Bach and Frederick the Great: paths to greatness through music and power

¶ … Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (Harper Perennial, James Gaines), 2006.

Gaines' book discusses two of history's greatest men, each of whom became great for a different reason. One was a political leader and statesman the other a musician. The biography of each could not have been more different. Both had tough lives and both fought against enormous stakes but one lived in a palace and the other travelled from place to place living in some at most only 3 years. One sampled jail and the other saw his partner killed and was saved by being sent to the military. One was homosexual and the other happily married in love. Bach's love in contradistinction to that of Frederick was more serene and meaningful. His music absorbed him and made him happy. He was focused; his life purely devoted to cantatas and organ music. His character, possibly formed by his music, was placid and thoughtful. Frederick the Great, on the other hand, was tempestuous and troublesome. His difficult childhood forced him to be great despite trauma that would have unsettled almost anyone else. Bach too persevered, persisting at a craft that was onerous and lonely and took him a while to develop. Their differences, in short, were extreme. Their commonalities? Perhaps, that both attained greatness through different means.

Gaines' book is a fascinating narrative of their different odysseys to greatness. This essay will analyze the roots of the greatness of each personality.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21st l685, the son of Johann Ambrosius, court trumpeter for the Duke of Eisenach and director of the musicians of the town of Eisenach in Thuringia. Bach's family had long held positions as organists, town instrumentalists, or Cantors in the town of Thuringia, and the family name Bach was synonymous with music.

When nine, Bach lost his sister, brother and both parents and his brother, Johann Christoph, took him and his younger brother into his home where he taught Bach organ and harpsichord.

In 1700, Bach joined the 'Mettenchor' (Mattins Choir) in the North-German musical center of Luneburg where he first became impacted by French instrumental music, and then with Italian instrumental music in Weimer. Three years later he was employed as organist by the Arnstadt Town Council where he stayed until 1707.

It was in Arnstaadt that Bach's method first changed. He had become acquainted with the great organist, Dietrich Buxtehude, but the conservative old gentlemen of the hamlet were none too happy with the change. They saw it as "surprising variations and irrelevant ornaments which obliterate the melody and confuse the congregation." In 1707, therefore, Bach moved to Muhlhausen where he married his cousin Maria Barbara from Arnstadt and created his first cantata 'Gott ist mein Konig' (BWV 71).

In 1714, Bach became Court Organist in Weimer and accrued a reputation as one of the greatest German composers. The tyranny of Bach's employer however landed Bach in jail in 1771 when he accepted the post of Capellmeister in the Court of Anhalt-Cothen. Typically, Bach used this period to produce his Orgelbuchlein', a cycle of organ chorale preludes for the whole year.

In Cothen, Bach devoted himself totally to his music and it was during this period that he produced much of his chamber music; violin concertos, sonatas, keyboard music, and so forth. Here too Bach remarried one of his singers, Anna Magdalena who helped him care for his 13 children. In 1722, Bach left for Leipzig where he was to spend the remaining 27 years of his life living and working as Directore Chori Musici Lipsiensis - Director of Choir and Music.

Here, he produced his most inspiring statements of baroque musical form including his last great work which no composer has yet been able to surpass: 'Die Kunst der Fuge' ('The Art of the Fugue', BWV 1080).

Strain on his eyes led to Bach becoming blind and he spent his last months in a darkened room, revising his great chorale fantasias (BWV 651-668) with the help of his son-in-law. His last chorale fantasia was fittingly based on the chorale "Before Thy Throne O. Lord I Stand." Another fugue featuring the subject B-A-C-H was left incomplete whilst the last great Triple Fugue of the Art (Contrapunctus XI) may also have been written during his final days. On the morning of the 28th of July, 1750, Bach awoke with restored eyesight and died that same evening following a stroke ("after a quarter to nine, in the sixty-fifth year of his life, yielding up his blessed soul to his saviour (p. 158)').

It was on 1714 that the story which opens Gaines' book occurred. Bach had stopped at Potsdam after two days of traveling and had been invited to attend at the Royal Palace of King Frederick the Great of Prussia, where his son Carl Phillip Emmanuel was also employed as Court Harpsichordist. Frederick was about to begin his evening concert, in which he himself played the flute with the orchestra, when he took a look at the list of attendees and remarked to his orchestra, 'Gentlemen, old Bach is here'. Frederick cancelled his evening concert and gave Bach a theme on which to improvise. Bach rose to the occasion, developed the King's theme into a sequence of complex contrapuntal movements, added a sonata for violin and flute, entitled the whole 'A Musical Offering' and sent it to the Court with a letter of dedication.

Frederick, Gaines writes, intended to befuddle Bach, whom he saw as relic of an archaic outdated age.

Bach had achieved greatness due to his focus and perseverance. Frederick too received greatness of a different kind and through different means. His childhood and life had been almost totally distinct to that of Bach.

Contrast between Johann Bach and Frederick the Great

Both personalities experienced hardship in their lives although Bach it seemed had a more content, emotionally satisfying life that that of Frederick. His marriages were happy and he was absorbed in work that he loved: his music. He was gainfully employed and recognized in all his places and his short bout in jail was only inspired due to an employer's envy. Bach spent his short life absorbed in that which he loved and died content with having become one of Germany's greatest musicians and one of the greatest composers of all times. Although h did not know it, Bach became immortal.

One of the greatest influences on Bach was the ethical and quality-filled education that the received from his brother and instructors who lavished on him the greatest care. Parentless as he was, Bach did not lack love. The story goes that Christoph punished his young brother when he discovered he had copied a forbidden musical manuscript by moonlight over a period of six months, and confiscated the precious copy. Bach grew up in a parentless home but by a brother who cared for him and taught him morals. At the same time, Bach received a well-rounded education at the Gymnasium of Ohrdruf where the instructors encouraged his musical talent.

Frederick, on the other hand, received an education that would have destroyed many a lesser soul. The fact that Frederick not only survived but also flourished with the descriptor 'Great' tagged after his name tells a lot about his resilience. Not many of us are able to achieve that.

Bach achieved greatness due to years of unremitting focus and practice. Frederick's greatness came about due to his perseverance and resilience of a different kind.

Two great men who met at the end of one's life and the pinnacle of the energy of another. Their lives could not have been more different but both can inspire us in different ways.

Source

Gaines, J "Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment." Harper Perennial, 2006."