The Real Bach at Leipzig

“Bach at Leipzig,” Itamar Moses’s farce about an 18th-century contest among seven musicians vying for a post in Leipzig left open by the death of Johann Kuhnau – a position eventually filled by Johann Sebastian Bach – brings to mind a cartoon drawing I saw several years ago. In it, the venerable Bach is attempting to compose at home amid the ruckus of children chasing each other around the room and a wife screaming from the kitchen, “Johann – take out the garbage!”That idea of bringing characters we normally regard with wonderment down to earth is partly what drives the play – but only partly. The story’s seven pompous competitors quickly become props for an endless series of jokes (though, to the observer, the comedic style is closer to Gracie Allen than to Tom Stoppard, with whom Mr. Moses has been associated). In the end, however, the playwright delivers Bach, never seen in the play, as a figure on a high pedestal, a man whose spectacular talent was destined from the start to overwhelm everything in its wake. Yet, the Leipzigers didn’t see things that way.Mr. Moses’s play is not particularly true to history, nor is it intended to be, though the playwright does touch on certain realistic aspects of musical life in the 1720s. When some of the contenders conspire to bribe the judges, for example, the idea does not comport with conditions in Leipzig in 1722. Just two years before, however, Bach had thrown his hat into the ring for a job at St. Jacobi’s Church in Hamburg, where the practice of selling municipal and church offices was common.After Bach withdrew his name from consideration in Hamburg and Johann Joachim Heitmann was given the job, Heitmann promptly paid 4,000 marks in gratitude. Musician Johann Mattheson reported that Erdmann Neumeister, Hamburg’s chief preacher, gave a public speech at the time charging that “even if one of the angels of Bethlehem should come down from Heaven, one who played divinely and wished to become organist of St. Jacobi but had no money, he might as well fly away again.”Likewise, the play’s condensation of events and the fierce rivalry between its characters do not reflect the long, complex, and convoluted nature of the real event. Actually, there were 10 applicants in all, but they auditioned at different times over the course of nearly a year. And many factors other than musical virtuosity were a part of the deliberations. Indeed, the Leipzig council was severely split over whether Kuhnau’s former job of kantor, which included such nonperforming responsibilities as teaching Latin, should go to a star musician at all.Deliberations were a tedious affair. Kuhnau died in June. By August, Telemann, one of the leading musicians of his day, was offered the job. But the authorities in Hamburg, where Telemann was employed, increased his pay to keep him, and he remained. One of Leipzig’s councilors, by the name of Platz, promptly announced that this was no loss – they really needed someone, he said, who would teach subjects other than music.Candidates came and went – some dropped out at the prospect of having to teach. It took until December for Bach and Christoph Graupner to join the long list. (It is possible that Telemann, who was godfather to Bach’s son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, encouraged Johann Sebastian to apply for the position after he declined it.) And Bach’s name was not at the top.Graupner, depicted by Mr. Moses as somewhat corrupt and silly, was the second to be offered the position. He had been a student of Kuhnau, after all, and, even better, had a law degree. In truth, he was also an extremely creative composer with a dazzling array of stylistic approaches. But Graupner withdrew because he could not get a release from his employer (not, as the play would have it, because he came in second to Telemann). It may have been he who recommended Bach for the job. In any case, on April 22, after dragging its feet for some time, the council reluctantly agreed on Bach, with one member stating that he hoped that Bach’s music would not be too theatrical.The matter was settled, but it was an odd marriage.The position was in some ways a step down for Bach on the social scale. And the Leipzig council felt it was getting a mediocre candidate. But the change brought Bach out of the court into a commercial metropolis with opportunities for extra income and greater chances to display his fertile imagination. He rewarded Leipzig, and the world, with incomparable masterworks.By the time of Bach’s death, though, the atmosphere on the council had little changed. Resurrecting Platz’s complaint during the search for Kuhnau’s replacement, one councilor Stieglitz said of the search for Bach’s that what the school needed was a kantor, not a kapellmeister. Teaching, not music, was still on their minds.

The Real Bach at Leipzig

The Real Bach at Leipzig

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