Johann Sebastian Bach Essay, Research Paper

Regarded as perhaps the greatest composer of all time,

Bach was known during his lifetime primarily as an

outstanding organ player and technician. The youngest of

eight children born to musical parents, Johann Sebastian

was destined to become a musician. While still young, he

had mastered the organ and violin, and was also an

excellent singer. At the age of ten, both of his parents died

within a year of each other. Young Sebastian was fortunate

to be taken in by an older brother, Johann Christoph, who

most likely continued his musical training. At the age of

fifteen, Bach secured his first position in the choir of St.

Michael’s School in Lüneburg. He travelled little, never

leaving Germany once in his life, but held various postitions

during his career in churches and in the service of the courts

throughout the country. In 1703 he went to Arnstadt to

take the position of organist at the St. Boniface Church. It

was during his tenure there that Bach took a month’s leave

of absence to make the journey to Lübeck (some 200

miles away, a journey he made on foot) to hear the great

organist Dietrich Buxtehude. One month turned into five,

and Bach was obliged to find a new position at Mülhausen

in 1706. In that year he also married his cousin, Maria

Barbara. Bach remained at Mülhausen for only a year

before taking up a post as organist and concertmaster at

the court of the Duke of Weimar.

In 1717, Bach moved on to another post, this time as

Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold in Cöthen.

During the years Bach was in the service of the courts, he

was obliged to compose a great deal of instrumental music:

hundreds of pieces for solo keyboard, orchestral dance

suites, trio sonatas for various instruments, and concertos

for various instruments and orchestra. Of these, the most

famous are the six concerti grossi composed for the Duke

of Brandenburg in 1721, and the Brandenburg Concerto

no. 3 exemplifies the style of the concerto grosso in which

a small group of instruments (in this case a small ensemble

of strings) is set in concert with an orchestra of strings and

continuo. Of Bach’s music for solo instruments, the six

Suites for violoncello and the Sonatas and Partitas for

solo violin are among the greatest for those instruments.

The Violin Partita no. 3 contains an example of a popular

dance form, the gavotte.

Maria Barbara died suddenly in 1720, having borne the

composer seven children. Within a year Bach remarried.

The daughter of the town trumpeter, Anna Magdalena

Bach would prove to be an exceptional companion and

helpmate to the composer. In addition, the couple sired

thirteen children. (Of Bach’s twenty off-spring, ten died in

infancy. Four became well-known composers, including

Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian.) Soon after his

second marriage, Bach began looking for another position,

and eventually took one in Leipzig, where he became

organist and cantor (teacher) at St. Thomas’ Church. He

remained in Leipzig for the rest of his life.

A devout Lutheran, Bach composed a great many sacred

works as his duties required when in the employ of the

church: well over two hundred cantatas (a new one was

required of him every week), several motets, five masses,

three oratorios, and four settings of the Passion story, one

of which, The St. Matthew Passion, is one of western

music’s sublime masterpieces. Bach also wrote vast

amounts of music for his chosen instrument, the organ,

much of which is still regarded as the pinnacle of the

repertoire. One such work is the tremendous Passacaglia

and Fugue in C minor.

Towards the end of 1749, Bach’s failing eyesight was

operated on by a traveling English surgeon, the catastrophic

results of which were complete blindness. His health failing,

Bach nevertheless continued to compose, dictating his

work to a pupil. He finally succombed to a stroke on July

28, 1750. He was buried in an unmarked grave at St.

Thomas’ Church.

Bach brought to majestic fruition the polyphonic style of

the late Renaissance. By and large a musical conservative,

he achieved remarkable heights in the art of fugue, choral

polyphony and organ music, as well as in instrumental

music and dance forms. His adherence to the older forms

earned him the nickname "the old wig" by his son, the

composer Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, yet his music

remained very much alive and was known and studied by

the next generation of composers. It was the discovery of

the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 by Felix Mendelssohn

that initiated the nineteenth century penchant for reviving

and performing older, "classical" music. With the death of

Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750, music scholars

conveniently mark the end of the Baroque age in music