BACH IN KOTHEN (1717-1723)

BACH’S attachment to the court of Weimar was destined to end. The years there had been fruitful, but Bach had not achieved his “final goal,” the full realization of a “well-conceived” and “well-organized church music.” In the environment of firmly guarded orthodoxy Bach was encouraged to exercise and expand his powers as a performer and composer for church as well as chamber, and the solid Lutheran foundations at the court permitted performance of instrumental music and the classical hymn, both elements that Bach had spent so much time fighting for in Mühlhausen. But Bach was only the organist, not Kapellmeister with authority to direct the entire musical service. Even with his promotion to the higher office of concertmaster (while retaining the office of organist), he was under the aged Drese, and his son, Johann Wilhelm, who had been named Vice-Kapellmeister four years before Bach’s arrival. In spite of the mediocre talent of both, the duke remained stubbornly loyal to the established order of musical hierarchies. His refusal to recognize genius over existing rank led finally to Bach’s resignation.

Growing Fame

Bach’s reputation as an organist of unprecedented skill rapidly spread among connoisseurs all over Germany, and he was often invited to examine new or newly repaired organs in various towns, and to judge applicants for the position of organist. Following his completion of these services, Bach often gave long concerts for the other notables and musicians.

In 1713 he received an offer from the elders of the Church of Our Lady in Halle to accept the post of organist. The prospect at first seemed attractive, especially because the Halle organ, with 63 registers, was one of the finest in Germany. But Bach hesitated. His musical aspirations reached far beyond the aural, sensuous gratification that a particular instrument would give him. In spite of his deep love and fabulous talent for this instrument, the organ was only one part of that greater art work, the complete musical service. He wanted complete control over the musical administration, and the elders at Halle did not offer him this opportunity at first.

His stated reasons for not immediately accepting the offer were the loss in salary the new job would mean and his failure to receive permission to leave the duke’s court. This offended the elders, who suspected Bach of using their offer to obtain an increase in his present salary at Weimar, a common practice in those days. Indeed his promotion to concertmaster and court organist did come shortly after the offer from Halle. Bach, however, hastened to clarify his reservations about the job in a later letter to the elders: “I would like to have one or two things changed [in the contract] in the matter of salaries as well as in that of my services . . Z’¹ These services (Dienste) or duties related to the musical obligations that accompanied his rank, and he promised to come in person to sign the agreement, if beforehand they could agree on these matters.

In other words, Bach wanted to know more definitely what his sphere of duties was to be. He did not want a repetition of the situation in Mühlhausen, where instrumental music was almost entirely banned, nor did he want to be subordinate to a cantor or other superior official, whose compositions almost certainly would be inferior to his own. He could only accomplish the re-creation of the entire service musically if he were in complete control of all musical activity, and had the cooperation of a sympathetic minister. Bach had known only one composer, Buxtehude, as devoted as he to this gigantic mission, and he could not afford to trust to chance any longer in finding an environment conducive to it.

He half expected this situation to develop in Weimar, if he fell heir to the rank of Kapellmeister upon the death or retirement of Drese. He could count on the support and cooperation of Franck, one of the modern librettists of the period, if he undertook this task in Weimar. At present, although some of his cantatas were occasionally performed at Weimar, his total output of cantatas amounted to only about 20 (according to Schmieder’s catalogue), an average of only two or three a year. And for some reason, as we mentioned earlier, he did not compose any chorale-preludes during this period.

Bach’s fame continued to spread through Germany from court to court after his offer at Halle; all musicians spoke of him with unbounded admiration. Mattheson praised him as “the celebrated organist, the celebrated Bach.”² In 1714 Bach displayed his virtuosity at a new organ in Cassel, where he played for the crown prince Friedrick of Hesse-Cassel, later King of Sweden, who gave Bach a ring from his own finger as a token of his admiration.³

By 1716 the authorities of the Church of Our Lady in Halle had forgotten their former differences with the master and they invited him to inspect the now-completed organ, an honor which Bach now graciously accepted. Other musicians from distant places came to Halle, and all were received and entertained as royal princes: servants and coaches were put at their disposal and sumptuous banquets were prepared. The menu of one mentioned among the meats alone, veal, smoked ham, sausages, fish, and a roasted quarter of mutton, all accompanied by the proper wines. Bach met Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722), the cantor at the Thomas Church in Leipzig, during the Halle celebrations. (Seven years hence Bach would take up his position.) If his wit in conversation was as entertaining as his satirical writings, Kuhnau must have added a lively note to the parties.⁴

Another incident that established Bach’s fame involves the oft-related meeting with the famous French organist Louis Marchand (1669-1732), at the Dresden court of Elector August II of Saxony, who became King of Poland. Contests between artists were often arranged at the courts, and competition was based on the musicians’ ability to improvise variations on given themes. The story goes that, upon secretly listening to Bach’s practicing, Marchand left Dresden to avoid the humiliation of defeat. This triumph over France’s foremost organist elevated Bach’s reputation to that of the greatest organist of Europe.⁵

This crowning success came during the most irritating last months of his stay in Weimar. On December 1, 1716, the old Kapellmeister Drese had died; instead of Bach, the duke appointed Drese’s son Johann Wilhelm to succeed him. His hopes suddenly dashed, Bach decided to leave Weimar at the first suitable opportunity.

Move tö Kothen

A few months later this opportunity came, from the rival ducal family in Weimar. Duke Wilhelm Ernst’s nephew, Ernst August, who occupied the Red Castle, was married to the sister of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Kothen. Leopold was not only a great enthusiast for music, but an able musician as well. He had probably met Bach at the Red Castle⁶ and had recognized his genius at the harpsichord or the violin. Since Bach was on very friendly footing with the family at the Red Castle, they soon learned of his discontent with his present situation and passed this news on to Prince Leopold, who offered Bach the office of Kapellmeister at his court in Kothen. Bach accepted the offer, and on August 5, 1717, received his formal appointment. This time Bach did not wait for his demission from Duke Wilhelm Ernst before accepting. He even tendered his resignation, a bold move in a country and a court that was still clinging to the vestiges of feudalism. Wilhelm, ever ready to assert his dictatorial power, refused to release his valuable organist and concertmaster. Since Wilhelm Ernst had forbidden all communication between the two castles on penalty of a fine, Bach’s offer from Duchess Eleonore’s own brother seemed like open defiance and the duke was all the more obstinately opposed to Bach’s resignation. Four months went by, and Bach made a second, more insistent request for release. Thereupon, on November 6, he was submitted to the humiliation of an arrest. He was kept in the justice room of the palace till December 2, when the duke, by issuing a dishonorable discharge, relented in a battle of wills to Bach’s stubborn devotion to his musical goals.⁷

Bach often recalled his happiness during his stay in Kothen. Except for the sudden, tragic death of his wife, his life in the employ of the young prince Leopold was peaceful. For the first time in his professional career, there were no frictions or struggles over his ideal in art and the role of art in his spiritual world. In Arnstadt Bach had been criticized for his strange manner of preludizing the chorales and for his lack of interest in a recalcitrant choir. In Mühlhausen his instrumental music was barred from performance. In Weimar he was forced to work with the uninspiring compositions of a mediocre director of music. Later, in Leipzig, he was to combat new animosities and threats to the sanctity of his art and its function in public worship. But the six years in Kothen may be regarded as a period of further preparation for his life’s task, the complete creation of a reorganized church music.

The courtyard in Kothen as Bach probably knew it.

He enjoyed the pleasant friendship of an amiable young prince with unusual musical talent and skill who could appreciate the superior art of his Kapellmeister. Bach now had attained the highest rank in musical hierarchies. His salary was on a par with that of a court marshal, one of the highest officials in the little realm. His duties were extremely light and not demanding, consisting mainly of directing and playing in the small band of musicians, and composing chamber music for such occasions without having to meet pressing deadlines. He had several pupils, among them possibly Prince Leopold himself.

In his true vocation, church music, Bach had an enforced vacation. He was not officially connected with any church; there was not a single good organ in town. The little palace organ resembled the miniature one in Celle. With a total of 13 stops, ten for the two manuals and three for the pedals,⁸ it was designed merely as an accompaniment to the deadly Calvinistic psalms sung as an official duty by the small congregation of court attendants. The two other churches in Kothen, the Lutheran and the Reformed, had equally mediocre instruments.

Prince Leopold, a handsome youth of 23, welcomed to his court his illustrious Kapellmeister, who was only 32. He had become the happy and benign sovereign of his little realm only two years earlier—during his minority the principality of Anhalt-Kothen had been governed by his mother, Gisela Agnes. His father, Emanuel Leberecht, had died when Leopold was ten years old. Both father and son were Calvinists, but a life of affluence, creature comfort, extensive travel, and artistic pleasures had rendered them immune to the type of theological enthusiasm that bound Wilhelm Ernst.

Gisela Agnes, a devout Lutheran, had deeper convictions about religion. She had persuaded her husband to build a Lutheran church, St. Agnes’, and a school for Lutheran children. Bach sent his three sons, Wilhelm Friedemann (born in 1710), Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714), and Johann Gottfried Bernhard (1715) to this school. Besides these two institutions Gisela Agnes gave the town a school and home for women and girls. These religious communities were, as a rule, inclined toward harmonious and Christian fellowship; one of the young prince’s first official acts was to issue an edict of tolerance. The prince and his mother seem to have enjoyed a cordial relationship. He named his first-born child for her.

The art of music drew a twofold benefit from this atmosphere of religious tolerance. At times figural music resounded in the Calvinist chapel, and cantatas from Bach’s pen, composed for festal occasions like New Year’s Day and princely birthdays, and also church cantatas were heard there. In the Lutheran churches the strict ban against female voices was relaxed, in part just to enlarge the reservoirs of talent— the Lutheran church and adjoining school were quite small.⁹

Leopold had studied at the Ritteracademie in Berlin, where he met many noblemen and probably received considerable training in music. His education was completed in the usual manner of young noblemen, by extensive travel on the Continent. In Italy Leopold developed an enthusiasm for great paintings; and he engaged artists to copy his favorite masterpieces. Bach must have seen the prince’s marble copy of Michelangelo’s Moses, a rare opportunity for a former Thuringian burgher.

Prince Leopold also took music lessons with the famous German composer Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729),¹⁰ whom he met in Rome. The composer’s secular and revolutionary spirit and his uninhibited and powerful personality attracted the bright young prince and they traveled to Venice together. At this time Leopold offered Heinichen the position of Kapellmeister at his court in Kothen. But Heinichen declined the offer, and remained in Venice, where several of his operas were subsequently performed with success. Leopold sponsored the performance of three of them in Kothen, but his revenues were not sufficient to maintain a regular theater.

Bach and Theater Composers

Bach undoubtedly gained a thorough knowledge of Heinichen’s music and his rather startling ideas from his former patron, but he probably received his prince’s attempts to enlighten him with only polite interest and patient tolerance. Although Bach may well have made a fleeting acquaintance with Heinichen during his recent visit at the court in Dresden (in 1716 Heinichen was engaged by August II there), he now had more leisure to evaluate Heinichen’s art and writings. A glance at this man’s books assures us of Bach’s reaction to his ideas.

Heinichen was one of the chief protagonists of that new movement that sought chiefly to gain rapport between artist and audience. The criterion for this rapport was expressed in the French term gout, which, precisely defined, means good taste but in this sense implied fashionable taste as well. France and Italy, where theatrical music was predominant, developed this standard, and the esthetic was beginning to invade Germany at this time. Heinichen’s literary style is spiced with a generous sprinkling of French expressions— tendresse, brillant, gout,and touchant are used with the force of indisputable finality in esthetic judgment.

Heinichen sharply attacked two aspects of the art and ideals most dear to Bach and cherished throughout his life: counterpoint and metaphysical speculations on music. Counterpoint seemed to Heinichen a “seemingly learned and speculative jugglery of notes,” the odious practice of a pedant, who “as on the torture table . . . would stretch and pull the innocent notes ... by augmentation, inversion, repetition, and mixings, until finally from this would evolve a practice of countless, superfluous eye-counterpoints.”¹¹ He suspects contrapuntalists of finding pleasure with the way such learned figurations appear on paper, and ignoring their actual sound. In contempt of the ignorant church audiences this fearless iconoclast suggested that only in church can “the contrapuntalist peddle his acquired school wisdom.”¹²

This abusive harangue must have struck a sensitive nerve in Bach, for he stood at the opposite pole of these mundane esthetics based upon the fickle judgment of mere mortals, the lay theater audiences. Bach would instead have applauded Augustine’s clear distinction between the professional theater musician and the true artist, the latter seeking truth through musical discipline.¹³

But Bach still was willing to borrow whatever laudable material he could find in the textbooks of these worldlings. He copied a great deal from another friend of the theater, Friedrich Erhard Niedt (1674-1708), whose little book, Musikalische Handleitung (Musical Manual), uses coarse and offensive language to ridicule the “double, inverted, salted, pickled, roasted, and fatted counterpoint,” which “passes among musical ignoramuses for a great musical monster.”¹⁴ He makes up obscene puns for the special objects of his contempt—the canon and the fugue.¹⁵ Despite these tasteless diatribes Bach used his text on the thoroughbass for the instruction of his pupils.

Niedt, unlike Heinichen, remained a German provincial, and he continued to praise and recommend Kircher and Werckmeister and pad his little book with a rehash of their ideas, although he lacked their philosophical acumen. It is from Niedt’s Musikalische Handleitung that Bach in 1738 copied a phrase that gave such precise expression to his musical creed: “The purpose and Primary Cause of the thoroughbass should be none other than the Praise of God and the allowable recreation of the soul. Whenever this is not taken into consideration there is no veritable music, but only a devilish blathering and trifling.”

Heinichen expressed a strong distaste for all metaphysical speculation on music, but he offered no polemics. It seems unlikely that his flat statement of disapproval bothered Bach much, or that he would ever have discussed it with young Leopold. If, however, they discussed Heinichen’s doctrine of the affections, Bach could have heartily agreed that the object of music should be to move the hearts with “the tenor of the words.” Heinichen’s method of translating literary thoughts into musical sentiment is essentially the same as Bach’s matching of text and musical expression, discussed in detail in Chapter 18. The technique corresponded to Bach’s Loci topici, descriptive motives or concise little clauses (kurtzgefasste Clauselgen), that Bach used with far more freedom and imagination than Heinichen ever dreamed of. He applied Loci topici to the canon and other forms of counterpoint, which Heinichen, of course, completely ignored.

Bach did not need the theater for ideas for these Loci topici. The tradition had a richer history than Heinichen realized. During his lifetime Bach saw few operas for wherever he settled, the theater had been either disbanded or never allowed. The Celle theater was premanently discontinued on account of tragedy; he visited Hamburg when the theater was closed for the summer. At the court of Count Günther in Arnstadt the few operas performed were so insignificant that Bach only reluctantly lent his cooperation. The Weimar court was too puritanical and frugal to indulge in such worldly frivolity, and Kothen’s prince could afford only an occasional opera performance. Just before Bach arrived in Leipzig, the theater there was closed (1720). But Bach drew on religious symbolism instead of theatrical techniques to reach his audience.

Artistic Recognition and Personal Tragedy

Hardly had Bach become established in this new environment when he was again called to give his famous expert opinion of an organ, this time in Leipzig. The organ of St. Paul’s Church had been rebuilt by Johann Scheibe, the father of Johann Adolph Scheibe who in 1737 wrote a scathing criticism of Bach’s style.¹⁶ Bach’s report, which fortunately has been preserved, gives eloquent testimony to his thorough and minute knowledge of organ construction and of the mechanics of the instrument. Bach is scrupulously just in his criticism, and protects Scheibe against blame for defects due to causes beyond his control—and about ten such shortcomings are methodically listed.

During his week’s stay in Leipzig, which fell in Advent, Bach was also invited to perform one of his own cantatas. He chose “Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwolf” (Jesus Took to Himself the Twelve), a work first heard in 1714 at the Weimar castle chapel; it was performed in one of Leipzig’s churches, either St. Thomas or St. Nicholas.¹⁷ This piece (Stuck, as Bach usually called works of this type) retained some aspects of the earlier cantata style but pointed to new directions in cantata writing, especially in his use of Neumeister’s text. He still used arioso and an unaltered text, from St. John’s Revelation, but the da capo aria and recitative are innovations borrowed from the opera. The music to the opening words, “Come, O Saviour of the Nation,” reveals a curiously baroque mixture of styles. The choir boys sing one of the oldest hymns, St. Ambrose’s “Veni Redemptor Genitum” from the fifth century, to a Lullian overture with regal and martial rhythms of dotted notes. Bach even marked the conventional fugal section of this overture with the French term gai instead of the usual allegro. Thus the spirituality of the fifth century is innocently wedded to the essentially mundane pomposity of the French royal court.¹⁸

At this period in his life the former Thuringian burgher often viewed the social life of the German nobility first hand. Only recently he had been at the royal court of August II of Saxony and Poland; in May, 1718, his young prince took him to Carlsbad, the Monte Carlo of Germany where pleasure-seeking nobility of all parts of the land gathered to take the baths and drink the medicinal waters. Bach and five musicians of the establishment accompanied the prince—including the famous viola da gamba player Christian Ferdinand Abel, whose even more famous son Carl Friedrich Abel later in the century entertained London society with Bach’s son Christian. Three servants were put in special charge of Bach’s harpsichord, and we may assume that the noble guests in this luxury resort often heard the master play, either in the group or solo.The prince obviously counted his Kapellmeister as an artistic asset and was proud of displaying through him his musical bon gout to the high society gathering in Carlsbad.

Although any close personal relationship between people of as widely distant social status as Bach and his prince was unthinkable, each obviously enjoyed the other’s company. The following November the prince became godfather to Bach’s latest son, Leopold Augustus, named after Prince Leopold and his younger brother August Ludwig. Eleanore Wilhelmine of Weimar was godmother to the child, and several illustrious personalities of the aristocracy witnessed the baptism. Unhappily the infant received into this world with such regal honors did not reach the age of one year.

A few days after the arrival of this little son, Bach celebrated Leopold’s birthday with a cantata, for which he also wrote the text. His Highness himself sang the bass part in this work, “Durchlauchtester Leopold “ (His Serene Highness Leopold). Later we will see how this same work was transformed into a church cantata, with the two minuet movements kept perfectly intact.

In December, 1719, Bach learned that George Frederick Handel was in his vicinity, recruiting singers for the new academy in London. These negotiations brought him to the flourishing opera centers of Düsseldorf and Dresden. (Handel’s old mother was living in Halle, counting the days until she might embrace her famous son.) C. S. Terry suggests that Count Flemming, who staged Bach’s contest with Marchand in Dresden, might have been anxious to arrange a similar competition between Handel and Bach.¹⁹ Perhaps this is the reason that Handel seemed to avoid Bach. Flemming wrote a pupil of Bach that Handel was always out or ill, and he found these excuses somewhat suspect. Even Spitta, who is painfully fair, admits that it is strange that Handel did not once seek Bach out in the eight months he spent in his vicinity in 1719.²⁰ When Bach heard that Handel was 20 miles away, in Halle, Prince Leopold at once lent him a horse for the journey. Upon his arrival he was informed that Handel had left for England.

Spitta also notes Handel’s lack of interest in Bach’s compositions, in contrast to Bach’s obvious admiration for Handel’s work. Bach with the help of his wife, copied in his own hand Handel’s Passion Music to Brock’s text, and one of his concerti grossi.²¹ Bach also owned an original manuscript of a solo cantata by Handel. This picture of the busy man of the world forms a glaring contrast to Bach, whose incorruptible modesty and never-ceasing eagerness for new music and new techniques guided his creation of spiritual art.

In the spring of 1720 Prince Leopold again visited Carlsbad with his Kapellmeister and his staff of musicians. The company enjoyed the relaxed life of the resort from May to well into July. Upon their return to Kothen Bach was met by a tragedy possible only in those strangely primitive days. He found his wife Maria Barbara dead and already buried. Why did no one send a message to Carlsbad? Bach’s children were only five, six, ten, and twelve years old, but his several pupils were certainly old enough to undertake the mission. Leopold was too loyal to Bach and too warm-hearted to have withheld this news from Bach. The blame must fall upon a seemingly heartless palace staff.

An Offer at Hamburg

Five months later, in November, 1720, Bach was taking steps to return to the service of the sanctuary. He had heard of a vacancy at the St. James Church in Hamburg. Bach’s friend Erdmann Neumeister was pastor there and would be an ideal collaborator in Bach’s reorganization of his “well-conceived” musical service. Neumeister urgently recommended Bach. Seven other organists applied for the post, most of them inferior musicians. Perhaps because of Bach’s great fame the elders of the church avoided vain competitions among the candidates, but they had a sinister reason as well: they expected the chosen candidate to “express his gratitude with a substantial donation to the church.” Such transactions, naturally, are always conducted under careful cover, and we do not know whether Bach knew of this shady arrangement.²² The elders may even have purposely fixed the date of the hearing too late for Bach to attend, knowing that he never would consent to a bribe. But, quite indicatively, Bach withdrew his application, stating that he was expected back at Kothen to attend the birthday celebrations of Prince Leopold on November 29.

After the other able candidates withdrew, the remaining four were tested. Reincken was one of the judges and saw to it that the fugue subject on which the applicants were expected to improvise was exceedingly difficult.²³ All of the candidates failed and Bach was asked to reconsider. Bach emphatically declined the offer, and after weighing spiritual value of lofty art against gold, the committee decided in favor of Johann Joachim Heitman, the son of a wealthy artisan, who acknowledged his “gratitude” two weeks later with a payment of 4,000 marks. Erdmann Neumeister pronounced his bitter disappointment and indignation from the pulpit: “If angels of Bethlehem had descended from Heaven with the desire to become organists at St. James’ church, they would have to fly away again, if they had not brought any money with them.”²⁴

Before Bach left Hamburg he called upon the old master Reincken, whom he had visited almost 20 years earlier. Johann Adam Reincken reached the venerable age of 99 and his lifetime spanned a period of rapidly changing music style—from Monteverdi to Haydn. Bach extemporized for Reincken on a Lutheran chorale “An Wasserflüssen Babilons” (Upon the Great Streams of Babylon), probably chosen because Reincken himself had written a well-known elaborate set of variations on the same melody. When Bach had exhausted all the possibilities of theme variations—a process that usually took him twice as long as it took others—and after he had displayed all the musical illustrations of the text, Reincken in amazement observed: “I thought this art was dead, but I see it still lives in you.”

Reincken then submitted a theme for fugal treatment²⁵ Bach remodeled the well-known Dutch tune slightly in order to give it a stronger and more unified character. As a fugue theme contains within itself all its contrapuntal possibilities in embryo, Bach devoted a few moments to this development, and invoking the help of his Creator in a short prayer, he proceeded to unfold without the slightest hesitation one of the most monumental fugues of all history. He afterwards wrote out the fugue—the great G Minor Fugue—in memory of the honorable occasion.

Anna Magdalena Bach

Bach was now a widower with a household of four young children. Such a lively family might well have become a heavy burden but fortune sent Bach a talented musical companion, who became his deeply devoted wife and an excellent mother to his children. Anna Magdalena Wilcken came from a long ancestry of professional musicians in Thuringia. At the time she met Bach she held a position as “princely singer” (furstliche Sangerin) at the little court of Anhalt-Zerbst, which at times lent the service of its musicians to their neighboring prince in Kothen. She continued to hold that position, and drew the salary amounting to half that of her husband, after her marriage in December, 1721. At the time of her marriage she was just 20 years old, and Bach later praised the “excellent clarity” of her voice.

She undoubtedly sang at the festive wedding of Prince Leopold,²⁶ only a week after she married Bach. The undogmatic disposition of Prince Leopold and his great love of music did, as mentioned earlier, lead him to overlook Calvinistic prejudices against figural music in his chapel.²⁷ Bach wrote several cantatas, with secular as well as religious texts, during this period, and Anna Magdalena often sang the soprano part, to the delight of her happy bridegroom. Since there was no choir available, and only a small orchestra, these cantatas were written for solo voices; Anna Magdalena was assisted by an alto singer, or possibly by the prince himself singing a bass part. She may also have sung at the Lutheran church of St. Agnes.

The duties of her position as “princely singer” at the neighboring court of Anhalt-Zerbst must have been very light since she managed a family of four children as well. Bach too was not hard pressed in his duties. No wonder Bach in later life referred to this period as a happy one. He was surrounded with love and warm friendship. He had devoted pupils, among them his three gifted sons, Friedemann, Emanuel, and Gottfried Bernhard, and his young wife, whom he taught to play the clavichord and harpsichord.

Bach wrote the little notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann, mentioned earlier, during this period. He also made up one for Anna Magdalena about 1722 (see Chapter 15). The instructions for Wilhelm Friedemann indicate that he was then in the initial stages of clavier playing. Anna Magdalena’s pieces can have been played only by an advanced musician and the pieces written out only three years later in a notebook can be played only by a pianist of high proficiency. He included some brilliant and difficult partitas in it that challenge concert pianists today.

These precious little notebooks indicate Bach’s approach to the art of teaching, but also reflect the happy atmosphere that must have prevailed in this household. The majority of the pieces are gay, even frivolous little dances. Occasionally, a chorale melody is inserted, as “Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten” (Whoever Trusts God to Reign) used in Friedemann’s book to illustrate the art of ornamenting such a melody. In Anna Magdalena’s little book we find an elaborate treatment of the melody “Jesus meine Zuversicht” (Jesus, My Reliance), which exemplifies ornament used for lyrical expansion and abandon to overflowing sentiment. There is a jolly poem about his tobacco pipe that gives the smoker pleasure, drives his time away, and leads to some naive allegorical allusions of a biblical but humorous imagination. A tender love poem that appears is evidently by Bach himself:

Your slave I am, sweet maiden bride,

God give you joy this morning!

The wedding flowers your tresses hide,

The dress your form’s adorning,

O how with joy my heart is filled

To see your beauty blooming,

Till all my soul with music’s thrilled,

My heart’s with joy o’erflowing.²⁸

In the later notebook we find another song expressing profound conjugal happiness and peace with the world. A spiritual tone is given to the tender expression of love here, and the object of adoration can be interpreted as either human or divine.

When Thou art with me

I walk in Joy

To meet eternal peace.

Oh, how cheerfully content

Were thus my end

When my loyal eyes

Be closed by Thy fair hand.²⁹