Jens Johler - Bach and The Tuning of the World

‘No, no,’ said Böhm. ‘A fugue on the theme of the toccata. For three voices, perhaps?’

‘I’d have to improvise that,’ said Bach.

‘Well, go on then.’

Bach chose a short sequence of notes from the toccata that seemed suitable for the fugue and began with the improvisation. He was uncertain, hesitating to venture into the ocean of possibilities that opened up, and instead remaining within a narrow harmonic framework. Suddenly he sensed that Böhm was standing behind him. A little later, Böhm pushed in some stops, which changed the sound, so that everything Bach played now sounded more delicate, more tender, almost a whisper. After a while, Böhm pulled the stops out again, and the sound of the organ became fuller again. Bach’s fingers remembered the quick runs they had played with the toccata, and transferred them to the fugue.

‘Just go on,’ he heard Böhm’s deep voice behind him say. ‘Everything will be fine.’

Suddenly Bach’s heart was beating so violently that his hands and feet almost refused to obey him. As uncertain as he had felt just a moment ago, there was no longer any doubt that the great Georg Böhm would accept him as his pupil.

Everything would be fine, Böhm had said, and to start with, it was.

Bach studied, and played together with Böhm, everything the large organ in St John’s Church was good for. Time after time, he astonished his master for the quickness of his mind. After hearing them only once, he was able to play even quite demanding pieces from memory; he improvised with an unerring instinct for harmony; there was no doubt of his great virtuosity. But as time passed, and the more often they played music together, the quieter Böhm became, and the more cautious became his praise. Often he merely looked askance at Bach, and said, ‘All right, all right, another thing that you can do standing on your head,’ or, ‘There’s certainly nothing wrong with it,’ or, ‘What am I still supposed to teach you? You already know everything!’ And although Bach ought to have rejoiced over this, he was anything but glad. ‘What is it?’ he finally asked. ‘What am I doing wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ said Böhm. ‘Everything is correct, everything is perfect.’

‘But?’

‘I’ve never had a student who was so quick and eager to learn.’

‘But?’

‘Well …’ Böhm finally admitted, after Bach had asked again and again. ‘There’s something missing.’

‘What is it?’ Bach asked, frightened. ‘What?’

‘I don’t know,’ Böhm admitted regretfully, even, as it seemed to Bach, with a hint of despair. ‘If I knew, I’d tell you.’

This day, Bach felt a dark cloud descending upon him. He attempted to ignore it by focusing on his school homework with twice as much zeal as before; on the rhetorical exercises, mathematical problems, Latin grammar and Greek vocabulary; he used his rare free time to copy sheet music from Italian or French composers, which he borrowed from the library, but nothing could dissipate the black cloud. What is it? he asked himself time and again. What is this mysterious something I don’t have? What can it be?

He lay awake at night, brooding, and wore himself out thinking about it; when he fell asleep, it was only in order to start up out of gloomy dreams. Once he dreamt he was playing at a family celebration in front of all his relatives, and everybody left the room as he played, one after the other, until he was all alone. He woke up crying.

Whenever he came to Böhm, he begged him to tell him the truth, however much it might hurt, but Böhm just shook his head. Didn’t he know? Or did he want Bach to discover it for himself?

It was around this time that Bach’s voice broke. That was all he needed, on top of everything else. From one day to the next, his boy’s soprano voice was gone. Of course, it didn’t really come as a surprise. Sooner or later, everybody was hit by it, and it was long overdue. Erdmann had already mocked him, saying Bach was likely a castrato because at sixteen he was still able to sing the high registers; but now there was an end to this: now he squawked and croaked – Lord have mercy! He couldn’t bear to open his mouth, so he became monosyllabic and aloof, was sharp-tempered with the rest of the students and avoided their society. They imitated Bach’s squawking and croaking, which came easily to them since they had all gone through it themselves, and made him the target of their pranks. They put beetles and creepy-crawlies in his bed, once even, disgustingly, a slow-worm, but all that was nothing compared to the despair he felt at knowing that his playing was missing something – something not even his teacher could identify for him.

‘Perhaps,’ Böhm said one day, more to himself than to Bach, ‘perhaps he has still not sufficiently …’ He paused, and flipped absent-mindedly through a stack of sheet music. On this day, the lesson was not given at the church but in Böhm’s red-brick house on Papenstraße.

Not sufficiently – what? Studied? Practised?

Böhm hesitated another moment and then said: ‘Lived.’ For a moment, Bach thought he had heard him wrong. What’s that supposed to mean: not lived enough? He had lived sixteen years, that’s all he could come up with. So it was a matter of age?

‘Maybe lived isn’t the right word,’ said Böhm. ‘Perhaps I should have said experienced . Or … suffered .’ He stood up, went up to a picture that hung on the wall behind the harpsichord, and straightened it. It was a portrait of the Hamburg organist Adam Reincken, who had been Böhm’s teacher.

Not suffered enough? Bach had trouble repressing his indignation. He’d lost his favourite brother when he was six! He’d lost his mother when he was nine. He’d lost his father when he was ten. He’d lost his home, his friends, his whole life. All right, he hadn’t been put into an orphanage, not that. His brother Johann Christoph had taken him in and taught him to play the organ. And yes, he’d been given free meals here in Lüneburg. He was one of the best students. He was doing fine, he couldn’t complain and he didn’t complain – but why should that prevent him from becoming a consummate musician? What was he supposed to do? Go hungry? Mortify himself? Get a whip and wander through the country as a flagellant?

Not suffered enough!

With a muffled cry of anger, he jumped up and ran away, leaving the house, walking along the Ilmenau river, to Stintmarkt, where he stood still for a moment and watched the hustle and bustle of the fishermen, his eyes blinded with tears, before he started walking again toward Market Square and St Michael’s School.

Not lived enough!

It took him three days and three nights to accept that the Master was not to blame. He had only spoken the truth. There was something you could never learn, for all one’s industry and study. When Böhm played, it was not his virtuoso technique that moved and fascinated Bach the most. No, there was something more, something intangible: As if the playing were resonating with more than the sounds and harmonics of the pipes, as if somewhere – but where? – another resonating chamber had opened up.

He’d been thinking about it, said Böhm as Bach climbed up the three steps to the entrance of Böhm’s house again.

Bach looked at him expectantly.

‘Sit down,’ Böhm said. ‘I’ll tell you about three wise men – a triumvirate. They have made us aware of a magnificent triad, the triad of the music of the cosmos, the music of the heart and the music of the instruments: musica mundana, musica humana , and musica instrumentalis . Are you ready?’