Bach, Johann Sebastian

(1685-1750)

"The aim and final reason of all music
should be nothing else but the Glory of God
and the refreshment of the spirit"

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German baroque composer (in case you don't know) and is called "The father of music". I don't like him much personally, or maybe I don't possess the intellect to understand his musical language, but still, I have to admit that he was indeed a great musician.

This man with twenty one sons is gray to me. Not only because his hair were gray, but also becuase of the fact that I don't know him much. (So this wallpaper certainly suits him!)

Bach's huge collection of works stunned me, and I really wonder how could one produce so efficiently (both in terms of compositions and prodigies). His work covers every and each area of music of his time, from solo to concerto, and from vocal to instrumental. He was principally an organist who, at his time, was natural to write many keyboard compositions (which includes the arrangements of Italian Concertos). He was also a violinist and concert master, and the position as a chior master charged him to compose and direct a new cantata each month, which could attribute to the enormous number of his works.

I learned from my volume of Well-Tempered Klavier that Bach wrote very accurately what is to be played and yet, left his performers free on how to play it. He insisted that every single note has its own meaning and thus, each of them has to be sung out as in the "cantabile style" he suggested.

Well, this is all I know about him. In order to give you little idea how enormous his collection of works is, here I'll give you a tiny part of his keyboard compositions. For complete list of his works, please refer the the gorgeous Bach Central Station.

bach's signature Bach's incomplete list of works

Sacred Vocal Works

Over 200 church cantatas

7 motets

Magnificat (1723)

St. John Passion (1724)

St. Matthew Passion (1727)

Christmas Ontario (1734)

Mass in B minor (1749)

Secular Vocal Works

...including over 200 cantats

Orchestral Music

4 Orchestral Suites

6 Brandenburg Concertos

Concertos for 1 and 2 violins

Concertos for 1,2,3, and 4 harpsichords

Chamber Music

6 sonatas for unaccompanied violin

6 partitas for unaccompanied violin

6 sonatas for violins and harpsichord

6 suites for cello

The Musical Offering (1747)

Flute sonatas

Viola da gamba sonatas

Keyboard Music

2 volumes of Das wohltemperirte Clavier (1722, 1742)

6 English Suites (c.1722)

6 French Suites (c.1722)

Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue (c.1720)

Italian Concerto (1735)

Goldberg Variations (1741-42)

The Art of the Fugue (1745-50)

Suites, Fugues, Capriccios, Concertos, Inventions, sinfonias
And many many more!

Some other fantastic links on J.S.Bach