Читать книгу The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach - Esther Meynell - Страница 3

Table of Contents

In my solitude I had a visit this day which has cheered my heart. Caspar Burgholt, that old and favourite pupil of my beloved Sebastian, sought me out and came to visit me—and, indeed, it needed some seeking to discover Dame Bach in her seclusion of poverty, so quickly are forgotten our more prosperous days. We had much of which to speak. He told me of his modest successes, of his wife and the young children, but most of all we talked of the one who is dead—of his master and my husband. After we had recalled many things of those wonderful years Caspar said a word which gives a meaning to my present hidden existence: “Write,” he said, “write a little chronicle of that great man. You knew him as no one else knew him, write all that you remember—and I do not suppose your faithful heart has forgotten much—of his words, his looks, his life, his music. People neglect his memory now, but not always will he be forgotten, he is too great for oblivion, and some day posterity will thank you for what you shall write.”

Those were Caspar’s words, and so soon as he had left me I hastened to write them down, for I perceive that whether it is true or not what he says about posterity, there will be much comfort to me in my loneliness in following his advice, It should be good counsel, for he knew Sebastian so well, was so truly devoted to him (as indeed all his pupils were who were old enough to understand his great nature—unlike those tiresome boys of the Thomas Schule, who were such a plague to him).

I have so little left that belonged to Sebastian, as all the valuable things had to be sold and divided among so many. How bitterly I regretted I could not even keep that gold and agate snuffbox of which he was so fond, which I had so often seen in his hands, so often filled for him. But it was adjudged too valuable even for his widow to keep, and must be sold and the money divided among us. But if I have little left to remind me of him it is perhaps because the good God knows there is small need—I am in no danger of forgetting him with all this priceless store of memories in my heart. Poor as I am, and forgotten, living on the charity of the town of Leipzig, and old—I was yesterday fifty-seven years old, only eight years younger than he was when he died—I would not be other than I am now, if it was at the cost of never having known him, never having been his wife. I count but two women in Thuringia completely fortunate—his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, who was his first wife, and myself, his second one. He loves us both—but I think perhaps he loved me the most dearly, and he certainly loved me longest, by the kindness of Providence. But a bare thirteen years was he married to Maria Barbara, and she, poor creature, died when he was absent on one of his journeys with Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. His second son, Emanuel, young as he was at the time, has never forgotten his father’s grief when he returned to find his small children motherless, his wife, whom he had left so well and happy, dead and laid in the grave. Poor Barbara Bach, that she had to die and leave him, without even a farewell word or embrace!

The first time I saw him I—how the years drop away, and it comes back so clear and sharp to me. My father, who out of his goodness would sometimes take me with him on his occasional journeys, especially if there was any matter of music involved, knowing my love for that art of Heaven, took me with him when he went to Hamburg in the winter of 1720 to visit my great-uncle and aunt. There was a very noble Organ in St. Katharine’s Church at Hamburg, it had four manuals and pedal, and I heard much talk of it among my father’s musical friends. The second day I was in Hamburg I had been out marketing for my great-aunt, and as I passed St. Katharine’s on my way back I was minded to slip in and just look at this Organ. As I pushed open the door I heard that somebody was playing, and it seemed to me very wonderful music was coming from within, as though one of the angels was seated at that keyboard. So I stole in very quietly and stayed listening. I stood looking up at the Organ in the west gallery, with its great pipes soaring to the roof, and all its beautiful carvings and decorations, but the organist was hidden from my sight. I do not know quite how long I may have stood there in the empty church, with no sense but hearing, as though I had taken root upon the stones—I was so smitten from all thought of time by this music that even when it suddenly ceased on a glorious group of chords which filled the air with great vibrations, I still stood gazing upwards, hoping that from those pipes would issue more music. Instead, the organist—Sebastian himself—came forth to the Organ balcony to the Organ stairs, and his attention suddenly beheld me gazing upwards. For a moment I looked up at him, too startled by his sudden appearance to move. I think, after that music, I had half expected to see some great angel, if I saw anyone, not a man. Then a trembling took me suddenly. I picked up my cloak, which had fallen to the floor, and ran out of the church in a kind of panic. When I found myself at a safe distance I began to wonder at my own exceeding folly—for even my great-aunt, who was very strict, could surely have found nothing unmaidenly in entering a church in order that I might listen to the Organ.

I had no idea who he was, but on telling my father of this episode at supper that night—with the look and the trembling and the running away, I must confess, omitted—he at once exclaimed, “Why, of course, that must have been the Duke of Cöthen’s Capellmeister, Johann Sebastian Bach. He is to play the St. Katharine’s Organ to-morrow to Herr Reinken, and I and some others are going to hear him. I will tell him how my little daughter admires his music. Perhaps, if he hears her sing, the small nightingale that she is, he may like her voice well enough to write a song for her.”

I begged him, with uncomfortable blushes (for he did not know quite all the story), to say nothing at all about me to the Capellmeister, but the more I blushed the more amused he was, and declared I must have lost my heart to the buttons on the Capellmeister’s coat back, as he did not suppose I could have seen his countenance if he was at the Organ, and in any case he had not heard that Herr Bach was noted for his good looks.

I had the wish to hear him play again the next day, but it could not be gratified, as my poor aunt was so afflicted on that occasion with the quartain ague so it was not fit to leave her. And with my desire to go and hear him again was a curious shrinking and fear of seeing him—I suppose a kind of premonition of the tremendous things he was to mean to me.

But my father went to St. Katharine’s and when he came back I eagerly questioned him. He was overcome with admiration—he had never heard such Organ-playing in his life and never expected to hear such again, unless it were from the same hands. We all sat round and listened to his account. The Capellmeister played for over two hours, and for a fourth of that time he improvised on the chorale, “By the waters of Babylon,” with the most marvellous pedal passages—“Double pedal,” said my father, “and played as easily as one could play a scale with one hand.” He also played a Fantasia and Fugue in G minor he had just recently composed, a thing of great brilliance and beauty. I, of course, did not hear it on this occasion, but I heard him play it at many later times and always had a particular partiality for it—the opening of the Fugue especially always pleased me, it is so gay and exhilarating. When Sebastian had finished his wonderful performance, Herr Reinken—who for so long had been the organist at St. Katharine’s, who was so old, being ninety-seven, and who was well known to be jealous and proud of his own powers—to the utter astonishment of those present, came up to the Capellmeister Bach and taking his hand raised it to his lips, saying, “I salute the hands of genius—I thought this art of Organ-playing would die with me, but I perceive it still lives in you.”

One of the things that deeply impressed my father in Herr Bach’s Organ-playing was his stillness and ease—though his feet would fly up and down the pedal-board as though they had wings, he never seemed to move his body, never twisted himself about as many organists do. It was the perfection that looks simple and shows no effort.

And then imagine what followed—we heard the complete story later on, after we had returned home, from my great-uncle, who, a musician himself, had been much interested in Sebastian on this occasion. The organist of St. James’s Church in Hamburg, which had a very great and fine Organ, was just dead, and Sebastian, attracted by the idea of having such an Organ at his disposal and being in a position to compose church-music (which always meant so much to him, and while with the Duke of Cöthen his work was principally chamber music), offered himself for the post. But, instead of rejoicing at their good fortune in obtaining the greatest organist in the Fatherland, the committee elected a person called Joachim Heitmann, of no musical distinction, because he made them a present of four thousand marks—“He could prelude better with thalers than with his fingers,” said my indignant uncle. But Pastor Neumeister at least was so angry at this transaction that he left the committee, and in reference to it in a sermon he said these scathing words, “I believe quite certainly that if one of the angels of Bethlehem, who played divinely, came from Heaven and wished to be organist of St. James’s Church, if he had no money he would have nothing to do but to fly away.”

So Capellmeister Bach did not go to Hamburg.

And now I come to my first meeting with him, which was in the year after I first saw and heard him. My father being Court Trumpeter at Weissenfels, we constantly had a coming and going of musicians in our house. He was also frequently at Cöthen, where Sebastian was Capellmeister, and it so happened that I had occasionally sung at the court concerts there, but each time Sebastian had been absent, once owing to an illness and once on a journey, to my secret disappointment, as I had the wish to see again and perhaps speak with this remarkable musician.

On a certain morning—a very fair and springlike morning, as I well remember—I had been out, and on my return was going straight into the family room to stick some green boughs in a beau-pot before the stove, when my mother laid her hand on my arm: “Wait a little, Magdalena,” she said, “thy father is engaged on some business with Capellmeister Bach, and I do not think he requires thy presence.”

My foolish heart began thumping very suddenly. Master Bach! and I had only seen him once, though much I had heard of him in the interval, and much I wanted to see him again. I was afraid at once lest my father should call me and should not call me in. I was on the point of running to my bedchamber to put on a fresh neck-ribbon—I had a blue one that I thought became me—when my father opened the door, put his head out and said, “Has Magdalena returned, Mother?” Then he saw me, “Come here, child, Master Bach would spare a moment to hear thy voice.”

So I went into the room and stood before him. I was so abashed I could hardly look up, and I wondered if by any chance he would recognize me, and hoped he would not, for St. Katharine’s had been but dim. But he told me afterwards that he did instantly know me. He struck me at once as being a big man, in person I mean, and yet he was not exceptionally so, only a little taller than my father. But there was something about him which gave a great impression of strength—a sort of rock-like quality—and he always seemed to stand out among other people as if he were bigger physically, when really it was morally and in his mind he was so much bigger. Caspar told me he always had the same impression of physical as well as mental bigness. It was not what he said, for he was quiet and rather grave, not much given to talking, except with his intimates.

As for me, I was dumb enough. I made him a courtesy and did not open my mouth till he put some music on the clavier, sat down himself at the instrument and asked me to sing the aria. Happily, when I sing I am not afraid, and when I had finished my father cried, “Good!” with real pleasure in his face. Master Bach just looked at me very steadily for a moment and said, “Thy voice is pure, and thou canst sing.” And I—I wanted to say “And how thou canst play!” but I did not dare. It was unbelievable what he made of that simple accompaniment, which I had played often myself. His way of holding his hands, of using his thumbs, his fingering, all were different. But I could not say anything at all, I was in such a stir. I longed to run away, as I had run from the church, but I stood rooted and dumb by the side of the clavier like a child. I felt absurdly childish before that man, and yet a big thing had happened to me which does not happen to children—happened all in a short space. God had given me a soul open to music, and that being so it was, of course, impossible that having heard Sebastian Bach play I should care for any other man in this world. And in his mind, too, had I but known it, he said to himself, “I shall marry that maiden.” It was as well that I was willing, for he always had an extraordinary way of getting that to which he set his mind. There were occasions, I confess, in later years when I almost thought him obstinate.

I would be exact in my description of him at this time when I first really saw and spoke with him, because the impression is still so very clear to me, undimmed by years of the closest intimacy and even by the memory of his dear face with closed eyes as I last saw it in this world. Now I will not claim that he was handsome—few of the Bachs are that—but he had a countenance that set forth the power of his mind. His most notable features were his massive forehead, and his eyes, with the marked eyebrows drawn into the half-frown of thought. His eyes, when I first knew him, were large (later, as he grew older, with suffering and overmuch use they narrowed and the lids drooped more over them), with an intense and concentrated inward gaze that was very notable. They were listening eyes, and had at times a veiled and mystic look. His mouth was big and mobile, generous, and with laughter at its corners; his jaw large and square, to balance his forehead. No one could look at him and not look again, for there was something about him that was remarkable and that made itself felt, unconscious as he was of it. One of the things that from the first so impressed me was the mixture of greatness and humility in him—he knew his own powers, he was too good a musician not to do so, but in so far as it was himself he thought little of it, the only thing he honoured was music, and he cherished the belief that application and hard work and devotion to music would bring anyone to where he stood himself. How often have I heard him say—sometimes when I peeped into the room where he would be standing by the clavier giving a lesson to one of his pupils, “If you work as hard as I do, you will be able to play as well as I do.” One of his Organ pupils, who loved him and knew how I liked to hear any of his sayings, came to me one day very pleased after a lesson at the Organ, and told me that when his lesson was finished Sebastian had himself taken his seat at the Organ-stool and played very gloriously, and when the pupil expressed his admiration turned upon him with almost an air of vexation, saying, “There is nothing wonderful about it. You merely strike the right note at the right moment and the Organ does the rest.” And we two had a happy laugh together over this, for I by that time knew enough of the Organ’s difficulties to appreciate that “merely striking the right note”—when you have to do it with your hands and feet together—for I persuaded Sebastian, after we were married, to give me some Organ lessons, though he said it was hardly an instrument for a woman. But I desired to know something about it, so that I could understand his Organ music and Organ-playing a little better.

In the late summer of 1721, when his first wife had been dead over a year, Sebastian asked me of my father in marriage. I had not seen him often, though I had on one or two occasions sung at the court concerts at Cöthen, for which he was responsible, but I had thought about him much—perhaps more than was quite what my dear mother would have approved. But indeed I could not help it, and though it was far beyond my deserts to hope that he would wish me to be his wife, he made so deep an impression on me from the very first that I knew I would never willingly marry any other man. My honoured parents were very content, though they thought it their duty to point out to me that he was fifteen years older than I was and had four children living—three were dead, poor little ones—to whom, I would have to be a mother. When they understood from my stumbling words, my blushes and tears—I could not help crying a little, I was so happy—that I was willing, they sent me in to him where he was waiting for me in another room. I think he was not in much uncertainty as to my answer, I think his penetrating eyes had read my heart, though it was not much he had said to me before he spoke to my parents, and I from my first meeting with him had been smitten with a sort of dumbness. The sight of him always made my heart so beat that speech was difficult. There he stood by the window: he turned as I opened the door and took two swift steps towards me, “Magdalena, my dear one, thou knowest my wish? thy parents approve—wilt thou be my wife?” I said, “Oh, yes, thank thee very much,” and burst into tears—which I fear was very indecorous—but they were tears of utter bliss and gratitude to God and to Sebastian. When he put his arms about me I could not help thinking of a chorale of Luther’s we often sang round the fire on winter nights, “Ein’ feste Burg”—for a “strong tower” Sebastian always was to me from the day of our marriage.

My betrothal was a very joyful occasion, for I could see how proud my dear parents were that their daughter should marry so respectable and distinguished a musician, one, moreover, so high in the favour of his Prince. Duke Leopold took the kindest notice of me, and graciously told me that in marrying his Capellmeister I was marrying a man whose name would always be honoured where music was loved. He also complimented me on the happy fact that I could sing the songs my future husband wrote. His condescension, and I may say friendship, towards Sebastian is shown by the fact that the Prince was godfather to the last child of his first marriage, and when he went travelling he would not be content unless he carried his Capellmeister with him—indeed, it was on his return from one of these journeys that Sebastian found poor Maria Barbara dead and buried, as I have said before.

Sebastian loved quiet Cöthen, and at this time had no thought but that he and I would spend the rest of our lives there, in the service of that good Prince who was so truly devoted to music. Before our marriage took place, Sebastian and I stood godparents in the Cathedral of Cöthen to the child of Christian Halen, the Prince’s cellar-clerk. It is a day I will always remember, for it was the first time I had been publicly associated with my betrothed, and my laced blue gown was pretty, and I felt that he was pleased with me—from that time onwards to his death one approving word or look from him meant more to me than anything the rest of the world could do or say—and his young children stood round us and I felt then that we were a family united. It was for that he cared—his wife, his children, his home. After the travels he had made on foot in his youth to hear famous organists and to play on different Organs, and his official journeys with his Prince—it was on these journeys that he wrote so many of those little preludes and fugues he called “The Well-Tempered Clavichord,” which to me always seem so full of beautiful music, though he wrote them principally as practice pieces for his pupils—he settled down to a quiet and retired life at home. All the years we lived at Leipzig he hardly stirred out of it—his work, day by day, at the Thomas Schule and the church, the musical concerts he conducted, his composing, his home, satisfied him. He never travelled about to be admired, to make a sensation, like some other musicians who come from not so far away. And yet, if God gave genius to any man he gave it to Sebastian Bach, though I know there are few alive now, save some of his old pupils, who think so or remember him and his music.

But I have gone too far on in the years that were ahead of us. We were betrothed in September 1721, and in December our wedding took place in Sebastian’s house, so that I was married in the house that was to be my home. My wedding wreath was bestowed upon me by Sebastian’s gracious Prince, who took a particular interest in our wedding, as he himself was to be married only a week later to a fair princess of Anhalt-Bernburg.

How kind Sebastian was to me that day, how happy I was, in a kind of blissful dream we may experience but once in this world. They say a maiden’s wedding day should be the happiest of her life, and certainly no maid could have been so happy as I was, but then who ever had such a husband as Sebastian Bach? After my marriage I had no life but his. I felt like a little stream absorbed in the ocean—enveloped, sustained, enfolded, in a life larger and deeper than my own could ever be. Year by year, as I lived with him so closely, I grew to understand his greatness more fully—he was so far beyond me that at times I felt frightened, but I did understand him because I loved him, “Love is the fulfilling of the Law,” as he was fond of quoting from that German Bible of our great Luther’s, which he knew so well and read so often—truly could he say with Luther, “There are few trees in that garden which I have not shaken for fruit”—sitting in his black leathern armchair by the hearth in winter, by the window in summer. Ah, me! what memories come back to my heart!

And for me, when we were married he wrote this song—later he put it into my “Notenbüchlein”—

Thy servant, my sweet Maiden Bride!

May luck attend thee in this day’s happiness!

Whoever sees thee in thy wreath

And thy lovely wedding clothes,

Cannot but laugh in his heart for sheer joy

At the contemplation of thy bliss.

What wonder that my lips and heart

Overflow with delight to greet thee?

That was my wedding gift, my foretaste of the happiness to come.