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The Styles of Bach
Jacob Cummins
Rogers State University
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When thinking of the Baroque period, one name comes to mind; Johann Sebastian Bach.
A genius musician and legendary composer, who paved a path for composers to follow. Johann
Sebastian Bach, was a pioneer of music composition. The process in which he envisioned music
was unlike any other composer of his time. This being said, he was surprisingly looked down
upon compared to the other composers of the baroque period. In some ways he did not follow
the standard formula that composers before him, had created.
As time has progressed, we have started to appreciate Bach’s compositions on a larger
scale compared to how he was viewed when he was alive. “Nonetheless, genius is inherently
mystifying and provocative. We crave some sort of illumination, some understanding of how
the achievement came about and why it took the particular form it did.” (Robert L. Marshall,
2006). So how is Johann Sebastian Bach known as one of the most highly appreciated musical
visionaries to have ever lived today? That question is the focus of this paper and should be
answered as we discuss the importance of Johann Sebastian Bach.
To start off, I will be going through the success of achievements and awards, Bach had
acquired. Bach began his rise to success at a young age. At age 14, Bach was awarded a choral
scholarship to St. Michaels School, for having a very good vocal qualities. This is where he was
exposed to many studies, leading to completion of the courses he was involved in. He studied
for 2 years and graduated in 1702, which was the same year he wrote “Toccata and Fugue in D’
Minor.”
In the baroque period, success was measured differently than how we consider
achievements of success today. No matter how many compositions they wrote or where they
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ended up being with their trade. Musical composers of this period were said to be successful as
to who you knew. In other words, it was a great accomplishment for well-known composers to
appreciate your music.
“But Bach's cantatas, passions, and oratorios with their operatic arias and recitatives of
secular origin constitute a mighty musical response to the cultural crisis of the Enlightenment.
And that in fact is his most powerful cultural achievement. He absorbed the music of his time
into his religion; in the process religion triumphed and its musical expression became even
vaster. That has by no means been fully appreciated in later centuries.” (Scheide, William H.
1997). Bach started working for the St. Thomas Lutheran Church writing many cantatas. It was
said that Bach was very religious, and selfless.
Bach felt that God gave him a gift, so he used it to give back to the church. Using all his
abilities to acknowledge God and not just boast about himself as many other composers of the
time did. “Critical self-knowledge was an unnecessary notion for those who understood
themselves as being in the service of church, court, or town-in other words, serving God's
representatives, whether bishop, prince, or civic authority.” (Christoph Wolff, 2001).
During his time working for the church he had much success writing music that would
become well known throughout the Lutheran Church. Through his life he completed 1,120
compositions. “The bulk of his work is religious—he made four-part settings of 371 Lutheran
chorales, also using many of them as the bases of organ preludes and choral works. In addition,
he composed an astonishing number of instrumental works, many of them designed for the
instruction of his numerous pupils. In his instrumental and choral works he perfected the art of
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polyphony, displaying an unmatched combination of inventiveness and control in his great,
striding fugues.” (Academic Search Complete, 2014).
Now, Johann Sebastian Bach is well known today for his compositions. However, during
the baroque period he was known more for his solo’s as an organist. “Even though Sebastian
Bach was almost certainly an outstanding organist and a highly distinguished composer for that
instrument, he was not particularly famous in his own time, and even his more outstanding
pupils hardly earned any real kind of comparability with their teacher.” (Stephen Daw, 2006).
Bach was innovative and very skilled when it came to being a virtuoso. In fact, that was
the prime reason he was even talked about during the baroque period. When he was 17 he
was chosen to be the new organist in Sangerhausen, but the duke changed his mind, choosing
another to replace him. So Bach seemed to be quite the “outcast” of his time period. He did
start to grow a name for himself after this, playing the organ in other churches.
It would be much later in time where Bach was actually appreciated as a composer.
“During his lifetime, Bach was better known as an organist than as a composer. For decades
after his death his works were neglected, but in the 19th century his genius came to be
recognized, particularly by romantic composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann. Since that
time his reputation has grown steadily.” (Academic Search Complete, 2014). Mendelssohn was
a composer who brought Bach’s composition back into this world. It had been a while since
these compositions were ever really brought up. Mendelssohn discovered these compositions
and was later influenced by them.
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Looking at the baroque period, we want to think of Bach as being the most popular. But
during the baroque period, there were a lot of other composers that were held up in popularity
completely above Bach. Of those musicians, Handel was one who was treated like a king
compared to Bach. Handel is still well known today but, unlike Bach, Handel was always well
known and popular since before his death. Bach’s legacy definitely did not start until after he
died. “It seems worth noting at this point that Bach's most important musical contemporaries,
Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, and Rameau, who all wrote music that had a broader appeal, and
was more widely disseminated, than Bach's, were completely remote from the discussion and
the scene in which the eighteenth-century concept of original genius emerged.” (Chrisqtoph
Wolff, 2001).
Being considered such a major icon today, why was Bach over looked as a composer
during his life period? “Thus it is that Bach's main work remains largely unknown. He is as
Shakespeare would be if there were no theater. The sonnets and other poems only would be
generally known.” (William H. Scheide, 1997). So there is a chance that maybe Bach’s
compositions were different than how we view them today. In other words, we could be seeing
a whole different side of Bach that was not portrayed during the baroque period.
Bach’s style was viewed as very different and most people of that time period, did not
enjoy it. He himself was not completely satisfied with his work, which most artists aren’t. But
looking back, he brought a whole new side of music that was never portrayed in music before;
with anything new it takes time for people to absorb and appreciate. Although, for Bach to
take a giant step for music, using his unique vision was genius. “An essential element in the
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definition of genius, especially as it was adopted by and propagated in eighteenth- century
German philosophy, consists of the notion of originality, an identifiable and strong individual
creative contribution.” (Christoph Wolff, 2000).
Johann Sebastian Bach was, without a doubt, one of a kind. The composers of his
generation were not even in the same mindset of where music should go. Music stuck to a
simplistic structure before Bach. “This time marks the virtual end of tonality in art music on the
one hand, and on the other (since contemporary music became more and more difficult to play
and to understand) a steadily expanding market for “early” repertory in music publishing and
concert life. It also marks the completion of the Bach-Ausgabe and various activities of the
Neue Bach-Gesellschaft that were aimed at making Bach a popular composer in public and
private musical life.” (Ludwig Finscher, 1998).
Through this paper, we have decided that Bach was viewed in a different light in his era,
than he is now. But we have come to realize the significance of his musical attributes that was
far from being understood during his time period. We see that Bach envisioned a future of
music that was not well thought of at this time. This concludes that, Johann Sebastian Bach
was a visionary composer that changed the way people view music. Whether knowing it or not,
Bach set a goal for music to move forward.
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Bach Research Citation
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II.
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IV.
Finscher, Ludwig. Bach Perspectives (University of Nebraska Press) “Bach’s
Posthumous Role in Music History,” January 1, 1998.
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Harcourt, Martin Geck. Christian Century “Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and
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Kavanaugh, Patrick. Christian History & Biography “J.S. Bach: For the Glory of
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VIII.
Marissen, Michael Bach. Perspecitves (University of Nebraska Press) “Concerto
Styles and Signigication in Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto,” January 1, 1995.
IX.
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X.
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XI.
Scheide, William H. Book Collector and Musicologist “Thoughts on Johann
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XII.
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XIII.
Schulze, Hans-Joachim. Oxford University Press “Johann Sebastian Bach’s
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XIV.
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XV.
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XVI.
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XVII.
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XIX.
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XX.
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XXI.
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XXII.
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