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Johann Sebastian Bach: Composers
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From 1708-17, Bach was employed as a chamber musician, concertmaster, and organist at the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who encouraged him to write organ music and cantatas. When the duke refused to consider Bach for the position of Kapellmeister in 1717, the composer secured a similar post in the service of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. The young prince was a skilled player of the violin, the bass viol, and harpsichord and employed eighteen instrumentalists at his court. The situation was advantageous for the composition of secular entertainment. During the six years that he spent at Köthen, Bach produced large amounts of orchestral, chamber, and harpsichord music, including the Brandenburg Concerti, keyboard inventions, concerto transcriptions, suites, and the first volume of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
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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 Collegium Musicum, a secular performance ensemble that had been started in 1701 by his old friend, the composer Georg Philipp Telemann. 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’.[6] 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.
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Johann Sebastian Bach is THE most brilliant BAROQUE COMPOSER in history. Bach wrote the genius unfinished masterpiece "ART OF FUGUE" in his last years, while SLOWLY GOING BLIND. After an eye operation, Bach reportedly died mid-bar while writing the final fugue, having just composed a musical notation based on his name: B A C H.
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Regarded as perhaps the greatest composer of all time, Bach was known during his lifetime primarily as an outstanding organ player and technician. The youngest of eight children born to musical parents, Johann Sebastian was destined to become a musician. While still young, he had mastered the organ and violin, and was ... an excellent singer. At the age of ten, both of his parents died within a year of each other. Young Sebastian was fortunate to be taken in by an older brother, Johann Christoph, who most likely continued his musical training. At the age of fifteen, Bach secured his first position in the choir of St. Michael's School in Lüneburg.
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Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father the following year. The 10-year-old orphan moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, the organist at Ohrdruf, a nearby town. There, he copied, studied and performed music, and apparently received valuable tuition from his brother. The elder brother ... supposedly taught young J. S. Bach to play the clavichord. This exposed him to the work of the great South German composers of the day—such as Pachelbel and Johann Jakob Froberger— and possibly to the music of North German composers, and of Frenchmen such as Lully, Louis Marchand, Marin Marais, and the Italian clavierist Girolamo Frescobaldi. The boy probably witnessed and assisted in the maintenance of the organ; this would have been a precursor to his lifelong professional activity as a consultant in the building and restoration of organs.
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Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father eight months later. The 10-year-old orphan moved in with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach(1671–1721), the eldest brother of Johann Sebastian Bach, the organist at nearby Ohrdruf. There, he copied, studied and performed music, and apparently received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord. JC Bach exposed him to the works of the great South German composers of the day, such as Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied) and Johann Jakob Froberger; possibly to the music of North German composers, to Frenchmen, such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis Marchand, Marin Marais; and to the Italian clavierist Girolamo Frescobaldi. The young Bach probably witnessed and assisted in the maintenance of the organ music. Bach's obituary indicates that he copied music out of Johann Christoph's scores, but his brother had apparently forbidden him to do so, possibly because scores were valuable and private commodities at the time.
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