Vignettes from:
Sebastian:
The Life of Johann Sebastian Bach
The three-note motif exploded through the chapel, then fled downward, stopping. Nightmare figures rose in front of her, wraith-like, cloaked in black. Why was Sebastian playing this piece today of all days?
It was the middle of the morning, January 20, 1715. Barbara Bach, wife of Johann Sebastian Bach, was sitting with her two eldest children at the end of a back pew in the Castle chapel of Weimar. She shuddered and looked up at the galleries lining the sides of the fold-hued chapel. The princes and baronesses were as still as the green and gold columns behind which they sat. What did they think of the music? Barbara wondered. What did the clergy think, the Lutheran dignitaries from all over Germany? What was Duke Wilhelm thinking? She couldn't imagine how anyone, even someone who hated frivolity as much as the Grand Duke, could be pleased at having his birthday ceremonies launched in such a macabre way.
On and on the organ thundered, filling every empty thought and space in the chapel. Sebastian had written this work, a Toccata and Fugue in the key of D minor, two years earlier, in an effort to deal with the heartbreak of losing their twins. It was, he said, his most unbelieving piece.
Sebastian stopped in the doorway, and immediately, a man wearing an Adonis wig rose from a circle of flounced and coifed nobility and hurried toward him.
It was Konzertmeister Volumier. He guided Sebastian across the Grand Parlour toward the guests who were gathered near a harpsichord. Sebastian scanned the faces, wondering which was Louis Marchand. His eyes settled on a tall man with arrogance carved into his face.
Volumier presented the Count who was hosting the improvisation contest, then arced his arm toward the other side of the circle. "The French Court Organist Louis Marchand."
The arrogant man uncrossed his blue silked legs, slowly unfolded his frame and inclined his head.
Sebastian inclined his. Their eyes locked.
Volumier cleared his throat. "I have heard Johann Sebastian Bach perform on a variety of claviers. You will find him a formidable foe."
Marchand's voice was smooth and malicious, "You are the most current of a long line of family musicians I understand."
"I am quite proud of my family heritage."
Marchand's heavy gray eyes flitted over Sebastian like a feline sizing up its prey. "A heritage of talented family members enables a man where he cannot make it on his own. Now we in France have begun to choose vocations suited to our individual natures. We set the standard for the rest of the world in every area, whereas Germany ..." He paused. There were indrawn breaths. "But enough! I must hear a sampling of your repertoire."
The French man sank coolly to his seat, crossed arms and waited.
Sebastian felt as though kindling had been set to burn an inch from his face. Englishmen were glaring. Germans were tapping their fingers on their chairs. French guests looked nervous, but amused.
Sebastian whirled toward Volumier. "At your leave, I will play."
The women began fluttering their fans and whispering, and some of the group broke into applause. Sebastian tested the harpsichord with a soft swift scale, adjusted the bench, then launched like a fury into his newest fugue. He threw all his emotion into the music, made it crash and flow, swift and full of mood through the room.
The audience loved it.
"My Lady has a theme for you." It was a courtier at the back of the room. He stood beside a stately woman whose skirts took up an abominable amount of room.
"The Electress," Volumier whispered.
The courtier hummed a four measure tune. Sebastian closed his eyes, thinking the melody to himself and analyzing its structure.
Flipping out a couple of stops, he stepped his fingers into the keys, feeling out the melody, working it first like a round-like canon. Then he opened the exactness into a freer fugue, harmonizing it and varying it, modulating it into different keys. The melody grew and sang, more and more complex, and with each new complexity came a fresh round of applause. Sebastian lived the music.
Finally he brought the improvisation to a close and asked for another theme. He glanced in Marchand's direction. The expression on the Frenchman's face could only be described as hate.
The Church Cycle (from Chapter 13)
Excellence, excellence, excellence! He must strive for it.
He could hear it sometimes in the voices of the boy scholars: clear, sweet, high like bells, four parts weaving, low parts booming, soft like timpani, delicate as a spider gossamer stretching into the apse.
He immersed himself in the Psalms and found himself identifying with King David. David had written psalms of praise, agony, prayer and longing and presented them for use in corporate worship. Through the power of who he was, the depth of his experience with God, and his high musicianship, David emerged as the Worship Director of his people.
Though the Worship Director title did not come quickly to Sebastian as he had thought it would, he knew it must happen, because in him there was springing up a creative urge so strong that scripture put to music was all he could think of day and night.
Wherever he was, he filled every extra scrap of paper around him with sketches: images of bare trees and dark rolling clouds, fortresses, architectures he'd like to build with music, arches of emotion and imagined colors, rhythmic motifs, sonorous bass lines and melody after melody.
Whenever possible, he raced to the organ in the Thomaskirche and filled the cathedral with the vast organ sounds of his thoughts. In the lilt of melody and form, the organ timbre of gedeckt, diapason, nazard and flute, lay a taste of what it meant to be fully human. Music had the power to teach, to stretch people's souls. He would use it to bend emotions to his will - for God.
He went through the motions of teaching, taking care of instruments and meeting with the Church and Town councils, but his mind was practically always somewhere else.
Every night he came home eager to get to his desk. Every mealtime he was careful to listen to his wife and children. Every Thursday Anna became deeply involved in the newest cantata as she helped to copy parts.
Every week for five years, he wrote a new cantata to be sung for the next Sunday or feast day. And now the music flowed from his pen in a storm of inspiration and creativity like none he'd ever experienced before. He couldn't commit it to paper fast enough. He had a mission, and that he set his mind to with all the intensity of his intense soul.
Copyright 2002 by RuthAnn Ridley
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