Georg Bohm. Notes on his life and work
All of the works of Georg Bohm played here, except for one, are each preserved in a single
contemporary source. They come from two matching manuscript collections: the so-called Moller
manuscript, currently kept in the Berlin State Library and the Book of Andreas Bach, today in the
Leipzig City Library. The names of these collections are due to their circumstantial owners, who
wrote corresponding entries in both volumes: Johann Gottfried Moller (1774-1833), an organist from
Leipzig and an admirer of Bach, and Andreas Bach (1713-1779), a nephew of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Most of them, however, had already been selected and transcribed between 1703 and 1707 –or at any
rate before 1714– by Johann Sebastian’s eldest brother, Johann Christoph (1671-1721), father of
Andreas Bach. Johann Christoph Bach had studied with Johann Pachelbel in Erfurt and came to
Ohrdruf via Arnstadt in 1690, where he enjoyed great reputation as city organist and was admired as
optimus artifex until his death. Both anthologies apparently served him for teaching, for they mostly
contained pieces for keyboard instruments from composers from the North and Central German
school such as Johann Adam Reincken, Dietrich Buxtehude, Georg Bohm, Nicolaus Bruhns, Johann
Anton Coberg, Christian Flor, Telemann, Pachelbel, Kuhnau and Zachow. Along with these, there
were single pieces from Italian and French composers (Nicolas le Bègue, Louis Marchand, Lully,
Marais, Albinoni, Pollarolo, Agostino Steffani) reflecting the European horizon of the Thuringian
musician, as well as 28 pieces for keyboard from the young Bach. With 15 works, Georg Bohm is the
best represented composer in these manuscripts after Bach.
There were many links between Georg Bohm and the Bach family; but even today, we do not
know how tight these links really were. After the early death of his parents in 1695, 24 years old and
just married, Johann Christoph Bach took charge of his two younger brothers. Johann Sebastian took
music lessons and attended grammar school. When the family grew and living conditions became
tighter, he was compelled to leave his brother’s house. Through the mediation of the Ohrdruf
choirmaster he received a scholarship in March of 1700 as singer in St. Michael’s monastery
(Michaeliskloster) in Lüneburg, which had been joined by an academy of knights with a grammar
school. In Lüneburg, Georg Bohm was the organist at the Church of St. Joseph’s (St. Johanniskirche)
since 1698. Bohm was born September 2, 1661. He was the son of the organist and professor of Hohenkirchen in Ohrdruf, and had attended Gymnasium in Gotha with Johann Christoph Bach’s
brother-in-law. In 1684 he enrolled at Jena University, but we do not know what school he studied at
nor whether he finished his studies, because from that moment all traces of him are lost for nine
years. He appears again 1693 in the parish registry of St. James’ church (Jakobikirche) in Hamburg,
where two of his sons and a daughter were baptized by 1697. Hamburg, at the time an international
commercial and financial centre which handled a large part of the German imports of luxury goods
and had commercial agreements with the Netherlands, Spain, France and England, had much to offer
Bohm in a musical sense. The extravagant Adam Reincken (1623-1722) consolidated at St. Catherine’s
church (Katharinenkirche) Hamburg’s reputation as centre of the North German organ school. Arp
Schnitger had completed in 1687 Germany’s largest organ in St. Nicholas’ (St. Nikolai) and from then
until 1693 had built a new quadruple manual instrument in St. James’ church. Lübeck, where the
famous Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) played at St. Mary’s (St. Marien), was only 50 km. away, and
even closer was Stade, where the virtuoso Vincent Lübeck (1654-1740) played Arp Schnitger’s organ
in St. Cosmae and was a sought-after teacher. And, finally, in Hamburg’s Gansemarkt, Germany’s first
bourgeois opera performed over three times a week year-round, and was open to the public for a fee.
From the early 1690s on, German operas were performed there along with French and Italian operas
in the original language. Between 1693 and 1696, artistic direction was in the hands of Johann
Sigismund Kusser, who had spent six years studying with Lully in Paris. Because Bohm’s name
appears in a list of creditors of Kremberg, the opera lease-holder, we may suppose that he belonged
at least temporarily to the opera orchestra directed by Kusser, a fact which may explain the perfect
assimilation of the French melodic, harmonic and ornamental features in his keyboard suites and the
Italian-arioso vocal direction of his choral arrangements. Certain anglicisms of his suites lead us to
suppose that he also found a livelihood among the English musical circles of the city.
Although we know little of Bohm’s fifteen years spent in Jena and Hamburg, they must have
been critical to his artistic development. When the master requested the post of organist at St.
John’s in Lüneburg, vacant after the death of Christian Flor (1626-1697) –whose compositions were
included in Johann Christoph Bach’s music book, along with those of Peter Heidorn, Bohm’s rival at
the time– the council chose him unanimously after a public audition. Bohm held this post for 35 years
until his death on May 18, 1733. The scant evidence documenting his life in that period refers to his difficulties in supporting his large family on his salary. As was customary then, Bohm rounded off his
income by composing works on commission for funerals, weddings, or musical celebrations; these
however have been lost, as happened also with his Lucas Passion of 1711. Of his vocal works only
eight cantatas and four motets have been preserved, along with 23 songs on poems by the Hamburger
preacher and opera librettist Heinrich Elmenhorst, published in Lüneburg in 1700.
Bohm’s real significance lies in his works for organ and harpsichord. When Johann Sebastian
Bach went to Lüneburg in Easter of 1700, he acknowledged him to be the greatest keyboard virtuoso
he had ever met. Carl Philipp Emanuel told his father’s first biographer in 1775 that he “had loved and
studied his master from Lüneburg, Bohmen”. Bach transcribed in his own hand a Menuet fait par
Mons. Bohm in 1725 in Anna Magdalena Bach’s Notebook – probably a wedding gift from the
Lüneburg master. Two years later he announced in the Leipzig newspaper that the 2nd and 3rd of his
piano Partitas were available in all Northern Germany through “Herrn Bohmen, organist at St. John’s
in Lüneburg”.
Bohm’s own suites followed the formal conventions of the mid-17th century lute or keyboard
suite, with the stylized dance movements Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue represented in both
of Johann Christoph Bach’s collections in pieces by Reincken, Ritter, Flor and Zachow. This leads us
to suppose that his suites were conceived in the years before 1700, that is, during his stay in
Hamburg. Only the D major Suite, which appears at the end of this recording, is one of those French
opera suites which spread through all Europe at the end of the 17th century. In them, the most
beautiful melodies from Lully’s operas were collected and arranged for chamber formation, cembalo,
or lute, rendering them apt to play in a private environment. In this respect, the D major Suite could
reflect Bohm’s operatic experiences in Hamburg.
The extraordinary Prelude, Fugue and Postlude in g minor was rediscovered in 1837 as Bohm’s
first work through Carl Ferdinand Becker’s edition of Selected musical pieces for pianoforte from the 17th
and 18th centuries. Robert Schumann called it “an eerie caprice” and considered it was “the crown of
the entire collection”.
Boris Kehrmann
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