Johann Sebastian Bach is, according to many, an unsurpassed genius in the world of music. “Johann Sebastian Superstar,” they call him, or a “musical god.” It might be surprising to know, however, that this elevation of the German composer was not foreseeable during his lifetime nor did it happen any time soon after his death. In fact, the public’s position towards Bach and his music was rather ambiguous at first.
Bach was born in Eisenach, Thuringia in Germany, in 1685 to a family committed to music, music-making and instruments. From an early age, any musical talent he showed was supported and stimulated (Siegmund-Schultze 1985). Throughout his life, Bach himself worked as an organist and composer, and from 1723 until his death in 1750, he occupied the prestigious post of cantor at St Thomas’s School in Leipzig. In his many active years, Bach wrote 1128 pieces: cantatas, chorales, preludes, masses. His music has long been considered as “overwhelmingly pietistic and spiritual” and “quintessentially German.” Only recently scholarship has come to recognise Bach as “first and foremost a professional musician” who met deadlines and wrote and changed his works whenever necessary (Dowley 1990 p.81f). At least in the scholarly perception of Bach the notion of the musical genius has thus given way to that of a gifted professional.
Interestingly, these two interpretations echo the first extended Bach biography written by Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1802):
If [Bach] was asked the secret of his mastership he would answer, ‘I was made to work; if you are equally industrious you will be equally successful,’ a remark which made no allowance for his own exceptional genius. (Forkel & Sanford Terry 1920/1802, p.106f)
Forkel, however, clearly prefers the notion of the musical genius. He steps away from the interpretation of Bach the naturally gifted son of a musical family – and that despite of what Bach himself and later also his family, such as his son Carl Phillip Emmanuel, said of him: “[he] belonged to a family which was given love and skilfulness for music as a gift from nature to all its members” (Bach & Agricola 1754, p.158).
Forkel’s biography is also a sign of Bach’s growing popularity with the public - moving away from the more limited Bach reception as "composer for experts" (Haselböck in Ender 2006) - and a means to promote his music. Bach’s time in the shadows of other composers is usually said to have come to its end with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s 1829 performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion (e.g. Dowley 1990, Siegmund-Schultze 1985). Thus it took time for early obscurity and unpopularity to give way to the general elevation of Bach. Indeed, the idea of the musical genius was not firmly attached to Bach until the second half of the nineteenth century – and then still not without criticism. A commentator in The Orchestra clearly distinguished between appreciating Bach and uncritically revering him as an idol:
To musicians who can understand and appreciate Bach, he is indeed a King of Men: his works speak in language little short of inspiration […] How different this reverence from the adulation of the devotees of Fashion, or the worshippers of Mammon […]. (1879, p.84)
The comment also clarifies that Bach’s music was a child of labour, not divine inspiration, and that indeed not all of his work is equally valuable or good – parts of it are “uninteresting” or show a composer “ill at ease.” It is clear that Bach’s perception before the twentieth century has not been unanimously that of the musical genius. For this idea to fully emerge and be solidified it needed the record and the internet.
References
- Bach, C.P.E. & Agricola, J.F. (1754). ‘VI. Denkmal dreyer verst. Mitglieder der Societ. der mus. Wissenschaften: C. Der dritte und letzte ist der im Orgel-spielen Weltberühmte HochEdle Herr Johann Sebastian Bach.’ In Lorenz Christoph Mizler de Kolof (ed.). Musikalische Bibliothek, oder Gründliche Nachricht nebst unpartheyischem Urtheil von alten und neuen musikalischen Schriften und Büchern. Des Vierten Bandes Erster Theil (pp.158-176). Leipzig: Im Mizlerschen Bücher-Verlag. [digitised version available]
- ‘Bach Worshippers’ (n.d., October 1879). The Orchestra 6(63), 83-84.
- Dowley, T. (1990). Great Composers: Bach. London: Hamlyn.
- Ender, D. (2006). "Die Krönung des barocken Denkens." Magazin der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien. Retrieved 07 June 2015 from https://www.musikverein.at/monatszeitung/artikel_im_pdf.php?artikel_id=708
- Forkel, J.N. & Sanford Terry, Ch. (transl.) (1920/1802). Johann Sebastian Bach. His Life, Art and Work. Translated from the German of Johann Nikolaus Forkel. With notes and appendices by Charles Sanford Terry, Litt.D. Cantab. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe.
- Siegmund-Schultze, W. (1985). Johann Sebastian Bach. Genie über den Zeiten. München: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag.
- see also: Rueger, Ch. (1989). Johann Sebastian Bach. Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Verlag.
- If you would like to know how two different media have shaped the image of Bach as a musical genius, click here for records and here for the internet.
- For recent criticism of the image “Bach the genius” go here.
- A contemporary composer and artist you might find interesting: John Cage.
