Bach JS

Johann Sebastian Bach

Achievements: Musical genius

Born: March 21, 1685; Eisenach, Thuringia

Died: July 28, 1750; Leipzig, Germany (Aged 65)

Field & Discipline: Music; Composer

Language: German

Father: Johann Ambrosius Bach

Mother: Maria Elisabeth Lemmerhirt (m. 1668)

Siblings: 7 siblings, 4 surviving: Johann Christoph; Johann Balthasar; Johann Jacob; Maria Salome

Spouse: 1) Maria Barbara Bach (distant cousin, m. 1707); 2) Anna Magdalena Wilcken (m. 1721)

Children: 7 children from first marriage and 13 from second marriage, 10 surviving.  Wilhelm Friedemann; [father of] Carl Philipp Emanuel*; Johann Gottfried Bernhard; Gottfried Heinrich; Johann Christoph Friedrich; Johann Christan

Education: Lateinschule, Eisenbach (1692-95); Lyceum, Ohrdruf (1695-1700);  

Michaels Church, Luneburg (1700-01)

Major Work:

“St. Matthew Passion” (1729)

Life & Times:

When he was nearly 18 Johann Sebastian decided he would try to find employment as an organist in Thuringia.  He was greatly interested in an organ under construction in the new church of Arnstadt and, as members of his family had been professionally active in the district for generations, he felt he had a good chance of getting the post of organist. 

While awaiting the completion of the organ at Arnstadt, Johann Sebastian was offered and accepted the post of violinist in the small chamber orchestra of Duke Johann Ernst, the younger brother of the Duke of Weimar.   At Weimar he now came into contact with Italian instrumental music and acted as deputy to the aging court organist, Effler, an old friend of the Bach family, thus having a chance to keep his organ playing in practice.  His stay here was short, although he was to return in 1708.

In July 1703 the Arnstadt Town Council invited young Bach to try out the newly finished organ in the “New Church.”  He so impressed the people of the town with his brilliant playing at the dedication that he was immediately offered the post of organist on very favourable terms.  At the end of the year, 18-year-old Johann Sebastian took up his post and began to perfect his playing technique and style of composition.  For the following Easter, he produced a cantata, collected together an orchestra of strings, three trumpets and drums to support his choir and staggered the faithful of Arnstadt with a brilliant performance.

In October 1705, the Church Council granted Bach leave to visit the north-German city of Lubeck to hear the great organist, [inspired by] Buxtehude*.  In Lubeck he took every chance to attend the famous evening concerts in the Marienkirche when Buxtehude's church cantatas were performed.  Bach was so fascinated by these concerts and by his discussions on the arts with the great master, that he remained in Lubeck over Christmas until the following February.

He returned to Arnstadt full of new ideas and enthusiasm which he immediately put into practice in his playing.  The congregation was surprised and bewildered by his new musical ideas and there was considerable confusion during the singing of the chorales, caused by his “surprising variations and irrelevant ornaments which obliterate the melody and confuse the congregation.”

The Church Council decided to reprimand Bach on his “strange sounds” during the services and they also asked him to explain the unauthorized extension of his leave in Lubeck.  Other disputes arose and at the end of 1706, Bach heard that the organist to the town of Muhlhausen had died.  Knowing that Muhlhausen had a long musical tradition, he applied for the post and after yet another very successful audition at the cathedral-like St Blasius Church on Easter Sunday 1707, he was accepted.

In June 1707 Bach arrived at Muhlhausen, a small Thuringian town.  Shortly after his arrival, he brought his cousin Maria Barbara from Arnstadt and on October 17^th 1707 they married at the small church in the village of Dornheim.   Maria Barbara came from a branch of the musical Bach family, her father being organist at Gehren.

By now Bach had high ideals for the church music of Germany and set about training the choir and a newly created orchestra to play his music.  The first result of these efforts was his cantata “Gott ist mein Konig,” written to celebrate the inauguration of the Town Council in February 1708.  Then in early 1708, the Duke of Weimar offered him a post among his Court chamber musicians and on June 25^th 1708, Bach resigned from Mulhausen.

Bach's two-fold position as member of the Weimar chamber orchestra and as organist to the court offered him many opportunities for improvement.  The court orchestra consisted of about 22 players, with a compact string ensemble, a bassoon player, 6 or 7 trumpeters and a timpanist.  Bach's function in the orchestra was mainly as a violinist, but he also played the harpsichord and occasionally wrote or arranged some of the music. 

As court organist, Bach had succeeded Johann Effler, a musician of some standing.  Bach was also a frequent visitor to the nearby Rote Schloss, the home of the former Duke's widow and her two music-loving sons.   At Rote Schloss, the interest was in the new Italian style of music which was then becoming the rage of Europe, one of the chief exponents being the Venetian composer [influenced by] Vivaldi*.  Bach and his cousin Johann Georg Walther transcribed some of the Italian instrumental concertos for keyboard instruments.

During 1717, Bach was introduced to the court of Anhalt-Kothen and was offered the post of Kapellmeister, which he accepted.   At Anhalt-Kothen, Bach was Kapellmeister to the young prince Leopold, barely 25 years old.    He soon became very friendly with his new Kapellmeister, and would often ask his advice on various matters.  For Bach, life at Kothen was informal and easy-going.  During this period he wrote four overtures, the six French and six English suites, several concertos for one and two violins and more for various ensembles were written.  Six of the latter, now known as the “Brandenburg Concertos” were sent in 1721 to the Margrave of Brandenburg, who had commissioned them.

When the Prince travelled, Bach and some of the court musicians would accompany him on his extensive journeys.  Twice they visited Karlsbad, the meeting place of the European aristocracy, in 1718 and in the summer of 1720.  During the second trip his wife died,   In the autumn of 1720 Bach was asked to compose and perform cantatas for the Prince's birthday and the New Year; two for each occasion, one sacred and one secular.  To perform these works,  singers were employed under contract from nearby courts and one of these, Anna Magdalena, daughter of J.C. Wilcke, court and field-trumpeter at Weissenfels, attracted Bach's attention with her fine soprano voice.  In December 1721, Anna Magdalena and Bach married, she at the age of 20 and he 36.

Bach decided to look around for a new position and the death of Johann Kuhnau, Cantor of the Thomasschule at Leipzig, in June 1722, opened the possibility of an appointment. The post was first offered to [employed instead of] Telemann*, but the Hamburg authorities refused to release him, so Bach applied for the post and was accepted.  Bach left with his family for Leipzig, arriving on 31^st May 1723, remaining there for the rest of his life.

Leipzig was the second city of Saxony, the center of the German printing and publishing industries, an important European trading center and site of a progressive and famous university. The Cantor's duties at the Thomasschule were to organize the music in the four principal churches of Leipzig and to form choirs for these churches from the pupils of the Thomasschule.  He was also to instruct the more musically talented scholars in instrument playing, so that they might be available for the church orchestra.  In his first five years' there, between 1723 and 1729 Bach worked hard to establish a large repertoire of cantatas, composing them at a rate of one nearly every week.  In 1729, he produced one of his greatest compositions, the “St. Matthew Passion,” a work that brought a renewed interest for vocal works on a bigger scale than the cantata. 

Bach also became the permanent director of the Collegium Musicum, a society composed mainly of students and he now began to receive official recognition of the high regard in which he was generally held.   He remained director from 1729 until 1741, during which time he wrote the now-lost “St. Mark Passion” (1731), the “Christmas Oratorio,” (1734) and the “Ascension Oratorio” (1735).

In 1747, Bach’s way to Berlin to visit his daughter-in-law, who was expecting her second child to his son [son was] Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach*,  he stopped at Potsdam after two days of travelling and was unexpectedly invited to Sans Souci, the Royal Palace of  [visited] Frederick the Great* of Prussia, where his son  Emanuel was also employed as Court Harpsichordist.

In these last years of his life, Bach's creative energy was conserved for the highest flights of musical expression, including the “Mass in B minor,” the “Canonic Variations,” the “Goldberg Variations” and the “Musical Offering” displaying the art of canon.  His last great work is the summation of all his skill in counterpoint and fugue, methods which he perfected and which no composer has ever surpassed, the work known  as  “The Art of the Fugue.”

Bach had worked in poor light throughout his life and his eyesight now began to fail him.  On the bad advice of friends, Bach put himself in the hands of a visiting celebrated English ophthalmic specialist, John Taylor,  now considered to be a quack, and who the following year was to perform a similar, unsuccessful, eye operation on [had same doctor as] Handel*.  Two cataract operations were performed on Bach’s eyes, in March and Apri1 1750 and their weakening effect was aggravated by an infection which seriously undermined his health.

He spent the last months of his life in a darkened room, revising his great chorale fantasias with the aid of Altnikol, his son-in-law. Then, on the morning of the 28^th July 1750, he woke up to find he could bear strong light again and see quite clearly.  That same day he had a stroke, followed by a severe fever.  He died at 8.45 that evening.

Assessment:  His music has been supreme for composers and music lovers alike throughout two and a half centuries.

Oneliner:  JS Bach,  the supreme composer

Bibliography:

• Walter Emery, Christoph Wolff and Nicholas Temperley, "Johann  Sebastian Bach,” in The New Grove Bach Family, London:  Macmillan, 1983.