Bach & Sons

Nina Raine

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781839040139
• eBook ISBN: 9781788503907
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Johann Sebastian Bach, irascible and turbulent, writes music of sensuous delight and deep religious fervour. He's touchy, he's fabulously rude, he has impossibly high standards (he stabs a bassoonist for playing badly), and he's constantly in trouble with his patrons.

Music is the family business – but the burden of their father's genius weighs heavily on his sons. Wilhelm is brilliant but self-destructive. Tense, industrious Carl is more successful than his father, but knows he is less talented. As the years pass, their rivalry provokes furious arguments about love, God and above all music. What is it for – to give pleasure, like a cup of coffee in the sun, or to reveal the divine order that gives life its meaning?

Beautiful, profound and funny, Nina Raine's play Bach & Sons is a gripping family drama and an anthem to the art that draws us together and sings of our common humanity. It premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London, in June 2021, directed by Nicholas Hytner, with Simon Russell Beale playing J. S. Bach.

ACT ONE

Scene One

BACH sits at a harpsichord, in a wig, playing meditatively to himself. It is dark – late at night.

He takes his wig off, scratches his head.

He reaches out, takes a sip from a glass of brandy on the harpsichord.

Continues to play.

He is playing ‘Sheep may safely graze’. He pauses occasionally, refines the melody, rewinds and plays a phrase repeatedly – sticking on an ornamentation – until he is satisfied and moves on forward through the tune.

MARIA BARBARA, about six months pregnant, comes to stand on the threshold, watching BACH, as he feels his way through the melody.

BARBARA. Bastian.

BACH stops without turning to face her –

It’s keeping Gottfried awake.

He finishes the phrase he was playing.

It’s when you play the same thing again and again. He says he’s waiting for you to finish it. He says Mummy my eyes won’t close.

BACH plays the resolving phrase.

BACH. Same here. I need it for tomorrow.

BARBARA. Why?

BACH. The Duke’s ordered it for the Duke’s birthday. Not his birthday, the other Duke’s. Weissenfels’. To play after the

Duke’s hunt. Not our Duke. The first Duke. Weissenfels. He’s obsessed with hunting. Both Dukes.

BARBARA. Who’s Weissenfels?

BACH. This other Duke.

BARBARA. The fat one?

BACH. They’re all fat. The unmarried one. The one who looks like a great tight-mouthed baby.

BARBARA. Oh, that one.

BACH. Has three Saxon flunkeys who help him do all the things he has trouble doing any more. Like fellating himself. He has much better musicians than we do.

He plays the next phrase.

BARBARA. Nice. Very simple.

Beat.

Too simple?

BACH. It’s got to be simple because our oboeist is going to have to play it on the flute and he’s multi-talentless. If I can just get hold of a couple of recorders I’ll give them the top part.

He continues playing.

They said to let my inspiration run free and that the budget is strictly fifty thaler.

They kiss you, then they fuck you.

He begins to play the ‘B’ section – taking the melody into a minor key.

BARBARA. Oh. Why make it minor?

BACH. More interesting.

BARBARA. Does it have to be interesting?

BARBARA shivers, cranes to look in the room.

The fire’s nearly out.

BACH. Give it a blow.

She walks over, blows on the embers, which glow on her face. They dim. She blows again.

BARBARA. No. It’s gone.

BACH. Doesn’t matter. I don’t need the fire. I’m not cold. Go to bed, give Gottfried a cuddle from me.

Beat.

BARBARA. Love. You upset Katharina today.

BACH stops playing.

BACH. It’s quite hard to do this and talk.

BARBARA. You’re incredibly grumpy with her and she has feelings.

BACH. She doesn’t have feelings. She doesn’t give a shiny shit.

BARBARA. She does have feelings and she’s an enormous help. She’s wonderful with the children. Especially Gottfried.

BACH. It’s Gottfried who’s wonderful. With her. I heard him. He’s unbelievably patient for a three-year-old.

BARBARA. Can you stop contradicting me? You’re always disagreeing and saying there’s a better way to do everything.

BACH. That’s not contradicting, that’s one-upmanship.

Beat.

How did I hurt her feelings?

BARBARA.…You hurt my feelings, because she’s my sister. Even if she doesn’t realise, I can see you’re being horrible to her.

Beat.

Come to bed.

BACH is still. Pause. In the pause we hear the whisper of the violin’s question in the Chaconne (at 2:18 in Hilary Hahn’s recording).

It’s been months.

Pause. The whisper of the violin’s answer.

I need comfort.

In the silence, the violin’s question is repeated.

Then – the same answer.

BACH. You don’t need comfort.

BARBARA. I do need comfort, sometimes.

He turns around, looks at her. Takes her in properly.

She puts her hand on her bump.

…What if it happens with this one?

Beat.

BACH. Why would it?

BARBARA. Because of the twins.

I wish we’d buried them closer together.

Pause.

BACH. They’re safe with God.

Beat.

BARBARA. Come to bed.

BACH. I will.

BARBARA. Please.

BACH. I will.

BARBARA moves to the door, to leave. He starts to play the first section again. She turns back.

BARBARA. Will there be singing? In this piece?

BACH. Yes.

BARBARA.…What voice?

BACH continues playing the major section.

BACH. For this?… Soprano.

BARBARA, unseen by him, looks at him sadly.

…It’s good for hope, trust.

BARBARA. Yes.

She continues to look at him as he plays. A soprano voice joins the melody, soaring: ‘Schafe können sicher weiden, wo ein gutter Hirte wacht…’ – ‘Sheep safely graze, where a good shepherd watches…’

ANNA MAGDALENA, twenties, appears – singing the soprano aria. BACH rises from the harpsichord, conducting her – rapt.

BARBARA watches, sadly.

Scene Two

BACH is conducting his choir of boy singers. They are singing ‘Wachet! Betet! Betet! Wachet!’

He interrupts them in frustration.

BACH. Flat!! Flat flat flat flat flat!

They stop singing.

I know this sounds obvious but you are all meant to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Original Production Details
• Thanks
• Bach & Sons
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information