University Director Of Music example essay topic

Bach is considered by many to have been the greatest composer in the history of western music. Bach's main achievement lies inh is synthesis and advanced development of the primary contrapuntal idiom of the late Baroque, and in the basic tunefulness of his thematic material. He was able to successfully integrate and expand upon the harmonic and formal frameworks of the national schools of the time: German, French, Italian & English, while retaining a personal identity and spirit in his large output. Bach is also known for the numerical symbolism and mathematical exactitude which many people have found in his music - for this, he is often regarded as one of the pinnacle geniuses of western civilization, even by those who are not normally involved with music. Bach spent the height of his working life in a Lutheran church position in Leipzig, as both organist and music director. Much of his music is overtly religious, while many of his secular works admit religious interpretations on some levels.

His large output of organ music is considered to be the greatest legacy of compositions for the instrument, and is the measure by which all later efforts a rejudged. His other solo keyboard music is held in equally high esteem, especially for its exploration of the strictly contrapuntal fugue; his 48 Preludes & Fugues (The Well-Tempered Clavier) are still the primary means by which these forms are taught. His other chamber music is similarly lofty, the sets for solo violin & solo cello being the summits of their respective genres. Bach " large-scale sacred choral music is also unique in its scope and development, the Passions and B Minor Mass having led to the rediscovery of his music in the 19th century. His huge output of cantatas for all occasions is equally impressive. Finally, his large output of concerti includes some of the finest examples of the period, including the ubiquitous Brandenburg Concertos.

Todd McComb (6/94) JOHANN Sebastian Bach wa a composer of extreme mathematical genius. He and heal one perfected the system of keys and harmony that we have today after the Italian masters Arcangeli Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi first moved away from the system of modes that was employed before. He had great sense of form & structure, and saw music with insight from a broad perspective. A devoted Christian, he spent most of his life composing sacred music, and he believed that it was God who gave him the inspiration and his talent, and it was his duty to serve him.

The last of six children, Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, a small town nearLepizig in Germany, on the 21st of March, 1685, and christened locally at the historic Georgenkirche. His father Johann Ambrosiushad married Maria ElisabethaLammerhirt in 1668 and three years later they settled in Eisenach. At this time, Johann Christoph, who was later to become JohannSebastian's guardian once their father had died in 1695, was born. Very little is known now about the first 8 years of Bach's life, except that he did not attend school until the age of 8, when he was admitted to the localLateinschule in level 5 (Quinta). Not much music was taught at school, the primary curriculum being Latin grammar and Religious instructions. At school JohannSebastian's Greek and logic would probably had been taught, but he did not have a strong interest in those subjects, and was showing a preference towards theology.

Most of his early musical education probably came from home, where all of JohannAmbrosius's children learnt music - he was a town-musician, and he taught JohannSebastian to play the violin. The Bach family had always been musicians, and the first Bach can be traced back to Johann Bach of 1604, so they were by no means the first, but in Johann Sebastian's childhood he was a prodigy who showed interest and promise. Most of his achievements was probably due this genius; but without this environment his works would not have been half as influential. Elsewhere in Germany, Georg Friedrich Handel was born in Halle on the 23rd of the February, just 26 days before. Also in the same year Dominica Scarlatti was born, though they are not to meet until very much later. At this time a lot of the music was still in the early Baroque style, crisp and simple.

The leading composers at the time was Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell andthe Italian masters. In Thuringia, the region Bach was living in, there were not much inthe way of opera-buffs, for this brings inthe fashionable Italian influence. They were rightly proud of being the true "German " baroque - instrumental music and sacred vocal music of a thicker texture, serious tone. The advent of the chorale (German Hymn) had certainly contributed to this trend of conservative musicians. From the very beginning Johann Sebastian was not exposed to opera, and had never studied abroad.

It is possibly for this reason he did not write a single opera for performance at a court, nor did he ever work for the theatre during his relatively long lifespan. After his days at the Lateinschule, he was educated at the Eisenach Grammar School, and did well at school, showing a strong inclination toward theology. In the early 1690's, Bach's family had suffered heavy losses: first of all the loss of 2 of his brothers, and shortly followed by his mother. His father remarried with Barbara MargarethaBartholomaei, but he was only to pass away 3 months later. At this time Bach was already a competent violinist who had taken up the viola that was to be his main string instrument for the rest of his life, and he had a fair knowledge of music theory. When hew as sent to Johann Christopher inOhrdruf, he was given keyboard instructions.

On his arrival, he was enrolled in the third class at the old Klosterschule, with the reformed timetable where geography, music and natural sciences were also taught. Several moves were to follow, possibly due toa lack of money on Johann Christoph's part. He contemplated university education, but decided against it. It was not until 1702 when he was 17 he began to look for a more permanent position and started to develop his career as a phallic musician. In 1703 he found employment at the court of Weimar as a minor violinist, but was often called to substitute the organist which reflects his exceptional abilities. At the time of Bach, the society was very much based on the "Lord of the Manor " concept, even in Germany.

Musicians were a special sort of servant, who also had to be faithful to their masters and had to wear uniform at work. If one was born in a particular province, and the land happened to belong to the local Duke, one was to be his servant. Although the servants are generally fairly well looked after, there was still little freedom, and one could not change trade easily. In 1703, after testing the new organ in the church of St Boniface of Arn stadt, 20 miles south-west of Weimar, he was invited to become the organist and choirmaster there with a good salary. He was allowed to test the organ as he had family connexion inArnstadt - a few distant relatives as well as his stepmother Barbara Margaretha. They were so impressed by his mastery that an appointment was made on the spot.

After that he often had contracts as an organ consultant. For only an organ-master would know how to adjust precisely the wind pressure and such components for the newly-built organ to sound best with the acoustics. In 1705 he obtained a month's leave to hear Buxtehude play and direct the famousAbendmusiken at Lubeck, returning only some months later. He was interested in succeeding Buxtehude as the organist there, but refused when he found out that he had to marry Buxtehude's daughter, Anna Margaretha!

Handel was known to have refused the post for exactly the same reason. In any case, the church council was not pleased with his late return, and the congregation disliked the innovation he introduced into the services, and he soon made a move to Muhlhausen, a free-city 36 miles north-west ofArnstadt, in 1707 as an organist at the church of St Blasius. At Mulhausen he married Maria Barbara Bach, a second cousin, and hence carried out his duties with energy of a prolific composer in his early twenties. She was the source of much of his happiness. During the year there, he wrote a festive cantata Gott ist mein Konig, (God is my shepherd, BWV 71) for the inauguration of city council in 1708 and also various cantatas of moderate interest. He also wrote a great number of solo keyboard works, among themPartitas, Prelude & Fugues, and Fantasias.

He acquired his fame largely through his virtuoso organ playing in secular contexts. However, the opportunities for composition and performance is still somewhat limited. He left in June 1708 after a dispute between the factions of orthodox Lutherans and the more puritan Pietists threatened to restrict what music could be performed there - although some say that Bach did not necessarily involve himself in the dispute. He accepted an invitation to be the organist and court musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. Despite the problems at Mulhausen, he remained on good terms with the employer, and in 1709 returned to perform Ein' feste Burg (BWV 720) on the newly restored organ, the building of which he had supervised. At Cothen, sacred music was unnecessary, and Bach put his energy into teaching.

During the Cothen period, he composed many pieces intended for teaching, which includes the 48 Well-tempered clavier (Book I) andthe two-part inventions, which was intended for his children. He also wrote the 6 Brandenburg Concerti in the latest Italian style, and the four Orchestral Suites in the French Manner. The former was dedicated to the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the latter for performances at Cothen. The orchestra at Cothen was a small and efficient unit, and he was able to purchase the instruments he wanted, so he was able to experiment a little with new styles. A few fun-things happened while he was at Cothen: a contest was laid on for him and Louis Marchand, the French Organist from Dresden. On the day of the duel, it was discovered that Marchand had left the town with the morning mail express, presumably found his ability unequal to the powerful assaults of his opponent.

While he was away in Carlsbad in 1720, his first wife died, and this seemed to have been a major shock to him, so he applied forthe post of organist at St Jacob's, Hamburg. However, he was turned down and therefore he stayed at Cothen, and a year later he married Anna Magdalena Wilken, the daughter of a court trumpeter there. The Prince also married two months later to a cousin of his, Princess Frederica Henrietta, who Johann Sebastian referred to as the 'amusa' and has little interest in music. The wedding was followed by 6 weeks of festivities at Cothen and no doubt he would have provided music for the occasion. In many ways he saw this as his own celebration with Anna Magdalena.

However, after the festival thePrince's interest in music also declined, though this is not a overriding factor in his decision to leave Cothen, for the 'amusa' died soon after the wedding, in April 1722. He looked elsewhere for a job, and in 1723 he was appointed Kantor at St Thomas's Leipzig, only after Telemann and Graupner had refused the post because they failed to secure release from their former employers. This should not be taken to mean that he was considered inferior to the two; it was because his name did not appear on the initial list of possible candidates, and he had to later present himself to the church authority. After his test performance at which he performed his cantata Nrs. 47 & 48, the church council voted unanimously for him.

Nevertheless he kept friendly relations with Cothen and he provided a funeral cantata in 1729 for the death of Prince Leopold. Bach's duties as the Kantor were a mixture of schoolmaster, director of music at several churches, and composer for civic occasions. He and his pupils provided music at four churches, two of which had elaborate Sunday services including a cantata on alternate Sundays. He was generally restricted to inadequate forces for a back-breaking task.

Though his appointment as Kantor was in fact at Thoma schule, the school associated with the nearby Thomas kirche, he was required to provide a great deal of music in another church, the Nikolai kirche. In the first year at Leipzig, he had to write (or sometimes reworked) a cantata for every Sunday and major festival, composing some 150 between 1723 and 1727. Many of these are extraordinarily difficult to perform, especially the solo parts, and they were probably given inadequately. He composed the Passion according to St John shortly before he left Cothen, and was one of the things that was first to be heard at Leipzig, on Good Friday 1724. He probably composed other works which had been lost, but his finest setting, the St Matthew " 's Passion was to elaborate for the taste of the congregation and the city elders. His stay at Leipzig was not a smooth one: in 1726 he had a extended disagreement withthe local university over the way in which the services should be conducted, and about his Accidenten, the extra salary laid-on for special occasions.

The new service thatthe university proposed was based on lower payment of Accidenten, and Bach preferred the better-paid old service. Eventually he appealed to the King of Saxony, and the old service was reinstated with the correct amount of Accidenten. However, for some reason that we may never know, he did not take up the offer and from 1726 he only associated himself with the university on special occasions. In some ways these disputes are brought on by his own ability. Go rner, the university director of music, was extremely unhappy with the way Bach was often preferred on formal occasions, and had repeatedly attempted to deny him rights to perform for the university. If it had not been his honorary title Kapellmeister von Hausa us at Cothen, he could well have been eliminated long ago.

The title ensured that the university council had a good excuse to rule in favour of him. Bach's energy during this period was exceptional, and he was keen to expand his activities. By 1730 he was disenchanted with the with the conditions of St Thomas and wrote a stiff memorandum to the church authorities. They threatened to reduced his salary, so he began to look for a job elsewhere. His letter to Erdmann, an old schoolfriend fromOhrdruf, did not bring much success.

But with his abilities he could have moved on fairly quickly. The only reason he had stayed was because he was appointed the director of the collegium music um and he was able to meet intellectuals and students from the local university. He is now composing fewer cantatas, and instead he turned to keyboard music, and wrote numerous harpsichord concerti, some for more than two harpsichords. He also wrote or revised a vast amount of Organ works, including the Goldberg variations, which was published inf our volumes. In his last years Bach composed little, but he sorted out many of his earlier pieces and made collections suitable for publication. He published the second edition of the well-tempered clavier, and the B minor mass was revised thoroughly.

He started on the Art of Fugue after his trip to Berlin, where he was received with great enthusiasm, however, he did not live to finish the collection. Towards the end of his life he became blind, and John Taylor (Handel's oculist) was unable to revive his eyes. A first operation revived his eyesight a little, but a few days later a second operation was necessary followed by the complete loss of sight. One morning in the middle of July he found his eyesight suddenly restored, but a few hours later he was seized by a stroke, and died later that evening despite attention from two of the best doctors in Leizpig.

He was buried honourably near the South door of StJohn's Church, but the precise location of the grave was soon forgotten. It was not until 1894 that his remains were exhumed and identified; in 1950 they were transferred to their present resting-place in theThomaskirche. Anna Magdalena did not receive much from his will (she received one-third of all the properties, and the remaining two-thirds was equally shared among his nine sons.) She was rather meanly treated by the church authorities, and died of poverty in 1760.30 f.