On Dec 18, 2013, at 9:07 AM, Geoff Gaherty <ge...@gaherty.ca> wrote:
> I recall reading that he was fired from an early gig for improper relations > with one of the women in the choir. I don't doubt you read something of the sort, as there is a lot of rubbish written about Bach. He was reproved for a number of things when he was organist at Arnstadt, including getting into a sword fight with a bassoonist, and playing stuff that was too weird, too long or too short during services. Minutes of the Arnstadt Consistory note that in November 1706 they asked the 21-year-old Bach "by what right he recently caused the strange maiden to be invited into the choir loft and let her make music there." He was not fired. He requested his dismissal seven months later, after he had accepted a more lucrative job in Mühlhausen. The maiden was likely his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, whom he married the following year. History does not record whether she was really strange. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
