The Puzzle of JS Bach's Kochs!
(a puzzle in a puzzle, sort of)
Johann Sebastian's early years and musical heritage are still a mystery but the fact is, some bits and pieces of evidence managed to escape the eye and peek of musicology's hawks and, as it now turns out, Johann Sebastian "Bach" was at least as "influenced" by Kochs as Mozart, Beethoven and Goethe were:
His first name was that of his other godfather, Johann Georg Koch, a forester in Eisenach....
Nothing is known for certain about Sebastian early years until 1693...
Bach was indefatigable in copying manuscripts to replace Ahles less adventurous repertory, aided by Johann Martin Schubart, the earliest of his many distinguished pupils, and Johann Sebastian Koch, his choir prefect
1734 wurde Johann Philipp Ostertag, vorher Konrektor am Gymnasium, zum Stadtpfarrer ernannt. Er wurde unterstützt von dem zum Stadtdiakon berufenen in Idstein geborenen Theologen Johann Sebastian Koch, der außerdem am Gymnasium noch einige Stunden Unterricht in der französischen Sprache erteilte.
Ostertag's mentor in "mystagogie" and only reputable biographer however, Wieland, 1802, claims Ostertag was born 1734: de.wikisource.org/.../ADB:Ostertag,_Johann_Philipp
...and as we remember writing not long ago....
...Franziska Koch, a famous singer of her time who drowned her sorrow to sing then (in tune but on and off only) with Wieland and Benda "Romeo and Juliette" and "Alceste", the first german opera seria. Gluck is also frequently mentioned in this book but there is no apparent relation to Mme Koch or Wielands "Alceste" whatsoever....
...and Wieland was in...Zürich in the summer of 1752. After a few months, however, Bodmer felt himself as little in sympathy with Wieland as, two years earlier, he had felt himself with Klopstock, and the friends parted; but Wieland remained in Switzerland until 1760, spending the last year, at Bern where he obtained a position as private tutor. Here he became intimate with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's friend Julie de Bondeli.
IE
There never was a Johann Sebastian "Bach"...
and
...three cheers for the noble science of forestry-musicology!
:smilielol5::smilielol5::smilielol5:
-The Master Musiciens. Bach. Oxford University Press. Edited by Stanley Sadie.
-Bach, a biography by ES Terry
- http://www.pfarrverein-ekhn.de/web/p...eschichte.html
Bach's Kochs (supplement)!
(alternative title "The cards manufacturer of Musicology's Tower").
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach is not to be confused with Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach*, his nephew, also a composer. Friedemann himself may have been one of the models for Diderot's philosophical dialogue Rameau's Nephew (Le Neveu de Rameau).
...and,until now, silly me believed Rousseau was Rameau's nephew:conehead:
This last good german, Whilhelm Friedmann "Bach" (to distinguish him from the other "bad jesuit, francoitalian Baches"*)-provided J.S.Bach's family data to good german Forkel who published his first biography in 1802, simultaneoulsy with good german Wieland's previous publication (Wieland, Deutscher Merkur, Januar 1802)!
Wieland btw, who wrote something or other on Gluck's "Alceste", was Julie Bondeli's first lover, seconded immediately after by "Rousseau" (who was as suisse as Gaspard Fritz and Pierre Michel Hennin but in any case often in Switzerland during Wieland's stay -1750'to 60's and long before)!
And, inbetween aliases, Rouseau wrote his "Julie" or "Lettres de deux amans habitans d'une petite ville au pied des Alpes ("Letters from two lovers living in a small town at the foot of the Alps")." sometime before 1761 and had it published in Holland somewhere!
...and, according to Forkel's associate musicologist "Koch", Georg Forster (forester?), Ben Franklin's Forster (Eripuit coelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis) was a German! (p112, Enlightenment Orpheus: the power of music in other worlds by Vanessa Agnew).
That's the way things are, Robert, for better or worse, and don't bother repeating your usual "poem" for an answer!
* Baron Bache or Bagge or even Bogge! "bache" means butcher in german whereas "bach" means stream!
:party: many Kochs partying with Rousseau-Koch-Wieland in the middle carrying the balloon of Forkel's Lexicon ueber alles!