Section 2: The Baroque Period - Bach #1

I told you a couple posts ago that the year 1685 was an important one in Baroque music because in that year two of the period's greatest composers were born. And I've told you about Handel, so it's now time to move on to the other composer: Johann Sebastian Bach.

No discussion of the Baroque period would ever be complete or even really any good without at least a mention of Bach. Bach is widely considered to be the greatest Baroque composer, and one of the greatest composers of all time. He was a true genius. He took everything that had been happening and stirring throughout the Baroque period and finally brought it to full bloom. Baroque music reached its pinnacle in Bach.

Bach was born in Germany just one month after Handel, on March 31, to a family of musicians. His father was the director of a group of town musicians, his uncles were composers, and his brother was the organist at a church in Ohrdruf. This family appreciation for the art meant he had a much easier time studying music than Handel. Bach's own father taught him to play the violin and harpsichord.

When he was 10, his father died, and Bach set out to Ohrdruf to live with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph. His brother taught him to play the clavichord (an early type of piano), and Bach also had the chance to study his brother's organ music. He would often sit and copy the scores his brother had, and learned much of the organ from this exercise. His brother also introduced him to the many popular musical styles of the day.

When he was 14, Bach set out with a friend on a long journey to the city of Luneburg, where he was to study and sing in the a cappella choir at St. Michael's School. Here again, Bach was exposed to music and culture. He studied math and science, learned French and Italian, and probably played on the famous organ at the Church of St. John. Bach was also just beginning to make a name for himself among musicians due to his apparently innate sense of the organ, and of music in general.

In 1703, when Bach was 17, he accepted the position of organist at St. Boniface's Church in Arnstadt. Word of his skill at the keyboard had spread, and he was already starting to compose complex preludes for the organ. As time wore on, however, Bach began to feel his musical skills were being stifled in Arnstadt. He constantly complained of the choir's lack of talent, and tensions mounted between Bach and the authorities when he took an unannounced trip of many months to visit Buxtehude, the famous German organist whom Bach idolized.

Finally, in 1706, Bach was offered (and quickly accepted) a far better position; one with a fine salary, and a fine choir besides. He was now the organist at St. Blasius's Church in Muhlhausen. Here Bach was offered a far greater chance to stretch his compositional skills than at Arnstadt. The church even agreed to do an expensive repair of the organ at his bidding. Bach also married Maria Barbara Bach, his second cousin, in Muhlhausen. Together they had seven children. Three of them died before reaching adulthood, but two of the remaining four, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, became famous composers later.

After just a year in Muhlhausen, Bach was once again offered another job. The salary was better still, and instead of being simply the organist, Bach would become the Duke of Weimar's concertmaster, head over a large group of professionally trained musicians. The offer was too good to pass up, and in 1708, Bach moved his family to Weimar.

During the next several years in Weimar, Bach's true genius began to show. Given the opportunity to work with the Duke's musicians, Bach began to compose large-scale orchestral works, as well as volumes of works for the keyboard. He music was a combination of the popular Italian music of the day and his own German styles; he also furiously began his massive output of fugues. Some of his most well-known and well-loved works were written here in Weimar: The Well-Tempered Clavier, a set of preludes and fugues in every key on the keyboard, and the Little Organ Book, a book of popular hymns set in virtuostic settings, to aid practicing organists.

For whatever reason, Bach eventually found himself clashing once again with his employers, and in 1717 (the same year Handel was composing his Water Music), Bach left Weimar to work for Leopold, Prince of Kothen. Prince Leopold gave him far more musical freedom than the others had, although their religious differences (Leopold was a Calvinist, and Bach was a Lutheran) meant Bach wrote more secular works, such as the famous Brandenburg Concertos, during his time in Kothen.

In 1720, Bach's wife, Anna Barbara, died suddenly while he was away. The next year, however, Bach met Anna Magdalena Wilcke. She was a very talented soprano who worked at the court; she was also 17 years younger than Bach. But they married, and had thirteen children, six of whom made it to adulthood, and of those six, three became famous musicians.

In 1723, Bach was made Cantor of Thomasschule and Director of Music over several churches in Leipzig. He managed to hold on to this position for the rest of his life, although there was some friction once or twice between Bach and his employers. A constant source of irritation for the composer was that the Council would only pay for 8 permanent musicians, and if he wanted more, Bach himself had to hire them from the nearby university.

At the school, Bach was in charge of teaching the students to sing, and for the churches he was required to provide weekly music. This meant his output of religious works increased, and this period in his life saw the composition of numerous cantatas and motets.

In addition to his liturgical works, Bach broadened his musical repertoire even more when, in 1729, he became director of the Collegium Musicum, a group of university musicians who, twice a week, provided concerts at Zimmerman's Coffeehouse near the marketplace. Bach composed several works for the ensemble to perform during his relationship with them.

In 1733, Bach wrote a Kyrie and a Gloria (usual components of a Mass), and eventually combined them with pieces of previous cantatas to form his monumental work Mass in B Minor. This is widely considered to be one of the finest works of the Baroque period, and among the greatest choral works ever written. The exact reasons why Bach, being a Lutheran, would compose a Mass remain unknown, and are often debated. But whatever the reasons, the contribution the work has made to music is undisputed.

By this time in his life, Bach had fully made himself known to be the emperor of fugue. His knowledge of contrapuntal music was, and still is, unparalleled among composers. In 1747, Bach visited King Frederick II of Prussia. The king proudly showed Bach his newly acquired instrument, a piano, the keyboard instrument that was just beginning to gain popularity. As a test of his skills, Frederick played a small tune for Bach on the piano and challenged him to compose a three-voice fugue based on the theme. Bach sat down and played one on the spot. The king, not to be outdone so easily, then challenged Bach to expand his work into a six-voice fugue. Such a work would be hugely complex and intricate. Bach replied that he would need some time.

Two months later he published a large work entitled The Musical Offering, a collection of two fugues (one of which had the requested six voices), ten canons (a work similar to a round, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat") and a four-movement trio, all based on a slightly modified version of the king's theme. The work contains several examples of Bach's wit and of his genius. Many of the canons are written to be played over themselves upside-down, backwards, transposed, and even combinations of the three.

Another highly important work composed (but never finished) during these last years of Bach's life was The Art of Fugue. It contains 18 fugues and canons on one single theme, and is often viewed as the peak of contrapuntal writing.

Bach's health had been declining. By 1749, he was fast becoming blind, and agreed to have eye surgery. The surgery was performed by John Taylor, who would later perform a similar surgery on Handel. In both cases, the surgery was unsuccessful, and vision was lost.

Bach, now on his deathbed, dictated his last complete work to his son-in-law. Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit or Before Thy throne I now appear is often played at the end of concerts to complete the unfinished Art of Fugue. The final three notes of the piece, when counted and mapped out into the Roman alphabet, state the initials: J S B. He died on July 28, 1750, at the age of 65.

So that's the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. As I said, he is perhaps the greatest composer to grace to Baroque age, and among the greatest of all time, as far as his sheer musical genius is concerned. His instinct with music was unmatched. But I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. That's all for the next post...