Posted on 03/21/2005 7:24:25 AM PST by Pyro7480
The Old Master
By James Bartel
With his first wife Maria Barbara, his soulmate as history tells us, Sebastian Bach fathered seven children. The first child was a daughter, Catharina. A pair of twins died within days. The final son died within a year. Months later, Maria Barbara succumbed to disease.
Bach was then 35 and engaged in the full awakening of his genius. His workload was Herculean and mounting, and now there were five children at home without a mother, the oldest being 12. Staggered by grief, Bach shouldered on. Hear the Old Master speak: "I was obliged to work hard; whoever works equally hard will succeed equally well."
I am hardly alone by observing that in ways indescribable, this forward-moving stoicism exists in Bach's music. To cite only one of countless examples, the strength of one instrument standing alone in the Cello Suites is daunting.
He would not marry again for nearly two years. Anna Magdalena was much younger, and a capable musician. During the next two decades she gave birth to thirteen of Bach's children, six of whom survived childhood. The Old Master taught every child music, except one. "Just practice diligently," he used to say, "and it will go very well. You have five fingers on each hand just as healthy as mine." But learning by rote was not Bach's idea of learning at all. His son Carl Philipp Emanuel reported that as a teacher his father "required the invention of ideas from the very beginning."
The one child not taught was Gottfried Heinrich, the first son of Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena, following a daughter who died at three. Heinrich was said to have possessed musical instincts worthy even of his father, but was also, as best determined, autistic. The story goes that Bach used to take Heinrich with him to Sunday services at St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig. As his father carried out the music, Heinrich would rock in the pew.
Bach was no brooding, solitary genius, but a man buoyant in the tide of society. In one day he might teach Latin to schoolboys, compose several pages of a sacred cantata, conduct music at a funeral, teach organ to a private pupil, play violin with his ensemble at a coffeehouse, and end the evening with his wife and children and a glass of wine, Rhenish was a favorite. Still, the volume of work that Bach turned out is regarded as a tremendous achievement to rival Shakespeare's, though one-third of it was lost.
What is so profoundly wonderful about Bach's music? For one thing, it is of the people, maybe for its thorough grounding in humanity. There are no stupendous leaps. No miracle transformations. Instead, it is all so human, painstakingly hammered into place. It is of the highest art, yet seems almost within our grasp, if only we strive. Ask a Bach loving musician and you will hear that the Old Master carries through on his promise. Hard work and diligence pays off.
"On the surface Bach's music is intriguing, the tunes are tuneful," says Daniel Abraham, who is no stranger to Bachian hard work, as conductor of the Bach Sinfonia. "But then if you start to dwell into the depth I think that's another level of appeal that those who really love Bach start to discover very quickly." Abraham notes Bach's "symmetry of gesture," and says it is no coincidence that Bach lovers often work in the arenas of mathematics, engineering and aerospace.
Then isn't it fitting and right that the first music launched into space, when Voyager 2 carried a gold-plated 90-minute record on its exploration mission to Pluto, should be the Old Master's music, including a movement from Partita No.3 for Solo Violin, known among Bach lovers as a luminous work of relaxation and pleasure following the completion by this most humane man of superhuman ventures. Hear the Old Master this milestone year of his death: "Everything has to be possible."
Great composer & great man.
Bach is my favorite.
Ping on the 320th birthday of J.S. Bach...
I guess today's iPod selection will be the Brandenburg Concertos...
Not only did he compose a lot of wonderful music but he helped standardize piano tuning. Thus to some extent what everyone in the world hears as "in tune" (excpet for some non-western musical traditions, like North Indian) is a reflection of his work. That's a lot of impact.
I'm listening to #6 as I type this (Sir Neville Marriner directing the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields). I think it is the most "contrapuntal" of the Brandenburg Concertos. All six are great.
That's why you don't hit a famous composer. He might hit you Bach.
...and he doesn't look a day over 179.
; )
As a Mozart fanatic, Father Bach is the only composer IMHO who even approaches Wolfgang's genius. He was a great influence on young Mozart, and with VERY good reason. Happy birthday Mr. Bach!
I'm partial to the fugue.
Tony, this should be a Lutheran ping.
My favorite classical composer, bar none. His chorales and fugues are absolutely brilliant. Especially when performed by good choirs. Happy Birthday, J.S. You sent the right tone for all future composers.
Compare his masterpieces with the garbage which we are subject to now blasting on many FM stations, and it makes you want to throw up.
I wondered how long it would take before someone clued in. :)
In those days, composers like Joseph Haydn were far better-known, mostly because his music reached a wide audience.
Skid Row sucked, no wait, wrong Bach.
That is very arguable. While Mozart was gifted, his talent was also immature. Young Mozart has many of the characteristics of young Bach, which while quite good became significantly more refined with age.
IMO, Mozart is over-rated as his body of work currently stands. I think he would have been a spectacularly good composer had he lived another decade or so but we'll never know. Bach, on the other hand, was a true seasoned master of his craft with skill and judgement that few great musicians in history ever had. A statement that Mozart was better at this craft is mostly speculation; when it comes down to the actual works, Bach was the better man.
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