Johann Sebastian Bach - booksnow.scholarsportal.info

252 JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH.cousin had enquired for him, and the friendship betweenBach and Birnbaum was known to a wide circle.In a periodical, published by Johann Adolph Scheibe,under the title " Critische Musikus" (beginning March 5,1737), on May 14, 1737, an anonymous letter was printed,containing an attack upon Bach. He was not named, butthe identity was unmistakable. Scheibe subsequentlyconfessed that the letter was a got-up affair, and he himselfthe author. In it Bach's extraordinary skill in playing theorgan and clavier were highly praised, but his compositionswere found fault with for their lack of natural grace andpleasing character, for a turgid and confused style and anextravagant display of learned art. The writer alludedchiefly to his vocal part-music, and came to the conclusionthat Bach was in music what Lohenstein had been inverse.^°° A year later Scheibe wrote again :" Bach'schurch pieces are constantly more artificial and tedious, andby no means so full of impressive conviction or of suchintellectual reflection as the works of Telemann andGraun."^°^ Nor was he the only one to hold this opinion,as it is easy to believe from the taste of the time and thefalse ideas then prevalent as to church music.Nevertheless,the whole affair has an unpleasant aspect, not only by reasonof the exalted and almost unapproachable merit of theperson attacked, but more particularly from the tone inwhich fault is found, and considering who it was that madethe attack. Scheibe was a young man of knowledge andacumen, and a talented writer, but only a second ratepractical musician. Every one in Leipzig knew perfectlywellthat his test performance, when he hoped to obtain thepost of organist at St. Nicholas's, had found no favour inBach's opinion ; and very unsatisfactory—though no doubtexaggerated—rumours were rife on the subject. Scheibewas ambitious and jealous ; he had " agitated " againstBach ever since, and had stirred up, or, at any rate.I5«> Critischer Musikus, p. 62.501 Mattheson, Kern melodischer Wissenschaft, Hamburg, 1738. Appendix," Gültige Zeugnisse," &c., p. 10.