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Report on johann sebastian bach
The influence of Bach on music
The characteristics of baroque music
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Throughout history many famous concerto pianists composed various types of music. One of those pianists was named Johann Sebastian Bach. J.S. Bach was arguably one of the best composers in Western music history. Born in Eisenach, Germany to a family of musicians, Bach grew up playing the organ and keyboard. J.S. Bach’s music was characterized as a classification of Baroque music. Baroque was an era of dominant European styled art and music in the 17th century. The term baroque is “applied to art of any time or place that shows the qualities of vigorous movement and emotional intensity associated with art in its primary meaning.” Bach’s famous Baroque style was a combination of many notes, simple motoric rhythms, and a steady shift of underlying harmony.
One of Bach’s many popular compositions is the Fugue. A fugue, defined by Smith (2001), “[is a] polyphonic procedure involving a specified number of voices in which a motive subject is exposed, in each voice in an initial dominant relationship, then developed by contrapuntal means. A fugue consists of one exposition followed...
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, said to be one of the best organists of his time (Baroque Music). He was born in March 1685 in Eisenach, Thuringia as the youngest of eight children. His father Johann Ambrosius was also a musician and a court trumpeter for the Duke of Eisenach, and Director of the musicians in Eisenach (Baroque Music). Bach came from a family with a music talent, with his family members having held positions as organists, Cantors, instrumentalists in Thuringia.
A sinfonia (Italian for symphony) broadly refers to a number of instrumental works from the Baroque period, including symphonies, sonatas, canzonas, concerti, and Italian opera overtures. Even J.S. Bach titles his “three-part” inventions for harpsichord “Sinfonia”. Torelli’s Sinfonia in D (G.8) is a four-movement “concerto” for trumpet, strings and harpsichord continuo. Unlike a concerto grosso, where a main theme is presented and then reappears in fragments, the main themes of Sinfonia in D are developed rather freely. The second movement (Adagio) is a very short, slow, interlude without trumpet that introduces the third movement (Allegro). Hence, the program shows these two movements as “adagio-allegro” joined together.
In the early 1740’s, Bach began work on what many consider to be his most monumental project ever, Art of the Fugue. Bach intended this piece to be an extensive study of “the art of fugal counterpoint,” exploring the possibilities and various outcomes that can be produced by manipulating a single theme (“The Art of the Fugue”). Bach was not commissioned to compose this piece, nor was the idea inspired or suggested to him by anyone else; in creating Art of the Fugue, Bach was “alone in his genius” (Herz, 4-5). The result of Bach’s endeavors was a collection of eighteen fugues, all in the same key, and all based on the same principle theme. This principle theme was modified and transformed into an astonishing number of over twenty different major variations and one hundred minor variations (“The Art of the Fugue”).
The music of the Baroque period was focused on having music be a tool of communication to its listeners; conveying an arousal of emotions. Composers of this time thought to use this tool to have this effect or one similar to it to correctly match music from the Roman time period. One composer that goes by the name of Georg Phillip Telemann. He was a German composer born in 1681, he was known as one of the most prolific composers of the Baroque era, “At the age of just ten years old he was able to play four different instruments and had written arias, motets and instrumental works”(Norton Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, 756). As well as learning many skills at a young age, his fame grew immensely in Germany becoming a very famous composer and was even assigned four times as much space as the famous J.S. Bach in some contemporary dictionaries. Telemann composed in all varieties of forms and styles, from Italian-style concertos to French-style overture suites and quartets. The Sonata in F minor was one of his pieces that was played at the concert. The piece first given appearance in 1728 in a German musical periodical; though it was originally written for a bassoon and continuo the piece was altered by the performers to be played with a bass trombone and piano. One way that an individual could tell it is a piec...
Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the most famous German composers of his time. All of his work was mostly during the baroque era. The baroque period was from 1600 to 1750 and it is known to be one of the most diverse musical periods as opposed to the other classical music eras. It was in this era that “included composer like Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, who pioneered new styles like the concerto and the sonata.”(Classic FM) Johann Sebastian was born in the midst of the Baroque era as he was born on March 31, 1685 in Thuringia, Germany. Johann came from a family of musicians, which is how he himself became one as well. It was his father who showed him how to play his first instrument, which was the violin. His father was also a well-known musician in his town as he “worked as the town musician in Eisenach.”(Johann Sebastian Bach) It is known that Johann Sebastian went to a school that taught him
Bach used time and structure in his work to force his listeners to set themselves inside the narrative. So, while listening, as
Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family of musicians. It was only natural for him to pick up an instrument and excel in it. His father taught him how to play the violin and harpsichord at a very young age. All of Bach’s uncles were professional musicians, one of them; Johann Christoph Bach introduced him to the organ. Bach hit a turning point in his life when both of his parents died at the age of ten years old. Bach’s older brother Johann Christoph Bach took him in and immediately expanded his knowledge in the world of music. He taught him how to play the clavichord and exposed him to great composers at the time. At the age of fourteen, Bach and his good friend George Erdmann were awarded a choral scholarship to the prestigious musical school St. Michael’s in Luneburg. From then on, Bach began to build his career in the music industry. His first two years at the school he sang in the school’s a cappella choir. Historical evidence has shown that Bach at a young age would visit Johanniskirche and would listen to the works of organ player Jasper Johannsen. This was thought to have been the inspiration to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Studying at the prestigious musical school has help Bach network his way around and become acquaintances’ with some of the best organ players at the time such as Georg Böhm, and Johann Adam Reincken. Through his acquaintance with Böhm and Reincken Bach had access to some of the greatest and finest instruments.
Bachs’ full name was Johann Sebastian Bach and he was born on March 21, 1685 in a small town called Eisenach, located in Thuringia, Germany during the Baroque period. Bach was the son of Johann Ambrosius and Maria Elisabeth Lammerhirt and the eighth and youngest child. Bach’s father worked mostly as a director of the musicians in Eisenach while his mother was unemployed. Bach’s mother passed away in 1964 and his father soon followed only eight months later. Bach’s other family was said to have been extremely talented professionals in music and some were church organists, court chamber musicians as well as composers.
Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest composers of music history. Bach was born in Eisenach
Bach was born in 1685 in Germany amongst the turmoil of national reconstruction. He lived a quiet life with little musical influence, until the death of his parents at age ten. After their death, Bach’s older brother, who taught the very young Bach to play clavichord and harpsichord, raised Bach. Now, his life had the musical influence that is associated with Bach’s greatness. At the age of eighteen, he joined an orchestra where he learned to play the violin and organ. During this time the musical genius of Bach began to emerge (Jackson 15).
Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven both flourished in their compositions of classical music; however, their genre of music differed considerably. Bach was a German composer during the Baroque time era of western music which is estimated to have taken place during 1600 to 1750. It was during this time that he composed prolific church organ music which included such works as the Mass in B Minor, much scared choral music, and the St. Matthew Passion, as well as composing over a thousand works in nearly every musical genre except opera. On the other hand, Beethoven was a German composer whom began to emerge during the classical era of western music twenty years after Bach. This era took place throughout the years1750 and 1830. The large quantity of arrangements, over two hundred works in numerous musical genres composed by Beethoven was significantly influenced by his predecessors, onset of deafness, and his highly personal expression of intellectual depth. Such works include the first an...
Getzinger, Donna. Johnann Sebastian Bach and the art of baroque music. 1st ed. Greensboro: Morgan Reynolds, 2004
To begin to understand the nature of a piece, such as the “Prelude and Fugue in A Minor,” one must first understand Bach and the influences upon him. Before his knowledge on the fugue became famous and was used to educate future fugue composers, Bach was born into the Baroque era. He was constantly surrounded by war, chaos, and a strong urge for forward movement in religion, science, and art. The world had been through struggles over land, a movement to explore a new world, and people being executed under the pretense of being witches. The effects rang clear and true through all the people who lived in this era, including Bach. This chaotic world, along with the great influence from the exposure to the music of other parts of Germany, Italy, and France, produced a perfect climate for Bach’s brilliance.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach, in the region of Thuringia, Germany, in 1685. He was a composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach was born in a family of long musical tradition as his antecessors had been professional musicians for several generations. Johann Sebastian grew under a strictly musical environment. All of his closest relatives were musicians, and by being surrounded by these influences, the young Johann Sebastian developed his musical and instrumental skills. Bach 's mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. Thus, at age 10, he had to move in with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach , who was an organist
“Music” as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is “vocal or instrumental sounds combined in such a way as to produce the beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” Emotion, and the treatment of emotion, is indubitably an important aspect of music from all eras, but the manner in which emotion is expressed, has changed over time. Throughout the Baroque period (c. 1600 – 1750) musicians attempted to cause a specific extreme emotion in the listener, while during the Classical period (c. 1750-1825) composers sought to produce a balance of emotions. Due to philosophical and artistic movements that occurred, emotion, a critical element of music, was conveyed differently between the Baroque and Classical periods.