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Johann Sebastian Bach [n 2] 31 March [ O. He is known for his orchestral music such as the Brandenburg Concertos ; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites ; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier ; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor ; and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor.
Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. From he was employed as Thomaskantor cantor at St Thomas's in Leipzig.
There he composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From he published some of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by his sovereign, Augustus III , Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions.
He died of complications after eye surgery in at the age of Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint , harmonic , and motivic organisation, [4] and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include hundreds of cantatas , both sacred and secular. He composed Latin church music , Passions , oratorios , and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns , not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs.
He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments. He composed concertos , for instance for violin and for harpsichord , and suites , as chamber music as well as for orchestra.
Many of his works employ the genres of canon and fugue. Throughout the 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an organist , while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier , was appreciated for its didactic qualities.
The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach biographies , and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals and later also websites exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works and new critical editions of his compositions.
His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements , including the Air on the G String and " Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring ", and of recordings, such as three different box sets with complete performances of the composer's oeuvre marking the th anniversary of his death.
His uncles were all professional musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians, and composers.
Bach's mother died in , and his father died eight months later. By 3 April , Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmann — who was two years Bach's elder — were enrolled in the prestigious St.
In addition to singing in the choir, he played the school's three-manual organ and harpsichords. In January , shortly after graduating from St. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboardist spread so much that he was invited to inspect the new organ and give the inaugural recital at the New Church now Bach Church in Arnstadt , located about 30 kilometres 19 mi southwest of Weimar.
Despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir. He called one of them a "Zippel Fagottist" weenie bassoon player. Late one evening this student, named Geyersbach, went after Bach with a stick. Bach filed a complaint against Geyersbach with the authorities.
They acquitted Geyersbach with a minor reprimand and ordered Bach to be more moderate regarding the musical qualities he expected from his students. The visit to Buxtehude involved a kilometre mi journey each way, reportedly on foot. She remained to help run the household until her death in Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara had three more children, who however did not live to their first birthday, including twins born in 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 include influences from abroad.
He learned to write dramatic openings and employ the dynamic 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 wind concertos for harpsichord and organ; many of these transcribed works are still regularly performed.
Bach was particularly attracted to the Italian style, in which one or more solo instruments alternate section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a movement. In Weimar, Bach continued to play and compose for the organ and perform concert music with the duke's ensemble.
Bach also started work on the Little Organ Book in Weimar, containing traditional Lutheran chorale tunes set in complex textures. In , Bach was offered a post in Halle when he advised the authorities during a renovation by Christoph Cuntzius of the main organ in the west gallery of the Market Church of Our Dear Lady. In the spring of , Bach was promoted to Konzertmeister , an honour that entailed performing a church cantata monthly in the castle church.
BWV for Pentecost. In , Bach eventually fell out of favour in Weimar and, according to a translation of the court secretary's report, was jailed for almost a month before being unfavourably dismissed: "On November 6, [], the quondam [former] concertmaster and organist Bach was confined to the County Judge's place of detention for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal and finally on December 2 was freed from arrest with notice of his unfavourable discharge.
Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach's talents, paid him well and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. The prince was a Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his worship; accordingly, most of Bach's work from this period was secular, [45] including the orchestral suites , cello suites , sonatas and partitas for solo violin , and Brandenburg Concertos.
Despite being born in the same year and only about kilometres 80 mi apart, Bach and Handel never met. In , Bach was appointed Thomaskantor , Cantor of the St.
Thomas School at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, which provided music for four churches in the city: the St. Thomas Church and St. Nicholas Church and to a lesser extent the New Church and St. Peter's Church. Johann Kuhnau had been Thomaskantor in Leipzig from until his death on 5 June Bach had visited Leipzig during Kuhnau's tenure: in he attended the service at the St. Thomas Church on the first Sunday of Advent, [56] and in he had tested the organ of the St.
Paul's Church. After being offered the position, Bach was invited to Leipzig only after Georg Philipp Telemann indicated that he would not be interested in relocating to Leipzig. Bach was required to instruct the students of the Thomasschule in singing and provide church music for the main churches in Leipzig. He was also assigned to teach Latin but was allowed to employ four "prefects" deputies to do this instead.
The prefects also aided with musical instruction. Bach usually led performances of his cantatas , most of which were composed within three years of his relocation to Leipzig.
Nicholas Church on 30 May , the first Sunday after Trinity. Bach collected his cantatas in annual cycles. Five are mentioned in obituaries, three are extant. Bach started a second annual cycle the first Sunday after Trinity of and composed only chorale cantatas , each based on a single church hymn. Bach drew the soprano and alto choristers from the school and the tenors and basses from the school and elsewhere in Leipzig. Performing at weddings and funerals provided extra income for these groups; it was probably for this purpose, and for in-school training, that he wrote at least six motets.
Bach's predecessor as cantor, Johann Kuhnau , had also been music director for the St. Paul's Church, the church of Leipzig University. But when Bach was installed as cantor in , he was put in charge only of music for festal church holiday services at the St.
Paul's Church; his petition to also provide music for regular Sunday services there for a corresponding salary increase went all the way to the Elector but was denied. After this, in , Bach "lost interest" in working even for festal services at the St. Paul's Church and appeared there only on "special occasions". Paul's Church had a much better and newer organ than did the St. Thomas Church or the St.
Nicholas Church. Paul's Church organ "for his own pleasure". Bach broadened his composing and performing beyond the liturgy by taking over, in March , the directorship of the Collegium Musicum , a secular performance ensemble started by Telemann. This was one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities that were established by musically active university students; these societies had become increasingly important in public musical life and were typically led by the most prominent professionals in a city.
In the words of Christoph Wolff , assuming the directorship was a shrewd move that "consolidated Bach's firm grip on Leipzig's principal musical institutions". The concerts, all free of charge, ended with Gottfried Zimmermann's death in He presented the manuscript to the Elector in an eventually successful bid to persuade the prince to give him the title of Court Composer.
Bach's appointment as Court Composer was an element of his long-term struggle to achieve greater bargaining power with the Leipzig council. The king played a theme for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue based on his theme. Bach obliged, playing a three-part fugue on one of Frederick's fortepianos by Gottfried Silbermann , [87] which was a new type of instrument at the time. Upon his return to Leipzig he composed a set of fugues and canons, and a trio sonata, based on the Thema Regium theme of the king.
Within a few weeks this music was published as The Musical Offering and dedicated to Frederick. Two large-scale compositions occupied a central place in Bach's last years. From around he wrote and revised the various canons and fugues of The Art of Fugue , which he continued to prepare for publication until shortly before his death. Although the complete mass was never performed during the composer's lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest choral works in history.
Bach's health was, however, declining. An inventory drawn up a few months after Bach's death shows that his estate included five harpsichords , two lute-harpsichords , three violins , three violas , two cellos , a viola da gamba , a lute and a spinet , along with 52 "sacred books", including works by Martin Luther and Josephus. From an early age, Bach studied the works of his musical contemporaries of the Baroque period and those of prior generations, and those influences were reflected in his music.
Bach's music was harmonically more innovative than his peer composers, employing surprisingly dissonant chords and progressions, often with extensive exploration of harmonic possibilities within one piece. The hundreds of sacred works Bach created are usually seen as manifesting not just his craft but also a truly devout relationship with God.
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