FREE ESSAY ON JS BACH

JS BACH

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest 
composers in Western musical history. More than 1,000 of his 
compositions survive. Some examples are the Art of Fugue, 
Brandenburg Concerti, the Goldberg Variations for 
Harpsichord, the Mass in B-Minor, the motets, the Easter and 
Christmas oratorios, Toccata in F Major, French Suite No 5, 
Fugue in G Major, Fugue in G Minor (The Great), St. 
Matthew Passion, and Jesu Der Du Meine Seele. He came from a 
family of musicians. There were over 53 musicians in his 
family over a period of 300 years.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany 
on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a
talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills for 
string playing; another relation, the organist at Eisenach's 
most important church, instructed the young boy on the 
organ. In 1695 his parents died and he was only 10 years 
old. He went to go stay with his older brother, Johann 
Christoph, who was a professional organist at Ohrdruf. 
Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and continued 
his younger brother's education on that instrument, as well 
as on the harpsichord. After several years in this 
arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in 
Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left his brother's 
tutelage.
A master of several instruments while still in his 
teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of 
18 as a lackey and violinist in a court orchestra in 
Weimar; soon after, he took the job of organist at a church 
in Arnstadt. Here, as in later posts, his perfectionist 
tendencies and high expectations of other musicians - for 
example, the church choir - rubbed his colleagues the wrong 
way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes during 
his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed
up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt (and the 
working conditions) and moved on to another organist job, 
this time at the St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen. The same 
year, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. 
Again caught up in a running conflict between 
factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar after one year 
in Muhlhausen. In Weimar, he assumed the post of organist 
and concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He remained in Weimar 
for nine years, and there he composed his first wave of 
major works, including organ showpieces and cantatas.
By this stage in his life, Bach had developed a 
reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat inflexible, musical 
talent. His proficiency on the organ was unequaled in Europe 
- in fact, he toured regularly as a solo virtuoso - and his 
growing mastery of compositional forms, like the fugue and 
the canon, was already attracting interest from the musical 
establishment - which, in his day, was the Lutheran church. 
But, like many individuals of uncommon talent, he was never 
very good at playing the political game, and therefore 
suffered periodic setbacks in his career. He was passed over 
for a major position - which was Kapellmeister (Chorus 
Master) of Weimar - in 1716; partly in reaction to this 
snub, he left Weimar the following year to take a job as 
court conductor in Anhalt-Cothen. There, he slowed his 
output of church cantatas, and instead concentrated on
instrumental music - the Cothen period produced, among other
masterpieces, the Brandenburg Concerti.
While at Cothen, Bach's wife, Maria Barbara, died. 
Bach remarried soon after - to Anna Magdalena - and forged 
ahead with his work. He also forged ahead in the 
child-rearing department, producing 13 children with his new 
wife - six of whom survived childhood - to add to the four 
children he had raised with Maria Barbara. Several of these 
children would become fine composers in their own right - 
particularly three sons: Wilhelm Friedmann, Carl Philipp 
Emanuel and Johann Christian. 
After conducting and composing for the court 
orchestra at Cothen for seven years, Bach was offered the 
highly prestigious post of cantor (music director) of St. 
Thomas' Church in Leipzig - after it had been turned down by 
two other composers. The job was a demanding one; he had to 
compose cantatas for the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas 
churches, conduct the choirs, oversee the musical
activities of numerous municipal churches, and teach Latin 
in the St. Thomas choir school. Accordingly, he had to get 
along with the Leipzig church authorities, which proved 
rocky going. But he persisted, polishing the musical 
component of church services in Leipzig and continuing to 
write music of various kinds with a level of craft and 
emotional profundity that was his alone.
Bach remained at his post in Leipzig until his death 
in 1750. He was creatively active until the very end, even 
after cataract problems virtually blinded him in 1740. His 
last musical composition, a chorale prelude entitled Before 
They Throne, My God, I Stand, was dictated to his 
son-in-law only days before his death.