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 the Internet Public Library
The Baroque Age
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born: Eisenach, March 21, 1685
Died: Leipzig, July 28, 1750
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 also 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. He travelled little, never leaving
Germany once in his life, but held various postitions during his career in
churches and in the service of the courts throughout the country. In 1703 he
went to Arnstadt to take the position of organist at the St. Boniface Church. It
was during his tenure there that Bach took a month's leave of absence to make
the journey to Lübeck (some 200 miles away, a journey he made on foot) to
hear the great organist Dietrich Buxtehude. One month turned
into five, and Bach was obliged to find a new position at Mülhausen in
1706. In that year he also married his cousin, Maria Barbara. Bach remained at
Mülhausen for only a year before taking up a post as organist and
concertmaster at the court of the Duke of Weimar.
In 1717, Bach moved on to another post, this time as Kapellmeister
at the court of Prince Leopold in Cöthen. During the years Bach was in the
service of the courts, he was obliged to compose a great deal of instrumental
music: hundreds of pieces for solo keyboard, orchestral dance suites,
trio sonatas for various instruments, and concertos for
various instruments and orchestra. Of these, the most famous are the six
concerti grossi composed for the Duke of Brandenburg in 1721, and the
Brandenburg Concerto no. 3
exemplifies the style of the concerto grosso in which a small group of
instruments (in this case a small ensemble of strings) is set in concert with an
orchestra of strings and continuo. Of Bach's music for solo instruments, the six
Suites for violoncello and the Sonatas and Partitas for solo
violin are among the greatest for those instruments. The Violin Partita no. 3 contains an
example of a popular dance form, the gavotte.
Maria Barbara died suddenly in 1720, having borne the composer seven
children. Within a year Bach remarried. The daughter of the town trumpeter,
Anna Magdalena Bach would prove to be an exceptional companion
and helpmate to the composer. In addition, the couple sired thirteen children.
(Of Bach's twenty off-spring, ten died in infancy. Four became well-known
composers, including Carl Philipp Emanuel and
Johann Christian.) Soon after his second marriage, Bach began looking for
another position, and eventually took one in Leipzig, where he became organist
and cantor (teacher) at St. Thomas' Church. He remained in Leipzig for
the rest of his life. 
A devout Lutheran, Bach composed a great many sacred works as his duties
required when in the employ of the church: well over two hundred
cantatas (a new one was required of him every week), several
motets, five masses, three oratorios, and four settings of the Passion
story, one of which, The St. Matthew
Passion, is one of western music's sublime masterpieces. Bach also wrote
vast amounts of music for his chosen instrument, the organ, much of which is
still regarded as the pinnacle of the repertoire. One such work is the
tremendous Passacaglia and Fugue in C
minor.
Towards the end of 1749, Bach's failing eyesight was operated on by a
traveling English surgeon, the catastrophic results of which were complete
blindness. His health failing, Bach nevertheless continued to compose, dictating
his work to a pupil. He finally succombed to a stroke on July 28, 1750. He was
buried in an unmarked grave at St. Thomas' Church.
Bach brought to majestic fruition the polyphonic style of the late
Renaissance. By and large a musical conservative, he achieved remarkable heights
in the art of fugue, choral polyphony and organ music, as well as in
instrumental music and dance forms. His adherence to the older forms earned him
the nickname "the old wig" by his son, the composer Carl Philip
Emanuel Bach, yet his music remained very much alive and was known and studied
by the next generation of composers. It was the discovery of the St.
Matthew Passion in 1829 by Felix
Mendelssohn that initiated the nineteenth century penchant for reviving and
performing older, "classical" music. With the death of Johann
Sebastian Bach in 1750, music scholars conveniently mark the end of the Baroque
age in music.
Return to The Baroque Age | Music History 102: Index | Exhibit Hall | the IPL Main Lobby.
Music History 102: a Guide to Western Composers and their
music
Designed, compiled and created by
Robert
Sherrane, Cataloging librarian
The Juilliard School, New
York
This page last updated 12/20/97
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