Bach Archive acquires document on Bach's last official act
The Bach Archive in Leipzig has acquired a long-lost document from the Now York auction house Swann's relating to Bach's last official act - the receipt for a payment from the "Legatum Lobwasserianum", which was last seen in 1908 at an auction held by the Leipzig auction house C. G. Boerner.
Today, the document is the only one that provides information about Bach's condition after the eye operation by the English oculist John Taylor in April 1750. The receipt is evidence of the last verifiable official act of the Thomaskantor. At the beginning of July 1750, Bach instructed his youngest son, the almost 15-year-old Johann Christian, to receive and acknowledge the annual payment from the "Legatum Lobwasserianum". The composer died in the same month.
The "Legatum Lobwasserianum" goes back to a donation of 1000 guilders by the pious Leipzig lawyer widow Maria Lobwasser († 28. 4. 1610). The annual interest income from this capital of 50 guilders was intended to support the church and school servants at St. Thomas', with the cantor, the rector and the tertius of St. Thomas' School each receiving 2 guilders. This corresponds roughly to the average weekly wage of an organist in Bach's time. At the request of the deceased, the payment was made on the day of the Annunciation, July 2.
In December 2014, the lower half of the leaf (with the receipt from 1750) appeared at a Swann's auction in New York. The documentation revealed that at least this fragment had previously been in the possession of the famous harpsichordist Wanda Landowska (1879-1959). The receipt will be on public display for the first time during the Leipzig Bach Festival, which takes place from June 12 to 21, 2015, in the treasury of the Bach Museum Leipzig.
