year 1700, which Carl Stiehl published in 1887, gives some idea of what Bach could have heard in the winter of 1705-06. He must have been most impressed by the splendor of these performances and by the pattern of the public concert in church, which had no parallel in the little cities of Thuringia. The brilliance of the "extraordinaire" evening musicales must have been indeed something "entirely new" to him. The rich possibilities and the elaborate instrumentation (see Karstaidt, ibid.) could not in any way be compared with what Arnstadt could offer. The musical potentialities of the German north were once more revealed to Bach in Liibeck just as they had been earlier in Liineburg. The picture gradually begins to take shape. Bach combined his private, independent study with the experience of hearing a recognized master and the wealth of stimulating ideas that a great north German city had to offer. Unfortunately the necrology does not reveal where he found the models to carry out his independent study in Arnstadt. There can hardly have been much material at his disposal in that modest little city. So far nothing about any stock of old music in Arnstadt has turned up. The two publications of the chapel inventory in Rudolstadt show, however, that even the smallest of Thuringian residences formerly had in

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their possession important archives (Bernd Baselt in Tradition und Aufgaben der Hallischen Musikwissenschaft, Halle 1963). The first part of this Rudolstadt inventory, which extends from 1697 to 1700, was brought to light in 1914 by Otto Kinkeldey in Denkmiiler Deutscher Tonkunst 46/47. The second part of this inventory, alone covering the years from 1714 to 1720, lists no less than 2640 individual compositions, primarily by German and Italian composers and almost exclusively from Bach's generation or the two preceding ones. The archives of this little residence had evidently built up a collection comparable to those in Liineburg, Liiheck, and Stockholm. Such mu:ic archives, also from other Thuringian cities and churches, have, if to a lesser extent, been discovered by checking inventories. Unfortunately Arnstadt is not among them. The counts of Schwarzburg-Arnstadt maintained a small musical establishment for the court. Karl Miiller (in Arnstidter Bach-Buch, 2/1957, in particular p. 65ff.) has very vividly shown just how modest it was. To be sure, when needed some twenty persons could be rounded up besides organists and cantors from Arnstadt and vicinity-teachers and pupils, court officials and employees all the way down to kitchen clerks and apprentices; the core of professional musicians, however, was very small. The theater and the musical theater were cultivated, "serenades," "operas" and "operettas" performed, and certainly Bach frequently took part as a performer, violinist, violist, or even as continuo player, if not perhaps also as composer. Karl Miller believes "with certainty" that we should take Bach's participation for granted. But not one note of all that music used at the Arnstadt court has been preserved, nor any inventory, not to mention any archive which Bach could have used to continue his studies. Again all questions pertaining to his formative years remain unresolved. All in all, those four years in Arnstadt seem, nevertheless, to have been that period in Bach's life in which he educated himself primarily as a composer. He was eighteen years old when he went to Arnstadt and twenty-two when he left, which is a normal age for a student in his field; no precocity or belated development is indicated. When Arnstadt no longer suited him, he made his trial performances on the organ at St. Blasius' in Miihlhausen, which was also built by J. Friedrich Wender. The contract with the council of the Free Imperial City was concluded on the 15th of June 1707, and Bach took up the post in September. Almost exactly one year later, on the 25th of June 1708, he handed in

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to the same council his resignation in which he tersely states that the Duke of Weimar had appointed him to his "court orchestra and chamber music." This petition for release was published for the first time just over a century ago by Carl Heinrich Bitter (1865). It is the earliest example, except for salary receipts, of Bach's handwriting that has come down to us and constitutes an invaluable document bearing on our knowledge of him. This piece of writing marks the end of the period of Bach's youth. By the age of twenty-three he had become a mature master. Like the few months Bach first spent in Weimar, the brief year in Miihlhausen was also very fruitful, and as at Arnstadt, his official duties here were limited to playing the organ for the church service. In Miihlhausen, however, he seems to have concerned himself much more with the performance of vocal music than in Arnstadt. The necrology is unfortunately silent about this, but Bach himself says in the resignation mentioned above that he had acquired from "far and wide" and at great expense "a good apparatus of the most select pieces of church music." That can only mean that he had sought out and purchased from a great variety of sources copies of such vocal-instrumental "pieces" in the style of the older church cantatas as were commonly known around 1700, and presumably like the ones he had studied at first hand in Liineburg. It is unlikely that he had industriously copied all that music while he was in Miihlhausen, as Charles Sanford Terry, Karl Miiller, and others assume. How is he supposed to have obtained his models there? Copied music was a common trade in those days. Bach probably had already bought the greatest part of this collection in Arnstadt; he would hardly have had time for such activity in one short year at Miihlhausen. He wrote further to the councilmen that he had had in his endeavors one "goal:" to put on "well-ordered performances of church music for the glory of God and according to your wishes." He said he had strongly desired to comply with the requirements of his appointment, but that it "could not be done without annoyances," and there was no prospect of an improvement in the situation. He went on to say that even in the surrounding villages church music was in some respects better than in Miihlhausen. In the meantime, he continued, he had received an offer from the Duke of Weimar which promised to realize his idea of "wellconceived church music without petty annoyances," and it was for that reason that he was requesting his release. Aside from a commission relating to the rebuilding of St. Blasius' organ, begun by the city council while Bach was in office, this document

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is the sole primary source for Bach's activity in Mliihlhausen. His phrase, "well-ordered performances of church music," has been very frequently misinterpreted; in fact, the entire letter and the circumstances surrounding Bach's departure have become a sort of legend. An unbiased interpretation of his petition reveals a very simple state of affairs. Bach wanted to put on normal "Music," i.e., cantata-like performances, for the services at St. Blasius', which is what the councilmen had hired him for. He spent much energy and money to fulfill this duty, but his intentions were hindered or made difficult by unfavorable conditions ("Widrigkeiten") and on top of that there were annoyances ("Verdriesslichkeiten"). What form these unfavorable conditions took is not said. C. H. Bitter back in 1865 read no more into Bach's statement than the endeavor to organize a kind of church music that would "correspond equally to the inner needs and outer forms of the divine service" (I, 73) : This would be the very natural effort of a highly talented and ambitious young musician who had just been called to a church post of some importance and wanted to make the best he could of it artistically. It remained for Spitta, writing eight years after Bitter, to becloud this simple set of facts by playing up as the cause of Bach's resignation the theological argument between Lutheran orthodoxy and Spener's Pietism, which was being fought out in Miihlhausen by two opposing pastors. Bach, he assumes, was drawn into the pulpit and pamphlet controversy, stood on the Lutheran side according to his education and belief, and since his superior at St. Blasius' was a Pietist, his position therefore became untenable, all the more so since the people of Miihlhausen were opposed to him anyway (I, 353f.). For almost a century Spitta's historical misconception has spirited its way, almost uncontested, through the literature on Bach, although there exists not the slightest proof of it. With all due respect to Spitta, his legend can be understood only if Bach is acknowledged to be already an orthodox Lutheran in his early period. Spitta's only support for this contention is the much overrated fact that the orthodox clergyman Eilmar was godfather to Bach's first child. Spitta read into the simple historical facts motives that were not there. Bach left Miihlhausen of his own accord apparently for the simple reason that the position in Weimar seemed more promising. He did not resign in the midst of discord, nor was he released with disfavor. There is no hint of his falling into squabbles with the people of Miihlhausen. There is no hint that he was ever interested in the disputes of the theologians.

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21

He and the city councilmen expressed their mutual respect. The council even requested his continued collaboration on the reconstruction of the organ which was just begun. They did even more; they commissioned Bach in 1709, when he was already in Weimar, to write a second cantata for the inauguration of the new city council. Bach delivered the composition and the council had both words and music printed just as they had the first one he wrote in 1708. Unfortunately, it has disappeared; we do not even know its title. Bach came to Miihlhausen in 1709 either to direct the performance or to hear it, and the council paid him for the composition and traveling expenses. Later in 1735 Bach in a letter to a Miihlhausen resident still remembered gratefully the "faveurs" he had enjoyed during his tenure there, signing the letter: "J. S. Bach, formerly organist at St. Blasius' in Miihlhausen." It can hardly be a question then of Bach's turning his back on the Free Imperial City because of his annoyance at the unpleasant pulpit disputations or any irritation with the council or people of the town. The only thing that remains are the "annoyances" with the cantata performances. It is high time for the Spitta legend to disappear from the literature on Bach; it has caused enough mischief. What attracted Bach to Weimar was probably a combination of artistic and economic reasons. As was the case with all the young and ambitious musicians of his generation, he considered the court position as a rise in his social status; at any rate it meant an economic improvement for him. Added to that was no doubt the sincere desire to be able to carry out his plan of "well-ordered church music" at the Weimar court. He was at first certainly disappointed in this, for he was not asked to compose cantatas until six years later. Prior to that time we do not hear of any performances. However that may be, these questions no longer belong to thP theme "the youthful Bach." With Weimar begins the period of mastery. Ail in all it is a rather scant yield that can be gleaned from the documents of Bach's life. The question posed earlier "Where did Bach get all that" is met with assumptions, conjecture, hypotheses, and not much else. If one tries to place Bach's works chronologically alongside the biographical documents and raises the same question, he will quickly see that they do not contribute much to a clearer picture of his youthful development. One falls immediately into a maze. What do we actually know of Bach's early creative work? Very little, and of this little almost nothing with certainty. That is the case for Liineburg from 1700

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to 1702 or 1703, for the first stay in Weimar in 1703 and also for Arnstadt from 1703-07. The first definite dates begin with Miihlhausen in 1707/08 and even they are still very sparse. The number of surviving vocal compositions from Bach's early period is very small. The cantata, Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Hille lassen (BWV 15) has to be eliminated, as mentioned above, from Bach's oeuvre. There is not one single vocal work that can be dated before Miihlhausen. At least two cantatas definitely have their origin in Miihlhausen, both for the opening sessions of the couin in 1708 and 1709. cil Gott ist mein K6nig (BWV 71), the cantata for 1708, survives, the one for 1709 is known only from documents. Both were, moreover, the only ones of Bach's many cantatas that appeared in print during his lifetime. The cantata Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dlir (BWV 131) also belongs indisputably to Miihlhausen; the autograph copy of the score says expressly that it was set to music "at the request" of the orthodox pastor Eilmar "by J. S. Bach, Organista Mulhosino." Eilmar had put together the texts of the two council election cantatas; he could possibly have been the author of the text to Cantata 131 also. The libretto to Cantata 106, the famous Actus tragicus, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, is perhaps also by him. It is not known when the Actus tragicus was composed. Present research generally considers it funeral music for a relative of Maria Barbara's and therefore dates it in the year 1707. Whoever may have second thoughts about connecting the work with the death of Bach's wealthy uncle L~immerhirt in Erfurt has to admit that the stylistic evidence corresponds perfectly to this period and that a more suitable date cannot be found. It is very probable that the cantata i)er IHerr denket an uns (BWV 196) belongs here likewise for stylistic and biogeaphical reasons; it is the wedding cantata for Pastor Stauber who had recently married Sebastian and Barbara Bach in Dornheim near Arnstadt; perhaps it was a token of gratitude on Bach's part since his marriage fee had been waived. We must add to these four surviving cantatas possibly a fifth one for Miihlhausen: Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWVV 4), a piece that has been much shuffled around in the chronology of Bach's works. For stylistic reasons it has to be set at a very early time but there is not a shred of evidence for the exact date, place, or occasion of its origin. That is all of the vocal compositions that can be placed with certainty, probability, or conjecture in the period of Bach's youth, and all of these pieces fall in the closing year of this period. Any conclusions

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about Bach's development that result from this can be quickly drawn. Bach knew the style of the older church cantatas by masters such as Buxtehude, Schelle, J. Ph. Krieger, Fbrtsch, Liibeck, Bohm, Bruhns, perhaps also by Pachelbel or Kuhnau, and he utilized types established by them; this is precisely the material that he could have become acquainted with from the Liineburg archive. The strict variation technique in Cantata 4, the formal concentration and the affecting expressiveness of Cantata 106, the festive brilliance of 71, all this shows a perfect mastery of this genre and a power of invention that far surpasses the models although it still does not reveal at the outset any real originality. Some cantatas, like 131 and 196 for example, border very closely on the old vocal concerto. Number 4 is a tremendously skillful resuscitation of the already half-forgotten chorale variation "per omnes versus," as it was practised primarily by north Germans such as Tunder and Buxtehude, but also by such south Germans as Pachelbel. 71 and 106 are scriptural cantatas interspersed with "madrigalian" verses and chorale stanzas. The type called "ode cantata" in its different variant forms, i.e., the cantata that is set essentially to one continuous poem, is not yet to be found among Bach's works. Lacking above all is any touch of Italian forms or technical devices. There is no recitative, no da capo arias, no bel canto melodies and no virtuoso concertante instruments. Even the textual basis for such, the so-called Neumeister type, is still totally lacking, although Erdmann Neumeister's first series of cantata librettos (Geistliche Kantaten statt einer Kirchenmusik, 1704) had already appeared in print and had been passed around earlier in manuscript form. In this respect Bach's earliest cantatas, viewed as evolutionary history, do not measure up to those by some of the older composers (Kuhnau, Zachow). On the other hand the Bachian "accent" is already recognizable in numerous movements. The force of his melody and harmony, the sturdy drama of the scenes, the compressed density of the part-writing, the contrapuntal webbing with chorales, and the numerous appearances of symmetrical arrangements reveal the hand of the twenty-three-year-old master. One sees clearly where he came from in spite of the small number of surviving compositions, and one has an inkling of the primal power of his personality. Shortly thereafter in Weimar his contact with Italian vocal music must have engendered the spark which decisively kindled Bach's further path of development. Of the greatest importance in this regard is a comment made recently by Bernhard Paumgartner (Osterreichische Musikzeitschrift, spe-

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cial number, October, 1966). The famous chaconne theme which forms the basis of the first movement of Bach's cantata W'einen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (BWV 12) and which later turns up as the Crucifixus in the B minor Mass, stems from a secular cantata of an amorous nature by Vivaldi. Even the first line of Bach's text, "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen . . ." is patterned after the original: "Piango, gemo, sospiro e peno ..." The opening movement of Cantata 12 thus constitutes a textual-musical parody of Vivaldi's chamber cantata. Since Bach, however, composed this cantata on the 22nd of April 1714 (according to Diirr), by that time he must have been familiar with vocal works of Vivaldi, as well as instrumental concertos. Paumgartner fixes the date of his Florentine source at around 1710. Up to now no other example of such close imitation of an Italian model has been found among Bach's cantatas composed in Weimar. Even if one is never found, it remains incontestable that it was here in Weimar, between 1709 and 1714 that a strong stream of Italian music flowed into Bach's style, a stream which was to shape his later work so decisively. The yield in the instrumental sphere is much more meager. Even if the vocal works from the final year of Bach's youthful period did allow us to draw a few conclusions about his studies in the early years, in the case of the instrumental works we are stabbing in the dark. There are no surviving chamber pieces or orchestral works that dould belong to the early period; only music for keyboard instruments is available to choose from (the difference between works written for the organ or for harpsichord or clavichord is not considerable enough for the purposes of this study). It is nevertheless this genre that presents us with enormous difficulties. The fact that a great number of the pieces we might examine survive in various versions so that one hardly knows which to consider original, which is of a later date, and which is an arrangement by Bach or someone else, is forbidding enough. More troublesome, however, is that there is, among the keyboard music that might possibly be dated in the early period, not one piece handed down to us in a primary source, i.e., in Bach's own handwriting or even in a copy by one of his sons. Everything that could belong to the early period comes from sources twice or thrice removed, copies by pupils or by pupil's pupils from the late 18th or even from the 19th century. Closely related is the third and perhaps greatest difficulty, the question of authenticity. What is really by Bach and what is not? Anyone who uses the thematic index by Wolfgang Schmieder (BWV) finds long rows of keyboard and organ compositions

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with the note "authenticity doubtful;" there are certainly many more that deserve this appellation. Here is a small sample of "free" pieces (i.e., without cantus firmus) which according to Schmieder are of doubtful authenticity: 553-560 561 567 571 576 580 591 Eightlittle preludesand fugues Fantasiaand fuguein a in Praeludium C Fantasiain G Fuguein G Fuguein D the so called "Little harmoniclabyrinth"

In addition to Schmieder's findings the following pieces can also be considered doubtful for various reasons: 563 566 574 579 581 583-585 Fantasiain b Toccatain E (C) afterVincentLiibeck Fuguein c afterLegrenzi Fuguein b afterCorelli Fuguein G Three organtrios.

The organ trio (BWV 586) in any case is by Telemann. Karl Tittel (Bach-Jahrbuch, 1966) has disproved the long supposed authorship of Johann Ludwig Krebs for the trio BWV 585, but also puts Bach's strongly in doubt. His extensive examination of the well-known eight little preludes and fugues also yields uncertain results but it misleads him to a false conclusion (p. 123): one should not say that "we probably have to allow Bach's authorship to stand for the time being until further proof is found." On the contrary, in view of the weakness of the pieces, we can not uphold Bach's authorship so long as there is not one irrefutable bit of evidence in its favor. Karl Straube bestowed upon these beloved pieces the friendly epithet: "From the workshop of the master." Perhaps we should let the matter lie there for the present. The list of pieces based on chorales which Schmieder designates as doubtful is even longer. Of the twenty-four chorale elaborations listed under Bach's name in the Kirnberger collection, at least seven are not by Bach but by such composers as Walther, Krebs, Johann Bernhard Bach, and so on. Among the twenty-seven surviving in scattered sources (BWV 714-740) at least five are not by Bach. Schmieder's list from number 741 to 765 bears the questioning remark "youthful works, doubtful fragmentary pieces;" of these twenty-five probably not one is by Bach.

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Even the partitas Ach, was soll ich Siinder machen (BWV 770) and Allein Gott in der Hih sei Ehr (BWV 771) are greatly disputed; the latter no doubt has as its sole possible author Andreas Nikolaus Vetter. If one takes up the works written expressly for harpsichord or clavichord, the picture becomes no clearer. The keyboard suites BWV 820, 821, 822, 823, 824, and 832, for example, are certainly all spurious, not to mention the many individual preludes, fugues, etc. In brief, all of this which survives under the name of J. S. Bach amounts first of all to an impenetrable jungle. In spite of all the effort, scholarly research has up to now not succeeded in doing anything more than clarify a few isolated cases, for example by finding out that an alleged Bach composition appears in a better source under the name of another composer. Even the reports of Bach's "cousin and friend" Johann Gottfried Walther, the highly learned collector from Weimar, theoretician, organist, and composer, lexicographer and historian, who stood in close contact with Bach from 1708 on, do not help us along. He writes much later (6 August 1729) to his friend Heinrich Bokemeyer that he had in his possession over two hundred organ pieces by Buxtehude and Bach, "some in Buxtehude's own hand," and the pieces of Bach "by the author himself, who had been court organist here for nine years" (Schiinemann in Bach-Jahrbuch, 1933, p. 99). That means nothing more than that Walther had in 1729 a great deal of Bach's organ works in his possession, apparently in the original. There is, however, nothing to suggest that any of the compositions date back to the preWeimar period. It is precisely during the Weimar years that Bach no doubt composed by far the greatest number of his organ works, and much of that was further circulated by Walther's manuscript collection. That'was known anyway, but Walther's statement gives no hint of a probable early dating of any organ piece by Bach. There is still an infinite amount of pioneering work to be done here before we can even determine the genuine from the spurious, not to speak of the late from the early. The results of three recent attempts to arrange the early organ works of Bach chronologically were founded in part on biographical sources, in part on stylistic considerations, and in part on examinations of the organs that Bach played on, of their tonal properties, or on Bach's pedal technique. One may say, however, in summary, that up to now not a single unequivocal result has been attained. The table clearly shows how greatly the datings diverge. Even the

Tentative chronologyof the early organ works

compiled from: W. Schmieder, BWV; H. Klotz, "Bachs Orgeln und seine Orgelmus Die Musikforschung III, 1950, 189-203); Ernest ZavarskV,"Zum Pe des jungen Bach" (ibid., XVIII, 1965, 370-378).

O: Ohrdraf; Liineburg; A: Arnstadt; M: Miihlhausen; W: Weim Chorale settings BWV 700 705 715 718 720 Peters VII 55 VI 21 IX 14 VI 15 VI 22 BWV Vom Himmel hoch Duch Adams Fall (genuine?) Allein Gott in der H6h Christ lag in Totesbanden Ein feste Burg

721 722 723 724 729 732 734 735a 737 738 739

V VI VI V V VII VII V IX

Anh. 1 23 25 Anh. 3 Anh. 6 44 53 Anh. 7 22

Erbarm dich mein (genuine?) Gelobet seist du, Jesu Gelobet seist du, Jesu Gottes Sohn ist kommen In dulci jubilo Lobt Gott, ihr Christen Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein Valet will ich dir geben Vater unser im Himmelreich Vom Himmel hoch Wie sch6n leuchtet (genuine?)

W W A L W 1709 (for the in Miih L A

A A A A A A

Chorale partitas 766 767 768 770 771 V V V IX Christ, der du bist der helle Tag O Gott, du frommer Gott Sei gegriisset, Jesu (source?) Ach, was soll ich Siinder machen Allein Gott in der Hih (= A. N. Vetter) L? O? L? O? L? O? L

Compositions without chorale IV 1 531 IV 3 532 533 III 10 535 III 5 IV 5 549 IV 2 550 551 565 566 568 569 572 574 III IV III VIII IV IV IV 9 4 7 11 33 11 6

Prelude and Fugue, C Prelude and Fugue, D Prelude and Fugue, e Prelude and Fugue, g Prelude and Fugue, c Prelude and Fugue, G Prelude and Fugue, a Toccata and Fugue, d Toccata and Fugue, E (C) Prelude and Fugue, G Prelude and Fugue, a Fantasia, G (after Couperin) Fugue, c (after Legrenzi)

W? L? W? A? W? A? W? A? A? L? W? A? A? L? W? A? A M? L? W? A? W? A? W? L?

Keyboard compositions (excluding organ) 992 993 Capriccio sopra la lontananza Capriccio in honorem J. Christoph Bachii

A 1704 A 1704L

J. S. Bach's Youth

29

chorale partitas, which ever since Spitta have been looked upon as very early, are placed, in so far as they are authentic, by Schmieder in Liineburg or even Ohrdruf, by Klotz in Miihlhausen or Weimar, by Zavarsky in Liineburg; certainly all of this is done with good reason but in the end without any conclusive evidence. Among the little organ chorales, or chorale preludes, there are only two that are dated in Bach's Arnstadt period by both Schmieder and Klotz, and approximately a dozen so dated by at least one of the two scholars. In the case of the compositions without chorale, opinions are still more widely divergent. The dating of only one piece, the prelude and fugue in C minor (BWV 549, Peters IV, No. 5), is agreed upon by all writers, Schmieder, Klotz, and Zavarsky; they all place it in the Arnstadt period. In all other cases the opinions vacillate between Liineburg, Arnstadt, and Weimar. Among the possibly early keyboard pieces Schmieder places the capriccio on the departure of Bach's brother Jakob (BWV 992) for biographical reasons around 1704 in Arnstadt, and the capriccio in honor of his oldest brother Johann Christoph (BWV 993) also 1704 in Arnstadt, but thinks Liineburg no less possible for this latter piece. Biographical considerations would suggest the beginning of the century; in the end, however, the authenticity of BWV 993 is very questionable. Suite 992 is so uncharacteristic of Bach that conclusions cannot be drawn even if the dating is accurate. In the field of keyboard music the question of the authenticity and chronology of numerous scattered preludes, fantasias, toccatas, fugues, fughettas, sonatas, etc., still remains completely unsettled. As to instrumental music, the knowledge of how Bach's works have come down to us helps even less in answering the question "Where did he acquire everything?" than it did in the field of vocal music. There is not one surviving vocal work from the years before 1707/08, and among the instrumental works there is little that can be dated before 1707; even that is only hypothetical and hardly characteristic. What can one conclude from this? Either that Bach composed very little in his youth-and this is highly improbable and contradicts the statement in the necrology-or that his early efforts did not seem to him to be worth saving. The move to Weimar must have constituted a turning point in Bach's own self-awareness. It is well to observe that the great number of works that have been preserved since 1709 come down to us not through accidental channels but mainly as a result of Bach's own careful concern. It seems that ever since 1709 he himself began collecting everything that seemed valuable to him, and he later

30

The Musical Quarterly

used and reworked this material again and again. With due caution one would like to conclude from this that he himself looked upon his earlier years as a beginning, an elementary stage, thought very little of the products of those years, perhaps even suppressed those "first fruits of his labor" that (according to Philipp Emanuel) he had harvested in Arnstadt. If it should turn out this way, it would mean a break with the long tradition of the Baroque in which numerous composers were accustomed to make a particular show of the "first fruits of their labor." Disdain and suppression of early works is the sign of romantic composers. Let that be as it may, at any rate the little that we do know of Bach's youth proves that he did not fall from heaven a full-fledged master, but that during his youth he had to make honest efforts and that, like almost all great musicians in history, he combined his own studies with everything tradition had handed down to him and with all that he had sought to adopt and improve with "his own powers of reflection." How this self-study was carried out and which served as Bach's immediate models can only be surmised, and in that we have hardly progressed any further than Spitta eighty years ago. Spitta's assumptions were focused on a small group of older composers who were nothing more in Spitta's eyes than "forerunners," low rungs on the ladder. Today we take into consideration a far larger group of composers who appear to us to be masters in their own right and great artists of an earlier time, whom Bach himself respected and emulated. The recognition of other musicians and the great esteem paid them is a fine character trait running throughout Bach's entire life and work. In his final years this trait is particularly evident. He never felt that he was the "consummator" of "forerunners," even if he actually was. In his youth he had fitted himself into the endless chain of masters before him, became himself a link in this chain and so remained up to the very end; a musician among musicians. How Bach fits into the chain remains a mystery to us; the answer no doubt lies in Bach's nature. There are no accidents in the development of a genius, everything is imperative. From ancestry comes talent, from a modest but potentially active coincidence of life's circumstances, from an insight into the possible and from a sure grasp toward the necessary, from all this grows the extraordinary, the mastery of the mature Johann Sebastian Bach. (Translated by Wilburn W. Newcomb)