J. S. Bach: A Life in Music by Peter Williams

Author:Peter Williams
Language: por
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2012-03-22T03:00:00+00:00

OTHER MUSICAL ACTIVITIES

Not long after, the Duke of Weissenfels appointed him his Capellmeister. (Obituary)

Since this sentence follows immediately on the reference to Bach's `funeral music for his deeply beloved prince in Cothen' in March 1729, its phrase `not long after' relates to this and not to the original Leipzig appointment. A new titular capellmeistership would follow only on the lapse of an old: the Duke of Weissenfels's conferred title would replace the Prince of Cothen's.

Before the move to Leipzig, it must have been clear to Bach and his gifted wife that there were advantages in living in a city connected in various ways to the capital city of Dresden and its musicians. What it would have meant to him to be the first non-university-graduate in living memory to hold the Leipzig position is not known. As already noted, three preferred candidates, Telemann, Fasch and Graupner, had all been students in Leipzig, though not necessarily full graduates. (Their withdrawal raises the question whether they know too much of the city and its ruling elite to want the job.) In Walther's Lexicon Kuhnau was still being remembered for his knowledge of theology, law, oratory, algebra, maths, foreign languages, poesi and re musica (music theory), and a court appointment for Bach at the grand and important residence ofWeissenfels would have enhanced his status on paper and perhaps in spirit.

After moving to Leipzig Bach kept some connection with the courts both at Cothen, where he and Anna Magdalena received a performance fee in December 1725, and at Weissenfels. At the latter he stayed for some time in February 1729, and after appointment remained titular capellmeister there until the cappella was disbanded in 1736. In official documents he consistently used his successive secular court-titles first (at Cothen, then Weissenfels, then royal Dresden), and only secondarily his assumed title director chori musici in Leipzig. Whether or not official and formally invested, this directorship brought with it a certain status, especially for musical visitors to the Leipzig Fairs. The New Year, Easter and Michaelmas Fairs also brought publishers and authors of books of music and musictheory to the city, and its cantor is as likely as any other citizen to have benefited from what was on sale and who came to buy. But so many books being produced might have been counter-productive: it is possible that Mattheson's mass of publications (of which there were `as many as he had lived years', according to Burney 1785, 8) discouraged Bach further from trying his own hand.

Bach's appointment as titular court capellmeister at Weissenfels in 1729 could well have been the result of representations he made following the death of the Cothen prince on 19 November 1728, though for two months he was still using the Cothen title (BJ 1994, 1s). Successive Dukes of Weissenfels had not been indifferent to gifted musicians, and the ducal castle was the nearest major residence to Leipzig, with a splendid chapel and organ. It had been in this castle, in February 1713, that Bach

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