Tuesday, June 12

ARNSTADT-DORNHEIN-ERFFURT-WEIMAR

In the morning we visited the Bach exhibition at the Schlossmuseum (Palace Museum) in Arnstadt.

Dornheim Church where Bach got married

The next stop, only a few short kilometers away, was the Bartholomäuskirche in Dormheim, where Bach married Maria Barbara Bach, his second cousin, on October 17, 1707.

J.S. Bach met Maria Barbara in Arnstadt after his appointment as church organist in 1703 and for a time they lived in the same house. Historians believe that when Arnstadt authorities reprimanded J.S. Bach in 1706 for inviting a "strange maiden" into the church organ loft to "make music", the woman in question was Maria.

After a private tour of the church and organ concert, we were treated to a very special history of the church led by the 78 year old Siegfried Neumann.

Despite repeated repairs, Bach's wedding church was in such a wretched state in 1996 that even demolition was considered. Inspired local citizens, led by Siegfried Neumann (above) joined forces with the aim to save the building and enabled its comprehensive reconstruction. Sadly, Siegfried passed away in October, 2018.

Before departing outside for our picnic lunch, we gathered at the altar to sing The Quodlibet or Wedding Quodlibet, BWV 524, is a lighthearted composition by Johann Sebastian Bach which today exists only in fragmentary form. The line "In diesem Jahre haben wir zwei Sonnenfinsternissen" (In this year we have [seen] two solar eclipses) places the composition of the piece in or shortly after 1707, when central Germany was witness to two such celestial events. The extant source—a fair-copy autograph manuscript on three large, folded sheets—was not discovered until 1932.

The work itself is a loosely structured quodlibet for SATB and continuo. Bach likely did not write the text, which some attribute to the Leipzig poet Johann Christoph Gottsched. Though the cover sheet has been lost, the libretto of the remaining portion indicates that the quodlibet was to be performed at a wedding, possibly that of the composer himself to Maria Barbara Bach.

It is recorded that the couple had a contented relationship and their years together at Köthen, beginning in 1717, were probably the happiest of the composer's life. Four of their seven children lived to adulthood, including future musicians Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and the great Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

In May of 1720 J.S. Bach accompanied his employer, Prince Leopold, to a spa in Karlsbad. He returned nearly two months later to discover that Maria Barbara had died from a sudden illness and was already buried at Köthen's Old Cemetery (now called the Friedenspark). She was only 35. In his grief he wrote the monumental "Chaconne", the fifth and final movement of the Partita in D minor for solo violin, which is still considered one of the most daunting and profound works in the instrumental repertory.  Written for solo violin, the Chaconne is one of the longest and most challenging entirely solo pieces ever composed for that instrument. Click here for link.

After a lovely picnic lunch on the church grounds, 

Picnic lunch at Bach Wedding Church

we continued along the Gera River to Thuringia's capital and largest city, Erfurt.

During the Middle Ages, Erfurt was the economic and cultural capital of Thuringia, as the medieval east-west trade route, via regia, led directly through Thuringia. Erfurt played a leading role in the lives and musical careers of five generations in the Bach family; but, not in J.S. Bach's. The site of many of the well-documented annual Bach family reunions and central to the towns and cities that J.S. Bach inhabited throughout his life, aside form assessing an organ in 1716, there is little evidence connecting Erfurt to J.S. Bach musically.

We visited The Kramerbrucke (Merchants' Bridge) which has been continuously inhabited for more than 500 years. I haven't a clue what the hanging shoes are all about (see picture below).

Kramerbrucke Bridge crosses the Gera River in downtown Erfurt

Finally, we made our way to Weimar for the evening. (On Wednesday, we visited the church were many of Bach's children are buried.  Here we listened to a beautiful and touching CD of Bach's Chaconne (see above) played by our own Mareike Neumann.