JS Bach (1685-1750)

Given that Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is now widely acknowledged as one of the greatest minds in human history, it seems almost unbelievable that during his lifetime and for a considerable time afterwards, his work was known only to musicians in a relatively small area of Germany. Bach never travelled out of the country, and were it not for the revival of his music led principally by Mendelssohn in the mid-nineteenth century, one wonders where the work of this towering genius would fit into today’s cultural landscape.

Even in a time where the grief of bereavement was dramatically more commonplace than it is today, Bach seems to have had more than his fair share, and far too early in life; by his tenth birthday he had already lost a brother, an uncle and, most tragically of all, both his parents. He was accordingly brought up by his eldest brother, Johann Christoph who introduced him to the work of many of the leading European composers of the time. The young Bach had a seemingly insatiable appetite for music and by the age of just thirteen, he was an exceptionally accomplished organist, as well as an excellent violist, violinist and singer. Interestingly however, and in contrast to a number of other great composers, there is no evidence that he was a young prodigy when it came to composition. On the completion of his schooling in 1702, Bach’s first post was as a servant (musical and otherwise) at the court of Duke Johann Ernst III in Weimar.

Bach’s extensive knowledge of organ construction and the sensitivity of his musical and acoustical ear meant he was also renowned as an organ consultant and his inspection of the organ at the New Church in Arnstadt led in August 1703 to his appointment as the organist there. Despite relatively light duties, a generous salary, and a fine new organ over which to preside, Bach’s professional frustration with his colleagues was famously illustrated by a physical altercation with a bassoonist whom Bach had insulted. The patience of his employers was tried yet further by a lengthy absence (overstaying his agreed leave of four weeks by some three months!) to visit the great organist Dietrich Buxtehude in Lübeck.

Following a short spell as organist at St Blasius’s Church in Mühlhausen, Bach returned in 1708 to the ducal court in Weimar, but this time as chamber musician and organist and after six years, concertmaster. It was here that much of Bach’s greatest organ music was written. Unfortunately, the Weimar years were to end under a cloud thanks, once again, to Bach’s lack of appreciation for social and political nicety: As relations with the Duke deteriorated and Bach was denied a promotion, in 1717 he signed a contract to become Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. He neglected, however, to ask permission to leave Weimar and as such, his resignation was refused and Bach was even imprisoned for a month. Following his release and unfavourable dismissal, Bach relocated to Köthen with his growing family (by this time he and Maria had four children, having lost a further two within weeks of their birth).

One may be forgiven for feeling a little disappointed by this stage in Bach’s story. The seemingly ever-strengthening case that he was a short-tempered, impatient man merely trying to make a living as best he could despite constant professional frustrations seems so far removed from the miraculous, transcendent nature of his musical genius and the deific regard in which he is held today, as to be almost implausibly unfair. Even so, it was during his time in Köthen that, supported by a young, personable and musically talented employer and with superb musical resources at his disposal (at last!), Bach wrote some of his greatest instrumental masterpieces including the Brandenburg Concertos and the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. If anything, this unsettling dichotomy between Bach the man and Bach the musician makes his character even more inscrutable and fascinating, a feeling only strengthened by the fact that much of this wonderful music was written through a period of intense personal grief: In 1720 on his return from a trip with his employer, Bach was met with the news that his beloved wife of thirteen years had died suddenly and had already been buried - a truly heartbreaking end to what had been the happiest period in his life.

He remarried a year later to court singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, who would go on to bear a further thirteen of Bach’s children. With a new wife (and the musical enthusiasm of his employer starting to wane), it is perhaps unsurprising and understandable that Bach began seeking employment elsewhere and in 1723 he was appointed to his most famous role, and the one in which he would stay until the end of this life - that of Cantor of St Thomas’s Church and School in Leipzig, where he would write his extraordinary cycle of church cantatas.

Even here in Leipzig, Bach had to endure further frustrations, particularly in terms of the choral and instrumental forces he had at his disposal compared to that which he considered necessary. It is all too probable, therefore, that Bach may never have heard a performance of what are surely his crowning achievements - the Passions and the great B Minor Mass - which fully did them justice. But here, as throughout his life (thanks, we can only assume, to his deep and unshakable faith) this did not inhibit the production of some of the most rapturously beautiful, sometimes tear-jerkingly sorrowful, other times deliriously joyous, unalloyed and unaffectedly emotional, devotional, and life-changingly inspirational music that has ever been written.

© Peter Siepmann, July 2018