Johann Sebastian Bach Research Paper

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 his compositions he gave no mind to breaks or regular breathing intervals for vocalists, demanding only the best from everyone always. His largest and most celebrated work, Mass in B Minor, was the majority of his most famous works which remained unperformed in his lifetime. Bach was able to use the best melodies and vocal standards from both secular and sacred music to create masterful works all for the glory of God. Although blind in the last two years of his life he was still able to compose and did so right up until his death in 1750. His last fugue was filled with all of the greatest parts of his style but seems to end abruptly just as his life did. Buried and remembered more as a keyboard and organist, Bach became one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived having graced us with several works that were way ahead of their

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

In the spring of 1723, when Bach signed a contract to become the new organist and a teacher at the St. Thomas Church and Thomas School in Leipzig, he was already known more as an organist than a composer. Bach had an extraordinary ability to improvise on the organ and was able to compose various style of music. He wrote educational works for his pupil and his duties were mainly to provide the weekly worships of cantatas. And also, his publication of keyboard pieces had very little to do with his duties. However, his pride as a composer was determined to publish these partitas. He also competed with Johann Kuhnau, who was a well-known composer at Germany at this time.

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

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.

Bach also never published any of his music because he thought it was less than perfect. He wrote music for his enjoyment and self-fulfillment. He never attempted to make himself known through his musical works (Herz 1).

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

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.

Johann Sebastian Bach is known as one of the greatest German composers of all time. He contributed a lot to the Enlightenment era (1685-1815). His music was used much for religious worship. His work is iconic because he was the “supreme master of counterpoint, allowing him to write music as the musical equivalent of textual ideas” (Bach, Johann Sebastian). He was orphaned at the age of ten and taken in by his brother, Johann Christoph. He took after his brother, and by 15, he was singing in the choir at St. Michaels Church. By 18, he was a violinist in the chamber orchestra of Duke Johann Ernst. He then left that church to be the church organist at Arnstadt instead. There, the church let Bach leave to study with Dietrich Buxtehude, a composer

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.

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,

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