He was a sensitive child, more than most; I would come across
him gazing into space; when I scolded him for wasting the time God had given
him, he would burst into tears.
Was it my fault? Even now, these centuries later and well
into my afterlife, I feel that pain, and the shame I felt at the time.
Make no mistake, I know very well who I am, or at least who
I was. False modesty? You won’t find it here, nor did you find it when I lived.
I had been given a great gift, yes, but equally I had toiled, and struggled to
develop it. Never a day went by when I wasn’t composing, and more—recomposing.
However much Lady might wish to believe that some of my music arrived on the
wings of angels, I can assure you that it did not. And truly, if it had, it
wouldn’t have been very good.
I was and am and will be the greatest composer of all time.
I know that now, and I knew that then, and yet did anyone around me know? Most
musicians thought of me as a great organist, not as a great composer, but was
even that appreciated? How many times
was I scolded by some cleric with less Latin and Greek than I—scolded for adding a bit of improvisation between
verses of the Sunday hymns? The improvisations confused the congregation, I was
told. The plodding oaf who had preceded me had never done such a thing!
It was a battle, then, but a battle I did not hesitate to
fight. Always, always I struggled with the buffoons who thought they could play
or tweet or sing—never was I given the musicians I deserved! A handful came up
to some minimal level of not-too-shudderingly-bad, but even they were too often
drowned by the idiot next to them, for I tell you, the worse a musician is, the
louder he plays or sings.
How often I had to protest! Never did I have an employer who
understood, who knew the quality of the music I composed! You know the Goldberg
Variations, of course, but does anyone know of Johann Gottlieb Goldberg? No,
his only claim to any shred of musical history is that he played my variations
for the Count Keyserlink, who—according to one preposterous story—actually paid
me a goblet fulled with 100 louis-d’or.
They said I had a temper; they said I was difficult. Wrong!
I knew perfectly well that if I didn’t stand up for myself, no one else would,
and was it right that I, the greatest composer of the time, be treated as a
lackey, a servant? I had seen what had happened to several of my relatives—all
fine musicians—who had struggled into and out of poverty for years. And if I
was fortunate enough to do just a bit better, it wasn’t due to luck, nor
entirely to my ability. It was because I demanded the high respect and
treatment that I deserved.
Experience has taught me; sometimes the worst employers are
the ones you like the most. Certainly that was true of Prince Leopold of
Anhalt-Cöthen. What musician could not have been charmed by the man, a talented
man who could play the violin and viola da gamba, and often did so with his
court band? Yes, he knew perfectly well what he had in me, and he paid me well.
But such was his love of music that it was necessary—according to him—to take
his musicians along with him on his travels.
How often are the whims of the rich paid for with the tears
of the poor! Search, writer, for the reason that we had to be dragged off that
summer of 1720, since something was important for the Prince, and so we all
went off with him. Ah, you do not know, but I can tell you: the prince was
taking the waters at Carlsbad.
What do I remember of the day my life was wrenched from its
orbit? The looks of the villagers, my neighbors, as I finally returned to my
home, as I walked though the streets. Or rather, the interrupted looks, since
everyone glanced at me, greeted me, and just as quickly looked away and hurried
off. They knew: I did not.
And what of the silence that greeted me—shouldn’t that have
told me that something was wrong? For the house was never noisy, but neither
was it dead silent, either—what house with small children ever is? But in fact
the children were with the neighbor, so that the pastor could tell me that my
wife María Barbara had died.
Death, that great bastard death! I met it first when I was
six; it visited and vanquished my cousin. When I was ten it took first my
mother, and then, nine months later, my father. I buried nine of my children,
but this death was the worst.
Yes, we had been playing soothing music for the prince and
as the warm waters had lapped gently on the prince’s sensitive skin, my María
Barbara had felt first the flush, then the raging fever, then the nausea. She
was, they told me, dead within twenty-four hours.
Everything was upside down. Before, I had had things to do,
now there was nothing to be done. The body was buried, the funeral had been
held. Her clothes had been taken away, though some of her things that might
have some meaning or utility had been left. The house was both empty and filled
with her absence, but could I sit and weep? No, because there were the children
to think of, and however much I wanted to see them, I dreaded seeing them as
well. How could a crushed man be any comfort to his grieving children?
But saw them I did, and we embraced, and we went on, as
before.
Well, not as before. Because the second child, Carl Phillip
Emanuel, had changed. The abstractions, the looking into the distance, the
unnatural quietness of the child became more pronounced. My heart was torn;
gazing on my son, my heart broke. I buried my grief with work, but he? When
there were lessons to be learned and music to be copied out and any number of
tasks to be done—this six-year old boy was looking out the window, as if trying
to see the place where his mother might be.
And so I spoke roughly, harshly to the child. Only so much
time was given to us by the good Lord: hadn’t we had proof of that? It was a
sin to waste it.
He returned to whatever it was he was supposed to be doing.
And then it was I, looking out the window, trying to find that land I used to
live in, that house.
God, merciful God, when will this pain end?
