Do you hear Bach's heartbeat?

Failure to achieve the goal means for us that the hopes of developing a “Bach-World” above the original Bach cellar vaults in Weimar have effectively been dashed. However, we do not expect this to be the case – for there are no signs of this happening. On the contrary: the desire and the will to give this unique place new life was and is shared by many people.

At the same time, the dialog with the owners, which began constructively, was slowed down by various factors: a change of ownership in 2017, complex urban planning and functional issues (e.g., parking lot usage), but especially due to the pandemic and the ongoing global crises and economic uncertainties. In view of these events, the conversation has not stopped, but has understandably taken a back seat.

From our perspective, now is an ideal time to reinvigorate the dialogue. With “Angels for Bach,” with support from the Bach community, patience, trust, and heart, we are ready.

There is no reason to relax our efforts

If one focuses not just on short-term successes, but rather on the larger picture – on what matters and shall endure — then nothing has really changed. Only years have passed.

There is therefore no reason to scale back our commitment to this important cultural project. On the contrary: there are many reasons to continue with renewed confidence and energy.

Three important reasons are particularly clear:

1. Weimar is and remains a city of Bach.

2. Bach’s music has survived even the greatest crises of humankind – and has lost neither power nor relevance.

3. This unique location – a focal point of German (musical) history right in the heart of a city of culture – is still waiting for a development worthy of its significance.

If, contrary to expectations, it becomes clear during the campaign that the vision of a Bach-World in Weimar cannot be realized, we will search together to find fair solutions:

➔ In dialog with donors, we will discuss how the funds can be used to good purpose in the “Bach-Land Central Germany” region – Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt – to promote, for example, other significant Bach projects.

➔ In such a case, we will offer major donors (those giving €5,000 or more) the opportunity to discuss a possible repayment.

The property, on which the historic cellar vaults of Bach’s former residence are preserved, belongs to a private investor, as does the neighboring Hotel Elephant, which currently uses the area as a parking lot (approximately 2,200 m²). The surviving architectural evidence of Johann Sebastian Bach’s verified dwelling lies under some 15% of the surface area.

To date, no investment decision has been made regarding this property.

 The “Angels for Bach” initiative is endeavoring to again take up a previously initiated constructive dialog with the owner. Our goal is to be a reliable partner in an open, solution-oriented process that respects all justified interests.

Angels mediate

Many "Angels for Bach" can build bridges: between the past and the future, as well as between different interests and ideas. For a dialog that will make this place resound again.

This campaign is set to run for at least three years, because a place of such importance and profundity requires time and a solid foundation. We are not building a house on sand.

These years are necessary to make important decisions. At the same time, we do not yet know in detail which path the campaign will take. “Angels for Bach” is a determined and dedicated undertaking to jointly build a road forward, a road that will lead to a vibrant future for this unique musical venue. The forks in the road that open up depend on many factors – not least on the commitment of as many Angels for Bach as possible!

We are alert and open to all developments and possibilities that may arise in the course of the campaign. Where viable steps emerge – where, through the power of shared voices, doors and windows open – we want to react flexibly, attentively, and in resonance with the progress of the discussions.

In this way, we create the strategic, structural, communicative, and financial foundations that are needed to responsibly prepare for such a major project.

Behind the campaign stands the registered society “Bach in Weimar.” Founded in 2006, the society has, among other things, had as its goal the strengthening of Weimar’s status as a Bach city and the promotion of the establishment and development of a Bach-World Weimar on the authentic location.

The society sees itself as an advocate for Bach in Weimar. Since 2008, it has organized the BACH BIENNALE WEIMAR, a festival held in the Bach city, and has also been responsible for numerous musical projects and activities in Weimar. Three of the society’s board members are professors at the Franz Liszt College of Music in Weimar, specializing in Bach and Baroque music (organ, harpsichord, historical keyboard instruments, and recorder), and are thus highly qualified and experienced in all things having to do with Bach and his music.

For more information about the Bach in Weimar Society, visit www.bachinweimar.de

A microcosm of German history

Hardly any other place in Weimar combines as many facets of German history as that where Johann Sebastian Bach once lived and worked with his family. Not only was musical history made there – Bach lived and worked here, and six of his children, including his two most famous sons, were born here – but cultural and contemporary history also coalesced there in a special way.

Around 1805, the Bach residence was incorporated into the neighboring “Hotel zum Erbprinzen.” While it remained unaltered inside, it received a new facade and merged into the representative nineteenth-century architecture. This extended building became the lodging place for some of the most important creative minds of the time: composers such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn, and Niccolò Paganini; thinkers and writers including Sigmund Freud, Leo Tolstoi, and Gerhart Hauptmann; statesmen including Walter Rathenau and Gustav Stresemann – even kings and emperors such as Ludwig I of Bavaria and Napoleon stayed there – to mention only a few of the nearly one hundred outstanding personalities of European cultural and intellectual history.

Destroyed in the Second World War, only the historic Renaissance vaulted cellar remained – currently a silent witness to a significant place of cultural and musical history in the center of Weimar, where cultural highlights, political upheavals, and human destinies have crystallized over the centuries.

This is precisely why this place deserves to be treated with dignity today: mindful, polyphonic, forward-looking.

Visit www.bachweltweimar.de for detailed information, and many pictures, about the history of this special place (German/English)

“For me, the ‘Weimar Bach,’ that is to say, his early period, was always one of the greatest mysteries and miracles of musical history” Nikolaus Harnoncourt, founding patron of the BACH BIENNALE WEIMAR, 1929–2016)

This statement captures the core of Bach’s years in Weimar. For by the age of twenty-three, the young Bach was already composing with such perfection that it is often impossible to date his Weimar works. They are indistinguishable from those that came later—namely, consummate music!

The Weimar years had a profound impact on Bach: It was here that Bach became himself and found his unique and unmistakable voice. Until the end of his life, he was to build upon that which he created here.

Where are the reasons to be sought for this extraordinary creative phase? It is certain that Bach became acquainted with and studied a large amount of Italian music in Weimar –

works by Vivaldi, Corelli, Legrenzi, Pergolesi, and others. Bach absorbed this music and from then on “spoke,” that is to say, composed perfectly in Italian.

His immense and exuberant talent also sought out enough freedom to experiment in all directions. His Weimar years and the works he composed there are like the eruption of a “musical fountainhead” of elemental, unbridled abundance. In terms of excessive instrumental virtuosity, experimental combinations of instrumental, shocking modernity, and utmost abstraction, this “young savage,” the Weimar Bach, is unrivaled!

In Weimar, a large part of the “universe” of his organ works came into being, over thirty-five vivid, multifaceted, and beautiful cantatas, numerous harpsichord solo works that are unparalleled in their boldness, several concerti from the singular “cosmos” of the Brandenburg Concertos, as well as parts of his epoch-making solo partitas for violin, and at least the first part of the Well-Tempered Clavier; the latter two are still a kind of “grammar” for violin and keyboard instruments, unrivaled in both crystalline architecture as well as emotional profundity.

When Bach left Weimar, he was only a little younger than Mozart when he died. Weimar is therefore a Bach city to the same extent that Salzburg and Vienna are Mozart cities. In contrast to Salzburg or Vienna, Weimar does not yet bear this rank with the same naturalness – and not with the same pride. There is still room for improvement here ...

It is now time to recognize and show Bach’s Weimar years for what they are: A creative eruption – powerful, free, unorthodox, and unsurpassed to the present day.

Not even by Bach himself.