Bach
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.