J.S. Bach: Master of the Baroque Era, Father of the Classical
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a preeminent composer of the Baroque era. In fact, the Baroque era is widely considered to have ended with his death. During his life, he composed over 1,000 works in all musical genres except opera, yet he remained relatively obscure until composer Felix Mendelssohn gave a performance of Bach’s work, “St. Matthew Passion,” just over one hundred years after Bach had written it.
During his life, J.S. Bach was known more widely as an organist than a composer. He was a master of keyboard instruments of his day, including the organ, the harpsichord, and the clavichord. He also held several posts under local nobility or royalty as court organist, Kapellmeister, and Kantor, the latter two positions indicating responsibility for directing choirs in addition to organ performance. While other noted musicians of the day may have traveled and pursued their careers abroad, Bach remained in his native Germany throughout his career.
J.S. Bach was married twice, and fathered twenty children with his two wives, though only ten of them survived to adulthood. His second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, was an accomplished pianist in her own right, and by all accounts thrived in her partnership with Bach. Their home became a musical center in their city of Leipzig. Not surprisingly, their children were quite musical.
Of Bach’s surviving offspring, several of them became accomplished musicians in their own rights, including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who became a leader of the next great musical era, the Classical.
The compositions of J.S. Bach himself stayed firmly within Baroque traditions, the most notable of which is the counterpoint, or contrapuntal, style. In the contrapuntal style, two (or more) independent lines are played simultaneously. Some well-known examples of this for the keyboard include Bach’s “Inventions and Sinfonias” and “The Well-Tempered Clavier.”
The most extreme form of contrapuntal style is the fugue, and Bach showed himself the master of it in his last major work, “The Art of the Fugue.” The final version of this work was published in 1751, after Bach’s death, and the last Fugue in the collection remains unfinished. Though the manuscript was written with each voice scored separately, the work is playable on a keyboard instrument, in contrast to most of Bach’s orchestral works which are not. This suggests that Bach had intended “The Art of the Fugue” as a keyboard work.
Another famous keyboard piece is “The Goldberg Variations,” an aria with thirty variations. This piece is highly structured, and unusual in that the variations build on the bass line of the aria rather than its melody.
Bach spent his life devoted to music. Even near his death, after having gone blind, he dictated one final piece to his son-in-law, a chorale prelude for organ entitled, “Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit” (Before thy throne I now appear, BWV 668a). This work is often performed after the unfinished 14th Fugue of “The Art of the Fugue.”
J.S. Bach was well-regarded by other famous keyboard artists, not only of his own day but in the generations that followed. Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin were among his admirers in the Classical and Romantic eras.
With his prodigious output of musical compositions, as well as his influence on his sons and other accomplished composers of the Classical and Romantic eras that followed him, Johann Sebastian Bach was truly a father of the musical traditions that we cherish today.
Tags: Baroque Era, J. S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion
