Days 101 to 104 and so to Lübeck….
How good and pleasant it is when a father loves his children and the children adore the mother and the mother worships her Ehemann with shining, pretty eyes. How sweet it is to hear a little girl sing as she spins and weaves tales to a manic cuckoo clock, as the others sing canons before tea. Then when Breakfast-time comes, in the pre-dawn dark, in the glow of red candles and Peace, the father intones stories in a resonant, deep voice and auf Deutsch Pippi Longstocking appears …..in the snow, surrounded by old maps and book-laden shelves and post cards from all over the world. Or so it seemed, in a pilgrim-friendly house that I happened upon in Lübeck, in Große Grüpelgrube Straße not far from Sancta Jakobi Kirke and the medieval Gertrudenheberge with its recently discovered Jacobi frescoes (1365).
Lübeck Cont…..Many years ago, when just a young thing pounding scales and Czerny and Hanon, I heard an interesting tale set in Lübeck. It goes something like this:
Once upon a trail, a very long time ago, in 1705 on 1st of October, probably at dawn to be exact, an enthusiastic young man named Johann Sebastian Bach set off on foot from Arnstadt to Lübeck - at least I think he went by foot. I’m not sure of the details but I'm sure he didn't have a camel or any North Face, Meindl or Berghaus gear -and as he whiled the miles upon his feet he amused his mind by constructing musical cathedrals out of exquisitely twirled notes and intelligently wrought counterpoint. And every day he sang Psalms and hymns and spiritual canons with anyone he met, astonishing the locals as he improvised praeludium(s …what’s the plural?) and fugues upon every Lutheran organ he happened upon. And eventually, after a couple of weeks I should think, although records show that he played truant for three months from his job, he arrived at the feet of Buxtehude the Great -no, not Frederick the Great but Dietrich Buxtehude of Buxtehude -the famed organist/composer/Kapelle Meister at the twin-spired Marien-Gemeinde Kirke, Lübeck.
Buxtehude was so impressed by the young Johann Sebastian Bach that he offered him a position right there and then, but with a catch – if Bach wanted the post he must marry Buxtehude’s ugly, elderly daughter (she was only 30 years old but to a callow youth that must have seemed ancient). Bach looked once and thought twice and even perhaps tried to dally, but after serious consideration and probably tears -after all it was an outstanding, prestigious position, Bach declined and fled as fast as his feet would carry him all the way back to Arnstadt (and possibly beyond via Hamburg to somewhere else, because, why not see the world when you have the chance?) where he rapidly acquired two very appealing wives, had twenty children and never ventured forth again…. except to look for more work in Cöthen, Leipzig and somewhere else but definitely not for more wives...or at least none that historical documents reveal.
And that is why I headed South East in the sleet to Lübeck instead of South West from Schleswig to Glückstadt -to see the magical spires of Lübeck, to hear Orgelvespers in the Sancta Jakobi Kirke in the Alte Stadt and listen to a virtuoso play Buxtehude and JSB on the Great Organ in the beautiful Sancta Marien Kirke.
PS Local musicians have their own ‘take’ on this tale: JSB took one look at the daughter and fell dementedly, chaotically in love. He dallied and delayed and overstayed his leave but in the end his musical vanity won. Bach decided he couldn’t possibly spend a lifetime pumping musical ‘soup’ into the bath-room-like acoustics of the Sancta Marien Kirke. Nobody would ever hear the intricacy of his exquisite harmonies and melodies or appreciate how extraordinary was his talent. So, in the end, with much regret and love-lorn tears he dragged his despondent self all the way back to Arnstadt and married the first available girl, his cousin (or was it a local girl and then his cousin? Or were both girls local and his cousins? I’m not quite sure).
-Lovingkindness