Someone who
has had a tremendous musical influence on me for as long as I can remember
would have turned 335 today (or he will turn 335 in 10 days, depending on who
you ask because of complications when countries switch from the Julian and
Gregorian calendars). He was born to a family of musicians (and would later
produce 20 musician children—more on that later) in what is now the state of
Thuringia in Germany. He would go on to write almost 1100 numbered
compositions, and in doing so, would cement himself as one of Western music’s
greatest geniuses. I am of course referring to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Bach’s life was quite an enigma. As I understand it, he wasn’t a very good student, and he constantly interrupted his teachers. He was born into a family of faithful Lutheran musicians, but, because by 1695 (when he was 10) he was an orphan, rather than become a ward of the state, Bach was sent to live with his eldest brother, the town organist in a small community twenty-odd miles way. There, the younger Bach’s mischief in school continued, and he had a difficult relationship with his brother who was, simultaneously, his foster parent, music teacher, breadwinner, and (because of the aforementioned mischief in school) supplemental tutor. He struggled against his brother considerably, but the work he put in under the tutelage of his older brother and others obviously paid off by the time Bach was an adult.
His adult life clearly divides itself into four parts, which I’ll refer to by the city in which that part of his life was spent: Mulhausen, Weimar, Koethen, and Leipzig. Mulhausen was a difficult period for the young Bach for several reasons. First, he was young, and, like any young artist, getting a solid footing in the start of a career can be quite difficult. I’m only calling this the “Mulhausen” period, from 1703 to 1708, but, really, those five years should be called the “Weimar-Mulhausen-Arnstadt” period. He didn’t stay in any place very long, and the most consequential event of this first five years of his career was his courtship and marriage (in Mulhausen) to Maria Barbara Bach, his second cousin, in 1707. Thirteen years later, she died in childbirth after delivering seven children; tragically, four of these children died in infancy. Bach’s time during this first stint in Weimar in particular was marked by tension between him and the local ecclesiastical-civil authorities, so he left quickly.
Following the Mulhausen period, the Bachs moved to Weimar a second time, this time for a more fruitful 9 years. In those nine years, he composed many cantatas, being in charge of providing, copying, and rehearsing music for most Sundays and feast days; (probably) the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin—which I’m working on, so expect more content about them in the future. This time in Weimar provided Bach valuable time to explore four-part-harmony, a genre which would become paramount in later times.
After leaving Weimar, Bach went to Koethen, where he stayed from 1717 to 1723. Three things mark this period as exceptionally unique. First, the death of his wife in 1720; then, a little less than a year and a half later, his marriage to Anna Magdalena, a local singer sixteen years his junior who would bear him an additional thirteen children (and raise the seven stepchildren she gained from Johann Sebastian’s previous marriage). Two children Carl Phillipp (whose mother was Maria) and Johann Christian (whose mother was Anna Magdalena) would become important composers of the Classical era in their own right. The third point of uniqueness concerns the court of Koethen, which was not faithfully Lutheran but in fact faithfully Calvinist. Therefore, we have no cantatas whatsoever from this six-year period, since Calvinist liturgical practice was very minimalist and did not allow for the decoration of churches or the musical elements of worship common in Lutheranism. Instead, what we see from this period is a great amount of tremendously virtuosic instrumental work, most famously the Six Suites for Cello Without Basso Continuo, BWV 1007-1012. (Search for “that cello song” on YouTube and you’ll immediately recognize the first of 36 movements in that collection.) The suites are written in a graded system, twice over: within each suite, later movements are more difficult than earlier ones, and each suite is more difficult than the previous one. Recent scholarship suggests that at least the first suite of the six might not have been the work of Johann Sebastian Bach but of Anna Magdalena Bach. Throughout their marriage, Anna Magdalena would produce copies of each of her husband’s works, part by part, for each musician. The handwriting in at least the first suite looks different from all the rest, an , especially the prelude of that suite is incredibly simple—too simple to be the work of a seasoned veteran like Johann Sebastian, and more likely to be the work of a student working under the master, like Anna Magdalena, who was taught keyboard skills and counterpoint-writing by her husband, who also taught their children. Therefore, some scholars argue that the first suite—if not all six—are not the work of Anna Magdalena, not Johann Sebastian. Regardless, these six suites together form the Mount Everest which few cellists summit successfully (by performing and/or recording all six, especially in one concert or album). Just like it would be unwise to approach Mozart with any other mindset than “Even though [composition x] is purely instrumental, it’s fundamentally operatic,” the same can be said of Bach’s instrumental works: “Even though this looks like it only has one line, it actually has several, and isn’t written for [insert instrument here], but rather for the organ, and it was done so in a deliberately polyphonic style.” Keep this in mind, and you will capture the true essence of instrumental Bach from this period and from all the others.
Bach’s life was quite an enigma. As I understand it, he wasn’t a very good student, and he constantly interrupted his teachers. He was born into a family of faithful Lutheran musicians, but, because by 1695 (when he was 10) he was an orphan, rather than become a ward of the state, Bach was sent to live with his eldest brother, the town organist in a small community twenty-odd miles way. There, the younger Bach’s mischief in school continued, and he had a difficult relationship with his brother who was, simultaneously, his foster parent, music teacher, breadwinner, and (because of the aforementioned mischief in school) supplemental tutor. He struggled against his brother considerably, but the work he put in under the tutelage of his older brother and others obviously paid off by the time Bach was an adult.
His adult life clearly divides itself into four parts, which I’ll refer to by the city in which that part of his life was spent: Mulhausen, Weimar, Koethen, and Leipzig. Mulhausen was a difficult period for the young Bach for several reasons. First, he was young, and, like any young artist, getting a solid footing in the start of a career can be quite difficult. I’m only calling this the “Mulhausen” period, from 1703 to 1708, but, really, those five years should be called the “Weimar-Mulhausen-Arnstadt” period. He didn’t stay in any place very long, and the most consequential event of this first five years of his career was his courtship and marriage (in Mulhausen) to Maria Barbara Bach, his second cousin, in 1707. Thirteen years later, she died in childbirth after delivering seven children; tragically, four of these children died in infancy. Bach’s time during this first stint in Weimar in particular was marked by tension between him and the local ecclesiastical-civil authorities, so he left quickly.
Following the Mulhausen period, the Bachs moved to Weimar a second time, this time for a more fruitful 9 years. In those nine years, he composed many cantatas, being in charge of providing, copying, and rehearsing music for most Sundays and feast days; (probably) the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Violin—which I’m working on, so expect more content about them in the future. This time in Weimar provided Bach valuable time to explore four-part-harmony, a genre which would become paramount in later times.
After leaving Weimar, Bach went to Koethen, where he stayed from 1717 to 1723. Three things mark this period as exceptionally unique. First, the death of his wife in 1720; then, a little less than a year and a half later, his marriage to Anna Magdalena, a local singer sixteen years his junior who would bear him an additional thirteen children (and raise the seven stepchildren she gained from Johann Sebastian’s previous marriage). Two children Carl Phillipp (whose mother was Maria) and Johann Christian (whose mother was Anna Magdalena) would become important composers of the Classical era in their own right. The third point of uniqueness concerns the court of Koethen, which was not faithfully Lutheran but in fact faithfully Calvinist. Therefore, we have no cantatas whatsoever from this six-year period, since Calvinist liturgical practice was very minimalist and did not allow for the decoration of churches or the musical elements of worship common in Lutheranism. Instead, what we see from this period is a great amount of tremendously virtuosic instrumental work, most famously the Six Suites for Cello Without Basso Continuo, BWV 1007-1012. (Search for “that cello song” on YouTube and you’ll immediately recognize the first of 36 movements in that collection.) The suites are written in a graded system, twice over: within each suite, later movements are more difficult than earlier ones, and each suite is more difficult than the previous one. Recent scholarship suggests that at least the first suite of the six might not have been the work of Johann Sebastian Bach but of Anna Magdalena Bach. Throughout their marriage, Anna Magdalena would produce copies of each of her husband’s works, part by part, for each musician. The handwriting in at least the first suite looks different from all the rest, an , especially the prelude of that suite is incredibly simple—too simple to be the work of a seasoned veteran like Johann Sebastian, and more likely to be the work of a student working under the master, like Anna Magdalena, who was taught keyboard skills and counterpoint-writing by her husband, who also taught their children. Therefore, some scholars argue that the first suite—if not all six—are not the work of Anna Magdalena, not Johann Sebastian. Regardless, these six suites together form the Mount Everest which few cellists summit successfully (by performing and/or recording all six, especially in one concert or album). Just like it would be unwise to approach Mozart with any other mindset than “Even though [composition x] is purely instrumental, it’s fundamentally operatic,” the same can be said of Bach’s instrumental works: “Even though this looks like it only has one line, it actually has several, and isn’t written for [insert instrument here], but rather for the organ, and it was done so in a deliberately polyphonic style.” Keep this in mind, and you will capture the true essence of instrumental Bach from this period and from all the others.
The final
period began with his acceptance of the position of Kapellmeister at
Leipzig—making him responsible for providing music to each of the city’s four
Lutheran churches, as had been the case in earlier Lutheran postings, for
Sundays and feasts. This period began in 1727 and lasted until his untimely
death in 1750. Though he was responsible for four churches, he is most closely
associated with the St. Thomas Church, where he would be buried after an
infection he contracted thanks to unsanitary practices by his optic surgeon performing
a cataract removal in 1750. Two years later, the same surgeon performed another
failed cataract operation that permanently destroyed what little was left of
Handel’s eyesight, blinding him forever until his death (for other reasons) in
1759. Perhaps the greatest work to come out of this period was not of Lutheran
origin, but of Catholic origin. In the Mass, there are some things that, week
to week, don’t change; we call these parts the “Ordinary”—the Kyrie (“Lord have
mercy…”); the Gloria in excelsis Deo (“Glory to God in the highest…”); the Credo
in unum Deo (the Nicene or Apostle’s Creed- “I believe in one God, the Father
Almighty…”); the Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts…”); and the Agnus
Dei (“Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us…”). Bach
had written most of these components in the 1720s and 1730s, especially when
potentially looking for a job in Dresden (which he ended up not taking); but
while the work of 1748-50 was mostly compiling the various parts of the
ordinary from other Masses he’d written over the years, some original work was
done to finish the whole setting. Astute listeners will notice similarities
between cantatas and portions of the B minor Mass—absolutely correct observations
given that the Mass is mostly a compendium of previously written material not
joined into one composition until 1748-49 but written which had been written
deca. For instance, the “Gratias Agimus Tibi” in the Gloria and the “Dona Nobis
Pacem” in the Agnus Dei both use the melody (verbatim) from the chorale in the
cantata BWV 29, Wir danken dir,
Gott, wir danken dir.
Besides the hundreds of examples of sacred
music we have from this period, we also have one hugely influential piece of
secular music: his last catalogued work, BWV 1080, the Art of the Fugue, a kind
of treatise-workbook-magnum opus mashup that, over almost two hours and twenty-two
different fugues. The last of those, Fugue XIX (yes, the 19th fugue, but it is
in fact Fugue 1, Fugue 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., 16a, 16b, 17a, 17b, 18a, 18b, 19, thus “19”
is really the 22nd), employs a
particular motive called the BACH motive. To understand why it is called this (suprisingly,
it has nothing to do with the composer’s name), one must understand how German
speakers call their note names. In English, we have A, B, C, D, E, F,
and G; all of those notes can be sharpened or flattened as necessary. In
German, however, they have, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H. The note we normally
call “B” in English is the note German speakers refer to as “H”—thus the
manuscript of the Mass in B minor (English naming) is actually the manuscript
of the Mass in H minor (German naming) according to the composer. The note we
English speakers call “B-flat” is what German speakers call B. German speakers
add “is” or “es” to note names (other than H, which instead of becoming His
exceptionally becomes B) to make them sharp or flat, respectively. So, “Fis” is
“F#” and “Es” is “E flat,” and so on. With that sidenote out of the way, it is
now possible to understand what the BACH motif actually is: the notes named in
German B, A, C, and H, respectively (to an English speaker: B, A, C, B flat),
played melodically. Fugue XIX makes extensive use of this, but it ends abruptly
after an iteration of the motif. In the hand of one of the composer’s sons, it
is written “After writing the B-A-C-H motif, the composer died suddenly,” or
something to that effect. Unfinished, The Art of the Fugue is already one of
the great authoritative texts extant in the Western musical canon about how to
teach counterpoint, and I often wonder how much more great work Bach could have
done for our musical tradition had he been able to finish the volume, and what
that work would have looked like.
It is said that Bach deliberately wrote so many intricacies into his
music so that only God would ever understand its full potential. I’ve been
listening to Bach for close to 20 years daily and playing his music for about
half the time. I’ve gained so much knowledge in that time, and yet I know that
all I possess is only the tip of the iceberg, and not even an entire lifetime
is long enough to explore all the beautiful intricacies in the music made by
humans for the divine.
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