The compulsion to study
It is hardly necessary to restate that the invention of printing played a decisive role in the culture of humanist Europe. During the sixteenth century the publication of books increased to such an extent that many lamented the rise in printing workshops. Luther eventually reviled Gutenberg’s invention, and alleged that printing had been turned into “a servant to ignorance”. As late as the eighteenth century the satirical Lichtenberg mocked the phenomenon by adducing that the worst aspect of a good book was its ability to spawn thousands of inferior works. Book-fairs, auctions and shops flourished, at which one could find stacked together books covering every subject, including cookbooks and almanacs. In 1742 Bach himself attended such an auction and bought an anthology of Luther’s writings. One must bear in mind that in the Lutheran world, and even more so after the arrival of Pietism, reading was exhorted as an essential component of spiritual development, as a result of which Germany enjoyed a high level of adult literacy. The Pietist movement, with its emphasis on a deeper sense of piety and ethics, was to assume such importance that it acted as a check on the most orthodox forms of Lutheranism, and encouraged a life of greater contemplation and withdrawal that lead to meditation. Central to all this was the act of reading. It is noteworthy that eighty per cent of German household inventories of the period list books, while in Catholic France in 1750 the proportion drops to only twenty per cent1. In Luther’s letter of 1524, To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, it is already pointed out that one should not skimp with money if one is to have good schools and libraries. Bach was part of this tradition so it can be no surprise that he had his own library and that it was very important to him. At that time private libraries were designed to stimulate awareness and feeling, qualities of irreplaceable value that facilitated the acquisition of the rudiments of learning. Celestial maps, works on ethics, treatises on optics and music, manuals on botany, rhetoric and anatomy were all thought to contribute to an understanding of the world .
The inventory drawn up at Bach’s death names just over eighty titles. Though it is implausible that a man with such an inquiring mind should only have had books of a theological or spiritual nature, that is in fact what the list indicates. Bach’s biographer Spitta suggested that the maestro’s sons, particularly Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, removed a large proportion of the material, only leaving on the shelves those titles that were of little interest to them2. But Chartier3 suggests that one is often misled by inventories carried out during this period. He maintains that to the eyes of the valuers at the time inexpensive bindings and paltry volume runs may have been disregarded, despite their possible importance. What cannot be doubted is that the composer was a man of considerable intellectual curiosity, with an incredibly agile mind – to which his music bears witness - and that he could not have been unaware of the significant discoveries and ideas that were springing up around him.
Bach obituaries often make reference to “his extraordinary compulsion to study [...] spending whole nights working”4. His diligence in reading can be seen in the quantity of glosses that are known to appear in his books, for instance in the works of Abraham Calov (or Calovius), whose German Bible (Grosse Teütsche Bibel) in three volumes (1681-1682), Bach acquired in 1733. As for the Lutheran texts that he bought at the auction in 1742, published as Magnificent writings in German by Doctor Martin Luther, God rest his soul (Teütsche und herrliche Schrifften des seeligen Dr. M. Lutheri), the composer points out that they were those used by Calov as commentary to his Bible. In a handwritten invoice Bach annotates:
These magnificent German writings by D.M. Luther (that come from the library of the great theologian and General-Superintendent of Wittenberg D. Abrah. Calovius, from which he probably compiled his German Bible, and that after his death passed through the hands of the equally great theologian D. J. F. Mayer) have been acquired by me at auction for the sum of ten thalers in the year 1742, in the month of September. Joh: Sebast: Bach5.
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