J.S. Bach Essays - German Lutherans, Johann Sebastian Bach

J.S. Bach Essays - German Lutherans, Johann Sebastian Bach J.S. Bach Johann Sebastian Bach Since the dawn of music, there have been many great composers throughout the world. However, no composer had a greater impact to music than Johann Sebastian Bach from the Baroque era (1600 ad. -1750 ad.). Johann Sebastian Bach was a forefather to music as the author Homer was a forefather Western literature. Yet, unlike Homer's uses of words and verses in his literature, J.S. Bach used notes and chords in his music which to him was an apparatus of worship. Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringina, into a family that over seven generations created at least 53 outstanding musicians. He first received musical training from his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician. Stricken by his father's death at the young age of 10, he went to reside and study with his older brother, Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf. In 1700, Bach began to earn his own living as a chorister at the Church of Saint Michael in Luneburg. Later in 1703, he became a violinist in the chamber orchestra at the Church of Prince Ernst of Weimar, but later moved to Arnstadt, where he became a church organist. In October 1705, Bach went to Lubeck to study with the distinguished Danish-born German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude which largely affected Bach. Bach was then criticized for the new lavish flourishes and bizarre harmonies in his organ accompaniments to congregational singing. He was already too highly respected, nevertheless, for either objection to result in his dismissal. Then in 1707, he went to Mulhausen as an organist in the Church of Saint Blasius. The next year, he went back to Weimar as an organist and violinist at the court of Duke Wilhelm Ernst and abide there for the next 9 years, becoming concertmaster of the court orchestra in 1714. In Weimar he composed about 30 cantatas, and also wrote organ and harpsichord works. In 1717, Bach began a 6- year employment as chapelmaster and director of chamber music at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Kothen. During this time he basically wrote secular music for ensembles and solo instruments. In addition, he prepared music books with the intent of teaching keyboard technique and musicianship. These books include the Well- Tempered Clavier, the Inventions, and the Little Organ Book. In 1723, Bach moved to Leipzig were he spent the rest of his life. At Leipzig, he became the music director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas's church. Life at Leipzig however was unsatisfactory. He continually quarreled with the town council, and neither the council nor the critics appreciated his musical genius. They saw him more a stifling elderly man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Regardless, the 202 cantatas surviving from the 295 that he wrote in Leipzig are still played today, whereas a lot that was new and in craze at the same time has been forgotten. Nearly all of the cantatas start with a section for both chorus and orchestra, continue with alternating recitatives and arias for solo voices and accompaniment, and end with a chorale based on a simple Lutheran hymn. Among these works are the Ascension Cantata and the Christmas Oratorio, the following including of six cantatas. The Passion of St. John and the Passion of St. Matthew also were composed in Leipzig, as was the momentous Mass in B Minor. Among the works written for keyboard during this period are the famous Goldberg Variations, Part II of the Well- Tempered Clavier, and The Art of the Fugue, a grand exhibition of his contrapuntal ability in the form of 16 fugues and 4 canons, all on a single theme. Bach's sight began to deteriorate in the concluding year of his life, and he died on July 28, 1750, following undergoing an failed eye operation. J.S. Bach's greatest impact to music was his own music. The importance of Bach's music is due in a big part to the magnitude of his intellect. He is the best recognized as a ultimate master of counterpoint. He was able to understand and use every resource of musical language that was available in the Baroque era as Homer did with the Greek language of Archaic Greece. At the same time, he could compose for voice and the different instruments so as to take advantage of the peculiar characteristics of the make up and tone quality in each. Also, when a text was associated with the music, J.S. Bach could compose musical equivalents of verbal concepts, such as expanding melody to characterize the sea, or a canon to depict the Christians following the teachings