Johann Sebastian Bach is what I call a famous frug – a famous person who happened to be frugal. Like Benjamin Franklin. Not a person famous for being a skinflint, like J Paul Getty, for example, at one time the richest man in the world, who installed a pay phone in his house, and refused to help pay a ransom for his grandson until one of the boy’s ears was delivered to a newspaper. Getty was also famous for a disastrous personal life - he was 0 for 5 marriages. In my books, a rich guy who refused to pay a ransom for his grandson (he got the boy’s father to pay him back the ransom, plus 4 percent interest), and who made visitors pay for their own calls is an “infamous frug” – a person who gives frugality a bad name by confusing it with stinginess.
By contrast, Bach was "temperate, industrious, devout, a home lover, and a family man; genuine, hospitable, and jovial. Frugality and discipline ruled in the Bach home, also unity, laughter, loyalty, and love."
The ravings of an enthusiastic biographer? Perhaps. While all the biographies I’ve come across claim a happy domestic life, I’ll stick to the financial facts. Bach was obviously not motivated by money, and knew how to live within his means, whatever they were. The composer had been Kapellmeister ("chapel master", whose responsibilities were to compose and conduct the music at a church, cathedral, or royal chapel) to Prince Leopold of Cöthen. A happy situation, as the pay was good, and his second wife Anna Magdalena Wilcken, was a singer at the court, drawing a salary that was half of his.
However, his aim in life was to write "well-conceived and well-regulated church music to the glory of God." In pursuit of this, he moved to Leipzig, to become cantor at the St. Thomas School. He accepted a 75 percent drop in salary.
Bach stuck to it for the last 27 years of his life, managing to make do for his family (he had 20 children, though half of them died before adulthood), while entertaining friends, students and relatives (and not just with music). And of course, writing some of the most amazing church music ever. He also wrote lots of secular music, like the Goldberg Variations and the Musical Offering, so he wasn’t exactly a frog in the well. A little aside - Beethoven played his Well-Tempered Klavier as a music student.
Bach was a frug, perhaps because of the meagre salary, but it was probably also a personal preference. Early in his career, he wanted to hear organist Dietrich Buxtehude play. So he walked 250 miles to hear him, and the same distance back again.
On another occasion, a relative, Johann Elias Bach, sent him a barrel of new wine. On November 2, 1748, Bach wrote, thanking JE Bach for the gift, but saying that "the excellent little cask" "was almost two third empty, and . . . contained no more than six quarts; and it is a pity that even the least drop of this noble gift of God should have been spilled." He knows that his cousin would send another, but tells him not to, having calculated the cost of freight, delivery and town excise. Thanks, but too expensive.
I like to think that the frugal lifestyle contributed a little to the musical genius. Bach didn’t waste time any more than he did money, and was constantly reviewing his work. He had a good attitude to his gift, stressing hard work and learning from others, either making copies or adapting works by other composers. "I have worked hard" he said, "anyone who works just as hard will go just as far."
Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe revising his pieces, which he did continuously, helped make them really well-thought-out, with no clumsiness. But is that enough for greatness?
Maybe another factor was divine. Bach was very devout, and many of the manuscripts of his works start with the initials JJ, which stand for Jesu,juva, (Jesus, help). Many pieces end with SDG, an abbreviation for the Latin Soli Deo Glori, (Only to God the Glory).
One of his famous quotes on music is: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” Another: “Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with His gracious presence.”
Perhaps the Almighty was gracious enough to touch his industrious, frugal and pious servant with that special something that made his music immortal.
One thing I’m sure of – hardly anyone will remember JP Getty in 100 years, or even 50 years. But JS Bach will still be a household name.
