Bach and The Tuning of the World. Jens Johler

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СКАЧАТЬ were already expected. Barely had they entered the cobbled yard of St Michael’s Monastery than a student took them under his wing – another scholarship student, as they correctly assumed. He had fiery red hair, freckles, a snub nose and protuberant lips. His name was Waldemar, he announced. And they, he took it, would be the new students from Thuringia?

      Yes, that’s who they were.

      In that case he would take them to meet the Rector. And if they allowed him to offer some advice, he would suggest they speak loudly and clearly, since Mr Büsche was already sixty and quite hard of hearing. ‘He doesn’t want to admit it, though,’ Waldemar said, ‘and always thinks you’re deliberately muttering when he can’t hear what you’re saying. Then he immediately starts slapping you.’

      The Rector was sitting behind a huge desk; his face was red and somewhat bloated; his black coat had a greasy sheen, and his powdered wig looked as if it hadn’t been combed for many years. Where had they been all this time, he asked roughly.

      ‘It was a long trip!’ Erdmann bellowed.

      ‘Why are you shouting?’ asked the Rector. ‘It’s not as if I’m deaf.’

      ‘I do beg your pardon,’ Erdmann said in a more normal tone of voice.

      ‘What?’ the Rector said, rather threateningly.

      Erdmann lowered his head.

      ‘We’ve been travelling, on foot, for the best part of two weeks,’ said Bach, at a volume he hoped was exactly right. They conveyed the respects, he added, of Elias Herda, their cantor in Ohrdruf.

      ‘Ah, yes, Elias,’ the said the Rector. ‘Thank you for telling me. And now, this young man here, namely our Waldemarius, will introduce you both to Cantor Braun, who, incidentally, is the Quartus of our school, both our number four and also the gentleman responsible for teaching the quarta. But this need not yet concern you, since you will both be attending the prima in accordance with your previous instruction.’ Waldemarius, whom he delegated to act as their cicerone forthwith, would show them the dormitories, refectory and classrooms. ‘And tomorrow, if it would please you, the town as well – Sandviertel, Sülzviertel, Marktviertel and Wasserviertel. I assume you have already seen the limestone cliff?’

      ‘Yes indeed,’ said Bach.

      ‘What’s that?’ the Rector asked, raising his arm as if to threaten them with blows. But he only put his hand behind his ear.

      ‘We have seen the limestone cliff,’ said Bach in a clear voice. ‘It was certainly very impressive.’

      Cantor August Braun was a gaunt man of around fifty. His wig was on the table next to him when they entered; he didn’t bother putting it on. A crown of thin grey hair adorned his pointed head. He had Erdmann sing something, then Bach, and he was pleased, nodding after listening to Bach’s boy soprano. He asked them a couple of questions about their instruments and gave them the music score for the choir practice next day. He said they might do a little practising beforehand. Regrettably, they had missed Annunciation Day, he said reproachfully, but next Sunday was Judica, and they would be singing in the matins choir. And he had scheduled them for the Saturday before Palm Sunday to sing in the large choir, as well as for the Passion on Good Friday. Did they have any questions?

      Bach and Erdmann shook their heads.

      ‘Well then, let’s get going. Our Waldemar here, whom you seem to have already made friends with, will show you the rest. By the way, he’s also a good singer, despite the fact he’s not from Thuringia.’

      Waldemar winked at them conspiratorially in a way that seemed to say he couldn’t really sing and was just pretending. Before showing them the dormitories, he warned them in a hushed voice about the young gentlemen from the Collegium Illustre, who also had their dormitories in the inner courtyard. A bagarre with them would occur every once in a while.

      ‘What’s that?’ asked Bach.

      ‘A brawl.’

      ‘No, I mean the Collegium Illustre.’

      ‘Oh that,’ said Waldemar with a dismissive gesture.

      ‘Well?’

      ‘The Knights’ School. Some also call it the Knights’ Academy, but it’s a Latin school just like ours, only for the nobility, so the great lords can mingle among themselves. They learn all sorts of things there, things us mere mortals don’t need. Heraldry, courtly dances, carving, making compliments, bowing and scraping and such-like. The young gentlemen pride themselves hugely over the whole thing.’

      ‘How many of them are there?’ Bach asked.

      ‘Fifteen.’

      ‘And how many are on scholarships?’

      ‘The same number.’

      ‘Then, one of these days, we should organize a contest,’ said Bach. ‘Not in bowing and scraping, of course, but perhaps …’

      ‘In philosophizing,’ Erdmann suggested.

      ‘Or in singing,’ said Bach. ‘We can certainly do that much better than they do.

      A singing contest never came about, though, and would anyway have been meaningless. They often sang together with the knightly students, and there was nobody who could deny that the choir students were more musical. The aristocratic gentlemen didn’t much care. They looked down on the scholarship students like they would on poor chirping birds who were born to warble, who had to do so out of necessity. The only one among them to whom they looked with something approaching respect after a while was Erdmann, because he spoke so well and got a kick out of styling his language to courtly etiquette.

      ‘I’ve thought it all over,’ he said after some time had passed. ‘I don’t want to become a philosopher after all, but a diplomat.’

      This surprised Bach. Not so much because Erdmann all of a sudden wanted something different than what he’d wanted only a couple weeks ago but, rather because he had actually made such a decision. For him, Bach, the question didn’t exist. It had been clear from the onset he would be a musician. He came from a family of musicians, so what was there to think about? At most, the question was: What kind of musician? Town musician like his father? Organist like his uncle and his brother? Cantor like Elias Herda? Or kapellmeister at one court or another? And there was another question he asked himself sometimes before he fell asleep: With whom would he vie in the future? With the greatest musicians of his craft, with Reincken and Buxtehude, Corelli and Lully?

      The discipline at the school was very strict. Every little thing was planned, and any deviation from the rules was strictly punished – when you were a scholarship student anyway.

      But while Erdmann clandestinely rebelled against the unnaturalness of the unyielding rules, Bach acquiesced to the strictly disciplined system.

      Along with the others, he got up at five in the morning, washed, combed his hair, dressed and, right where he was, got down on his knees for their first prayer, whether on a stone floor or scrubbed floorboards, as soon as the first quarter struck. During meals, he heard the chapter of the Bible that was read to them, refraining from speaking or any mischief, exactly as prescribed by the school’s set of rules. He kept his clothes, shoes, stockings and СКАЧАТЬ