Anna Magdalena Bach
Anna Magdalena Bach (born September 22, 1701 in Zeitz ; † February 27, 1760 in Leipzig ; born Anna Magdalena Wilcke ) was a German singer ( soprano ) and the second wife of Johann Sebastian Bach .
Life
Youth and education
Anna Magdalena Bach was the youngest of four daughters of the royal court and field trumpeter of Sachsen-Weißenfels Johann Kaspar Wilcke (1660? –1733) and Elisabeth Wilcke (* 1666), the daughter of an organist. Her brother (1691–1766) had the same name as her father and followed in his father's footsteps. Anna Magdalena had three sisters. She and her sister Christina had received thorough training in singing, presumably from the famous Weißenfels court singer Pauline Kellner. Anna Magdalena and her sister were active as "singing maids" at the Weißenfels court from 1720 at the latest. Obviously, her singing skills were highly valued. During a joint guest performance with her father at the court in Zerbst , the 19-year-old singer received twice the fee as her father.
As a princely chamber singer in Koethen
In 1721 she came to the court of Prince Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen in Köthen as a soprano . There she met Johann Sebastian Bach, who had worked here as Kapellmeister since December 1717. The high esteem of the young singer is shown on the one hand by her comparatively high rank as a "chamber musician", on the other hand by her high salary; she received the second highest salary after Bach and about twice as high as the next musician.
Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach married on December 3, 1721. Until she moved to Leipzig in April 1723, she stayed in her position as a married woman. The repertoire she sings is not documented in detail. However, it can be assumed that, among other things, she participated in the annually recurring cantatas on the Prince's birthday and New Year's. However, only a fraction of these Bach works has survived. The cantatas that have been preserved contained “elaborate duets and solos that demanded considerable technical performance from the court singers and repeatedly challenged their professional skills” (Christoph Wolff).
Leipzig
In Leipzig there were hardly any opportunities for public appearance. Church music was denied her, the opera had been closed since 1720, and no women appeared in the Collegium musicum either. Their singing was probably confined to home music and to a few outside opportunities. The house music, however, obviously played a significant role for the Bachs and their environment. In a letter to his former schoolmate Georg Erdmann , Bach describes making music with his family "especially since my wife is singing a clean soprano".
An outside opportunity was a joint appearance on the occasion of the funeral for Prince Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen on March 24, 1729. The extensive funeral music Klagt, Kinder, laments it all over the world was made , and she probably sang three soprano arias with the music from the St. Matthew Passion .
Anna Magdalena Bach died on February 27, 1760, ten years after her husband, in Leipzig as an "almswoman". Contrary to what this term suggests, this did not mean a life in poverty, but that she was the recipient of a voluntary, regular widow's pension from the city of Leipzig. She also received regular support from the University of Leipzig as well as payments from various legacies. Anna Magdalena Bach “regardless of some restrictions, was one of the relatively well-cared for widows”.
Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach
Her name has remained known to this day due to the particular success of the sheet music for Anna Magdalena Bach , which Arnold Schering published based on the originals in the Prussian State Library in Berlin. The two volumes from 1722 and 1725 contain works by Bach as well as a number of compositions by other authors, the exact authorship of which, however, remains partially unclear. If Anna Magdalena has played all of the pieces in this collection - including, for example, extremely demanding works with the partitas in A minor and E minor - she must have acquired considerable piano skills. In addition to the piano pieces, there are also vocal pieces in the music booklet, including the particularly well-known aria Willst Sie den ich ein Herz and Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel 's aria Are you with me .
Biographical sources
Her fictional autobiography The Little Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach was written in 1930 by the British writer Esther Meynell. The description of Bach's family life contained therein is not based on any sources and is therefore not suitable as a reference point for the historical personality of Anna Magdalena Bach.
Meanwhile, several surviving letters written by JS Bach's nephew and temporary secretary Johann Elias Bach indicate that Anna Magdalena Bach is a “gardener lover”. Johann Elias Bach asked his mother to send some plants. The nephew also reported that he had “seen a songbird at a Mr. Cantor in Halle” and asked that the bird “be given to Mrs. Cantorin for cheap payment”.
A compilation of the documentary material on Anna Magdalena Bach was published by Maria Hübner in 2005, supplemented by a biographical essay by Christoph Wolff.
children
Anna Magdalena Bach was the mother of:
- Christiana Sophia Henrietta (1723-1726)
- Gottfried Heinrich (1724–1763)
- Christian Gottlieb (1725–1728)
- Elisabeth Juliana Friederica, called "Liesgen" (1726–1781)
- Ernestus Andreas (1727–1727)
- Regina Johanna (1728–1733)
- Christiana Benedicta (1729-1730)
- Christiana Dorothea (1731-1732)
- Johann Christoph Friedrich , the Bückeburg Bach (1732–1795)
- Johann August Abraham (1733–1733)
- Johann Christian , the Milanese or London Bach (1735–1782)
- Johanna Carolina (1737–1781)
- Regina Susanna (1742–1809)
See also
literature
- Eberhard Spree: The widowed Frau Capellmeisterin Bach. Study on the distribution of the estate of Johann Sebastian Bach . Verlag Klaus-Jürgen Kamprad, Altenburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-95755-642-4 . (Dissertation, University of Music Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, 2018).
- Maria Hübner: Anna Magdalena Bach - A life in documents and pictures. With a biographical essay by Hans Joachim Schulze . Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-374-02208-1 .
- Christoph Wolff : Johann Sebastian Bach . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16739-6 .
- Reinhard Szeskus: Yellow carnations in front of our auntie. For the 300th birthday of Anna Magdalena Bach on September 22nd. in: Sächsische Heimatblätter 47 (2001) 6, pp. 363–368
Web links
- Literature by and about Anna Magdalena Bach in the catalog of the German National Library
- Anna Magdalena Bach. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).
- Ingeborg Allihn: Anna Magdalena Bach . In: MUGI. Music education and gender research. Lexicon and multimedia presentations . Edited by Beatrix Borchard and Nina Noeske, University of Music and Theater Hamburg, 2003ff. As of June 3, 2013.
Remarks
- ↑ The recorded booking has the following wording: "6 [thalers] the trumpeter Wilken von Weißenfels so can be heard here, 12 [thalers] his daughter sung a few times in the chapel for discretion"
- ↑ Maria Hübner: Anna Magdalena Bach , p. 84
- ↑ "Piano" was used at the time as a generic term for keyboard instruments and included the harpsichord , the clavichord , but also the organ
- ^ Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach . Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 429.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bach, Anna Magdalena |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wilcke, Anna Magdalena (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German singer (soprano), wife of Johann Sebastian Bach |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 22, 1701 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Time |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 27, 1760 |
| Place of death | Leipzig |