89: Happy Birthday, Bach!

 Today, we celebrate the 341st birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the greatest musical minds ever known to history. (You may have seen birthday celebrations 10 days ago on the 21st but those are due to the “Old Style” date—the date on the Julian Calendar—and not the current “New Style” Gregorian date. Other figures of the time also may have birth and/or death dates recorded in both “Old” and “New” styles, depending on when their countries switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian.)

Bach was born to a family with a long history of deep involvement in music, going back to his great-great-grandfather, a baker who had been born in what is now Slovakia. That baker, a Protestant, fleeing Catholic persecution, moved into what is now the modern state of Thuringia in Germany, where, about 300 years after the birth of the Protestant baker, arguably the greatest musician ever would be born into what was by then already an established musical family.

Bach received his early musical education from his father, and both his parents had died by the time he was 10, so he moved in with another musician in the family: his older brother. Through him, he learned to play the violin, the viola, the organ, the harpsichord, and many other instruments. 

His career in earnest began in Muhlhausen in 1703, about twenty miles north of where he was born, working as a devout Lutheran as musician in the local church. Work there was probably rather menial. His stay there was short, as were stays in Weimar (the first time) and Arnstadt, the latter of which he left in 1708 to begin a second stint in Weimar. In Weimar, the now-early-20s Bach began writing cantatas (the full contingent of music for a Lutheran Sunday service), and transcribing and rearranging the concerti of other great musicians of the day, for harpsichord, clavichord, and other keyboard instruments. 

After about 10 years in Weimar (that second, much longer stay there produced his early “Weimar Cantatas”), he accepted a job (where he would remain for about 6 years) in Kothen, in the court of a Calvinist prince. Calvinists, at least at the time (I don’t know if this is still true) did not have any tradition of liturgical music—in fact, it’s my understanding that they forbid it—so we have no sacred output from Bach from that period. What we do have, instead, is some of his most enduring instrumental work: Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier (a prelude and a fugue in every key, major and minor: C, C#, D, Eb, E, and so on. The C major prelude is famous both in its own right and as the accompaniment in the Gounod Ave Maria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWoI8vmE8bI&list=RDiWoI8vmE8bI&start_radio=1), the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello (the prelude of the first of those is without a doubt the most famous work ever written for solo cello: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poCw2CCrfzA&list=RDpoCw2CCrfzA&start_radio=1), and the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (the gavotte of the third partita is on the Voyager record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-s5nqZBCrw&list=RDV-s5nqZBCrw&start_radio=1). These three collections are absolutely monumental for their instruments, and it is both a tremendous honor and the undertaking of a lifetime to learn the preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier (12 keys * major and minor * prelude and a fugue * 2 books = 96 pieces in all), the sontas and partitas, or the suites. 


Bach’s last move was to Leipzig, arriving there in 1723; the 27 years he spent there are close to half his life, and by far the longest he stayed in one place. There, he met his second wife—a soprano in his choir—with whom he would later have 13 more children (after having 7 with his first wife, who died in 1720, while they lived in Kothen). A number of those 20 children became great musicians in their own right. In Leipzig, Bach was responsible for providing the music each week for the services conducted in four Lutheran churches throughout the city, but his time there is most closely linked to his appointment as Thomaskantor, or basically, “Choir Director of the Parish of St. Thomas.” As Thomaskantor, it was his job to write, copy, teach, rehearse, and perform the music for all the Sundays and holy days (Christmas, etc.—that would not necessarily be on a Sunday) from throughout the year. The vast majority of the almost-1200 works we have preserved from him (believe it or not, he wasn’t good at preserving his own music, so there might be a lot of it lost to history!) that we have is from this 27-year period. This period included the gradual composition and compilation of the Mass in B minor (widely considered to be among the greatest works ever, if not the greatest), the Passions according to Matthew and John (and maybe also Mark and Luke, but those are now lost and/or probably not Bach’s, according to current scholarship), and, as I said, hundreds of cantatas, each 20-30 minutes, for specific services on certain days of certain years.

Bach, tragically, was killed by the incompetence of a surgeon who would later do the same thing to Handel about 9 years later: place his un-gloved, un-sanitized fingers into wounds in the middle of, and after, cataract surgery done on both Bach and Handel, who were both nearly blind at the time, giving them both infections as a result, and killing them. Bach is buried in the St. Thomas Church where he served for so long, and you can go visit his grave inside the church. To this day, Thomaskantors are counted both absolutely and in sequence as successors of Bach. 

On this 341st birthday of the master, I strongly encourage you to listen to some of his works; give them your full attention, and you will fall in love with them, with him, and with music in general. What a fitting birthday gift that would be, to Bach, and, of course, on his day, to yourself. 


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