Epilogue: Musical Offering

Summary

The following day, Friday April 28, the regular Motette was given as a moving first memorial, repeated on Saturday and, according to press reports, “attended by thousands of Leipzigers.” Services followed at noon on Sunday the 30th in the main chapel of the South Cemetery with the gravitas of a state funeral. At Straube's request, at the center of the rite stood Bach's motet Jesu, meine Freude, with its alternation of Johann Franck's iconic chorale and St. Paul's credo to the primacy of the Spirit. There hardly could have been a more undiluted summation of his ideals, musical and theological. Likewise honoring a wish of the deceased, Siegfried Knak delivered a eulogy that anchored Straube's personality in the central tenets of Christianity. His faith had “made him forbearing even during the last years,” the source of “the noble, bitter-free composure with which he answered in silence the injustices inflicted upon him.” That was Knak's unmistakable jab at the Nazi detractors, and an indication that the old wounds around Straube's retirement had never really healed. The ceremony concluded with an honorary laying of wreaths and a litany of shorter reflections from local and area luminaries. The remains were laid to rest at the modest gravesite where Elisabet had been interred over twenty-five years earlier. The weight of the moment was palpable as the city and its institutions now took their leave of Karl Straube.

William and Dora did not come up from the Bodensee, the artist's faltering constitution now preventing his travel. Knak testified to him that “Karl always carried your letters with him in his handbag. He was overjoyed at your most recent successes,” a poignant acknowledgment of the recognition the older brother now enjoyed. The bond between them had remained strong, even at a distance. William would pass four years later, on May 3, 1954.

If Knak's homily had touched obliquely on “injustices,” Hertha was more direct in her letter to the City Council. “He remained true to the city, despite the fact that his involuntary withdrawal from the post of Thomaskantor at the turn of the year 1939/40 weighed heavily upon him, and despite the fact that, well into his final years, he received honorable offers for positions elsewhere.”