J C Bach – Ach, daß ich Wassers gnug hätte in meinem Haupte (c.1700)

In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, if you were in Saxon Germany and you needed a musician you called the Bach family. It was almost a family industry.

There are two JC Bachs! The one we tend to know (the ‘London Bach’ and Master of the Music to Queen Charlotte) was a son of JS Bach, and is Johann Christian.

We’re looking at the older JC Bach – Johann Christoph – an older cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. He often worked with JS Bach’s father and would have known the young JS as a composer. 

JS, writing about JC’s death, said he “was as good at inventing beautiful thoughts as he was at expressing words. He composed, to the extent that current taste permitted, in a galant and cantabile style, uncommonly full-textured – on the organ he never played with fewer than five independent parts“.

No wonder then this Lament for alto, solo violin, four-part strings and continuo sounds so rich. A translation of the opening words is slightly miserable – “Oh, that I had water enough in my head and that my eyes were springs of tears, so that I could bewail my sin night and day“, so thank goodness for the beautiful music!

J C Bach’s Ach, daß ich Wassers gnug hätte in meinem Haupte (c.1700)

Performed by countertenor Iestyn Davies & Fretwork Viols