12 BWV 976Ĭoncerto Transcription - unknown source BWV 977 "Since the best man could not be obtained, we were forced to fall back on mediocrities." (Statement of the Leipzig City Council when Bach was appointed Thomaskantor) "Not brook, but ocean should be his name (Beethoven Bach is the German word for brook) I really can't think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that – its humanity." (Glenn Gould) "I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. Quotes by Bach "Like all music, the figured bass should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting." Quotes about Bach A contemporary newspaper reported that the cause of his death at age 65 was "from the unhappy consequences of a very unsuccessful eye operation", performed by the British surgeon John Taylor. Towards the end of his life Bach went blind. The Art of Fugue, a vast compendium of contrapuntal techniques, remained unfinished. The B minor Mass is an exemplar of the mastery he had attained in all the main sacred genres, while pieces like the Goldberg Variations and the Variations for organ on Vom Himmel hoch explore canonic writing. How he was able to stay on this exalted level of creativity for so long remains a mystery, as his resources actually were quite limited: when he set out his minimum requirements for a well-regulated church music, he received in response from the church authorities only a threat to reduce his salary.ĭuring his last years Bach created works of a somewhat abstract and general nature. This led Bach to apply for the post of Thomaskantor at Leipzig, where during his first five years Bach completed three annual cycles of cantatas, the St John (1724) and St Matthew (1727) Passions, and many other sacred works. When Prince Leopold married, the good times in Cöthen ended, as his wife resented his preoccupation with music. The following year he married Anna Magdalena, who was to bear him a further 13, of whom ten died in infancy. In 1720, his first wife Maria Barbara died suddenly, leaving Bach with four young children, including Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel. In Cöthen, Bach completed many instrumental works, including the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the Brandenburg Concertos. Duke Wilhelm was not pleased and threw Bach in jail for a month before discharging him.
He then worked for the Duke Wilhelm of Weimar for almost ten years, but as he didn’t get the promotion that he wanted he eventually applied for the post of Kapellmeister to the musically talented Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. 18 years old, he was appointed organist in Arnstadt, where the church authorities were confused by his "curious embellishments" of the chorales their irritation increased when he prolonged by several months the leave granted him to visit Lübeck and attend Buxtehude´s concerts. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) lost both his parents at a young age and was sent to live with his brother Johann Christoph, where he received his first musical instruction.
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