Essay/Term paper: Johann sebastian bach

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Biography

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of

the greatest composers in Western musical history. More

than 1,000 of his compositions survive. Some examples are

the Art of Fugue, Brandenburg Concerti, the Goldberg

Variations for Harpsichord, the Mass in B- Minor, the

motets, the Easter and Christmas oratorios, Toccata in F

Major, French Suite No 5, Fugue in G Major, Fugue in G

Minor ("The Great"), St. Matthew Passion, and Jesu Der

Du Meine Seele. He came from a family of musicians.

There were over 53 musicians in his family over a period of

300 years. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach,

Germany on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann

Ambrosius Bach, was a talented violinist, and taught his son

the basic skills for string playing; another relation, the

organist at Eisenach's most important church, instructed the

young boy on the organ. In 1695 his parents died and he

was only 10 years old. He went to go stay with his older

brother, Johann Christoph, who was a professional organist

at Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph was a professional organist,

and continued his younger brother's education on that

instrument, as well as on the harpsichord. After several

years in this arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a

scholarship to study in Luneberg, Northern Germany, and

so left his brother's tutelage. A master of several

instruments while still in his teens, Johann Sebastian first

found employment at the age of 18 as a "lackey and

violinist" in a court orchestra in Weimar; soon after, he took

the job of organist at a church in Arnstadt. Here, as in later

posts, his perfectionist tendencies and high expectations of

other musicians - for example, the church choir - rubbed

his colleagues the wrong way, and he was embroiled in a

number of hot disputes during his short tenure. In 1707, at

the age of 22, Bach became fed up with the lousy musical

standards of Arnstadt (and the working conditions) and

moved on to another organist job, this time at the St.

Blasius Church in Muhlhausen. The same year, he married

his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. Again caught up in a

running conflict between factions of his church, Bach fled to

Weimar after one year in Muhlhausen. In Weimar, he

assumed the post of organist and concertmaster in the

ducal chapel. He remained in Weimar for nine years, and

there he composed his first wave of major works, including

organ showpieces and cantatas. By this stage in his life,

Bach had developed a reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat

inflexible, musical talent. His proficiency on the organ was

unequaled in Europe - in fact, he toured regularly as a solo

virtuoso - and 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 individuals of uncommon

talent, he was never very good at playing the political game,

and therefore suffered periodic setbacks 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 snub, he left Weimar the following

year to take a job as court conductor in Anhalt-Cothen.

There, he slowed his output of church cantatas, and instead

concentrated on instrumental music - the Cothen period

produced, among other masterpieces, the Brandenburg

Concerti. While at Cothen, Bach's wife, Maria Barbara,

died. Bach remarried soon after - to Anna Magdalena -

and forged ahead with his work. He also forged ahead in

the child-rearing department, producing 13 children with his

new wife - six of whom survived childhood - to add to the

four children he had raised with Maria Barbara. Several of

these children would become fine composers in their own

right - particularly three sons: Wilhelm Friedmann, Carl

Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian. After conducting

and composing for the court orchestra at Cothen for seven

years, Bach was offered the highly prestigious post of

cantor (music director) of St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig -

after it had been turned down by two other composers.

The job was a demanding one; he had to compose cantatas

for the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas churches, conduct the

choirs, oversee the musical activities of numerous municipal

churches, and teach Latin in the St. Thomas choir school.

Accordingly, he had to get along with the Leipzig church

authorities, which proved rocky going. But he persisted,

polishing the musical component of church services in

Leipzig and continuing 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.

He was creatively active until the very end, even after

cataract problems virtually blinded him in 1740. His last

musical composition, a chorale prelude entitled "Before

They Throne, My God, I Stand", was dictated to his

son-in-law only days before his death.