I Have Always Kept One End

Bach wrote this to the Leipzig Town Council in a memorandum dated August 23, 1730, defending his tenure as Thomaskantor and arguing for better resources — specifically, more qualified singers and instrumentalists. The letter is a candid and frustrated document in which Bach detailed the gap between the church's musical ambitions and its willingness to fund them. It is one of the most direct surviving expressions of his professional frustrations.