A Lesser Secret of J. S. Bach Uncovered

AT THE AGE OF NINE, Johann Sebastian Bach lost both his mother and father. For five years he lived with his brother Johann Christoph (I671-1721), organist and schoolmaster at Ohrdruf in Thuringia. Johann Sebastian, fourteen years younger than Johann Christoph, learned from the elder brother, as Johann Gottfried Walther reported, die ersten Principia auf dem Clavier, the "fundamental principles of keyboard playing."' Johann Sebastian dedicated to his brother and instructor a Capriccio in honorem Joh. Christoph. Bachii Ohrdruf[iensis],2 a lively fugue in the distant key of E major-an indication, perhaps, that Johann Christoph favored equal temperament. The composition, with its Latin ascription and a specific pedal part, was clearly meant for organ, but the editors of the complete edition of Bach's works would not recognize it as such, and it has hibernated among the secular Claviermverke.3 It was probably intended as a counterpart to the better-known programmatic Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo for harpsichord or clavichord, which Philipp Spitta assumed to have been written for Johann Jacob when he entered the Swedish army as oboist in I7o4.4 Johann Jacob, too, had joined Johann Christoph's household after the death of the parents, but left Ohrdruf the following year.5 If Johann Sebastian actually meant to honor Johann Jacob by the "Capriccio on the Absence of his Most Beloved Brother," the possibility might be relished that the Capricci were written when Johann Jacob parted from his brothers. Johann Sebastian was then ten or eleven years old. Johann Christoph Bach's teacher was Johann Pachelbel (1653-17o6)."