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Bach: Music
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On July 7, 1720, while Bach was abroad with Prince Leopold, tragedy struck: his wife, Maria Barbara, the mother of his first 7 children, died suddenly. The following year, the widower met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young, highly gifted soprano who performed at the court in Cöthen; they married on 3 December 1721. Despite the age difference—she was 17 years his junior—they appear to have had a happy marriage. Together, they had 13 more children, of whom Gottfried Heinrich, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian became significant musicians and a further three survived into adulthood: Elisabeth Juliane Friederica (1726–81) who married Bach's pupil Johann Christoph Altnikol, Johanna Carolina (1737–81) and Regina Susanna (1742–1809)[3]
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Bach was a devout Lutheran and his religious views are reflected in his works. He felt that everything people do and believe has to do with religion. Bach, and many other composers of his time, believed that baroque music helped protect people from the advance of doubt bred by Renaissance ideas of scientific, rational inquiry. Bach believed he could best serve his church, and the people around him, through his music.
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Sensing increasing political tensions in the ducal court of Weimar, Bach began once again to search out a more stable job conducive to his musical interests. Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen hired Bach to serve as his Kapellmeister (director of music). Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach's talents, compensated him well, and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. However, the prince was Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his worship, so most of Bach's work from this period is secular in nature. The Brandenburg concerti, as well as many other instrumental works, including the suites for solo cello, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin, and the orchestral suites, date from this period.
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The Bach Festival’s own Conductor and Artistic Director will give his insight into the life and music of George Frideric Handel. Come and meet Handel through interesting and humorous anecdotes presented in John Sinclair’s matchless style.
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In 1723, Bach was appointed Cantor of the Thomasschule, adjacent to the Thomaskirche (St Thomas’s Lutheran Church) in Leipzig, 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 Mühlhausen, 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.
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The Bach Festival has suggested the induction of Michael Korn on the Avenue of the Arts’ Walk of Fame to the Philadelphia Music Alliance. If you would like to join the list of supporters from across the country, please read on.
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