Johann Sebastian Bach Research Paper

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

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.

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 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)

Bach 's time in Weimar was the start of a sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works. He attained the proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing structures and to include influences from abroad. He learned to write dramatic openings and employ the dynamic motor rhythms and harmonic schemes found in the music of Italians such as Vivaldi, Corelli, and Torelli. Bach absorbed these stylistic aspects in part by transcribing Vivaldi 's string and

So Bach moved on to the job in Weimar, which gave him greater musical freedom. His main duties were court organist and chamber musician to the reigning Duke Wilhelm Ernst, and he afterwards attained the job of conductor to the court orchestra in his last three years of service. It was at the beginning of this period of work that he wrote some of his most famous organ pieces, including the marvelous Passacaglia.

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.

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.

A perfect example of this can be seen in Arnstadt. Previous accounts of history claim that Bach was upset with the performance of the church choir for which he played for. He claimed that “the voices could never make the music soar to the sky as it should” (loosely translated). Here Bach realized the high level of music and perfectionism that he wanted. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach moved on from Arnstadt to another organist job, this time at the St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen. Once again he did not remain there too long, only a little over a year, when he moved again to Weimar where he accepted the position of head concertmaster and organist in the Ducal Chapel. It was here that Bach settled himself and began to compose the first collection of his finest early works which, included organ pieces and cantatas.

He was now looking for a job. He wanted the post as organist of Arnstadt where a new organ was being built. After a short period as a violinist in Weimar he was indeed offered the post in Arnstadt. However, problems arose when Bach composed a piece full of “strange” new sounds for a church service. The Council decided to be lenient with him until he refused to work with the boys’ choir and was found to have a complaint against him for entertaining a young woman in the organ loft of the church. Thus was the end of his first job. He moved on to Muhlhausen and married his cousin Maria Barbara on October 17, 1707. He got a job in Muhlhausen and set to work on the poor facilities he had to work with there. His efforts here brought about his first cantata Gott ist Mein Konig (God is My King), the only one of his cantatas to be published in his life time. This was thanks to the Council’s desire for publicity and prestige. A religious controversy soon arose and the music in Muhlhausen was in a state of decay. Bach.was off to find another job. On June 25, 1708, the Duke of Weimar offered Bach a post among the Duke’s Court chamber musicians. Bach and his wife moved to the small town of Weimar. While in Weimar Bach composed music exclusively for the organ, which he played. By 1714 Bach had moved up in status and was now the leader in the orchestra, second only to the old Kapellmeister. When the old Kapellmeister died Bach had hoped to

Bach face an immense amount of changes and challenges starting at an alarmingly early age. Bach was born in Eisenach in 1685. Eisenach was famous for being the place where Martin Luther studied latin and later on translated the New Testament from Greek to German while hidden away in the Wartburg castle. This was

At the age of fifteen, Bach left Ohrdruff and began to provide for himself. His career began when he obtained a position in the choir of the wealthy Michaelis monastery at Lüneburg, which was known to provide a free place for boys who were poor but with musical talent, and he earned a monthly salary of twelve groschen. Bach was praised for his unique soprano voice in Lüneburg, was a member of the top choir, and had opportunities of taking part in the works of interesting eighteenth-century composers, including Heinrich Schutz, Scheidt, Pachelbel. When he lost his soprano voice, he became a violinist in the orchestra, and played accompaniment on the harpsichord. A major influence in his life was Georg Böhm, who was the organist at St. John’s Church. Böhm was taught by the famous musician John Adam Reinken, who was the organist at St. Catherine in Hamburg. This influenced Bach to take multiple trips to Hamburg, a city with a cosmopolitan atmosphere and where music flourished. He was able to listen to the great Reincken, and even wrote organ tablatures of his work. Even as a teenager, it was clear that Bach was dedicated to his craft. He also came under the

Bach’s fame continued to increase until both his keyboard and vocal work were known throughout Europe. Approximately two hundred books were written about him in the 19th century, a very large number for any posthumous compsoer. A major biography was published by Philipp Spitta in 1873 (Domling : The Bach Tradition of the 19th and 20th Centuries,” in Johann Sebastian Bach: Life Times and Influence, 161) as well as a complete edition of his works published in 1900 that took fifty years to complete (Dents Arnold, “Bach,”New Oxford Companion to Music, 1983 ed.) . The performance of the St. Matthew passion in Paris in 1885 and of the B minor mass in Rome in 1889 were milestones in the international recognition of Bach (Schweltzer, J.S Bach, 259). Bach societies appeared throughout Europe in the second half of the century to perform his music(J.S Bach, “Great Composers 1300-1900,

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685, as the youngest of eight children. Bach was a product of one of the greatest musical family’s, and would become one of the most influenceial composers of all time. Bach lived in the heart of the reformation era and believe that all music should be to the glory of God and for the recreation of the mind. His father was a great trumpeter/violinist; his brothers were organists and keyboarders, to which Bach drew most of his influence and education. Bach was a member of the Lutheran faith and a great fan of the works and beliefs of Martin Luther. Bach tried to give depth and color to church music as he successfully added dimension to God’s word.

According to the John Hawkins’s A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a musical family. He was the son of a formal musician, John Ambrose Bach and the younger brother of an organist, John Christopher Bach. From a young age, Johann Sebastian Bach has learned to play Harpsichord and Organ. With these instruments, he started to pursue his career in music as an organist and a chamber musician at many churches.