Today is the beginning of the new school year! We wish all students and teachers energy and enthusiasm – and speaking of teachers, it is worth mentioning that this was a profession often followed by the greatest musicians, for example, Johann Sebastian Bach.
The collections of the Polish Music Library include Bach’s letter to the Leipzig City Council from 19 April 1723, written in response to being awarded the position of cantor in the St. Thomas’s Church. It was the most important musical function in Leipzig at the time and included not only the care for the musical setting of liturgy and conducting a choir but also the supervision of all musical events organised by the city council. At the same time, Bach taught singing and organ playing at the adjacent St. Thomas’s Music School.
His pedagogical passion was also apparent in his compositions, for example, Two-part and Three-part Inventions, which, according to Jan Ekier (author of their arrangement for piano), deserve concert performance, as is the case with Das Wohltemperierte Klavier. One of the most valued interpreters of this, perhaps the most famous, collection of Bach’s didactic works is Glenn Gould.
The cantor from Leipzig composed these pieces with harpsichord or clavichord in mind, as he did with Little Preludes and Easy Pieces. They allow students to make both hands independent of each other (by conducting polyphony) and encourage them to maintain constant vigilance in conducting the melody and keeping an eye on the rhythm. All of the above-mentioned compositions are pedagogically valuable, so it is no wonder that they are still used by piano students to improve their playing technique. Some were also arranged for other instruments, for example, for the accordion.
Nineteenth-century drawing by L. Richter illustrating choirboys from the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig (the oldest boys’ choir in Germany).