Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late
Baroque period
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''
Brandenburg Concertos
The ''Brandenburg Concertos'' by Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, BWV 1046–1051), are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg ...
''; instrumental compositions such as the
Cello Suites
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the p ...
; keyboard works such as the ''
Goldberg Variations
The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have ...
'' and ''
The Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of in ...
''; organ works such as the ''
Schubler Chorales'' and the
Toccata and Fugue in D minor
The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. Schol ...
; and vocal music such as the ''
St Matthew Passion
The ''St Matthew Passion'' (german: Matthäus-Passion, links=-no), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It se ...
'' and the
Mass in B minor
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
. Since the 19th-century
Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.
The
Bach family
The Bach family refers to several notable composers of the Baroque music, baroque and Classical period (music), classical periods of music, the best-known of whom was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). A family genealogy was drawn up by Johann ...
already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in
Eisenach
Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...
. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother
Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in
Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...
. From 1703 he was back in
Thuringia
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
, working as a musician for
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
churches in
Arnstadt
Arnstadt () is a town in Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany, on the river Gera about south of Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia. Arnstadt is one of the oldest towns in Thuringia, and has a well-preserved historic centre with a partially preserved town ...
and
Mühlhausen
Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen.
Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...
and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
, where he expanded his
organ
Organ may refer to:
Biology
* Organ (biology), a part of an organism
Musical instruments
* Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone
** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument
** Hammond ...
repertory, and
Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
. From 1723 he was employed as
Thomaskantor
(Cantor at St. Thomas) is the common name for the musical director of the , now an internationally known boys' choir founded in Leipzig in 1212. The official historic title of the Thomaskantor in Latin, ', describes the two functions of cantor a ...
(
cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds.
In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...
at
St Thomas's) in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
. There he composed music for the principal
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
churches of the city, and for its university's student ensemble
Collegium Musicum
The Collegium Musicum was one of several types of musical societies that arose in German and German-Swiss cities and towns during the Reformation and thrived into the mid-18th century.
Generally, while societies such as the (chorale) cultivated ...
. From 1726
he published
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
some of his
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by his sovereign,
Augustus III of Poland
Augustus III ( pl, August III Sas, lt, Augustas III; 17 October 1696 5 October 1763) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1733 until 1763, as well as Elector of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire where he was known as Frederick Aug ...
in 1736. In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.
Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
,
harmonic
A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', the ...
, and
motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.
Bach's compositions include
hundreds of cantatas, both
sacred
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects (a ...
and
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
. He
composed Latin church music,
Passions
''Passions'' is an American television soap opera that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1999, to September 7, 2007, and on DirecTV's The 101 Network from September 17, 2007, to August 7, 2008. Created by screenwriter James E. Reilly and pro ...
,
oratorios
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...
, and
motets
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margare ...
. He often adopted
Lutheran hymn
Martin Luther was a great enthusiast for music, and this is why it forms a large part of Lutheran services; in particular, Luther admired the composers Josquin des Prez and Ludwig Senfl and wanted singing in the church to move away from the '' ...
s, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in
his four-part chorales and
his sacred songs. He wrote extensively
for organ and
for other keyboard instruments. He
composed concertos, for instance
for violin and
for harpsichord, and
suites,
as chamber music as well as
for orchestra.
Many of his works employ the genres of
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western can ...
and
fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
.
Throughout the 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an
organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...
, while his keyboard music, such as ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major
Bach biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the ''
Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
The (BWV; ; ) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2a ...
'' (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude
of arrangements, including the ''
Air on the G String
"Air on the G String", also known as "Air for G String" and "Celebrated Air", is August Wilhelmj's 1871 arrangement of the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068.
The arrangement differs from the ...
'' and "
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (or simply "Joy"; German: ''Jesus bleibet meine Freude'') is the most common English title of a piece of music derived from a chorale setting from the cantata ''Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben'', BWV 147 ("Heart and ...
", and of recordings, such as three different box sets with complete performances of the composer's oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death.
Life
Childhood (1685–1703)
![Johann Ambrosius Bach](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Johann_Ambrosius_Bach.jpg)
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in
Eisenach
Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...
, the capital of the
duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany, on 21 March 1685
O.S. (31 March 1685
N.S.). He was the eighth and youngest child of
Johann Ambrosius Bach
Johann Ambrosius Bach (22 February 1645 – ) was a German musician, father to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Life
Johann Ambrosius Bach was born in Erfurt, Germany, the son of musician Christoph Bach (1613–1661). He was the twin brother of Joha ...
, the director of the town musicians, and
Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt (24 February 1644, Erfurt – 1 May 1694, Eisenach) was the mother of Johann Sebastian Bach.
She was a daughter of Valentin Lämmerhirt (or Lemmerhirt, 1605–1665), a furrier and coachman in Erfurt. On 8 April 1668, she ...
. His father likely taught him violin and basic music theory. His uncles were all professional musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians, and composers. One uncle,
Johann Christoph Bach
Johann Christoph Bach (baptised – 31 March 1703) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. He was born at Arnstadt, the son of Heinrich Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's first cousin once removed and the first cousin of J.S. ...
, introduced him to the organ, and an older second cousin,
Johann Ludwig Bach
Johann Ludwig Bach ( – 1 May 1731) was a German composer and violinist.
He was born in Thal near Eisenach. At the age of 22 he moved to Meiningen eventually being appointed cantor there, and later Kapellmeister. He wrote a large amount of musi ...
, was a well-known composer and violinist.
Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother,
Johann Christoph Bach
Johann Christoph Bach (baptised – 31 March 1703) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. He was born at Arnstadt, the son of Heinrich Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's first cousin once removed and the first cousin of J.S. ...
, the organist at
St. Michael's Church in
Ohrdruf
Ohrdruf () is a small town in the district of Gotha in the German state of Thuringia. It lies some 30 km southwest of Erfurt at the foot of the northern slope of the Thuringian Forest. The former municipalities Crawinkel, Gräfenhain an ...
,
Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg () was a duchy ruled by the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin in today's Thuringia, Germany. The extinction of the line in 1825 led to a major re-organisation of the Thuringian states.
History
In 1640 the sons of the l ...
. There he studied, performed, and copied music, including his own brother's, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private, and blank ledger paper of that type was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the
clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.
Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...
. Johann Christoph exposed him to the works of great composers of the day, including South Germans such as
Johann Caspar Kerll
Johann Caspar Kerll (9 April 1627 – 13 February 1693) was a German baroque composer and organist. He is also known as Kerl, Gherl, Giovanni Gasparo Cherll and Gaspard Kerle.
Born in Adorf in the Electorate of Saxony as the son of an organist, ...
,
Johann Jakob Froberger
Johann Jakob Froberger ( baptized 19 May 1616 – 7 May 1667) was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. Among the most famous composers of the era, he was influential in developing the musical form of the suite of dances in h ...
and
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel (baptised – buried 9 March 1706; also Bachelbel) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secularity, secular music, and h ...
(under whom Johann Christoph had studied); North Germans; Frenchmen such as
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully ( , , ; born Giovanni Battista Lulli, ; – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, guitarist, violinist, and dancer who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he ...
,
Louis Marchand
Louis Marchand (2 February 1669 – 17 February 1732) was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French vi ...
and
Marin Marais
Marin Marais (; 31 May 1656, in Paris – 15 August 1728, in Paris) was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colomb ...
; and even the Italian
Girolamo Frescobaldi
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (; also Gerolamo, Girolimo, and Geronimo Alissandro; September 15831 March 1643) was an Italian composer and virtuoso keyboard player. Born in the Duchy of Ferrara, he was one of the most important composers of k ...
. During this time, he was also taught theology, Latin and Greek at the local
gymnasium.
By 3 April 1700, Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmannwho was two years Bach's elderwere enrolled in the prestigious St. Michael's School in
Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...
, some two weeks' travel north of Ohrdruf.
Their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot.
His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a wider range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the school's three-manual organ and harpsichords.
He also came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany who had been sent to the nearby ''Ritter-Academie'' to prepare for careers in other disciplines.
Weimar, Arnstadt, and Mühlhausen (1703–1708)
![Arnstadt Bachkirche Wender-Orgel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Arnstadt_Bachkirche_Wender-Orgel.jpg)
In January 1703, shortly after graduating from St. Michael's and being turned down for the post of organist at
Sangerhausen
Sangerhausen () is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany, capital of the district of Mansfeld-Südharz. It is situated southeast of the Harz, approx. east of Nordhausen, and west of Halle (Saale). About 26,000 people live in Sangerhausen (2 ...
, Bach was appointed court musician in the chapel of Duke
Johann Ernst III in
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...
. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboardist spread so much that he was invited to inspect the new organ and give the inaugural recital at the New Church (now
Bach Church) in
Arnstadt
Arnstadt () is a town in Ilm-Kreis, Thuringia, Germany, on the river Gera about south of Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia. Arnstadt is one of the oldest towns in Thuringia, and has a well-preserved historic centre with a partially preserved town ...
, located about southwest of Weimar. On 14 August 1703, he became the organist at the New Church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a new organ tuned in a temperament that allowed music written in a wider range of keys to be played.
Despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir. He called one of them a "Zippel Fagottist" (
weenie
A hot dog (uncommonly spelled hotdog) is a food consisting of a grilled or steamed sausage served in the slit of a partially sliced bun. The term hot dog can refer to the sausage itself. The sausage used is a wiener (Vienna sausage) or a fra ...
bassoon player). Late one evening this student, named Geyersbach, went after Bach with a stick. Bach filed a complaint against Geyersbach with the authorities. They acquitted Geyersbach with a minor reprimand and ordered Bach to be more moderate regarding the musical qualities he expected from his students. Some months later Bach upset his employer by a prolonged absence from Arnstadt: after obtaining leave for four weeks, he was absent for around four months in 1705–1706 to visit the organist and composer
Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude (; ; born Diderik Hansen Buxtehude; c. 1637 – 9 May 1707) was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal ...
in the northern city of
Lübeck
Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...
. The visit to Buxtehude involved a journey each way, reportedly on foot.
In 1706, Bach applied for a post as organist at the
Blasius Church in
Mühlhausen
Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen.
Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...
.
As part of his application, he had a
cantata
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning of ...
performed on Easter, 24 April 1707, likely an early version of his . A month later Bach's application was accepted and he took up the post in July.
The position included significantly higher remuneration, improved conditions, and a better choir. Four months after arriving at Mühlhausen, Bach married
Maria Barbara Bach
Maria Barbara Bach ( – buried 7 July 1720) was the first wife of composer Johann Sebastian Bach. She was also the daughter of his father's cousin Johann Michael Bach.
Life
Maria Barbara Bach was born at Gehren, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, to ...
, his second cousin. Bach was able to convince the church and town government at Mühlhausen to fund an expensive renovation of the organ at the Blasius Church. In 1708 Bach wrote , a festive
cantata for the inauguration of the new council, which was published at the council's expense.
Return to Weimar (1708–1717)
![Leipzig Paulinerkirche Scheibe-Orgel um 1720](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Leipzig_Paulinerkirche_Scheibe-Orgel_um_1720.jpg)
Bach left Mühlhausen in 1708, returning to Weimar this time as organist and from 1714 (director of music) at the ducal court, where he had an opportunity to work with a large, well-funded contingent of professional musicians.
Bach and his wife moved into a house close to the ducal palace. Later the same year, their first child, Catharina Dorothea, was born, and Maria Barbara's elder, unmarried sister joined them. She remained to help run the household until her death in 1729. Three sons were also born in Weimar:
Wilhelm Friedemann,
Carl Philipp Emanuel, and
Johann Gottfried Bernhard. Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara had three more children, who however did not live to their first birthday, including twins born in 1713.
Bach's time in Weimar was the start of a sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works. He attained the proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing structures and include influences from abroad. He learned to write dramatic openings and employ the dynamic rhythms and harmonic schemes found in the music of Italians such as
Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
,
Corelli, and
Torelli
Torelli may refer to:
People
* Achille Torelli (1841–1922), Italian playwright
*Alec Torelli (born 1987), American professional poker player
*Bernard Torelli (1955–2016), French guitarist and audio engineer
*Cesare Torelli (died 1615), Italian ...
. Bach absorbed these stylistic aspects in part by transcribing Vivaldi's string and wind
concerto
A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...
s for harpsichord and organ; many of these transcribed works are still regularly performed. Bach was particularly attracted to the Italian style, in which one or more solo instruments alternate section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a
movement
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
.
In Weimar, Bach continued to play and compose for the organ and perform concert music with the duke's ensemble.
He also began to write the
preludes and
fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
s which were later assembled into his monumental work ''
The Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of in ...
'' ("clavier" meaning clavichord or harpsichord), consisting of two books, each containing 24 preludes and fugues in every
major
Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
and
minor
Minor may refer to:
* Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities.
** A person who has not reached the age of majority
* Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education
Music theory
*Minor chord
** Barb ...
key. Bach also started work on the ''
Little Organ Book'' in Weimar, containing traditional
Lutheran chorale
A Lutheran chorale is a musical setting of a Lutheran hymn, intended to be sung by a congregation in a German Protestant Church service. The typical four-part setting of a chorale, in which the sopranos (and the congregation) sing the melody al ...
tunes set in complex textures. In 1713, Bach was offered a post in
Halle when he advised the authorities during a renovation by Christoph Cuntzius of the main organ in the west gallery of the
Market Church of Our Dear Lady.
In the spring of 1714, Bach was promoted to , an honour that entailed performing a church cantata monthly in the castle church. The first three cantatas in the new series Bach composed in Weimar were , for
Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy ...
, which coincided with the
Annunciation
The Annunciation (from Latin '), also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the biblical tale of the announcement by the ange ...
that year; , for
Jubilate Sunday The Fourth Sunday of Easter is the day that occurs three weeks after the Christian celebration of Easter.
Western Christianity
Tridentine Catholicism (pre-1970)
In the historical Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, this day was officially ...
; and for
Pentecost
Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the Ne ...
.
Bach's first Christmas cantata, , was premiered in 1714 or 1715.
In 1717, Bach eventually fell out of favour in Weimar and, according to a translation of the court secretary's report, was jailed for almost a month before being unfavourably dismissed: "On November 6,
717 the quondam
ormer
Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae. Other common names are ear shells, sea ears, and, rarely, muttonfish or mutton ...
concertmaster and organist Bach was confined to the County Judge's place of detention for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal and finally on December 2 was freed from arrest with notice of his unfavourable discharge."
Köthen (1717–1723)
Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen
Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen (29 November 1694 – 19 November 1728) was a German prince of the House of Ascania and ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Köthen. Today, he is best remembered for employing Johann Sebastian Bach as his Kapellmeister ...
, hired Bach to serve as his (director of music) in 1717. Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach's talents, paid him well and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. The prince was a
Calvinist
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
and did not use elaborate music in his worship; accordingly, most of Bach's work from this period was secular, including the
orchestral suites
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...
,
cello suites
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the p ...
,
sonatas and partitas for solo violin
The sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) are a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are sometimes referred to in English as the sonatas and for solo violin in accordance with Bach's headings in the autograph ...
, and ''Brandenburg Concertos''. Bach also composed secular cantatas for the court, such as .
Despite being born in the same year and only about apart, Bach and
Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
never met. In 1719, Bach made the journey from
Köthen to
Halle with the intention of meeting Handel; however, Handel had left the town. In 1730, Bach's oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, travelled to Halle to invite Handel to visit the Bach family in Leipzig, but the visit did not take place.
On 7 July 1720, while Bach was away in
Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, Bach's wife suddenly died. The following year, he met
Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young, highly gifted soprano 16 years his junior, who performed at the court in Köthen; they married on 3 December 1721. Together they had 13 children, six of whom survived into adulthood:
Gottfried Heinrich; Elisabeth Juliane Friederica (1726–1781);
Johann Christoph Friedrich and
Johann Christian, who both, especially Johann Christian, became significant musicians; Johanna Carolina (1737–1781); and Regina Susanna (1742–1809).
Leipzig (1723–1750)
In 1723, Bach was appointed ''
Thomaskantor
(Cantor at St. Thomas) is the common name for the musical director of the , now an internationally known boys' choir founded in Leipzig in 1212. The official historic title of the Thomaskantor in Latin, ', describes the two functions of cantor a ...
'',
Cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds.
In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...
of the
St. Thomas School at the
St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, which provided music for four churches in the city: the St. Thomas Church and
St. Nicholas Church and to a lesser extent the
New Church and
St. Peter's Church. This was "the leading cantorate in Protestant Germany",
located in the mercantile city in the
Electorate of Saxony
The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz.
In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles ...
, which he held for 27 years until his death. During that time he gained further prestige through honorary appointments at the courts of Köthen and Weissenfels, as well as that of the Elector
Frederick Augustus (who was also
King of Poland
Poland was ruled at various times either by dukes and princes (10th to 14th centuries) or by kings (11th to 18th centuries). During the latter period, a tradition of free election of monarchs made it a uniquely electable position in Europe (16t ...
) in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
.
[ Bach frequently disagreed with his employer, Leipzig's city council, which he regarded as "penny-pinching".
]
Appointment in Leipzig
Johann Kuhnau
Johann Kuhnau (; 6 April 16605 June 1722) was a German polymath, known primarily as a composer today. He was also active as a novelist, translator, lawyer, and music theorist, and was able to combine these activities with his duties in his offi ...
had been Thomaskantor in Leipzig from 1701 until his death on 5 June 1722. Bach had visited Leipzig during Kuhnau's tenure: in 1714 he attended the service at the St. Thomas Church on the first Sunday of Advent, and in 1717 he had tested the organ of the St. Paul's Church. In 1716 Bach and Kuhnau had met on the occasion of the testing and inauguration of an organ in Halle.
After being offered the position, Bach was invited to Leipzig only after Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (; – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesh ...
indicated that he would not be interested in relocating to Leipzig. Telemann went to Hamburg, where he "had his own struggles with the city's senate".
Bach was required to instruct the students of the in singing and provide church music for the main churches in Leipzig. He was also assigned to teach Latin but was allowed to employ four "prefects" (deputies) to do this instead. The prefects also aided with musical instruction. A cantata was required for the church services on Sundays and additional church holidays during the liturgical year
The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and whi ...
.
Cantata cycle years (1723–1729)
Bach usually led performances of his cantatas
A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.
The meaning of t ...
, most of which were composed within three years of his relocation to Leipzig. The first was , performed in the St. Nicholas Church on 30 May 1723, the first Sunday after Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
. Bach collected his cantatas in annual cycles. Five are mentioned in obituaries, three are extant. Of the more than 300 cantatas which Bach composed in Leipzig, over 100 have been lost to posterity. Most of these works expound on the Gospel readings prescribed for every Sunday and feast day in the Lutheran year. Bach started a second annual cycle the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724 and composed only chorale cantatas
Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale:
* Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the ...
, each based on a single church hymn. These include , , , and .
Bach drew the soprano and alto choristers from the school and the tenors and basses from the school and elsewhere in Leipzig. Performing at weddings and funerals provided extra income for these groups; it was probably for this purpose, and for in-school training, that he wrote at least six motet
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...
s. As part of his regular church work, he performed other composers' motets, which served as formal models for his own.
Bach's predecessor as cantor, Johann Kuhnau
Johann Kuhnau (; 6 April 16605 June 1722) was a German polymath, known primarily as a composer today. He was also active as a novelist, translator, lawyer, and music theorist, and was able to combine these activities with his duties in his offi ...
, had also been music director for the St. Paul's Church, the church of Leipzig University
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...
. But when Bach was installed as cantor in 1723, he was put in charge only of music for festal (church holiday) services at the St. Paul's Church; his petition to also provide music for regular Sunday services there (for a corresponding salary increase) went all the way to the Elector but was denied. After this, in 1725, Bach "lost interest" in working even for festal services at the St. Paul's Church and appeared there only on "special occasions". The St. Paul's Church had a much better and newer (1716) organ than did the St. Thomas Church or the St. Nicholas Church. Bach was not required to play any organ in his official duties, but it is believed he liked to play on the St. Paul's Church organ "for his own pleasure".
Bach broadened his composing and performing beyond the liturgy by taking over, in March 1729, the directorship of the Collegium Musicum
The Collegium Musicum was one of several types of musical societies that arose in German and German-Swiss cities and towns during the Reformation and thrived into the mid-18th century.
Generally, while societies such as the (chorale) cultivated ...
, a secular performance ensemble started by Telemann. This was one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities that were established by musically active university students; these societies had become increasingly important in public musical life and were typically led by the most prominent professionals in a city. In the words of Christoph Wolff
Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty sinc ...
, assuming the directorship was a shrewd move that "consolidated Bach's firm grip on Leipzig's principal musical institutions". Every week the ''Collegium Musicum'' would give two-hour performances in winter at the Café Zimmermann
The Café Zimmermann, or was the coffeehouse of Gottfried Zimmermann in Leipzig which formed the backdrop to the first performances of many of Bach's secular cantatas, e.g. the ''Coffee Cantata'' (''Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht''), and instr ...
, a coffeehouse
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-ca ...
on Catherine Street off the main market square; and during the summer months in the proprietor's outdoor coffee garden just outside the town walls, near the East Gate. The concerts, all free of charge, ended with Gottfried Zimmermann's death in 1741. Apart from showcasing his earlier orchestral repertoire such as the Brandenburg Concertos
The ''Brandenburg Concertos'' by Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, BWV 1046–1051), are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg ...
and Orchestral Suites
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...
, many of Bach's newly composed or reworked pieces were performed for these venues, including parts of his (''Keyboard Practice''), his violin and keyboard concertos and of course the eponymous Coffee Cantata
' (Be still, stop chattering), BWV 211, also known as the ''Coffee Cantata'', is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it probably between 1732 and 1735. Although classified as a cantata, it is essentially a miniature comic ...
.
Middle years of the Leipzig period (1730–1739)
In 1733, Bach composed a Kyrie–Gloria Mass in B minor which he later incorporated in his Mass in B minor. He presented the manuscript to the Elector in an eventually successful bid to persuade the prince to give him the title of Court Composer. He later extended this work into a full mass by adding a , , and , the music for which was partly based on his own cantatas and partly original. Bach's appointment as Court Composer was an element of his long-term struggle to achieve greater bargaining power with the Leipzig council. Between 1737 and 1739, Bach's former pupil Carl Gotthelf Gerlach
Carl Gotthelf Gerlach (31 December 1704 – 9 July 1761) was a German organist, composer and violinist.
Life
Born in , Wermsdorf, hear Oschatz, Gerlach became a pupil at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, receiving musical training between 1716 ...
held the directorship of the ''Collegium Musicum''.
In 1735 Bach started to prepare his first publication of organ music, which was printed as the third ''Clavier-Übung'' in 1739. From around that year he started to compile and compose the set of preludes and fugues for harpsichord that would become his second book of ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''. He received the title of "Royal Court Composer" from Augustus III in 1736.
Final years and death (1740–1750)
From 1740 to 1748 Bach copied, transcribed, expanded or programmed music in an older polyphonic
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...
style (''stile antico
''Stile antico'' (literally "ancient style", ), is a term describing a manner of musical composition from the sixteenth century onwards that was historically conscious, as opposed to '' stile moderno'', which adhered to more modern trends. ''Prim ...
'') by, among others, Palestrina
Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pren ...
( BNB I/P/2), Kerll ( BWV 241), Torri ( BWV Anh. 30), Bassani ( BWV 1081), Gasparini ('' Missa Canonica'') and Caldara
Caldara is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Antonio Caldara (1670–1736), Italian composer
* Domenico Caldara (1814–1897), Italian painter
* Emilio Caldara (1868–1942), Italian Socialist Party politician
* Jon Caldara, Ame ...
( BWV 1082). Bach's own style shifted in the last decade of his life, showing an increased integration of polyphonic structures and canons and other elements of the ''stile antico''.[Neuaufgefundenes Bach-Autograph in Weißenfels](_blank)
at His fourth and last ''Clavier-Übung'' volume, the ''Goldberg Variations
The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have ...
'', for two-manual harpsichord, contained nine canons and was published in 1741. Throughout this period, Bach also continued to adopt music of contemporaries such as Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
( BNB I/K/2) and Stölzel ( BWV 200), and gave many of his own earlier compositions, such as the ''St Matthew'' and ''St John'' Passions and the ''Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes
The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade (1740–1750), from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The wo ...
'', their final revisions. He also programmed and adapted music by composers of a younger generation, including Pergolesi Pergolesi is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, (1710–1736), Italian composer, violinist, and organist
* Michael Angelo Pergolesi, 18th-century Italian decorative artist
{{Surname
Italian-langu ...
( BWV 1083) and his own students such as Goldberg Goldberg or Goldberger may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Goldberg Ensemble, a British string ensemble
* ''Goldberg Variations'', a set of 30 keyboard variations by Johann Sebastian Bach
* ''The Goldbergs (broadcast series)'', American radio ...
( BNB I/G/2).
In 1746 Bach was preparing to enter Lorenz Christoph Mizler
Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof (also known as Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof and Mitzler de Koloff; 26 July 1711 – 8 May 1778) was a German medicine, physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enl ...
's . In order to be admitted Bach had to submit a composition, for which he chose his Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her"
The Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" ("From Heaven above to Earth I come"), BWV 769, are a set of five variations in canon for organ with two manuals and pedals by Johann Sebastian Bach on the Christmas hymn by Martin Lu ...
, and a portrait, which was painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann
Elias Gottlob Haussmann (also ''Haußmann'' or ''Hausmann'') (1695 – 11 April 1774) was a German painter in the Rococo, late Baroque era. Haussmann served as court painter at Dresden, and from 1720 as the official Portrait painting, port ...
and featured Bach's '' Canon triplex á 6 Voc''. In May 1747, Bach visited the court of King Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...
in Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
. The king played a theme for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue based on his theme. Bach obliged, playing a three-part fugue on one of Frederick's fortepiano
A fortepiano , sometimes referred to as a pianoforte, is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 up to the early 19th century. Mo ...
s by Gottfried Silbermann
Gottfried Silbermann (January 14, 1683 – August 4, 1753) was a German builder of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.
Life
Very little is know ...
, which was a new type of instrument at the time. Upon his return to Leipzig he composed a set of fugues and canons, and a trio sonata, based on the ''Thema Regium'' (theme of the king). Within a few weeks this music was published as ''The Musical Offering
''The Musical Offering'' (German: or ), BWV 1079, is a collection of keyboard canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, all based on a single musical theme given to him by Frederick the Great (King Frederick II of Pru ...
'' and dedicated to Frederick. The ''Schübler Chorales
' ( 'six chorales of diverse kinds, to be played on an organ with two manuals and pedal'), commonly known as the ''Schübler Chorales'' (german: Schübler-Choräle), BWV 645–650, is a set of chorale preludes composed by Johann Sebastia ...
'', a set of six chorale preludes transcribed from cantata movements Bach had composed some two decades earlier, were published within a year. Around the same time, the set of five canonic variations which Bach had submitted when entering Mizler's society in 1747 were also printed.
Two large-scale compositions occupied a central place in Bach's last years. From around 1742 he wrote and revised the various canons and fugues of ''The Art of Fugue
''The Art of Fugue'', or ''The Art of the Fugue'' (german: Die Kunst der Fuge, links=no), BWV 1080, is an incomplete musical work of unspecified instrumentation by Johann Sebastian Bach. Written in the last decade of his life, ''The Art of Fug ...
'', which he continued to prepare for publication until shortly before his death. After extracting a cantata, BWV 191 from his 1733 Kyrie-Gloria Mass for the Dresden court in the mid-1740s, Bach expanded that setting
Setting may refer to:
* A location (geography) where something is set
* Set construction in theatrical scenery
* Setting (narrative), the place and time in a work of narrative, especially fiction
* Setting up to fail a manipulative technique to eng ...
into his Mass in B minor
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
in the last years of his life. Although the complete mass was never performed during the composer's lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest choral works in history.
In January 1749, Bach's daughter Elisabeth Juliane Friederica married his pupil Johann Christoph Altnickol
Johann Christoph Altnickol, or Altnikol, (baptised 1 January 1720, buried 25 July 1759) was a German organist, bass singer, and composer. He was a student, copyist and son-in-law of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Biography
Altnikol was born in Berna be ...
. Bach's health was, however, declining. On 2 June, Heinrich von Brühl
Heinrich, count von Brühl ( pl, Henryk Brühl, 13 August 170028 October 1763), was a Polish-Saxon statesman at the court of Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and a member of the powerful German von Brühl family. The incumbency of ...
wrote to one of the Leipzig burgomaster
Burgomaster (alternatively spelled burgermeister, literally "master of the town, master of the borough, master of the fortress, master of the citizens") is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief m ...
s to request that his music director, Johann Gottlob Harrer
Gottlob Harrer (8 May 1703 – 9 July 1755) was a German composer and choir leader.
Life
Harrer was born in Görlitz, and studied music in Leipzig and Italy. From 1731 he worked in the chapel-choir of Reichsgraf Heinrich von Brühl. Following ...
, fill the and posts "upon the eventual ... decease of Mr. Bach". Becoming blind, Bach underwent eye surgery, in March 1750 and again in April, by the British eye surgeon John Taylor, a man widely understood today as a charlatan and believed to have blinded hundreds of people. Bach died on 28 July 1750 from complications due to the unsuccessful treatment.
An inventory drawn up a few months after Bach's death shows that his estate included five harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
s, two lute-harpsichords, three violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
s, three viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
s, two cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
s, a viola da gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
, a lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
and a spinet
A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ.
Harpsichords
When the term ''spinet'' is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the ''bentside spinet'', described in this ...
, along with 52 "sacred books", including works by Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
and Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...
. The composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel saw to it that ''The Art of Fugue'', although still unfinished, was published in 1751. Together with one of the composer's former students, Johann Friedrich Agricola
Johann Friedrich Agricola (4 January 1720 – 2 December 1774) was a German composer, organist, singer, pedagogue, and writer on music. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Flavio Anicio Olibrio.
Biography
Agricola was born in Dobitschen, Thu ...
, the son also wrote the obituary (" Nekrolog"), which was published in Mizler's , a periodical journal produced by the Society of Musical Sciences, in 1754.[ Printed in translation in .]
Musical style
From an early age, Bach studied the works of his musical contemporaries of the Baroque period and those of prior generations, and those influences were reflected in his music. Like his contemporaries Handel, Telemann and Vivaldi, Bach composed concertos, suites, recitatives, da capo aria
The da capo aria () is a musical form for arias that was prevalent in the Baroque era. It is sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria is very common in the musical genres of opera and orator ...
s, and four-part choral music and employed basso continuo
Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...
. Bach's music was harmonically more innovative than his peer composers, employing surprisingly dissonant
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness ...
chords and progressions, often with extensive exploration of harmonic possibilities within one piece.
The hundreds of sacred works Bach created are usually seen as manifesting not just his craft but also a truly devout relationship with God. He had taught Luther's Small Catechism
''Luther's Small Catechism'' (german: Der Kleine Katechismus) is a catechism written by Martin Luther and published in 1529 for the training of children. Luther's Small Catechism reviews the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Pr ...
as the in Leipzig, and some of his pieces represent it. The Lutheran chorale
A Lutheran chorale is a musical setting of a Lutheran hymn, intended to be sung by a congregation in a German Protestant Church service. The typical four-part setting of a chorale, in which the sopranos (and the congregation) sing the melody al ...
was the basis of much of his work. In elaborating these hymns into his chorale preludes, he wrote more cogent and tightly integrated works than most, even when they were massive and lengthy. The large-scale structure of every major Bach sacred vocal work is evidence of subtle, elaborate planning to create a religiously and musically powerful expression. For example, the ''St Matthew Passion'', like other works of its kind, illustrated the Passion with Bible text reflected in recitatives, arias, choruses, and chorales, but in crafting this work, Bach created an overall experience that has been found over the intervening centuries to be both musically thrilling and spiritually profound.
Bach published or carefully compiled in manuscript many collections of pieces that explored the range of artistic and technical possibilities inherent in almost every genre of his time except opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
. For example, ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'' comprises two books, each of which presents a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key, displaying a dizzying variety of structural, contrapuntal and fugal techniques.
Four-part harmony
Four-part harmonies predate Bach, but he lived during a time when modal music
In music theory, the term mode or ''modus'' is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context.
Its most common use may be described as a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviors. It ...
in Western tradition was largely supplanted in favour of the tonal system
The tonal system is a base 16 system of notation (predating the widespread use of hexadecimal in computing), arithmetic, and metrology proposed in 1859 by John W. Nystrom.Nystrom, John W.''Project of a New System of Arithmetic, Weight, Measur ...
. In this system a piece of music progresses from one chord to the next according to certain rules, each chord being characterised by four notes. The principles of four-part harmony are found not only in Bach's four-part choral music: he also prescribes it for instance for the figured bass
Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsic ...
accompaniment. The new system was at the core of Bach's style, and his compositions are to a large extent considered as laying down the rules for the evolving scheme that would dominate musical expression in the next centuries. Some examples of this characteristic of Bach's style and its influence:
* When in the 1740s Bach staged his arrangement of Pergolesi Pergolesi is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, (1710–1736), Italian composer, violinist, and organist
* Michael Angelo Pergolesi, 18th-century Italian decorative artist
{{Surname
Italian-langu ...
's ''Stabat Mater
The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christian hymn to Mary, which portrays her suffering as Jesus Christ's mother during his crucifixion. Its author may be either the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi or Pope Innocent III.Sabatier, Paul ''Life o ...
'', he upgraded the viola part (which in the original composition plays in unison with the bass part) to fill out the harmony, thus adapting the composition to his four-part harmony style.
* When, starting in the 19th century in Russia, there was a discussion about the authenticity of four-part court chant settings compared to earlier Russian traditions, Bach's four-part chorale settings, such as those ending his Chorale cantatas
Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale:
* Hymn tune of a Lutheran hymn (e.g. the melody of "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme"), or a tune in a similar format (e.g. one of the ...
, were considered as foreign-influenced models. Such influence was deemed unavoidable, however.
Bach's insistence on the tonal system and contribution to shaping it did not imply he was less at ease with the older modal system and the genres associated with it: more than his contemporaries (who had "moved on" to the tonal system without much exception), Bach often returned to the then-antiquated modi and genres. His ''Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue
The ''Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue'' in D minor, , is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach probably composed it during his time in Köthen from 1717 to 1723. The piece was already regarded as a unique masterpiece during his li ...
'', emulating the chromatic fantasia
A chromatic fantasia is a specific type of fantasia (or fantasy or fancy) originating in sixteenth-century Europe. In its earliest form, it is based on a chromatically descending tetrachord which arises naturally out of the dorian mode. Consequen ...
genre as used by earlier composers such as Dowland and Sweelinck
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ( ; April or May, 1562 – 16 October 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard com ...
in D dorian mode
Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different but interrelated subjects: one of the Ancient Greek ''harmoniai'' (characteristic melodic behaviour, or the scale structure associated with it); one of the medieval musical modes; or—mos ...
(comparable to D minor
D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative major is F major and its parallel major is D major.
The D natural minor scale is:
Changes needed for t ...
in the tonal system), is an example of this.
Modulation
Modulation
In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the ''carrier signal'', with a separate signal called the ''modulation signal'' that typically contains informatio ...
, or changing key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
in the course of a piece, is another style characteristic where Bach goes beyond what was usual in his time. Baroque instruments vastly limited modulation possibilities: keyboard instruments, prior to a workable system of temperament
In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes.
Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
, limited the keys that could be modulated to, and wind instruments, especially brass instruments such as trumpets
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...
and horns Horns or The Horns may refer to:
* Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells
* The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain
* ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
, about a century before they were fitted with valves, were tied to the key of their tuning. Bach pushed the limits: he added "strange tones" in his organ playing, confusing the singing, according to an indictment he had to face in Arnstadt, and Louis Marchand
Louis Marchand (2 February 1669 – 17 February 1732) was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French vi ...
, another early experimenter with modulation, seems to have avoided confrontation with Bach because the latter went further than anyone had done before. In the "Suscepit Israel" of his 1723 Magnificat, he had the trumpets in E-flat play a melody in the enharmonic
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written n ...
scale of C minor.
The major development taking place in Bach's time, and to which he contributed in no small way, was a temperament for keyboard instruments that allowed their use in all available keys (12 major and 12 minor) and also modulation without retuning. His ''Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother
The ''Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother'' (Italian: ''Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo''), BWV 992, is an early work by Johann Sebastian Bach, possibly modeled on the Biblical Sonatas of Johann Kuhnau. The s ...
'', a very early work, showed a gusto for modulation unlike any contemporary work this composition has been compared to, but the full expansion came with the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'', using all keys, which Bach apparently had been developing since around 1720, the ''Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
''Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach'' (Bach's original spelling: ''Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach'') is a collection of keyboard music compiled by the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach for his eldest son Wil ...
'' being one of its earliest examples.
Ornamentation
The second page of the ''Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach'' is an ornament notation and performance guide that Bach wrote for his eldest son, who was nine years old at the time. Bach was generally quite specific on ornamentation in his compositions (where in his time much of the ornamentation was not written out by composers but rather considered a liberty of the performer), and his ornamentation was often quite elaborate. For instance, the "Aria" of the ''Goldberg Variations'' has rich ornamentation in nearly every measure. Bach's dealing with ornamentation can also be seen in a keyboard arrangement he made of Marcello Marcello is a common masculine Italian given name. It is a variant of Marcellus. The Spanish and Portuguese version of the name is Marcelo, differing in having only one "l", while the Greek form is Markellos.
Etymology
The name originally means ...
's Oboe Concerto
A number of concertos (as well as non-concerto works) have been written for the oboe, both as a solo instrument as well as in conjunction with other solo instrument(s), and accompanied by string orchestra, chamber orchestra, full orchestra, concert ...
: he added explicit ornamentation, which some centuries later is played by oboists when performing the concerto.
Although Bach did not write any operas, he was not averse to the genre or its ornamented vocal style. In church music, Italian composers had imitated the operatic vocal style in genres such as the Neapolitan mass. In Protestant surroundings, there was more reluctance to adopt such a style for liturgical music. For instance, Kuhnau, Bach's predecessor in Leipzig, had notoriously shunned opera and Italian virtuoso vocal music. Bach was less moved. One of the comments after a performance of his ''St Matthew Passion'' was that it all sounded much like opera.
Continuo instruments solos
In concerted playing in Bach's time the basso continuo, consisting of instruments such as organ, viola da gamba
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
or harpsichord, usually had the role of accompaniment, providing the harmonic and rhythmic foundation of a piece. From the late 1720s, Bach had the organ play concertante
Sinfonia concertante (; also called ''symphonie concertante'') is an orchestral work, normally in several movements, in which one or more solo instruments contrast with the full orchestra.Collins: ''Encyclopedia of Music'', William Collins Sons & C ...
(i.e. as a soloist) with the orchestra in instrumental cantata movements,[ André Isoir (organ) and Le Parlement de Musique conducted by Martin Gester. ''Johann Sebastian Bach: L'oeuvre pour orgue et orchestre''. ]Calliope
In Greek mythology, Calliope ( ; grc, Καλλιόπη, Kalliópē, beautiful-voiced) is the Muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry; so called from the ecstatic harmony of her voice. Hesiod and Ovid called her the "Chief of all Muses" ...
1993. Liner notes by Gilles Cantagrel
Gilles Cantagrel (born 20 November 1937) is a French musicologist, writer, lecturer and music educator.
Biography
Born in Paris, Cantagrel studied physics, art history and music at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Conservatoi ...
. a decade before Handel published his first organ concertos. Apart from the 5th ''Brandenburg Concerto'' and the ''Triple Concerto
A triple concerto (Italian: ''Concerto triplo'', German: ''Tripelkonzert'') is a concerto with three soloists. Such concertos have been composed from the Baroque period, including works by Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach and Telemann, to the 21st century ...
'', which already had harpsichord soloists in the 1720s, Bach wrote and arranged his harpsichord concertos in the 1730s, and in his sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord neither instrument plays a continuo part: they are treated as equal soloists, far beyond the figured bass. In this sense, Bach played a key role in the development of genres such as the keyboard concerto.
Instrumentation
Bach wrote virtuoso music for specific instruments as well as music independent of instrumentation. For instance, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin
The sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) are a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. They are sometimes referred to in English as the sonatas and for solo violin in accordance with Bach's headings in the autograph ...
are considered the pinnacle of what has been written for this instrument, only within reach of accomplished players. The music fits the instrument, pushing it to the full scale of its possibilities and requiring virtuosity of the player but without bravura
In classical music a bravura is a style of both music and its performance intended to show off the skill of a performer. John Alexander Fuller-Maitland, ''A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889)'p. 271-272/ref> Commonly, it is a virt ...
. Notwithstanding that the music and the instrument seem inseparable, Bach made transcriptions for other instruments of some pieces of this collection. Similarly, for the cello suites
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the p ...
, the virtuoso music seems tailored for the instrument, the best of what is offered for it, yet Bach made an arrangement for lute of one of these suites. The same applies to much of his most virtuoso keyboard music. Bach exploited the capabilities of an instrument to the fullest while keeping the core of such music independent of the instrument on which it is performed.
In this sense, it is no surprise that Bach's music is easily and often performed on instruments it was not necessarily written for, that it is transcribed so often, and that his melodies turn up in unexpected places such as jazz music. Apart from this, Bach left a number of compositions without specified instrumentation: the canons BWV 1072–1078 fall in that category, as well as the bulk of the ''Musical Offering'' and the ''Art of Fugue''.
Counterpoint
Another characteristic of Bach's style is his extensive use of counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
, as opposed to the homophony
In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ou ...
used in his four-part Chorale settings, for example. Bach's canons, and especially his fugues, are most characteristic of this style, which Bach did not invent but contributed to so fundamentally that he defined it to a large extent. Fugues are as characteristic to Bach's style as, for instance, the Sonata form
Sonata form (also ''sonata-allegro form'' or ''first movement form'') is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle ...
is characteristic to the composers of the Classical period.
These strictly contrapuntal compositions, and most of Bach's music in general, are characterised by distinct melodic lines for each of the voices, where the chords formed by the notes sounding at a given point follow the rules of four-part harmony. Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel (22 February 1749 – 20 March 1818) was a German musicologist and music theory, music theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include ''Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, ...
, Bach's first biographer, gives this description of this feature of Bach's music, which sets it apart from most other music:
Structure and lyrics
Bach devoted more attention than his contemporaries to the structure of compositions. This can be seen in minor adjustments he made when adapting someone else's composition, such as his earliest version of the "Keiser" ''St Mark Passion'', where he enhances scene transitions, and in the architecture of his own compositions such as his Magnificat and Leipzig ''Passions''. In the last years of his life, Bach revised several of his prior compositions. Often the recasting of such previously composed music in an enhanced structure was the most visible change, as in the Mass in B minor
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
. Bach's known preoccupation with structure led (peaking around the 1970s) to various numerological analyses of his compositions, although many such over-interpretations were later rejected, especially when wandering off into symbolism-ridden hermeneutics.
The libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...
s, or lyrics, of his vocal compositions played an important role for Bach. He sought collaboration with various text authors for his cantatas and major vocal compositions, possibly writing or adapting such texts himself to make them fit the structure of the composition he was designing when he could not rely on the talents of other text authors. His collaboration with Picander
Christian Friedrich Henrici (January 14, 1700 – May 10, 1764), writing under the pen name Picander, was a German poet and librettist for many of the cantatas which Johann Sebastian Bach composed in Leipzig.
Henrici was born in Stolpen. He studi ...
for the ''St Matthew Passion'' libretto is best known, but there was a similar process in achieving a multi-layered structure for his ''St John Passion'' libretto a few years earlier.
Compositions
In 1950, Wolfgang Schmieder
Wolfgang Schmieder (May 29, 1901 – November 8, 1990) was a German music librarian and musicologist.
Schmieder was born in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz, Poland).Eggebrecht, Hans. "Wolfgang Schmieder". ''Oxford Music Online''. 2001, https://doi.o ...
published a thematic catalogue
This article gives an overview of various catalogues of classical compositions that have come into general use.
Opus numbers
While the opus numbering system has long been the standard manner in which individual compositions are identified and ref ...
of Bach's compositions called the (Bach Works Catalogue). Schmieder largely followed the ', a comprehensive edition of the composer's works that was produced between 1850 and 1900. The first edition of the catalogue listed 1,080 surviving compositions indisputably composed by Bach.
BWV 1081–1126 were added to the catalogue in the second half of the 20th century, and BWV 1127 and higher are 21st-century additions.Bach Digital
Bach Digital (German: ), developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of Bach family, his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are ...
Work [Joel H. Kuznik]
"BWV 1128: A recently discovered Bach organ work" pp. 22–23
in ''The Diapason
''The Diapason'' is a magazine serving those who build and play organs. Content includes concert and recital announcements, information on building and maintaining organs and profiles of notable organists.
As of July 2013, ''The Diapason'' reac ...
'', Vol. 99 No. 22. December 2008.
archived 21 July 2011
Passions and oratorios
Bach composed Passions
''Passions'' is an American television soap opera that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1999, to September 7, 2007, and on DirecTV's The 101 Network from September 17, 2007, to August 7, 2008. Created by screenwriter James E. Reilly and pro ...
for Good Friday services and oratorios such as the ''Christmas Oratorio
The ''Christmas Oratorio'' (German: ''Weihnachtsoratorium''), , is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach intended for performance in church during the Christmas season. It is in six parts, each part a cantata intended for performance on one of t ...
'', which is a set of six cantatas for use in the liturgical season
The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which ...
of Christmas. Shorter oratorios are the ''Easter Oratorio
The ''Easter Oratorio'' (), 249, is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, beginning with ("Come, hasten and run"). Bach composed it in Leipzig and first performed it on 1 April 1725.
History
The first version of the work was completed as a ca ...
'' and the ''Ascension Oratorio
Ascension or ascending may refer to:
Religion
* "Ascension", "Assumption", or "Translation", the belief in some religions that some individuals have ascended into Heaven without dying first
* Ascension of Jesus
* Feast of the Ascension (Ascen ...
''.
''St Matthew Passion''
With its double choir and orchestra, the ''St Matthew Passion
The ''St Matthew Passion'' (german: Matthäus-Passion, links=-no), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets ...
'' is one of Bach's most extended works.
''St John Passion''
The ''St John Passion'' was the first Passion Bach composed during his tenure as Thomaskantor in Leipzig.
Cantatas
According to his obituary, Bach would have composed five year-cycles of sacred cantatas, and additional church cantatas for weddings and funerals, for example. Approximately 200 of these sacred works are extant, an estimated two thirds of the total number of church cantatas he composed. The Bach Digital
Bach Digital (German: ), developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of Bach family, his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are ...
website lists 50 known secular cantatas by the composer,[Bach's secular cantatas in BWV order, each followed by a link to the Bach Digital Work (BDW) page of the cantata at the Bach-Digital website: ] about half of which are extant or largely reconstructable.
Church cantatas
Bach's cantatas vary greatly in form and instrumentation. Many consist of a large opening chorus followed by one or more recitative-aria pairs for soloists (or duets) and a concluding chorale. The melody of the concluding chorale often appears as a cantus firmus
In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.
The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tr ...
in the opening movement.
Bach's earliest cantatas date from his years in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen. The earliest surviving work in the genre is . As a whole, the extant early works all show remarkable mastery and skill. Many feature an instrumental opening which display effective use of the limited instrumental forces available to Bach, whether it be in the subdued combination of two recorders and two viola de gamba for BWV 106
(God's time is the very best time), , also known as ''Actus tragicus'', is an early sacred cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Mühlhausen, intended for a funeral.
The earliest source for the composition is a copied manuscript date ...
, or the independent bassoon in BWV 196. Bach's compositional skills are also manifested through his daring harmonies and advanced, unprecedented chord progressions. According to Christoph Wolff
Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty sinc ...
, Bach's early cantatas are impressive evidence of how the modest means at his disposal did not restrain the composer in the slightest, and they compare favourably with compositions by the most talented composers from the beginning of the 18th century, such as Krieger, Kuhnau
Johann Kuhnau (; 6 April 16605 June 1722) was a German polymath, known primarily as a composer today. He was also active as a novelist, translator, lawyer, and music theorist, and was able to combine these activities with his duties in his offici ...
or Zachow.
After taking up his office as in late May 1723, Bach performed a cantata each Sunday and feast day, corresponding to the lectionary
A lectionary ( la, lectionarium) is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christianity, Christian or Judaic worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a "gospel lectionary" or evang ...
readings of the week. His first cantata cycle ran from the first Sunday after Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
of 1723 to Trinity Sunday the next year. For instance, the Visitation cantata , containing the chorale that is known in English as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", belongs to this first cycle. The cantata cycle of his second year in Leipzig is called the chorale cantata cycle Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale cantata cycle is the year-cycle of church cantatas he started composing in Leipzig from the first Sunday after Trinity in 1724. It followed the cantata cycle he had composed from his appointment as Thomaskantor after ...
as it consists mainly of works in the chorale cantata A chorale cantata is a church cantata based on a chorale—in this context a Lutheran chorale. It is principally from the Germany, German Baroque music, Baroque era. The organizing principle is the words and music of a Lutheran hymn. Usually a chora ...
format. His third cantata cycle was developed over a period of several years, followed by the Picander cycle of 1728–29.
Later church cantatas include the chorale cantatas (final version) and . Only the first three Leipzig cycles are more or less completely extant. Apart from his own work, Bach also performed cantatas by Telemann and by his distant relative Johann Ludwig Bach
Johann Ludwig Bach ( – 1 May 1731) was a German composer and violinist.
He was born in Thal near Eisenach. At the age of 22 he moved to Meiningen eventually being appointed cantor there, and later Kapellmeister. He wrote a large amount of musi ...
.
Secular cantatas
Bach also wrote secular cantatas, for instance for members of the royal Polish and prince-electoral Saxonian families (e.g. '' Trauer-Ode''), or other public or private occasions (e.g. ''Hunting Cantata
''Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd'' (The lively hunt is all my heart's desire), 208.1, BWV 208, also known as the ''Hunting Cantata'', is a secular cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for the 31st birthday of Duke Chri ...
''). The text of these cantatas was occasionally in dialect (e.g. ''Peasant Cantata
''Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet'' (We have a new governor), 212, is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was entitled the "Cantate burlesque" ( burlesque cantata) by Bach himself, but is now popularly known as the ''Peasant Cantata''. It is ...
'') or Italian (e.g. ''Amore traditore
(Treacherous love), BWV203, is a secular cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Köthen between 1718 and 1719, while he was in the service of the court of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. Bach wrote the unusual work on an Italian libre ...
''). Many of the secular cantatas were lost, but for some of them the text and occasion are known, for instance when Picander later published their librettos (e.g. BWV Anh. 11– 12).
Some of the surviving secular cantatas have a plot involving mythological figures of Greek antiquity (e.g. ''Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan
(Swift, swift, you swirling winds), BWV 201, is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, on a libretto by Picander (pen name of Christian Friedrich Henrici). It is a dramma per musica, likely composed for a public performance in 1729, aro ...
''), and others were almost miniature ''buffo'' operas (e.g. ''Coffee Cantata
' (Be still, stop chattering), BWV 211, also known as the ''Coffee Cantata'', is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it probably between 1732 and 1735. Although classified as a cantata, it is essentially a miniature comic ...
''). Although Bach never expressed any interest in opera, his secular cantatas, or '' drammi per musica'', would have allowed Leipzig audiences, deprived of opera since 1720, to experience musical performances comparable to the royal opera in Dresden. These were not at all "poor or makeshift substitutes for real opera" but spectacles displaying "full mastery of the dramatic genre and the proper pacing of the dialogues."
A cappella music
Bach's a cappella music includes motets and chorale harmonisations.
Motets
Bach's motets
In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margare ...
(BWV 225–231) are pieces on sacred themes for choir and continuo, with instruments playing colla parte
A variety of musical terms are likely to be encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special mus ...
. Several of them were composed for funerals. The six motets definitely composed by Bach are , , , , , and . The motet (BWV 231) is part of the composite motet ( BWV Anh. 160), other parts of which may be based on work by Telemann.
Chorale harmonisations
Bach wrote hundreds of four-part harmonisations of Lutheran chorales.
Church music in Latin
Bach's church music in Latin includes the Magnificat
The Magnificat (Latin for "y soul
Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or sevent ...
magnifies he Lord
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Eastern Christianity, Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated ...
, four Kyrie–Gloria Masses, and the Mass in B minor
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
.
Magnificat
The first version of Bach's Magnificat dates from 1723, but the work is best known in its D major version of 1733.
Mass in B minor
In 1733 Bach composed a Kyrie–Gloria Mass for the Dresden court. Near the end of his life, around 1748–1749, he expanded this composition into the large-scale Mass in B minor
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
. The work was never performed in full during Bach's lifetime.
Keyboard music
Bach wrote for organ and for stringed keyboard instruments such as harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
, clavichord
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras.
Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to compositi ...
and lute-harpsichord
The lautenwerck (also spelled lautenwerk), alternatively called lute-harpsichord (lute-clavier) or keyboard lute, is a European keyboard instrument of the Baroque period. It is similar to a harpsichord, but with gut (sometimes Nylon) rather tha ...
.
Organ works
Bach was best known during his lifetime as an organist, organ consultant, and composer of organ works in both the traditional German free genres (such as preludes, fantasias, and toccata
Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuo ...
s) and stricter forms (such as chorale prelude
In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 ...
s and fugues). At a young age, he established a reputation for creativity and ability to integrate foreign styles into his organ works. A decidedly North German influence was exerted by Georg Böhm
Georg Böhm (2 September 1661 – 18 May 1733) was a German Baroque organist and composer. He is notable for his development of the chorale partita and for his influence on the young J. S. Bach.
Life
Böhm was born in 1661 in Hohenkirchen. He ...
, with whom Bach came into contact in Lüneburg, and Dieterich Buxtehude
Dieterich Buxtehude (; ; born Diderik Hansen Buxtehude; c. 1637 – 9 May 1707) was a Danish organist and composer of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal ...
, whom the young organist visited in Lübeck in 1704 on an extended leave of absence from his job in Arnstadt. Around this time, Bach copied the works of numerous French and Italian composers to gain insights into their compositional languages, and later arranged violin concertos by Vivaldi and others for organ and harpsichord. During his most productive period (1708–1714) he composed about a dozen pairs of preludes and fugues, five toccatas and fugues, and the ''Orgelbüchlein
The ''Orgelbüchlein'' (''Little Organ Book'') BWV 599−644 is a set of 46 chorale preludes for organ — one of them is given in two versions — by Johann Sebastian Bach. All but three were written between 1708 and 1717 when Bach served as org ...
'' or "Little Organ Book", an unfinished collection of 46 short chorale preludes that demonstrate compositional techniques in the setting of chorale tunes. After leaving Weimar, Bach wrote less for organ, although some of his best-known works (the six Organ Sonatas, the German Organ Mass in ''Clavier-Übung'' III from 1739, and the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes
The Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, are a set of chorale preludes for organ prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig in his final decade (1740–1750), from earlier works composed in Weimar, where he was court organist. The wo ...
, revised late in his life) were composed after leaving Weimar. Bach was extensively engaged later in his life in consulting on organ projects, testing new organs and dedicating organs in afternoon recitals. The Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her"
The Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ich her" ("From Heaven above to Earth I come"), BWV 769, are a set of five variations in canon for organ with two manuals and pedals by Johann Sebastian Bach on the Christmas hymn by Martin Lu ...
and the ''Schübler Chorales
' ( 'six chorales of diverse kinds, to be played on an organ with two manuals and pedal'), commonly known as the ''Schübler Chorales'' (german: Schübler-Choräle), BWV 645–650, is a set of chorale preludes composed by Johann Sebastia ...
'' are organ works Bach published in the last years of his life.
Harpsichord and other stringed keyboard instruments
Bach wrote many works for harpsichord, some of which may also have been played on the clavichord or lute-harpsichord. Some of his larger works, such as ''Clavier-Übung'' II and IV, are intended for a harpsichord with two manuals: performing them on a keyboard instrument with a single manual (like a piano) may present technical difficulties for the crossing of hands.
* ''The Well-Tempered Clavier
''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', BWV 846–893, consists of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time, ''clavier'', meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of in ...
'', Books 1 and 2 (BWV 846–893). Each book consists of a prelude and fugue in each of the 24 major and minor keys
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
, in chromatic order from C major to B minor (thus, the whole collection is often referred to as "the 48"). "Well-tempered" in the title refers to the temperament
In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes.
Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
(system of tuning); many temperaments before Bach's time were not flexible enough to allow compositions to utilise more than just a few keys.
* The ''Inventions and Sinfonias
The Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801, also known as the Two- and Three-Part Inventions, are a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): 15 ''inventions'', which are two-part contrapuntal pieces, ...
'' (BWV 772–801). These short two- and three-part contrapuntal works are arranged in the same chromatic order as ''The Well-Tempered Clavier'', omitting some of the rarer keys. These pieces were intended by Bach for instructional purposes.
* Three collections of dance suites: the English Suites (BWV 806–811), French Suites
The ''French Suites'', BWV 812–817, are six suites which Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for the clavier (harpsichord or clavichord) between the years of 1722 and 1725.Bach. ''The French Suites: Embellished version''. Bärenreiter Urtext Althoug ...
(BWV 812–817), and Partitas for keyboard (, BWV 825–830). Each collection contains six suites built on the standard model (–––(optional movement)–). The English Suites closely follow the traditional model, adding a prelude before the and including a single movement between the and . The French Suites omit preludes but have multiple movements between the and . The partitas expand the model further with elaborate introductory movements and miscellaneous movements between the basic elements of the model.
* The ''Goldberg Variations'' (BWV 988), an aria with 30 variations
Variation or Variations may refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon
* Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals ...
. The collection has a complex and unconventional structure: the variations build on the bass line
Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, dub and electronic, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played (in jazz and some f ...
of the aria rather than its melody, and musical canons are interpolated according to a grand plan. There are 9 canons within the 30 variations; every third variation is a canon. These variations move in order from canon at unison to canon at the ninth. The first eight are in pairs (unison and octave, second and seventh, third and sixth, fourth and fifth). The ninth canon stands on its own due to compositional dissimilarities. The final variation, instead of being the expected canon at the tenth, is a quodlibet
A quodlibet (; Latin for "whatever you wish" from ''quod'', "what" and '' libet'', "pleases") is a musical composition that combines several different melodies—usually popular tunes—in counterpoint, and often in a light-hearted, humorous man ...
.
* Miscellaneous pieces such as the ''Overture in the French Style
The ''Overture in the French style'', BWV 831, original title ''Ouvertüre nach Französischer Art'', also known as the ''French Overture'' and published as the second half of the ''Clavier-Übung II'' in 1735 (paired with the ''Italian Concerto' ...
'' (''French Overture'', BWV 831) and the ''Italian Concerto
The ''Italian Concerto'', BWV 971, originally titled ''Concerto nach Italiænischen Gusto'' (''Concerto in the Italian taste''), is a three-movement concerto for two- manual harpsichord solo composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and published in 17 ...
'' (BWV 971) (published together as ), and the ''Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue
The ''Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue'' in D minor, , is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach probably composed it during his time in Köthen from 1717 to 1723. The piece was already regarded as a unique masterpiece during his li ...
'' (BWV 903).
Among Bach's lesser known keyboard works are seven toccata
Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuo ...
s (BWV 910–916), four duets (BWV 802–805), sonata
Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...
s for keyboard (BWV 963–967), the Six Little Preludes (BWV 933–938), and the (BWV 989).
Orchestral and chamber music
Bach wrote for single instruments, duets, and small ensembles. Many of his solo works, such as the six sonatas and partitas for violin (BWV 1001–1006) and the six cello suites
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the p ...
(BWV 1007–1012), are widely considered to be among the most profound in the repertoire. He wrote sonatas for a solo instrument such as the viola de gamba accompanied by harpsichord or continuo, as well as trio sonatas (two instruments and continuo).
''The Musical Offering'' and ''The Art of Fugue'' are late contrapuntal works containing pieces for unspecified instruments or combinations of instruments.
Violin concertos
Surviving works in the concerto form include two violin concertos ( BWV 1041 in A minor and BWV 1042
The Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042, by Johann Sebastian Bach is a concerto based on the three-movement Venetian concerto model, albeit with a few unusual features as each movement has "un-Italian characteristics". It is written for violin, ...
in E major) and a concerto for two violins in D minor, BWV 1043
The Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, also known as the Double Violin Concerto, is a violin concerto of the Late Baroque era, which Johann Sebastian Bach composed around 1730. It is one of the composer's most successful wor ...
, often referred to as Bach's "double concerto".
''Brandenburg Concertos''
Bach's best-known orchestral works are the ''Brandenburg Concertos'', so named because he submitted them in the hope of gaining employment from Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt in 1721; his application was unsuccessful. These works are examples of the concerto grosso The concerto grosso (; Italian for ''big concert(o)'', plural ''concerti grossi'' ) is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the '' concertino'') and full orchestra (the ''ripieno'', ''tut ...
genre.
Keyboard concertos
Bach composed and transcribed concertos for one to four harpsichords. Many of the harpsichord concertos were not original works but arrangements of his concertos for other instruments, now lost. A number of violin, oboe, and flute concertos have been reconstructed from these.
Orchestral suites
In addition to concertos, Bach wrote four orchestral suites
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...
, each suite being a series of stylised dances for orchestra, preceded by a French overture
The French overture is a musical form widely used in the Baroque period. Its basic formal division is into two parts, which are usually enclosed by double bars and repeat signs. They are complementary in style (slow in dotted rhythms and fast in f ...
.
Copies, arrangements and uncertain attributions
In his early youth, Bach copied pieces by other composers to learn from them. Later, he copied and arranged music for performance or as study material for his pupils. Some of these pieces, like "Bist du bei mir
"" (If you are with me, I go with joy) is an aria from Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel's opera ''Diomedes'', which was first staged on 16 November 1718. The aria is best known as "," BWV 508, a version for voice and continuo found as No. 25 in t ...
" (copied not by Bach but by Anna Magdalena), became famous before being dissociated with Bach. Bach copied and arranged Italian masters such as Vivaldi (e.g. BWV 1065), Pergolesi Pergolesi is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, (1710–1736), Italian composer, violinist, and organist
* Michael Angelo Pergolesi, 18th-century Italian decorative artist
{{Surname
Italian-langu ...
(BWV 1083
The (BWV; ; ) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2a ...
) and Palestrina
Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pren ...
( Missa Sine nomine), French masters such as François Couperin
François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented ...
( BWV Anh. 183), and, closer to home, various German masters including Telemann (e.g. BWV 824= TWV 32:14) and Handel ( arias from ''Brockes Passion''), and music from members of his own family. He also often copied and arranged his own music (e.g. movements from cantatas for his short masses BWV 233–236), as his music was likewise copied and arranged by others. Some of these arrangements, like the late 19th-century "Air on the G String
"Air on the G String", also known as "Air for G String" and "Celebrated Air", is August Wilhelmj's 1871 arrangement of the second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068.
The arrangement differs from the ...
", helped to popularise Bach's music.
Sometimes "who copied whom" is not clear. For instance, Forkel mentions a Mass for double chorus among the works composed by Bach. The work was published and performed in the early 19th century, and although a score partially in Bach's handwriting exists, the work was later considered spurious. In 1950, the design of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis was to keep such works out of the main catalogue: if there was a strong association with Bach they could be listed in its appendix (German: ''Anhang'', abbreviated as Anh.). Thus, for instance, the aforementioned Mass for double chorus became BWV Anh. 167
The (BWV; ; ) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2a ...
. But this was far from the end of the attribution issues. For instance, ''Schlage doch, gewünschte Stunde'', BWV 53, was later attributed to Melchior Hoffmann. For other works, Bach's authorship was put in doubt without a generally accepted answer to the question of whether or not he composed it: the best known organ composition in the BWV catalogue, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, BWV 565, is a piece of organ repertoire, organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). The piece opens with a toccata section, follow ...
, was indicated as one of these uncertain works in the late 20th century.
Reception
Throughout the 18th century, the appreciation of Bach's music was mostly limited to distinguished connoisseurs. The 19th century started with publication of the first biography of the composer and ended with the completion of the publication of all of Bach's known works by the Bach Gesellschaft
The German Bach-Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was a society formed in 1850 for the express purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. The collected works are known as the Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausga ...
. A Bach Revival had started from Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositi ...
's performance of the ''St Matthew Passion
The ''St Matthew Passion'' (german: Matthäus-Passion, links=-no), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets ...
'' in 1829. Soon after that performance, Bach started to become regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, if not the greatest, a reputation he has retained ever since. A new extensive Bach biography was published in the second half of the 19th century.
In the 20th century Bach's music was widely performed and recorded, while the Neue Bachgesellschaft
The Neue Bachgesellschaft, or New Bach Society, is an organisation based in Leipzig, Germany, devoted to the music of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. It was founded in 1900 as the successor to the Bach Gesellschaft, which between 1850 and 1900 ...
, among others, published research on the composer. Modern adaptations of Bach's music contributed greatly to his popularisation in the second half of the 20th century. Among these were the Swingle Singers
270px, The Swingles at the Black Forest Voices Festival in Kirchzarten, Germany">Kirchzarten.html" ;"title="Black Forest Voices Festival in Kirchzarten">Black Forest Voices Festival in Kirchzarten, Germany on 29 June 2019
The Swingles are a v ...
' versions of Bach pieces (for instance, the from Orchestral Suite No. 3, and the chorale prelude) and Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos, November 14, 1939) is an American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Carlos studied physics and music at Brown University before moving ...
' 1968 ''Switched-On Bach
''Switched-On Bach'' is the debut album by American composer Wendy Carlos, originally released under her birth name Walter Carlos in October 1968 by Columbia Records. Produced by Carlos and Rachel Elkind, the album is a collection of pieces by J ...
'', which used the Moog electronic synthesiser.
By the end of the 20th century, more classical performers were gradually moving away from the performance style and instrumentation that were established in the romantic era: they started to perform Bach's music on period instruments of the baroque era, studied and practised playing techniques and tempi as established in his time, and reduced the size of instrumental ensembles and choirs to what he would have employed. The BACH motif
In music, the BACH motif is the motif, a succession of notes important or characteristic to a piece, ''B flat, A, C, B natural''. In German musical nomenclature, in which the note ''B natural'' is named ''H'' and the ''B flat'' named ...
, used by the composer in his own compositions, was used in dozens of tributes to the composer from the 19th century to the 21st. In the 21st century the complete extant output of the composer became available online, with several websites exclusively dedicated to him.
The liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church remembers Bach annually with a feast day
The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context d ...
on 28 July on the same day, the Calendar of Saints
The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context d ...
of some Lutheran church
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
es, such as the ELCA, remembers Bach and Handel with Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He ...
.
18th century
In his own time, Bach was highly regarded amongst his colleagues, although his reputation outside of this small circle of connoisseurs was due not to his compositions (which had an extremely narrow circulation), but due to his virtuosic abilities. Nevertheless, during his life, Bach received public recognition, such as the title of court composer by Augustus III of Poland
Augustus III ( pl, August III Sas, lt, Augustas III; 17 October 1696 5 October 1763) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1733 until 1763, as well as Elector of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire where he was known as Frederick Aug ...
and the appreciation he was shown by Frederick the Great
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...
and Hermann Karl von Keyserling
Count Hermann Karl von Keyserling (1697–1764) was a Russian diplomat from the Keyserlingk family of Baltic German nobility based in the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.
Life
In 1733, the nobility of Courland sent Keyserling to Saint Peter ...
. Such highly placed appreciation contrasted with the humiliations he had to cope with, for instance in Leipzig. Also in the contemporary press, Bach had his detractors, such as Johann Adolf Scheibe
Johann Adolph Scheibe (5 May 1708 – 22 April 1776) was a German-Danish composer and significant critic and theorist of music. Though much of his theoretical work survives, most of his compositions are lost, though the extant ones demonstrate a ...
, suggesting he write less complex music, and his supporters, such as Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764) was a German composer, singer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.
Early life and career
The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education ...
and Lorenz Christoph Mizler
Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof (also known as Wawrzyniec Mitzler de Kolof and Mitzler de Koloff; 26 July 1711 – 8 May 1778) was a German medicine, physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enl ...
.
After his death, Bach's reputation as a composer at first declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging galant
The galant style was an 18th-century movement in music, visual arts and literature. In Germany a closely related style was called the '' empfindsamer Stil'' (sensitive style). Another close relative is rococo style. The galant style was drawn in ...
style. Initially, he was remembered more as a virtuoso player of the organ and as a teacher. The bulk of the music that had been printed during the composer's lifetime, at least the part that was remembered, was for the organ and the harpsichord. Thus, his reputation as a composer was initially mostly limited to his keyboard music, and that even fairly limited to its value in music education.
Bach's surviving family members, who inherited a large part of his manuscripts, were not all equally concerned with preserving them, leading to considerable losses. Carl Philipp Emanuel, his second eldest son, was most active in safeguarding his father's legacy: he co-authored his father's obituary, contributed to the publication of his four-part chorales, staged some of his works, and the bulk of previously unpublished works of his father were preserved with his help. Wilhelm Friedemann, the eldest son, performed several of his father's cantatas in Halle but after becoming unemployed sold part of the large collection of his father's works he owned. Several students of the old master, such as his son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnickol
Johann Christoph Altnickol, or Altnikol, (baptised 1 January 1720, buried 25 July 1759) was a German organist, bass singer, and composer. He was a student, copyist and son-in-law of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Biography
Altnikol was born in Berna be ...
, Johann Friedrich Agricola
Johann Friedrich Agricola (4 January 1720 – 2 December 1774) was a German composer, organist, singer, pedagogue, and writer on music. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Flavio Anicio Olibrio.
Biography
Agricola was born in Dobitschen, Thu ...
, Johann Kirnberger
Johann Philipp Kirnberger (also ''Kernberg''; 24 April 1721, Saalfeld – 27 July 1783, Berlin) was a musician, composer (primarily of fugues), and music theorist. He was a student of Johann Sebastian Bach.
According to Ingeborg Allihn, Kirnberg ...
, and Johann Ludwig Krebs
Johann Ludwig Krebs (baptized 12 October 1713 – 1 January 1780) was a German Baroque musician and composer for the pipe organ, harpsichord, other instruments and orchestras. His output also included chamber music, choral works and concertos ...
, contributed to the dissemination of his legacy. The early devotees were not all musicians; for example, in Berlin, Daniel Itzig
Daniel Itzig (also known as Daniel Yoffe 18 March 1723 in Berlin – 17 May 1799 in Potsdam) was a Court Jew of Kings Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick II the Great and Frederick William II of Prussia, Frederick William II of Kingdom of Prussia, ...
, a high official of Frederick the Great's court, venerated Bach.Christoph Wolff
Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty sinc ...
"A Bach Cult in Late-Eighteenth-Century Berlin: Sara Levy's Musical Salon"
in '' Bulletin of the American Academy''. Spring 2005. pp. 26–31. His eldest daughters took lessons from Kirnberger and their sister Sara from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (22 November 17101 July 1784), the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, was a German composer and performer. Despite his acknowledged genius as an organist, improviser and composer ...
, who was in Berlin from 1774 to 1784. Sara Itzig Levy became an avid collector of works by Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons and was a "patron" of CPE Bach.[
While in Leipzig, performances of Bach's church music were limited to some of his motets, and under ]cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds.
In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...
Doles some of his Passions
''Passions'' is an American television soap opera that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1999, to September 7, 2007, and on DirecTV's The 101 Network from September 17, 2007, to August 7, 2008. Created by screenwriter James E. Reilly and pro ...
. A new generation of Bach aficionados emerged: they studiously collected and copied his music, including some of his large-scale works such as the Mass in B minor
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
and performed it privately. One such connoisseur was Gottfried van Swieten
Gottfried Freiherr van Swieten (29 October 1733 – 29 March 1803) was a Dutch-born Austrian diplomat, librarian, and government official who served the Holy Roman Empire during the 18th century. He was an enthusiastic amateur musician and is bes ...
, a high-ranking Austrian official who was instrumental in passing Bach's legacy on to the composers of the Viennese school. Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led ...
owned manuscript copies of the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'' and the Mass in B minor and was influenced by Bach's music. Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
owned a copy of one of Bach's motets, transcribed some of his instrumental works (K. 404a K is the eleventh letter of the Latin alphabet.
K may also refer to:
General uses
* K (programming language), an array processing language developed by Arthur Whitney and commercialized by Kx Systems
* K (cider), a British draft cider manufact ...
, 405
__NOTOC__
Year 405 ( CDV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Stilicho and Anthemius (or, less frequently, year 1158 ''Ab ...
), and wrote contrapuntal music influenced by his style.[Brown, A. Peter, ''The Symphonic Repertoire'' (Volume 2). Indiana University Press (), pp. 423–432 (2002).] Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
played the entire ''Well-Tempered Clavier'' by the time he was 11 and described Bach as (progenitor of harmony).[McKay, Cory]
"The Bach Reception in the 18th and 19th century"
at
19th century
In 1802, Johann Nikolaus Forkel
Johann Nikolaus Forkel (22 February 1749 – 20 March 1818) was a German musicologist and music theory, music theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include ''Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, ...
published ''Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke
''Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work'' is an early 19th-century biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, written in German by Johann Nikolaus Forkel, and later translated by, among others, Charles Sanford Terry.
When Forkel published his ...
'', the first biography of the composer, which contributed to his becoming known to a wider public. In 1805, Abraham Mendelssohn
Abraham Ernst Mendelssohn Bartholdy (born Abraham Mendelssohn; 10 December 1776 – 19 November 1835) was a German banker and philanthropist. He was the father of Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, Rebecka Mendelssohn, and Paul Mendelssohn.
E ...
, who had married one of Itzig's granddaughters, bought a substantial collection of Bach manuscripts that had come down from C. P. E. Bach, and donated it to the Berlin Sing-Akademie. The Sing-Akademie occasionally performed Bach's works in public concerts, for instance his first keyboard concerto, with Sara Itzig Levy at the piano.
The first decades of the 19th century saw an increasing number of first publications of Bach's music: Breitkopf started publishing chorale preludes, Hoffmeister harpsichord music, and the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'' was printed concurrently by Simrock (Germany), Nägeli (Switzerland) and Hoffmeister (Germany and Austria) in 1801. Vocal music was also published: motets in 1802 and 1803, followed by the E major version of the ''Magnificat
The Magnificat (Latin for "y soul
Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or sevent ...
magnifies he Lord
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Eastern Christianity, Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated ...
'', the Kyrie-Gloria Mass in A major, and the cantata ''Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott'' (BWV 80). In 1818, Hans Georg Nägeli
Hans Georg Nägeli (26 May 1773 – 26 December 1836) was a composer and music publisher.
Nägeli was born in Wetzikon, Switzerland. He studied under his father as a child, and then opened a private music shop and publishing firm in the 1790s. In ...
called the ''Mass in B minor'' the greatest composition ever. Bach's influence was felt in the next generation of early Romantic composers. When Felix Mendelssohn, Abraham's son, aged 13, produced his first ''Magnificat'' setting in 1822, it is clear that he had been inspired by the then unpublished D major version of Bach's ''Magnificat''.
Felix Mendelssohn significantly contributed to the renewed interest in Bach's work with his 1829 Berlin performance of the '' St Matthew Passion'', which was instrumental in setting off what has been called the Bach Revival. The ''St John Passion
The ''Passio secundum Joannem'' or ''St John Passion'' (german: Johannes-Passion, link=no), BWV 245, is a Passion or oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, the older of the surviving Passions by Bach. It was written during his first year as direc ...
'' saw its 19th-century premiere in 1833, and the first performance of the ''Mass in B minor'' followed in 1844. Besides these and other public performances and an increased coverage on the composer and his compositions in printed media, the 1830s and 1840s also saw the first publication of more vocal works by Bach: six cantatas, the ''St Matthew Passion'', and the ''Mass in B minor''. A series of organ compositions saw their first publication in 1833. Chopin started composing his 24 Preludes, Op. 28, inspired by the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'', in 1835, and Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
published his '' Sechs Fugen über den Namen B-A-C-H'' in 1845. Bach's music was transcribed and arranged to suit contemporary tastes and performance practice by composers such as Carl Friedrich Zelter
Carl Friedrich Zelter (11 December 1758 15 May 1832)Grove/Fuller-Datei:Carl-Friedrich-Zelter.jpegMaitland, 1910. The Zelter entry takes up parts of pages 593-595 of Volume V. was a German composer, conductor and teacher of music. Working in his ...
, Robert Franz
Robert Franz Julius Knauth (28 June 1815 – 24 October 1892) was a German composer, mainly of lieder.
Biography
Franz was born in Halle, Germany, the son of Christoph Franz Knauth. In 1847, Christoph Knauth adopted his middle name Franz as his ...
, and Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
, or combined with new music such as the melody line of Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
's ''Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Ave Maria''. Johannes Brahms, Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Bruckner, and Richard Wagner, Wagner were among the composers who promoted Bach's music or wrote glowingly about it.
In 1850, the (Bach Society) was founded to promote Bach's music. In the second half of the 19th century, the Society published a comprehensive edition of the composer's works. Also in the second half of the 19th century, Philipp Spitta published ''Spitta's Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach'', the standard work on Bach's life and music. By that time, Bach was known as the first of the three Bs in music. Throughout the 19th century, 200 books were published on Bach. By the end of the century, local Bach societies were established in several cities, and his music had been performed in all major musical centres.
In Germany all throughout the century, Bach was coupled to nationalist feelings, and the composer was inscribed in a religious revival. In England, Bach was coupled to an existing revival of religious and baroque music. By the end of the century, Bach was firmly established as one of the greatest composers, recognised for both his instrumental and his vocal music.
20th century
During the 20th century, the process of recognising the musical as well as the Pedagogy, pedagogic value of some of the works continued, as in the promotion of the cello suites
The six Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012, are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). They are some of the most frequently performed solo compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them during the p ...
by Pablo Casals, the first major performer to record these suites. Leading performers of classical music such as Willem Mengelberg, Edwin Fischer, Georges Enescu, Leopold Stokowski, Herbert von Karajan, Arthur Grumiaux, Helmut Walcha, Wanda Landowska, Karl Richter (conductor), Karl Richter, I Musici, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Glenn Gould recorded his music.
A significant development in the later part of the 20th century was the momentum gained by the historically informed performance practice, with forerunners such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt acquiring prominence by their performances of Bach's music. His keyboard music was again performed more on the instruments Bach was familiar with, rather than on modern pianos and 19th-century romantic organs. Ensembles playing and singing Bach's music not only kept to the instruments and the performance style of his day but were also reduced to the size of the groups Bach used for his performances. But that was far from the only way Bach's music came to the forefront in the 20th century: his music was heard in versions ranging from Ferruccio Busoni's late romantic Bach-Busoni Editions, piano transcriptions to jazzy interpretations such as those by The Swingle Singers, orchestrations like the one opening Walt Disney's ''Fantasia (1940 film), Fantasia'' movie, and synthesiser performances such as Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos, November 14, 1939) is an American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Carlos studied physics and music at Brown University before moving ...
' ''Switched-On Bach
''Switched-On Bach'' is the debut album by American composer Wendy Carlos, originally released under her birth name Walter Carlos in October 1968 by Columbia Records. Produced by Carlos and Rachel Elkind, the album is a collection of pieces by J ...
'' recordings.
Bach's music has influenced other genres. For instance, jazz musicians have adopted Bach's music, with Jacques Loussier, Ian Anderson, Uri Caine, and the Modern Jazz Quartet among those creating jazz versions of his works. Several 20th-century composers referred to Bach or his music, for example Eugène Ysaÿe in Six Sonatas for solo violin (Ysaÿe), Six Sonatas for solo violin, Dmitri Shostakovich in 24 Preludes and Fugues (Shostakovich), 24 Preludes and Fugues and Heitor Villa-Lobos in ''Bachianas Brasileiras''. All kinds of publications involved Bach: not only were there the ''Bach Jahrbuch'' publications of the Neue Bachgesellschaft, various other biographies and studies by among others Albert Schweitzer, Charles Sanford Terry (historian), Charles Sanford Terry, Alfred Dürr, Christoph Wolff
Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty sinc ...
. Peter Williams (musicologist), Peter Williams, John Butt (musician), John Butt, and the 1950 first edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis
The (BWV; ; ) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2a ...
; but also books such as ''Gödel, Escher, Bach'' put the composer's art in a wider perspective. Bach's music was extensively listened to, performed, broadcast, arranged, adapted, and commented upon in the 1990s.[Rokus de Groot (2000)]
"And Nowhere Bach. Bach Reception in a Late Twentieth-Century Dutch Composition by Elmer Schönberger"
pp. 145–158 in ''Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis'', volume 50, no. 1/2. Around 2000, the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, three record companies issued box sets with complete recordings of Bach's music.
Bach's music features three timesmore than that of any other composeron the Voyager Golden Record, a gramophone record containing a broad sample of the images, common sounds, languages, and music of Earth, sent into outer space with the two Voyager program, Voyager probes. Tributes to Bach in the 20th century include statues erected in his honour and a variety of things such as streets and space objects being named after him. Also, a multitude of musical ensembles such as the Bach Aria Group, Deutsche Bachsolisten, Bachchor Stuttgart, and Bach Collegium Japan adopted the composer's name. Bach festivals were held on several continents, and competitions and prizes such as the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition and the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize were named after the composer. While by the end of the 19th century Bach had been inscribed in nationalism and religious revival, the late 20th century saw Bach as the subject of a secularised art-as-religion ().
21st century
In the 21st century, Bach's compositions have become available online, for instance at the International Music Score Library Project. High-resolution facsimiles of Bach's autographs became available at the Bach Digital
Bach Digital (German: ), developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of Bach family, his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are ...
website. 21st-century biographers include Christoph Wolff
Christoph Wolff (born 24 May 1940) is a German musicologist. He is best known for his works on the music, life, and period of Johann Sebastian Bach. Christoph Wolff is an emeritus professor of Harvard University, and was part of the faculty sinc ...
, Peter Williams (musicologist), Peter Williams and John Eliot Gardiner.
In 2015, Bach's handwritten personal copy of his Mass in B minor, held by the Berlin State Library, was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme#Memory of the World Register, Memory of the World Register, a program intended to protect culturally significant manuscripts.
In 2019, Bach was named the greatest composer of all time in a poll conducted among 174 living composers.
Burial site
Bach was originally buried at Old St. John's Cemetery in Leipzig. His grave went unmarked for nearly 150 years, but in 1894 his remains were located and moved to a vault in St. John's Church. This building was destroyed by Bombing of Leipzig in World War II, Allied bombing during World War II, so in 1950 Bach's remains were taken to their present grave in St. Thomas Church. Later research has called into question whether the remains in the grave are actually those of Bach.
References
Notes
Citations
Works cited
Biographies
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Vol. 1
Vol. 2
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Further reading
*
* ''N.B''.: First published in 1867; superseded, for scholarly purposes, by Wolfgang Schmieder
Wolfgang Schmieder (May 29, 1901 – November 8, 1990) was a German music librarian and musicologist.
Schmieder was born in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz, Poland).Eggebrecht, Hans. "Wolfgang Schmieder". ''Oxford Music Online''. 2001, https://doi.o ...
's complete thematic catalog, but useful as a handy reference tool for only the instrumental works of Bach and as a partial alternative to Schmieder's work.
*
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External links
*
bach-leipzig website
of the Bach Archive.
Yo Tomita's ''Bach Bibliography'' (23 March 2012)
mirror at the Riemenschneider Bach Institute.
* .
Scores
* .
* .
Music manuscripts and early prints
at Bach Digital
Bach Digital (German: ), developed by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, is an online database which gives access to information on compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and members of Bach family, his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are ...
website.
Recordings
Johann Sebastian Bach recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
* .
All of Bach
website of the Netherlands Bach Society.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bach, Johann Sebastian
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