Johann+Sebastian+Bach

[|history pod - bach.mp3] Johann Sebastian Bach, born March 31, was a German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he introduced no new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust contrapuntal technique, an unrivalled control of harmonic and motivic organisation in composition for diverse musical forces, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France.

Strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer failed to prevent tension between the young organist and the authorities after several years in the post. He was apparently dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir; more seriously, there was his unauthorised absence from Arnstadt for several months in 1705–06, when he visited the great master Dieterich Buxtehude and his Abendmusik in the northern city of Lübeck. This well-known incident in Bach's life involved his walking some 400 kilometres (250 mi) each way to spend time with the man he probably regarded as the father figure of German organists. The trip reinforced Buxtehude's style as a foundation for Bach's earlier works, and that he overstayed his planned visit by several months suggests that his time with the old man was of great value to his art. According to legend, both Bach and George Frederic Handel wanted to become amanuenses of Buxtehude, but neither wanted to marry his daughter, as that was a condition for the position.

According to minutes from the proceedings of the Arnstadt consistory in August 1705, Bach was involved in a brawl in Arnstadt: “ Johann Sebastian Bach, organist here at the New Church, appeared and stated that, as he walked home yesterday, fairly late night ... six students were sitting on the "Langenstein" (Long Stone), and as he passed the town hall, the student Geyersbach went after him with a stick, calling him to account: Why had Bach made abusive remarks about him? Bach answered that he had made no abusive remarks about him, and that no one could prove it, for he had gone his way very quietly. Geyersbach retorted that while Bach might not have maligned him, he had maligned his bassoon at some time, and whoever insulted his belongings insulted him as well ... Geyersbach had at once struck out at him. Since he had not been prepared for this, he had been about to draw his dagger, but Geyersbach had fallen into his arms, and the two of them tumbled about until the rest of the students ... had rushed toward them and separated them.

Johann Sebastian Bach. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved October 1, 2008, from Wikipedia database.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born into the musical family of Bachs in Eisenach in 1685. [|1] His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, had held the post of a court trumpeter in Eisenach along with that of head of the town piper band, and according to his household rules, the young Johann Sebastian was trained not only as a clavier player, but on several instruments. From 1693 to 1695 he attended the Lateinschule in Eisenach. In 1694, when he was nine, his mother died, and in 1695, his father. On the death of his father he was taken into the house of his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, who was organist in Ohrdruf. From 1695 to 1700 he attended the Gymnasium there, and also became a pupil of his brother who had studied with [|Johann Pachelbel] in Erfurt, and (according to the 1754 obituary) 'under his guidance he laid the foundations of his keyboard playing.'

In August 1705 Bach obtained the appointment as organist at the New Church (Neue Kirche) in Arnstadt, and by then was already esteemed as a renowned organist. commanding a good salary (which was reduced again after his departure). And in the ensuing years he had the opportunity of sharpening his profile as an organ virtuoso. In this connection must be seen his prolonged stay in Lübeck in the winter of 1705/06 -- to the annoyance of the Arnstadt consistory -- for study with [|Dietrich Buxtehude]. For the citizens of Arnstadt the stormy development of their ambitious organist must have been bewildering. The consistory complained 'that he had hitherto made many curious variations in the chorale, and mingled many strange notes in it;' furthermore they deplored that Bach took no interest in the figured music for the choir. This last clearly indicates that Bach in fact quite consciously devoted himself to the purely organistic, and certainly more to playing than to composing, since very few compositions have been preserved from those years.

In October 1707, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. Before he death in 1720, she was to bear the sons Wilhelm Friedemann (b. 11/22/1710), Carl Philipp Emanuel (3/8/1714) and Johann Gottfried Bernhard (5/11/1715).

What made Bach apply in 1720 for the post of organist at St. Jacobi in Hamburg is not immediately clear, in view of his extremely favorable conditions in Cöthen. Probably what attracted him was the famous four-manual Schnitger organ of 1689-93 (Bach had hitherto never had a really large and fine instrument at his disposal)

In his last years Bach became very weakened and frail through his eye trouble. Presumably from the summer of 1749 he was no longer active in his post, since in June 1749 the Leipzig Council had the tactlessness to approve a 'test for a future Cantor of St. Thomas's, in case the Capellmeister and Cantor Herr Sebast: Bach should die' and to nominate Gottlob Harrer as his successor. Two eye operations, which the English oculist Taylor performed on Bach early in 1750, went badly. On the evening of 28 July 1750 he died as the result of a stroke. The press contained brief obituary notices on the deceased 'famous musician.' But at that time those who knew his work had scarcely any notion -- let alone appreciation -- of his greatness.

HOASM: Johann Sebastian Bach. (1998). Retrieved October 1, 2008, from HOASM database.

It is clear that Bach gave as much care in planning and writing this work as he did in his passion settings. Doubtless the heroic Lutheran queen was a figure who inspired strong sentiments in Bach the man and composer. The opening chorus contains echoes of the final chorus of the St. Matthew Passion which Bach had performed for the first time earlier the same year; indeed he reused this and movement seven in a cantata mourning the death of Leopold I of Köthen in 1729, a piece which is essentially a contrafactum of the St. Matthew Passion. He also took the harmonic outline of the initial vocal lines as the opening for the Kyrie of the Mass in B Minor, which he presented to Christiane’s son, August II of Saxony. Most of the other movements he reused in the now lost St. Mark Passion, something which confirms the passionlike nature of this work, a piece which should perhaps be appreciated on equal terms with the two surviving passions.

Thomas, J., Musical Director. (2007). American Bach Soloists. Author. Retrieved from http://americanbach.org/recordings/Cantatas_V2.pdf