Bach

Name: Alabi Gideon Aderiye
Course: History of Western Music

Lecturer in charge: Mr. Seun Onifade
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Johann Sebastian Bach, (born March 21 [March 31, New Style], 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia,
Ernestine Saxon Duchies [Germany]—died July 28, 1750, Leipzig), composer of the Baroque
era, the most celebrated member of a large family of north German musicians. Although he
was admired by his contemporaries primarily as an outstanding harpsichordist, organist,
and expert on organ building,
J.S. Bach was the youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach and Elisabeth Lämmerhirt.
Ambrosius was a string player, employed by the town council and the ducal court of
Eisenach. Johann Sebastian started school in 1692 or 1693 and did well in spite of frequent
absences. Of his musical education at this time, nothing definite is known; however, he may
have picked up the rudiments of string playing from his father, and no doubt he attended the
Georgenkirche, where Johann Christoph Bach was organist until 1703.
Periods in Bach's life is sectioned into four;
 The Arnstadt period
By 1695 both his parents were dead, and he was looked after by his eldest brother, also
named Johann Christoph (1671–1721), organist at Ohrdruf. he probably heard Georg Böhm,
organist of the Johanniskirche; and he visited Hamburg to hear the renowned organist and
composer Johann Adam Reinken at the Katharinenkirche.
He walked for 300miles/400km to gained more knowledge on the organ artistry from
Dietrich Buxtehude.
Among the few works that can be ascribed to these early years with anything more than a
show of plausibility are the Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo (1704;
Capriccio on the Departure of His Most Beloved Brother, BWV 992), the chorale prelude on
Wie schön leuchtet (c. 1705; How Brightly Shines, BWV 739), and the fragmentary early
version of the organ Prelude and Fugue in G Minor.
 The Mühlhausen period
In June 1707 Bach obtained a post at the Blasiuskirche in Mühlhausen in Thuringia. He

moved there soon after and married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach at Dornheim. He
produced several church cantatas at this time.
The famous organ Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BWV 565), written in the rhapsodic
northern style, and the Prelude and Fugue in D Major (BWV 532) may also have been
composed during the Mühlhausen period, as well as the organ Passacaglia in C Minor (BWV
582), an early example of Bach’s instinct for large-scale organization. Cantata No. 71, Gott
ist mein König (God Is My King), of February 4, 1708, was printed at the expense of the city
council and was the first of Bach’s compositions to be published.
His real reason for resigning on June 25, 1708, is not known. He himself said that his plans
for a “well-regulated [concerted] church music” had been hindered by conditions in
Mühlhausen and that his salary was inadequate. it was the dismal state of musical life in
Mühlhausen that prompted Bach to seek employment elsewhere. His resignation was
accepted, and shortly afterward he moved to Weimar.
 The Weimar period
Johann Sebastian Bach was, from the outset, court organist at Weimar and a member of the
orchestra. Encouraged by Wilhelm Ernst, he concentrated on the organ during the first few
years of his tenure. Late in 1713 Bach had the opportunity of succeeding Friedrich Wilhelm
Zachow at the Liebfrauenkirche, Halle; but the duke raised his salary, and he stayed on at
Weimar.
Duke Wilhelm’s two nephews, Ernst August and Johann Ernst, both of whom he taught. The
latter was a talented composer who wrote concerti in the Italian manner, some of which
Bach arranged for keyboard instruments; the boy died in 1715, in his 19th year.
Among other works almost certainly composed at Weimar are most of the Orgelbüchlein
(Little Organ Book), all but the last of the so-called 18 “Great” chorale preludes, the earliest
organ trios, and most of the organ preludes and fugues. The “Great” Prelude and Fugue in G
Major for organ (BWV 541) was finally revised about 1715, and the Toccata and Fugue in F
Major (BWV 540) may have been played at Weissenfels.
About September a contest between Bach and the famous French organist Louis Marchand
was arranged at Dresden. By implication, Bach won. Perhaps this emboldened him to renew
his request for permission to leave Weimar; at all events he did so but in such terms that the
duke imprisoned him for a month (November 6–December 2). A few days after his release,
Bach moved to Köthen, some 30 miles north of Halle.
 The Köthen period
There, as musical director, he was concerned chiefly with chamber and orchestral music.
Even though some of the works may have been composed earlier and revised later, it was at
Köthen that the sonatas for violin and clavier and for viola da gamba and clavier and the
works for unaccompanied violin and cello were put into something like their present form.
The Brandenburg Concertos were finished by March 24, 1721;
Bach compile pedagogical keyboard works: the Clavierbüchlein for W.F. Bach (begun
January 22, 1720), some of the French Suites, the Inventions (1720), and the first book
(1722) of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier, eventually consisting
of two books, each of 24 preludes and fugues in all keys and known as “the Forty-Eight”).
The Well-Tempered Clavier is a compendium of the most popular forms and styles of the
era: dance types, arias, motets, concerti, etc., presented within the unified aspect of a single
compositional technique—the rigorously logical and venerable fugue.
Maria Barbara Bach died unexpectedly and was buried on July 7, 1720. On December 3,
1721, Bach married Anna Magdalena Wilcken, daughter of a trumpeter at Weissenfels.
Apart from his first wife’s death, these first four years at Köthen were probably the happiest
of Bach’s life.
Years at Leipzig
Bach was the director of church music for the city of Leipzig. During his first two or three
years at Leipzig, Bach produced a large number of new cantatas. The total number of cantatas
produced during this ecclesiastical year was about 62.

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Name: Alabi Gideon Aderiye

Course: History of Western Music

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Periods in Bach's life is sectioned into four;

 The Arnstadt period

In June 1707 Bach obtained a post at the Blasiuskirche in Mühlhausen in Thuringia. He

 The Köthen period

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