His current employer, however, evidently wanted to have his cake and eat it – having previously snubbed Bach for the role of Kapellmeister, the Duke was nonetheless damned if he was going to let him go to find a similar job elsewhere. Happily, by August Bach had secured a job as Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold in Cöthen. But Bach’s disappointment at the Duke passing him over for promotion in favour of an external appointment must have been intense. As it happened, Telemann turned down both these jobs in favour of his long-term position in Frankfurt.
The ducal chapel at Gotha had made overtures to Telemann earlier that year, hoping he would accept the post of Kapellmeister, and then Duke Wilhelm Ernst himself also tried secure Telemann’s services for the same position at the Weimar court – a job that Bach himself coveted. Why did Bach go to prison?įor all his brilliance, however, the status Bach holds today is a far cry from 1717, when it was Georg Philipp Telemann who was sweeping up all the job offers. The idea that he could construct even the most complex counterpoint simply in his head has become one of the most intriguing sides of Bach both as a person and as a composer. The musician EL Gerber, whose father had been a Bach pupil in the 1720s, believed that parts of The Well-Tempered Clavier had been written when Bach was ‘bored, depressed and without an instrument’. He certainly won’t have been without means of communication and he may perhaps have used the time to compose some of The Well-Tempered Clavier. In reality, the ‘justice room’ in which he was held probably looked more like a comfortable debtors’ prison than a full-on cell. He was released on 2 December with a grudging permission to retire from the Duke’s service.’ Harsh treatment indeed, but what sensible employer would want to lose Bach as their personal composer and organist? How long was Bach in prison for?īach was in prison for just under four weeks, and very little is known about what Bach’s prison actually looked like. The Weimar court secretary’s minutes concerning Bach’s time in jail state that ‘On 6 November 1717 Bach, till now Konzertmeister and Hoforganist, was put under arrest in justice room for obstinately demanding his instant dismissal.
0 kommentar(er)
