About Me
Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 – July 28, 1750) was a German Composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time (for many, the best one). His works, noted for their intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty, have provided inspiration to nearly every musician in the European tradition, from Mozart to Schoenberg.
J. S. Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685 and died in 1750 at the age of 65. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the town piper in Eisenach, a post that entailed organizing all the secular music in town as well as participating in church music at the direction of the church organist, and his uncles were also all professional musicians ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers, although Bach would later surpass them all in his art. In an era when sons were expected to assist in their fathers' work, we can assume J. S. Bach began copying music and playing various instruments at an early age.
Bach's mother died when he was still a young boy and his father suddenly died when J. S. Bach was nine, at which time Bach moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who was the organist of Ohrdruf in Germany. While in his brother's house, Bach continued copying, studying, and playing music. According to one popular legend of the young composer's curiosity, late one night, when the house was asleep, he retrieved a manuscript (which may have been a collection of works by Johann Christoph's former mentor, Johann Pachelbel) from his brother's music cabinet and began to copy it by the moonlight. This went on nightly until Johann Christoph heard the young Sebastian playing some of the distinctive tunes from his private library, at which point the elder brother demanded to know how Sebastian had come to learn them.
It was at Ohrdruf that Bach began to learn about organ building. The Ohrdruf church's instrument, it seems, was in constant need of minor repairs, and he was often sent into the belly of the old organ to tighten, adjust, or replace various parts. The church organ, with its moving bellows, manifold stops, and complicated mechanism, was the most complex machine in any European town. This hands-on experience with the innards of the instrument would provide a unique counterpoint to his unequalled skill at playing it; Bach was equally at home talking with organ builders and with performers.
While in school and as a young man, Bach's curiosity compelled him to seek out great organists of Germany such as Georg Böhm, Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken, often taking journeys of considerable length to hear them play. He was also influenced by the work of Nicholas Bruhns. Shortly after graduation (Bach completed Latin school when he was 18, an impressive accomplishment in his day, especially considering that he was the first in his family to finish school), Bach took a post as organist at Arnstadt in 1703. He apparently felt cramped in the small town and began to seek his fortune elsewhere. Owing to his virtuosity, he was soon offered a more lucrative organist post in Mühlhausen. Some of Bach's earliest extant compositions date to this period (including, according to some scholars, his famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor), but much of the music Bach wrote during this time has been lost.
Still not content as organist of Muhlhausen, in 1708 Bach took a position as court organist and
concert master at the ducal court in Weimar. Here he had opportunity not only to play the organ but also to compose for it and play a more varied repertoire of concert music with the duke's ensemble. A devotee of contrapuntal music, Bach's steady output of fugues begins in Weimar. The best known example of his fugal writing is probably The Well-Tempered Clavier, which comprises 48 preludes and fugues, one pair for each major and minor key, a monumental work not only for its masterful use of counterpoint but also for exploring, for the first time, the full glory of keys — and the means of expression made possible by their slight differences from each other — available to keyboard musicians when their instruments are tuned according to Andreas Werckmeister's system of well temperament or similar system.
Also during his tenure at Weimar, Bach began work on the Orgelbüchlein for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. This 'little book' of organ music contains traditional Lutheran church hymns harmonized by Bach and compiled in a way to be instructive to organ students. This incomplete work introduces two major themes into Bach's corpus: firstly, his dedication to teaching, and secondly, his love of the traditional chorale as a form and source of inspiration. Bach's dedication to teaching is especially remarkable. There was hardly any period in his life when he did not have a full-time apprentice studying with him, and there were always numerous private students studying in Bach's house, including such 18th century notables as Johann Friedrich Agricola. Still today, students of nearly every instrument encounter Bach's works early and revisit him throughout their careers.
Sensing increasing political tensions in the ducal court of Weimar, Bach began once again to search out a more stable job conducive to his musical interests. Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen hired Bach to serve as his Kapellmeister (director of music). Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach's talents, compensated him well, and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. However, the prince was Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his worship, so most of Bach's work from this period is secular in nature. The Brandenburg concerti, as well as many other instrumental works, including the suites for solo cello, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the orchestral suites, date from this period.
In 1723, J. S. Bach was appointed Cantor and Musical Director of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig. This post required him not only to instruct the students of the St. Thomas school (Thomasschule) in singing but also to provide weekly music at the two main churches in Leipzig. Bach endeavored to compose a new church piece, or cantata, every week. This challenging schedule, which basically amounted to writing an hour's worth of music every week, in addition to his more menial duties at the school, produced some of his best music, most of which has been preserved. Most of the cantatas from this period expound upon the Sunday readings from the Bible for the week in which they were originally performed; some were written using traditional church hymns, such as Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, as inspiration for the music.
On holy days such as Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter, Bach produced cantatas of particular brilliance, most notably the Magnificat in D for Christmas and St. Matthew Passion for Good Friday. The composer himself considered the monumental St. Matthew Passion among his greatest masterpieces; in his correspondence, he referred to it as his 'great Passion' and carefully prepared a calligraphic manuscript of the work, which required every available musician in town for its performance. Bach's representation of the essence and message of Christianity in his religious music is considered by many to be so powerful and beautiful that in Germany he is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Evangelist.
Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, on October 17, 1707 after receiving a small inheritance. They had 7 children, 4 of whom survived to adulthood. Little is known of Maria Barbara. She died suddenly on July 7, 1720 while Bach was travelling with Prince Leopold.
While at Cöthen, Bach met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young soprano. They married on December 3, 1721. Despite the age difference (she was 17 years his junior), the couple seem to have had a very happy marriage. Anna supported Johann's composing (many final scores are in her hand) while he encouraged her singing. Together they had 13 children.
All the Bach children were musically inclined, which must have given the aging composer much pride. His sons Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, Johann Christian Bach, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach all became accomplished musicians, with C.P.E. Bach winning the respect of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Although the barriers to women having professional careers were great, all of Bach's daughters most likely sang and possibly played in their father's ensembles. The only one of the Bach daughters to marry, Elisabeth Juliana Friederica, chose as her husband Bach's student Johann Christoph Altnickol. Most of the music we have from Bach was passed on through his children, who preserved much of what C.P.E. Bach called the 'Old Bach Archive' after his father's death.
At Leipzig, Bach seems to have fit in amongst the professoriate of the university, with many professors standing as god-parents for his children, and some of the university's men of letters and theology providing many of the librettos for his cantatas. In this last capacity Bach enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with the poet Picander. Sebastian and Anna Magdalena also welcomed friends, family, and fellow musicians from all over Germany into their home; court musicians at Dresden and Berlin as well as musicians including George Philipp Telemann (one of C.P.E.'s godfathers) made frequent visits to Bach's house and may have kept up frequent correspondence with him. Interestingly, George Friedrich Handel, who was born in the same year as Bach, made several trips to Germany, but Bach was unable to meet him, a fact he regretted.
Having spent much of the 1720s composing weekly cantatas, Bach assembled a sizable repertoire of church music that, with minor revisions and a few additions, allowed him to continue performing impressive Sunday music programs while pursuing other interests in secular music, both vocal and instrumental. Many of these later works were collaborations with Leipzig's Collegium Musicum, but some were increasingly introspective and abstract compositional masterpieces that represent the pinnacle of Bach's art. These erudite works start with the four volumes of his Clavier-Ãœbung ('Keyboard Practice') a set of keyboard works to inspire and challenge organists and lovers of music that includes the Six Partitas for Keyboard (Vol. I), the Italian Concerto, the French Overture (Vol. II), and the Goldberg variations (Vol. IV).
At the same time, Bach wrote a complete Mass in B Minor, which incorporated newly composed movements with portions from earlier works. Although the mass was never performed during the composer's lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest of his choral works.
After meeting King Frederick II of Prussia in Potsdam in 1747, who played a theme for Bach and challenged the famous musician to improvise a three-part fugue based on his theme, Bach presented the king with a Musical Offering including several fugues and canons based on the 'royal theme.' Later, using a theme of his own design, Bach produced The Art of Fugue. These 14 fugues (called contrapuncti by Bach), are all based on the same theme, demonstrating the versatility of a simple melody. Bach improvised a three-part fugue on Frederick's piano forte on the spot, and later wrote the set called The Musical Offering. He wrote a six part fugue, but in fact he changed the subject to one he considered more suitable for such extensive elaboration. Frederick's original theme begins in triads and then ends with a chromatic descent that has been called stylish and was probably more characteristic of the transitional from baroque to classical period. However, Bach used chromatic descent in many other works, famously the Fugue in G minor from Sonata No. 1 for Unaccompanied Violin and in the romanesca bass line in his monumental Chaconne in D minor from Partita No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin.
When The Art of Fugue was almost complete, Bach became ill, owing to complications from an eye operation. One of his sons inserted the musical motif BACH into a lower part of the music at the end of the work to commemorate him. It is said that the final work Bach completed was a chorale prelude for organ dictated to his son, Altkinol, from his deathbed. It is entitled 'When in the hour of greatest need'. When the notes of the final cadence are counted, and mapped onto the roman alphabet, the word 'Bach' is again found.
Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750. During his life time he composed over 1,000 pieces.
