And so this young man went to prison—well, what of it?
He smoked a drug that makes some people feel good, and makes
others act irrationally. Which was certainly the case with him, since the theft
of a rare blue macaw requires either a profound if quirky criminality, or a
very heady stew of chemicals swirling through the cerebellum. And so this young
man, Montalvo, has ended up at last in prison, to be confined there for several
weeks.
Again I ask—what of it?
His misfortune was to be young, imprudent, poor, and
slightly darker in skin tone than the ruling class. And all of that condemned
him. But was it any different for him than for me? Because I too was thrust
into jail, in the year 1717, and for reasons every bit as inane as the reasons
that catapulted Montalvo into prison.
My crime?
I had grown weary of the bickering that lead to a feud
between two powerful dukes: William Ernest and his nephew Ernest August. And
however bitter it might have been, was there any question of who would win?
Even before Ernest August became one of the two dukes ruling Weimar, William
Ernest had seized all the power, as well as the purse strings.
And so there were two competing households, and the
musicians of one were forbidden to make music, or indeed even to befriend, the
musicians of the other. That might have been endured, but soon the politicking
grew even more heated. For the enfeebled Kapellmeister,
whose work I had mostly done for some years, at last succumbed and died.
Had I been happy in Weimar?
Yes, reasonably so. Because while the rulers of the small
nations and duchies all warred to gain ascendency over each other, I was left
to my own devices. Yes, I had many duties, but it was in those years that I
composed most of my organ works, and a great deal of my secular works. The Brandenburg
Concerti, the cello suites, the violin sonatas and partitas—all stemmed from
those years.
Nor was Weimar in any way a backwater: it attracted some of
the best minds and thinkers of the era. Here, I could meet the great scholar
Johann Matthias Gesner; here also I was exposed to the Italian style of
composition, in particular the works of Vivaldi. And so I was able, by in
large, to ignore the rift between the two reigning dukes; all that, however,
was to change with the death of the Kapellmeister.
The letter that I wrote was polite, almost fawning, since my
beloved María Barbara had flatly insisted: the original letter, she felt, was
far too demanding.
“How can you say, Sebastian, that you have no doubt that the
appointment is to be yours? And to ask what pay you will receive? That will
infuriate the duke!”
“But it is the truth. I have undertaken the work of the
doddering old fool for years now, without a single pfennig being given to me!
Isn’t it just that I now be given the appointment, and that at last I be
compensated for the work I have done, and am to do?”
“Yes, Sebastian, but will the duke see that? Won’t he feel
that you are demanding—presumptuous, even? Do you expect the duke to take
orders from one of his servants?”
I protested, of course, since who but I was more qualified
for the position? Had I not proved myself? Throughout Europe, my fame as an
organist, and especially as an improviser, had grown; once, visiting Dresden, I
had been invited to compete against the greatest French organist of the day,
Louis Marchand. And what had he done? He had crept into the church as I was
playing, and then promptly left town! My position was solidified: was it not
right that I should be given this title of Kapellmeister?
We argued and argued, and at last compromised, but what did
the Duke do? He chose to appoint the son of the old Kapellmeister to his
father’s old post, and I was left with the humiliation of being cast aside.
Would any man of spirit accept such a stinging insult? Was I
to go like a kicked dog through the streets, through the halls of the castle,
only to hear the whispers and the jeers behind my back? For I well knew my
worth, and never did I fail to let the world know it. The “musicians” who sawed
and tooted and warbled away—did I fail to note their deficiencies? Of course
not, why should I? I had struggled, I had done the work, I had made myself the
greatest musician of my time. Must I bow down or curtsey to those lesser than
I?
Yes, I had done what this young man, Montalvo, had not. For I
don’t understand these children, who think that fame and fortune are as easy to
obtain as plucking an apple from the tree! Not a day went by when I hadn’t
striven to improve myself, no nightfall arrived without my repairing to bed
exhausted! I worked until I could work no more, and even then on most days I
pushed myself further. But this boy, now in a savage prison, ruled by brutes
and peopled with brutes? Has he done the work?
We had, perhaps, the drugs that were good for us: a hearty
beer and a pipeful of tobacco. Yes, we knew of the opium takers of the Turks
and their neighbors, but it would only be a century later that the drug would
be given to our own women to calm their nerves. But all we had was beer, and we
may have been better off for it.
And it was over a beer that I approached my other employer,
Duke Ernest August, and it was through him that I learned that the position of
Kapellmeister was available at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen. And it was then that
the Duke William Ernest revealed how petty and despicable he could be. Yes, for
nearly a month, I was jailed in the ducal prison for having “too insistently
pressed for his release from service!”
My friends—the few men of worth who could appreciate who I
was—rallied in my defense. But for long weeks I stared at the bars, and
wondered at my fate. But very soon I realized: I could compose anywhere. I
began to compose what would be the greatest treatise on tuning, and some of the
greatest music ever composed: The Well-Tempered Clavier.
Like everywhere else, I put my time to work, as had so many
others before me. For prison can be a sort of freedom, if there are pen and
paper at hand, and the time to use them. The great Cervantes, after all, wrote
the first modern novel, Don Quixote, from a prison cell.
But how different things are now! Will Montalvo do as I did?
Will he be given the chance? And when he comes out, in nearly as many days as I
spent, will he be changed?
