The Bach House in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, is a museum dedicated to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was born in the city. On its 600 m2 it displays around 250 original exhibits, among them a Bach music autograph. The core of the building complex is a half-timbered house, ca. 550 years old, which was mistakenly identified as Bach's birth house in the middle of the 19th century. In 1905, the Leipzig-based Neue Bachgesellschaft acquired the building. In 1907, it was opened as the first Bach museum.
History
The Bach family was a widespread musical family, with members working in musical professions throughout Thuringia since the first half of the 16th century until the end of the 18th century. Already in 1665, Johann Christoph Bach was appointed organist at St. George's Church in Eisenach.
Bach's father Johann Ambrosius Bach accepted a position as the Eisenach council's Haußmann (city music director) in 1671. The family first rented rooms in a half-timbered house in the Rittergasse 11 (directly south of today's museum garden), and owned at the time by the city's forests administrator Balthasar Schneider. Since only property owners could claim citizenship, in 1674 Johann Ambrosius Bach bought a house in the Fleischgass (probably Lutherstraße 35), its location was 100 metres to the north of today's museum.Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach, p. 20. The original house in the Fleischgass is no longer standing, it was replaced twice over in the 18th and 19th centuries.Martin Petzoldt: Bachstätten, p. 68. Identifying today the exact location of Bach's birth is almost hopeless since people wishing to become citizens did not always move into the places they acquired for that purpose, and instead rented them out.Cf. Domizlaff, Bachhaus Eisenach, p. 128: At the time of Bach's birth, the Bach House was owned by Brunswick-born Heinrich Börstelmann, school director of the Latin school at which Bach was later a pupil. Börstelmann had rented the place out to three parties (but not the Bach family). Based on the location of Ambrosius Bach's first rooms at the building in the Rittergasse and his ownership of the property in the Lutherstraße, one may conjecture that Bach's family lived in this area of the city and so at least very close to the location of the present-day museum.Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach, p. 20 names the house Lutherstraße 35 as Bach's birthplace.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21The date refers to the Julian calendar still in use at Eisenach then, it is reproduced in almost all biographies, and on 21 March there are traditional festive celebrations and concerts in Bach's memory in places like Eisenach, Weimar, and Leipzig up to this day. The actual date according to the modern, Gregorian calendar is, however, 31 March. March 1685 in Eisenach and baptized two days later in St. George's Church. He spent the first 10 years of his life at Eisenach. The family's musical tradition brought him into close contact with music and the musical profession. His father early taught him to play string and wind instruments.Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach, pp. 22, 28. At St. George's, Bach could witness his cousin Johann Christoph Bach playing the organ, later his favourite instrument.Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach, pp. 28–29. From 1692 until 1695, Johann Sebastian Bach attended the Latin school at Eisenach and joined its chorus musicus; for its members music lessons were included in the school's timetable on four days of the week.Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach, pp. 25. On 1 May 1694, Bach's mother Elisabeth Bach died, on 20 February 1695 also Bach's father Ambrosius died. In July 1695, Johann Sebastian and his brother Johann Jacob left Eisenach to live with the family of their older brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf.Christoph Wolff: Johann Sebastian Bach, pp. 35, 38.
1456 to 1800 The historical Bach House is one of the oldest residential buildings in Eisenach. It originally consisted of two buildings, of which the eastern part was built in 1456 and the western part in 1458. At around 1611, both were joined.Jörg Hansen, 100 Jahre Bachhaus Eisenach, p. 101. For the dendrochronological dating by the University of Bamberg cf. Bachhaus – eines der ältesten Fachwerkhäuser. Nachrichtendienst www.eisenachonline.de, 28 August 2006. Last checked 16 November 2011. As was normal with the Ackerbürgerhäuser (burghers' houses) of that time, the ground floor was used for agricultural purposes: today's instrument hall may have been used as a barn, and the rooms next to the stairs for cattle and horses.Ilse Domizlaff: Das Bachhaus Eisenach, pp. 7–8. In the museum, a cowbell from 1688 found in the Bach House garden reminds of this past. In the first floor of the building, a Renaissance glass window frame and the timber panelling of the living room now decorated as Composing Studio still bear witness of the citizen status of the house's former occupants. At the time of Bach's birth it was owned by Heinrich Börstelmann, headmaster of the Latin School. In 1746, the family of Caroline Amalie Rausch née Bach moved into the building and lived there until 1779. Caroline Amalie was the daughter of Bach's second cousin and friend Johann Bernhard Bach and sister to Johann Ernst Bach, a student of Bach at Leipzig and then court music director at Eisenach.Ilse Domizlaff: Das Bachhaus Eisenach, p. 129; Hartmut Ellrich: Bach in Thüringen, p. 55.
19th century In the wake of the 19th century's Bach renaissance instigated by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann, among others, devotees went on a search for memorabilia and also for the birthplace of the composer. In 1857, the Bach biographer Karl Hermann Bitter interviewed the still living descendants of Johann Bernhard Bach and determined that Bach was born at the house Frauenplan 21, subsequently called Bachhaus (Bach House).Cf. Karl Hermann Bitter: Johann Sebastian Bach. Wilhelm Baensch, Berlin 1881 (2nd ed.), pp. 49–50: "Auf dem Frauenplan daselbst erhebt sich über einer mit grünem Rasen bekleideten hügelartigen Erhöhung des Bodens ein Haus von bescheidner Ausdehnung und behaglich einladendem Aeusseren. Der Blick gleitet von ihm über den freien Platz hinaus auf die bewaltdeten Höhen, welche sich um die Stadt herumziehen. Ein geräumiger Hausflur, wo in den Zeiten des alten Bürgerthums die Familie sich zu versammeln pflegte, empfängt den Eintretenden. Rechts im Hintergrunde führt eine gewundene Treppe zu der in der halben Höhe des Hauses nach hinten zu belegenen Küche und in das obere Stockwerk des Hauses. Durch die Hinterpforte tritt man unmittelbar in ein freundliches Gärtchen. Kleine niedrige Zimmerdeuten auf die geringeren häuslichen Bedürfnisse früherer Zeiten. Das Ganze des Hauses zeigt, dass seine Bewohner sich einer gewissen Wohlhabenheit erfreut haben mochten." As for Bitter's research in Eisenach cf. Ilse Domizlaff, Das Bachhaus Eisenach, p. 13: "Bei den Vorarbeiten zu seiner 1865 veröffentlichten Bach-Biografie nahm Carl Heinrich Bitter Beziehungen zu den noch lebenden Nachfahren des Johann Bernhard Bach auf, um den Lebensumkreis von Johann Sebastians Kindheit zu erforschen. Er erfuhr die schon lange in Eisenach mündlich verbreitete Überlieferung, daß Johann Sebastian Bach in eben diesem Haus geboren worden sei und beschrieb es in seiner Bach-Biografie in diesem Sinn. Weiter bezog man sich auf eine angeblich verschollene Familienchronik. Spätere Biografen überprüften das Zustandekommen dieser Aussagen nicht und übernahmen sie einfach." In 1868, the local music society dedicated the memorial plate above the front entrance, thus publicly marking the place as Bach's birthplace.For the history of the plate cf. Ilse Domizlaff: Das Bachhaus Eisenach, p. 12. Since then, however, no further evidence in support of this claim has surfaced. An error in the local oral tradition which Bitter encountered can perhaps be attributed to the fact that members of the Bach family did indeed live in this house once, but only at a time long after Bach's birth.
20th century When the Leipzig-based Bach-Gesellschaft, founded by Robert Schumann and others in 1850 for the sole purpose of editing all of Bach's works, had completed this task in 1900, its members decided it should be reconstituted as Neue Bachgesellschaft (New Bach Society) to now further the popularity and practice of Bach's music. Three 'eternal' projects were approved: the annual edition of a Bach-Jahrbuch (Bach yearbook), biannual (today: annual) Bachfeste (Bach festivals), and finally the founding of a Bach museum. As the desired location of the society's museum the School of St. Thomas at Leipzig was chosen, where Bach had lived with his family and served as cantor and music teacher for 27 years. However, the magistrate of Leipzig decided to demolish the building in 1902, thus thwarting the society's plans.Martin Petzoldt: Bachstätten, S. 67. Among other relics, the entrance door to Bach's rooms in the school was saved from destruction by its then music teacher Bernhard Friedrich Richter, son of the former Thomaskantor Ernst Friedrich Richter, and was later dedicated to the Bach House.Conrad Freyse: Fünfzig Jahre Bachhaus, p. 20, fn. 34. Today, this door prominently marks the start of the exhibition within the museum.
When news reached the society's members that Bach's (still undisputed) birth house at Eisenach was also under threat by demolition plans, the New Bach Society decided to acquire the building on May 15, 1905, and to open the world's first Bach museum at this site. Among the supporters of this project were the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the composer and violinist Joseph Joachim, the Cantor of St Thomas Gustav Schreck, the director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin Georg Schumann, and the Leipzig music publishers Breitkopf & Härtel and C.F. Peters.Cf. for the plans to demolish the Bach House and its acquisition by the Bach Society Ilse Domizlaff: Das Bachhaus Eisenach, pp. 16–21. Domizlaff concedes that without the historical error in determining Bach's birthplace, Eisenach's most impressive residential building from the Renaissance era would no longer be standing today. The Bach House was formally opened on 27 May 1907. The choir of St. Thomas, Leipzig under Cantor of St. Thomas, Gustav Schreck, and the Weimar Hofkapelle conducted by Georg Schumann, sang and played.Neue Bach-Gesellschaft: Drittes deutsches Bach-Fest zur Einweihung von Johann Sebastian Bachs Geburtshaus als Bach-Museum; Fest- und Programmbuch, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1907.
In 1928, when the Eisenach hobby historian Fritz Rollberg undertook a research into the city's tax records and discovered that Johann Ambrosius Bach had paid taxes from 1674 until his death in 1695 for a different building in Eisenach, the Bach House was long established as a Bach memorial site throughout the world.For Rollberg's research and its results cf. Ilse Domizlaff, Das Bachhaus Eisenach, pp. 8–9 and 128–132. When the house underwent complete restoration in 1972–1973, the memorial plate from 1868 was taken down and went into storage. Since visitors kept believing to be visiting Bach's birthplace even without the plate, it was decided in 2007 to restore it as an essential part of the building's history. Today, the historical error is explained in the museum, where one of the tax files discovered by Rollberg is on display.