Tuesday, October 29, 2019

It's a wonder he had time to compose anything...

As with (I suspect) most of the public, I might know the names of the big classical composers, and have heard some of their musical highlights, but know little of their lives.  Especially Bach - until I read this, I really don't think I knew the first thing about him:
I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen groschen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology. They don’t know about Bach’s sex life: at best a matter of speculation, but what should we conclude from his twenty known children, more than any significant composer in history (a procreative career that has led some to joke with a knowing wink that “Bach’s organ had no stops”), or his second marriage to twenty-year-old singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, when he was in his late thirties? They don’t know about the constant disciplinary problems Bach caused, or his insolence to students, or the many other ways he found to flout authority. This is the Bach branded as “incorrigible” by the councilors in Leipzig, who grimly documented offense after offense committed by their stubborn and irascible employee.

But you hardly need to study these incidents in Bach’s life to gauge his subversive tendencies. Just listen to his music, which in its ostentatious display of technique and inventiveness must have disturbed many in the austere Lutheran community, and even fellow musicians. Not much music criticism of his performances has survived, but the few surviving reactions of his contemporaries leave no doubt about Bach’s disdain for the rules others played by.
As the title to the post says - a big beer drinking habit and (by the sounds of it) oversexed, and he still had time for his extremely intricate brand of music.   Good thing smart phones weren't around then.

As for the number of children - you would think there must be many Bach descendants scattered through Europe.  However, it would seem that there are in fact none.


5 comments:

Not Trampis said...

good to see the back of him

Steve said...

Boom boom.

TimT said...

Awesome.

TimT said...

Also, several of his ancestors were composers as were several of his children.

I'd imagine there's a lot still running around!

TimT said...

I don't buy all the arguments over at that link - they make Bach to be a thorough revolutionary, barely less than Lenin in musical form. That's a standard critical move - the artist you're talking about us worth talking about/stands out from other artists because they are so radically different. But it's just a posture. Contrary to what they say, Bach was very well aware of music appropriate for time and place, and didn't always overturn these conventions - and his cantatas and other vocal works don't seem to me to overturn previous liturgical traditions re: faithfulness to the meaning of the text. Far from it, they seem remarkably faithful and insightful about the meaning of the Biblical texts they take.

It's very good to see J S getting attention though.