Leipzig is at it again! In 2019 the city already celebrated the 200th birthday of Clara Schumann in grand style – giving a real boost to attention for women composers in general. Now six museums are joining forces for the theme year ‘Stark! Weibliche Lebenswelten in den Leipziger Musikmuseen’. The Bach-Museum, for example, devotes engaging attention to no fewer than 33 women from the entourage of the Baroque master.
For more than 200 years the far-reaching Bach family shaped the musical life of Central Germany. Yet in music history, only the men were granted a place. The small but fascinating thematic exhibition in the Bach-Museum, in the shadow of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, now focuses for the first time on the women. Building on a study by musicologist Maria Hübner, the museum gives a voice to no fewer than 33 women: Johann Sebastian's (step)mother, his two wives, (sisters-in-law and) (step)daughters, granddaughters and so on. They are divided into four categories: family managers, singers, businesswomen and members of the household at Neukirchhof in Leipzig. In that building Anna Magdalena, together with a changing band of Bach women, took up residence when, after her husband's death, she had to leave their home in the Thomasschule.
Narratives
That 'giving a voice' may be taken literally. Through headphones the women briefly tell of their lives (in German and English). These are fictional narratives, based on the limited source material. The fact that their lives are so sparsely documented is due to the fact that they had no legal personality of their own. They appeared only in relation to male family members. Often there is no more than baptismal, marriage and death records to reconstruct their lives.
But however limited and fictional, the formula works, and we nonetheless gain a picture of these women and the times in which they lived. We hear, for example, Elisabeth Bach (née Lämmerhirt, 1644–1694), the mother of Johann Sebastian (1685–1750), grumbling that her obituary did not even mention her own name, only 'Johann Ambrosii Baachen Haußfraw' (the wife of Johann Ambrosius Bach).
Even more painful was the case of Anna Magdalena Bach (1701–1760), Johann Sebastian's second wife. In his in memoriam, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714–1788) described his stepmother merely as the daughter of a court trumpeter, while she herself, before her marriage, had been a highly qualified and much sought-after singer at the court of Köthen. When the couple moved to Leipzig, this meant the end of her career. Leipzig had no court, and in the churches women were not permitted to sing solo. Nevertheless Anna Magdalena, like her (step)daughters, remained musically active.
This emerges, among other things, from a surviving quotation from Bach in which he praised the musicality of his family members. They could give a vocal and instrumental concert, he wrote to a friend, 'especially because my present wife sings a pure soprano and my eldest daughter also performs not badly'. That daughter was Catharina Dorothea (1708–1774) from his first marriage. She tells us how she dreamed of becoming a professional singer, but after the death of her mother Maria Barbara (also a née Bach, 1684–1720) she was indispensable in the busy household with the many children who were still to follow.
For Johann Sebastian's sister Maria Salome Wiegand (née Bach, 1677–1727), too, only marriage and housekeeping were reserved. Her cri de cœur, which immediately catches the eye when you enter the exhibition space, is therefore deeply moving: 'My brother Johann Sebastian is known to everyone, but who knows me?' No one knows whether she was also highly gifted, or whether she may have been jealous of her brothers, who were allowed to become musicians – you hear her sighing in the headphones.
Notenbüchlein and Kunst der Fuge
Anna Magdalena is one of the few female Bach women, perhaps even the only one, who enjoys any real fame. This is of course due to the Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach, relatively simple but charming piano pieces that her husband compiled for her and with which she taught their children the piano, and which beginning pianists still enjoy playing today. It is possible that the Büchlein also contains compositions by Anna Magdalena herself, as it cannot be ruled out that she too composed.
In that context, I was very curious whether the exhibition would address the theory of the musician Martin Jarvis, but I was not surprised to find not a single word about it. Jarvis was already persona non grata at the Bach-Archiv at the time of his research. On the basis of forensic research, he concluded almost 20 years ago that, among others, some of Bach's famous cello suites could be attributed to Anna Magdalena. Although the theory was hotly disputed and other academics hoped it would soon be forgotten, I nevertheless paid attention to it in my book Vrouw aan de piano (pp. 105-116) – I also explain why there. But I also felt compelled to conclude that we will "never know with certainty what Anna Magdalena's compositional qualities were".
What people in Leipzig do agree on, however, is that she helped her husband as a copyist and with other organisational matters. Furthermore, she ensured that, among other works, Die Kunst der Fuge was published. The preparations for printing had already begun before Johann Sebastian's death, but for the widow, the dissemination of his music also meant welcome income. Incidentally, she embellished the manuscript with drawings of flowers. She was a great lover of flowers and of songbirds.
Legacy
Another Bach woman who safeguarded the legacy of the composing members of the family is the soprano Cecilia Bach (née Grassi, †1791). Before her marriage at the age of 40 to Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), she had enjoyed successes in Venice and London. After his death, she ensured that the score of his opera Amadis de Gaule, which had premiered in Paris, was published. She also wrote a foreword for it, which, however, was omitted in a reprint, possibly because it was too critical and/or inappropriate for a woman... Granddaughter Anna Carolina Philippina Bach (1747-1804) also ensured the dissemination of the music of a Bach, in her case that of her father Carl Philipp Emanuel.
Convents and courts
Another granddaughter, Anna Philippina Friederica Colson (née Bach, 1755-1804), daughter of Johann Christoph Friedrich (1732-1795), received a musical education, but she played the harpsichord only in private circles. Unlike her brother, she was not eligible for an appointment.
Yet we must not say that women never managed to build a career, the catalogue rightly notes. In convents for women or at a royal court, women could make music to their heart's content in those days. There they played not only plucked instruments, but also wind and string instruments and even the organ. Think, for example, of Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) and Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677). Or think of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, where Antonio Vivaldi was active. He composed no fewer than 31 violin concertos for his pupil Anna Maria dal Violin (1696-1782). Only... these women were systematically written out of music history.
Of the 33 Bach women, hardly any or no portraits have been preserved either – an oil painting of Anna Magdalena by Antonio Cristofori has been missing since 1790. Nevertheless, the exhibition is richly illustrated. The portraits of European female composers and musicians from Ton Koopman's private archive, an annex to the Bach exhibition, also contribute to this. They give a versatile impression of the all too often underexposed but undeniable and indispensable contribution of women to the world of music.
The unknown beauty
Another woman whose role is only now being appreciated for its true value is Cécile Jeanrenaud (1817-1853). Although it remains unclear whether she herself was musically active – she is said to have been rather modest about her musical talent – she was an indispensable support to the man at her side: the composer, star conductor and piano virtuoso Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who in a letter to a friend admitted that he was 'terribly in love' with her. In biographies of Mendelssohn, we usually learn little about his wife, who bore five children. Except perhaps that she was known for her beauty.
But the Mendelssohn-Haus – which for several years has also honoured Felix’s sister Fanny in a beautiful way – tries to look further and sees enough reasons to also put ‘die unbekannte Schöne’ in the spotlight. We do get to see those flowers, for Cécile Jeanrenaud turns out to have had a great talent for drawing, as evidenced by her numerous watercolours of flowers. It is a pity, incidentally, that only one copy of the collection was made and that the reproductions, with one exception, are not for sale. One wall of the small exhibition space is taken up by a reproduction of a work on which Felix and Cécile worked together. After Felix’s death, Cécile, among other things, oversaw the publication of a collection of songs that he dedicated to the singer Livia Frege.
Livia Frege
That Livia Frege (1818-1891) is now also receiving permanent attention in a (digital) exhibition at the Stadtgeschichtliche Museum in the Alte Rathaus. At her debut as a singer at the age of 14 in the Gewandhaus, the Leipziger Tageblatt hailed this ‘young talent of our city’ who ‘gives us the most beautiful expectations’. Still as the unmarried Livia Gerhardt, she also sang in the Musikalische Akademie founded by Clara Schumann. She married Woldemar Frege, a scion of a wealthy merchant family, whose name is still commemorated by the Fregehaus in the city centre. Normally, marriage meant the end of the professional career for musical women, but Livia Frege continued to sing, admittedly no longer in opera, but with songs and oratorios. She would also open a musical salon in their villa. Finally, the Schumann-Haus, the Grieg-Begegnungsstätte and the Musikinstrumentenmuseum are offering thematic guided tours and workshops this year as well. Leipzig is in any case a delightful city for music lovers. A Notenspur leads you from one memorable place to another. Vaut le détour – Den Umweg wert!
__________________
- Consult the full programme of Stark. Weibliche Lebenswelten in den Leipziger Musikmuseen here.
- Die Stimmen der Frauen als der Bach-Familie, until 10 November 2024 at the Bach-Museum. All the stories are included in the catalogue. More extensive portraits of the 33 Bach women can be found in Maria Hübner’s book, Frauen der Bach-Familie (Kampard, 2021, 288 p.).
- Die unbekannte Schöne - Cécile Mendelssohn Bartholdy, until 9 February 2025 at the Mendelssohn-Haus.
- Read more about musical Leipzig in the blog Met Clara in feestend Leipzig.
- This article has also appeared at notities.vrouwaandepiano.be.