Scan 51
The American history and encyclopedia of music .., 1908
9 lines. Read by computer on 7 September 2026. Printed page 29. See the scan on archive.org.
1Bach
2but he was not dismissed, which shows that his genius was already appreciated. In 1706, a position as organist at the Church of St. Blasias in Mühlhausen became vacant and Bach obtained it at a salary of about seven pounds or thirty-five dollars a year together with certain quantities of corn, wood and fish, to be delivered without charge at his door. Upon this salary he was able to marry his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, by whom he had a family of seven children. Bach's stay at Mühlhausen was very short, for about a year after accepting the position he resigned, to become Court organist to the Grand Duke at Weimar. Here he remained for nine years, from his twenty-third to his thirty-second year, and was made conductor of the Court Orchestra in 1714.
4While at Weimar, Bach became not only the finest organist of his time, but the greatest composer for the organ that the world has ever known. While here many of his greatest organ compositions were produced and also a series of church cantatas, which were written as part of the duties of his office. These cantatas hold much the same position in the German church services that anthems do in the service of English churches and they were a very important form of composition. In 1717, Bach was appointed to a position entirely different from those he had occupied before. He was called to Cöthen by Prince Leopold of Anhalt, as conductor and director of his chamber-music, at a salary of three hundred dollars a year. Here he had nothing to do with church music or organ playing and he gave his attention, chiefly, to writing orchestral music for stringed instruments and composing for the clavichord, and to teaching and traveling with his patron. The life at Cöthen was very narrow and uninteresting, compared with that of Weimar and some biographers have thought it necessary to apologize for Bach, because he accepted this position, others, however, have considered it a kind of breathing space or pause in his busy life, without which, he might not have accomplished the great amount of important work that he did later on.
6Trips to Halle, Leipsic and Dresden varied the monotony of his life at Cöthen and he also made a journey to Hamburg, to compete for the position of organist for the Jacobi Kirche, whose magnificent new organ attracted him. Things seem to have been very much the same then, as they are today, however, as in spite of the fact that Bach was recognized as the man for the place and the greatest organist of his time, the position was given to an insignificant young man, who could pay four hundred marks for it.
8While at Cöthen, Bach wrote the first part of his collection of forty-eight preludes and fugues known in German as The Well-tempered Clavier. As Bach's life at Weimar is representative of his work as an organist and a composer for the organ, so the time at Cöthen stands for his production for the clavichord and orchestra. While at Carlsbad on one of his many trips with Leopold, Bach's wife died very suddenly. No news could be gotten to him and on his return he found her buried. He was left with four children, and about eighteen months after his wife's death, he married Anna Magdalena Wulkin, a young woman of twenty-one, who was a very fine soprano singer. Thirteen children were the result of this marriage, making a family of twenty in all. These children ranged all the way from idiocy to genius, those who were the most musically gifted belonging to the first family. In 1723, Bach was appointed cantor and musical director of the famous Thomas School at Leipsic, which position he held until his death, at the same time retaining his title as "Kapelmüster of Cöthen." From Court conductor to cantor might be considered a step backward, did we not know that Bach was devoted heart and soul to the organ and the composition of church music, and that the position at Leipsic gave him special opportunity for these things. This particular position as cantor, too, had been always held by distinguished men and was differently considered from the ordinary post of the kind. Another very strong reason for Bach's going to Leipsic was that he wished to live in a place where he could have the best of educational advantages for his children, his oldest son, Wilhelm Friedman, being at once entered as a student in the University. As cantor at the Thomas School, Bach was supposed to teach the boys vocal and instrumental music and Latin. The
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