Download offical paper - Ross School Senior Projects

J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was born March 21st,1685 in
Eisenach, Thuringia, located in central Germany. His
father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was an organist at their
local church. Johann Sebastian comes from a large
family of musicians. His father, brother and many of his
uncles were all accomplished musicians. His father
married his mother, Elisabeth Lammerhirt in 1668. They
then had six sons and two daughters. Little did they
know that one son would turn out to be one of the most outstanding, accomplished and acknowledged
musicians to this day.
Johann Sebastian was always interested in music from when he was very young. His father,
Ambrosius, was an accomplished singer, and was very skilled on the violin and viola. Amrbosius
worked a s court musician for the Duke of Eisenach. He was also a town musician. He played for
various events such as weddings and parties. At the age of six, his older brother, Johann Christoph
Bach initiated Johann Sebastian into the art of playing the organ At the age of nine, his mother died
and only nine months later, his father passed away. Since Johann Sebastian was an orphan, he went to
live with his closest family member, his brother Johann Christoph. His brother lived in Ohrdruf. He
was an organist at the local church and had recently married. Right away Johann Sebastian began
practicing on both the organ and the violin. He quickly excelled at both instruments and learned all the
music pieces his brother had given him. His brother was a great contribution to Johann's music
education.
At the age of thirteen, Johann had excelled so much in his music that he was awarded a
scholarship at the prestigious St. Michael's School. He learned Italian and German there, as well as
philosophy, theology and other courses. Once Johann graduated, he worked at various churches as an
organist. While he was working, he was always composing music. While he was organist, it is said
that he composed his most famous masterpieces, including his inventions as well as his preludes.
In 1706, Johann married Maria Barbara Bach. They had seven children together, three of which
went on to become composers. They married in Muhlhausen, a large city in northern Germany. After
Johann and Maria married, Johann became the organist as well as musical director at St. Blasius.
People were honored as well as delighted to have a great musician such as Johann, to be their organist.
Johann stayed there for a couple of years, until he was offered to be a concert master at the ducal court
located in Weimar. A concert master is the leader of the violin section of an orchestra. This was an
important position for Johann. Not only does a concert master play solos, they are also in charge of
tuning the orchestra. Here in Weimar, Bach composed many keyboard and orchestral works. This is
where Bach began his fugues and contrapuntal, when two or more instruments or voices interact
simultaneously, techniques in some of his pieces. A fugue is a type of contrapuntal technique for a
certain number of parts being played in a piece. During this time, Bach wrote his first volume for his
“Das Wohltemperierte Clavier”, (The Well-tempered Clavier” consisting of twenty-four preludes and
fugues. He wrote one prelude and fugue for each key, major and minor. He did not intend to write
anymore volumes, but since this volume was so popular, he wrote a second set of twenty-four preludes
and fugues later on. These forty-eight preludes and fugues essentially established Bach as the master
of keyboard composition, as well as the master of fugue.
After a couple of year, Bach decided it was time to find a more serious, stable job, so he and his
family moved to Cothen. He was hired to work as the director of music for Prince Leopold of AnhaltCothen. Prince Leopold treated Bach with the highest respect. He recognized Bach as the “the most
prestigious musician of their time, who not only loves music but understands music”. While in Cothen,
Bach began to write his Orchestral Suites, the six suites for solo cello and the Sonatas and partitas for
solo violin. Everything was going well for Bach and his family until his wife, Maria passed away.
Only one year after the death of his wife, Bach met Anna Magdalene Wilcke. They married in the
winter of 1721. Anna also performed at the court in Cothen as a soprano singer. During this time in
Cothen, there was a great amount of hostility between the Calvinists and Lutherans. A Lutheran church
and school were built in the town at this time, which caused controversy because of the conflict going
on between the two religions. At the time, the Catholic Church was fighting against the Protestants.
Although Bach sent his children to the Lutheran school and church, he was areligious. While living in
Cothen, Bach also discovered his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann possessed an extraordinary musical
talent. This became his main focus for a while. He even wrote a book called “Clavierbucklein vor
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach” or “Little Clavier Book”, for the organ, and for his son.
Bach usully taught musicians who heconsidered gifted and imaginative. Taking on someone as
his student was considered a 'privilege', even for his own son. He felt that is someone does not want to
take music seriously, should not be pirviledged to have him as their teacher. The “Clavierbucklein”
starts off explaining the clefs. It then introduces you to the two-part and three-part inventions and
eventually on to more complex pieces. He also began writing his concertos which in Cothen. He
favored Vivaldi's concerto's.
In May of 1720, Bach traveled to Carlsbad with Leopold. When he returned two months later,
he was greeted with sad news that his wife had passed away while he was gone. By 1771, Bach had
completed six of his orchestral concertos. He had dedicated them to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of
Bradenburg, who had commissioned them two years earlier. They are formally known as the
'Bradenburg Concertos'. By December, Bach had remarried for the third time to a woman named Anna
Magdalena Wilcken, daughter of the Court Trumpeter of the Prince of Saxe-Weissenfels. Anna was
only twenty years old at the time, while Bach was now thirty-six years old. Anna was a singer herself
and sang at the Cothen court, just as Bach did. Together they had thirteen children, but unfortunately
seven of them had died as infants.
In June of 1722, Johann Kuhnau, the Leipzig Thomas Cantor had passed away. After moving
here with his family, Bach was appointed Cantor of Thomasschule, as well as Director of Music at all
of the local churches. Having this position, Bach was required to instruct the students of Thomasschule
in singing, as well as providing music every week for the churches St. Thomas and St. Nicholas's. He
did this for a couple of years. During this time Bach composed many of his cantatas. As a result, he
had a huge repertoire of church music for the two churches in Leipzig's.
By 1729, Bach had taken the position of directorship of the Collegium Musicum, a performance
ensemble that hard started in 1701 by his friend George Phillipp Telemann. While working as this
position, Bach published the Leipzig Song Book. This book was a collection of all of his hymns which
were to be played at the first performance of his St. Matthew Passion at St. Thomas', which took place
on Good Friday in April of 1729. The performance consisted of many accomplished and talented
musicians from universities as well as members of his own family. Bach used two orchestras, each of
which had seventeen instrumentalists all together, two twelve-voice choruses and another twelve-voice
choir. The performance lasted for more than three hours. This performance was one of Bach's greatest
masterpieces because it was church music, and that is what Bach enjoyed writing and performing the
most.
Bach was chosen many times to write and perform pieces by kings and priests. In February of
1733, Augustus II, the elector of Saxony had died. A year later, Augustus' son was crowned King of
Poland and Bach was asked to to write a piece for the new king. He wrote the the Kyrie as a mourning
piece for Augustus, and Gloria as a celebration piece for the new king. In November of 1734,
Augustus III issued a certificate recognizing Bach as “Composer to the Royal Court Capelle.” This
was an honor to be recognized as this position.
In 1736, Bach and a former colleague, Johann August Ernesti seemed to have gotten in a feud
over the appreciation of music for students. It started when Ernesti had beaten a student at school,
expelled him, and chose another student to take the place as General Prefect, a position for student's
who are highly devoted and talented at music. Bach became angry at Ernesti because of his decision to
choose a student who was neither interested in music nor talented. Bach was so furious that he ended
up sending letters to the City Council, and ultimately to the King. He received some response, but no
action. Alter the feud between Bach and Ernesti had ended, Bach started to become more and more
negligent in carrying out his duties as a music teacher. By 1738, the head of school had to appoint a
new headmaster to teach music theory. He was composing fewer pieces, and the choirs kept
performing old pieces they had already performed.
That same year, the head of the Collegium Musicum had left, leaving Bach in charge. With
Bach in charge of this association, the group had more practice and performances, trying to keep them
in the public eye, hoping to enhance their careers. During this time that Bach lead the association, he
composed many cantatas, such as The Contest between Phoebus and Pan, which included text by his
good friend and poet, Picander, and The Coffee Cantata.
Although his work as a teacher was slacking, his work for the Collegium Musicum continued,
but he started to become less interested in his passion, church music. He came more focused on
instrumental works and publishing his compositions. He also became more interested in traveling, and
meeting new musicians. He visited the Capellmeister to the Prince of SaxeWeissenfels and Director of
Music at Leipzig and performed at the Church of Our Lady in Dresden, for the Russian Ambassador at
the time. During this trip, he was named “His Majesty's Composer” by the king.
Bach's music was both praised and disliked. Upon his return from Dresden, Bach came home to
find that the magazine “The Critical Musician” had an article attacking some of Bach's compositions.
The article stated, “This great man would be the wonder of the universe if his compositions displayed
more agreeable qualities, were less turgid and sophisticated, more simple and natural in character. His
music is extremely difficult to play because the efficiency of his own limbs sets his standard; he
expects singers and players to be as agile with voice and instrument as he is with his fingers, which is
impossible.” The article was written by a musician, Johann Adolf Scheibe. He was the son of a wellknow organ-builder. He also happened to be praised by Bach just six years earlier as “a most zealous
student of music”. Bach was not offended by these comments though, for he knew that some people
would dislike his pieces.
In 1740, Carl Philip Emanuel, a well known, prestigious musician, was made accompanist at the
court of Frederick the Great of Prussia in Berlin. He even had the privilege of accompanying Frederick
on the flute, while he played the harpsichord. A year later, Bach made his first visit to Frederick, since
his music was well known and Frederick wanted to meet him. A couple of years later, Bach traveled
back to Berlin, where he was to perform for Frederick. His performance consisted of a three-part
fugue, a six-part fugue, two sets of five canons and a sonata in four movements. Frederick was greatly
impressed.
By mid-1749, Bach's health was beginning to fail rapidly. He had suffered two strokes in less
then a year. As a result of his bad health, Count von Bruhl, a minister at the court at Dresden,
appointed a man named Gottlob Harrer as the new Thomas Cantor. Bach was upset but he knew he
could not handle the position anymore. Towards the end of 1749, his eyesight was starting to fail as
well, and he was almost blind. Although his health was rapidly declining, Bach still managed to
compose pieces. But by July of 1750, Bach had died. In 1754, an obituary was published by Carl
Phillipp Emanuel and Johann Friedrich Agricola, honoring Bach and his works. The obituary opened
with, “If ever a composer showed polyphony in its greatest strength, it was certainly our late lamented
Bach. If ever a musician used the most concealed mysteries of harmony with the greatest artistry, it
was certainly our Bach. He needed only to hear a theme to be aware-it seemed instantaneously-of
almost every intricacy an artist could produce in treating it.”
Johann Sebastian Bach was a master-musician. As a musician, I realized how hard it is not
only to compose, but to compose pieces like his. His style and creativity is like no other. His use of
contrapuntal and melodic lines are extraordinary. What is interesting about Bach's music, especially in
his fugues, is that there are no hierarchy parts. Each line is independent, but at the same time
dependent on each other. These contrapuntal melodic lines need each other to come together and
sound the way they do, but they are also independent of each other. Bach's use of harmony in his
fugues and other pieces, are usually by use of “tonicization”, which is choosing other notes than the
dominant note to be the center of the piece. His style arose from being surrounded by prestigious
musicians all his life, his exposure to North German, South German, Italian and French music. His
access to such renowned pieces and even musicians had an impact on how he played and composed.
Since Bach did not have believe in any particular religion, his mucic could be looked at as a spiritual
form of worship. He has composed over 1,000 pieces of music that are still used today.
Among his most popular pieces are his six cello suites and his fifteen Inventions, originally
written for organ, but transposed to other instruments. His music is still popular in movies and even
video games. His music has influenced so many different kinds of musicians as well, such as heavy
jazz, metal and rock. Certain jazz musicians such as Jacques Loussier, Ian Anderson, Uri Caine and
the Modern Jazz Quartet have turned some of Bach's works into jazz pieces. He has influenced many
famous, esteemed musicians.
Bach will always be remembered for his genius pieces of music. It has been almost 300 years,
and people to this day are still playing his music. He was by far, one of the greatest classical composer
of all time. After his death, many musicians such as Mozart and Beethoven tried to match up to his
expertise, but the world is still waiting. The way his mind worked and came up with these pieces is
unbelievable. His life and music will never be forgotten.