Early Music America Winter 2013 - (Page 43)

HONORING KREBS This fall, a number of artists are celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Bach's star pupil 1992, Baroque flutist Andrew Bolotowsky invited me to join him for a concert of music by Bach's sons and students. One piece in particular caught my attention-a Sonata in C Major for Flute and Harpsichord by Johann Ludwig Krebs. With its engaging quirkiness, especially in the syncopated rhythms of the second movement, not to mention the gracefully written keyboard part and skillful counterpoint, it was a delight to play from beginning to end. This was the beginning of my fascination with the music of Bach's star pupil. While organists have regularly included Krebs's works in recitals for years, it is only recently that Krebs's compositions in other genres have received some attention. Not long after Krebs's death in 1780, Johann Nicolaus Forkel was already planting the idea that Krebs's compositions for organ were his best work: "His musical works are quite numerous; the most excellent of which are those that he wrote for the organ." While Krebs's organ works are certainly complex and imaginative, he is also the composer of a rich catalogue of harpsichord suites and sonatas, trio sonatas, sonatas for violin or flute and continuo, concertos (including two for the lute), sinfonias, masses and cantatas, and the six sonatas for flute and obbligato harpsichord that first led me to him. And yet, for some time Krebs's reputation has suffered from the perception that although he may have been one of Bach's best students, he simply was not Bach, or even a son of Bach. His worst detractors have even labeled him a Bach imitator, and there's no doubt many of Krebs's works show Bach's strong influence, much more so than those of the sons. Yet he also composed in the newer galant style, combining old and new in a way that is uniquely his. Krebs was baptized on October 12, 1713, in the little town of Buttelstedt outside Weimar. His father, Johann I N THE FALL OF Tobias Krebs, also an organist and composer, had studied in Weimar with both Bach and Bach's cousin Johann Gottfried Walther; Tobias gave Johann Ludwig his first organ lessons. An improvement in the family fortunes (Tobias's second wife was the daughter of a wealthy burgher) allowed them to send Johann Krebs's studies, Bach wrote a testimonial that Krebs had "distinguished himself here, particularly in musicus," and had so "qualified himself in respect to the clavier, the violin, and the lute, as well as composition," that "he need have no hesitation in letting himself be heard." And there is the wonderful anecdote, recounted by Bach himself in a letter of By Rebecca Pechefsky complaint to the Leipzig town council, that when the Rector of the Thomasschule had chosen an incompetent student to lead one of the choirs, only Krebs's jumping in at the last minute saved the service at the Nicolai-Kirche from being a complete disaster. Despite Bach's recommendation, Krebs's first audition for a church job was unsuccessful, and perhaps fearing he wasn't going to have a career in music, he spent two years attending lectures in law and philosophy at Leipzig University, though he continued to assist Bach in church services and in the Collegium. In 1737, however, he was appointed organist at St. Marien in Zwickau (famous for being Robert Schumann's birthplace), and his seven years in Zwickau were not without their high In so much of Krebs's music, points; in 1740 he married Johanna there is a rhythmic vitality Sophie Nacke, who would bear him and willingness to play with eight children. But the unsatisfactory the melodic and harmonic condition of the organ and his failure to material in a way I can only convince the church to hire Gottfried Sildescribe as simply bermann to build a new one led Krebs to seek employment elsewhere. In 1744, he "having fun with it." and his family moved to Zeitz, where he Ludwig to the Thomasschule in Leipzig, was appointed castle organist, but the organ there was hardly an improvement, where he would study and work with and in 1756 he moved for the last time Johann Sebastian Bach for eight years. to Altenburg, where he served as organWhether or not the famous anecdote in which Bach quipped that Krebs was the ist at the court of Prince Friedrich of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. The Tobias Heinonly crab (Krebs) to be found in the rich Gottfried Trost organ in Castle brook (Bach) is true, it is certain that Bach held his pupil in high esteem. After Altenburg was of such high caliber (the a mere three years of study, Krebs joined splendid organ still exists and has recently been restored to its Baroque Bach's Collegium, and between 1729 and 1731 would serve as one of his main configuration) that Krebs was willing to take a pay cut. His years in Altenburg copyists. Upon the completion of Early Music America Winter 2013 43

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Early Music America Winter 2013

Editor's Note
Reader Forum
Sound Bytes
Musings: Time Traveling with Instruments
Profile: Pure Gold: Beiliang Zhu
Recording Reviews
Let's put on a... Zarzuela!
A Banquet of Music 40 Years in the Serving
Honoring Krebs
Book Reviews
Ad Index
In Conclusion: Dido and Aeneas Reconsidered

Early Music America Winter 2013