Читать книгу Bach and The Tuning of the World - Jens Johler - Страница 17

‘I’m going to compose an opera,’ said Bach to Erdmann after he got back from Hamburg, ‘something gallant.’ And by that he didn’t mean anything immoral or salacious but ‘gallant’ in the sense of that learned, educated figure known as the galant homme, possessed of a certain je ne sais quoi. In other words, one in whom the inside matches the outside and is in accordance with nature.

Erdmann peered down at him. He couldn’t help it. He was still a head taller than Bach, although Bach had also grown in the meantime. Did he already have a libretto for his opera?

‘That’s the problem,’ said Bach. ‘That’s what’s missing.’

There was a pause in which both of them were lost in their own thoughts until, all of a sudden, as though controlled by an invisible hand, a jolt went through both of them.

‘What about –’ they asked simultaneously before they stopped and fell silent.

‘You first,’ said Erdmann.

‘No, you first,’ said Bach. ‘You’re the older one.’

‘Now then,’ began Erdmann, ‘what about me writing the libretto? I’ve never tried anything like that before, but by Jove I’ll get it right.’

That was exactly what he’d hoped for, said Bach excitedly. He was quite sure that Erdmann could master the task in an outstanding way.

‘What sort of subject matter does the master composer have in mind?’ Erdmann asked.

‘Something mythological,’ said Bach. ‘In German. They sing in German, not Italian at the opera at Gänsemarkt.’

‘And what else?’

‘A part for a female singer. A soprano.’

‘Soprano or not, that’s beyond my remit,’ said Erdmann. ‘I’m only the librettist. And what else?’

‘Something gallant. With a certain je ne sais quoi.’

‘Va bene,’ said Erdmann, probably because Italian was the native language of the opera. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’

Three days later he came to Bach, his face flush, and said he had an idea. Something mythological, exactly as Bach had wanted. Something that is a gallant subject matter right off.

This Erdmann, thought Bach, he’s amazing. First a philosopher, then a diplomat, now a librettist. Full of anticipation, he looked at his friend.

His suggestion, Erdmann continued, concerned a crafty hero returning from a great battle. On his way back home, he suffers all sorts of calamities.

‘Ulysses?’

‘Correct,’ said Erdmann. And the episode he was suggesting for an opera was that of Ulysses and Circe.

‘No,’ said Bach. ‘That’s too frivolous.’

‘Not at all,’ Erdmann objected. ‘After all, the story is about a hero coming home to his lawful wife.’

‘But Circe transforms the men into pigs,’ said Bach, his face distorted with disgust.

‘Not all of them,’ retorted Erdmann. ‘Would you be so kind as to let me explain the treatment? If I may be allowed?’

Bach made some more protesting gestures and remarks but he already felt that he liked the subject matter well enough. His beloved Sophie Agneta Petersen would sing the part of Circe. And he would put himself in the shoes of Ulysses while composing the opera. The man who, tied to his ship’s mast, had heard the singing of the Sirens!

‘Well,’ Erdmann began, ‘it all starts with Ulysses and his companions arriving on the island of Aeaea.’

‘Ah … yeah?’

‘Yes. – In other words, it begins with a seamen’s chorus.’

‘It begins with the overture,’ said Bach, and he began to improvise a melody that was just morphing into a second one when Erdmann cut him short with an emphatic hand gesture

‘Forgive me,’ said Bach.

‘All right,’ said Erdmann, ‘first the overture, then the seamen’s chorus. The ship is pulled on shore, and then Ulysses sings, tenor or bass …’

‘Tenor,’ said Bach.

‘I’d appreciate not being interrupted all the time,’ Erdmann said. ‘So: Ulysses laments that he still hasn’t reached his home in Ithaca, where his wife Penelope and son Telemachus are waiting for him. While the chorus sings again, Ulysses climbs up a mountain. In the distance, he sees smoke rising. Shortly thereafter, he picks some of his crew to explore the island.’

‘If I remember rightly,’ said Bach, ‘they drew lots.’

‘Such subtleties will get worked out later,’ said Erdmann. ‘Anyway, the companions hit the road, discover a stone house and hear an enchanting voice.’

‘An aria,’ said Bach. ‘Circe! I like that.’

‘While the men listened enraptured,’ Erdmann went on, ‘mountain wolves and lions come up to them, completely amicable and peace-loving. The island seems to be a true paradise. And indeed, Paradise on earth is this, here thou’lt dwell in perfect bliss, sings Circe, serving the men delicious food into which she has mixed her magic herbs. As soon as the men have eaten the food, the beautiful nymph touches them with her staff and transforms them into pigs.’

‘I knew it,’ said Bach, disgusted. ‘Couldn’t they at least be turned into wolves or mountain lions?’

‘No,’ Erdmann said categorically, ‘we stick to Homer. By the way, one of the men, Eurylochos, is not transformed because he’s smart and doesn’t enter the house together with the others. He sneaks back to Ulysses and brings him the terrible news. Curtain: end of Act One.’

‘Fantastic!’ Bach exclaimed. ‘Go on! What happens next?

‘Well …’ Erdmann said evasively, who had yet to think out the second and third acts in greater detail. One thing was certain, though. With the help of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, Ulysses would succeed in freeing his friends, himself enchanting Circe the enchantress …

Working on the opera fired up Bach’s creativity enormously. Motifs and melodies kept rushing through his head. He could hardly concentrate in the classroom. He constantly scribbled drafts on scraps of paper he’d collected and kept. At night he dreamed of his work being celebrated by a rapt audience.

There was no doubt about it: his future lay as a composer of opera! How they would envy him his freedom and fame – all those Bachs scraping together a living in Saxony and Thuringia as lowly town musicians or organists in the poorly paid service of the Church!

He longed to go back to Hamburg in order to clasp his future Circe in his arms. He would have loved to talk to her every day, but how? He didn’t even have her picture, in miniature or silhouette. He had nothing but his memories.

And he had lots to do. The Latin School demanded his time, and so did the choir. Nor could he neglect his organ study with his teacher, Böhm; and he increasingly had to step in when the students at the Knights’ School practised courtly dances and the Dancing Master again required a harpsichordist. Furthermore, Erdmann failed to deliver as promised. He apologized over and over again for not having yet written the arias, recitatives and chorus parts. Bach attempted to write a couple of scenes himself, but all his attempts died on the page. He could write the notes, but not the words.

At least he could afford to travel to Hamburg that summer by carriage in order to – so he had roared into the Principal’s ear – visit his cousin Johann Ernst from Arnstadt, who had gone to Hamburg for six months ‘in order to excel better on the organ’, as his cousin had written. Bach stayed with him in his student digs in the Baumhaus quarter. The very next morning he hurried to Dovenfleet in order to see his beloved.

There was a smell of fried fish in the stairwell. Bach climbed the stairs. He saw the neighbour’s door open and immediately close again. He inhaled deeply a few times to get his excitement under control before rapping the door knocker. If she opened now, would she fly into his arms? Would she perhaps let him undo the buttons of her dress again?

He heard steps made by bare feet. Then the door opened a crack, and Bach heard somebody gasp for air, startled. The door opened wider, and now he saw her: Her hair was loose, her face slightly flushed. She wore a white dress, more of a slip in fact. And yes, her feet were naked. She gave him a cursory kiss on the cheek, looked around furtively, and breathlessly whispered something along the lines of ‘You mustn’t be seen here, You must go, go, You will get me into huge trouble,’ and then again: ‘You must go!’

No sooner had she uttered these words when he heard an ugly baritone voice in the background shouting, ‘Sophie?’ and, ‘Where are you?’ and, ‘Who’s there?’ to which she answered, ‘Nobody,’ and slammed the door in Bach’s face.

Bach was stunned.

The neighbour opened her door and started to whisper something. He didn’t understand her dialect and didn’t want to hear anything anyway. He ran down the stairs and fled the house.

As if trapped in an evil dream, he staggered past the Zippelhaus and St Catherine’s Church and turned into a street with the name ‘Grimm’. Conflicting thoughts raced through his head. Who was that man? Her father? An uncle? A beau? Was she one of those opera wenches you read about in novels? And why had she called him ‘Nobody’? Of all possible things, she had called him ‘Nobody’, just as the cunning Ulysses had called himself when asked his name by Polyphemus the Cyclops. Was it a hidden signal? A coded message? But of course she didn’t yet know that he was writing an opera!

That evening, as he sat in the tavern with Johann Ernst drinking red wine, surrounded by noisy students with their feather hats, lace collars and embroidered jackets, he had a hard time concealing his confusion and keeping his secret.

‘Why are you so depressed?’ Johann Ernst asked again and again. ‘Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?’

‘No,’ said Bach. ‘I didn’t.’

The next morning he climbed into the stagecoach and went back to Lüneburg.