Johann Sebastian Bach: biography, video, interesting facts, creativity. "Weimar period Bach's life in Leipzig

Johann Sebastian Bach is a German composer and musician of the Baroque era, who collected and combined in his work the traditions and most significant achievements of European musical art, and also enriched all this with a masterly use of counterpoint and a subtle sense of perfect harmony. Bach is the greatest classic who left a huge legacy that has become the golden fund of world culture. He is a versatile musician whose work has covered almost all known genres. Creating immortal masterpieces, he turned every beat of his compositions into small works, then combining them into priceless creations of perfect beauty and expressiveness that vividly reflected the diverse spiritual world of man.

Read a short biography of Johann Sebastian Bach and many interesting facts about the composer on our page.

Brief biography of Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in the German town of Eisenach into the fifth generation of a family of musicians on March 21, 1685. It should be noted that musical dynasties were quite common in Germany at that time, and talented parents sought to develop appropriate talents in their children. The boy's father, Johann Ambrosius, was an organist in the church of Eisenach and a court accompanist. It is obvious that it was he who gave the first lessons in playing the violin And harpsichord little son.

From Bach's biography we learn that at the age of 10 the boy lost his parents, but was not left without a roof over his head, because he was the eighth and youngest child in the family. The little orphan was taken care of by Ohrdruf's respected organist Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Sebastian's older brother. Among his other students, Johann Christoph taught his brother to play the clavier, but the strict teacher kept the manuscripts of modern composers securely under lock and key, so as not to spoil the taste of the young performers. However, the castle did not prevent little Bach from getting acquainted with forbidden works.

Luneburg

At the age of 15, Bach entered the prestigious Luneburg School of Church Choristers, which was located at the Church of St. Michael, and at the same time, thanks to his beautiful voice, young Bach was able to earn a little extra money in a church choir. In addition, in Luneburg the young man met Georg Böhm, a famous organist, whose communication influenced the early work of the composer. He also traveled to Hamburg several times to listen to the playing of the largest representative of the German organ school, A. Reincken. Bach's first works for clavier and organ date back to the same period. After successfully completing school, Johann Sebastian receives the right to enter the university, but due to lack of funds he was not able to continue his education.

Weimar and Arnstadt

Johann began his career in Weimar, where he was accepted into the court chapel of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony as a violinist. However, this did not last long, since such work did not satisfy the creative impulses of the young musician. In 1703, Bach, without hesitation, agreed to move to Arnstadt, where he was in the church of St. Boniface was initially offered the position of organ caretaker, and then the post of organist. A decent salary, work only three days a week, a good modernized instrument tuned to the latest system, all this created conditions for expanding the creative capabilities of the musician not only as a performer, but also as a composer.

During this period, he created a large number of organ works, as well as capriccios, cantatas and suites. Here Johann becomes a true organ expert and a brilliant virtuoso, whose playing aroused unbridled delight among listeners. It was in Arnstadt that his gift of improvisation was revealed, which the church leadership really did not like. Bach always strived for perfection and did not miss the opportunity to meet famous musicians, for example, with organist Dietrich Buxtehude, who served in Lübeck. Having received a four-week vacation, Bach went to listen to the great musician, whose playing impressed Johann so much that he, forgetting about his duties, stayed in Lübeck for four months. Upon returning to Arndstadt, the indignant management gave Bach a humiliating trial, after which he had to leave the city and look for a new place of work.

Mühlhausen

The next city on Bach's life path was Mühlhausen. Here in 1706 he won a competition for the position of organist in the Church of St. Vlasiya. He was accepted with a good salary, but also with a certain condition: the musical accompaniment of the chorales must be strict, without any kind of “decoration”. The city authorities subsequently treated the new organist with respect: they approved a plan for the reconstruction of the church organ, and also paid a good reward for the festive cantata “The Lord is My King” composed by Bach, which was dedicated to the inauguration ceremony of the new consul. Bach's stay in Mühlhausen was marked by a happy event: he married his beloved cousin Maria Barbara, who later gave him seven children.

Weimar

In 1708, Duke Ernst of Saxe-Weimar heard the magnificent performance of the Mühlhausen organist. Impressed by what he heard, the noble nobleman immediately offered Bach the positions of court musician and city organist with a salary significantly higher than before. Johann Sebastian began the Weimar period, which is characterized as one of the most fruitful in the composer’s creative life. At this time, he created a large number of compositions for clavier and organ, including a collection of choral preludes, “Passacaglia in c minor”, ​​the famous “ Toccata and fugue d minor ", "Fantasy and Fugue in C major" and many other great works. It should also be noted that the composition of more than two dozen spiritual cantatas dates back to this period. Such effectiveness in Bach's compositional work was associated with his appointment in 1714 as vice-kapellmeister, whose duties included regular monthly updating of church music.

At the same time, Johann Sebastian's contemporaries were more admired by his performing arts, and he constantly heard remarks of admiration for his playing. The fame of Bach as a virtuoso musician quickly spread not only throughout Weimar, but also beyond its borders. One day the Dresden royal bandmaster invited him to compete with the famous French musician L. Marchand. However, the musical competition did not work out, since the Frenchman, having heard Bach play at the preliminary audition, secretly left Dresden without warning. In 1717, the Weimar period in Bach's life came to an end. Johann Sebastian dreamed of getting the position of conductor, but when this position became vacant, the Duke offered it to another, very young and inexperienced musician. Bach, considering this an insult, asked for his immediate resignation and was arrested for four weeks for this.

Köthen

According to Bach's biography, in 1717 he left Weimar to take a job in Köthen as a court conductor for Prince Leopold of Anhalt of Köthen. In Köthen, Bach had to write secular music, since, as a result of the reforms, only psalms were performed in the church. Here Bach occupied an exceptional position: as a court conductor he was well paid, the prince treated him as a friend, and the composer repaid this with excellent works. In Köthen the musician had many students, and for their training he compiled “ Well-tempered clavier" These are 48 preludes and fugues that glorified Bach as a master of keyboard music. When the prince married, the young princess showed dislike for both Bach and his music. Johann Sebastian had to look for another job.

Leipzig

In Leipzig, where Bach moved in 1723, he reached the top of his career ladder: he was appointed cantor at St. Thomas and the musical director of all churches in the city. Bach was involved in teaching and preparing performers of church choirs, selecting music, organizing and holding concerts in the main churches of the city. Heading the College of Music from 1729, Bach began organizing 8 two-hour concerts of secular music per month in a coffee house of a certain Zimmermann, adapted for orchestra performances. Having been appointed court composer, Bach handed over the leadership of the College of Music to his former student Karl Gerlach in 1737. In recent years, Bach frequently revised his earlier works. In 1749 he graduated from High Mass in B minor, some parts of which were written by him 25 years ago. The composer died in 1750 while working on The Art of Fugue.

Interesting facts about Bach

• Bach was a recognized expert on organs. He was invited to check and tune instruments in various churches in Weimar, where he lived for quite a long time. Every time he amazed his clients with the amazing improvisations that he played to hear how the instrument in need of his work sounded.
• Johann was bored with performing monotonous chorales during the service, and without holding back his creative impulse, he impromptu inserted his own small decorative variations into the established church music, which caused great dissatisfaction with his superiors.
• Best known for his religious works, Bach also excelled in composing secular music, as evidenced by his “Coffee Cantata.” Bach presented this humorous work as a small comic opera. Originally called "Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht" ("Be quiet, stop chatting"), it describes the lyrical hero's addiction to coffee, and, not coincidentally, this cantata was first performed in the Leipzig coffee house.
• At the age of 18, Bach really wanted to get the position of organist in Lubeck, which at that time belonged to the famous Dietrich Buxtehude. Another contender for this place was G. Handel. The main condition for occupying this position was marriage to one of Buxtehude’s daughters, but neither Bach nor Handel decided to sacrifice themselves in this way.
• Johann Sebastian Bach really enjoyed dressing up as a poor teacher and visiting small churches in this guise, where he asked the local organist to play the organ a little. Some parishioners, hearing the performance, which was unusually beautiful for them, left the service in fear, thinking that the devil himself had appeared in their church in the form of a strange man.

• The Russian envoy to Saxony, Hermann von Keyserling, asked Bach to write a work to which he could quickly fall asleep. This is how the Goldberg Variations appeared, for which the composer received a gold cube filled with a hundred louis d'or. These variations are still one of the best “sleeping pills”.
• Johann Sebastian was known to his contemporaries not only as an outstanding composer and virtuoso performer, but also as a man with a very difficult character, intolerant of the mistakes of others. There is a known case when a bassoonist, publicly insulted by Bach for imperfect performance, attacked Johann. A real duel took place, as both were armed with daggers.
• Bach, who was keen on numerology, loved to weave the numbers 14 and 41 into his musical works, because these numbers corresponded to the first letters of the composer’s name. By the way, Bach also liked to use his last name in his compositions: the musical decoding of the word “Bach” forms a drawing of a cross. It is this symbol that is most important for Bach, who believes that similar coincidences.

• Thanks to Johann Sebastian Bach, today not only men sing in church choirs. The first woman to sing in the church was the composer’s wife Anna Magdalena, who has a beautiful voice.
• In the mid-19th century, German musicologists founded the first Bach Society, whose main task was to publish the composer's works. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the society dissolved itself and the entire collection of Bach’s works was published only in the second half of the twentieth century on the initiative of the Bach Institute, created in 1950. In the world today there are a total of two hundred and twenty-two Bach societies, Bach orchestras and Bach choirs.
• Researchers of Bach's work suggest that the great maestro composed 11,200 works, although the legacy known to descendants includes only 1,200 compositions.
• To date, there are more than fifty-three thousand books and various publications about Bach in different languages, and about seven thousand complete biographies of the composer have been published.
• In 1950, W. Schmieder compiled a numbered catalog of Bach’s works (BWV – Bach Werke Verzeichnis). This catalog was updated several times as data on the authorship of certain works was clarified and, in contrast to the traditional chronological principles of classifying the works of other famous composers, this catalog is built on a thematic principle. Works with similar numbers belong to the same genre, and were not written at all in the same years.
• Bach's works Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, Gavotte in Rondo Form and HTC were recorded on the Golden Record and launched from Earth in 1977 attached to the Voyager spacecraft.

• Everyone knows that Beethoven suffered from hearing loss, but few people know that Bach became blind in his later years. In fact, an unsuccessful eye operation performed by quack surgeon John Taylor caused the composer’s death in 1750.
• Johann Sebastian Bach was buried near the Church of St. Thomas. After some time, a road was built through the cemetery territory and the grave was lost. At the end of the 19th century, during the reconstruction of the church, the composer’s remains were found and reburied. After World War II in 1949, Bach's relics were transferred to the church building. However, due to the fact that the grave changed its location several times, skeptics doubt that the ashes of Johann Sebastian are in the burial.
• To date, 150 postage stamps dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach have been issued worldwide, 90 of them were published in Germany.
• Johann Sebastian Bach, a great musical genius, is treated with great reverence throughout the world; monuments to him have been erected in many countries; in Germany alone there are 12 monuments. One of them is located in the town of Dornheim near Arnstadt and is dedicated to the wedding of Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara.

Family of Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian belonged to the largest German musical dynasty, whose pedigree is usually traced back to Veit Bach, a simple baker, but very fond of music and excellently performing folk melodies on his favorite instrument, the zither. This passion was passed on from the founder of the family to his descendants, many of them became professional musicians: composers, cantors, bandmasters, as well as a variety of instrumentalists. They settled not only throughout Germany, some even went abroad. Over the course of two hundred years, there were so many Bach musicians that any person whose occupation was related to music began to be named after them. The most famous ancestors of Johann Sebastian, whose works have come down to us, were: Johannes, Heinrich, Johann Christoph, Johann Bernhard, Johann Michael and Johann Nikolaus. Johann Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was also a musician and served as an organist in Eisenach, the city where Bach was born.

Johann Sebastian himself was the father of a large family: he had twenty children from two wives. He first married his beloved cousin Maria Barbara, daughter of Johann Michael Bach, in 1707. Maria bore Johann Sebastian seven children, three of whom died in infancy. Maria herself also did not live a long life; she died at the age of 36, leaving Bach with four young children. Bach took the loss of his wife very hard, but a year later he again fell in love with a young girl, Anna Magdalena Wilken, whom he met at the court of the Duke of Anhalt-Kethen and proposed to her. Despite the large age difference, the girl agreed and it is obvious that this marriage was very successful, since Anna Magdalena gave Bach thirteen children. The girl did an excellent job with the housework, cared for the children, sincerely rejoiced at her husband’s successes and provided great assistance in his work, rewriting his scores. Family was a great joy for Bach; he devoted a lot of time to raising his children, playing music with them and composing special exercises. In the evenings, the family often organized impromptu concerts, which brought joy to everyone. Bach's children had excellent talent by nature, but four of them had exceptional musical talent - Johann Christoph Friedrich, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Wilhelm Friedemann and Johann Christian. They also became composers and left their mark on the history of music, but none of them could surpass their father either in composing or in the art of performance.

Works of Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the most prolific composers; his legacy in the treasury of world musical culture includes about 1,200 immortal masterpieces. In Bach's work there was only one inspirer - the Creator. Johann Sebastian dedicated almost all of his works to him and at the end of the scores he always signed letters that were an abbreviation of the words: “In the name of Jesus,” “Help Jesus,” “Glory to God alone.” To create for God was the main goal in the composer’s life, and therefore his musical works absorbed all the wisdom of the “Holy Scripture”. Bach was very faithful to his religious worldview and never betrayed it. According to the composer, even the smallest instrumental piece should point to the wisdom of the Creator.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his works in virtually all musical genres known at that time, except opera. The compiled catalog of his works includes: 247 works for organ, 526 vocal works, 271 works for harpsichord, 19 solo works for various instruments, 31 concertos and suites for orchestra, 24 duets for harpsichord with any other instrument, 7 canons and others works.

Musicians all over the world perform Bach's music and become familiar with many of his works from childhood. For example, every little pianist studying at a music school must have in his repertoire pieces from « Music book by Anna Magdalena Bach » . Then small preludes and fugues are studied, followed by inventions, and finally « Well-tempered clavier » , but this is already high school.

Famous works of Johann Sebastian also include “ St. Matthew Passion", "Mass in B Minor", "Christmas Oratorio", "St. John Passion" and, undoubtedly, " Toccata and Fugue in D minor" And the cantata “The Lord is my King” is still heard at festive services in churches in different parts of the world.

Films about Bach

The great composer, being a major figure in world musical culture, has always attracted close attention, which is why many books have been written about Bach’s biography and his work, as well as feature films and documentaries. There are quite a large number of them, but the most significant of them are:

• “The Futile Journey of Johann Sebastian Bach to Fame” (1980, GDR) - a biographical film tells about the difficult fate of the composer, who spent his entire life wandering in search of “his” place in the sun.
• “Bach: The Fight for Freedom” (1995, Czech Republic, Canada) is a feature film that tells the story of the intrigues in the palace of the old Duke, which revolved around Bach’s rivalry with the best organist of the orchestra.
• “Dinner for Four Hands” (1999, Russia) is a feature film that shows a meeting of two composers, Handel and Bach, that never took place in reality, but so desired.
• “My name is Bach” (2003) - the film takes viewers to 1747, at the time when Johann Sebastian Bach arrived at the court of the Prussian King Frederick II.
• "The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach" (1968) and "Johann Bach and Anna Magdalena" (2003) - the films depict Bach's relationship with his second wife, a capable student of her husband.
• “Anton Ivanovich is Angry” is a musical comedy in which there is an episode: Bach appears to the main character in a dream and says that he was terribly bored writing countless chorales, and he always dreamed of writing a cheerful operetta.
• “Silence before Bach” (2007) is a film-musical that helps you immerse yourself in the world of Bach’s music, which upended the Europeans’ idea of ​​harmony that existed before him.

Among the documentaries about the famous composer, it is necessary to note such films as: “Johann Sebastian Bach: life and work, in two parts” (1985, USSR); “Johann Sebastian Bach” (series “German Composers” 2004, Germany); “Johann Sebastian Bach” (series “Famous Composers” 2005, USA); “Johann Sebastian Bach – composer and theologian” (2016, Russia).

The music of Johann Sebastian, filled with philosophical content and also having a great emotional impact on a person, was often used by directors in the soundtracks of their films, for example:

Despite the ups and downs, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a huge number of amazing works. The composer's work was continued by his famous sons, but none of them were able to surpass their father either in composing or performing music. The name of the author of passionate and pure, incredibly talented and unforgettable works stands at the top of the world of music, and his recognition as a great composer continues to this day.

Video: watch a film about Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach
Years of life: 1685-1750

Bach was a genius of such magnitude that even today he seems an unsurpassed, exceptional phenomenon. His creativity is truly inexhaustible: after the “discovery” of Bach’s music in the 19th century, interest in it has been steadily increasing, Bach’s works are winning audiences even among listeners who usually do not show interest in “serious” art.

Bach's work, on the one hand, was a kind of summing up. In his music, the composer relied on everything that had been achieved and discovered in the art of music before him. Bach had an excellent knowledge of German organ music, choral polyphony, and the peculiarities of German and Italian violin style. He not only became acquainted with, but also copied the works of contemporary French harpsichordists (primarily Couperin), Italian violinists (Corelli, Vivaldi), and major representatives of Italian opera. Possessing an amazing sensitivity to everything new, Bach developed and generalized his accumulated creative experience.

At the same time, he was a brilliant innovator who opened up the development of world musical culture new perspectives. His powerful influence was reflected in the work of the great composers of the 19th century (Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Glinka, Taneyev), and in the works of outstanding masters of the 20th century (Shostakovich, Honegger).

Bach's creative heritage is almost immense, it includes more than 1000 works of various genres, and among them there are those whose scale is exceptional for their time (MP). Bach's works can be divided into three main genre groups:

• vocal and instrumental music;
• organ music,
• music for other instruments (clavier, violin, flute, etc.) and instrumental ensembles (including orchestral).

The works of each group are mainly associated with a certain period of Bach’s creative biography. The most significant organ works were created in Weimar, keyboard and orchestral works mainly belong to the Köthen period, vocal and instrumental works were mostly written in Leipzig.

The main genres in which Bach worked are traditional: masses and passions, cantatas and oratorios, choral arrangements, preludes and fugues, dance suites and concertos. Having inherited these genres from his predecessors, Bach gave them a scope that they had never known before. He updated them with new means of expression and enriched them with features borrowed from other genres of musical creativity. A striking example is. Created for the clavier, it incorporates the expressive properties of large organ improvisations as well as dramatic recitation of theatrical origins.

Bach's work, for all its universality and inclusiveness, “passed by” one of the leading genres of its time - opera. At the same time, there is little that distinguishes some of Bach's secular cantatas from the comedic interlude, which was already being reborn at that time in Italy in opera-buffa. The composer often called them, like the first Italian operas, “dramas on music.” It can be said that Bach’s works such as the “Coffee Room” and “Peasant” cantatas, designed as witty genre scenes from everyday life, anticipated the German Singspiel.

Circle of images and ideological content

The figurative content of Bach's music is limitless in its breadth. The majestic and the simple are equally accessible to him. Bach's art contains deep sorrow, simple-minded humor, acute drama and philosophical reflection. Like Handel, Bach reflected the essential aspects of his era - the first half of the 18th century, but others - not effective heroism, but religious and philosophical problems put forward by the Reformation. In his music, he reflects on the most important, eternal questions of human life - the purpose of man, his moral duty, life and death. These reflections are most often associated with religious themes, because Bach served in the church almost all his life, wrote a huge part of the music for the church, and was himself a deeply religious person who knew the Holy Scriptures very well. He observed church holidays, fasted, confessed, and took communion a few days before his death. The Bible in two languages ​​- German and Latin - was his reference book.

Bach's Jesus Christ is the main character and ideal. In this image, the composer saw the personification of the best human qualities: fortitude, loyalty to the chosen path, purity of thoughts. The most sacred thing in the history of Christ for Bach is Calvary and the cross, the sacrificial feat of Jesus for the salvation of humanity. This theme, being the most important in Bach's work, receives ethical, moral interpretation.

Musical symbolism

The complex world of Bach's works is revealed through musical symbolism that developed in line with Baroque aesthetics. Bach's contemporaries perceived his music, including instrumental, “pure” music, as understandable speech due to the presence in it of stable melodic turns expressing certain concepts, emotions, and ideas. By analogy with classical oratory, these sound formulas are called musical and rhetorical figures. Some rhetorical figures were of a figurative nature (for example, anabasis - ascent, catabasis - descent, circulatio - rotation, fuga - run, tirata - arrow); others imitated the intonations of human speech (exclamatio - exclamation - ascending sixth); still others conveyed affect (suspiratio - sigh, passus duriusculus - chromatic move used to express grief, suffering).

Thanks to stable semantics, musical figures turned into “signs”, emblems of certain feelings and concepts. For example, descending melodies (catadasis) were used to symbolize sadness, dying, and entombment; ascending scales expressed the symbolism of resurrection, etc.

Symbolic motifs are present in all of Bach’s works, and these are not only musical and rhetorical figures. Melodies often have a symbolic meaning Protestant chorales, their segments.

Bach was associated with the Protestant chorale throughout his life - both by religion and by occupation as a church musician. He constantly worked with the chorale in a variety of genres - organ choral preludes, cantatas, passions. It is quite natural that P.Kh. became an integral part of Bach's musical language.

Chorals were sung by the entire Protestant community; they entered the spiritual world of man as a natural, necessary element of the worldview. Chorale melodies and the religious content associated with them were known to everyone, so people of Bach’s time easily formed associations with the meaning of the chorale, with a specific event in the Holy Scriptures. Permeating all of Bach’s work, the melodies of P.H. fill his music, including instrumental music, with a spiritual program that clarifies the content.

Symbols are also stable sound combinations that have constant meanings. One of Bach's most important symbols is cross symbol, consisting of four notes in different directions. If you graphically connect the first with the third, and the second with the fourth, a cross pattern is formed. (It is curious that the surname BACH, when transcribed into music, forms the same pattern. Probably, the composer perceived this as a kind of finger of fate).

Finally, there are numerous connections between Bach's cantata-oratorio (i.e. textual) works and his instrumental music. Based on all the listed connections and analysis of various rhetorical figures, a Bach's system of musical symbols. A huge contribution to its development was made by A. Schweitzer, F. Busoni, B. Yavorsky, M. Yudina.

"Second birth"

Bach's brilliant work was not truly appreciated by his contemporaries. While enjoying fame as an organist, during his lifetime he did not attract due attention as a composer. Not a single serious work has been written about his work, only an insignificant part of the works has been published. After Bach's death, his manuscripts gathered dust in the archives, many were irretrievably lost, and the composer's name was forgotten.

Genuine interest in Bach arose only in the 19th century. It was started by F. Mendelssohn, who accidentally found the notes of the “St. Matthew Passion” in the library. Under his direction this work was performed in Leipzig. Most listeners, literally shocked by the music, have never heard the name of the author. This was Bach's second birth.

On the centenary of his death (1850), a Bach Society, which set the goal of publishing all the surviving manuscripts of the composer in the form of a complete collection of works (46 volumes).

Several of Bach's sons became prominent musicians: Philipp Emmanuel, Wilhelm Friedemann (Dresden), Johann Christoph (Bückenburg), Johann Christian (the youngest, "London" Bach).

Biography of Bach

In 1708, Bach again found himself in Weimar to serve as a gopher organist. His stay here lasted for 10 years. During this time, the composer managed to hold several positions - each had its own nuances of work. (I had to write music for several instruments at once). The composer gained invaluable experience as a composer while he was in Weimar. No wonder it was here that he wrote the best works for the organ.

It is worth adding that Johann Sebastian, even in his youth, established himself as an excellent virtuoso organist. Periodically, he undertook trips for, and these performances helped spread the fame of Bach as an outstanding improviser. In the city of Kassel, for example, such variations were performed using a pedal that the listeners were delighted. According to the information that has reached us, Bach was phenomenal and this fact left all his rivals far behind. He could vary the same theme for 2 hours, all the while doing it in a variety of different ways.

One of the episodes from the composer’s life often mentioned by biographers happened in 1717. Bach received an invitation to perform with Louis Marchand (the famous French virtuoso keyboardist) in the city of Dresden. At the concert, Marchand performed a French song, and for its brilliant performance he received long applause from the audience. Then Johann Sebastian was invited to play the instrument. After a short but masterful prelude, the composer repeated the song that Marchand had played, also applying to it many variations, constructed in a way that had never been heard before. Bach's superiority was obvious and when Johann Sebastian offered his opponent a friendly duel, Marchand, fearing failure, chose to leave Dresden as quickly as possible.

However, no matter how great the superiority of the German composer over others was, this did not improve his overall situation. In Dresden, one might say, they were amused and let go.

It is noteworthy that Bach never boasted of his successes; moreover, he did not like to remember them. When asked how such a high level of performance was achieved, he answered that everyone could do it with the same effort. He was modest and impartial, so he retained a sense of goodwill towards other people - his idol, for example, was Handel. Bach always wanted to meet him and strived for this, but the meeting never took place.

After 10 years in Weimar, Johann Sebastian occupied only the position of assistant bandmaster, despite the fact that he did all the main work. Therefore, when the vacancy of court conductor opened up, Bach had every reason to take it, but the position went not to him, but to the mediocre son of the deceased conductor. This naturally seemed an insult to Johann Sebastian, so he demanded his resignation. The Duke reacted to this very harshly, but in the spirit of princely morals, taking the dissatisfied employee under arrest - supposedly a simple servant dared to question the highest command. So Bach was repaid with arrest for his 10 years of service in Weimar.

Bach's life in Köthen

After Weimar, Bach, together with his wife and children, came to Köthen (this was in 1717). His work here consisted of leading the court orchestra, as well as teaching the Prince of Köthen. The composer could spend the rest of his time writing. Due to the lack of an organ, I had to concentrate in my work on keyboard music.

Over time, Johann Sebastian became increasingly bored in the small provincial town and he was thinking about leaving. But besides boredom, two more circumstances spurred this step - 1720 (wife Maria Barbara died), the desire to give their children a good university education. At first, Bach tried to get a job as an organist in the city of Hamburg at the Church of St. James. He performed in this city during one of his recent artistic trips and greatly delighted everyone with his playing on the organ, including the already elderly Reincken, who was present there. Bach again did not get the desired position; it was given to a man who knew nothing about music, but who contributed a round sum to the church fund. We had to wait some more time before new prospects appeared.

In 1721, the great composer married again. The chosen one's name was Anna Magdalena, she came from a musical family and had a strong voice herself. Thanks to some character traits (gentleness, responsiveness), Anna became a support and support for her husband.

Bach's life in Leipzig

Soon the composer tried to get a job as a cantor in the city of Leipzig. He filed a petition with the magistrate, but they were looking for a more famous musician. The existing candidates refused, so it was decided to accept Bach, and even then on humiliating conditions.

The school of singers, which, thanks to these very conditions, was in the department of Johann Sebastian, was in complete ruin. The choir members were unable to cope with their task; many of them simply did not have the appropriate training, while others were generally unsuitable for singing in the choir. It was the same story with the musicians who played in the orchestra. Johann Sebastian wrote reports to the magistrate, but received no support. It was much easier for the petty-bourgeois aristocrats who headed it to shift all the blame onto the new cantor, which is what they did in their numerous documents. Thus, relations with the authorities did not work out in Leipzig, but Johann Sebastian did not want to move somewhere, since he already had considerable experience in such things.

The only thing that somehow smoothed out the feelings of constant attacks and humiliation from superiors was the composer’s artistic journeys. His incredible skill allowed him to win the sympathy of people, as well as make many new acquaintances, as Bach's music was highly valued by some of the outstanding personalities of the time.

But still, the composer's contribution (the main thing on which the composer spent his time) remained underestimated. Bach's works were not published, as if no one cared about them. It was as if a wall of misunderstanding then grew between the musician and society, leaving Johann Sebastian a lonely artist (it must be said that his wife provided him with great support). And so it was, unfortunately, until the death of the composer.

Bach's latest creations are distinguished by a philosophical abstraction alien to the real world. In them, he seems to fence himself off from the cruel reality of the world. But this does not detract from the significance of these works, which are deservedly considered the pinnacle of polyphonic art.

On July 28, 1750, Bach passed away. This event did not attract much attention. However, in our time, countless people gather at the place where the remains of the composer are located - all of them are ardent admirers of his work.

The outstanding German composer, organist and harpsichordist Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685 in the city of Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. He belonged to an extensive German family, most of whose members had been professional musicians in Germany for three centuries. Johann Sebastian received his primary musical education (playing the violin and harpsichord) under the guidance of his father, a court musician.

In 1695, after the death of his father (his mother had died earlier), the boy was taken into the family of his older brother Johann Christoph, who served as a church organist at St. Michaelis Church in Ohrdruf.

In the years 1700-1703, Johann Sebastian studied at the church choir school in Lüneburg. During his studies, he visited Hamburg, Celle and Lubeck to get acquainted with the work of famous musicians of his time and new French music. During these same years he wrote his first works for organ and clavier.

In 1703, Bach worked in Weimar as a court violinist, in 1703-1707 as a church organist in Arnstadt, then from 1707 to 1708 in the Mühlhasen church. His creative interests were then focused mainly on music for organ and clavier.

In 1708-1717, Johann Sebastian Bach served as court musician for the Duke of Weimar in Weimar. During this period, he created numerous chorale preludes, an organ toccata and fugue in D minor, and a passacaglia in C minor. The composer wrote music for the clavier and more than 20 spiritual cantatas.

In 1717-1723, Bach served with Duke Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen in Köthen. Three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin, six suites for solo cello, English and French suites for clavier, and six Brandenburg concertos for orchestra were written here. Of particular interest is the collection “The Well-Tempered Clavier” - 24 preludes and fugues, written in all keys and in practice proving the advantages of the tempered musical system, the approval of which was hotly debated. Subsequently, Bach created the second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, also consisting of 24 preludes and fugues in all keys.

The “Note Book of Anna Magdalena Bach” was begun in Köthen, which includes, along with plays by various authors, five of the six “French Suites”. During these same years, “Little Preludes and Fugettas. English Suites, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue” and other keyboard works were created. During this period, the composer wrote a number of secular cantatas, most of which were not preserved and received a second life with a new, spiritual text.

In 1723, his “St. John Passion” (a vocal-dramatic work based on the Gospel texts) was performed in the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig.

In the same year, Bach received the position of cantor (regent and teacher) at the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig and the school at this church.

In 1736, Bach received the title of Royal Polish and Saxon Electoral Court Composer from the Dresden court.

During this period, the composer reached the heights of his mastery, creating magnificent examples in different genres - sacred music: cantatas (about 200 have survived), Magnificat (1723), masses, including the immortal "High Mass" in B minor (1733), "Matthew Passion" (1729); dozens of secular cantatas (among them the comic "Coffee" and "Peasant"); works for organ, orchestra, harpsichord, among the latter - "Aria with 30 variations" ("Goldberg Variations", 1742). In 1747, Bach wrote a cycle of plays, “Musical Offerings,” dedicated to the Prussian king Frederick II. The composer's last work was The Art of Fugue (1749-1750) - 14 fugues and four canons on one theme.

Johann Sebastian Bach is a major figure in world musical culture; his work represents one of the pinnacles of philosophical thought in music. Freely crossing features not only of different genres, but also of national schools, Bach created immortal masterpieces that stand above time.

At the end of the 1740s, Bach's health deteriorated, and he was particularly concerned about the sudden loss of his vision. Two unsuccessful cataract surgeries resulted in complete blindness.

He spent the last months of his life in a darkened room, where he composed the last chorale “I stand before Thy throne,” dictating it to his son-in-law, organist Altnikol.

On July 28, 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig. He was buried in the cemetery near St. John's Church. Due to the lack of a monument, his grave was soon lost. In 1894, the remains were found and reburied in a stone sarcophagus in the Church of St. John. After the church was destroyed by bombing during World War II, his ashes were preserved and reburied in 1949 in the chancel of St. Thomas Church.

During his lifetime, Johann Sebastian Bach was famous, but after the composer's death his name and music were forgotten. Interest in Bach's work arose only in the late 1820s; in 1829, the composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy organized a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin. In 1850, the Bach Society was created, which sought to identify and publish all the composer's manuscripts - 46 volumes were published over half a century.

Through the mediation of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the first monument to Bach was erected in Leipzig in 1842 in front of the old school building at the Church of St. Thomas.

In 1907, the Bach Museum was opened in Eisenach, where the composer was born, and in 1985 in Leipzig, where he died.

Johann Sebastian Bach was married twice. In 1707 he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. After her death in 1720, in 1721 the composer married Anna Magdalena Wilken. Bach had 20 children, but only nine of them survived their father. Four sons became composers - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784), Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), Johann Christoph Bach (1732-1795).

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Researchers of Bach's life and work call the period from 1703 to 1717 "Weimar", but in fact he was in Weimar itself for a relatively small part of this time. He actually spent the first six months there, working as a musician in one of the choir chapels. But soon, in search of new perspectives and impressions, Bach moved to Arnstadt. There he becomes an organist at the “New Church” and gets a lot of free time to hone his musical skills. Here for the first time the composer's genius of Johann Sebastian Bach awakens to unprecedented strength. The spiritual cantata “You will not leave my soul in hell” for organ, choir and orchestra becomes his debut. In another early work - the piece for clavier "Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother" - the most characteristic features of his compositional style are noticeably manifested for the first time. Then Bach goes on foot to Lubeck, where the outstanding organist Buxtehude gives concerts. This event becomes a turning point in the composer's work.
Buxtehude's organ music amazed the young Bach with his skill and innovative compositional techniques, and the composer stayed in Lübeck for more than two years. Upon his return, he is met with reproaches from the church council, because they only released him from the church for four months. Seeking independence, Bach leaves Weimar.
The genius's new refuge becomes the town of Mühlhausen, where he also works as a musician in the church. Throughout the entire year of work, Bach unsuccessfully tries to raise the level of musical culture in the town, attracting the attention of the church and city authorities. During this short period, he wrote and performed his “Elective Cantata,” which became the only work published during his lifetime.

Soon, in 1708, Bach again came to Weimar, which he had abandoned, and this time accepted the position of court musician. During this period, his performing talent developed, honed by playing the violin, harpsichord and organ. Bach is famous for his improvisations on these instruments.
The organ became a “creative laboratory” for Bach during the Weimar period. Like a true scientist, he studies its structure and all the features of sound production, thereby raising organ music to a hitherto unknown level, which is what Bach’s notes tell us today. His creative strength was the legendary polyphony (polyphony). He writes the famous “Toccata and Fugue in de minor” and many other works for organ.
After the death of the Weimar bandmaster in 1716, Bach did not receive his position, as he had hoped. The post is given to a mediocre musician, but one who pleases the authorities. Outraged by the injustice, Bach resigns and is arrested for “disrespect,” from which he again leaves Weimar and moves with his family to Köthen.