Johann Sebastian Bach

•Born in Germany in 1685

•Died in 1750

• Bach came from a family of musicians with more than 70 of his relatives being composers, musicians, or choirmasters.

•Bach composed during the Baroque time period when everything had a grand, decorative feeling to it.

•Architecture was created to show off palaces and homes of the wealthy.

•Music of this time also was decorative filled with sounds of voices, violins, trumpets and flutes

•Wealthy would listen to their favorite music at royal court gatherings, the opera or their local church.

•Bach’s father was a town musician who probably introduced him to different instruments

•Bach’s mother died when he was only nine years old.

•His father died only a year later.

•A sad young Sebastian Bach moved in with his brother, Christoph who was an excellent church organist.

•He taught Sebastian how to tune and fix broken organs.

•Sebastian traveled to different towns in Germany testing and repairing organs.

•When he was 15, he left his brother’s house and walked 200 miles to another town in Germany looking for a music job.

•As he moved from town to town, he did various music jobs that sometimes included other chores. He was a violinist for the royal court when he was 17, but he also had to take the slop out of the kitchen.

•Bach took many side trips trying to listen to well known organists and composers.

•Eventually, his listening caused him to change his own music to a more animated style.

•One of Bach’s most famous organ compositions is Toccata and Fugue in D Minor; it is filled with big, powerful sounds which were unheard of before him.

•Bach was religious and wrote many musical pieces for the church service called cantatas. He wrote hundreds of these.

•A cantata features voices mainly; it has a lead singer and a choir accompanied by an orchestra. They are written for God.

•During the Baroque time period, church services could last for four or five hours so they depended on cantatas to keep them awake.

•Soon Bach become well known for his remarkable talent as an organist and composer of church music.

•He married Maria Bach, a distant cousin and she and the kids traveled with him.

•Sebastian was hired by Duke Wilhelm Ernst and wrote some of his most important organ works there.

•However, when Sebastian decided to leave the Duke’s court, the Duke threw him in jail for a whole month.

•Being in jail was depressing for Sebastian and he wanted to start his new job for Prince Leopold in Germany.

•Bach wrote several keyboard books which are still played by music students today.

•After six happy years in Prince Leopold’s court, things changed. Maria died then the Prince married and his new wife didn’t care for Bach’s music.

•Soon Bach decided it was time to move on.

•Before he left the Prince’s court, he wrote the Brandenburg Concertos, some of his most popular works.

•A concerto is a musical piece where one instrument, or a small group of instruments stands out from the rest of the orchestra.

•The concertos are known for their peaceful, relaxing yet, lively style.

•Sebastian’s new position was director of music in Leipzig, Germany.

•He was responsible for composing and directing music for four churches, a school choir, a university choir and any music the city might need for special events.

•Sebastian remarried in 1721. He and his new wife Anna Magdalena had 13 children. He had four from his first marriage so he was busy taking care of his large family.

•Each week Sebastian had to write down and make copies of the music he had written for all the choir and orchestra members. It was a boring job, but his family would often help out.

•Sebastian was a loving father and made sure all his children got good grades, learned to play a musical instrument and helped around the house. Four of his sons became famous composers.

•Bach spent 29 years in Leipzig.

•Later in his life, musical tastes were changing from the complicated big sounds of the Baroque, to simpler and lighter music.

•Bach stuck with his style of Baroque music and he was constantly being given a hard time by his bosses (he had 12 of them) who didn’t understand music very well.

•He didn’t get raises, he wasn’t appreciated, yet he stood up for his rights and ignored their complaints.