Johann sbastian bach + biography
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Matthew Passion for Good Friday. In 1720, while absent on a trip with Prince Leopold, Bach suffered the tragic loss of his wife.
The best known of these cantatas are Cantata No. 4 ("Christ lag in Todesbanden"), Cantata No. 80 ("Ein feste Burg"), Cantata No. 140 ("Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme") and Cantata No. 147 ("Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben").
After he left Weimar, Bach's output for organ fell off, although his most well-known works (the six trio sonatas, the Clavierübung III of 1739, and the "Great Eighteen" chorales, revised very late in his life) were all composed after this time.
His two years there appear to have been critical in exposing him to a wider palette of European culture than he would have experienced in Thuringia. For unaccompanied solo violin he composed a set of six sonatas and partitas, and he also produced a similar set for cello and another for lute.
At Leipzig, Sebastian seems to have maintained active relationships with several members of the faculty of the university.
He composed a set of English suites and a set of French suites which form complex and difficult music compositions based loosely on dance forms. It is widely accepted that many of the harpsichord concertos were not original works but arrangements of now lost concertos for other instruments. Since the court chapel was Calvinist, there was no need for church compositions; Bach probably used the Cüthen organs only for teaching and practice.
Anne" organ prelude and fugue in E-flat major, and Anton Webern arranged for orchestra the ricercar from the "Musical Offering." There are arrangements of the "Art of Fugue" for orchestra, for brass quintet, and for saxophone quartet. ISBN 0393319563
In early 1700, having received a choral stipend for St. Michael’s School in Lüneburg, Bach left his Thuringian home country for North Germany, where he continued to study under the renowned local organist Georg Böhm, but also encountered Johann Adam Reincken in nearby Hamburg. In late 1721 he married Anna Magdalena Wilke, a singer of the Cöthen court capelle and offspring of a family of musicians.
At the Cöthen court, instrumental music played a prevailing role vis-a-vis vocal music, but most of the repertoire in both categories must be considered lost.
He was apparently dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir. In addition to concertos, Bach also wrote four orchestral suites, a series of stylized dances for orchestra. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6), the sonatas for keyboard and violin and viola da gamba, the unaccompanied violin (Partita No. 3) and cello (Suite No. 3, Suite No.
6) works, as well as numerous keyboard pieces (English Suite No. 2, French Suite No. 3, Partita No. 6, and Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue).
Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 – July 28, 1750) was a prolific and versatile German composer and organist of the Baroque era, whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and keyboard drew together almost all of the strands of the Baroque style and brought this musical form to its ultimate maturity.
In 1723, Bach was appointed cantor and musical director of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig.
Family life
Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, on October 17, 1707 in Dornheim after receiving an inheritance of 50 gulden.
Still Bach's musical compositions were admired by those who followed in his footsteps, including Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.