Johann
Sebastian Bach
Johann
Sebastian Bach
was
born in Eisenach, Germany on March 21, 1685 and died in Leipzig in
1750 of a stroke at age 65. He suffered from terrible eye
sight problems 
near the end of his life. He was the youngest of
eight children in a well known musical family. Bach was 5 feet
7 1/2 inches tall with a large head and firm physique. He had
a tough, strong masculine face - the face of a man who stood up for
his rights! As a child, he learned to play every string and
keyboard instrument and was four years ahead of all the other
children in his school.
As a professional composer, Bach was a
church musician and wrote hundreds upon hundreds of works for use in
the Lutheran church. He wrote for orchestras, choirs,
instrumental soloists and chamber groups. He wrote NO operas!
A cantata is similar to an opera - but with no costumes, no acting
and always with a religious theme. Bach wrote many
cantatas for the Lutheran church.
His music perfected the major/minor system of composition and was
very complex and difficult. Bach successfully combined
intricate melodic lines and complexity with human feeling and
emotion and is considered to be one of the world's greatest
and most talented composers. His works are serious, powerful and
demanding and are still widely performed in concert halls around the
world today . Interestingly, Bach never left Germany and
therefore his music was unknown outside his own country for over 100
years.
Johann married twice. His first wife, Anna Barbara,
died at the age of 30 while giving birth to their seventh child.
Bach later married his cousin, Anna Magdalena, who was over 20 years
younger than himself, and a soprano in his church choir.
Together they had 14 more children!
Of all these children,
however, only 10 survived past 5 years of age. Four of Bach's
sons grew up to be famous musicians as well. Bach was known to
be opinionated, stubborn and hot headed! He spent some time in
jail, got into trouble with his bosses and the musicians who played
his music were afraid of him! But in spite of all that, he was a very devoted husband
and father and a respected, successful and well-known musician
during his lifetime.
Famous
compositions include: the
Brandenburg Concertos, the Well Tempered
Clavier, Organ
Toccata and Fugue in G
minor, the
St. John and St. Matthew's
Passions , Goldberg Variations and
the Mass in B
minor.
