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Bach: The German Master

© Colleen Thomas Ryor

Johann Sebastian Bach's music is played more often than that of any other composer. His works are world-renowned for their beauty, clarity, and dignified grace. Although some have called his Baroque-era music stuffy because of its sturdy, rigid nature, I would rather call it distinguished, or better: sublime. Bach was able to magnificently combine the stiff requirements of musical composition of the day, while demonstrating the emotional wisdom that he is known for. At the same time his music manages to maintain a universal appeal with its accessible, elegant melodies and contrasting themes.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Thüringen. His father was a violinist and court trumpeter who also happened to be Director of Town Music in Eisenach. The musical family into which Bach was born sadly began to crumble around the young boy with the death of both of his parents by the time he was ten. Later his oldest brother Christoph adopted him. It was Christoph who taught him to play the harpsichord and Klavier. Bach left his brother's house at the age of sixteen to pursue choral studies under a scholarship in Lüneburg.

In 1703 he was finally employed as court musician in Weimar, where he was treated as somewhat of an insignificant because of his age and relative lack of experience. Later that year church administrators in Armstadt invited Bach to test the organ that they had recently acquired. Bach agreed and in turn, wildly impressed the officials with his improvisational ability. He was soon thereafter named the church organist for Armstadt.

In 1708 Bach married his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach. After his wife's death he would later marry again, this time Anna Magdalena Wilken in 1721. He had a total of twenty children from his two marriages.

Johann Sebastian Bach spent his years in the German city of Leipzig producing work after beautiful work. This period proved to be the most prolific for him both in terms of procreation and musical composition.

Bach was known for having a feisty spirit, and he was often unyielding to the authoritarian demands of his employers. He simply was not willing to compromise his musical integrity in order to please the nobility. At one point he was confined to what amounts to house arrest by the Duke of Weimar upon the duke's learning of Bach's intentions to work for someone else (where he would be free to write what he pleased).

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