Biography of Johann Sebastian Bach

The sky above Eisenach

31 March 1685 28 July 1750 Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 31 March 1685 in Eisenach, a German national who at the time had about 6,000 inhabitants. Bach's childhood is very poor, except for some family events. The traditional anecdotal wants Sebastian intent to learn the rudiments of music from his father Ambrosius, who taught him to play the violin and the viola, or busy turning pages of manuscripts and the second cousin Johann Christoph played the organ in the Georgenkirche. From 1693 to 1695 he attended the Eisenach Latin school and when his parents died, took place in those years, is greeted in Ohrdruf from brother Johann Christoph, who imparts lessons with organ and harpsichord. In 1700 left the family of his brother to go to Luneburg, where he joined the choir of the Church of St and he met g. Bohm, an eminent organist and composer of the time. He also attended the local library, which at the time had a large archive with the music of previous centuries. After being briefly violinist at the Court of Saxe-Weimar in 1703 he became Titular organist of St. Boniface in Arnstadt and quickly acquired a wide reputation as a virtuoso. In 1705 embarks on a journey to become legendary: he travels to Lübeck to hear the famous organist d. Bextehude, Sebastian particularly admired for his compositions and of which he had heard so much about, facing the long journey (400 km) totally walk!!! One of the objectives is Bach, among others, was also to replace one day the great and admired Master to a bid of the same organ. Unfortunately, this desire was never got to materialize. The young musician is so other arrangements as organist of s. Biagio in Muhlhausen, where afterwards you system with his cousin Maria Barbara. Here, in the solitude and tranquility of German nationality, made up a large number of organ pieces and the first Sung (i.e. songs to be performed during the sacred function), we have received. Contrary to what handed the official historiography, Bach was not an easy character and conciliatory. Some disagreements with superiors, hence, induced him to resign and transfer to the Court of Saxe-Weimar as organist and chamber musician (violinist and violist). Organ music in Weimar continues dialing, especially welcome at Duke, and has the opportunity to study contemporary Italian music, transcribing in particular Vivaldi's concertos (Bach admired greatly), a. and b. Marcello and others; copy among other works of another great Italian, that Frescobaldi that with "musical Flowers" was one of the high points of art in General and harpsichord keyboard. Little estimated as a composer, Bach's fame spreads instead as unsurpassed organist, consecrated by renowned concerts holding in 1713-17 in Dresden, Halle, Leipzig and other centres. The lucky listeners remain kidnapped from time to time, moved or shocked by ability exhibited by the genius, able to shape the soul of audience depending on who wants to be pathetic or just virtuosity. Why Bach leaves his place in Weimar in 1717, have not yet been conclusively clarified. In the same year he was appointed Kapellmeister at the Court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen reformed to Kothen, with the mandate to compose Cantatas cars and concert music. The fact that the sacred music was practiced at Kothen (the Court was Calvinist confession and so hostile to the use of music in worship) allows him to dedicate himself with greater application to instrumental music. At that time, in fact, date from the six concerts called "Brandenburg" (as written in the Court of the Margrave of Brandenburg), the suites and sonatas for solo instruments or accompanied and especially a lot of harpsichord music, amongst which is the first volume of "well tempered Clavier". In 1721, after the death of Maria Barbara Bach, marries his second wife, the singer Anna Magdalena Wulcken, daughter of a local trumpeter. The Kothen period ends then in 1723, when Bach accepts the post of Kantor at St Thomas ' Church in Leipzig, vacated by j. Kuhnau. While continuing to maintain the title of most Died in Leipzig, however, does not abandon Kothen although the constant quarrels with his superiors laity and clergy caused him considerable bitterness. During the first years of activity in Leipzig he composed a large number of sacred cantatas and the renowned great passions, returning to instrumental music only towards the 1726. In 1729 and 1740 until takes over the University Collegium Musicum, which comprises numerous secular cantatas and concertos for one or more cymbals, as well as a lot of instrumental music of various kinds. The twenty years 1730-50 is occupied by the composition of the mass in b minor, the reworking of his earlier music, to the solution of problems of counterpoint (illuminating examples of this are the second volume of "well tempered Clavier", organ choral 1739 collection and the "Goldberg Variations"). In 1747 the King Frederick II of Prussia invited him to Potsdam, reserving him great honors and assisting admired his masterful improvisations. Back in Leipzig, Bach grateful send the King known as the "musical offering," strict contrapuntal building a theme written by the emperor. To the composer's health begins to decline 1749; the view increasingly fades and nothing worth the operations attempted by an ophthalmologist English of passage in Leipzig. Now completely blind, Bach said his last, vast composition (sadly incomplete), the "art of Fugue" before being plucked from heart failure occurred a few hours after a miraculous recovery of Visual faculties. He died on 28 July 1750, while his music is rediscovered permanently only in 1829 through a performance of Mendelssohn's "St Matthew passion".
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.