Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685 in the town of Eisenach located in Thuringia, Germany. This was an urban district with many cities each with its own musicians and musical director. Not all of the composers were German, some were French, English, or Polish. There were probably many different styles of music to be heard. The church where Bach was born is still standing, and the font where he was baptized is still inside of it. Eventually Bach will turn into an amazing musician and composer. He was a genius from a very young age and it showed in his music early on in his life. On July 28, 1750 at the age of 65 Bach dies of a stroke in Leipzig, Germany. He wrote and composed a lot of music that would never be published during …show more content…
He later becomes a court musician in the church Weimar, but he is only there for about seven months. After that at the age of he went to inspect the new organ at the church in Arnstadt. This was a short turbulent time for Bach. There he would get into a swordfight with the bassoonist who Bach said played like nanny goat. He was known to have been seen sneaking off going to drink at the pub. There was also a time when he snuck a woman up into the organ room. Even leaving town for four months even though He was only given four weeks leave. He was gone for all this time to go visit with a great composer of the time named Dieterrich Buxtehude. The town he went to was 260 miles away, and Bach walked the entire way. This time spent in Arnstadt was Bach just being a hooligan, what young virtuoso making good money wouldn’t do the things he did. He was very self-assured during this time in his life. At Bach’s new post in Muhlhausen he wrote a cantata titled Gott is mein Konig (God Is My King) for the new council at the St. Blasius’ Church. The piece he wrote was very well received and becomes a major success. He leaves Mulhausen, and goes back to Weimar Bach marries his cousin Maria Barbara who he has seven children with, only four who
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
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
Johann Sebastian Bach was born the 31st of March, 1685 and died the 28 July 1750. He was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and over three hundred cantatas of which around two hundred survive. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth.
Johan Sabastian Bach was a very talented German Composer who wrote music in the Baroque time period. He was born March 31st , 1685, and lived until July 28th, 1750. He was born in Eisenach Germany, into a family of musical talents. In Germany at this time, they had just gone through the Scientific Revolution, and they were starting the Industrial Revolution, and Enlightenment. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the director of the town musicians, and a lot of his extended family were also professional musicians. After his dad and brother sparked his interest into music, Bach decided to attended St. Michael's School in Luneburg for two years. After graduation he became the director of music for a German Prince, he became the director of music at several Lutheran churches, and taught music at the St. Thomas school. His most famous pieces ________ were called exquisite due to his artistic
However, he was working for Duke Wilheim Ernst and he refused to let Bach quit. The Duke even imprisoned Bach for several weeks when he tried to leave. His time in prison was not wasted though. While he was there he wrote forty-six pieces of music. He was eventually released and was able to go to Cothen. He devoted much of his time there to instrumental music composing concertos for orchestra, dance suites and even sonatas for multiple instruments. He also wrote some of his finest violin works and additional pieces for solo
Bach family throughout Thuringia had held positions such as organists, town instrumentalists or cantors, and the family named enjoyed a wide reputation for musical talent. Bach was the youngest out of the 18 kids. At an early age Johann Sebastian Bach lost a sister and later a brother. When he was 9 years old his mother died, barely 9 months later his father died. Johann Sebastian and one of his brothers, Johann Jakob were taken into the home of their great uncle Johann Christoph who had recently married and settled down at Ohrdruf, a small town thirty miles south-east of Eisenach. At the end of 1703, 18 year old Sebastian took up his post at the small town of Amstadt. Bach arrived at Muhlhausen, a small Thuringian town, proud of its ancient foundation and independence to take up the post of organist to the town. Shortly after his arrival, he brought his cousin Maria Barbara Bach from Amstadt, and on October 17th 1707, he married her at the small church in the picturesque little village of Doomheim. Maria Barbara come of a broneh of the musical Bach family, her father being organist at
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.
When Bach was eight years old he went to the old Latin Grammar School. He was taught reading and writing, Latin grammar, and a great deal of scripture, both in Latin and German. The boys in the school formed the choir of the St. Georgenkirche. This also gave Bach an opportunity to sing in the regular services, as well as in the nearby villages. He has an uncommonly fine treble voice.
Born in Eisenach on March, 21 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was the youngest son of Johann Ambrosius Bach and Elizabeth Limmerhirt. His Father was a prominent town musician from a highly respected musical family and at the time of his birth served as the director of municipal music in Eisenach (Williams 9). He got his name Johann from his father’s family as was the tradition and his middle name, Sebastian, was that of his God-father, another musician in Eisenach. Nothing is written or known about his early musical education but, one could assume that he received instruction from his father and various other relatives based on the musical accomplishments of his immediate and extended family.
Johann Sebastian Bach, a composer from the Baroque period, is one of the most influential and famous composers of all time. Examples of some famous musicians he has influenced are, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, and Robert Schumann. Bach wrote over a thousand works, and many of them are masterpieces which people still listen to today. This paper covers his life and upbringing to see what he went through as a composer. A list of Bach’s surviving works is provided at the end of the paper. We will discover if he was as famous as he is today and why he is known as one of the greatest composers of all time.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Central Germany in Eisenach on March 21, 1685(2). His father, grandfather, and great grandfather were involved with music, which made Bach destined to take part in music(1). Before Bach was ten years old his parents has passed and he went to live with his oldest brother(2). His brother had taught him how to play the harpsichord and the clavichord(2). At the age of fifteen Bach had left his brother and supported himself by singing in church choir and playing the organ and the violin and by the age of eighteen he became an organist at Arnstadt(1). A couple years later on October 17th, 1707, Bach had got married to Maria Barbara, his second cousin, and had seven children(1). About thirteen years later Maria had passed (1720). Then, on December 3rd, 1721 he was remarried to a woman named Anna Magdalena, which they had 13 children(1).