Bach's Birthday: March 21, 1685

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For those who haven't read my previous years' posts about Bach's birthday: the short story is that in the part of Germany (Saxony, which was for some decades, behind the Iron Curtain) was so defiantly Protestant that they refused to reset their Calendar according to Pope Gregory's astronomers.  Over the years, because the Leap Year adjustments were not strong enough (or really too strong; they overcompensated) the seasons had crept, so that March 21st, for instance, was in late spring, early summer.  But poor Bach, and all his neighbors, were accustomed to this state of affairs: March was  early summer for all parts of the world that refused to reset their calendars in such a way that March 21st was the Spring Equinox.  Due to the intervention of various persons (notably one Ole Rømer, according to Wikipedia), the calendars in Prussia and, presumably Saxony (but I could be wrong) were adjusted to be in synchrony with the Gregorian Calendar in late 1700, when Johann Sebastian Bach would have been about 15 years old.  Apparently it involved a loss of only 11 days: October 4th was followed by October 15th.  I seem to remember reading somewhere that people got very upset over this; rents, for instance, were due eleven days earlier than expected.

I always celebrate Bach's birthday on March 21st, even if that day was really April 1st, or maybe even a different date, in Rome.  It is probable that Bach was aware that his birthdate would be different in other calendars, and he might even have known what it was.  But the baptismal registry in his church says March 21, 1685, so that's when I celebrate him.

I usually write about some work of Bach, and this year I have chosen the slow movement of the Concerto for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord, S. 1044 (or BWV 1044).

Bach wrote at least two triple concertos for this particular combination of instruments: Flute, Violin and Harpsichord: the most famous is probably Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, followed by this one: BWV 1044 in A minor.  Here is a clip on YouTube, played beautifully, in the pre-Original Instruments style, which I'm finding more attractive recently.

Here's a more recent, 'Original Instrument"-type performance, by I Barrochisti.

[To be continued]

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