Life

Born into a gifted family (see Bach, family), J. S. Bach was devoted to music from childhood. He was taught by his father and later by his brother Johann Christoph, and was a boy soprano in Lüneberg. His education was acquired largely through independent studies. He had an insatiable curiosity about music and sometimes walked great distances to hear the organists Johann Adam Reinken (at Hamburg) and Buxtehude (at Lübeck). In 1703 he became violinist in the private orchestra of the prince at Weimar but left within a year to become organist at Arnstadt.

Bach went to Mühlhausen as organist in 1707. There he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, who was to bear him seven children. In 1708 he was made court organist and chamber musician at Weimar, and in 1714 he became concert master. Prince Leopold of Anhalt engaged him as musical director at Köthen in 1717. Three years later his wife died, and in 1721 he married Anna Magdalena Wülken, a woman of considerable musical cultivation who eventually bore him 13 children. In 1723 he took the important post of music director of the church of St. Thomas, Leipzig, and of its choir school; he remained in Leipzig until his death.

Compositions

Since few of Bach's many works were published in his lifetime, exact dates cannot be fixed for all of them, but most can be placed with some certainty in the periods of his life. At Arnstadt and Mühlhausen he began a series of organ compositions that culminated in the great works of the Weimar period: the Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, most of the great preludes and fugues, and the 45 chorale-preludes gathered in Das Orgelbüchlein [the little organ book].

At Köthen he concentrated on instrumental compositions, especially keyboard works: the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue; the English Suites; the French Suites; the Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions, written for the education of his son Wilhelm Friedemann; and Book I of the celebrated Well-Tempered Clavier. He also wrote several unaccompanied violin sonatas and cello suites, and the Brandenburg Concertos, recognized as the best concerti grossi ever composed.

The St. John Passion was performed (1723) at Leipzig when Bach was a candidate for the position of musical director at St. Thomas. His Magnificat was presented shortly after he assumed that post. Many more of his superb religious compositions followed: the St. Matthew Passion (1729), the Christmas Oratorio, the sonorous Mass in B Minor, and the six motets. The principal keyboard works of this period were Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the four books of clavier pieces in the Clavierübung, which includes: six partitas (1726-31); the Italian Concerto and the Partita in B Minor (1735); the Catechism Preludes, the Prelude and Fugue (St. Anne) in E Flat (1739), and four duets; and the Goldberg Variations (more formally Aria with Thirty Variations, 1742). His last notable compositions were the Musical Offering composed (1747) for Frederick the Great and The Art of the Fugue (1749).

Accomplishments and Influence

In all his positions as choir director, Bach composed sacred cantatas—a total of some 300, of which nearly 200 are extant. There are also over 30 secular cantatas, composed at Leipzig, among them Phoebus and Pan (1731). The bulk of his work is religious—he made four-part settings of 371 Lutheran chorales, also using many of them as the bases of organ preludes and choral works. In addition, he composed an astonishing number of instrumental works, many of them designed for the instruction of his numerous pupils. In his instrumental and choral works he perfected the art of polyphony, displaying an unmatched combination of inventiveness and control in his great, striding fugues.

During his lifetime, Bach was better known as an organist than as a composer. For decades after his death his works were neglected, but in the 19th cent. his genius came to be recognized, particularly by romantic composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann. Since that time his reputation has grown steadily.

(born March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies—died July 28, 1750, Leipzig) German composer. Born to a musical family, he became a superbly well-rounded musician; from 1700 he held positions as singer, violinist, and organist. His first major appointment, in 1708, was as organist at the ducal court at Weimar. This was followed by a six-year stay (1717–23) as kapellmeister at the princely court of Köthen, which was in turn followed by his appointment as cantor at the great church of St. Thomas in Leipzig, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Imbued with the northern German contrapuntal style (see counterpoint) from early childhood, he encountered the lively Italian style, especially in the works of Antonio Vivaldi, about 1710, and much of his music embodies an immensely convincing melding of the two styles. At St. Thomas he wrote more than 200 church cantatas. His orchestral works include the six Brandenburg Concertos, four orchestral suites, and many harpsichord concertos, a genre he invented. His solo keyboard works include the great didactic set The Well-Tempered Clavier (1722 and 1742), the superb Goldberg Variations (1742), the massive but unfinished Art of the Fugue (1749), numerous suites, and many organ preludes and fugues. His surviving choral works include (in addition to the sacred cantatas) more than 30 secular cantatas, two monumental Passions, and the Mass in B Minor. His works, never widely known in his lifetime, went into near-total eclipse after his death, and only in the early 19th century were they revived, to enormous acclaim. He was perhaps the most accomplished organist and harpsichordist of his time. Today Bach is regarded as the greatest composer of the Baroque era, and, by many, as the greatest composer of all time.

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(born Sept. 5, 1735, Leipzig—died Jan. 1, 1782, London, Eng.) German-born British composer. Youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, he studied with his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Berlin before moving to Italy. In 1762 he became composer to the King's Theatre in London, where he would remain the rest of his life, becoming music teacher to the queen, and later the impresario (with Karl Friedrich Abel) of an important series of concerts (1765–81). He wrote some 50 symphonies, some 35 keyboard concertos, and much chamber music. His music, melodious and well formed but far from profound and with no trace of his father's influence, became an important prototype of the Classical style and influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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