Bach, Johann Sebastian

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Johann Sebastian Bach

1685–1750

Composer
Organist

Early Years.

Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest master of counterpoint and polyphony, was undoubtedly one of the greatest musical minds of the Western tradition. Unlike many composers who traveled extensively through Europe, Bach remained in the central and northern regions of the Holy Roman Empire for his whole life. He was born in Eisenach in central Germany, the eighth child of a family of musicians; both his parents died when he was nine, so he was sent to live for a few years with an older brother, an organist. Later he served as a choirboy. He excelled as an organist, and also played the violin. In 1703, he moved to the city of Arnstadt where he accepted his first professional post as an organist. His time there was not entirely happy. He did not get along well with the local musicians and criticized their lack of skill; he received four weeks of leave to travel to Lübeck so that he could listen to the great Baroque organist Dietrich Buxtehude, but he ended up staying away from his post for four months. Back in Arnstadt, locals complained that his music was too complicated for them to sing. It seems likely that Bach was developing musical ideas too complex for the abilities of the local performers. Bach was happy to accept another position as organist in Mühlhausen three years later; an early cantata, Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death), as well as a guest performance as organist, helped him win this new post. He began to write more choral church music as well as organ compositions, including a number of cantatas. He also married his first wife, Maria Barbara. Soon Bach moved again, to a much more prominent position as organist for the duke of Weimar, and a few years later he was named the duke's concertmaster. At Weimar he had the first six of his twenty children, including the future composer Carl Philip Emanuel Bach. His friend, the composer Georg Philipp Telemann, who was even more famous in his lifetime than Bach, was the boy's godfather. Many of Bach's organ compositions date from this period, though he seems to have written few cantatas while at Weimar.

From CÖthen to Leipzig.

In 1717, Bach was offered a position as Kapellmeister (chapel master) at the court of Prince Leopold at Cöthen. Out of personal animosity against the prince, the duke of Weimar refused to allow Bach to leave and even imprisoned him for a month, but Bach finally managed to move. Leopold loved music and played several instruments. Here Bach wrote mainly chamber and orchestral music, including his famous set of Brandenburg concertos. While traveling with the prince in 1720, Bach received the news that his wife had died. He considered leaving Cöthen, though the next year he married a singer at the court, Anna Magdalena Wilcke. Bach continued to consider positions elsewhere, and found one at the church of St. Thomas in Leipzig, as cantor at its school and as music director for the city. Bach moved there in 1723 and remained there the rest of his life. The school supplied singers for four churches, and Bach was kept busy rehearsing them, conducting at least some of their performances, teaching students, and especially writing music for these groups to perform. During some of this time he wrote as much as one cantata every week, in addition to composing music for special occasions such as weddings, plus works for particular religious holidays. One major achievement of the first years in Leipzig was his composition of the famous St Matthew Passion in 1727 for performance during Holy Week. Bach was never happy with the non-musical tasks that the local schoolmasters often expected him to perform, which led to a number of disputes and a good deal of friction. A new director and some renovations helped improve matters, though only temporarily. Bach continued to keep his eyes open for new positions, or for secondary appointments to offer professional respite as well as financial support for his large family. He taught private students, tested organs in Leipzig and the surrounding area, and worked to make the best deals possible on the publication of his compositions.

New Interests.

In 1729 Bach took over another group, the city's Collegium Musicum. This was a voluntary society composed of university students and professionals. The group gave weekly concerts in Leipzig, particularly at a local coffeehouse, which provided the subject for his "Coffee Cantata." The collegium gave Bach another venue and skilled musicians with whom to work, a place to perform secular compositions, and a forum for guest performances by visiting friends and colleagues. Bach ran the group for about ten years. During these years he also began work on a Mass (known as the Mass in B Minor), which he completed over ten years later. In 1733 he sent two sections, the Kyrie and Gloria, to the court of the elector of Saxony in Dresden. He was hoping to win the title of court composer; he was finally successful in 1736. His connections with Dresden became more important over time, especially since later directors of the Thomasschule had less interest in music.

Later Years.

As Bach's older sons developed their own careers and accepted important appointments, his ties outside of Leipzig expanded still further. Carl Philip Emanuel Bach moved to the court of Prince Frederick, soon to become Frederick II (Frederick the Great), king of Prussia, at Berlin in 1738, and his father made several visits there. Frederick was an avid amateur musician and excelled as a performer on the flute. In 1747 Frederick invited Bach to court to examine some of its new fortepianos and to perform. He also gave Bach a musical theme and asked him to improvise counterpoint upon it. Bach obliged, then promised to write a more substantial and effective composition when he returned home. The work he sent back to Frederick is now known as the Musical Offering, a set of thirteen pieces based on the theme and including an important part for the flute, the king's own instrument. During his later years, Bach joined a scholarly music society, the Society of Musical Sciences, and worked on revising a compendium called the Art of Fugue which remained unfinished at his death. His health began to fail, and cataracts affected his vision. An operation to repair his sight was unsuccessful, and he died shortly thereafter. His unpublished works were scattered among family members, and many of them were lost. Although his interest in the older "first practice" of contrapuntal Baroque music was no longer in fashion by the time of his death, his work remained highly regarded, and composers such as Mozart continued to study his works. The interest in the music of earlier times that had established itself in England eventually spread to Germany, and by the early nineteenth century interest in Bach was beginning to revive. Scholars and publishers did their best to collect, edit, and publish his works, and musical societies sponsored concerts and festivals in his honor and marking the centennials of many of his important works.