Bach was born in march 1685 in the german city of Eisenach. His parents died when he was very young and he was raised by his older brother Johann Christoph. Johann Christoph was an organist and had been a student of Pachelbel, so he becamme Johann Sebastians first teacher in music. But his older brother was not a good teacher and he didn´t bother much about Johann Sebastian. When he was fifteen years old he moved, with a friend, to Luneburg where he finished school. Bach had a beutiful voice and instantly took a place in the schoolchoir.
He loved music with all his heart and he often walked all the way to Hamburg to hear the famous organist Reinken. He also had a very big thirst of knowledge and he practised very hard and he allways wanted to learn new things. When he finished school he looked around for a job. For a few years he worked as a musician in many different cities, and it was at this time he seriously begann composing. After a couple of years his reputation as a great organ virtuos spread all over Europe.
He got married 1707 with Maria Barbera, with whom he got 7 children. Among them Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel. 1717-1722 he worked as a conductor at the court in Köthen. During these years he wrote the violin concertos, the so called Brandenburg concertos, most of his chamber music and the first part of ‘Das wohltemperierte klavier’. In the year of 1720 his wife died and the year after Bach remarried with Anna Magdalena Wulcken. She gave birth to thirteen of Bach´s childen. In this marrige Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Cristian(who later became a good friend with Mozart) was born. In 1722 Johann Kuhnan, the organist at the Thomaschurch in Leipzig, died. Bach applied for the post and got it the same year. He worked there as an organist, composer, choirleader and teacher for the rest of his life. Bach´s works from the time in Leipzig is mainly churchmusic. Good examples are the B-minor mass, ‘the christmasoratorio’ , ‘Magnificat’ and a huge mumber of church cantatas. But Bach allso wrote other kind of music during these years, such as the secong part of ‘Das wohltemperierte klavier’ and other music for keyboard-instruments.
The last big work he made was ‘Die Kunst der Fuge’, wich he was unable to finish because of an eyedisease wich lead to total blindness. In July 1750 he got a stroke which changed his life for ever. Bach was under his life more know as a great organ virtous then a composer, but after his death the musicworld understood the greatness of his music.
The expression of Bach´s music is unlike many others. It reaches from the most elemetary to the most complicated, from great joy to deathwish. But this never affects the balence of the musicpiece. Maybe the most interesting thing with his music is his perfection in the art of counterpoint, but his rich harmonical fantasy is of equal importance for his works. His music is a perfect synthesis between polyphony and harminic. There is no doubt that Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the greatest musical geniuses ever. |
