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- Essay Name : 1332.txt
- Uploader : Jack Leeman
- Email Address :
- Language : English
- Subject : Music
- Title : Bach
- Grade : 97%
- School System :
- Country : USA
- Author Comments : It's a good report
- Teacher Comments : Good Job, and Great attention to detail!
- Date : 10/24/96
- Site found at : From the Report/Essay Database
- --------------------------------------------------------------
- One of the most profoundly inspired and
- masterful composers in history, Johann
- Sebastian Bach was born into a musical family
- in Eisenach, Thuringia - until recently part
- of East Germany. His father, Johann Ambrosius
- Bach, was a talented violinist, and taught
- his son the basic skills of string-playing;
- another relation, the organist at Eisenach's
- most important church, instructed the young
- boy on the organ.
-
- In 1695, Johann Sebastian was orphaned; he
- went to live with his older brother, Johann
- Christoph, in Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph was a
- professional organist, and continued his
- younger brother's education on that
- instrument, as well as on the harpsichord.
- After several years in this arrangement,
- Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study
- in Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left
- his brother's tutelage.
-
- A master of several instruments while still
- in his teens, Johann Sebastian first found
- employment at the age of 18 as a "lackey and
- violinist" in a court orchestra in Weimar;
- soon after, he took the job of organist at a
- church in Arnstadt. Here, as in later posts,
- his perfectionist tendencies and high
- expectations of other musicians - for
- example, the church choir - rubbed his
- colleagues the wrong way, and he was
- embroiled in a number of hot disputes during
- his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22,
- Bach became fed up with the lousy musical
- standards of Arnstadt (and the working
- conditions) and moved on to another organist
- job, this time at the St. Blasius Church in
- Muhlhausen. The same year, he married his
- cousin Maria Barbara Bach.
-
- Again caught up in a running conflict between
- factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar
- after one year in Muhlhausen. In Weimar, he
- assumed the post of organist and
- concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He
- remained in Weimar for nine years, and there
- he composed his first wave of major works,
- including organ showpieces and cantatas.
-
- By this stage in his life, Bach had developed
- a reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat
- inflexible, musical talent. His profiency on
- the organ was unequalled in Europe - in fact,
- he toured regularly as a solo virtuoso - and
- his growing mastery of compositional forms,
- like the fugue and the canon, was already
- attracting interest from the musical
- establishment - which, in his day, was the
- Lutheran church. But, like many individuals
- of uncommon talent, he was never very good at
- playing the political game, and therefore
- suffered periodic setbacks in his career. He
- was passed over for a major position - that
- of Kapellmeister of Weimar - in 1716; partly
- in reaction to this snub, he left Weimar the
- following year to take a job as court
- conductor in Anhalt-Cothen. There, he slowed
- his output of church cantatas, and instead
- concentrated on instrumental music - the
- Cothen period produced, among other
- masterpieces, the Brandenburg Concerti.
-
- While at Cothen, Bach's wife, Maria Barbara,
- died. Bach remarried soon after - to Anna
- Magdalena - and forged ahead with his work.
- He also forged ahead in the child-rearing
- department, producing 13 children with his
- new wife - six of whom survived childhood -
- to add to the four children he had raised
- with Maria Barbara. Several of these children
- would become fine composers in their own
- right - particularly three sons, Wilhelm
- Friedmann, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann
- Christian.
-
- After conducting and composing for the court
- orchestra at Cothen for seven years, Bach was
- offered the highly prestigious post of cantor
- (music director) of St. Thomas' Church in
- Leipzig - after it had been turned down by
- two other composers. The job was a demanding
- one; he had to compose cantatas for the St.
- Thomas and St. Nicholas churches, conduct the
- choirs, oversee the musical activities of
- numerous municipal churches, and teach Latin
- in the St. Thomas choir school. Accordingly,
- he had to get along with the Leipzig church
- authorities, which proved rocky going. But he
- persisted, polishing the musical component of
- church services in Leipzig and continuing to
- write music of various kinds with a level of
- craft and emotional profundity that was his
- alone.
-
- Bach remained at his post in Leipzig until
- his death in 1750. He was creatively active
- until the very end, even after cataract
- problems virtually blinded him. His last
- musical composition, a chorale prelude
- entitled "Before They Throne, My God, I
- Stand", was dictated to his son-in-law only
- days before his death.
-
- Bach was that rare composer whose genius
- cannot be summed up, even approximated, by
- any known means. He was the supreme master of
- counterpoint, fugue, vocal writing, melody,
- chamber composition, solo instrument
- repertoire...the list is endless. His
- Passions are arguably the greatest
- compositions ever created for choral ensemble
- and orchestra. His solo works (for violin,
- and cello) are of such beauty and perfection
- of form that their secrets have never been
- divulged fully, not even by the greatest
- virtuosi on those instruments. His writing
- for keyboard - the Goldberg Variations and
- The Well-Tempered Clavier, among others -
- reveal an unsurpassed ability to combine
- intricate musical structure with pure
- spiritual force; in fact, most leading
- musicians point to the mastery of these
- pieces as their ultimate goal.
-
- Bach was the greatest master of the Baroque,
- and probably of all classical music. Any
- student of music must start - and end - an
- inquiry into the glories of classical music
- with him.
-
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