Essay About Johann Sebastian Bach And Christmas Oratorios

Jonathan Sebastian Bach
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest
composers in Western musical history. More than 1,000 of his
compositions survive. Some examples are the Art of Fugue,
Brandenburg Concerti, the Goldberg Variations for
Harpsichord, the Mass in B-Minor, the motets, the Easter and
Christmas oratorios, Toccata in F Major, French Suite No 5,
Fugue in G Major, Fugue in G Minor (“The Great”), St.
Matthew Passion, and Jesu Der Du Meine Seele. He came from a
family of musicians. There were over 53 musicians in his
family over a period of 300 years.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany
on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a
talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills for
string playing; another relation, the organist at Eisenachs
most important church, instructed the young boy on the
organ. In 1695 his parents died and he was only 10 years
old. He went to go stay with his older brother, Johann
Christoph, who was a professional organist at Ohrdruf.
Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and continued
his younger brothers education on that instrument, as well
as on the harpsichord. After several years in this
arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in
Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left his brothers
tutelage.
A master of several instruments while still in his
teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of
18 as a “lackey and violinist” in a court orchestra in
Weimar; soon after, he took the job of organist at a church
in Arnstadt. Here, as in later posts, his perfectionist
tendencies and high expectations of other musicians – for
example, the church choir – rubbed his colleagues the wrong
way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes during
his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed
up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt (and the
working conditions) and moved on to another organist job,
this time at the St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen. The same
year, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach.
Again caught up in a running conflict between
factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar after one year
in Muhlhausen. In Weimar, he assumed the post of organist
and concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He remained in Weimar
for nine years, and there he composed his first wave of
major works, including organ showpieces and cantatas.
By this stage in his life, Bach had developed a
reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat inflexible, musical
talent. His proficiency on the organ was unequaled in Europe
– in fact, he toured regularly as a solo virtuoso – and his
growing mastery of compositional forms, like the fugue and
the canon, was already attracting interest from the musical
establishment – which, in his day, was the Lutheran church.
But, like many individuals of uncommon talent, he was never
very good at playing the political game, and therefore
suffered periodic setbacks in his career. He was passed over