Gordon spoke not only about Bach’s music but also about Bach’s desk. Near the end of the talk, Gordon enlisted a prop. Until this point, he had performed a cappella, as it were — no audio clips, no performance video, not even a backdrop with an etching of Potsdam in 1727 or linecuts of period instruments. Just Gordon’s resonant speaking voice and a beautifully behaved invisible microphone. Then, Gordon held high an inkpot with three quills sticking out: one with feather on both sides, one with feather on one side, and one denuded quill.
Gordon gave us a detailed, learned tour of the inkpot, which has little indentations to hold four quills. Bach would have trimmed the feather off at least one side of his quill, but probably both. He would have kept a tiny penknife at hand, needing to resharpen his quill’s point frequently. A drawer in the base of the inkpot held sand, which Bach would have dusted over his freshly-inked lines, then curled the two edges of the page toward each other and funneled the sand back into the drawer.
Gordon, in addition to being an internationally reknowned Bach tenor, operatic soloist and vocal mentor, is a scholar of 18th-century domestic life in general — and lighting in particular. He assured us that when Bach wrote at night, he had no slightly aromatic beeswax candle on his table. Bach was poor; such candles were costly and primarily found in church. Bach would have set a splint of sappy pine — sappy, smoky, stinky pine — in a stand, burning with an open flame. When Bach did write by candlelight, his candle was made of beef tallow. Wicks hadn’t been invented yet, nor picturesque kerosene lamps, nor glass wind lanterns to protect the flame and amplify the light.
Gordon’s finale was a parting wish for his audience that, as we listen to the coming performance, we also picture the composer painstakingly penning his manuscript. You can hear this superb talk for yourself, by ordering Gordon’s audio lecture. And the next time you are feeling sorely vexed that your color copier is streaking, or your printer is out of paper, or your little halogen desk bulb has just blown, take a deep breath and think of Bach.
All images courtesy of David Gordon, who has also let us know that the inkwell he used in his lecture was made by a London pewterer named Jacob Dent, in the 1730s or ’40s. We do not jest.
You can learn more about the Carmel Bach Festival here.
