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Johann Sebastian Bach

The masterpieces of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) mark the high point of baroque music. Bach came from a long line of musicians: his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all church organists or town musicians in Germany. In fact so many members of the family were musicians that the name Bach became synonymous with town musician. Annual family gatherings might assemble over a hundred Bach to celebrate and make music. Johann Sebastian Bach passed on this musical heritage-he was father to twenty children, of whom nine survived him and four became well-known composers.

In Eisenach, his birthplace, Bach probably received his first musical training from his father, the town musician; and his cousin, the church organists. But when he was nine, both his parents died and Johann went to live with his oldest brother, the organist in a nearby town. At fifteen, Bach left his brother’s crowded home and moved to yet another town, where he went to school and supported himself by singing in the church choir and playing the organ and violin. By this time his love of music was so great that he would walk up to thirty miles to hear a famous organist.

When he was eighteen, Bach became church organist in Arnstadt, a town not far from his birthplace. Here he came into conflict with church authorities, because they felt that his music was too complicated; they also questioned his meeting “a strange maiden” in the empty church to accompany her singing. Bach resolved both issues when he was twenty-three by finding a better position at Muhlhausen and by marrying the “strange maiden,” his cousin Barbara. He reputation as an organist was growing steadily through his virtuoso performance, which included improvising elaborate fugues and, reportedly, playing with his feet (on the pedal keyboard) better than most performers could with their fingers.

After these two jobs as church organist. Bach obtained a more important post in 1708 as court organist in Weimar. He stayed there for nine years, becoming concertmaster of the court orchestra, but decided to leave when he was passed over for a promotion. The duke of Weimar was so annoyed at Bach obstinancy in requesting dismissal that he put him in jail for a month. (Sush was the power of a minor German aristocrat!) But all his life Bach kept demanding his rights, never fearing controversy.

Bach’s most lucrative and prestigious post was as court conductor for the prince of Cothen. His salary equaled that of the marshall of the court, the second highest official. But more important, this was the first time in Bach’s career that he was not involved with church or organ music. The prince belonged to the Reformed (Calvinistic) church, where only simple psalm singing was permitted in the service. For the six years form 1717 to 1723, Bach directed the prince’s small orchestra of about eighteen players and composed music for it. The Bradenburg Concertos grew out of this productive period.

In 1720, Bach’s wife died, leaving him with four young children. The next year, at thirty-six, he married a twenty one year old singer at the court of Cothen, and the second marriage was apparently as happy as the first.

Because he was an ardent amateur musician, the prince of Cothen treated Bach as a friend. However, the prince’s interest began to wane when he married a young princess who did not like music, and Bach decided to look for a new job.

He found one in 1723, the position of a cantor (director of music) of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, a position that involved responsibility for the four main munipal churches. Bach remained here for the last twenty seven years of his life. Though one of the most imprtant church posts in Germany, the position carried less prestige and paid less than the one with the prince of Cothen. But Bach probably was interested because it was in Leipzig, a comparatively large city of 30,000 where his children could receive a good Lutheran education and go to the university. Then, too, Bach was a deeply religious man. At the beginning of each sacred composition he wrote letters J.J., for Jesu Juva (Jesus help), and at the end he put S.D.G., for Soli Deo Gloria (to God alone the glory).

At Leipzig, Bach rehearsed, conducted, and usually composed an extended composition for chorus, soloists, and orchestra for each Sunday and holiday of the church year. He was responsible for the musical education of fifty five students in the St. Thomas school. After some years in Leipzig, he became the director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a student organization that gave concerts every Friday night at a coffeehouse. He was also an eminent teacher of organ and composition, gave organ recitals, and was often asked to judge the construction of organs. It’s hard to imagine how he did all this while surrounded by children, relatives, and students-and living in the school building next to the classroom.

During the 1740s, Bach’s eyesight deteriorated, yet he continue to composed, conduct and teach. In 1750, the year of his death, bach became completely blind.

Though recognized as the most eminent organist, harpischordist, improviser, and master of fugue, Bach was by no means considered the greatest composer of his day. He was little known outside Germany, and even his Leipzig post was offered to him only after two other noted musicans had turned it down. By the time of Bach’s maturity, the baroque style had begun to go out of fashion; people wanted light, uncomplicated music. Many thought his works too heavy, complex, and polyphonic.

Bach’s music was largely forgotten and remained unpublished for years after his death. But a few composers of the generations following knew some of his compositions and were aware of his genius. In 1829, Felix Mendelssohn presented the St. Matthew Passion, and Bach’s music has been the daily bread of every serious musicians since then.

BACH’S MUSIC

Bach created masterpieces in every baroque form except opera. Throughout, he fused technical mastery and emotional depth. His instrumental music include pieces for orchestra, for small groups, and for solo organ, harpischord, clavichord, violin and cello. The excellence and number of these works show how prominent instrumental music had become in the baroque period. Bach’s vocal music-the bulk of his output-was written mostly for the Lutheran church and was often based on hymns familiar to the congregation.

In forming his personal style, Bach drew on the musical resources of three different lands. He avidly studies Italian concertos and French dance pieces, as well as the church music of his native Germany.

Bach’s music is unique in its combination of polyphonic texture and rich harmony. Several melodic lines of equal importance often occur at once; and so many things might go on at the same time that the music will convey an awesome complexity and elaboration. Yet even with the great interest that the individual voices convey, it is the progression of chords that directs the musical motion. Bach used complex and dissonant harmonies more imaginatively than his contemporaries. His works show an astounding mastery of harmony and counterpoint, and they are used as models by music students today.

Baroque music leans toward unity of mood, and this is particularly true of Bach, who liked to elaborate a single melodic idea in a piece. Bach’s melodies can be intricate, unpredictable, and highly embellished, but unity of mood is created by an insistent rhythmic drive. Whether slow or fast, Bach’s works generate perpetual motion.

By Bach’s time there was little difference in style between secular and sacred music. In fact, he often created sacred music simply by rearranging instrumental pieces of works originally written for secular texts. His church music also uses operatic forms like the aria and recitative.

Bach liked to illustrate religious or pictorial ideas through musical symbolism. In an organ piece based upon the hymn tune Durch Adam Fall (Through Adam’s Fall), Bach represents the serpent by twisting inner voices, and man’s fall by downward leaps in the bass. And in one called These are the Holy Commandments, Bach uses the theme exactly ten times.

Sometimes Bach composed music to demonstrate what he could do with a specific musical form. His Art of the Fugue, for example, is a collection which displays all the resources of fugue writing. He also explored with unprecedented throughness a system of tuning that was being developed at the time. This system made it possible for all composer to write in all twenty four keys, not just in the simple ones. Bach used every major and minor key in his collection of fourty eight preludes and fugues, The Well Tempered Clavier (which means, roughly The Well Tuned Keyboard Instrument). The collection is in two volumes (1722, 1744), each with twenty four preludes and fugues, one in each major and minor key. Today, the pieces are basic to the repertoire of keyboard players.

THE BAROQUE SUITE

Instrumental music has always been closely linked with dancing; in the past, much of it was written for use in palace ballrooms. During the Renaissance, dances often came in pairs-a dignified dance in quadruple meter was often followed by a lively one in triple meter. In the baroque period and later, music was written that-while meant for listening, not dancing-was related to the specific dance types in tempo, meter, and rhythm.

Baroque composers wrote suites, which are sets of dance-inspired movements. Whether for solo instruments, small groups, or orchestra, a baroque suite is made up of movements that are all written in the same key but differ in tempo, meter, and character. The dancelike movements also have a variety of national origins: the moderately paced allemande (from Germany) might be followed by a fast courante and a moderate gavotte (from France), a slow and solemn sarabande(from Spain), and a fast gigue (jig from England and Ireland). Suites were played in private homes, at court concerts, or as a background music for dinner and outdoor festives.

Dance pieces have a diverse past. Some began as folk dances, while other sprang from aristocractic ballrooms. Even the character of a dance might show dramatic evolution. The slow, solemn sarabande grew out of a sexual suggestive song and dance that a sixteen-century moralist condemned as “so lascivious in its words, so ugly in its movements, that it is enough to inflame even very honest people.” In the seventeen century, however, the sarabande became respectable enough to be danced by a cradinal at the French court.

The movements of a suite are usually in two-part form with each section repeated; that is, in form AABB. The A section, which opns in the tonic key and modulates to the dominant, is balanced by the B section, which begins in the dominant nd returns to the tonic key. Both sections use the same thematic material, and so they contrast relatively little except in key.

Suites frequently begins with a movement that is not dance-inspired. One common opening is the French overture, which is also the type of piece heard at the beginning of baroque oratorios and operas. Usually written in two parts, the French overture first presents a slow section with dotted rhythms that is full of diginity and grandeur. The second section is quick and lighter in mood, often beginning like a fugue. Sometimes part of the opening section will return at the end of the overture.

The suite was an important instrumental form in the baroque. Even compositions not called “suite” often have several danced-inspied movements. Music influenced by dance tends to have balanced and symmtrical phrases of the same length, because formal dancing has a set of steps in one direction symmetrically balanced by a similar moton in the opposite direction.

Bach wrote four suites for orchestra. We don’t know exactly when they were composed, but it seems likely that the Collegium Musicum performed them in a Leipzig coffeehouse.

Source
Taken from Music An Appreciation by Roger Kamien. This book is the leading text for the nonmajors’ introduction to music courses. Some of the books distinctive features include the listening outlines (created by Kamien), the clear concise writing style, the well chosen examples, and the strong elements section. The fifth edition includes new selections throughout, additional listening outlines, new unit on The American Musical Theatre, and an improved and expanded recording package. Designed to help students follow a piece of music as it is playing, the listening outlines are now internally “tracked” and “timed” to correspond to the recording package. The writing style does not assume prior background in music. Also included are well chosen examples based on extensive market surveys and complete and separate units on nonwestern music and jazz. This edition has an increased number of listening outlines. The text now includes 48 listening outlines, and each piece outlined is available in the listening package. A new unit on the American Musical Theatre, including a section from Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and a completely revised music package, produced by Polygram, the classical music company is also included. Also an expanded package, including complete sets of lps, cassettes and CD’s and an expanded supplementary set of lps, cassettes and cd’s, writing about music supplement has been added. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.