Johann Sebastian Bach

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VirginiaHuguenot

Puritanboard Librarian
Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 - July 28, 1750), German Lutheran composer, was one of the greatest composers of all time. He was born in Eisenach, Germany and his birthplace is a museum. His Brandenburg Concertos, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Sleepers Awake, St. Matthew Passion and others are among his greatest contributions to the Baroque Era and the world of music at large. As shown in Mr. Holland's Opus his Notebook For Anna Magdalena Bach, Minuet In G was introduced to the world of rock music by the Toys' A Lover's Concerto.
 
:) I'm listening to BWV 226 at the moment: Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf ["The Spirit doth our weakness help"]. Listening to the cantatas as I look at the texts has become a sort of spiritual discipline for me.
 
Bach is 'da man.
Mozart admitted it, Beethoven did and so did Mendelsohn (among others). When you study music for form, theory, voice leading and harmony, most of the time you are going to find yourself studying Bach's chorales.
 
Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 - July 28, 1750), German Lutheran composer, was one of the greatest composers of all time.
One of?
 
When I visited the Bachhaus, I was the only visitor present at the time and I was nevertheless treated to a wonderful recital on a clavichord. It was a delightful experience but all I could say by way of praise at the time was Danke schoen!
 
Happy Birthday, Johann.

March 21, my wife's birthday, and Thanksgiving are the only formal holidays I celebrate.

Vic
 
Bach and the Brandenburg Concerti

While in the service of the Court of Anhalt Coethen and later the court of Brandenburg, Bach served Calvinist Princes. It was in these that he composed his finest 'secular' works, including the Brandenbrug Concerti. Perhaps Calvinism was artistically liberating for Bach.
 
Originally posted by yeutter
While in the service of the Court of Anhalt Coethen and later the court of Brandenburg, Bach served Calvinist Princes. It was in these that he composed his finest 'secular' works, including the Brandenbrug Concerti. Perhaps Calvinism was artistically liberating for Bach.

I believe this to be true. At the court of Prince Leopold only the psalms were sung exclusively acapella in public worship; but in other settings classical instrumental music was greatly appreciated and encouraged.

Has anyone read My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance and Discipleship in the Music of Bach by Calvin R. Stapert or Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James R. Gaines?

Musical Culture at a Calvinistic Court

The music of J.S.Bach is at present the most popular classical music in the world. The Brazilian Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasilieras is based on it, the Soweto String Quartet of South Africa plays it, Suzuki's Bach Collegium of Japan record it, and Bach choirs and orchestras throughout Europe, Australia and the States perform it. Even Woolworth's stores sell childrens' toys which jingle it.

Yet very few are aware that much of it was composed in a princely court regulated by Calvinistic principles. For six years Bach the Lutheran was employed by Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen, whose chapel worship was confined to psalm singing, but whose household regularly made music to the glory of God.

Later, Bach wistfully reflected on these six years as the happiest in his life. At Cothen, he wrote to a friend, "its gracious prince loved and understood music, so that expected to end my days there. But...it pleased God to call me here [ie Leipzig]."

Let us take a glimpse at this fruitful period, and see if we cannot draw some lessons from it on the providence of God, the Reformed view of culture and Christian character in a godless generation.

Sadly, far too many have imbibed the prejudices of Bach's biographer, C.S.Terry, who paints Leopold's court in the most lurid colours. Bach, he says, "now shook the dust of Weimar from his feet, surrendered the declared object of his life, and divorced his art from the exalted purpose to which he had dedicated it. For the Cothen court was `Reformed', its chapel an unlovely vault in which only stern Calvinistic psalm tunes were heard, an atmosphere which stifled the fullest expression of Bach's art and challenged his most rooted convictions."

The facts, however, speak otherwise. When the music-loving prince offered him the post of orchestral director, Bach accepted immediately. Furthermore, his new patron viewed him as a respected friend and Christian brother, allowing him freedom to worship in the Lutheran chapel which his [the prince' s] mother had founded for the few Lutherans living in Cothen. Leopold attended the baptism of Bach's children, took Bach "into his familiar fellowship," and "insisted on his company whenever he journeyed abroad." (Reginald Poole). Indeed, on his accession to the princedom, he had expressly declared his policy to safeguard his subjects' liberty of conscience. In an age of courtly absolutism and religious intolerance such a symbiosis of classes was rare.

Furthermore, Prince Leopold was no mere cultural dilettante. He played the violin, viola da gamba and clavier with professional skill, and sang a pleasant baritone voice. His court orchestra comprised eighteen well-trained players who constituted a superb body of instrumentalists. Indeed, Bach at Cothen "found himself in command of the best orchestra in Germany." (Karl Schumann).

Some idea of both the prince's and the orchestra's executive proficiency may be gained from the high technical quality of the works he commissioned from his Kappellmeister. Among instrumental items, the solo violin sonatas and partitas and the violoncello suites rank amongst the greatest works written for these instruments. From this period, too, come the beautiful flute sonatas, the four great orchestral suites, the wonderful violin concertos and the six magniflcent Brandenburg concertos. These glorious works not only form a notable testimony to the highest standards required by the prince, but also represent a marked step forward in the exploration of new realms of sound and depths of expression. They are thus a most valuable contribution to the history of music.

Besides such instrumental treasures, Bach at Cothen produced several birthday, New Year's Day and `occasional' cantatas. These are artistic gems. Signiflcantly, and fully consistent with both his own and Leopold's Christian principles, Bach never wrote or produced an opera there.

Besides his court duties Bach was free to teach local students and his own sons. For them he composed the Little Clavier Book; the Two- and Three-Part Inventions, and Book One of the Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues. "They are all born musicians," he wrote of his sons, "and make it possible for me to arrange an ensemble both vocal and instrumental within my own family."

Touching records remain too of Bach's love for his second wife, whom he married eighteen months after the death of Maria Barbara. Able to appreciate his musical greatness, play his simpler keyboard pieces, supplement the family income as a Royal Singer, sing his sacred songs in family worship, copy out his musical scores, mother her four step-children, bear several of her own, and entertain visiting singers and players, Anna Magdalena proved to be a true help-meet for her husband. Bach's appreciative love surfaces in three particular items: a spiritual song he wrote for her based on Paul Gerhardt's `Fret not, my soul, on God rely' ; the famous `Bist du bei mir' ; and a delightful poem penned on the occasion of their wedding.

About his inner spiritual condition Bach was extremely reticent. We may only surmise that a man of his spiritual and moral integrity, surrounded by Reformed and Lutheran influences, continued to bewail his sin, delight in the Saviour and long for death in order to be with Him, as he had done before moving to Cothen and as he was to do after leaving it. All the data points to a contented enjoyment of God's richest blessings. The prayer `Jesus, help' heads his manuscripts, just as the inscription `Solely to the Glory of God' concludes them. The sneering stricture of one enemy, that Bach had "little or no intercourse with books but those of the Holy Scripture" speaks for itself. What Karl Geiringer writes of the period before the death of his first wife applies to his entire stay there (except for the year or more followin his bereavement): "These first years at Cothen were peaceful indeed."

Let us draw some conclusions.

First, all of us should feel constrained to thank our gracious God for providentially granting the world's greatest composer six years in a Calvinistic court. The confluence of two great Reformation streams, the Lutheran and the Reformed, in Prince Leopold's weekly musical exercises beautifully illustrates that unity of the Spirit which transcends denominational barriers. Furthermore, since God has given us all things richly to enjoy, we should be deeply thankful for those masterworks which poured so richly from Bach's spirit during the Cothen years. In an age of stress and anxiety such as ours, the therapeutic value of good music cannot be over-estimated. Luther's dicta still hold good: "Kings and princes ought to maintain music... Music is the best solae for a sad and sorrowful mind; by it the heart is refreshed and settled again in peace.

Second, Bach's Cothen years completely dispel the fiction that Calvinism is anti-cultural. Both in general (Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism and Henry Van Til's Calvinistic Concept of Culture) and in particular (Rookmaaker's Creative Gift and Scholes's Puritans and Music) Calvinism's encouragement of the arts to the glory of God is both Biblically based and historically proven. Such writings as these "stand as a challenge to contemporary theories, and demand an intelligent, thoughtful response." (Jonathan Brentnall). As Prince Leopold proved, it is possible to be both godly and cultured. Calvinism does not flourish in a pietistic ghetto.

Lastly, Bach's time in Cothen shows us that a true, Spirit-wrought faith and character will not be destroyed by Reformed influences. On the contrary, just as it was instrumental in keeping Bach from adopting the fashionable `bourgeois' ideas of the mis-called Age of Enlightenment, so our own Christian-based cultural activity, be it music or painting or literature or any other legitimate art form, may be used by God to keep us from the cult of ugliness and obscenity that holds the cultural fort today.


Dear reader, where would you rather be found: dissipating your God-given energies at some lewd `pop' festival or opera, or quietly drawing refreshment from the serene music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn or Schubert? It was at a Carthage performance of Dido and Aeneas that Augustine was convicted by the Holy Spirit that he wept more over Dido's love for Aeneas than for his own lack of love for God. This was a crucial point in turning him away from all theatricals. fear that many Christians today vicariously experience thejoys and sorrows of both classic tragedy and popular `soaps' rather than rejoice in the Saviour and weep over their sins. May we seek grace in our day, as Bach did in his, to keep ourselves in the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, and to pray with the Psalmist: "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me." (Psa 25.21).

Source

[Edited on 3-21-2006 by VirginiaHuguenot]
 
I believe this to be true. At the court of Prince Leopold only the psalms were sung exclusively acapella in public worship; but in other settings classical instrumental music was greatly appreciated and encouraged.

Has anyone read My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance and Discipleship in the Music of Bach by Calvin R. Stapert or Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James R. Gaines?



[Edited on 3-21-2006 by VirginiaHuguenot]

Cannot open the 'source'.
 

I think if you were to take a poll of all of the composers that are considered 'one of the best', they would unanimously declare Bach to be 'the' best. (Except Josquin de Prez, of course) :lol:
 
I too listened to Bach earlier today. :cheers2:

Happy Birthday, Mr. Bach!
birthday.gif


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDMPtu7vXYw]Minuet in G[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrmzM7yT-9g]The Toys -- Lover's Concerto[/ame]
 
When I visited the Bachhaus, I was the only visitor present at the time and I was nevertheless treated to a wonderful recital on a clavichord. It was a delightful experience but all I could say by way of praise at the time was Danke schoen!

...auf Leipzig oder Eisenach?

Eisenach, ja? I habe nach Eisenach und Leipzig besucht. Es gefällt mir sehr!
 
Nope, but as the article says, his boss definitely was. :D

Yeah - and since he couldn't write beautiful non-Psalmic music to the glory of God, he wrote some of his best secular music while there... oy! :D

Anyway - thanks for posting on the grand kappellmeister! :up:

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Herr Bach!
 
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