Many people are familiar with the music of J.S. Bach, but most of the details of his early life are a mystery.
The godfather of Western music's life got off to a rough start when he was orphaned at the age of nine, and he grew up under the care of relatives and later a boarding school.
Bach struggled in his early career as an organist at a church in Arnstadt, but not from a lack of musical talent, said Tom Allen of the CBC, who will act as storyteller and trombonist at a concert at Knox United Church on March 7.
"He hadn’t really ever had to deal with people that just didn’t know anything about music, and then when he got his first job he was expected to lead a group of students and he was not in any way prepared,” he said.
“He failed pretty badly.”
Allen will be accompanied by harpist Lori Gemmell, violist Dave Harding, vocalist Shruti Ramini and pianist Leslie Dala for J.S. Bach's Long Walk in the Snow, a coming of age story that delves into the composer's troubled early years.
“It’s a very fun, engaging show," Allen said. "It’s a story illustrated by music and it sheds light on one of the most famous figures in music in a way that doesn’t usually happen.”
Bach started his first job at 18 and, by the time he was 20, had asked for a leave of four weeks and walked 400 km to the port city of Lubeck on the Baltic Sea. Although he was a brilliant musician, he did not know how to be a manager, Allen said.
Those four weeks turned into four months as he lived with, and studied under, one of the most important composer of the time, Dieterich Buxtehude.
“There are a few things we know, historically, but very few," Allen said. “The only reason anybody writes about you in 1705 is you’re born, or you die or you break the law, or you sign a contract, so we really don’t know anything about what happened to Bach in Lubeck.”
Historians know a good deal about Buxtehude, who was a major public figure and signed contracts regularly as an administrator and business person, which allows Allen's show to speculate about how all this would have affected Bach.
One thing we do know is that Bach's name was written up in the courts after he had an altercation with his students back in Arnstadt.
“Some recent research has suggested that he might have been a bit tougher than anybody knew," said Allen. "And he had an antagonistic relationship with authority through most of his life.”
Bach left Lubeck without agreeing to take over the aging Buxtehude's prestigious position, and returned home.
Earlier writers speculated this meant Bach was not interested in marrying his mentor's eldest unmarried daughter Anna Margareta, which would have been part of the contract.
“Which sounds kind of ridiculous and like and exchange of property by our standards," Allen added. "But that was a pretty common arrangement, but it also was part of a social structure in that place.”
The contention of Allen's show is to look at this from the perspective of Anna, 30 years old at the time and the daughter of one of the most active and brilliant organists in the area.
"She’s not gonna marry some 20-year-old moron who just couldn’t handle his job back home," Allen said. "She was a very smart, mature, experienced woman.”
Bach went on to become one of the most influential composers in the Western tradition. Some of his most cherished works, such as the Brandenburg Concertos, were written in his spare time.
"His job was writing a cantata every week, which he did more than 360 times," Allen said. "These astoundingly beautiful instrumental pieces were just extra stuff."
J.S. Bach's Long Walk in the Snow is a special concert, open to the public and presented by Oceanside Classical Concerts Society as part of its 10th Anniversary celebrations
Tickets are $45 ($25 for students) and are available through the McMillan Arts Centre Box Office online and through Eventbrite.
