Benjamin Bach Biography

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

In addition, Bach was a virtuoso on the organ. He also served as an organ consultant, and composer of organ works, like toccatas, chorale preludes, and fugues. He had a reputation for having great creativity, and he was able to integrate many national styles into his works. Many of his works are said to have North German influences that were taught to Bach by Georg Bröhm. Bach also copied the works of many French and Italian composers in order to decipher their compositional languages. Later on, he arranged several violin concertos by Vivaldi for organ. Most experts of musical composition believe that the years, between 1708 and 1714, were his most productive. Within this period, he composed several preludes, fugues, and toccatas. During this span, Bach wrote the Little Organ Book, Orgelbüchlein. This book remains an unfinished collection of forty-nine short chorale preludes.

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

Born on March 21st 1685, Bach was the son of Johann Ambrosious, who was the court musician for the Duke of Eisenach. Alongside being a musician for the duke Ambrosious was the director of musicians for the town of Eisenach. The Bach family

He was of significance to his pupils and contempory musical connoisseurs in a way that set the foundation for the rest of Western Art music to follow. For many Bach is like coming home, in fact, “…in old Bach there is always something astonishing, and, what is the main thing, there is always something to be learned from

The ideas and beliefs brought forth by the Camerata and many others were whole and acted as a benchmark for moving forward in music, but the ideas of past musical structures had not been forgotten. Polyphony which had seemed to be a key part of the stile antico with its many rules on line and counterpoint made a strong return through the Prelude and Fugue, particularly by Johann Sebastian Bach. J.S. Bach wrote many organ pieces with long and fluid contrapuntal passages still following the ideals set in the prima practica. Many of Bach’s works had outlines brought pieces by such composers as Palestrina who some consider the father of the first practice. Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine gave Bach a strong inspiration for his particularly famous Mass in B Minor. Through this polyphony Bach was able to inspire the Lutheran Church as well as the works of many other composers who would later use his works as basis for their own. Many of the composers who would do this would move out of the Church setting and into private parties and royal houses to entertain, which was not heard of by the earlier predecessors of Polyphony who would have stayed in the churches. These men would have only gone outside of the church if the King or a royal call was offered and would then return to the church for duties.

The next two years were ones of sufficient production of original pieces for organ by Bach. His talent definitely did not go unnoticed. He was even given a diamond ring by the Crown Prince Fredrick of Sweden when he heard Bach perform. His fame came from his amazing ability to play the organ and not his compositions, yet. A few years later the Prince Leopold of Cothen Germany offered him a position to conduct the court orchestra. Although Bach had to spend a month in jail before starting his job, this opportunity led to the prime years of not only his musical career but also his

When Bach was only nine years old, both of his parents died; thus, he moved with his brother and learned about music with him at Ohrdruf. Bach stayed with his brother until he decided to travel northern Germany on his own. Bach’s first job was as a musician at the court of Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar in 1703, had a wide variety of jobs there because of his versatile skills. Many of Bach’s early careers include moving from church to church composing or performing music for the mass, so he was soon recognized by nobles and aristocrats for his talent. The Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar hired Bach, and Bach created some of his most famous works there, such as “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen hired Bach as well. With Leopold’s support, Bach wrote pieces for solo instruments, specifically for the violin. He also wrote keyboard practices to help his students learn techniques for playing

In 1726, after three and half years at Leipzig, Bach started to publish his own works. He was full of carefulness and cautiousness to publish his works. At this time, his ideal style was not to be as long in length as English Suites, not as delicate as French Suites, simple but meaningful and virtuoso. He also targeted the piece to amateur musicians to play for their own pleasure at home and salons, rather than large public performance venues, because in those times, keyboard had become the favorite family instrument among the growing number of middle-class amateur musicians.

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

Handel and Bach are considered two of the greatest composers of all time. However, when comparing the output of these two musicians, the diversity manifest in music in the era when they wrote immediately becomes apparent. Handel, although he used religious subject matter, is usually characterized as fundamentally a 'secular' composer. He composed for the concert hall, not the church, and primarily as a result of royal commissions. His music is strident, powerful, and large in scope. It is designed to entertain, rather than to spur contemplation (The pure power of Handel's 'Hallelujah Chorus', NPR, 2008). Bach, in contrast, often created music designed to be performed in sacred spaces. His music is more fluid and nuanced in style and designed more to spur contemplation and devotion rather than excite people's interest as a piece of entertainment.

In 1706 Bach decided that he wanted to further his career in music and made the first change by leaving his organ playing position at the church and took upon a new position in Munhlhausen at the St. Blasius as an organist there (Johann Sebastian BACH). This change was for the best because the church was larger and located in a city that was important to the north. A few months after being an organist at the St. Blasius church he married his second cousin Maria Barbara Bach. After a year of Bach being a organist for St. Blasius, he was offered a better position in Weimar. Bach took the offer with pride and became their new court organist and concertmaster at the ducal court. Johann and Maria Bach decided to start their family, after their first born child, Marias unwed sister moved into their home to help with raising their children. Maria and Johann Bach had a total of seven children. The gifted musically talented family continued as two of Bach children, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach became vital composers following the baroque period.

Bach was a prolific composer during the later parts of the baroque period, he was also a prolific concerto composer also, He himself composing many pieces in concerto form. Most of these works were composed around 1720. Bach was the Kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen during this period; this was also the period in which his wife died suddenly, perhaps striking inspiration. Many of Bach’s concertos used additional and varied instrumentation to those of Corelli and the concerto grosso form. They often had woodwind and brass instruments such as the oboe, recorder, trumpet and piccolo. There was no standard instrumentation for Bach’s concertos, the instruments he used varied from piece to piece. To contrast this, Bach’s concerto No. 1 used two horns, three oboes, a violino piccolo accompanied by the bassoon, a strings section (similar to a

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21st 1685. He is the son of Johann Ambrosius. For many years, members of the Bach family had held positions such as organists, town instrumentalists, or Cantors.