Veit Bach

Veit-Bach-Obermühle in Wechmar

Veit Bach (* around 1550 ; † March 8, 1619 in Wechmar ; or according to the theory of Christoph Wolff: * perhaps around 1520 in Pressburg , † before 1577/78 in Wechmar) is the oldest established ancestor of the widely ramified German musician family Bach . He was Johann Sebastian Bach's great-great-grandfather . Veit Bach was a baker, miller and amateur musician and is therefore also considered the founder of the musical tradition in the Bach family.

Life

Veit Bach was a baker in Hungary and a Lutheran . Before the Counter-Reformation he fled to Wechmar in Thuringia , where he worked as a baker and miller. According to a family chronicle written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1735 , he played the Cythringen , a type of cister, to pass the time :

“Vitus Bach, a Weißbecker in Ungern, had to escape from Ungern halfway in the 16th Seculo of the Lutheran religion. Then hero, after having had his goods done as much as he wanted, went to Teütschland for money; and since he found sufficient security from the Lutheran religion in Thuringia, he settled in Wechmar, near Gotha, and carried on his Becker profession. He had his greatest pleasure in a cythrene ring, which he also took with him into the mill, and played on it while grinding. (It must have sounded nice together! How long he had learned to imprimirise the tact.) And this was the beginning of the music with his descendants. "

Veit Bach's exact place of residence in Hungary is not known. JM Korabinsky claimed in his book "Description of ... City of Preßburg" (Pressburg 1784) that the city of Pressburg (now Bratislava ), which then belonged to Hungary, was Veit Bach's Hungarian residence, but Geiringer considers this to be only an unproven statement.

Veit Bach had at least two sons. The older son named Johannes Bach († 1626), the great-grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach, was a musician and carpet weaver in Wechmar. The younger son was Philippus "Lips" Bach († 1620), a carpet weaver in Wechmar and ancestor of the Meiningen line of the Bach family of musicians.

The relationship between Veit Bach and Caspar Bach (around 1570/78 - around 1642/43), town piper in Gotha and Arnstadt , is assessed differently in the theories presented below: According to the first assumption, he was perhaps a brother, according to the second assumption Another son and, according to the third hypothesis, a nephew of Veit Bach. A carpenter Han (n) s Bach (1555-1615), who worked as a minstrel and jester at the court of the widowed Duchess Ursula von Württemberg in Nürtingen , according to the first theory could have been a brother of Veit Bach, according to the second a cousin his, according to the third theory, it is not at all sure to be classified in the family tree.

Theories about Veit Bach's origins

Johann Sebastian Bach's report cited above does not provide any information on the origin of Veit Bach. This has led to different views on its origins (see the three subsections below). However, it is generally assumed that the Bach family did not originally come from Hungary, as the name Bach can be traced back to various places in Thuringia throughout the 16th century. In Wechmar in 1561 a man named Hans Bach is mentioned as a member of the community guardianship.

First theory: Veit Bach himself emigrated from Wechmar to Hungary and returned later

The theory traditionally represented in Bach research says that Veit Bach originally came from Wechmar. Hans Bach, mentioned in Wechmar in 1561, was probably his father. Veit Bach himself came to Hungary on his journeyman journey and settled there until religious persecution forced him to return to Wechmar.

According to this theory, the following pedigree results (uncertain ancestry, dashed):

Hans Bach (mentioned 1561)

Veit Bach (around 1550-1619)

Hans Bach "the court jester" (1555-1615)

Caspar Bach (around 1570 – around 1642)

Johannes Bach (around 1580–1626)

Philip (Lips) Bach († 1620)

Caspar Bach the Elder J. (around 1600 – after 1625)

Second theory: Veit Bach lived in Hungary in the second generation and left it around 1590

Walther Rauschenberger (1950) first turned against traditional theory: If Veit Bach himself emigrated from Germany, why did JS Bach then call him “a white baker in Hungary” without mentioning his German origins? And how could Veit Bach, if he had only come to Hungary as a journeyman, have accumulated an appreciable fortune so quickly? JS Bach says that before his emigration, Veit “turned his goods into money as much as he could.” Isn't it more likely that Veit Bach was born in Hungary and inherited the “goods”, ie real estate and property, from his father?

Kurt Hermann Frickel continued these considerations (1994). Hans Bach, mentioned in Wechmar in 1561, was not Veit Bach's father, but his grandfather. It can be assumed that Veit Bach's father, son of this Hans Bach, emigrated to Hungary. Veit Bach's father is never mentioned by name, but Frickel suspects that his first name could also have been called Veit: St. Vitus is, among other things, the patron saint of the church in Wechmar, so that the assignment of this first name to a Bach born in Wechmar is obvious.

Another member of the Bach family, Johann Christoph Bach, cantor and organist in Gehren , mentioned in a letter on July 15, 1727 that "the world-famous Bach family" "can show" their genealogy from 1504 onwards. Frickel would like to relate this year to the year of birth of Hans Bach. When he became a member of the Wechmar community guardianship in 1561, he was 57 years old and therefore had experience of such a position. If one then, according to Frickel, based a 24-year succession of generations, the hypothetical Veit Bach d. Ä. born around 1528 and Veit Bach the Elder Around 1552. The persecution of the faith in Hungary had already started when Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612) took office, but initially it did not generate so much pressure that Veit Bach the Elder. J. had emigrated immediately; he also no longer wanted to expect his parents to move like this. With an assumed age of around 60 years, Veit Bach the Elder could. Ä. died around 1588 and only afterwards, at the beginning of the 1590s, was Veit Bach the Elder. J. returned to his family's old home, Lutheran Thuringia.

According to this theory, the following family tree results (uncertain ancestry dashed, hypothetical persons in italics, life dates compared to the first family tree in some cases assessed somewhat differently):

Hans Bach (1504 – after 1561)

Veit Bach the Elder Ä. (around 1528 – around 1588)

Hanns Bach the Elder Ä. (around 1530 – around 1590)

Veit Bach the Elder J. (around 1552-1619)

Hanns Bach the Elder J. "the minstrel" (1555-1615)

Johannes Bach (around 1576–1626), Wechmar

Caspar Bach (around 1578 – around 1643), Arnstadt

Philippus (Lips) Bach (around 1580–1620), Wechmar

Andreas Bach (1587-1637), Themar

Third theory: Veit Bach lived in Slovakia in the second generation and left it around 1545

A third theory was published by Christoph Wolff in The New Grove Bach Family (1997). According to this theory, the Bach family originally came from Thuringia, where the first Bach namesake were mentioned as early as the 14th century. But the Bach progenitor Veit was born as the son of a previous emigrant in Moravia or Slovakia ; because the place name "Hungary" in Johann Sebastian Bach's family chronicle should not be taken literally and, in common parlance at the time, referred to the central regions of the Habsburg monarchy. If Korabinski's testimony from 1784 (see above) is true that Veit Bach lived in Pressburg, that might also be his place of birth. Wolff does not give an approximate year of birth, but according to his theory, Veit Bach should have been born about a generation earlier than assumed in the first and second theory (roughly around 1520). Because Wolff assumes that Veit Bach was expelled during the Schmalkaldic War (1545–47) and went to Wechmar. He died there around 1577 - because that year his sons Johannes Bach and Lips Bach were mentioned as homeowners in Wechmar (so they would probably have inherited their father by then). Hans Bach, mentioned in 1561, must have been a brother or cousin of this Veit Bach. That Veit Bach, whose death is recorded in the church registers of Wechmar in 1619, was another family member, perhaps a cousin of the progenitor Veit Bach.

This brings Wolff to the following family tree (uncertain lineages dashed):

... Bach

Veit Bach the Elder Ä. († before 1578)

Hans Bach (mentioned 1561)

Johannes Bach (around 1550–1626)

[Lips] Bach (around 1552–?)

Caspar Bach (around 1578–1640)

Veit Bach the Elder J. († 1619)

3 sons: Johann Bach (1604–1673) Christoph Bach (1613–1661) Heinrich Bach (1615–1692)

2–3 sons: uncertain: [Wendell] Bach (approx. 1580–…) Andreas Bach (1587–1637) Lips Bach (approx. 1590–1620)

5 sons: Caspar Bach (around 1600–…) Melchior Bach (1603–1634) Johannes Bach (1612–1632) Nicolaus Bach (1618–1637) Heinrich Bach, the "blind Jonas" († 1635)

The Veit-Bach-Obermühle in Wechmar

In November 2003, after three years of restoration, the historic Obermühle in Wechmar was handed over as a museum and at the time the youngest Bach memorial. The architectural monument from 1685, which has since been called Veit-Bach-Obermühle , has a Thuringian plank room from 1585 as a special feature. The picture cycle Die Familie Bach by the Mühlberg artist Lars Schüller has been on the upper floor of the mill since 2004 with eleven large-format panels on the history of the family of musicians.

Veit Bach Festival

Since 2000, the Wechmarer Heimatverein eV has been organizing the four-year festival named after Veit Bach, during which a large folk theater piece with over 100 amateur actors in historical costumes is premiered.

In the Bach year 2000, the piece Veit Bach, written by the Gotha author Andreas M. Cramer, celebrated . The forefather of the Bach family of musicians, directed by Antje Körbs, premiered on July 21st in Wechmar. 63 actors, two choirs and two dance groups presented the (fictional) family events of the Bach family between 1590 (the presumed year of Veit's return to Thuringia, the home of his ancestors) and 1635 (the departure of Veit's grandsons Johann , Heinrich and Christoph from Wechmar ) represent.

Previously premiered plays at the Veit Bach Festival:

• 2000: Veit Bach. The forefather of the Bach family of musicians
• 2004: Hans Bach. A minstrel
• 2008: The cantor in love
• 2012: Church thunder around Sankt Viti
• 2016: Everything goes across the stream

literature

• Karl Geiringer , Irene Geiringer: The Bach family of musicians: life and work in 3 centuries . CH Beck, Munich, 1958, DNB 451464443 . There pp. 7–9 on Veit Bach. Original: The Bach family: seven generations of creative genius . Allen & Unwin, London, 1954, LCCN  54-014632 .
• Werner Neumann , Hans-Joachim Schulze (Hrsg.): Documents by Johann Sebastian Bach (= Bach documents. Supplement to Johann Sebastian Bach new edition of all works. Vol. 1, ZDB -ID 540509-9 ). Presented and explained. Critical complete edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel et al. 1963, no.184.
• Kurt Hermann Frickel : Genealogy of the Bach family of musicians. 568 bearers of names over 12 generations in 119 families. Data - facts - hypotheses. Self-published, Niederwerrn, 1994, ISBN 3-926523-37-9 . In it especially p. 193–195: Hypothesis I: The ancestors and sons of Veit Bach (1) .
• Christoph Wolff among others: The New Grove Bach Family . WW Norton & Company , New York, 1997, ISBN 0393016846 , especially pp. 4, 17, 21-22.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Chronicle of the musical-Bach family
2. ↑ Geiringer, The Bach family of musicians , 1958, p. 9 with note 1.
3. ^ Geiringer, The Bach family of musicians , 1958, p. 12f.
4. ↑ Geiringer, The Bach family of musicians , 1958, p. 11 (“perhaps a younger brother Veits”).
5. ^ Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach family of musicians , 1994, p. 6, 193.
6. ↑ Christoph Wolff u. a .: The New Grove Bach Family . New York: WW Norton & Company , 1997, pp. 2, 4.
7. ↑ Geiringer, The Bach family of musicians , 1958, p. 10f.
8. ↑ Geiringer, The Bach family of musicians , 1958, p. 10 (“perhaps a brother Veits”).
9. ^ Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach family of musicians , 1994, pp. 194–197: Hypothesis II: The relationship between the "Nürtinger Bach" ("Hans the minstrel") and the family of musicians .
10. ^ Wolff, The New Grove Bach Family , p. 4.
11. ^ Geiringer, The Bach family of musicians , 1958, p. 8; Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach family of musicians , 1994, p. 193.
12. ↑ Geiringer, The Bach Family of Musicians , 1958, p. 8.
13. ↑ See Geiringer, Die Musikfamilie Bach , 1958, p. 7.
14. ^ Walther Rauschenberger: The Bach families. Reprint from "Genealogy and Heraldry", 2nd year 1950, issue 10. Frankfurt am Main 1950. Here his theses are reproduced from Geiringer, Die Musikfamilie Bach , 1958, p. 8.
15. ^ Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach Family of Musicians , 1994, p. 193.
16. ↑ Geiringer, Die Musikfamilie Bach , 1958, p. 7; Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach family of musicians , 1994, p. 193.
17. ^ Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach Family of Musicians , 1994, p. 193f.
18. ↑ See Frickel, Genealogy of the Bach family of musicians , 1994, pp. 3–6, 193.
19. ^ Wolff, The New Grove Bach Family , p. 22.
20. ^ Wolff, The New Grove Bach Family , p. 22.
21. ^ Wolff, The New Grove Bach Family , p. 21.
22. ^ Wolff, The New Grove Bach Family , p. 23.
23. ^ Wolff, The New Grove Bach Family , pp. 4f.
24. ↑ The cradle of the Bach family of musicians

Web links

• Veit Bach Festival in Wechmar