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The Leipzig appointment competition to fill the dual position of church cantor at the prestigious Thomas School and town music director in 1722-23 was a literal 11-ring circus of high drama among many leading German composers and the Leipzig municipal governing institutions of the Town Council and the lesser church, and university. It would spawn a near one-year municipal odyssey from the initial selection in the summer of 1722 of Georg Philipp Telemann, Hamburg music director, to the nominal choice in January 1723 of Christoph Graupner, Darmstadt court capellmeister, and finally to the eventual appointment of Johann Sebastian Bach, Anhalt-Cöthen capellmeister, on 23 April 1723. Virtually all the candidates were serious composers of church cantata cycles as well as profane opera and homage works, many with strong connections to Leipzig University and the local music scene in the first decade of 1700, or came from communities or regions with affiliations to the Saxon Court in Dresden, based upon significant new research this century.
Many Leipzig candidates were well-acquainted with each other, whether employed by a municipality such as Hamburg, Merseburg (Georg Friedrich Kauffmann), or Magdeburg (Christian Friedrich Rolle); a reigning court such as Darmstadt, Dresden (organist Christian Petzoldt), Anhalt-Zerbst (Johann Friedrich Fasch), or Anhalt-Cöthen (Bach); a cantor position, Georg Lembke/Lenck (Laucha), Johann Martin Steindorf (Zwickau), or Christian Heckle (Pirna); or a church such as Leipzig's New Church (organist Georg Balthasar Schott). The only well-known composer not considered was the Italian-trained Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, Saxe-Gotha kapellmeister (BCW), who supported Fasch's candidacy. Virtually all the candidates needed approval from their employer to go elsewhere and in the case of Telemann and Graupner were unable to move to Leipzig but did improve their situations. Competition among musician-composers was legion, given the keyboard duels between Handel and Domenico Scarlatti in 1707 in Rome, the aborted one between Bach and Louis Marchand in 1717 in Dresden, and a rumored one between Handel and Johann Mattheson in Hamburg in 1705. Another competition involved the four settings of the Brockes Passion Oratorio in Hamburg of Reinhard Keiser, Telemann, Handel, and Mattheson, producing a Mattheson pasticcio (see BCW: "Brockes-Passion - The Complete Picture ?"). In 1722 (March 22, 26, 28 & 30) in the Hamburg Cathedral, Johann Mattheson presented his omnibus pasticcio of the four Hamburg Brockes Passion 117 movements he commissioned and performed in Hamburg; Telemann (60 movements), Keiser (36), Handel (15), and himself (5; see BCW).
Prologue: Bach in Northern Germany, 1705
For Bach, the successful Leipzig cantor probe was to become the culmination of his Lutheran calling for a "well-regulated church music to the glory of God," focusing on church cantata cycles of musical sermons, beginning exactly 300 years ago in 1723 and yielding some 200 musical sermons by 1729. It was the product of a near-two-decade account of his formative years, beginning at age 20 in northern Germany in 1705 in which the talented organist and member of the legendary Bach Family would undergo various trials seeking advancement, some informal, others official but with various entanglements. In late 1705, Bach was given a one-month leave of absence from his organist position in Arnstadt to visit Dietrich Buxtehude (BCW) in Lübeck to improve his compositional abilities in the organ genres of chorale prelude and the so-called "free-organ works, primarily prelude and fugue, which extended for three months. He began to learn to master dramatic music (BCW), eventually culminating in his three Passion oratorio settings of John, Matthew, and Mark (1724-31), a string of commissions through Leipzig University with festive drammi per musica for members of the Saxon Court in Dresden (1725-1742), and his feast-day oratorios for Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and probably the lost Pentecost Oratorio (BCW), composed in the second half of the 1730s. Bach's intentional search for his future entailed several key milestone events which shaped his final tenure in Leipzig. These measurable steps involved challenging encounters in communities from Mühlhausen with the first commissioned proto-cantatas, to his first "modern" Hunt Cantata 208 at the Court of Weißenfels in 1713, to his appointment in 1714 as concertmaster with instrumental and sacred cantata compositions at the Saxe-Weimar Court, and to the mature experiences of composing ensemble music in Cöthen (1718-23). Bach availed himself of every possible opportunity to advance and even his unsuccessful efforts to find employment in Lübeck in 2005, Halle in 1713, Gotha in 1717, and Hamburg in 1719 bolstered opportunities to further his advancement and place within his music world.
Buxtehude Abendmusiken; Hamburg Poetic, Biblical Passions
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Bach's initial encounter in Lübeck was with Buxtehude's reknown Abendmusiken (Evening Music) during Advent in December 1705 (BCW), with two extended dramatic oratorical presentations in five parts with large performing forces and Buxtehude's musical components, including aria, love duet, chorale settings intermingled with arioso, and the use of brass instruments. Buxtehude was a “father figure” and major role model for Bach, according to Christoph Wolff, “Buxtehude, Bach, and Seventeenth Century Music in Retrospect,” Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (Harvard Univ. Press, 1991: 45). Buxtehude was an “autonomous composer,” “his own impresario (who) organized and financed performances of large scale Abendmusicken,” creating a “new oratorio type” and who “published the librettos. . . .” He “conducted his organist office very much in the style of a municipal capellmeister. . . .” During this time, Buxtehude was retiring and seeking a successor and previously Mattheson and Handel had journeyed from Hamburg to Lübeck to audition but both also had "lost interest in the position, says David Schulenberg in his recent Bach biography.1 "The prospect of succeeding him must have crossed the young virtuoso's mind," but "it was not uncommon for apprentices to marry masters' daughters before inheriting the business." "At the time of his visit, Bach, unlike Handel, Mattheson, and Schieferdecker [Buxtehude's successor], had composed no major vocal work, so far as is known," says Schulenberg (Ibid.). "He therefore might not have been considered qualified; he might, too, already have had an eye in Maria Barbara in Arnstadt." Bach stayed on in northern Germany the extra month and probably visited the Hamburg opera, where Handel's first surviving opera, Almira, was produced (YouTube), and two librettists produced the first new Passion productions during Lent, when the opera was closed, Reinhard Keiser's setting of the Hunold/Menantes' Passion oratorio, “Der blutige und sterbende Jesus” (The Bleeding and Dying Jesus, Musicweb International), forerunner of the Brockes Passion of 1712, and Christian Heinrich Postel's oratorio Passion setting of John's account, originally attributed toHandel (YouTube).
Bach's First (Chorale) Cantata 4
Subsequently, the young Bach returned to Arnstadt and began seriously composing sacred vocal concertos, pro-types of cantatas, most likely, Cantatas 4, 150, and 196. The first probably was the Easter Chorale Cantata 4, "Christ lag in Todesbanden" (Christ lay to death in bondage, trans. Z. Philip Ambrose, UVM, YouTube), premiered on Easter Sunday, 6 April 1706, a year ahead of previous calculations (Bach Digital) for Bach's Mühlhausen probe on Easter Sunday, 24 April 1707, according to Robin A. Leaver.2 Cantata 4 is a unique pure-hymn (all verses) vocal concerto designed as a set of chorale variations with a chiastic (symmetrical, palindrome) structure of six verses: (orchestral sinfonia,) chorale chorus, chorale duet, chorale solo aria, chorale chorus, chorale duet, and plain chorale (YouTube). Cantata 4's genesis in Arnstadt in early 1706 is described in Leaver (Ibid.: paragraph beginning "The genesis of Cantata 4"). In Mühlhausen, only Cantata 4 is for a church-year service, the rest of Bach's proto-cantatas were commissions for special church liturgical occasions: penitence-memorial BWV 150, 131, 106; wedding BWV 196; and Town Council BWV 71, and lost BWV 1137=Anh. 192, and 1138 (BWV3: 280, materials in BWV 143 and choruses in BWV 21 may have originated in the two lost council cantatas).
Bach at Weimar: Hunt Cantata 208; Halle, Gotha Probe Works
Moving on to the Saxe-Weimar Court in July 1708 ( BCW), Bach spent much of the next five years perfecting the art of composition while seeking additional venues and opportunities to examine and test organs and recruit students. By 1713, Bach apparently had "established a significant connection with the Saxe- Weißenfels Court where, on 27 February,3 he premiered "modern" Hunt Cantata 208, "Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd!" (My only joy is in the merry hunt!, trans. Ambrose, UVM), Taflemusik as a birthday serenade for Duke Christian (details BCW, music YouTube). The Weißenfels Court with its rich cultural life had one of the most progressive music establishments in Germany, presenting operas, homage cantatas, church cantatas, and Latin Church Music, with an extensive music library, training and attracting musicians from throughout Germany. Bach probably had an unofficial capellmeister position at Weißenfels, making various visits and finally, after the death of Prince Leopold at Anhalt-Cöthen in 1728 when Bach lost his capellmeister title there, assumed Weißenfels' title of "von Haus aus" (non-resident) capellmeister. In December 1713, Bach performed a trial cantata, perhaps omnes tempore Cantata BWV 21, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis" (I harbored so much distressing woe, trans. Ambrose, YouTube) or festive (Christmas, Reformation) Cantata 63, "Christen, ätzet diesen Tag" (Christians, etch ye now this day, trans. Ambrose, YouTube) in Halle and was chosen successor to the late Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow as Organist at the Market Church of our Lady but rejected the contract without a higher salary.
Bach maintained his connections with the Halle church board, as he would with the communities, churches, and courts where he visited. (On 1 May 1716 the new organ in Halle was examined and inaugurated with Bach, Leipzig cantor Johann Kuhnau, and Quedlinburg organist Christoph Friedrich Rolle. Soon after the Halle probe, on 2 March 1714 Bach was promoted to Concertmaster in Weimar, charged with presenting a church-year service cantata every fourth Sunday, alternating with the Capellmeister Johann Samuel Drese and son Johann Wilhelm Drese, who succeeded him in 1717, instead of Bach, who at the end of the year became capellmeister at Cöthen. Before Weißenfels, Bach in 1711 had become acquainted with the Saxe-Gotha court, with a guest organ recital (Dok 5: B 52b). On Good Friday, 26 March 1717, Bach presented his now-lost Weimar-Gotha Passion oratorio, BC D1=BWV deest (BWV3: Anhang Neue, Bach Digital, BCW). "The Passion performance no doubt represented an audition for the post of Gotha kapellmeister," say Robert L. and Traute M. Marshall. 4 Telemann turned down the position and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, cappelmeister at Gera, took the post in November 1719, remaining there until his death in 1749. Bach became a close associate and in the 1730s presented the Stölzel 1720 Passion oratorio "Ein Lämmlein geht und trät die Schuld" (A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth, YouTube) on Good Friday, followed by one and possibly two complete Stölzel cantata cycles, Cantata Cycle "Saiten-Spiel des Herzens" (String Music of the Heart, 1720) Cantata Cycle "Namen-Buch Christi und der Christen" (String Music of the Heart, 1730).
Bach at Cöthen: Hamburg, Leipzig, Zerbst Probes
At Cöthen ( BCW), following the death of Maria Barbara in June 1720, Bach c. 23 November auditioned for the organist's position at the Jacobikirche in Hamburg, witnessed by Mattheson and Erdmann Neumeister, church pastor and first cantata librettist, performing the extended organ chorale "Am Wasserflüssen Babylon," BWV 653 ( YouTube), and directing his Cantata 21, which Johann Friedrich Fasch would direct at the Anhalt-Zerbst Court in 1726. Bach rejected the Hamburg position, refusing to pay the required simony which he couldn't afford. While in Cöthen, Bach had two other opportunities to strengthen his chances for the Leipzig cantor's position. Following the premiere of Kuhnau's St. Mark Passion on Good Friday 1721, the cantor was ill at Pentecost and Bach provided the parts to his Weimar Pentecost Sunday Cantata 172.1, "Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!" (Resound now, ye lyrics, ring out now, ye lyres!, trans. Ambrose; YouTube).5 "Indeed, Bach may have received a 'pre-audition," says Schulenberg (Ibid: 143) with a performance "documented by a printed libretto for Pentecost 1721" on 1 June at the Nikolaikirche. Bach and Kuhnau also had examined a second new organ, built by Johann Scheibe of Leipzig, at the University Church of St. Paul on 16 December 1717, when Bach serendipitously was on his way from Weimar to his new post at Cöthen. Obviously, Bach had remained in touch with Kuhnau and "would have known of the older musician's age and any infirmities, and the possibility of succeeding him must have been present in both men's minds," says Schulenberg (Ibid.). Another probe opportunity came a year later when the neighboring court of Anhalt-Zerbst sought out Bach to compose a birthday duet serenade for Prince Johann August on 9 August 1722. The Zerbst capellmeister post was vacant while seeking to employ Johann Friedrich Fasch in Prague.6 Zerbst vice-chancellor Georg Rudolph von Kayn (1678-1737) commissioned Bach to compose a birthday cantata for (the absent) Prince Johann August in early August 1722. These were the two leading musical courts in the Anhalt principality and Bach was available on a temporary, interim basis as a courtesy. The librettist was presumed to be August Gotthelf von Koseritz, chancellof Privy Council (1674-1728), who produced "O vergnügte Stunden" (O happy hours, Ambrose, BCW), BWV 1154=Anh. 194 (Bach Digital). “It is possible that the interim Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Wagner directed the work’s premiere,” in lieu of Bach, says Barbara M. Reul.7 The music has the hallmarks of an Anhalt princely birthday tribute in dialogue. That’s why Bach may have repeated it in nearby Cöthen on 10 December 1722 for Prince Leopold (as he prepared to apply for the vacant Cantorate in Leipzig on 21 December 1722), changing the references to Leopold in place of Duke Johann August, as he did in Cantata 208 from Duke Christian of Saxe-Weißenfels to Weimar Duke Ernst August on 19 April 1716 and Saxon Elector Augustus III on 3 August 1742 (BCW).
Leipzig Appointment Procedure
"As was appropriate for an important town church with a school, a professional choir and municipal obligations, the many-stranded order of events around J. S. Bach's appointment is fully documented and gives some idea of the procedure for appointing the 'director of music' in a major city," says Peter Williams in his third and final Bach biography. The following is Williams' chronological account of the selection process [with my additions]:8
[1.] 5 June 1722 — Cantor Johann Kuhnau dies, aged sixty-two.
[2.] 14 July 1722 — To succeed him, the twelve-member Council (the Enge Rat [close advice, google trans.]) discusses J. F. Fasch (soon to be capellmeister in Zerbst, [BCW]), G. B. Schott (organist of the New Church, Leipzig [BCW]), C.F. Rolle (cantor in Magdeburg [ BCW]), G. Lembke[Lencke] (cantor in Lucha, BCW), J. M. Steindorf (cantor in Zwickau [BCW]) and Telemann (since July 1721, music director in Hamburg [BCW]). [Fasch is first on the list, suggesting that his teacher Kuhnau held him in high regard. Leipzig Burgomaster [acting Mayor] Gottfried Lange of the Capellmeister faction was responsible for communicating with the candidates and he probably compiled and submitted the texts to the chosen probe candidates, first was Telemann since Fasch was being considered for the Anhalt-Zerbst capellmeister and not available in Prague.]
[3.] 9 August 1722 — Telemann auditions for the job, and is offered it two days later. He may also have presented the annual Leipzig election cantata that month [Monday after 24 August (St. Bartholomew Day), Nikolaikirche. 31 August 1722]. [For the 10th Sunday after Trinity, Telemann presented "Ich muß auf den Bergen weinen und heulen" (I must weep and howl on the mountains, Jer. 9:10, google trans.; text George Philipp Telemann Univesitätatsbibliothek), TVWV 1:851 (music, YouTube, YouTube), and "Wenn du es wüsstest so würdest du auch bedenken, TVWV 1:deest (text only extant). The works were rehearsed the day before with parts copyist Johann Andreas Kuhnau (1703– a.1745), nephew of Johann and Thomaner principal copyist and ?prefect.]
[4.] 3 September 1722 — Telemann seeks dismissal from the Hamburg Council.
[5.] 6 November 1722 — Telemann declines, despite Leipzig's offer to compromise on teaching duties (i.e. to reduce them); obtains a salary increase in Hamburg, where the honour his fame brings the city is recognized (Kremer 1995, 143).
[6.] 21 November 1722 — Council considers two new candidates: A. C. Duve (cantor in Brunswick, [BCW]) and G. F. Kauffmann (music director in Merseburg [BCW]).
[7. 23 November 1722 — Selection committee meets.]
[8.] 29 November 1722 — Schott, Duve and Kauffmann audition on Advent Sunday; Fasch, a former pupil in the [Thomas] school declines, in part because of not wishing to teach there. [Kauffman probe piece, "O ich elender Mensch wer wird mich erlösen" (O wretched man who will redeem me, Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek), a dialogue cantata for alto and bass.9 The probe pieces of Schott and Duve are not extant.]
[9.] 21 December 1722 — C. Graupner (a Leipziger, now court capellmeister in Darmstadt, BCW) and J. S. Bach apply.
[10.] 15 January 1723 — Graupner unanimously chosen, on condition he makes a successful audition of two cantatas the following Sunday (as later was the case for Bach). Perhaps as a precaution, Rolle and Bach are invited to audition. At this point, the teaching component is not discussed (or not minuted).
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[11.] 17 January 1723 — Graupner auditions with two cantatas [for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, "Aus der Tiefen" (Out of the depths, Ps. 130:1), GWV 1113/23a, and "Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden" (Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, Ps. 117:1), GWV 1113/23b. Graupner seeks release from Darmstadt. [Graupner music, Naxos]
[12.] 2 February 1723 — Schott auditions [second cantata] (in the Nikolaikiirche), Rolle and Kauffmann have withdrawn.
[13.] 7 February 1723 — Bach, like Graupner auditions with two cantatas: [for pre-Lenten Quinquagesimae Estomihi Sunday] Nos. 22 and 23, which are 'much praised', according to a Hamburg newspaper a week later (Dok II, 91). [Bach music, see Naxos).
[14.] 8 February 1723 — Bach receives 20 thalers for travel and subsistence [one week in Leipzig].
[15.] 23 March 1723 — Graupner fails to obtain release from Darmstadt. His salary there is increased. [In a letter to Lange, Graupner recommended Bach as the best alternative candidate, "a musician just as strong on the organ as he was experienced in church matters and capell pieces, who would provide the assigned function honestly and duly".]10
[16.] 9 April 1723 — Council discusses Bach, Schott and (still) Kauffmann; also an unnamed musician 'From Pirna', near Dresden [cantor Christian Heckel, see Martin Gecck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work (Orlando FL: Harcourt, 2006: 128. Also discussed is Christian Petzoldt ( Wikipedia, Dresden Hofkapelle court organist.]
[17.] 13 April 1723 — Prince Leopold writes graciously, releasing Bach from Cöthen.
[18.] 19 April 1723 — Bach (only now?) writes a letter of intent to take the job [within four weeks, Pentecost Sunday, 16 May; Bach signs employment contract at the Leipzig town hall, says Michael Maul (Ibid.: 34)].
[19.] 22 April 1723 — Bach formally elected [unanimously at the great council meeting].
[20.] 5 May 1723 — Bach displays his Cöthen release and signs his written undertaking.
[21.] 8 May 1723 — Bach presented to the consistory court by Superintendent Deyling, who adds a testimonial by J. Schmidt, Doctor of Divinity in the university, approving the candidate after the statutory theological confessional text.
[22. 13 May 1723 — Consistory court signals acceptance.]
[23.] 16 May 1723 — Whitsuntide: Bach 'entered on his [adjunct] functions' in the university (Dok I, p. 39) and officially at St. Thomas — the former with a cantata? [BWV 59]. From now until his death, receives his share of the twelve quarts of wine distrito the six church officers at four main festivals each year [Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Reformation] (Dok II, p. 113).
[24.] 22 May 1723 — Newspaper report of the family's move from Cöthen to Leipzig.
[25.] 30 May 1723 — Bach performs first documented cantata, in the Nikolaikirche:: No. 75 for the 1st Sunday after Trinity.
[26.] 1 June 1723 — New cantor formally introduced at the [Thomas] school. (The absence of the superintendent, Salomon Deyling, is publicly noted.)
Thomascantorat Research: Bach Network 2021
Intensive research in this century has produced many new findings about the Leipzig Thomascantorat competition and other contextual matters such as the Leipzig political conditions, the status of the Thomas School, and the situations of the other candidates. One such finding is the Bach Network's Discussing Bach 3 (October 2021), Bach and the Thomaskantorat (Bach Network). The discussion features three Bach scholars each discussing one of the three original contenders: Telemann authority Steven Zohn, Graupner specialist Ursula Kramer, and Johann Friedrich Fasch expert Barbara M. Reul. "The programme committee commissioned them to take a fresh look at why these three contemporaries of J. S. Bach decided against accepting the Thomaskantorat, to see where this conversation would take us," says Ruth Tatlow, Council Chair in the full text Editorial Introduction, Nach Network [PDF]: iii; four contributors iv; Further reading and listening (bibliography v), adapted from the 41:47 live video discussion (YouTube), which also includes commentary from Michael Maul, head of research, Bach-Archiv Leipzig, author of Bach's Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1212-1804.11 Two articles accompany the Bach Network discussion, Steven Zohn's "Telemann as Thomaskantor? An Historical Capriccio" (Bach Network [PDF]), and Barbara M. Reul's "‘It was impossible for me to leave’ – Johann Friedrich Fasch and the Thomaskantorat in 1722" (Bach Network [PDF]: 31-44). The Authorized Transcript of the discussion (Bach Network [PDF]) includes additional comments omitting from the edited recorded live discussion. "The exercise also led to a deeper and unanimous appreciation of why the Leipzig town council unanimously chose Bach," says the Editorial Introduction (Ibid.: 3).
"Telemann as Thomaskantor? An Historical Capriccio"
Here is Zohn's synthesis of his imaginary plot, "Telemann as Thomaskantor? An Historical Capriccio" (Bach Network [PDF], Discussing Bach 3 (October 2021: 15–30 © Bach Network 2021) <<So, in my telling, the composer shapes his position in ways familiar from his actual career in Frankfurt and Hamburg. Unlike Bach, Telemann becomes music director at the city’s Neue Kirche [New Church], a position he held in his university days. He also gives concerts in the city’s large private gardens – something Bach apparently never did. Here we see Apel’s Garden around 1720, and the Großbosischer Garden around 1730. Given Telemann’s connection to the celebrated Leipzig poet Christiane Mariane von Ziegler [1695–1760], I imagine that he commissions from her librettos to an entire church cantata cycle, rather than the nine librettos that Bach commissioned.
<<But the real fun is deciding what happens to Bach. He initially remains a court musician, transferring from Cöthen to Gotha, where he writes operas for the first time. He replaces the Capellmeister Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel [1690–1749], whose talent and experience make him ideally suited to succeed Telemann at Hamburg. Bach’s varied activities at Gotha eventually allow him to succeed Johann David Heinichen [1683–1729] as Dresden Capellmeister, and finally to replace Stölzel at Hamburg. Thus, Telemann’s decision in this tale to accept the Leipzig offer leads to new professional possibilities for Bach, who opens the door when opportunity knocks.>>
Michael Maul, in response to Zohn's imaginary scenario, suggests that if Telemann had taken the Leipzig post, "So, I am quite sure that Bach would have applied for Telemann’s position in Hamburg after he went to Leipzig, and if we remember that Bach had this in mind in 1721, why should he not have thought of becoming, sooner or later, the successor of [Joachim] Gerstenbüttel [1647–1721], the music director of the town? Whether he would have got the job or not, or if he had any chance against Stölzel, I have no idea, I’m not sure. But at least a year earlier, he seems to have impressed a lot of people when he performed at the organ and also, obviously, performed his famous Cantata (BWV) 21, Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis." In response, Barbara M. Reul in her article, Bach Network [PDF], shows that "On 29 September 1722, Fasch (1688-1758) became the new Capellmeister of Anhalt-Zerbst" and had a successful lifelong career there. "The career paths of Fasch, Telemann, and Graupner intersected several times, the most important convergence being in 1722 when they all expressed interest in applying for the Thomaskantorat, the cantorship of St Thomas in Leipzig," says Reul (Ibid.: 31). This competition among leading composers revealed two intrinsic situations that shaped German composers in the first half of the 18th century, as well as other factors.
Internal City, Court Politicking
Most prominent was "the kind of internal politicking that crippled many a city and court alike in the early eighteenth century," says Reul in another essay, "‘Dream Job: Next Exit?’: A Comparative Examination of Selected Career Choices by J. S. Bach and J. F. Fasch," Understanding Bach, 9: 9–24 (© Bach Network UK 2014: 12), Bach Network [PDF].12 This shows the influences facing Bach and Fasch during three vital periods: 1710—Bach in Weimar, Fasch in Leipzig; 1722—Bach in Köthen, Fasch in Prague; and 1730—Bach in Leipizg, Fasch in Zerbst. Each period shows the challenges composers faced. Most significant was the governing conflict in Leipzig, best portrayed in Michael Maul's history of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. In the selection of a successor to Johann Kuhnau, the governing Leipzig Town Council was divided into two main factions, the progressive music director group with allegiance to the governing Saxon Court in Dresden, and the cantor group of conservatives favoring local interests. In the 1722 competition, "The Cantor faction favoured Christian Friedrich Rolle (1681–1751), Georg Lenck (1685–1744), and Johann Martin Steindorff (1663–1744), in that order," says Reul (Ibid.: Fn. 17: 14).13
The other intrinsic situation was the close relationship among the various composers, well aware of each's working conditions, job requirements, and changing governing situations — ingredients for a grand opera! Meanwhile, German opera was emerging at the beginning of the 18th century in Hamburg and both municipal and court governing bodies sought it as a measure of prestige. Bach's situation with regard to opera was the he was too late on the scene: in each community opera when he arrived had failed in Weimar and Leipzig or had not taken hold in Cöthen because of lack of resources. There Prince Leopold was content to present proto-opera serenades, evening table music with operatic-style arias, recitatives, and choruses with mythological/symbolic characters in dialogue. Some scholars suggest that these entertainments were semi-staged with costumes, backdrops, and gestures. In Leipzig, Bach's main challenge was the governing employer, the town council. <<Bach was continually pushing the envelope with the Town Council, which ultimately controlled all the purse-strings. He looked for aid from allies like the Saxon Capellemeister faction, especially Lange, on the Council. No victowas without cost. In 1724, in Lutheran accommodating fashion, he had to present his Saint John Passion at the Nikolas Church (and pay the cost of reprinting the program), but he forced the council to appropriate funds to install safe platforms for the performers. In 1730, he addressed his musical resource needs by bypassing the Council directly and assuming the directorship of the Collegium musicum. Eventually he paid the price when he was censured and had musical resources taken away from him and given to the University Church. In some instances, Bach resorted to lengthy explanations, litigation, and even hyperbole. In the Memorandum (Entwurff, 1730), he was putting on record what his needs were: well-appointed (and paid) musicians to present his well-ordered music. I think Bach was not only a learned theologian but also a skillful lawyer, as C.P.E. would become in Frankfurt, but never had the sheepskins!>> (source: BCW). Meanwhile, Bach throughout his Leipzig tenure, contributed impressive annual cantatas for the inauguration of the town council, despite its continual criticisms and vexations, showing his only compositional commitment,14 other than the annual Passions at the Good Friday vespers.
ENDNOTES
1 David Schulenberg, Chapter 4, "Arnstadt, Mühlhausen," in Bach, The Master Musicians, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Oxford Univ. Press., 2020: 36), Amazon.com).
2 Robin A. Leaver, Chapter 7, "Bach's Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWV 4: Hymnology and Chronology," in Bach Studies. Liturgy, Hymnology, and Theology, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London Routledge, 2021: 138ff), BCW, Amazon.com.
3 Dates are confirmed with Robin A. Leaver's Part VI Chronology, Chapter 20, Life and Works 1685-1750, in The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach, ed. Robin A. Leaver (London: Routledge, 2017: 493), Amazon.com.
4 Robert L., Traute M. Marshal, Exploring the World of J. S. Bach: A Traveler's Guide (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016: 143), BCW, Amazon.com.
5 Two sources: Andreas Glöckner, "Johann Sebastian Bach und die Universität Leipzig: Neue Quellen (Teile I)," in Bach-Jahrbuch 94 (2008: 176, Cucosa.Journals), on Kuhnau illness at Pentecost 17; Tatiana Schabalina, "Texte zur Music" in Sankt Petersburg. Neue Quellen zur Leipziger Musikgeschichte sowie zur Kompositions- und Aufführungstätigkeit Johann Sebastian Bachs," in Bach-Jahrbuch 94 (2008: 57f), Cucosa.Journals.
6 For details, see Barbara M Reul, "It was impossible for me to leave" – "Johann Friedrich Fasch and the Thomaskantorat in 1722," Bach Network, Discussing Bach 3 (October 2021: 31–44 © Bach Network 2021), Bach Network [PDF]: 35ff).
7 Barbara M. Reul, Chapter 9, "The Court of Anhalt-Zerbst" in Music at German Courts, 1715-1760: Changing Artistic Priorities, eds. Samantha Owens, Barbara M. Reul, Janice B. Stockigt (Woodbridge UK: Boydell Press, 2011: 265).
8 Peter Williams, Chapter 5, "Leipzig, the first years," in Bach: A Musical Biography, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016: 251-53), Amazon.com.
9 Kauffmann's probe piece will be performed at the Leipzig Bachfest 2023 on June 9 (Bach Archiv Leipzig) and repeated on 10 June (Gewandhaus Orchester). The performance was broadcast on 10 February 2023 (MDR Klassik Radio). Bach used the same incipit, "Ich elender Mensch" (Rom. 7:24) in Cantata 48 for the 19th Sunday after Trinity 1723.
10 Cited in Michael Maul, "Leipzig Seeks the Super-Cantor: The Long Search for a Successor to Thomas Cantor Johann Kuhnau," liner notes (trans. Erik Dorset), "Leipzig 1723: Telemann, Graupner, Bach: Applications for the Thomascantor position in 1723"; Capella Jenensis (Accentus Music 1723: 33); Naxos.
11 Michael Maul, Bach's Famous Choir: The Saint Thomas School in Leipzig, 1212-1804, trans. Richard Howe (Woodbridge UK: Boydell Press, 2018), Boydell and Brewer; see Part V, "School for Scholars or 'Conservatory of Music'? An ongoing conflict, 1730-1804)"; see also Michael Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig (1693–1720), Rombach Wissenschaften, Reihe Voces 12 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 2009); Project Muse, Brill.
12 Conditions in Leipzig were first explored significantly in Bach's Changing World: Voices in the Community, ed. Carol K. Baron (University of Rochester Press, 2006), Contents: Baron, "Transitions, Transformations, Reversals: Rethinking Bach's World"; Baron, "Tumultuous Philosophers, Pious Rebels, Revolutionary Teachers, Pedantic Clerics, Vengeful Bureaucrats, Threatened Tyrants, Worldly Mystics: The Religious World Bach Inherited"; John Van Cleve, Family Values and Dysfunctional Families: Home Life in the Moral Weeklies and Comedies of Bach's Leipzig"; Joyce Irwin, Bach in the Midst of Religious Transition; Ulrich Siegele, "Bach's Situation in the Cultural Politics of Contemporary Leipzig"; Tanya Kavorkian, "The Reception of the Cantata during Leipzig Church Services; Katherine Goodman, "From Salon to Koffeekranz: Gender Wars and the Coffee Cantata in Bach's Leipzig"; Jhann Kuhnau, "A Treatise on Liturgical Text Settings" (trans. Ruben Weltsch); and Gottfried Ephraim Scheibel, "Random Thoughtsd About Church Music in Pur Day (1721, trans. Joyce Irwin). Also in Tanya Kavorkian, Baroque Piety (London, Routledge, 2016 paperback; orig. pub. Ashgate, 2007), contents: I. Congregants' everyday practices: 1. Experiencing the service, 2, Seating the religious public: church pews and society; II. The producers: 3. The clergy, the city council, and Leipzig inhabitants; 4. Elites in and beyond Leipzig, the Dresden court and the consistories, 5. Leipzig's cantors: status politics, and the adiaphora; III. The Pietist alternative: 6. Sociability and religious protest: the collegia pietatis of 1689-1690, 7. The Pietist shadow network; and IV. The construction boom and beyond: 8. Social change and religious life.
13Another fictional account of the composer contest is Bach at Leipzig: A Play by Itmar Moses (Wikipedia) (Amazon.com, Bach at Leipzig by Itamar Moses [PDF]), here the six original competitors for Kuhnau's job meet together at the Thomasnerkirche to audition — Fasch, Schott, Lenck, Steindorf, Kauffmann, and Graupner — knowing that Telemann has the upper hand. In dialogues, they try to improve their chances while seeking alliances with other competitors. While some of the materials show biographical elements of each, their credentials and strategies, while others are seeming invention as the discussions continue and Telemann arrives at the end of Act One. In Act Two, there are musical discussions among the six and further plotting as Bach arrives (like Telemann, never on stage), with no significant connections to Leipzig or the Saxon Court while Telemann is chosen but rejects the offer. Graupner auditions but also rejects the post (both get hefty lay raises). A fictitious battle outside Leipzig's gates involves the invading Steindorffs' Zwickau Calvinists and Kauffman's Merseburg's Pietists, with an internal church sword fight involving the six candidates. Bach's music is heard and both external and internal battles end, followed by the competitors' epilogue, accepting their stations. In the Epilogue, Fasch and Schott return in 1750, as at the beginning of the play. Much of the play involves the candidates coming and going, as in the manner of doors getting opened and closed in a French farce.
14 See Martin Petzoldt, BACH-KOMMENTAR: Theologisch-Musikwissenschaftliche Kommentierung der geistlichen Vokalwerke Johann Sebastian Bachs, Band III, Fest- und Kasualkantaten, Passionen, ed. Norbert Bolin (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2018: 175-272), Bärenreiter.
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To come: Leipzig Cantorat Influential Factors, Bach Preparation, Recent Research. |
