Bach Essay

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was unlike most other composers of his time. “He wrote music for the glory of God, and to satisfy his own burning curiosity, not for future fame.” During the 1700s, people knew him as a talented musician, not as a composer, as we do today. He never left his country to pursue bigger and better things. Bach was content as long as he could play music. Traditions were very important to him. He wanted to carry on the musical tradition of his family, and never opted to change the traditional ways of composing, as did most composers. Bach’s work is vast and unique.

In 1717, Bach was appointed Kapellmeister at Köthen but was refused permission to leave Weimar. He was eventually allowed to leave but only after being held prisoner by the duke for almost a month. Bach's new employer, Prince Leopold, was a talented musician who loved and understood the art. Since the court was Calvinist, Bach had no chapel duties and instead concentrated on composition. In this period he wrote his violin concertos and the six Brandenburg Concertos, as well as numerous sonatas, suites and keyboard works (p. 164, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Vol. 1)

In January 1703, shortly after graduating from St. Michael's and being turned down for the post of organist at Sangerhausen, Bach was appointed court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III in Weimar. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties, which is not something that was easy to swallow for a musician of Bach's caliber. There were rumors that he would speak very negatively about the choir, especially the vocalists who were singing. Saying that they were not good in the

Johann Sebastian Bach, born in the year 1685, was a German born composer, virtuoso organist and keyboard player, a

Moving on into his early adulthood, Bach was hired to play in special services at a church

In 1700, his brother couldn’t house him anymore, and that was when Bach decided to move far away to attend the Latin School in Lüneburg. Because of his talent in singing, he was recommended for a Freistelle at the school, meaning free tuition, room and board. At this point, Bach was a competent instrumentalist. He learnt how to play the violin from his father, choral singing from school, and keyboard instruments from his older brother. He was hungry to improve and gain knowledge. Hence, even though forbidden, he would secretly copy music under the moonlight for months so that he could have a copy of his own for studying and practicing. By this age, other musical prodigies had already composed their own works. For example, Beethoven composed his rondo when he was fifteen years old. From just this incident, we can tell how dedicated and music hungry he was even as a young child. Bach was more famous as an organist than a composer during his lifetime. He had been interested in the organ for a long time, especially during his stay with his older brother in Ohrdruf. He was only allowed to listen and observe. But he always knew

Bach’s composition of music while he was in the church was the genres that were most used in a Lutheran church service, “…Bach focused on the genres used in the Lutheran services: chorale settings…toccatas, fantasias, preludes, and fugues…”( Burkholder 438). As seems to be the usual, Bach has known stuff from a very young age, and that’s still the case when it comes to the organ. Bach, from a young age, had a grasp on a pretty large variety of styles of organ music. From Northern Germany to Southern Germany and even Italian and French styles of organ playing. He was well aware of and admired composers such as Böhm, Pachelbel, and Frescobaldi. In fact, during his stay at Arnstadt, he actually walked to and tagged along on postal coaches for roughly 225 miles just to see Buxtehude, a Northern German composer,

Bach’s reputation was growing. He was a great performer. Another job he had was as an organist at the New Church in Arnstadt. His main contributions was as a musical instruction and performer of religious music for church services. At times Bach could be a conceited man. He didn’t cooperate well with his students. Church officials had reprimanded him for not rehearsing them often. While on leave from the church for a couple of weeks. Bach went to Lubeck to visit famed Dietrich Buxtehude. However, he extended his visit for seven months. Eventually, no one heard from him and that didn’t help the situation he was in. Awoken with joy, Bach received a new position as an organist in Muhlhausen at the Church of St. Blaise. The joy quickly ended with his new job because the pastor of the church wasn’t in favor of Bach’s playing style. His musical style during this time was bursting with complex arrangements incorporating different lines of melody. Like most church music in this period, the pastor preferred the music to be simple and delicate. Two of his famous pieces during this time is the “Acut Tragicus”.

He began to write preludes for organs but did not cover large- scale organization, when two melodies interact at the same time. A few years after playing for the church, Bach made a visit to Dieterich Buxtehude in Lubeck. This visit reinforced Bach’s style in music with the works he has made.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer during the Baroque Period of music. He was born on March 31st, 1685 in the town of Eisenach, Germany. He was the son of Johann Ambrosius Bach and Maria Elizabeth Lammerhirt. He had one brother and no other siblings that I could find when doing my research. His parents died when he was very young, and as a result, he went to live with his older brother until he was old enough to live on his own. He was educated at St. Michael's School in Germany, and received most of his upbringing during this time in his life when he lived with his brother and his brotherś wife.

By now Bach had high ideals for the church music of Germany. He began organizing the rather poor facilities of Muhlhausen; he started by making a large collection of the best German music available, including some of his own. The first result of these efforts was his cantata ‘Gott ist mein Konig’. This, incidentally, was the only one of Bach’s cantatas to be published during his lifetime. This success gave Bach the hope to put in a long and detailed report, proposing a complete renovation and improvement of the organ. The council agreed to carry the proposals out, and Bach was given the job as supervising the work, for not only now was he a brilliant player, but he became an expert on constructing organs.

He was one of eight siblings. His father Johann Ambrosius Bach and mother Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt and the rest of his family were already well known and recognized for their connection to music. In 1692 Bach began his education enrolling at Lateinschule, Eisenach which was a Latin school. The institution offered a General rather than a musical education. It is also believed that Bach sung soprano in the choir of St. Georg. Although here is not much information on Bach’s early and initial musical education due to being born into a very musically cultured family it is thought that he was initially taught music by family members. It is probable that his father who played string and wing instrument most likely taught him to play a stringed instrument. One point that was apparent in this stage of Bach’s musical development was his inability to play a keyboard instrument. According to one of his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach never actually learned to play keyboard until after he left Eisenach. Following the death of Bach’s mother and father he moved to Ohrdruf under the care of his older brother Johann Christoph Bach and continued his education there. Bach left Ohrdruf In 1700 when he was just 15 years of age. He travelled to Lüneburg, becoming a member of the choir at St Michael’s church, this gave him a small salary and enabled him to continue free education there. When Bach voice broke and he could no

His desire and need to put his skills to work later gave him the opportunity to work for the “household of Duke Johann Ernst” where he “served the younger, music-loving prince, who maintained a small chamber orchestra” this job gave Bach the opportunity that he needed to start his career (Terry 56). Bach had great success in later years of his life. It is a fact that few of Sebastian Bach work was printed even in his lifetime. Geck states that among the handwritten surviving works is “Clavier-Übung” the longest and most significant work published in 1726 and 1742 (23). This is a piece of his work that was not even printed but just handwritten. In Bach’s success we have the privilege of having “six sonatas, and partitas for solo violin and six cellos suites” all written in the handwriting of his first wife Anna Magdalena Bach (Geck 23). His magical world consisted of many works that he perform for different kinds of events. There is evidence recorded stated by Wolf in the book The World of The Bach Cantatas that he worked from weddings to council elections to even funerals and more (9). In recorded history there is about “1,000 of Bach's compositions” something that is incredible for such a remarkable man (Wolff 45). From fugues that were more of private matters to for example, his famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 works. To this day are played in scary movies, ballets, dance routines, theater routines, videos and enjoyed by anyone with an exquisite music taste. Kupferberg mentions in his book, Basically Bach A 300th birthday celebration, that there was a production of about 300 church cantatas during his 27 years in Leipzig (81). To conclude, Bach's death came on July 28, 1750 being married and remarried and having a total of 20 children with two women Bach left behind a splendid legacy for not just his family to be proud of but also for the enjoyment of

Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770. His father, a music enthusiast, dreamed of molding his son into the next Mozart. Beethoven never showed the impressive characteristics of Mozart, but he was unusually talented, learning the piano, organ and violin at a very early age. At 14, he was already skilled enough on the organ to receive a professional appointment (Beethoven). He held positions as an assistant organist in the electoral chapel where he obtained his first

Location: Bach grew up in Eisenach, Germany but moved around for most his life to many different areas before finally settling in Leipzig, Germany