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''; instrumental compositions such as the
Cello Suites; 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 hav ...
'' 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 i ...
''; 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 and classical periods of music, the best-known of whom was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). A family genealogy was drawn up by Johann Sebastian Bach himself in 1735 when he ...
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 called ...
. 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 lar ...
, working as a musician for
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
churches in
Arnstadt and
Mühlhausen 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 repertory, and
Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with
chamber music. 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 ...
. 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 Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
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 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,
harmonic, 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 ( ...
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 ...
,
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 mu ...
, 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 Marga ...
. 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 ''a ...
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 ca ...
and
fugue.
Throughout the 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an
organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational h ...
, 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 BWV ...
'' (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 th ...
'' 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 Joh ...
, the director of the town musicians, and
Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. 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. B ...
, 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. B ...
, 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 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 hi ...
and
Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied); North Germans; Frenchmen such as
Jean-Baptiste Lully,
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 called ...
, 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 ( ...
, 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, 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 a ...
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 state ...
. 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.
As part of his application, he had a
cantata 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 widesprea ...
,
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
concertos 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.
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
fugues 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 i ...
'' ("clavier" meaning clavichord or harpsichord), consisting of two books, each containing 24 preludes and fugues in every
major and
minor 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 a ...
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 Hol ...
, which coincided with the
Annunciation that year; , for
Jubilate Sunday; and for
Pentecost.
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 mutto ...
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,
sonatas and partitas for solo violin
The sonatas and partitas for solo violin (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, 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 he ...
, 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 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, 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) 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 ...
.
[ 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 offici ...
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 Hild ...
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.
Cantata cycle years (1723–1729)
Bach usually led performances of his cantatas, 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 th ...
. 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, 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 motets. 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 offici ...
, 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 inst ...
, a coffeehouse 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 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 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 style ('' stile antico'') 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 Pre ...
( BNB I/P/2), Kerll ( BWV 241), Torri ( BWV Anh. 30), Bassani ( BWV 1081), Gasparini ('' Missa Canonica'') and Caldara ( 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 hav ...
'', 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 ( 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 ( BWV 1083) and his own students such as Goldberg ( 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 physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enlightenme ...
'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 and featured Bach's '' Canon triplex á 6 Voc''. In May 1747, Bach visited the court of King Frederick II of Prussia 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 o ...
. 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 kn ...
, 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 ), Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, BWV 1079, is a collection of keyboard canon (music), canons and fugues and other pieces of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, all based on a single musical Subject (music), theme given ...
'' 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 Sebastian ...
'', 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 into his Mass in B minor 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 bei ...
. 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 chie ...
s to request that his music director, Johann Gottlob Harrer, 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 harpsichords, 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 regu ...
s, three viola
; german: Bratsche
, alt=Viola shown from the front and the side
, image=Bratsche.jpg
, caption=
, background=string
, hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow
, range=
, related=
*Violin family ...
s, two cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
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 pitch ...
, a lute 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 Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
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 ...
. 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 orato ...
s, and four-part choral music and employed basso continuo. 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 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 a ...
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 libr ...
. 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 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, harpsi ...
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's '' Stabat Mater'', 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, 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 lifet ...
'', emulating the chromatic fantasia genre as used by earlier composers such as Dowland and Sweelinck 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—mo ...
(comparable to D minor in the tonal system), is an example of this.
Modulation
Modulation, or changing key 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 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'' 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, conce ...
: 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 pitch ...
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 Muse ...
1993. Liner notes by Gilles Cantagrel. a decade before Handel published his first organ concertos. Apart from the 5th ''Brandenburg Concerto'' and the '' Triple Concerto'', 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 (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, 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 he ...
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 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, 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 ...
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 structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th c ...
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 theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include '' Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work ...
, 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. 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 librettos, 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 stud ...
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 his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major foc ...
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 ...
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 ...
'', 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'' 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 his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major foc ...
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 tre ...
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 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 th ...
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 German Baroque era. The organizing principle is the words and music of a Lutheran hymn. Usually a chorale cantata includes m ...
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''). The text of these cantatas was occasionally in dialect (e.g. '' Peasant Cantata'') or Italian (e.g. '' Amore traditore''). 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 Marga ...
(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 soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical servic ...
, four Kyrie–Gloria Masses, and the Mass in B minor.
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 work was never performed in full during Bach's lifetime.
Keyboard music
Bach wrote for organ and for stringed keyboard instruments such as harpsichord, 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.
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 virtu ...
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. H ...
, 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 a ...
, 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 Sebastian ...
'' 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 i ...
'', Books 1 and 2 (BWV 846–893). Each book consists of a prelude and fugue in each of the 24 major and minor keys, 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 Altho ...
(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 individua ...
. 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 ...
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 m ...
.
* 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 173 ...
'' (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 lifet ...
'' (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 virtu ...
s (BWV 910–916), four duets (BWV 802–805), sonatas 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 (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 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 (music), Late Baroque era, which Johann Sebastian Bach composed around 1730. It is one of the composer' ...
, 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 language, 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, concertino'') and full orc ...
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 ...
.
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" (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 ( BWV 1083) 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 Pre ...
( Missa Sine nomine), French masters such as François Couperin ( 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 th ...
", 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, 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. Scho ...
, 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-Ausg ...
. 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 period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...
's performance of the '' St Matthew Passion'' 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' 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 Jo ...
'', 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, 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 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 churches, 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 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 S ...
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, 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 physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enlightenme ...
.
After his death, Bach's reputation as a composer at first declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging galant 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 bei ...
, 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, 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 the Great and Frederick William II of Prussia.
Biography
Itzig was born in Berlin. His family was mercantile. I ...
, 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 compose ...
, 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 ...
. 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 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 be ...
, 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 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 classic ...
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 theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include '' Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work ...
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 ...
, 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 soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical servic ...
'', the Kyrie-Gloria Mass in A major, and the cantata ''Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott'' (BWV 80). In 1818, Hans Georg Nägeli 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'' 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, 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
The Hail Mary ( la, Ave Maria) is a traditional Christian prayer addressing Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer is based on two biblical passages featured in the Gospel of Luke: the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary (the Annunciation) and Mary's ...
''. Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
, Bruckner
Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-Germa ...
, and Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
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
Julius August Philipp Spitta (27 December 1841 – 13 April 1894) was a German music historian and musicologist best known for his 1873 biography of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Life
He was born in , near Hoya, and his father, also called Phil ...
published ''Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
'', the standard work on Bach's life and music. By that time, Bach was known as the first of the three Bs
"The Three s" is a term derived from an expression coined by Peter Cornelius in 1854, which added Hector Berlioz as the third B to occupy the heights already occupied by Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven. Later in the century, conduct ...
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 pedagogic
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...
value of some of the works continued, as in the promotion of the cello suites by Pablo Casals, the first major performer to record these suites. Leading performers of classical music such as Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Wilhelm Mengelberg (28 March 1871 – 21 March 1951) was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest s ...
, Edwin Fischer
Edwin Fischer (6 October 1886 – 24 January 1960) was a Swiss classical pianist and conductor. He is regarded as one of the great interpreters of J.S. Bach and Mozart in the twentieth century.
Biography
Fischer was born in Basel and studied ...
, Georges Enescu, Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and his appear ...
, Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan (; born Heribert Ritter von Karajan; 5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, wit ...
, Arthur Grumiaux
Baron Arthur Grumiaux (; 21 March 1921 – 16 October 1986) was a Belgian violinist, considered by some to have been "one of the few truly great violin virtuosi of the twentieth century". He has been noted for having a "consistently beautiful t ...
, Helmut Walcha
Arthur Emil Helmut Walcha (27 October 1907 – 11 August 1991) was a German organist, harpsichordist, music teacher and composer who specialized in the works of the Dutch and German baroque masters.
Blind since his teenage years, he is known ...
, Wanda Landowska
Wanda Aleksandra Landowska (5 July 1879 – 16 August 1959) was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist whose performances, teaching, writings and especially her many recordings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in ...
, Karl Richter, I Musici, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (28 May 1925 – 18 May 2012) was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous Lieder (art song) performers of the post-war period, best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, ...
, and Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould (; né Gold; September 25, 1932October 4, 1982) was a Canadian classical pianist. He was one of the most famous and celebrated pianists of the 20th century, and was renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard works of Johann ...
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 piano transcriptions
In music, a reduction is an arrangement or transcription of an existing score or composition in which complexity is lessened to make analysis, performance, or practice easier or clearer; the number of parts may be reduced or rhythm may be ...
to jazzy interpretations such as those by 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 ...
, orchestrations like the one opening Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
's '' 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 Jo ...
'' recordings.
Bach's music has influenced other genres. For instance, jazz musicians have adopted Bach's music, with Jacques Loussier
Jacques Loussier (26 October 1934 – 5 March 2019) was a French pianist and composer. He arranged jazz interpretations of many of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as the ''Goldberg Variations''. The Jacques Loussier Trio, founded in 195 ...
, Ian Anderson, Uri Caine
Uri Caine (born June 8, 1956, Philadelphia, United States) is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer.
Biography
Early years
The son of Burton Caine, a professor at Temple Law School, and poet Shulamith Wechter Caine, Caine began ...
, 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
Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (; 16 July 185812 May 1931) was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, composer, and conductor. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tsar".
Legend of the Ysaÿe violin
Eugène Ysa ...
in Six Sonatas for solo violin, Dmitri Shostakovich in 24 Preludes and Fugues
{{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot)
The prelude and fugue is a musical form generally consisting of two movements in the same key for solo keyboard. In classical music, the combination of prelude and fugue is one with a long ...
and Heitor Villa-Lobos in ''Bachianas Brasileiras
The ''Bachianas Brasileiras'' () (an approximate English translation might be ''Bach-inspired Brazilian pieces'') are a series of nine suites by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written for various combinations of instruments and voic ...
''. 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
Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian-German/French polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schweit ...
, Charles Sanford Terry, Alfred Dürr
Alfred Dürr (3 March 1918 – 7 April 2011) was a German musicologist. He was a principal editor of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second edition of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Professional career
Dürr studied musicology and Clas ...
, 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, 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 BWV ...
; 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 '''', 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
The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for ...
, 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 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
Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) is composed of an orchestra and a chorus specializing in Baroque music, playing on period instruments. It was founded in 1990 by Masaaki Suzuki with the purpose of introducing Japanese audiences to European Baroque music ...
adopted the composer's name. Bach festival A Bach festival is a music festival held to celebrate the memory of the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). Various locations throughout the world hold festivals dedicated to Bach. A notable example is the Bachfest Leipzig, held ea ...
s were held on several continents, and competitions and prizes such as the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition
The International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition (german: Internationaler Bach Wettbewerb Leipzig, links=no) is a music competition in Leipzig, Germany, held by the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. It was founded in 1950 and was held every four years from 1 ...
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
The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki softwar ...
. 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 his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major foc ...
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 and John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner (born 20 April 1943) is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Life and career
Born in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, son of Rolf Gardiner and Marabel Hodgkin, Ga ...
.
In 2015, Bach's handwritten personal copy of his Mass in B minor, held by the Berlin State Library
The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the ...
, was added to UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
's Memory of the World Register
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...
, 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 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
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* , first published in French in 1905 and in German in 1908
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Other
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* ;
*
*
*
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.
*
*
*
*
External links
*
bach-leipzig website
of the Bach Archive
The Bach-Archiv Leipzig or Bach-Archiv is an institution for the documentation and research of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. The Bach-Archiv also researches the Bach family, especially their music.
Based in Leipzig, the city whe ...
.
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 his family. Early manuscripts of such compositions are a major foc ...
website.
Recordings
Johann Sebastian Bach recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
* .
All of Bach
website of the Netherlands Bach Society
The Netherlands Bach Society ( nl, Nederlandse Bachvereniging) is the oldest ensemble for Baroque music in the Netherlands, and possibly in the world. The ensemble was founded in 1921 in Naarden to perform Bach's ''St Matthew Passion'' on Good Frid ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bach, Johann Sebastian
1685 births
1750 deaths
18th-century classical composers
18th-century German composers
18th-century German male musicians
18th-century keyboardists
Articles containing video clips
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
Blind people from Germany
Burials at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig
Classical composers of church music
Composers for pipe organ
Composers for harpsichord
German Baroque composers
German classical composers
German classical organists
German Lutherans
German male classical composers
German male organists
Male classical organists
Musicians from Leipzig
Oratorio composers
Organ improvisers
Organists and composers in the North German tradition
People celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendar
People from Eisenach
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