Something of His Art – Walking to Lubeck with J. S Bach – Horatio Clare

During the winter of 1705, the young Johann Sebastian Bach,then unknown as a composer and earning a modest living as a teacher and organist , set off on a long walk from Arnstadt to Lubeck, a distance of more than 250 miles. It was a journey that became pivotal in the life of the great composer. He went to seek Dieterich Buxtehude, organist and musicial director at the Marienkirche in the free imperial city of Lubeck. Buxtehude is famous, the most influential musician of the time: he has inaugurated a series of evening concerts,

Abendmusiken, which are drawing crowds of musicians and the musical. But Bach must go now if he is to hear these concerts as Buxtehude is old, verging on retirement.

Three centuries on, Horatio Clare retraced this journey and discovered a deep sense of the landscape, light and wildlife of early 18th century Germany.

At the very end of his own journey Clare writes:

‘At daybreak, residents are jogging along the river past the concert hall and Lubeck retains a haughty, glittering self-possession on this last morning of our expedition, mist rising from the waters into bright air and the spires of the Marienkirche adrift in pearlescent low cloud, which blends sky and sun in a gay and vapourous intermingling.

We start at the city’s western gateway, the Holstentor, built in 1478, a massy fortress of brick and conical towers….We pass through the gate and over the river, the cool green smell of the water rising….The spires of the Marienkirche, Saint Mary’s, rise and beckon us, their tops tangled in the mist. If Bach arrived in daylight he must have headed straight for them. …..The church is huge above you as you approach it above the gentle hill; it stands on the highest point of old Lubeck’s island. At over 400 feet hight, the twin brick Gothic spires rise into the sky, their points sheathed in green copper.’