Johann Sebastian Bach Research Paper

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 grew up in a large German home with five brothers and two sisters. However his family was different than other families, his family was known as a musical family, “For over two centuries, the Bach’s were a family of successful musicians, constituting an example that was exceptional even among their contemporaries and has seemed increasingly spectacular to each succeeding age.” Not only did his immediate family play an instrument, but all of the generations of his family played a musical instrument. Musical talent in this family has been traced back to Bach’s great grandfather. Johann Ambrosius Bach, Bach’s father, taught him and his siblings to learn and love two traditional instruments for the Baroque period: the violin and the harpsichord. Bach had a natural talent for instruments, which had probably been passed on to him through his father’s genes. While he was still a child, Johann Ambrosius Bach died eight days after his belovéd wife, so now, “both his parents were dead, and he was looked after by his eldest brother, also named Johann Christoph”. Bach’s brother followed a busy schedule, was in charge of his six brothers and sisters and he, “was appointed town organist in Eisenach in 1665. He or his assistant was expected to be present for all services on all Sundays, feasts, and celebratory days as well as weekdays and to play organ during the choraliter.” During Bach’s schooling years, his brother Johann Christoph Bach inspired him to play, repair and tune the organ as a willing

In Weimar, he assumed the post of organist and concertmaster in the chapel. He remained in Weimar for nine years, and there he composed his first wave of major works, including organ showpieces and cantatas.<br><br>By this stage in his life, Bach had developed a reputation as a brilliant, yet inflexible, musical talent. His qualities on the organ was unequaled in Europe, in fact, he toured regularly as a solo virtuoso. His growing mastery of compositional forms, like the fugue and the canon, was already attracting interest from the musical establishment - which, in his day, was the Lutheran church. But, like many people of great talent, he was never very good at playing the political game, and consequently suffered drawbacks in his career. He was passed over for a major position, which was Kapellmeister (Chorus Master) of Weimar, in 1716. Partly in reaction to this situation, he left Weimar the following year to take a job as court conductor in Anhalt-Cothen. There, he slowed his writings of church cantatas, and instead concentrated on instrumental music. His time Anhalt-Cothen in period produced, along with other masterpieces, the Brandenburg Concerti.<br><br>While at Cothen, Bach's wife, Maria Barbara, died. Bach remarried soon after to Anna Magdalena and went ahead with his work. He also went ahead in the baby making department, producing 13 children with his new wife - six of which survived

Bach’s complex compositional style incorporates religious and numerological symbols that fit perfectly together in a puzzle of musical code. Demanding unfaltering facility in dexterity, precise pitch, particularly in the multiple stoppings, as well as sensitivity to implied polyphonic and harmonic textures. These exceptional works may be the closest thing we have to a “perfect” composition, so why is it that musicians have drastically different alterations and interpretations of his works? It is as if quality, intensity, duration, and even pitch are subject to the performer’s adaptation. By mapping out these alterations performers make to Bach’s music, it becomes possible to map out their respective musical personalities.

Bach’s attention was the music in the text. There was singing, the playing of cymbals, harps,

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’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”.

Bach began to play the organ, which is the instrument he would later on be noted for in history.

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.

Bach held various positions: court violinist, chamber musician, and organist. Bach had his first appointments at Arnstadt and Muhlhausen. During this period he wrote his first cantatas and a number of preludes and fugues. He also married Maria Barbara, a church choir singer. His first major appointment was as court organist and chamber musician to the Duke of Weimar. In Weimar he composed cantatas, and wrote much organ music for the church. Bach's first wife died and he remarried Anna Magdalena Wilcke, who was a singer and also the daughter of a court musician. Bach's last appointment was as Cantor of St. Thomas School in Leipzig.( 1964-2014 M&L Sartorius "Johann Sebastian Bach: a detailed informative biography") Bach's responsibilities included teaching, composing, directing choirs, and supervising the musical activities in several churches. He also was the director of a collegium music. Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations, Art of Fugue, and other important large-scale works during the Leipzig period. During this time Bach travelled to the court of Frederick the Great where his son CPE Bach became employed. JS Bach improvised on a theme provided by the king and this became

During the later years of his life Bach gradually withdrew inwards, producing some of the most profound statements of the baroque musical form. Bach’s creative energy was conserved for the highest flights of musical expression: the Mass in b

It has been said by many critics that Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most influential composers of all time. It is evident that in Bach’s lifetime, excluding Opera, he seemed to master almost every genre of music existing in his lifetime as well as helping to invent several new ones, the most recognisable of these creations was the keyboard sonata.  However, soon after Bach’s