Bach House (Eisenach)

Historical background

The Bach family was a widespread musical family, with members working in musical professions throughout Thuringia since the first half of the 16th century until the end of the 18th century. Already in 1665, Johann Christoph Bach was appointed organist at St. George's in Eisenach.

Bach's father Johann Ambrosius Bach accepted a position as the Eisenach council's Haußmann (city music director) in 1671. The family first rented rooms in a half-timbered house in the Rittergasse 11 (directly south of today's museum garden), and owned at the time by the city's forests administrator Balthasar Schneider. Since only property owners could claim citizenship, in 1674 Johann Ambrosius Bach bought a house in the Fleischgass (probably Lutherstraße 35), its location was 100 metres to the north of today's museum. The original house in the Fleischgass is no longer standing, it was replaced twiceover in the 18th and 19th centuries. Identifying today the exact location of Bach's birth is almost hopeless in view of the fact that people wishing to become citizens did not always move into the places they acquired for that purpose, and instead rented them out. Based on the location of Ambrosius Bach's first rooms at the building in the Rittergasse and his ownership of the property in the Lutherstraße, one may conjecture that Bach's family lived in this area of the city and so at least very close to the location of the present-day museum.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21 March 1685 in Eisenach and baptized two days later in St. George's Church. He spent the first 10 years of his life at Eisenach. The family's musical tradition brought him into close contact with music and the musical profession. His father early taught him to play string and wind instruments. At St. George's, Bach could witness his cousin Johann Christoph Bach playing the organ, later his favourite instrument. From 1692 until 1695, Johann Sebastian Bach attended the Latin school at Eisenach and joined its chorus musicus; for its members music lessons were included in the school's timetable on four days of the week. On 1 May 1694, Bach's mother Elisabeth Bach died, on 20 February 1695 also Bach's father Ambrosius died. In July 1695, Johann Sebastian and his brother Johann Jacob left Eisenach to live with the family of their older brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf.

1456 to 1800

The historical Bach House is one of the oldest residential buildings in Eisenach. It originally consisted of two buildings, of which the eastern part was built in 1456 and the western part in 1458. At around 1611, both were joined. As was normal with the Ackerbürgerhäuser (burghers' houses) of that time, the ground floor was used for agricultural purposes: today's instrument hall may have been used as a barn, and the rooms next to the stairs for cattle and horses. In the museum, a cowbell from 1688 found in the Bach House garden reminds of this past. In the first floor of the building, a Renaissance glass window frame and the timber panelling of the living room now decorated as Composing Studio still bear witness of the citizen status of the house's former occupants. At the time of Bach's birth it was owned by Heinrich Börstelmann, headmaster of the Latin School. In 1746, the family of Caroline Amalie Rausch née Bach moved into the building and lived there until 1779. Caroline Amalie was the daughter of Bach's second cousin and friend Johann Bernhard Bach and sister to Johann Ernst Bach, a student of Bach at Leipzig and then court music director at Eisenach.

1800 to 1900

In the wake of the 19th century's Bach renaissance instigated by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann, among others, devotees went on a search for memorabilia and also for the birthplace of the composer. In 1857, the Bach biographer Karl Hermann Bitter interviewed the still living descendants of Johann Bernhard Bach and determined that Bach was born at the house Frauenplan 21, subsequently called Bachhaus (Bach House). In 1868, the local music society dedicated the memorial plate above the front entrance, thus publicly marking the place as Bach's birthplace. Since then, however, no further evidence in support of this claim has surfaced. An error in the local oral tradition which Bitter encountered can perhaps be attributed to the fact that members of the Bach family did indeed live in this house once, but only at a time long after Bach's birth.

1900 to 2000

When the Leipzig-based Bach-Gesellschaft, founded by Robert Schumann and others in 1850 for the sole purpose of editing all of Bach's works, had completed this task in 1900, its members decided it should be reconstituted as Neue Bachgesellschaft (New Bach Society) to now further the popularity and practice of Bach's music. Three 'eternal' projects were approved: the annual edition of a Bach-Jahrbuch (Bach yearbook), biannual (today: annual) Bachfeste (Bach festivals), and finally the founding of a Bach museum. As the desired location of the society's museum the School of St. Thomas at Leipzig was chosen, where Bach had lived with his family and served as cantor and music teacher for 27 years. However, the magistrate of Leipzig decided to demolish the building in 1902, thus thwarting the society's plans. Among other relics, the entrance door to Bach's rooms in the school was saved from destruction by its then music teacher Bernhard Friedrich Richter, son of the former Cantor of St. Thomas Ernst Friedrich Richter, and was later dedicated to the Bach House. Today, this door prominently marks the start of the exhibition within the museum.

When news reached the society's members that Bach's (still undisputed) birth house at Eisenach was also under threat by demolition plans, the New Bach Society decided to acquire the building on May 15, 1905, and to open the world's first Bach museum at this site. Among the supporters of this project were the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the composer and violinist Joseph Joachim, the Cantor of St Thomas Gustav Schreck, the director of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin Georg Schumann, and the Leipzig music publishers Breitkopf & Härtel and C.F. Peters. The Bach House was formally opened on 27 May 1907. The choir of St. Thomas, Leipzig under Cantor of St. Thomas, Gustav Schreck, and the Weimar Hofkapelle conducted by Georg Schumann, sang and played.

In 1928, when the Eisenach hobby historian Fritz Rollberg undertook a research into the city's tax records and discovered that Johann Ambrosius Bach had paid taxes from 1674 until his death in 1695 for a different building in Eisenach, the Bach House was long established as a Bach memorial site throughout the world. When the house underwent complete restoration in 1972–1973, the memorial plate from 1868 was taken down and went into storage. Since visitors kept believing to be visiting Bach's birthplace even without the plate, it was decided in 2007 to restore it as an essential part of the building's history. Today, the historical error is explained in the museum, where one of the tax files discovered by Rollberg is on display.

An air raid on 23 November 1944 and artillery fire by the approaching U.S. troops in the night of 5 April 1945 caused substantial damage to the roof of the Bach House in particular. On 29 April 1945, the U.S. commander of the city, Lt. Col. Knut Hansston, ordered the museum to be repaired immediately, and one year later, on 22 June 1946, the Soviet Military Administration ordered the Johann Sebastian Bach museums in Arnstadt and Eisenach to be re-opened and confirmed the appointment of Bach House Director Conrad Freyse to the post in which he had been working since 1923.

Already in 1911, the museum had expanded into the adjacent building Frauenplan 19. In 1973, the buildings underwent a complete restoration and the exhibition was newly designed with financial aid by the East German (GDR) government. The museum now also included the building Frauenplan 21a to the west of the Bach House. Since the museum's owner was still the New Bach Society, now an international society with over 3,000 members in both parts of politically divided Germany (and throughout West and East Europe, and also in the U.S.), the Bach House – unlike the Leipzig Bach-Archiv – was never incorporated into the GDR's national combine Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten Johann Sebastian Bach der DDR. Rising visitor numbers (over 130,000 in some years) and the imminent Bach year of 1985 led to a further expansion of the museum into the building Frauenplan 23 further west of the Bach House in 1980.

2000 until today

From 2005 to 2007, the buildings to the west of the Bach House were replaced by a new museum building, the historical building again underwent restoration, and the exhibition was completely modernized. The project was financed by the Free State of Thuringia, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union, with a grant totalling 4.3 mio. Euros. Earlier, the New Bach Society had purchased the properties Frauenplan 21a and 23 (which before had only been rented) with donations by its members. A new, smaller building to the back of the Bach House garden had already been put up in 2001, it contains a study hall for school classes and a library. The demolition of the 19th century buildings to the west of the Bach House in 2000 and 2001 was subject of heavy debate among the Eisenach citizens. The same is true for the finally realized new museum building with its modern organic design by architect Prof. Berthold Penkhues from Kassel, Germany, a former student of Frank O. Gehry. Penkhues' design had won first prize among twelve submissions in an architectural design contest to which the New Bach Society had invited in 2002. The new exhibition was designed by Prof. Uwe Brückner, Stuttgart, Germany.

On 17 May 2007, the museum was re-opened at the start of a festival period lasting until 27 May, the day of the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Bach House. At the day of the re-opening, the choir of St. Thomas, Leipzig, inaugurated the new museum building with a concert under Georg Christoph Biller, its present Cantor of St. Thomas.

Museum overview, access for the disabled, opening hours

The entrance to the museum is now located at the new building. The tour leads from the foyer of the new building to the ground floor of the historic building and its instrument hall, then via the Bach House garden into the special exhibition rooms located in the eastern building Frauenplan 19. From there, stairs lead to the living rooms on the upper floor of the Bach House with a biographical exhibit, and the tour ends in a large exhibition room on the first floor of the new building where the emphasis is on Bach's music. A staircase leads back to the foyer. The exhibition features over 250 original exhibits on 600 m².

All texts are in German and English. Printed museum tour guides are additionally available in French, Japanese and Braille. Disabled persons with wheelchairs can reach the ground floor of the historic building with its hourly music demonstrations via wooden ramps, and all parts of the new museum building via a lift. The upper floor of the historic building with its narrow passages and uneven floors is not suited for wheelchair visits. Dog boxes are provided for visitors with pets.

The museum is open to visitors every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On December 24 and December 31 the museum closes already at 2 p.m. There is parking space for cars and buses on the Frauenplan in front of the Bach House. From the Eisenach main train station it is a 15 min. walk, and about 10 min. from the central market place with St.George's and the city's public parking garage. If one climbs the hill behind the Bach House, one reaches the Wartburg Castle in a walk of about 25 min.

The foyer has the ticket counter, a gift shop and the museum's Café Kantate. There is a small exhibit about the history of the Museum and its owner, the New Bach Society. The large, 160 by 120 cm Bach painting by Johannes Heisig (2004) deserves special attention. From here, one reaches the exhibition rooms in the old building via a glass passageway. It is marked by the original entrance door to Bach's apartment in the Leipzig School of St. Thomas behind which Bach and his family had lived for 27 years.

Foyer

From the new building, visitors first enter the foyer of the old Bach House. The low rooms to its side would have served as stables in the 15th and 16th centuries. Exhibits relate to the history of the house, among them an old tax file from 1694–1695 which proves that Bach's father Ambrosius paid poor taxes (a supplement to the property tax used for alimenting the city's poor) for a house in the Fleischgass, and not the Bach House. From the museum's instrument collection a few curious instruments are on display, among others a glass harmonica from around 1775 which supposedly had been in the possession of Friedrich Schleiermacher, and a trumpet violin from 1717 (a violin with a built-in trumpet – two such instruments were available to Bach during his time as music director at the court of Köthen). The gold-plated Bach statue is a design from 1903, a study for Carl Seffner's later Bach monument from 1908 that stands in front of St. Thomas, Leipzig.

Hourly music demonstrations in the Instrument Hall

The Instrument Hall has 28 original baroque musical instruments on display, a selection of the museum's collection of more than 400. The collection started with a gift of four instruments by the Dutch collector Paul de Wit in 1907, and a gift of 164 instruments by the heirs of musicologist and conductor Aloys Obrist who had killed both himself and his former lover, the opera singer Anna Sutter, in 1910. Remarkable are three string instruments: a viola da gamba with seven strings, built by Bach's Leipzig friend and collaborator Johann Christian Hoffmann in 1725, a violoncello piccolo with five strings (northern Bohemia, ca. 1750) which Bach demanded for nine cantatas and (according to some views) the cello suite BWV 1012, and a viola d'amore with six 6 gut playing strings and 6 metal resonating strings an octave higher (Vienna, around 1700).

Since 1973, five baroque keyboard instruments are demonstrated in a music performance every hour. These include two chamber organs (Switzerland, ca. 1750, and Thuringia, ca. 1650), a fretted clavichord (around 1770), a spinet built 1765 in Strasbourg by Johann Heinrich Silbermann, a nephew of Gottfried Silbermann whose instruments Bach helped sell in Leipzig, and the copy of a harpsichord built by Johann Heinrich Har(r)ass (Breitenbach, Thuringia, 1705), supposedly Bach's favorite harpsichord maker. The wind for the organs is not produced by a motor: while the organist of the Swiss organ can produce the wind by himself using a foot lever, a visitor's help is always required for treading the bellows of the Thuringian positive organ. This instrument's history and Bach's biography overlap: from 1714 on, it served as a church organ in Kleinschwabhausen, about 15 km from Weimar where Bach was court organist at the time. Bach's protegée and family friend, the court organ maker Heinrich Nicolaus Trebs, repaired the organ in 1724 and 1740, and Johann Caspar Vogler, Bach's student and successor as court organist, tested the organ in 1738, 1740 and 1744. Since inspecting the dukedom's organs belonged to the court organist's duties, the museum conjectures that Bach must have known and played this instrument, even though there is no record of it.

Bach House garden

The design of the Bach House garden as a baroque garden dates from1907. In the baroque era, it would have served as a pasture and for growing vegetables and fruits. Today, it is a protected heritage site. The location of the well is still original. The building directly opposite of the Bach House garden is where Bach's father Johann Ambrosius Bach first lived when he arrived from Erfurt with his wife and two sons. From the Bach House garden, the tour continues through the door of the building to the east that houses special exhibitions, and then via a staircase to the first floor of the historical Bach House.

Biographical exhibit and the Bach Goblet

The largest room in the upper story of the Bach house depicts Bach's musical biography: his studies in Ohrdruf and Lüneburg, and his positions in Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, Köthen, and Leipzig. For each place, there is an illustration of the place, an engraving or other depiction of Bach's superior or other locally important person, and an original object: an old shoe symbolizes Bach's 300 km journey on foot from Ohrdruf to Lüneburg, a chorister's bassoon crossed by a dress sword illustrates how Bach in Arnstadt once defended himself with a sword against a physical attack by a bassoon player, a padlock reminds of the four weeks Bach spent in the Weimar prison, and a wooden payment board with contemporary coins (among them an electoral Saxon Taler coined in 1715) reminds of Bach's good income as music director at the court of Prince Leopold at Köthen, but also the perpetual money troubles of his employer. The original, 1732 libretto of the cantata Froher Tag, verlangte Stunden (Happy day, desired hours, Bach later re-used the music for his Ascension Oratorio BWV 11), reminds of happy times Bach spent at the Leipzig School of St. Thomas for whose re-opening after substantial reconstruction he composed it. The last exhibits include the so-called Bach spectacles long believed to have been worn by Bach, and original copperplate engravings depict the practice of eye surgery at Bach's time, the procedure – carried out by the English charlatan John Taylor – that likely caused Bach's death on 28 July 1750.

The most mysterious object on display in this room is the Bach Goblet, the only undoubtedly authentic household item left from Bach's possessions. It is a Bohemian-Saxon work from around 1735. In the front, there is a VIVAT with a double (mirrored) monogram of the letters JSB underneath. The ends of the letters terminate in points. In total, there are 14 of these points – the Bach number, since B+A+C+H = 2+1+3+8 = 14 according to baroque numerology. In the back, there is a dedication poem that includes the name of Bach both in letters and in (German) musical notation: b–a–c–h theurer Bach (b♭–a–c–b beloved Bach) / g–gis–f–fis ruffet, ach! (g–g♯–f–f♯ call out, alack!) / e–dis–d–cis hofft auf Leben, (e–d♯–d–c♯ hope for life,) / So du ihnen nur kannst geben. (which only you can give.) / Drum erhör ihr sehnlich ach! (Thus grant our wish, alack!) / Theurer b–a–c–h Bach. (beloved b♭–a–c–b Bach). It is still an unsolved riddle who may have been the donor of the goblet, and on what occasion Bach received it.

Room of the town pipers, Eisenach panorama

The next room is dedicated to the town pipers, as the town musicians headed by Bach's father Johann Ambrosius Bach were also called. On a wall there is a 1907 copy of Ambrosius' portrait by Johann David Herlicius (1690, the original is owned by the Berlin State Library and currently on loan at the new museum of the Bach-Archiv at Leipzig). Typical instruments of the town musicians are on display, the most remarkable being an early violin dating from 1575, and also including a cornett, bombard, crumhorn, sackbut and recorder. The chorale book (Melchior Vulpius, 1609) includes typical repertoire pieces of the town pipers, it was previously owned by Bach's relative, the Meiningen cantor Johann Jacob Bach. Bach's school records are shown in facsimilé (the originals are kept at the Eisenach city archives), and there is also the Latin school's time table from 1694/95 which includes music lessons in the afternoons. Noteworthy is the illustrated Eisenach hymnal from 1673 which was used in St. George's throughout Bach's childhood.

A smaller, separate room shows a semicircular city panorama of Eisenach as Bach would have seen it as a child (based on the engraving by Matthäus Merian, 1640). The Bach House is depicted below the Frauendom (Cathedral of Her Lady), which was destroyed in the German peasants' wars, but which is still evidenced in the surrounding streets' names (Frauenplan, Frauenberg, Marienstraße, Domstraße). Cases show archaeological findings and historical household items: pieces of pottery, scraps of shoe leather and textiles, a candle holder, a drinking mug and a cowbell from 1688 dug up in the Bach House garden. The background noise reminds of the fact that the Bach residence – wherever one may want to pinpoint its exact location – was not a quiet place: the municipal brewery was in the immediate vicinity.

Bach's wives and children

On the floors between the historical living quarters, the exhibition informs about Bach's wives and his 20 children. A spinning wheel reminds of Bach's first wife Maria Barbara, as in Bach's wedding quodlibet BWV 524 it symbolizes the marriage bond and the diligence of the wife. Bach's second, much younger wife Anna Magdalena is remembered with an always fresh bouquet of yellow carnations – she was a große Liebhaberin von der Gärtnerey (a great lover of gardening) and these were her favorite flowers. Noteworthy are the original children portraits of Bach's sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel (pastel paintings by Nikolaus Ephraim Bach and Gottlob Friedrich Bach, ca. 1730).

The historical living quarters

Three rooms in the upper floor of the historical Bach House present historical living quarters (bedroom, living room, kitchen). Their furnishing is virtually unchanged since the rooms were first decorated by the Weimar Court Antiquary in 1906 with local items from around 1700 (including door handles and fittings). The curtains and bed-covers are in blue print (produced with woad in the 17th century) and are typical of the area.The cradle was a gift by Johanna von Hase, the wife of Oskar von Hase, owner of the music publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. Some of the crockery in the kitchen was found in the Bach House garden. The living room was the best room of the house, it is a Bohlenstube (encased by wooden panels), making the room easy to keep warm. It is furnished to resemble Bach's composing studio in the Leipzig School of St. Thomas which was about the same size. Noteworthy is the clavichord (built by Christoph Dreßel, Leipzig, ca. 1680–90).

Bach's theological library

In the Composing Studio a reconstruction of Bach's theological library can be seen. This reconstruction is facilitated by the written estate which lists 52 theological book titles bound in 81 volumes as having been privately owned by Bach. Since 2009, about half of the titles are on display, and the museum aims to provide a complete reconstruction until 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The information includes excerpts from the books in German and English, and information on the books' authors like Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, Heinrich Müller, Johann Gerhard, Johann Arndt, Philipp Jacob Spener and August Hermann Francke. The oldest book contains the sermons of the 14th century mystic Johannes Tauler, printed in 1522 in Basle. Another remarkable book is Heinrich Bünting's Itinerarium Sacrae Scriptura (Magdeburg 1592): it is opened at a curious map depicting the three continents Africa, Asia and Europe arranged like a clover leaf around the city of Jerusalem. It should be noted that even though these are contemporary editions more or less closely resembling those owned by Bach, the only personal copy of the books listed in the estate that has so far been discovered is Bach's Calov Bible, which is today preserved at the Concordia Seminary Library in St. Louis, Missouri. (The copy of the Calov Bible that is presented in the Bach House has another interesting history: it comes from Abraham Calov's private possession.)

Exhibition in the modern building

A passageway in the kitchen of the historical Bach House and a staircase in the glass 'fugue' between the two buildings leads to the exhibition in the modern museum building, openend in 2007. The central themes of the exhibit are How we see Bach, What we know about Bach, and How we play Bach. The exhibition on these themes is arranged around a central sculpture, the Walkable Composition.

Bubble Chairs

The first objects encountered in the modern building are five hanging chairs – so-called Bubble chairs, a 1968 design by Eero Aarnio. In each of the bubble chairs, visitors can listen to one of the following pieces by Bach:

Like the painting in the foyer, the painting on the wall behind the bubble chairs was created by Johannes Heisig (2004, private loan). It depicts Bach performing a cantata in the Leipzig Church of St. Thomas with his choir.

How we see Bach

The history of Bach iconography is treated on the northern wall of the modern building, starting with contemporary paintings, among them the original painting of Johann Jacob Ihle which dates from around 1720, and a pastel painting which Charles Sanford Terry identified in 1936 as the Bach portrait formerly owned by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Also on display is the early Bach portrait by Gebel which was used for the title page of the first volume of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1798/99. Finally there is a 1910 copy of the undoubtedly authentic painting by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, the original can be found in the old town hall in Leipzig. 39 original prints, arranged in 'families', depict how our picture of Bach has changed through the centuries. This part of the exhibition ends with the excavation of Bach's bones and the anatomical reconstruction of Bach's face by the Leipzig anatomist Wilhelm His and the sculptor Carl Seffner in 1894, the first three-dimensional forensic facial reconstruction based on a skull that was ever conducted. Among the exhibits are a bronze cast of the skull and the Bach bust created by Seffner in 1894. There is also a video of the modern reconstruction of Bach's face by forensic scientist Caroline Wilkinson which is based on three of Seffner's skull casts and which was commissioned by the museum in 2008.

What we know about Bach, Bach autograph

Bach research is the topic of the part What we know about Bach. It starts with the first Bach biographies (on display is the Musicalisches Lexicon by Bach's friend Johann Gottfried Walther, 1732, and the manuscript of the Bach biography of Philipp Spitta, 1873). What we know about Bach goes on to explain the process of reconstructing partly lost cantatas (on display is the handwritten draft of Ton Koopman's reconstruction of the cantata Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied BWV 190), and at the end displays an original Bach autograph, giving the history from its first discovery to its inclusion in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The autograph is the continuo part of the cantata Alles nur nach Gottes Willen, BWV 72. It is, like most hand-written instrumental parts for Bach's cycles of cantatas, a collaborative work: the right hand side of the sheet on display (chorus, recitative) was written by Bach's student and nephew Johann Heinrich Bach (the son of Bach's older brother Johann Christoph Bach from Ohrdruf), the upper left hand side (air) was written by Bach's wife Anna Magdalena Bach, and the music of the final chorale, along with all titles, subtitles, and some corrections up to the word Fine, are in the hand of Johann Sebastian Bach. On an audio station next to the autograph, the history of the cantata is explained and the speaker leads through all parts of the music on the sheet. Nearby, there is a 'researcher's desk' complete with a PC (with weblinks to Bach research websites) and a small hand library including among other books a Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis and Bach biographies in German, English, French and Japanese.

How we play Bach, children's corner

The history of Bach performances is treated in the exhibition part How we play Bach. It begins with Bach's sons and in particular Carl Philipp Emanuel's efforts to keep the music of his father alive (exhibited are Bach's four-part chorales edited by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in 1784–1787), then treats the fast competition for the publication of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier (exhibited are the first prints by Nägeli and Simrock, 1802), the performance of the St Matthew Passion by the 19 years old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1829, the work on the first Bach-Gesamtausgabe (Bach complete edition) from 1850 on, and finally the return to Bach's orchestra and playing techniques by the historically informed performance movement in the 20th century. On a 'mixer', one can listen to and compare nine very different interpretations of the same chorus from Bach's cantata Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV 61/1). The conductors Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, Helmuth Rilling, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Klaus Eichhorn and Masaaki Suzuki provided introductory texts to their interpretations for the museum. Remarkable among the exhibits are the Clavecin Royal (Johann Gottlob Wagner, Dresden 1788), which here represents the progresses made by instrument builders since Bach's death, and a letter by Robert Franz to Paul Graf Waldersee dated 19 August 1876, in which he derides the Bach accompaniments by Joseph Joachim as standing "ungefähr auf derselben Stufe wie der Schund, den sein Freund Brahms bei der Gelegenheit der Händelschen Cammerduette geleistet hat." (on the same level as the rubbish which his friend Brahms produced regarding Handel's chamber duets).

Just behind this exhibition part is a children's corner that has, among other things, a big sliding piece puzzle showing Bach's first organ in Arnstadt.

The Walkable Composition

The central element of the new museum building is the Walkable Composition. Including the autograph station, there are 14 listening stations positioned around its outside wall which employ musical examples to explain musical techniques and topics in Bach's works: polyphony, fugue, basso continuo, tuning, Bach's parody technique, organ music, cantatas, passion music, secular cantatas, sonatas and suites, concertos, overtures, motets and late works. The interior of the Walkable Composition contains a multimedia installation: it thematically links four of the topics discussed outside with a valuable exhibit and a practical musical performance shown in film on a 180 degrees screen. The concept was realized for the museum by the Berlin multimedia art director Marc Tamschick in collaboration with composer Marc Lingk. These exhibits and films can be seen:

Special exhibitions

Since 2004, there have been the following special exhibits at the Bach House:

Concerts, school's programmes

The museum hosts about 10 concerts per year. Fixed events are the concerts on 26 December, 1 January and 21 March. The Bach House is one of the locations of the regional music festivals Thüringer Bachwochen (three weeks, starting the week before Easter), Güldener Herbst (in October), and Eisenacher Telemann-Tage (summer of even years). Regularly, the Bach House presents the winners of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, Leipzig. The museum offers a range of school's programmes on different themes (in German language only).

Library, services for choirs

To the museum belongs a library which is open to the public during general opening hours. It has about 5,500 volumes, mostly on Bach and his contemporaries, musical instruments, and on musical history in general. Books can be searched by an OPAC. The music section contains both the old Bach Gesamtausgabe and the Neue Bach-Ausgabe as well as practical editions of Bach's works and a collection of audio recordings. Choirs can lend materials for the performances of most Bach cantatas.

Collections

As the first and – for a long time – only Bach museum, the museum's mandate by the New Bach Society was to "collect everything that concerns Johann Sebastian Bach, his life and works, and his reception." However, when the museum was founded in 1907, this mandate was already quite impossible to fulfill. 80 percent of all known Bach autographs were (and still are) in the possession of the Berlin State Library, and already at the time, private collectors willing to part with what was left were demanding prices far exceeding the means of a private society. Still, in its early years the following autographs were acquired by the Bach House:

Subsequently, the collection grew by donations, notably those of Oskar von Hase and the Leipzig music publishers C.F. Peters and Breitkopf & Härtel, and by inheritances, like those from Philipp Spitta, Wilhelm Rust, Paul Graf Waldersee, Aloys Obrist, Wilhelm His, and Christoph Trautmann. Apart from the items on display, the following are particularly noteworthy: a Thuringian Harpsichord from 1715, a harpsichord by Jacob Hartmann (ca. 1765), a second spinet by Johann Heinrich Silbermann (1765), and a pedal clavichord (ca. 1815). Additionally three school notebooks by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, a first edition of The Musical Offering (part A) from 1747, the source C of Bach's lost Genealogie der musicalisch-Bachischen Familie (genealogy of the musical Bach family), the only known libretto of the lost Bach wedding cantata Sein Segen fließt daher, wie ein Strom (BWV Anh. 14, Immanuel Tietze, Leipzig 1725), a collection of silhouettes of the Ohrdruf Bach family, letters of 19th century Bach researchers like Karl Hermann Bitter, and documents, measurements and casts relating to the excavation of the (supposed) Bach bones by Wilhelm His und Carl Seffner (including casts of the cranium in plaster and bronze). In 2013, the Bach House acquired 62 of what originally probably had been 152 hand-written choir parts, which the choir sang from when Felix Mendelssohn performed Bach's St Matthew Passion in the Berliner Singakademie on 11 March 1829 for the first time after Bach's death.

Today, the museum's collecting activities focus on these fields:

Ownership, finances, Blaubuch, museum directors

All real property and the collections are owned by the New Bach Society. Since 5 July 2001, the museum is managed by the Bachhaus Eisenach gemeinnützige GmbH, a registered charitable company, with the New Bach Society as its sole associate. The supervisory board includes representatives of the New Bach Society, the City of Eisenach, the Lutheran Church, and the government of the Free State of Thuringia. The funding of the museum is subject of a contract between the New Bach Society, the City of Eisenach, and the Free State of Thuringia. The majority of public funds comes from the Thuringian government. Own proceeds from ticket sales, the shop and the café cover two thirds of the museum's annual expenses. Donations go into restorations and acquisitions for the museum's collection.

Since 2001, the Bach House is listed in the federal German government's Blaubuch (bluebook) of "cultural lighthouses in former East Germany" as a cultural memorial site of national significance, effectively granting it access to federal funds for its projects.

Since the opening of the Bach House in 1907 there have been the following museum directors:

Visitor numbers, tourism

There are about 60,000 visitors to the Bach House per year, making it one of Germany's most frequented music museums and second only to the Beethoven House in Bonn.

Bach monument

The Bach statue in front of the Bach House was the second monument for Johann Sebastian Bach. It was the first to show the composer figuratively in the form of a full statue. It was sculpted by Adolf von Donndorf and cast by Hermann Heinrich Howaldt in Brunswick, Germany. The monument was commissioned in 1878 by the Denkmal-Comittee (monument committee) founded by culture loving citizens of Eisenach, among them the city's cantor Carl Müller-Hartung and the writer Fritz Reuter. Clara Schumann, Hans von Bülow, Joseph Joachim and Franz Liszt helped raise the monies by giving beneficial concerts, and the project was also supported by Johannes Brahms. It was unveiled on 28 September 1884 after a concert of Bach's Mass in B minor conducted by Joseph Joachim in St. George's Church. Its first location was on the market place in front of the portal of St. George's. The monument was moved to its present location in front of the Bach House when the Frauenplan was redecorated in 1938. The composer is shown standing, holding a feather quill in his right hand, and leaning with his left on a stack of sheet music carried by an angel. The monument's base was substantially shortened when it was moved. A relief plate depicting Saint Cecilia, the patron of church music, which was originally attached to the base, can now be seen on the stone wall behind the monument. In front of the Bach monument, Bach's birthday is celebrated every year with formal festivities on the morning of 21 March.

Light art

Ingo Bracke, a light artist from Saarbrücken and with his wife Mary-Anne Kyriakou collaborator in the i Light Marina Bay festival in Singapore, created the installation IN VERSUS F: A Score of Light – An Architectural Tune for the Bach House. It was first shown on 13 December 2008, and has been permanently installed since 21 March 2011. Starting at sunset and ending at 11 p.m., it is on display on all Saturday evenings and evenings before public holidays.

Awards

The exhibition designers Atelier Brückner were awarded a bronze ADC award by the Art Directors Club on 12 April 2008 for the innovative new design of the Bach House permanent exhibit.

Marc Tamschick, the director of the multimedia installation walkable composition was awarded a Finalist Diploma at the World Media Festival in Hamburg on 14 May 2008.

For the new design of the Bach House permanent exhibition, Atelier Brückner was also awarded a special price for outstanding scenography by the Association of German Interior Architects BDIA on 24 October 2008.

Trivia

Literature