A Few Things You Never Knew About JS Bach...

JS Bach (1685-1750)

• 'Bach’ translated into English is ‘stream’ or ‘brook’. Beethoven said of this ‘not ‘Bach’ (stream/brook), but ‘Sea’ should be his name’.

• Although Bach travelled frequently, he never ventured beyond what we now understand as modern Germany; only travelling as far as Lübeck and Hamburg in the north and Carlsbad in the south.

• In his early twenties, Bach is recorded as having had an altercation with a bassoonist called Geyersbach, who had been casting aspersions on his musical abilities. Bach is supposed to have called him a ‘nanny-goat bassoonist’, to which Geyersbach replied Bach was a ‘dirty dog’. Bach then pulled out his sword ready for a duel, but Geyersbach jumped on him and they brawled on the ground until they could be pulled apart.

• In 1705, as a man of 20, Bach was given leave to study with Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707), the great German-Danish organist and composer. Legend claims that he walked over 200 miles to Lübeck for these studies.

• Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara Bach, was his second cousin and daughter of Johann Michael Bach.

• In German, Bach’s name spells out four musical notes B- B flat, A- A natural, C – C natural, H – B natural

• On Bach’s death in 1750 the bulk of his manuscripts were divided between his two eldest sons; Carl Phillip Emmanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann. Emmanuel looked after his, but Friedemann carelessly gave away and sold many of his. By 1774, destitution as a result of his party-boy lifestyle caused him to auction off a large number of his father’s autographs

• After the division of Bach’s estate between Anna Magdalena and his nine surviving children, on top of payment of outstanding debts and expenses, Anna’s share was valued at less than half her husband’s annual earnings. Neither Emmanuel nor Friedemann appear to have felt any obligation to help their stepmother after the death of their father. So Anna remained in Leipzig with her daughters and stepdaughter, existing mainly on charity, until her death as an impoverished almswoman in 1760.

 

Southern Sinfonia opens the Winchester Festival on 6 July 2012 with JS Bach's B Minor Mass with The Bach Choir at Winchester Cathedral. They also perform JS Bach's Nun danket alle Gott BWV 192 with Somerset Chamber Choir on 28 July at Wells Cathedral. For more information please see our website www.southernsinfonia.co.uk.