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LEIPZIG 3: 1744-1750 - The Introspective Years
During the latter years of his life Bach gradually withdrew inwards, producing some of the most profound statements of baroque musical form.
In his own much improved apartments of the newly rebuilt Thomasschule Bach would welcome visiting musicians from all over Germany and many other countries. His son Carl-Phillip Emanuel was to write that "no musician of any consequence passing through Leipzig would fail to call upon my father". No doubt they and some of his sons would enjoy a private concert in Bach's large music-room, perhaps featuring concertos for 2, 3 or 4 harpsichords, for Bach kept six claviers and many other instruments.
In 1747, on his way to visit his daughter-in-law in Berlin who was expecting her second child to his son Carl Phillip Emmanuel, Bach stopped at Potsdam after two weary days of traveling. Here he had been invited to attend at the Royal Palace of King Frederick the Great of Prussia, where his son Carl Phillip Emmanuel was also employed as Court Harpsichordist.
On Bach's arrival, Frederick was about to begin his evening concert, in which he himself played the flute with the orchestra, when he was given the list of people who had arrived at Court. Laying down his flute, he said to his orchestra, 'Gentlemen, old Bach is here'. He cancelled his evening concert and invited Bach straight up to try his new fortepianos built by Bach's organ-builder colleague and friend Gottfried Silbermann. The King owned seven of these instruments, located in different rooms. After Bach had played on all the different instruments, moving with the King and musicians from room to room, Bach invited the King to give him a theme on which to improvise; Bach of course rose to the occasion, improvising at length and with amazing skill. On his return to Leipzig, to show his gratitude for the excellent reception he had received at Potsdam, Bach developed the King's theme into a sequence of complex contrapuntal movements, added a sonata for violin and flute (Frederick being a flute-player), entitled the whole 'A Musical Offering' and sent it to the Court with a letter of dedication.
Bach then became a member (after some persuasion) of the Mitzler society, a learned society devoted to the promotion of musical science, whose members were expected on joining to display some token of their learning. Bach's opening contribution was a set of canonic variations on the Christmas hymn, 'Vom Himmel hoch'.
In these last years of his life, Bach's creative energy was conserved for the highest flights of musical expression: the Mass in b minor, the Canonic Variations, the Goldberg Variations, and of course the Musical Offering displaying the art of canon. His last great work is the complete summary of all his skill in counterpoint and fugue; methods which he perfected, and beyond which no composer has ever been able to pass. This work is known to us as 'Die Kunst der Fuge' ('The Art of the Fugue', BWV 1080).
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