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Johann Sebastian Bach
A Great Contributor Of Music
Throughout the history of music, many great composers, theorists, and
instrumentalists have left indelible marks and influences that people today
look back on to admire and aspire to. No exception to this idiom is Johann
Sebastian Bach, whose impact on music was unforgettable to say the least.
People today look back to his writings and works to both learn and admire. He
truly can be considered a music history great.
Bach, who came from a family of over 53 musicians, was nothing short of a
virtuosic instrumentalist as well as a masterful composer. Born in Eisenach,
Germany, on March 21, 1685, he was the son of a masterful violinist, Johann
Ambrosius Bach, who taught his son the basic skills for string playing. Along
with this string playing, Bach began to play the organ which is the instrument
he would later on be noted for in history. His instruction on the organ came
from the player at Eisenach's most important church. He instructed the young
boy rather rigorously until his skills surpassed anyone’s expectations for
someone of such a young age.
Bach suffered early trauma when his parents died in 1695. He went to go live
with his older brother, Johann Christoph, who also was a professional organist
at Ohrdruf. He continued his younger brother's education on that instrument, as
well as introducing him to the harpsichord. The rigorous training on these
instruments combined with Bach’s masterful skill paid off for him at an early
age. After several years of studying with his older brother, he received a
scholarship to study in Luneberg, Germany, which is located on the northern tip
of the country. As a result, he left his brother’s tutelage and went to go and
study there.
The teenage years brought Bach to several parts of Germany where he mainly
worked as an organist in churches, since that was the skill he had perfected
the best from his young training. However, a master of several instruments
while still in his teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of
18 as a violinist in a court orchestra in Weimar. Although he did not remain
there terribly long, he was able to make good money playing for the king. He
soon after accepted a position as a church organist in Arnstadt. It was here
that Bach would soon realize his high standards and regards that he had for
music. In Arnstadt as well as in many other places that Bach worked he was notorious
for getting into fights over the quality of music that was being produced. 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.
By this time Bach had been married for several years. He actually became
married to his cousin Maria Barbara. They, for the most part, had a happy
marriage. He was happy. By this stage of his life he had “composed” for himself
a wonderful reputation of being a brilliant musical talent. Along with that his
proficiency on the organ was unequaled in Europe by this time. In fact, he
toured regularly as a solo virtuoso, and his growing mastery of compositional
forms, like the fugue and the canon, were already attracting interest from the
musical establishment, which, in his day, was the Lutheran church. The church
began to look at Bach’s writings and saw the opportunity to possibly use his
music in their masses. Thus was the slow birth of the German chorale, which
Bach later became renowned for. Bach’s virtuosic career did suffer minor
setbacks along the way. He occasionally would be passed over for deserved
positions within the court that he worked. However, in 1715 when he did not
receive a truly desired position of “Kapellmeister” (choral master) of Weimer,
he was insulted and left the city. He accepted a position as a court conductor
in Cothen, where he began to work on another part of his musical genre, that of
instrumental music. Up until this point, Bach was mainly writing organ pieces
and church cantatas. One of his most famous, “Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme,”
became well known around the world and is still looked upon as a classic today.
However, when he arrived in Cothen he began to focus on all other instruments
and used his talents as a string player and knowledge of “wind & brass”
instruments to begin composing instrumental pieces. It was during his stay here
in Cothen that the orchestral masterpiece known as the “Brandenburg Concerto”
was born.
Bach’s tenure in Cothen lasted approximately seven years. In that time his wife
Mara became ill and died. Although distraught, he soon remarried to Anna
Magdalena. It was during this time that Bach had several children, three in
particular would grow to become talented musicians like their father. Wilhelm
Friedmann, C.P.E. Bach, and J.C. Bach. They to became virtosos of the organ and
later the harpsichord, much like their father was. After Bach left Cothen, he
received a prestigious position as music director at the St. Thomas Church in
Leipzig, Germany. Here Bach accepted his most demanding position of all. He had
the responsibility of composing cantatas for the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas
churches, conducing the choirs, overseeing the musical activities of numerous
municipal churches, and teaching Latin in the St. Thomas choir school. Although
demanding, Bach persisted and succeeded in Leipzig and continued to write music
of various kinds with a level of craft and emotional profundity that was his
alone.
Bach remained at his post in Leipzig until his death in 1750. Although he was
blinded by cataract problems in the early 1740s, he still managed to compose
masterful pieces up until days before his death. His last musical composition
that he crafted happened to be a choral prelude, which was dedicated to his
son-in law.
To this day more than 1,000 of Bach’s accomplished compositions survive. Some
of his most famous works include the “Brandenburg Concerto,” The “Mass In B
Minor,” “The Goldberg Variations for Harpsichord,” his vast amount of toccatas,
especially his “Toccata In F Major,” his collection of variations on organ preludes
captured in the “Well Tempered Clavier,” his immense amount of fugues and
chorales including his “Fugue in G minor,” major as well as his tremendous
amount of chorales, and his Christmas and Easter oratorios, which was another
schism in his music genre. Quite frankly, the list goes on and on and on.
Surely, Johann Sebastian Bach never believed that his success would become so
heroic and monumental. However, we today perceive him to be one of the key
individuals to shape the music we listen to. It is no secret that his writings,
especially chorale writings, are used to illustrate the principles of our
functional system of harmony. It is in this example alone that it can be seen
that Bach’s works have not only survived to the point where they are still heard
and listened to, but they also still provide us with knowledge and
understanding from which we can learn and discover music. It is for these
reasons that the life of Johann Sebastian Bach was truly a great one and it is
without any apprehension that he can be considered a musical great.