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| ] portrait of the composer]] | |||
| == Headline text == | |||
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| '''Johann Sebastian Bach''' (] {{IPA|}}) (] ] ] – ] ] ]) was a prolific ] ] and ] whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together the strands of the ] period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he introduced no new forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust ] technique, a control of harmonic and motivic organisation from the smallest to the largest scales, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France. He is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. | |||
| Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, JS Bach's works include the ], the '']'', the keyboard suites and partitas, the '']'', the '']'','' ]'', '']'', '']'', the '']'', and a large number of ]s, of which about 220 survive. | |||
| ==Biography== | |||
| === Early years (1685–1702)=== | |||
| Johann Sebastian Bach was born in ], ] to an extraordinarily musical family - for more than 200 years, the ] had produced dozens of worthy performers and composers during a period in which the church, local government and the aristocracy provided significant support for professional music making in the German-speaking world, particularly in the eastern electorates of Thuringia and ]. Sebastian's father, ], was a talented violinist and trumpeter in ], a town of some 6,000 residents in Thuringia, and held a post involving the organisation of secular music and participation in church music. Sebastian's uncles were all professional musicians, ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers. Contemporary documents indicate that, in some circles, the name Bach had come to be used as a synonym for "musician".{{fact}}] Sebastian was proud of his family's musical achievements, and around 1735 drafted a geneaology, "Origin of the Musical Bach Family"<ref>(''Ursprung der musicalisch-Bachischen Familie'') printed in translation in ''The Bach Reader'' Norton 1966 ISBN 0393002594 p203-11 from whence the following</ref>, tracing the history of generations of 53 musical Bachs, beginning with Veit (Vitus) Bach (d1619) "a white-bread baker in ]" who had to flee Hungary because he was a ] and who "found the greatest pleasure in a little ]". His son Johannes (d1626) became a piper, his son Christoph (1613-1661) an instrumentalist, his twin son was JSB's father. | |||
| ] | |||
| Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father died the following year. The 10-year-old orphan moved in with his eldest brother, ], the organist at ], a nearby town. There he copied, studied and performed music, and apparently received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the ]. He exposed him to the work of the great South German composers of the day—such as ] and ]—and possibly to the music of North German composers, and of Frenchmen such as ], ], ], and the Italian clavierist ]. The boy probably witnessed and assisted in the maintenance of the ]. Bach's obituary indicates that he copied music out of Johann Christoph's scores, but his brother had apparenty forbidden him to do so, possibly because scores were valuable and private commodities at the time. | |||
| At the age of 14, Johann Sebastian was awarded a choral scholarship, with his older school friend, Georg Erdmann, to study at the prestigious St Michael’s School in ], not far from the largest city in Germany, the northern seaport of ]. This involved a long journey with his friend, probably partly on foot and partly by coach. His two years there appear to have been critical in exposing him to a wider palette of European culture than he would have experienced in Thuringia. In addition to singing in the ''a cappella'' choir, it is likely that he played the School’s three-manual organ and its ]s. He probably learned ] and ], and received a thorough grounding in ], ], ], ] and ]. He would have come into contact with sons of noblemen from northern Germany sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in diplomacy, government and the military. It is likely that he had significant contact with organists in ], in particular ], and visited several of them in Hamburg, such as ] and ]. Through these musicians, he probably gained access to the largest instruments he had thus far played. It is likely that during this stage, he became acquainted with the music of the ], especially the work of ], and with music manuscripts and treatises on music theory that were in the possession of these musicians. | |||
| ===Arnstadt to Weimar (1703–08)=== | |||
| ]In January 1703, shortly after graduating, Bach took up a post as a court musician in the chapel of ] in ], a large town in Thuringia. His role there is unclear, but appears to have included menial, non-musical duties. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboardist spread. He was invited to inspect and give the inaugural recital on the new organ at St Boniface’s Church in ]. The Bach family had close connections with this oldest town in Thuringia, about 180 km to the southwest of Weimar at the edge of the great forest. In August 1703, he accepted the post of organist at that church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a fine new organ tuned to a modern system that allowed a wide range of keys to be used. At this time, Bach was embarking on the serious composition of organ preludes; these works, in the North German tradition of virtuosic, improvisatory preludes, already showed tight motivic control (where a single, short music idea is explored cogently throughout a movement). However, in these works the composer had yet to fully develop his powers large-scale organisation and his ] (where two or more melodies interact simultaneously). | |||
| Strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer failed to prevent tension between the young organist and the authorities after several years in the post. He was apparently dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir; more seriously, there was his unauthorised absence from Arnstadt for several months in 1705–06, when he visited the great master ] and his ] in the northern city of ]. This well-known incident in Bach’s life involved his walking some 400 km each way to spend time with the man he probably regarded as the father-figure of German organists. The trip reinforced Buxtehude’s style as a foundation for Bach’s earlier works, and that he overstayed his planned visit by several months suggests that his time with the old man was of great value to his art. ] | |||
| Despite his comfortable position in Arnstadt, by 1706 Bach appeared to have realised that he needed to escape from the family milieu and move on to further his career. He was offered a more lucrative post as organist at St Blasius’s in ], a large and important city to the north. The following year, he took up this senior post with significantly improved pay and conditions, including a good choir. Four months after arriving at Mühlhausen, he married his second cousin from Arnstadt, ].<ref>Carolina Classical Connection (1997–2005). . Retrieved ], ]. ''"Bach's maternal uncle, died at Erfurt, bequeathing to his nephew a sum of 50 gulden. This inheritance ... it possible for Bach to propose and subsequently to marry his second cousin from Arnstadt, Maria Barbara Bach... The wedding took place on ] in the village church at Dornheim, near Arnstadt."''</ref> They had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Two of them—] and ]—became important composers in the ornate ] style that followed the baroque. | |||
| The church and city government at Mühlhausen must have been proud of their new musical director. They readily agreed to his plan for an expensive renovation of the organ at St Blasius’s, and were so delighted at the elaborate, festive ] he wrote for the inauguration of the new council in 1708—''God is my king'' BWV 71, clearly in the style of Buxtehude—that they paid handsomely for its publication, and twice in later years had the composer return to conduct it. However, that same year, Bach was offered a better position in Weimar. | |||
| ===Weimar (1708–17)=== | |||
| After barely a year at Mühlhausen, Bach left to become the court organist and ] at the ducal court in Weimar, a far cry from his earlier position there as ‘lackey’. The munificent salary on offer at the court and the prospect of working entirely with a large, well-funded contingent of professional musicians may have prompted the move. The family moved into an apartment just five minutes’ walk from the ducal palace. In the following year, their first child was born and they were joined by Maria Barbara’s elder, unmarried sister, who remained with them to assist in the running of the household until her death in 1729. It was in Weimar that two musically significant sons were born—WF and CPE Bach. | |||
| Bach’s position in Weimar marked the start of a sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works, in which he had attained the technical proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing large-scale structures and to synthesize influences from abroad. From the music of Italians such as ], ] and ], he learnt how to write dramatic openings and adopted their sunny dispositions, dynamic motor-rhythms and decisive harmonic schemes. Bach inducted himself into these stylistic aspects largely by transcribing for harpsichord and organ the ensemble concertos of Vivaldi; these works are still concert favourites. He may have picked up the idea of transcribing the latest fashionable Italian music from Prince Johann Ernst, one of his employers, who was a musician of professional calibre. In 1713, the Duke returned from a tour of the ] with a large collection of scores, some of them possibly transcriptions of the latest fashionable Italian music by the blind organist Jan Jacob de Graaf. He was particularly attracted to the Italian solo-tutti structure, in which one or more solo instruments alternate section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a movement. These Italianate features can be heard in the excerpt below of the Prelude to ''English Suite No. 3'' for harpsichord (1714). The solo–tutti alternation is achieved when the player deftly changes between the lower keyboard (of a fuller, slightly louder tone) and the upper keyboard (of a more delicate tone). | |||
| In Weimar, he had the opportunity to play and compose for the organ, and to perform a varied repertoire of concert music with the duke’s ensemble. A master of ] technique, Bach’s steady output of ]s began in Weimar. The largest single body of his fugal writing is '']'' ("The well-tempered keyboard" - "''Clavier''" meaning keyboard instrument). It consists of 48 preludes and fugues, one pair for each ] and ]. This is a monumental work for its masterful use of counterpoint and its exploration, for the first time, of the full range of keys—and the means of expression made possible by their slight differences from each other—available to keyboardists when their instruments are tuned according to systems such as that of ]. | |||
| During his tenure at Weimar, Bach started work on ] for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann; this contains traditional ] ]s (hymn tunes), set in complex textures to assist the training of organists. The book illustrates two major themes in Bach’s life: his dedication to teaching and his love of the chorale as a musical form. | |||
| ===Cöthen (1717–23)=== | |||
| ]] | |||
| Bach began once again to search out a more stable job that was conducive to his musical interests. ] hired Bach to serve as his ] (director of music). Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach’s talents, paid him well, and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. However, the prince was ] and did not use elaborate music in his worship; thus, most of Bach’s work from this period was secular, including the '']'', the '']'' and the '']''. This photograph of the opening page of the first violin sonata shows the composer’s handwriting—fast and efficient, but just as visually ornate as the music it encoded. The well-known '']'' date from this period.<br clear=all> | |||
| On ] ] while Bach was abroad with Prince Leopold, tragedy struck: his wife, Maria Barbara, died suddenly. The following year, the widower met ], a young, highly gifted ] who performed at the court in ]; they married on ] ]. Despite the age difference—she was 17 years his junior—they appear to have had a happy marriage. Together, they had 13 children, of whom ], ] and ] became significant musicians and a further three survived into adulthood: Elisabeth Juliane Friederica (1726-1781) who married Bach's pupil Johann Christoph Altnikol, Johanna Carolina (1737-1781) and Regina Susanna (1742-1809)<ref> New Grove Bach Family, p98, p111</ref> | |||
| ===Leipzig (1723–50)=== | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| In 1723, Bach was appointed Cantor of the ], adjacent to the ] (St Thomas’s Lutheran Church) in ], as well as Director of Music in the principal churches in the town. This was a prestigious post in the leading mercantile city in Saxony, a neighbouring electorate to Thuringia. Apart from his brief tenures in Arnstadt and Mülhausen, this was Bach’s first government position in a career that had mainly involved service to the aristocracy. This final post, which he held for 27 years until his death, brought him into contact with the political machinations of his employer, the Leipzig Council. The Council comprised two factions: the Absolutists, loyal to the Saxon monarch in Dresden, Augustus the Strong; and the City-Estate faction, representing the interests of the mercantile class, the guilds and minor aristocrats. Bach was the nominee of the monarchists, in particular of the Mayor at the time, Gottlieb Lange, a lawyer who had earlier served in the Dresden court. In return for agreeing to Bach’s appointment, the City-Estate faction was granted control of the School, and Bach was required to make a number of compromises with respect to his working conditions.<ref>Sigele, U, '"Bach and the domestic politics of electoral Saxony" in Butt J, pp17–34</ref> Although it appears that no one on the Council doubted Bach’s musical genius, there was continual tension between the Cantor, who regarded himself as the leader of church music in the city, and the City-Estate faction, which saw him as a schoolmaster and wanted to reduce the emphasis on elaborate music in both the School and the Churches. The Council never honoured Lange’s promise at interview of a handsome salary of 1,000 talers a year, although it did provide Bach and his family with a smaller income and a good apartment at one end of the school building, which was renovated at great expense in 1732. | |||
| Bach’s job required him to instruct the students of the ] in singing, and to provide weekly music at the two main churches in Leipzig, ] and St Nicholas's. His post also obliged him to teach Latin, but he was allowed to employ a deputy to do this instead. In an astonishing burst of creativity, he wrote up to five annual cantata cycles during his first six years in Leipzig (two of which have apparently been lost). Most of these concerted works expound on the Gospel readings for every Sunday and feast day in the Lutheran year; many were written using traditional church hymns, such as ''Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme'' and ''Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland'', as inspiration. | |||
| To rehearse and perform these works at St Thomas’s Church, Bach probably sat at the harpsichord or stood in front of the choir on the lower gallery at the west end, his back to the congregation and the altar at the east end. He would have looked upwards to the organ that rose from a loft about four metres above. To the right of the organ in a side gallery would have been the winds, brass and timpani; to the left were the strings. The Council provided only about eight permanent instrumentalists, a source of continual friction with the Cantor, who had to recruit the rest of the 20 or so players required for medium-to-large scores from the University, the School and the public. The organ or harpsichord were probably played by the composer (when not standing to conduct), the in-house organist, or one of Bach’s elder sons, Friederich or Emmanuel. | |||
| 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 ]s, mostly for ]. As part of his regular church work, he performed motets of the ] and Germans such as ], which would have served as formal models for his own motets. The audio excerpt is from the opening of ''Singet dem Herrn'' (''Sing to the Lord''), showing the rich, energetic textures that Bach could produce with two choirs, each in four parts. In this recording, there are three singers to each part. | |||
| ]Having spent much of the 1720s composing cantatas, Bach had assembled a huge repertoire of church music for Leipzig’s two main churches. He now wished to broaden his composing and performing beyond the liturgy. In March 1729, he took over the directorship of the ], a secular performance ensemble that had been started in 1701 by his old friend, the composer ]. This was one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities that had been established by musically active university students; these societies had come to play an increasingly important role 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’.<ref>Wolff C, p341</ref> During much of the year, Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum gave twice-weekly, two-hour performances in Zimmerman’s Coffeehouse on Catherine Street, just off the main market square. For this purpose, the proprietor provided a large hall and acquired several musical instruments. Many of Bach’s works during the 1730s, 40s and 50s were probably written for and performed by the Collegium Musicum; among these were almost certainly parts of the ] (''Keyboard Practice''), and many of the violin and harpsichord concertos. | |||
| During this period, he composed the Kyrie and Gloria of the '']'', and in 1733, he presented the manuscript to the elector of Saxony in an ultimately successful bid to persuade the monarch to appoint him as Royal Court Composer. He later extended this work into a full Catholic Mass, by adding a Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, the music for which was almost wholly taken from some of the best of his cantata movements. Bach's appointment as court composer appears to have been part of his long-term struggle to achieve greater bargaining power with the Leipzig Council. The audio excerpt, from one of the movements that was presented to the monarch, shows his use of festive trumpets and timpani. Although the complete mass was probably never performed during the composer’s lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest choral works of all time. | |||
| In 1747, Bach went to the court of ] in ], where the king played a theme for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue based on his theme. Bach improvised a three-part fugue on Frederick’s ], then a novelty, and later presented the king with a '']'' which consists of fugues, canons and a trio based on the "]", nominated by the monarch. Its six-part fugue includes a slightly altered subject more suitable for extensive elaboration.] | |||
| '']'', published posthumously but probably written years before Bach's death, is unfinished. It consists of 18 complex fugues and canons based on a simple theme. A magnum opus of thematic transformation and contrapuntal devices, this work is often cited as the summation of polyphonic techniques. | |||
| The final work Bach completed was a chorale prelude for organ, dictated to his son-in-law, ], from his deathbed. Entitled ''Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit'' (''Before thy throne I now appear''); when the notes on the three staves of the final cadence are counted and mapped onto the Roman alphabet, the initials "JSB" are found. The chorale is often played after the unfinished 14th fugue to conclude performances of ''The Art of Fugue''. | |||
| Bach became increasingly blind, and the celebrated British opthalmist John Taylor (who had operated successfully on ]) operated on Bach while visiting Leipzig in 1750. However Bach died "from the unhappy consequences of the very unsuccessful eye operation"<ref>Death notice from the Spenersche Zeitung, quoted in ''The Bach Reader'' p188</ref> at the age of 65. His estate was valued at 1159 ] and included 5 ]s, 2 Lute-Harpsichords, 3 violins, 3 violas, 2 cellos, a ], a ] and a ], 52 "Sacred Books" (many by ], ] and ], also including ]'s ''History of the Jews'' and 9 volumes of Wagner<!--Not, obviously, Richard Wagner. I don't know which Wagner this is-->'s Leipzig Song Book) and a share in a mine!<ref>''Bach Reader'' p191-197</ref> | |||
| During his life he had composed more than 1,000 works. <!--Floating sentences to be relocated: Bach's dedication to teaching is especially remarkable. It was typical for him to supervise a full-time apprentice, and there were often numerous private students studying in Bach's house, including such notables as ]. //His sons ], ], ], ], and ] became accomplished musicians, and three (CPE, JC, and WF Bach) were important composers in the ] style that followed the baroque. Most of Sebastian's manuscripts were passed on through his children, particularly CPE and WF Bach.--> | |||
| ]At Leipzig, Bach seems to have maintained active relationships with several members of the faculty of the university. He enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with the poet ]. Sebastian and Anna Magdalena welcomed friends, family, and fellow musicians from all over Germany into their home. Court musicians at Dresden and Berlin, and musicians including ] (one of CPE’s godfathers) made frequent visits to Bach’s apartment and may have kept up frequent correspondence with him. Interestingly, ], who was born in the same year as Bach in Halle, only 50 km from Leipzig, made several trips to Germany, but Bach was unable to meet him, a fact that Bach appears to have deeply regretted{{citationneeded}}. | |||
| ] | |||
| ==Style== | |||
| {{unreferenced|date=October 2006}} | |||
| Bach’s musical style arose from his extraordinary fluency in contrapuntal invention and motivic control, his flair for improvisation at the keyboard, his exposure to South German, North German, Italian and French music, and his apparent devotion to the Lutheran liturgy. His access to musicians, scores and instruments as a child and a young man, combined with his emerging talent for writing tightly woven music of powerful sonority, appear to have set him on course to develop an eclectic, energetic musical style in which foreign influences were injected into an intensified version of the pre-existing German musical language. Throughout his teens and 20s, his output showed increasing skill in the large-scale organisation of musical ideas, and the enhancement of the Buxtehudian model of improvisatory preludes and counterpoint of limited complexity. The period 1713–14, when a large repertoire of Italian music became available to the Weimar court orchestra, was a turning point. From this time onwards, he appears to have absorbed into his style the Italians’ dramatic openings, clear melodic contours, the sharp outlines of their bass lines, greater motoric and rhythmic conciseness, more unified motivic treatment, and more clearly articulated schemes for modulation.<ref>Wolff C, p. 401</ref> | |||
| There are several more specific features of Bach's style. The notation of baroque melodic lines tended to assume that composers would write out only the basic framework, and that performers would embellish this framework by inserting ornamental notes and otherwise elaborating on it. Although this practice varied considerably between the schools of European music, Bach was regarded at the time as being on one extreme end of the spectrum, notating most or all of the details of his melodic lines—particularly in his fast movements—thus leaving little for performers to interpolate. (An example of this ornate, inclusive notation is provided by the excerpt from his Violin Sonata No. 1 in G, in the previous section.) This may have assisted his control over the dense contrapuntal textures that he favoured, which allow less leeway for the spontaneous variation of musical lines. Bach's contrapuntal textures tend to be more cumulative than those of Händel and most other composers of the day, who would typically allow a line to drop out after it had been joined by two or three others. Bach's harmony is marked by a tendency to employ brief ]—subtle references to another key that last for only a few beats at the longest—particularly of the supertonic, to add colour to his textures. | |||
| At the same time, Bach, unlike later composers, left the instrumentation of major works including The Art of Fugue and A Musical Offering open. It is likely that his detailed notation was less an absolute demand on the performer and more a response to a 17th-century culture in which the boundary, between what the performer could embellish and the composer's demands, was being negotiated. | |||
| Bach’s apparently devout, personal relationship with the Christian God in the Lutheran tradition and the high demand for religious music of his times inevitably placed sacred music at the centre of his repertory; more specifically, the Lutheran ] (hymn tune), the principal musical aspect of the Lutheran service, was the basis of much of his output. He invested the ], already a standard set of Lutheran forms, with a more cogent, tightly integrated architecture, in which the intervallic patterns and melodic contours of the tune were typically treated in a dense, contrapuntal lattice against relatively slow-moving, overarching statements of the tune. | |||
| Bach's deep knowledge of and interest in the liturgy led to his developing intricate relationships between music and linguistic text. This was evident from the smallest to the largest levels of his compositional technique. On the smallest level, many of his sacred works contain short motifs that, by recurrent association, can be regarded as pictorial symbolism and articulations of liturgical concepts. For example, the octave leap, usually in a bass line, represents the relationship between heaven and earth; the slow, repeated notes of the bass line in the opening movement of Cantata 106 (''Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit'') depict the laboured trudging of Jesus as he was forced to drag the cross from the city to the crucifixion site. | |||
| <!--Sound clip: the opening of the first movement of Cantata 106 Without an actual soundclip here, the words "Sound clip..." are a bit out of place--> | |||
| On the largest level, the large-scale structure of some of his sacred vocal works is evidence of subtle, elaborate planning: for example, the overall form of the St Matthew Passion illustrates the liturgical and dramatic flow of the Easter story on a number of levels simultaneously;<!----> the text, keys and variations of instrumental and vocal forces used in the movements of Cantata 11 (''Lobet Gott in alle Landen'') may form a structure that resembles the cross.<!----> | |||
| Beyond these specific musical features arising from Bach’s religious affiliation is the fact that he was able to produce music for an audience that was committed to serious, regular worship, for which a concentrated density and complexity was accepted. His natural inclination may have been to reinvigorate existing forms, rather than to discard them and pursue more dramatic musical innovations. Thus, Bach’s inventive genius was almost entirely directed towards working within the structures he inherited, according to most critics and historians. | |||
| Bach’s inner personal drive to display his musical achievements was evident in a number of ways. The most obvious was his successful striving to become the leading virtuoso and improviser of the day on the organ. Keyboard music occupied a central position in his output throughout his life, and he pioneered the elevation of the keyboard from ] to solo instrument in his numerous harpsichord concertos and chamber movements with keyboard ], in which he himself probably played the solo part. Many of his keyboard preludes are vehicles for a free improvisatory virtuosity in the German tradition, although their internal organisation became increasingly more cogent as he matured. Virtuosity is a key element in other forms, such as the fugal movement from ''Brandenburg Concerto No. 4'', in which Bach himself may have been the first to play the rapid solo violin passages. Another example is in the organ fugue from BWV547, a late work from Leipzig, in which virtuosic passages are mapped onto Italian solo-tutti alternation within the fugal development. | |||
| Related to his cherished role as teacher was his drive to encompass whole genres by producing collections of movements that thoroughly explore the range of artistic and technical possibilities inherent in those genres. The most famous examples are the two books of the Well Tempered Clavier, each of which presents a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key, in which all conceivable contrapuntal technique is displayed. The English and French Suites, and the Partitas, all keyboard works from the Cöthen period, systematically explore a range of metres and of sharp and flat keys. This urge to be encyclopedic, as it were, is evident throughout his life: the Goldberg Variations (1746?), present a sequence of canons that work through each available interval and distance, as though items on a list were being ticked off one by one. Similarly, the Art of Fugue (1749) is a manifesto of fugal techniques. | |||
| ==Works== | |||
| {{main|BWV|List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| J.S. Bach’s works are indexed with BWV numbers, an ] for ''Bach Werke Verzeichnis'' (Bach Works Catalogue). The catalogue, published in 1950, was compiled by ]. The catalogue is organised thematically, rather than chronologically: BWV 1–224 are ]s, BWV 225–249 the large-scale choral works, BWV 250–524 ]s and sacred songs, BWV 525–748 ] works, BWV 772–994 other keyboard works, BWV 995–1000 ] music, BWV 1001–40 ], BWV 1041–71 orchestral music, and BWV 1072–1126 ]s and ]s. In compiling the catalogue, Schmieder largely followed the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe, a comprehensive edition of the composer's works that was produced between 1850 and 1905. For a list of works catalogued by BWV number, see ]. | |||
| ===Organ works=== | |||
| Bach was best known during his lifetime as an organist, organ consultant, and composer of organ works both in the traditional German free genres such as ], ]s, and ]s, and stricter forms such as ]s and ]s. He established a reputation at a young age for his great creativity and ability to integrate aspects of several different national styles into his organ works. A decidedly North German influence was exerted by ], whom Bach came in contact with in ], and ] in ], whom the young organist visited in 1704 on an extended leave of absence from his job in ]. Around this time Bach also copied the works of numerous French and Italian composers in order to gain insights into their compositional languages, and later even arranged several violin concertos by ] and others for organ. His most productive period (1708–14) saw not only the composition of several pairs of preludes and ]s and toccatas and fugues, but also the writing of the ''Orgelbüchlein'' ("Little Organ Book"), an unfinished collection of forty-nine short chorale preludes intended to demonstrate various compositional techniques that could be used in setting ] tunes. After he left Weimar, Bach's output for organ fell off, although his most well-known works (the six ]s, the ''Clavierübung III'' of 1739, and the "Great Eighteen" chorales, revised very late in his life) were all composed after this time. Bach was also extensively engaged later in his life in consulting on various organ projects, testing newly built organs, and dedicating organs in afternoon recitals. | |||
| ===Other keyboard works=== | |||
| Bach wrote many works for the ], some of which may also have been played on the ]. Many of his keyboard works are anthologies that show an eagerness to encompass whole theoretical systems in an encyclopaedic fashion, as it were. <!--I'll return to insert mention of the Clavier-Übung--> | |||
| * '']'', Books 1 and 2 (BWV 846–893). Each book comprises a prelude and fugue in each of the 24 major and minor ] (thus, the whole collection is often referred to as ‘the 48’). “Well-tempered” in the title refers to the ] (system of tuning); many temperaments before Bach’s time were not flexible enough to allow compositions to move through more than just a few keys. | |||
| * The ] (BWV 772–801). These are short two- and three-part contrapuntal works arranged in order of key signatures of increasing sharps and flats, omitting some of the less used ones. The pieces were intended by Bach for instructional purposes. | |||
| * Three collections of ]: the ], the ] and the ] (BWV 825–830). Each collection contains six suites built on the standard model (]–]–]–(optional movement)–]). The English Suites closely follow the traditional model, adding a prelude before the allemande and including a single movement between the sarabande and the gigue. The French Suites omit preludes, but have multiple movements between the sarabande and the gigue. The partitas expand the model further with elaborate introductory movements and miscellaneous movements between the basic elements of the model. | |||
| * The '']'' (BWV 988), an aria with thirty ]. The collection has a complex and unconventional structure: the variations build on the ] of the aria, rather than its melody, and musical ]s are interpolated according to a grand plan. There are nine canons within the 30 variations, one placed every three variations between variations 3 and 27. These variations move in order from canon at the unison to canon at the ninth. The first eight are in pairs (unison and octave, second and seventh, third and sixth, fourth and fifth). The ninth canon stands on its own due to compositional dissimilarities. | |||
| * Miscellaneous pieces such as the ''Overture in the French Style'' (''French Overture'', BWV 831) ''Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue'' (BWV 903), and the ''Italian Concerto'' (BWV 971). | |||
| Among Bach’s lesser known keyboard works are seven toccatas (BWV 910–916), four duets (BWV 802–805), sonatas for keyboard (BWV 963–967), the Six Little Preludes (BWV 933–938) and the ''Aria variata alla maniera italiana'' (BWV 989). | |||
| ===Orchestral and chamber music=== | |||
| Bach wrote music for single instruments, duets and small ensembles. Bach's works for solo instruments – the six ] (BWV1001–1006), the six ] (BWV 1007–1012) and the Partita for solo flute (BWV1013) – may be listed among the most profound works in the repertoire. Bach has also composed a suite and several other works for solo lute. He wrote ]s; solo ] (accompanied by ]) for the flute and for the ]; and a large number of ]s and ]e, mostly for unspecified instrumentation. The most significant examples of the latter are contained in '']'' and '']''. | |||
| Bach's best-known orchestral works are the ], so named because he submitted them in the hope of gaining employment from ] ] in 1721; his application was unsuccessful. These works are examples of the ] genre. Other surviving works in the ] form include two violin concertos; a concerto for two violins, often referred to as Bach’s "double" concerto; and concertos for one, two, three and even four harpsichords. It is widely accepted that many of the harpsichord concertos were not original works, but arrangements of his concertos for other instruments now lost. A number of violin, oboe and flute concertos have been reconstructed from these. In addition to concertos, Bach also wrote four ], a series of stylised dances for orchestra. The work now known as the ], for instance, is an arrangement for the violin made in the nineteenth century from the second movement of the Orchestral Suite No. 3. | |||
| ===Vocal and choral works=== | |||
| Bach performed a ] on Sunday at the ], on a theme corresponding to the ] readings of the week, as determined by the Lutheran Church Year calendar. He did not preform cantatas during the seasons of Lent and Advent. Although he performed cantatas by other composers, he also composed at least three entire sets of cantatas, one for each Sunday and holiday of the church year, at Leipzig, in addition to those composed at ] and Weimar. In total he wrote more than 300 sacred cantatas, of which only about 195 survive. | |||
| His cantatas vary greatly in form and instrumentation. Some of them are only for a solo singer; some are single choruses; some are for grand orchestras, some only a few instruments. A very common format, however, includes a large opening chorus followed by one or more recitative-aria pairs for soloists (or duets), and a concluding ]. The recitative is part of the corresponding Bible reading for the week and the aria is a contemporary reflection on it. The concluding chorale often also appears as a ] in a central movement, and occasionally as a ] in the opening chorus as well. The best known of these cantatas are ] ("Christ lag in Todesbanden"), ] ("Ein' feste Burg"), ] ("Wachet auf") and ] ("Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben"). | |||
| In addition, Bach wrote a number of secular cantatas, usually for civic events such as weddings. The two Wedding Cantatas and the ], which concerns a girl whose father will not let her marry until she gives up her coffee addiction, are among the best known of these. | |||
| Bach’s large choral-orchestral works include the famous ] and ], both written for Holy Week services at the St Thomas’s Church, the ] (a set of six cantatas for use in the ] of Christmas). The ] in two versions (one in E-flat major, with extra movements interpolated among the movements of the Magnificat text, and the later and better-known version in D major) and the Easter Oratorio compare to large, elaborated cantatas, of a lesser extent than the Passions and the Christmas Oratorio. | |||
| Bach's other large work, the ], was assembled by Bach near the end of his life, mostly from pieces composed earlier (such as ] and ]). It was never performed in Bach’s lifetime, or even after his death until the 19th century. | |||
| All of these works, unlike the motets, have substantial solo parts as well as choruses. | |||
| Bach's copy of a two volume ] commentary by the orthodox Lutheran theologian, Abraham Calov, was discovered in the 1950s in a barn in ], purchased apparently in Germany as part of a "job lot" of old books and brought to America by an immigrant. Its provenance was verified and it was subsequently deposited in the rare book holdings of ] in ]. It contains his markings of texts for his cantatas and notes. It is only rarely displayed to the public. A study of the so-called Bach Bible was prepared by Robin Leaver, titled ''J. S. Bach and Scripture: Glosses from the Calov Bible Commentary'' (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1985). | |||
| ==Performances== | |||
| Present-day Bach performers largely divide into two camps: those who follow ] practice, and those who use modern instruments and playing techniques and tend towards larger ensembles. In Bach’s time orchestras and choirs were usually smaller than those known to, for example, ], and even Bach's most ambitious choral works, such as his ''Mass in B minor'' and Passions, are composed for relatively modest forces. Some of Bach's important chamber music does not indicate instrumentation, which gives even greater latitude for variety of ensemble. | |||
| "]" realisations of Bach's music and its use in advertising also contributed greatly to Bach's popularisation in the second half of the twentieth century. Among these were the ]' versions of Bach pieces that are now well-known (for instance, the ], or the ''Wachet Auf'' chorale prelude) and ]' 1968 recording '']'' using the then recently-invented ]. Jazz musicians have also adopted Bach's music, with ], ] and ] among those creating jazz versions of Bach works. | |||
| == Legacy == | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| In his later years and after his death, Bach's reputation as a composer declined; his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging ]. Initially he was remembered more as a player, teacher and as the father of his children, most notably ]. During this time, his works for keyboard were those most appreciated and composers ever since have acknowledged his mastery of the genre. ], ] and ] were among his most prominent admirers. On a visit to the Thomasschule in ], for example, Mozart heard a performance of one of the ]s (BWV 225) and exclaimed "Now, here is something one can learn from!"; on being given the motets' parts, "Mozart sat down, the parts all around him, held in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest chairs. Forgetting everything else, he did not stand up again until he had looked through all the music of Sebastian Bach". Beethoven was a devotee, learning the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'' as a child and later calling Bach the "Urvater der Harmonie" ("Original father of Harmony") and, in a pun on the literal meaning of Bach's name, "nicht Bach, sondern Meer" ("not a brook, but a sea"). Before performing, Chopin used to lock himself away before his concerts and play Bach's music.<ref>Rasmussen.</ref> Several notable composers such as ], ], ] and ] began writing in a more contrapuntal style after being introduced to Bach's music. | |||
| Today the "Bach style" continues to influence musical composition, from hymns and religious works to pop and rock. Many of Bach’s themes—particularly the theme from ]—have been used in rock songs repeatedly and have received notable popularity. | |||
| The revival in the composer’s reputation among the wider public was prompted in part by ]’s 1802 biography, which was read by Beethoven. ] became acquainted with Bach's works relatively late in life, through a series of performances of keyboard and choral works at ] in 1814 and 1815; in a letter of 1827 he compared the experience of listening to Bach's music to "eternal harmony in dialogue with itself".<ref>http://www.bremen.de/web/owa/p_anz_presse_mitteilung?pi_mid=76241</ref> But it was ] who did the most to revive Bach's reputation with his 1829 ] performance of the St Matthew Passion. ], who attended the performance, later called Bach a "grand, truly Protestant, robust and, so to speak, erudite genius which we have only recently learned again to appreciate at its full value".<ref>http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV244-Spering.htm</ref> Mendelssohn's promotion of Bach, and the growth of the composer’s stature, continued in subsequent years. The ] (Bach Society) was founded in 1850 to promote the works, publishing a comprehensive edition over the subsequent half century. | |||
| Thereafter Bach’s reputation has remained consistently high. During the twentieth century, the process of recognising the musical as well as the pedagogic value of some of the works has continued, perhaps most notably in the promotion of the '']'' by ]. Another development has been the growth of the "authentic" or ] movement, which as far as possible attempts to present the music as the composer intended it. Examples include the playing of keyboard works on the ] rather than a modern ] and the use of small ]s or single voices instead of the larger forces favoured by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century performers. | |||
| Johann Sebastian Bach’s contributions to music, or, to borrow a term popularised by his student ], his "musical science", are frequently bracketed with those by ] in English literature and ] in physics. Bach’s music was selected for inclusion on the ]s as an example of humanity's best achievements. Scientist and author ] once suggested how the people of ] should communicate with the universe: "I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later." | |||
| ] | |||
| Some composers have paid tribute to Bach by setting his name in musical notes (B-flat, A, C, B-natural; B-natural is notated as "H" in German musical texts) or using contrapuntal derivatives. ], for example, wrote a ''praeludium'' and fugue on this ] (existing in versions both for organ and piano). Bach himself set the precedent for this musical acronym, most notably in Contrapunctus XIV from the '']''. Whereas Bach also conceived this ] melody (among other similar ones) as a sign of devotion to Christ and his cross, later composers have employed the ] in homage to the composer himself. | |||
| Some of the greatest composers since Bach have written works which explicitly pay homage to him. Examples include ]'s ], ]'s ], ]'s ], whose finale is based on themes from the Art of Fugue. A ] work very strongly influenced by Bach is ]'s ]. | |||
| ==Media== | |||
| {{multi-listen start}} | |||
| {{multi-listen item|filename=Bach_Prelude_and_Fugue_in_A_Minor.ogg|title=''Prelude and Fugue No. 20'' in A minor|description=From the ] (Book 1)|format=]}} | |||
| {{multi-listen item|filename=Johann Sebastian Bach - Klavierkonzert d-moll - 1. Allegro.ogg|title=Keyboard Concerto No.1 in D minor, BWV 1052, first movement|description=|format=]}} | |||
| {{multi-listen item|filename=Johann Sebastian Bach - Klavierkonzert d-moll - 2. Adagio.ogg|title=Keyboard Concerto No.1 in D minor, BWV 1052, second movement|description=|format=]}} | |||
| {{multi-listen item|filename=Johann Sebastian Bach - Klavierkonzert d-moll - 3. Allegro.ogg|title=Keyboard Concerto No.1 in D minor, BWV 1052, third movement|description=|format=]}} | |||
| {{multi-listen item|filename=Jsbach BWV 1013.ogg|title=Partita, BWV 1013|description=|format=]}} | |||
| {{multi-listen end}} | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| == References == | |||
| ===Modern scholarship=== | |||
| {{wikisourcepar|University_Musical_Encyclopedia/Great_Composers:_A_Series_of_Biographical_Studies/Johann Sebastian Bach|Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| * Butt, John (ed). ''The Cambridge companion to Bach'' (Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1997) ISBN 0-521-45350-X (hbk.) ISBN 0-521-58780-8 (pbk.) ; (New York : Cambridge University Press, 1997) ISBN 0-521-45350-X (hbk.) ISBN 0-521-45962-1 (pbk.). | |||
| *: A collection of writings on the historical context (society, beliefs and world view), profiles of his music, and influence and reception. | |||
| * David, Hans Theodore, and Arthur Mendel (eds), revised and expanded by ]. ''The new Bach reader'' (New York : Norton, 1999) 2d ed. ISBN 0-393-31956-3. | |||
| *: A significant repository of documentary evidence, including contemporary documents, some by Bach himself. This book includes an English translation of the biography of Bach by the early 19th-century German musicologist ]. | |||
| * ]. ''Johann Sebastian Bach: the learned musician'' (New York : Norton, 2000) ISBN 0-393-04825-X (hbk.) ; (New York : Norton, 2001) ISBN 0-393-32256-4 (pbk.). | |||
| *: A comprehensive and engaging account of Bach's life. | |||
| * Williams, Peter. ''The life of Bach'' (Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-521-82636-5 (hbk.) ISBN 0-521-53374-0 (pbk.). | |||
| *: A shorter expose of the composer's life, using his obituary as the starting point; a valuable complement to Wolff's biography. | |||
| * Stauffer, George, and Ernest May. ''J. S. Bach as organist: his instruments, music, and performance practices'' (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1986) ISBN 0-253-33181-1 (hbk.), (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-253-21386-X (pbk.). | |||
| * Boyd, Malcolm. ''Bach'' (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2000) 3rd ed. ISBN 0-19-514222-5 (alk. paper), ISBN 0-19-514223-3 (pbk.). | |||
| * Deutsch, Wilhelm Otto. "Gesten der Annahme, der Verwandlung, der Verwandtschft: Ein Beitrag zur musikalischen Hermeneutik J. S. Bachs in der h-moll-Messe", in ''Musik und Kirche'' volume lxii, number 6 (1992), pages 321-327, ISSN 0027-4771 (in German). | |||
| * ] et al. ''The New Grove Bach Family'' Macmillan 1983 ISBN 0 333 34350 6 | |||
| ===Earlier scholarship=== | |||
| * ]. ''J. S. Bach'' (New York : Dover, 1966) 2 volumes, translated by Ernest Newman, ISBN 0-486-21631-4, reprint of (New York : Macmillan, 1950, 1955, 1962, 1966). | |||
| * Spitta, Philipp. ''Johann Sebastian Bach, his work and influence on the music of Germany, 1685-1750'' (London : Novello, 1884) translated by Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller Maitland; see also (New York : Dover, 1951). | |||
| : An early, groundbreaking, three-volume study of Bach's life and music. | |||
| * ]. ''Johann Sebastian Bach; his life, art, and work'' (New York : Da Capo Press, 1970) Notes and appendices by Charles Sanford Terry, ISBN 0-306-70010-7, contains a translation of "Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke : Für patriotische Verehrer echter musikalischer Kunst : Mit Bachs Bildnis und Kupfertafeln" (Leipzig : Hoffmeister und Kühnel, 1802). There is a 1999 reprint of the 1802 German edition by Bärenreiter Verlag, Kassel, Germany, ISBN 3-7618-1472-0. | |||
| : An original biography of J.S. Bach written by a near-contemporary who was able to correspond with two of Bach's sons. | |||
| ===Other reading=== | |||
| * ], '']: an eternal golden braid'' | |||
| :Explores cognition, formal methods, logic and mathematics—particularly ]—in the music of Bach, the art of ] and other sources. | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| <div class="references-small"><references /></div> | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| {{commons|Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| {{wikisourcelang|de|Johann Sebastian Bach|Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| ===General reference=== | |||
| * , Bach-Archiv Leipzig | |||
| * , by ] - extensive information on Bach and his works; huge and growing database of user-contributed recordings and reviews | |||
| * , maintained by David J. Grossman - includes a catalog of works, images, MIDI files, audio, and electric bass arrangements | |||
| * - extensive resources on Bach, on occasion of BBC Radio 3's complete airing of Bach's works in Dec 2005 | |||
| * , by Yo Tomita of Queen's Belfast - especially useful to scholars | |||
| * , by Aryeh Oron - information on the cantatas as well as other works | |||
| * , by Timothy A. Smith - various information on these contrapuntal works | |||
| * , Grove Encyclopaedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on J.S. Bach | |||
| * - includes partical catalog of works by Bach and his circle, information about the | |||
| * , by Sami Yenice - include a searchable database of Bach's works, online radio and video. | |||
| ===Scores=== | |||
| * | |||
| * 's ongoing project to sort and make freely available all of Bach's works from the ] Ausgabe. | |||
| * {{ChoralWiki}} | |||
| * {{IckingArchive|idx=J.S.Bach|name=Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| * {{gutenberg author | id=Johann_Sebastian_Bach | name=Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| ===Recordings=== | |||
| <!-- Please do not put here sites which contain one media file only --> | |||
| * - A biography and various free recordings in MP3 format. | |||
| * (Hundreds) of ] at and | |||
| * , from the ] at the ] Library | |||
| <!-- The above site required active x controls... also very slow to navigate --> | |||
| * {{musicbrainz artist|id=24f1766e-9635-4d58-a4d4-9413f9f98a4c|name=Johann Sebastian Bach}} | |||
| * | |||
| * MP3 at ] | |||
| ===Specific topics=== | |||
| * - video lectures by ] on the Bach family's hidden manuscripts archive | |||
| <!--* ]’s more recent works (''Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician'' and ''Johann Sebastian Bach: Essays'') include a discussion of Bach’s "original genius" in German aesthetics and music. Wolff gives an exciting account of the discovery of the famous Bach Family archive, evacuated from wartime Berlin’s Singakademie to Silesia and from there vanished into Russia until just a few years ago, at <http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/wolff.html>.--> | |||
| * - Site discussing the portraits of J.S.Bach. | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| ===Performance groups=== | |||
| * Utlizing early instruments and techniques | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * Oldest collegiate Bach Festival in the United States | |||
| * | |||
| * on the conductor Masaaki Suzuki and his enchanting Japanese Bach Collegium in tour in Germany, by Wolfram Goertz at signandsight.com. | |||
| * on the viola player Volker Hagedorn's tour at signandsight.com | |||
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