The Practical and Personality Conflicts of J. S. Bach in Leipzig 1730
Author: Peter Metcalf (April-June 2008)

Introduction

“Your Most Serene Highness, Most Mighty King and Elector, Most Gracious Master!”

So begins a letter by Johann Sebastian Bach to August the Strong, King of Saxony, asking him to intervene on his behalf in a quarrel he had with the town council concerning his job description and compensation as Cantor and Music Director at St. Thomas’ Church in Leipzig.ⁱ An assumption of consensus regarding the hiring of Bach would be correct, but it was a matter of the third best solution for two factions of the council representing conflicting interest groups.ⁱⁱ Council members had enormous stakes in decisions, both emotional (“ideological”) and practical, being major participants in those conflicting interest groups. For this and other reasons to be discussed, Bach was at the outset in a disadvantaged position with respect to job fulfillment. An exploration and possible understanding of Bach’s response to this situation as it evolved into conflicts, internal and external is the topic for this paper’s discussion.

Recognizing that all individuals make choices, best perceived through their actions, based on, and more importantly, derived from the deepest, often hidden personal imperatives, I will nonetheless discuss some of the circumstances of Bach’s life and times so as to provide additional perspective from which Bach’s actions, as evidenced by documents and his letters, and his choice of musical form, venue, or even expression, may be understood.

Leipzig was during Bach’s lifetime (as now) a city of great wealth when compared with other Saxon urban centers. Since the 12^th century it was the site of trade fairs owing to its being situated at the crossroads of important trade routes.ⁱⁱⁱ And, it was a city whose population was in transition – from accepting and living in a social order based on the feudal or estate system of socioeconomics, to one where an electoral government was being trusted more and more, i.e., given by citizens more and more authority to make decisions affecting their lives in areas that formerly provided fertile ground for evolution of the feudal system.

Thus, one faction of the Leipzig town council held power in and valued the traditional system of estates that evolved from the feudal system. Although in 1713 the Prussian King Frederick William I eliminated the legal status of the aristocracy,^iv old traditions and institutions die hard. Nobility were still raised to assume roles in governing and manipulating virtually all aspects of citizens’ lives, often now via positions created by the reforms imposed by Frederick the Great after the 30 Years’ War, and through the influence they still manifested (overtly, of course) by occupying other positions in significant economic and social institutions. Individuals on the council thus influenced society by simultaneously holding executive positions in the judicial system; churches and governance of associated schools (such as the Thomasschule where Bach taught music upon his being hired as Cantor and which was associated with St. Thomas’ Church); and taxation, and by equally effective less formal means outside of public administration.^v Needless to say, this was an archconservative group. The other faction was derived from the middle class, through appointment by the king. (Merchants were extremely useful to the court, as they played such a prominent role in its wealth and viability – funding Frederick the Great’s army – and were particularly successful in Leipzig, a city of tremendous commercial successes.^vi Eligibility for council membership was inherited.

Each faction had a stake in the appointment of Cantor because of its very public symbolic and practical significance: Church was central not only to much of the population’s religious life, but also played a major role in the social and business dynamics of Leipzig. Furthermore, the cantor was responsible for the teaching of youth, which in this as in most other societies in transition, represented an array of educational choices to be proscribed and prescribed. The position was also significant because the cantor was responsible for composing and selecting the church music in this city of religious folk holding and acting upon two extremely strong and opposed values: traditional church music, represented to an extent by Bach, and music that was more operatic and accommodated modern tastes, represented by Telemann. The split in the council also was demonstrated in the priority given to teaching vs. music making. One might judge by reviewing minutes of meetings, public statements, and other documentation, that teaching was not simply the highest, but the only priority for the conservative faction. Opposing this intention, creation of a municipal music director or “Kapellmeister” (courtly musician in this city without a royal court) unencumbered from teaching obligations was the strong – we could say, energetic – aspiration of the liberal faction.^vii Prior to Bach’s appointment, the council had resolved their differences by hiring musicians who were able and willing to fulfill both tasks. Neither Bach nor Telemann (nor two other of the last round of candidates for the position of Cantor) would teach other than music if hired. Telemann and others were the preferred candidates, for the same reason that symphony orchestras today desire a well known conductor – to enhance orchestra prestige and accomplishment of other musical goals, not all of which depend on musicianship or musical skill.

When seen in terms of factional preferences, the details of how Bach was eventually chosen reveal that the musical basis of his employment was simply a criterion of lower priority. Bach can then be understood as a cog in the political machinery of two factions, neither of which was particularly pleased with his appointment. Hiring Bach was the best solution achieved by a council that could not have what it wanted either in terms of reputation and attending “modern” musicianship, or in terms of ability and willingness to teach subjects other than music.

According to protocol, the selection process allowed each faction opportunity to present its own candidate. The oft quoted statement of councilman Platz in reference to Bach, “since the best man cannot be obtained, mediocre ones will have to be accepted,”^viii was made so as to suggest that no worthwhile candidates were being considered, therefore the search must be continued. This would have allowed the conservative faction to yet gain a candidate who would be an academic instructor. The results of the council meetings were not only open to discussion outside the meeting room, they were published in the newspaper^ix. Thus, there was a significant public that would not accept a new Cantor if it was known that a superior one had applied. Deriving authority by the acceptance or trust of a public deeply interested in the music of their lives,¹ councilmen were held accountable. Already, we see that the conservative faction was being influenced (or facing loss of prestige if they were not so influenced) by the public, and most interestingly, this concerned a musical issue. But this was politics, and in this case, the stake for the conservative faction was preservation of a way of life in apparent transition to another. The remark obviously was as well an indication of the dissatisfaction which conservatives had with their inability to win this round of political sparring.

Thus, the groundwork for dissatisfaction on the part of Bach and both factions was laid even earlier than the death of Kuhnau, the previous cantor.^x This groundwork was an integral part of the change of social consciousness that surfaced most conspicuously a century earlier with Martin Luther’s affirmation of the worth of the common man when he led the Reformation of the Catholic Church. It is ironic that with respect to the consciousness of those embracing and promoting the emerging separation of church and state, Bach was still a common man. He had not the reputation of Telemann and was not well traveled as was his contemporary Handel. Until his employment by the Leipzig town council, his work history was confined to churches and out of the way or minor secular positions. And in his job search he felt the disadvantage of his lack of the same education possessed by those who employed him, and desired such an education for his children.^xi

It would be reasonable to assume that Bach did not appreciate the significance of the politics he faced, or more precisely, the politics in which he participated wittingly or unwittingly while securing the position of Cantor at St. Thomas’ in Leipzig.

Nor, with one notable exception,^xii was he always appreciated for who he was. As we shall see, this was a central factor in Bach’s life with regard to his choice of musical activities and efforts, culminating during his last two decades in Leipzig in both the radical and phenomenal music he composed and in his conflicts with his employer and others.

Of course, everyone likes to be appreciated. For one such as Bach, an extraordinarily creative, spiritually passionate (albeit not always as a Lutheran of the sect most apt to endear him and his music to an employer), musical genius whose music was bound to cross into unfamiliar territory, ² this response or none at all for his compositions and improvising started at least as early as age 21.^xiii At that time he was employed as organist at New Church in Arnstadt. Even when he appeared to be very appreciated, as acts convey more than words or titles, he discovered and bore the consequences of political or despotic values in his employers, as occurred at his next job as court organist³ in Weimar, when he was not named successor Kapellmeister at the court of Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxony. Since he was promoted to the position of concertmaster (Bach was also a violinist) six years after being hired and had been taking over the duties of the current and aging Kapellmeister, he was presumably expecting the job when old Drese died.

Bach’s coming upon or discovery of – as the case may be – indifference and worse, regarding not only his music, but his effort, his worth, was an occurrence that he experienced over and over in his professional life. The only employer of Bach about whom we are certain did appreciate him is Prince Leopold, whom Bach left because the prince married a woman who did not care for music, and Bach’s talents and skills were not manifesting through performance.

Bach’s experience of other employers’ lack of receptivity to his music is evident not only in church documents, but also in his own writing of the letter to Erdmann, wherein he writes wistfully of his employment at Cöthen: “There I had a gracious Prince, who both knew and loved music, and in whose service I intended to spend the rest of my life.”^xiv This is a profound statement. He writes “I had a gracious Prince” rather than “I was employed by…” This is a mark of close friendship, of fulfillment, of longing for that combination of livelihood and music that he once knew.

Given his reluctant, at times pugnacious unwillingness to let go of an insult or abuse without satisfactory resolution or some kind of personal satisfaction (as, for example, in his dealings with the church referred to in the opening letter to King, resolution of which he never received, so far as can be ascertained through documents), and of course having the sensitivity to emotional hurt that frequently accompanies brilliance – certainly in a musician – the response to his music, which was after all, himself, and to his sense of self worth vis-à-vis his contributions, was bound to be a major factor, perhaps the only one, motivating Bach to once again in 1730, seek a job with an employer who appreciated, or better still, truly appreciated him.⁴

Thus, Bach was ever again a man outside the establishments of his day and cultural milieu, both secular and religious. Some people survive or create for themselves a comfortable or even fulfilling life by currying favor or simply performing the requirements of a job, ignoring aspects of it that, sooner or later, would for Bach be motivation to move on. But Bach from an early, early age, manifested not only musical talent, but the actions that would bring it to greatest fulfillment.⁵ It was not a question of changing his path or devoting energy to the public issues of his day, which might have gained him favor with one or the other social movements. The question for Bach was, given his musical path and priorities as a householder, how to bring himself to fulfillment.

Being an outsider with respect to institutions and conservative establishments could only have exacerbated the sensitivity or impatience Bach exhibited on occasion when confronted with others’ musical disapproval or lack of appreciation for his natural outpouring, an outpouring so far beyond what any reasonable person – rather, far, far beyond what any musician, let alone lay person of the time, could have imagined or executed. In this⁶, Bach shares much with other musical geniuses. But given his “outsider” social status, when he is confronted with someone who not only insults him, but does it publicly, as did the St. Thomas Rector J. A. Ernesti in so many ways – forbidding students to act according to Bach’s requests in the context of rehearsing, for example – it hit an already raw nerve.^{7 xv}

Bach’s personal friend and favorite benefactor/employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, died in November 1728. Bach was requested by the prince’s court to “attend to the funeral music”. He composed the music, BWV 224a, Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt, for double chorus (as usual, utilizing for some movements portions of his other music, in this instance, the St. Matthew Passion and a funeral ode written two years earlier) which was performed for the interment of his friend March 23, 1729, and for the sermon the next day. This is just two days after Bach’s birthday. The music was reported to have been extremely moving.^xvi

The emotional impact of all this on Bach, 43 at the time, who traveled with his wife and son to Cöthen, a carriage journey of perhaps two days that must have taken him back ten years, was certainly significant. Loss through death has effects on account of and beyond grief, common to individuals having a special affection for someone who is bound to die, some day. Among these is heightened awareness of one’s own mortality, understandably often accompanied by a host of emotional experiences and memories that generate insights, observations, conclusions, and/or confusions, and perhaps ultimately, wisdom.

The specific consequences of realizing the fact of death (anew, as Bach had lost many children) is dependant on the personality, which will to varying degrees be responsive to external circumstances. In some, it will create what appears to be aggressive and impatient behavior out of proportion to a “normal” or average response to a disturbance. In others, it could be depression. Regardless of circumstance, I have yet to hear or read of Bach demonstrating symptoms likened to those of depression. Anger, yes. Impatience, yes.

When Prince Leopold died, Bach may have been approaching the limit to his tolerance and patience, as well as their counterpart: frustration. He may have as well experienced a sense of loss of power created by his knowledge that despite having done everything humanly possible, he still failed to provide for himself a new source for those ingredients of life that so fulfilled him musically, and which he lost when the prince married a woman who cared not for music and to whom Bach later referred as Amusa, Latin for “being without a muse.” ^xvii

Two months after the funeral and accompanying vivid recollections of the life Bach once enjoyed in Prince Leopold’s court, Bach was dealing with inadequate resources for his chorus, for which he was expected to compose church music for each Sunday, and in addition, coping with the church, who found fault in him. Bach’s response as usual was to attempt, and fail, at recreating as best he could the idyllic circumstances of his employment with Prince Leopold, including factors both of compensation and musical resources. He wrote letters not once, but multiple times, to the king concerning compensation,^xviii and wrote multiple letters to the church concerning lack of resources and funding for music. ^xix (For examples of each issue, see endnote^xx).

Following are just a few of the many other strains on Bach between 1726 and 1739:

1726 Jan. – Bach received a denial letter from the king concerning his request for royal intercession in order to claim the traditional privilege accorded to the Cantor, (abrogated by Gormer, another organist, prior to Bach’s employment at St. Thomas’), of being the one and only organist for gigs at the church. This was four months after Bach made his request, and was his final attempt to resolve the situation after a year of effort.^xxi

1738 May – Bach felt compelled to ask town authorities not to hold him responsible for the acts

and behavior of his 23 year old son Johann Gottfried Bernhard, who had fled to Sangerhaussen, 70 miles away, in order to escape paying his debts (or face consequences). ^xxii

1739 May – The death of Johann Gottfried, who had returned home, was, if not outwardly, then inwardly an emotional roller coaster for Bach, who must have been very happy with his son’s choosing to face the challenges at home, and had even enrolled in the university. A terrible blow.

Whether or not Bach was aware of these emotions and impulses, it is unlikely that he would be less than human in his response, nor beyond ordinary human responses. He was affected, and it did color his experience of life; the question is how. If one assumes that this experience was one of many having a cumulative effect on Bach’s personality and consciousness, as would be typical for a person under tremendous strain, then it is plain that he would eventually express his distress in ways that did not serve his presumed objectives.

What might this expression be towards church employers who complained about the lack of music while refraining from giving Bach the resources he needed for effective music making and for composing works that were for him, inspiring? How did Bach respond to his church employer who found fault with his reluctance to teach academics – an activity for which he was ill suited and which necessarily sacrificed time in his extremely busy life,⁸ time for family, teaching, time that could be used fulfilling his truest and most worthwhile gift to humanity? Can there be a more frustrating employment/social interaction for one such as he?

Give Bach the resources, an appreciative ear, and respect, and he will play, and

write…the Brandenburg Concerti (for which Prince Leopold was his audience and producer); the Clavier-Ǜbung, which included the Italian concerto for unaccompanied harpsichord and French Overture, either of which may have been composed while he resided in the court of Prince Leopold, and which Bach published anticipating that those who valued his music would of course buy the volume of clavier works, come to hear more of his music, become his private students, etc.); and the concerti for orchestra and harpsichords (based on Vivaldi violin concerti, and which debuted at the Musik-verein described below). In the context of composition, Bach’s creativity was never for himself up to the time of his letter to Erdmann indicating he wanted a new job (1730). Bach wrote music for his livelihood and for friends, family, and that special area of social interaction and livelihood which is something of a hybrid of friends and family – his students, or he wrote in hope for or anticipation of a receptive audience.

Thus during the years 1726-1739 he wrote not only sacred cantatas and shorter pieces for services at two of the four churches in Leipzig for which music he was responsible, but also completed in 1738 his longest orchestral/choral work, the B minor mass. Despite the mass not having been commissioned or composed for a specific occasion (so far as is known), as the Bach scholar Spitta remarks, Bach was not one to write a piece “simply to bury it unheard”.^xxiii As is evident through documents, from Spitta’s writing, and from that of other Bach scholars, Bach was ever aware of and wanting to be prepared for moving into the mainstream of musical life, which came to mean secular musical life not long after the beginning of his employment in Leipzig. ^xxiv

The combined congregations of the two main churches for which Bach wrote totaled about 3,000 people; total attendance at all four churches under Bach’s musical supervision was about 9,000 in a population of 30,000.^xxv Bach therefore had ample reason to be prepared with a stunning piece. Not surprisingly, considering the issues his employers had with him, and he with they, he also had an interest in working in Dresden, which was far less conservative and unlike Leipzig, did not shut down their opera house for religious reasons! The B Minor Mass did make it to Dresden in 1733 prior to its completion (1738) in the form of two movements, the Kyrie and Gloria, the music to which Bach sent the new king as an introduction to his merits, his worth. No job offer was forthcoming from Dresden.

Bach did find two areas of musical joy, unconstrained by church dictates and free of the dissatisfaction of broken contracts and lack of appreciation: one was in the Musik-verein (music club), established by Telemann while a student at the university. In 1729 Bach joined as conductor and of course composer for this group welcoming university student instrumentalists from anywhere, who tended to be more advanced players than those associated with the churches of Bach’s employ. Was this related to the loss and remembrance of his “gracious Prince”? Bach writes in a letter sent to his colleague and friend Wecker, “P.S. The latest is that the dear Lord has now also provided for honest Mr. Schott, and bestowed on him the post of Cantor in Gotha; wherefore he will say his farewells next week, as I am willing to take over his Collegium.”^{xxvi 9} This letter was sent March 20, 1729, three days prior to the funeral of the prince. Bach wrote a number of masterpieces for performance in this venue, including the concerti for harpsichord.

According to Spitta, this is to be distinguished from the Collegium Musica, which was conceived and established by Zehmisch in 1741 as an alternative musical society to promote secular concerts for the general population; its activities were supported by dues and its membership welcomed any fine artists to perform. The society was a success from its first concert, and grew to supplant the university verein which Bach conducted; Bach resigned from the group prior to 1747, by which time it was conducted by Gerlach. This society by the way, still meets – it is the Gwandhaus Concert. ^xxvii

The other area of musical freedom for Bach was the Zimmermann Coffeehouse on Catharine Street, a coffee house hosting musical events.^xxviii Bach composed his humorous Cofee Cantata for this venue, which must have been a welcome relief from the conditions he experienced as part of his job with St. Thomas’.

Finally, there was another consistently satisfying musical outlet for Bach. Bearing in mind that private students came to him, not vice-versa, it is obvious why he would find fulfillment as a private instructor once his local presence and reputation as established. He could always count on his offering being received with gratitude and appreciation. His students universally adored him.

Answering the questions phrased above, “What might Bach’s expression be towards church employers who complained about the lack of music while refraining from giving him the resources he needed for effective music making and for composing works that were for him, inspiring?” and “How did Bach respond to his church employer who found fault with his reluctance to teach academics – an activity for which he was ill suited and which necessarily sacrificed time in his extremely busy life, time for family, teaching…time that could be used fulfilling his truest and most worthwhile gift to humanity?”

Bach sought the company of competent musicians and appreciative audiences such as he had known in the company of Prince Leopold, and did experience in Leipzig at the Collegium and at Zimmermann’s, and as he was sure he would find if his Mass in B Minor opened the royal heart and coffer to him in the Dresden court of his “Most Serene Highness, the Prince and Lord , Frederick Augustus, Royal Prince in Poland and Lithuania, Duke in Saxony…his Most Gracious Lord.^xxix

Appendix

Excerpt of Obituary written for J.S. Bach

by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola^xxx

Johann Sebastian was not yet ten years old when he found himself bereft of his parents by death. He betook himself to Ohrdruff, where his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, was Organist, and under this brother’s guidance he laid the foundations for his playing of the clavier. The love of our little Johann Sebastian for music was uncommonly great even at this tender age. In a short time he had fully mastered all the pieces his brother had voluntarily given him to learn. But his brother possessed a book of clavier pieces by the most famous masters of the day – Froberger, Kerl, Pachelbel – and this, despite all his pleading and for who knows what reason, was denied him. His zeal to improve himself thereupon gave him the idea of practicing the following innocent deceit. This book was kept in a cabinet whose doors consisted only of grillwork. Now, with his little hands he could reach through the grillwork and roll the book up (for it had only a paper cover); accordingly, he would fetch the book out at night, when everyone had gone to bed and, since he was not even possessed of a light, copy it by moonlight. IN six months’ time he had these musical spoils in his own hands. Secretly and with extraordinary eagerness he was trying to put it to use, when his brother, to his great dismay, found out about it, and without mercy took away from him the copy he had made with such pains. We may gain a good idea of our little Johann Sebastian’s sorrow over this loss by imagining a miser whose ship, sailing for Peru, has founder with its cargo of a hundred thousand thaler. He did not recover the book until after the death of his brother. [Johann Sebastian was then 36 years old). But did not this very passion to improve himself in music and the very industry applied to the aforesaid book perhaps by coincidence provide the first basis for the cause of his own death? – as we shall later hear.”