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Read Ebook: Johann Sebastian Bach by Peyser Herbert F Herbert Francis
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Ebook has 77 lines and 16375 words, and 2 pages
What has been called the "battle of the Prefects" was long drawn out and bitter. The details need not detain us. Trouble was intensified by the appointment to a responsible position of a person named Krause, whom Bach had angrily described as "ein liederlicher Hund" . Things went from bad to worse. Bach accused the rector of usurping his functions. He wrote long, circumstantial letters setting forth his case to "their Magnificences," the Burgomaster, the civic council, and other outstanding authorities. "Their Magnificences" replied with legalistic hair-splittings and things grew so violent that Bach in one case undertook to drive Krause from the choir loft. The lengthy series of undignified squabbles was finally brought to an end by Augustus the Strong, King of Poland, Saxony, "etc., etc., etc." . We are not certain that the composer obtained the satisfaction he demanded, but everyone seems to have tired of the interminable quarrel and was relieved to see it peter out.
Meanwhile, Bach had other worries and vexations. One of his sons, Gottfried Bernhard, proved as unstable as did Wilhelm Friedemann in a later day, but died before his financial misdeeds had ended in his open disgrace. Then the composer was made the target of attacks by a certain minor musician, one Scheibe, who criticized his works for what he called their "complexity and overelaboration." Bach immortalized the fellow by satirizing him in the secular cantata, "Phoebus and Pan," where Scheibe appears as the ignoramus Midas, adorned with a pair of ass's ears!
ST. MATTHEW PASSION AND B MINOR MASS
VISIT TO FREDERICK THE GREAT AND LATER WORKS
Early in 1741 Bach's son Philipp Emanuel had become clavecinist to the new sovereign of Prussia, Frederick the Great. Moved, it appears, by a paternal wish to see the young man comfortably settled, the father made a trip to Berlin in the summer of that year. Details of the journey are few and it was cut short by news that Anna Magdalena, in Leipzig, was seriously ill.
Bach's famous visit to Berlin and Potsdam did not take place, however, till fully six years later. One of its chief objects was to make the acquaintance of his daughter-in-law, whom Philipp Emanuel had married in 1744, and of his first grandchild. But the visit had more spectacular consequences. Frederick the Great had learned about Bach from his court pianist. Whether or not the great Cantor went to the palace of Sans-Souci in Potsdam at the king's special command, he arrived there at a psychological moment on May 7, 1747, just as Frederick was about to begin one of his regular evening concerts at which, surrounded by his picked musicians, he loved to exhibit his own considerable virtuosity on the flute. "Gentlemen, old Bach is here!" the monarch exclaimed and, calling off the concert, received his guest with cordiality. He immediately had Bach examine the new Silbermann claviers with hammer action newly installed in the palace and invited him to show his skill. After putting each of the instruments to a test, Bach amazed Frederick and his court by improvising a superb six-part fugue on a subject submitted him by the king himself. The next evening he transported his hosts once more with a recital on the organ of the Church of the Holy Ghost in Potsdam and a little later, in Berlin, examined the new opera house, detecting acoustical effects which the architect himself seems not to have suspected.
DEATH
Yet, in the latter part of the eighteenth century it was chiefly Philipp Emanuel, not his father, to whom one referred when the mighty name was invoked. For the sons of Bach, not the mighty parent, embodied "the spirit of the time." Even prior to his death Johann Sebastian had passed for outmoded and rather hopelessly "old hat." Philipp Emanuel went so far as to call his father "a big wig stuffed with learning"; and such was the opinion shared by many of the young bloods in Leipzig and elsewhere. In a way this was not surprising. Bach represented a type of music whose complex profundities were giving place to homophony, entertainment and the graceful superficialities of the so-called "gallant style." The new age was concerned with the problems of the sonata and the opera. Even if Bach's scores--most of them unpublished--had been accessible, it is questionable whether the epoch we call "classical" would have been able to see him in a just perspective.
COMPLETE LIST OF RECORDINGS BY THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
COLUMBIA RECORDS
LP--Also available on Long Playing Microgroove Recordings as well as on the conventional Columbia Masterworks.
BARBER--Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 BEETHOVEN--Concerto for Violin, Cello, Piano and Orchestra in C major --LP BEETHOVEN--Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major --LP BEETHOVEN--Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra --LP BEETHOVEN--Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21--LP BEETHOVEN--Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major --LP BEETHOVEN--Symphony No. 5 in C minor--LP BEETHOVEN--Symphony No. 8 in F major--LP BEETHOVEN--Symphony No. 9 in D minor --LP BRAHMS--Song of Destiny --LP DVORAK--Slavonic Dance No. 1 DVORAK--Symphony No. 4 in G major--LP MAHLER--Symphony No. 4 in G major --LP MAHLER--Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor MENDELSSOHN--Concerto in E minor --LP MENDELSSOHN--Scherzo MOZART--Cosi fan Tutti--Overture MOZART--Symphony No. 41 in C major , K. 551--LP SCHUBERT--Symphony No. 7 in C major--LP SCHUMANN, R.--Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major --LP SMETANA--The Moldau --LP STRAUSS, J.--Emperor Waltz
CHOPIN--Les Sylphides--LP GLINKA--Mazurka--"Life of the Czar"--LP 7" GRIEG--Concerto in A minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 16 --LP HEROLD--Zampa--Overture KABALEVSKY--"The Comedians," Op. 26--LP KHACHATURIAN--Gayne--Ballet Suite No. 1--LP KHACHATURIAN--Gayne--Ballet Suite No. 2--LP LECOQ--Mme. Angot Suite--LP PROKOFIEFF--March, Op. 99--LP RIMSKY-KORSAKOV--The Flight of the Bumble Bee--LP 7" SHOSTAKOVICH--Polka No. 3, "The Age of Gold"--LP 7" SHOSTAKOVICH--Symphony No. 9--LP SHOSTAKOVICH--Valse from "Les Monts D'Or"--LP VILLA-LOBOS--Uirapuru--LP WIENIAWSKI--Concerto No. 2 in D minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 22 --LP
D'INDY--Symphony on a French Mountain Air for Orchestra and Piano--LP MILHAUD--Suite Fran?aise--LP MOZART--Concerto No. 21 for Piano and Orchestra in C major--LP SAINT-SAENS--Symphony in C minor, No. 3 for Orchestra, Organ and Piano, Op. 78--LP
STRAVINSKY--Firebird Suite--LP STRAVINSKY--Fireworks --LP STRAVINSKY--Four Norwegian Moods STRAVINSKY--Le Sacre du Printemps --LP STRAVINSKY--Sc?nes de Ballet--LP STRAVINSKY--Suite from "Petrouchka"--LP STRAVINSKY--Symphony In Three Movements--LP
MENDELSSOHN--Symphony No. 4, in A major SIBELIUS--Melisande SIBELIUS--Symphony No. 7 in C major--LP TSCHAIKOWSKY--Capriccio Italien
BACH-BARBIROLLI--Sheep May Safely Graze --LP BERLIOZ--Roman Carnival Overture BRAHMS--Symphony No. 2, in D major BRAHMS--Academic Festival Overture--LP BRUCH--Concerto No. 1, in G minor --LP DEBUSSY--First Rhapsody for Clarinet DEBUSSY--Petite Suite: Ballet MOZART--Concerto in B-flat major MOZART--Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183 RAVEL--La Valse RIMSKY-KORSAKOV--Capriccio Espagnol SIBELIUS--Symphony No. 1, in E minor SIBELIUS--Symphony No. 2, in D major SMETANA--The Bartered Bride--Overture TSCHAIKOWSKY--Theme and Variations --LP
GERSHWIN--Concerto in F --LP
KHACHATURIAN--Concerto for Piano and Orchestra --LP
VICTOR RECORDS
BEETHOVEN--Symphony No. 7 in A major BRAHMS--Variations on a Theme by Haydn DUKAS--The Sorcerer's Apprentice GLUCK--Orfeo ed Euridice--Dance of the Spirits HAYDN--Symphony No. 4 in D major MENDELSSOHN--Midsummer Night's Dream--Scherzo MOZART--Symphony in D major ROSSINI--Barber of Seville--Overture ROSSINI--Semiramide--Overture ROSSINI--Italians in Algiers--Overture VERDI--Traviata--Preludes to Acts I and II WAGNER--Excerpts--Lohengrin--Die G?tterd?mmerung--Siegfried Idyll
DEBUSSY--Iberia PURCELL--Suite for Strings with four Horns, two Flutes, English Horn RESPIGHI--Fountains of Rome RESPIGHI--Old Dances and Airs SCHUBERT--Symphony No. 4 in C minor SCHUMANN--Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor TSCHAIKOWSKY--Francesca da Rimini--Fantasia
J. C. BACH--Arr. Stein--Sinfonia in B-flat major J. S. BACH--Arr. Mahler--Air for G String BEETHOVEN--Egmont Overture HANDEL--Alcina Suite MENDELSSOHN--War March of the Priests MEYERBEER--Proph?te--Coronation March SAINT-SAENS--Rouet d'Omphale SCHELLING--Victory Ball WAGNER--Flying Dutchman--Overture WAGNER--Siegfried--Forest Murmurs
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Copyright notice is from the printed exemplar.
Page 49, "socalled" changed to "so-called" Page 55, "Cosi fan Tutti" kept, but should be "Cosi fan Tutte" Page 56-58, "SAINT-SAENS" kept, but should be "SAINT-SA?NS"
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