Bach Thingy PDF
Bach Thingy PDF
Bach Thingy PDF
Johann Sebastian Bach[a] (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and
musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Art of Fugue, the
Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew
Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as
one of the greatest composers of all time.[3]
The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of
a city musician in Eisenach. After becoming an orphan at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest
brother Johann Christoph Bach, after which he continued his musical development in Lüneburg. From
1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and
Mühlhausenand, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire
for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723 he was
employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig. He composed music for the principal
Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1726
he published some of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened in some of his earlier
positions, he had a difficult relation with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was
granted the title of court composer by King 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.
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 sacredand secular.[4] He composed Latin
church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, 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 and fugue.
Throughout the 18th century Bach was mostly renowned as an organist, 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 websites
exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (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 for instance the Air on the G String, and of
recordings, for instance three different box sets with complete performances of the composer's works
marking the 250th anniversary of his death.
Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach, in the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, into a great musical family. His father,
Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional
musicians. His father probably taught him to play the violin and harpsichord, and his brother Johann
Christoph Bach taught him the clavichord and exposed him to much contemporary music.[5] Apparently
at his own initiative, Bach attended St. Michael's School in Lüneburg for two years. After graduating he
held several musical posts across Germany: he served as Kapellmeister (director of music) to Leopold,
Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, and as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, a position of music director at the main
Lutheran churches and educator at the Thomasschule. He received the title of "Royal Court Composer"
from Augustus III in 1736.[6][7] Bach's health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750.
In January 1703, shortly after graduating from St. Michael's and being turned down for the post of
organist at Sangerhausen,[23] Bach was appointed court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III in
Weimar.[24] 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 30 kilometres (19 mi) southwest of Weimar.[25] In August 1703, he became the organist at
the New Church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a fine new organ tuned in a
temperament that allowed music written in a wider range of keys to be played.[citation needed]
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 bassoon player). Late one evening this
student, named Geyersbach, went after Bach with a stick. Bach filed a complaint against Geyersbach
with the authorities. These 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: having obtained a leave permission for four weeks
he had been absent for around four months in 1705–1706 to visit the organist and composer Dieterich
Buxtehude in the northern city of Lübeck. The visit to Buxtehude involved a 450-kilometre (280 mi)
journey each way, reportedly on foot.[26][27]
In 1706, Bach applied for a post as organist at the Blasius Church in Mühlhausen.[28][29] As part of his
application, he had a cantata performed on Easter, 24 April 1707, likely an early version of his Christ lag
in Todes Banden.[30] A month later Bach's application was accepted and he took up the post in July.[28] The
position included a significantly higher remuneration, improved conditions, and a better choir. Four
months after arriving at Mühlhausen, Bach married Maria Barbara Bach, 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 Gott ist mein König, a festive cantata for the
inauguration of the new Council, which was published at the Council's expense.[17]
Bach's autograph of the first movement of the Sonata No. 1 in G minor for solo violin (BWV 1001) –
Audio
Further information: Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 § Background
Bach left Mühlhausen in 1708, returning to Weimar this time as organist and from 1714 Konzertmeister
(director of music) at the ducal court, where he had an opportunity to work with a large, well-funded
contingent of professional musicians.[17] Bach and his wife moved into a house close to the ducal
palace.[31] 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.[32]
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 to include influences
from abroad. He learned to write dramatic openings and employ the dynamic motor rhythms and
harmonic schemes found in the music of Italians such as Vivaldi, Corelli, and Torelli. 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.[33]
In Weimar, Bach continued to play and compose for the organ, and to perform concert music with the
duke's ensemble.[17] He also began to write the preludes and fugues which were later assembled into his
monumental work The Well-Tempered Clavier ("Clavier" meaning clavichord or harpsichord),[34]
consisting of two books,[35] 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 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.[36][37]
In the spring of 1714, Bach was promoted to Konzertmeister, an honour that entailed performing a
church cantata monthly in the castle church.[38] The first three cantatas in the new series Bach composed
in Weimar were Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182, for Palm Sunday, which coincided with the
Annunciation that year, Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12, for Jubilate Sunday, and Erschallet, ihr
Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 for Pentecost.[39] Bach's first Christmas cantata Christen, ätzet
diesen Tag, BWV 63 was premiered in 1714 or 1715.[40][41]
The Paulinerkirche in Leipzig: in 1717 Bach had tested the new organ in this church.
In 1717, Bach eventually fell out of favour in Weimar and was, according to a translation of the court
secretary's report, jailed for almost a month before being unfavourably dismissed: "On November 6,
[1717], the quondam 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."[42]
Bach's seal, used throughout his Leipzig years. It contains the letters J S Bsuperimposed over their
mirror image topped with a crown.
St. Thomas Church, Leipzig
Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, hired Bach to serve as his Kapellmeister (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 Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his
worship; accordingly, most of Bach's work from this period was secular,[43] including the orchestral suites,
the cello suites, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the Brandenburg Concertos.[44] Bach also
composed secular cantatas for the court such as Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht, BWV 134a. A
significant influence upon Bach's musical development during his years with the Prince is recorded by
Stauffer as Bach's "complete embrace of dance music, perhaps the most important influence on his
mature style other than his adoption of Vivaldi's music in Weimar."[20]
Despite being born in the same year and only about 130 kilometres (81 mi) apart, Bach and Handel
never met. In 1719, Bach made the 35-kilometre (22 mi) journey from Köthen to Halle with the intention
of meeting Handel; however, Handel had left the town.[45] 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
come to pass.[46]
On 7 July 1720, while Bach was away in Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, Bach's wife suddenly died.[47] The
following year, he met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young, highly gifted soprano sixteen years his junior,
who performed at the court in Köthen; they married on 3 December 1721.[48] Together they had thirteen
more 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).[49]
In 1723, Bach was appointed Thomaskantor, Cantor of the Thomasschule at the Thomaskirche (St.
Thomas Church) in Leipzig, which provided music for four churches in the city, the Thomaskirche, the
Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church), and to a lesser extent the Neue Kirche (New Church) and the
Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church).[50] This was "the leading cantorate in Protestant Germany",[51] located in
the mercantile city in the Electorate of Saxony, which he held for twenty-seven 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.[51] Bach frequently disagreed with his employer, Leipzig's city council, who he thought were
"penny-pinching".[52]
Johann Kuhnau 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,[53] and in 1717 he had tested the organ of the Paulinerkirche.[54] In 1716 Bach and
Kuhnau had met on the occasion of the testing and inauguration of an organ in Halle.[37]
After having been offered the position, Bach was invited to Leipzig only after Georg Philipp Telemann
indicated that he would not be interested in relocating to Leipzig.[55] Telemann went to Hamburg where
he "had his own struggles with the city's senate".[56]
Bach was required to instruct the students of the Thomasschule in singing and to provide church music
for the main churches in Leipzig. Bach was required to teach Latin, but he was allowed to employ four
"prefects" (deputies) to do this instead. The prefects also aided with musical instruction.[57] A cantata was
required for the church services on Sundays and additional church holidays during the liturgical year.
Bach usually led performances of his cantatas, most of which were composed within three years of his
relocation to Leipzig. The first was Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, performed in the Nikolaikirche on
30 May 1723, the first Sunday after Trinity. Bach collected his cantatas in annual cycles. Five are
mentioned in obituaries, three are extant.[39] Of the more than three hundred cantatas which Bach
composed in Leipzig, over one hundred have been lost to posterity.[4] Most of these concerted 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 O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 20, Wachet auf,
ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 62, and Wie schön leuchtet der
Morgenstern, BWV 1.
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.[58] As part of
his regular church work, he performed other composers' motets, which served as formal models for his
own.[59]
Bach's predecessor as Cantor, Johann Kuhnau, had also been music director for the Paulinerkirche, the
church of Leipzig University. But when Bach was installed as Cantor in 1723, he was put in charge only of
music for "festal" (church holiday) services at the Paulinerkirche; his petition to provide music also for
regular Sunday services there (for a corresponding salary increase) went all the way up to the Elector but
was denied. After this, in 1725, Bach "lost interest" in working even for festal services at the
Paulinerkirche and appeared there only on "special occasions".[60] The Paulinerkirche had a much better
and newer (1716) organ than did the Thomaskirche or the Nikolaikirche.[61] Bach was not required to play
any organ in his official duties, but it is believed he liked to play on the Paulinerkirche organ "for his own
pleasure".[62]
Bach broadened his composing and performing beyond the liturgy by taking over, in March 1729, the
directorship of the Collegium Musicum, a secular performance ensemble started by Telemann. This was
one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities that was 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,
assuming the directorship was a shrewd move that "consolidated Bach's firm grip on Leipzig's principal
musical institutions".[63] Year round, Leipzig's Collegium Musicum performed regularly in venues such as
the Café Zimmermann, a coffeehouse on Catherine Street off the main market square. Many of Bach's
works during the 1730s and 1740s were written for and performed by the Collegium Musicum; among
these were parts of his Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice) and many of his violin and keyboard
concertos.[17]
In 1733, Bach composed a mass for the Dresden court (Kyrie and Gloria) 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.[6] He later extended this work into a full
mass, by adding a Credo, Sanctus', and Agnus Dei, the music for which was partly based on his own
cantatas, partly newly composed. Bach's appointment as Court Composer was part 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.[64] 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.[65]
From 1740 to 1748 Bach copied, transcribed, expanded and/or programmed music in an older
polyphonic style (stile antico), by, among others, Palestrina (BNB I/P/2),[66] Kerll (BWV 241),[67] Torri (BWV
Anh. 30),[68] Bassani (BWV 1081),[69] Gasparini (Missa Canonica)[70] and Caldara(BWV 1082).[71] 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.[72] His fourth and last Clavier-Übung volume, the Goldberg
Variations, for two-manual harpsichord, contained nine canons and was published in 1741.[73]
Throughout this period, Bach also continued to adopt music of contemporaries such as Handel (BNB
I/K/2)[74] and Stölzel(BWV 200),[75] and gave many of his own earlier compositions, such as the St
Matthew and St John Passions and the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes,[76] their final revisions. He also
programmed and adapted music by composers of a younger generation, including Pergolesi (BWV
1083)[77]and his own students such as Goldberg (BNB I/G/2).[78]
In 1746 Bach was preparing to enter Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Society of Musical Sciences [de].[79] 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", and a portrait, which was painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann
and featured Bach's Canon triplex á 6 Voc.[80] In May 1747, Bach visited the court of King Frederick II of
Prussia at Potsdam. 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 fortepianos, 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, dedicated to Frederick. The Schübler Chorales, a set of six chorale
preludes transcribed from cantata movements Bach had composed some two decades earlier, was
published within a year after that.[81][82] Around the same time, the set of five Canonic Variations which
Bach had submitted when entering Mizler's Society in 1747, was also printed.[83]
Two large-scale compositions occupied a central place in Bach's last years. From around 1742 he wrote
and reworked the various canons and fugues of The Art of Fugue, which he continued to prepare for
publication until shortly before his death.[84][85] After having extracted a cantata, BWV 191, from his 1733
Kyrie-Gloria Mass for the Dresden court in the mid 1740s, Bach expanded that Mass setting into his Mass
in B minor in the last years of his life. Stauffer describes it as "Bach's most universal church work.
Consisting mainly of recycled movements from cantatas written over a thirty-five-year period, it allowed
Bach to survey his vocal pieces one last time and pick select movements for further revision and
refinement."[20] Although the complete mass was never performed during the composer's lifetime, it is
considered to be among the greatest choral works of all time.[86]
In January 1749 Bach's daughter Elisabeth Juliane Friederica married his pupil Johann Christoph
Altnickol. Bach's health was however declining. On 2 June, Heinrich von Brühl wrote to one of the Leipzig
burgomasters to request that his music director, Johann Gottlob Harrer, fill the Thomaskantor and
Director musices posts "upon the eventual ... decease of Mr. Bach".[87] Becoming blind, Bach underwent
eye surgery, in March 1750, and again in April, from the British eye surgeon John Taylor.[88] Bach died on
28 July 1750, from complications connected to the unsuccessful treatment.[89][90][91] An inventory drawn
up a few months after Bach's death, shows that his estate included five harpsichords, two
lute-harpsichords, three violins, three violas, two cellos, a viola da gamba, a lute and a spinet, along with
52 "sacred books", including works by Martin Luther and Josephus.[92] The composer's son Carl Philipp
Emanuel saw to it that The Art of Fugue, although still unfinished, was published in 1751.[93] Together
with one of the composer's former students, Johann Friedrich Agricola, this son of Bach also wrote the
obituary ("Nekrolog") which was published in Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek [de], the organ of the
Society of Musical Sciences, in 1754.[94]
A handwritten note by Bach in his copy of the Calov Bible. The note next to 2 Chronicles 5:13 reads:
"NB Bey einer andächtigen Musiq ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden Gegenwart" (N(ota) B(ene) In a
music of worship God is always present with his grace)
"O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden": the four-part chorale setting as included in the St. Matthew Passion
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2. Fugue
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2nd movement
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3rd movement
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2. Adagio
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3. Allegro
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Keyboard concerto
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The Art of Fugue (title page) – Performed by Mehmet Okonsar on organ and harpsichord: Nos.
1–12 • Nos. 13–20
Double Violin Concerto in D minor
BWV 1043 performed by the
Advent Chamber Orchestra with
David Perry and Roxana Pavel
Goldstein (violins)
1. Vivace
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3. Allegro
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A strictly contrapuntal
composition (the two violins
playing in canon throughout) in
the guise of an Italian type of
concerto
Analysis of the counterpoint of the
chorale prelude Herr Jesu Christ,
dich zu uns wend', BWV 632
(Orgelbüchlein)
BWV 632 (extract)
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6. Duet "Mein Freund ist mein!"
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Cantata text
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Fugue
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Title page of The Well-Tempered Clavier, book 1 – Prelude No. 1 in C major BWV 846 performed
on harpsichord by Robert Schröter
Italian Concerto BWV 971
performed by Martha Goldstein
1st movement
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2nd movement
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3rd movement
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Title page of the Goldberg Variations – performed by Mehmet Okonsar, piano: Aria and Variation
1–9 • Variation 10–22 • Variation 23–30 and Aria da capo
Title page of Anna Magdalena Bach's copy of the cello suites – Cello Suite No. 1 BWV 1007 performed
by John Michel: 1. Prelude • 2. Allemande • 3. Courante • 4. Sarabande • 5. Minuets
• 6. Gigue
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2. Andante
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3. Presto
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BWV Canons
1072–1078