(1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach - the great German composer XVIII century. More than two hundred and fifty years have passed since Bach's death, and interest in his music is growing. During his lifetime, the composer did not receive the recognition he deserved.
Interest in Bach's music arose almost a hundred years after his death: in 1829, under the direction of the German composer Mendelssohn, it was publicly performed greatest work Bach - "St. Matthew Passion". For the first time - in Germany - it was published full meeting Bach's works. And musicians all over the world play Bach’s music, marveling at its beauty and inspiration, skill and perfection. “Not a stream! “The sea should be his name,” said about Bach the great Beethoven.
Bach's ancestors have long been famous for their musicality. It is known that the composer’s great-great-grandfather, a baker by profession, played the zither. Flutists, trumpeters, organists, and violinists came from the Bach family. Eventually, every musician in Germany began to be called Bach and every Bach a musician. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 in the small German town of Eisenach. He received his first violin skills from his father, a violinist and city musician. The boy had an excellent voice (soprano) and sang in the city school choir. Nobody doubted him future profession: little Bach was supposed to become a musician. The nine-year-old child was left an orphan. His elder brother, who served as a church organist in the city of Ohrdruf, became his teacher. The brother sent the boy to a gymnasium and continued to teach music. But he was an insensitive musician. Classes were monotonous and boring. For an inquisitive ten-year-old boy, it was painful. Therefore, he strived for self-education. Having learned that his brother kept a notebook with works of famous composers in a locked closet, the boy secretly took out this notebook at night and copied the notes at moonlight. This tedious work lasted for six months and severely damaged the future composer’s vision. And imagine the child’s disappointment when his brother caught him one day doing this and took away the already copied notes.
At the age of fifteen, Johann Sebastian decided to start an independent life and moved to Lüneburg. In 1703, he graduated from high school and received the right to enter the university. But Bach did not have to use this right, since he needed to earn a living.
During his life, Bach moved from city to city several times, changing his place of work. Almost every time the reason turned out to be the same - unsatisfactory working conditions, a humiliating, dependent position. But no matter how unfavorable the situation was, the desire for new knowledge and improvement never left him. With tireless energy he constantly studied the music of not only German, but also Italian and French composers. Bach did not miss the opportunity to personally meet outstanding musicians and study their manner of performance. One day, having no money for the trip, young Bach went to another city on foot to listen to the famous organist Buxtehude play.
The composer also unswervingly defended his attitude to creativity, his views on music. Contrary to the admiration of court society for foreign music, Bach studied with special love and widely used German folk songs and dances in his works. Having an excellent knowledge of the music of composers from other countries, he did not blindly imitate them. Extensive and deep knowledge helped him improve and polish his compositional skills.
Sebastian Bach's talent was not limited to this area. He was the best organ and harpsichord player among his contemporaries. And if Bach did not receive recognition as a composer during his lifetime, his skill in improvisations at the organ was unsurpassed. Even his rivals were forced to admit this.
They say that Bach was invited to Dresden to participate in a competition with the then famous French organist and harpsichordist Louis Marchand. The day before, a preliminary acquaintance of the musicians took place; both of them played the harpsichord. That same night, Marchand hastily left, thereby recognizing Bach's undeniable superiority. Another time, in the city of Kassel, Bach amazed his listeners by performing a solo on the organ pedal. Such success did not go to Bach’s head; he always remained a very modest and hardworking person. When asked how he achieved such perfection, the composer replied: “I had to study hard, whoever is just as diligent will achieve the same.”
From 1708 Bach settled in Weimar. Here he served as court musician and city organist. During the Weimar period, the composer created his best organ works. Among them are the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the famous Passacaglia in C minor. These works are significant and deep in content, grandiose in scale.
In 1717, Bach and his family moved to Köthen. There was no organ at the court of the Prince of Köthen, where he was invited. Bach wrote mainly keyboard and orchestral music. The composer's duties included leading a small orchestra, accompanying the prince's singing and entertaining him by playing the harpsichord. Coping with his duties without difficulty, Bach did everything free time gave to creativity. The works for clavier created at this time represent the second peak in his work after organ works. In Köthen, two- and three-voice inventions were written (Bach called three-voice inventions “sinphonies”). The composer intended these plays for classes with his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. Pedagogical goals also guided Bach when creating the “French” and “English” suites. In Köthen, Bach also completed 24 preludes and fugues, which made up the first volume of a large work entitled “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” During the same period, the famous “Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue” in D minor was written.
Nowadays, Bach's inventions and suites have become mandatory pieces in programs music schools, and the preludes and fugues of “The Well-Tempered Clavier” - in schools and conservatories. Intended by the composer for pedagogical purposes, these works are also of interest to a mature musician. Therefore, Bach’s pieces for the clavier, starting with the relatively easy inventions and ending with the most complex “Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue,” can be heard at concerts and on the radio performed by the best pianists peace.
From Köthen in 1723, Bach moved to Leipzig, where he remained until the end of his life. Here he took the position of cantor (choir director) of the singing school at the Church of St. Thomas. Bach was obliged to serve the main churches of the city with the help of the school and be responsible for the condition and quality of church music. He had to accept embarrassing conditions for himself. Along with the duties of a teacher, educator and composer, there were also the following instructions: “Do not leave the city without the permission of the burgomaster.” As before, it was limited to creative possibilities. Bach had to compose music for the church that would “not be too long, and also ... opera-like, but that would arouse reverence in the listeners.” But Bach, as always, sacrificing a lot, never gave up the main thing - his artistic convictions. Throughout his life, he created works that were amazing in their deep content and inner richness.
So it was this time. In Leipzig, Bach created his best vocal and instrumental compositions: most of the cantatas (in total, Bach wrote about 250 cantatas), “John Passion”, “Matthew Passion”, Mass in B minor. “Passion”, or “passion” according to John and Matthew, is a narrative about the suffering and death of Jesus Christ as described by the evangelists John and Matthew. The Mass is close in content to the Passion. In the past, both the Mass and the Passion were choral hymns in the Catholic Church. For Bach, these works go far beyond church service. Bach's Mass and Passion are monumental works concert character. They are performed by soloists, choir, orchestra, and organ. In terms of their artistic significance, the cantatas, “Passion” and Mass represent the third, highest peak of the composer’s work.
The church authorities were clearly dissatisfied with Bach's music. As in previous years, they found her too bright, colorful, and humane. And indeed, Bach’s music did not respond to, but rather contradicted, the strict church environment, the mood of detachment from everything earthly. Along with major vocal and instrumental works, Bach continued to write music for the clavier. Almost at the same time as the Mass, the famous “Italian Concerto” was written. Bach later completed the second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, which included 24 new preludes and fugues.
Besides the huge creative work and services at the church school, Bach took an active part in the activities of the “Music College” of the city. It was a society of music lovers that organized concerts of secular rather than church music for city residents. Bach performed with great success in concerts of the Musical College as a soloist and conductor. He wrote many orchestral, clavier and vocal works of a secular nature especially for the society’s concerts. But Bach's main job - the head of a school of singers - brought him nothing but grief and trouble. The funds allocated by the church for the school were negligible, and the singing boys were hungry and poorly dressed. Their level was also low musical abilities. Singers were often recruited without regard for Bach's opinion. The school orchestra was more than modest: four trumpets and four violins!
All requests for help for the school, submitted by Bach to the city authorities, remained unheeded. The cantor had to answer for everything.
The only joy was still creativity and family. The grown sons - Wilhelm Friedemann, Philip Emmanuel, Johann Christian - turned out to be talented musicians. During their father's lifetime they became famous composers. Anna Magdalena Bach, the composer's second wife, was distinguished by her great musicality. She had excellent hearing and a beautiful, strong soprano voice. She sang well and eldest daughter Bach. Bach composed vocal and instrumental ensembles for his family.
The last years of the composer's life were darkened serious illness eye. After an unsuccessful operation, Bach became blind. But even then he continued to compose, dictating his works for recording. Bach's death went almost unnoticed by the music community. They soon forgot about him. The fate of Bach's wife and youngest daughter was sad. Anna Magdalena died ten years later in a poor house. The youngest daughter Regina eked out a miserable existence. IN last years Beethoven helped her in her difficult life.
Johann Sebastian Bach is the most remarkable member of the famous musical family Bach and one of the greatest composers of all times. He was born on March 31, 1685 in Eisenach, and died on July 28, 1750 in Leipzig.
Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach. Artist E. G. Haussmann, 1748
Having lost his father, Johann Ambrose Bach (1645 - 1695), at the age of 10, Johann Sebastian was placed in the care of his older brother Johann Christoph, an organist in the city of Ohrdruf (Thuringia), who laid the foundation for his music lessons. After the death of his brother, 14-year-old Johann Sebastian went to Lüneburg, where he entered the gymnasium choir as a treble singer and received a higher education. school education. From here he often traveled to Hamburg to get acquainted with the playing of organist Reincken, as well as Celle, and listen to the famous court chapel. In 1703, Bach became a violinist at the court chapel in Weimar. In 1704 he became an organist in Arnstadt, from where in 1705 he went to Lübeck to listen to and study with the famous organist Buchstegude. In 1707 Johann Sebastian became an organist in Mühlhausen, in 1708 - court organist and chamber musician in Weimar, a position he held until 1717.
Bach. Best works
This year, Bach met in Dresden with the famous French pianist Marchand, who was so impressed by his playing that he suddenly left, avoiding the musical competition offered to him. In the same year, Bach became court conductor for the Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, and in 1723 he received the vacant position of cantor at the school of St. Thomas in Leipzig, which he held until his death. Apart from occasional trips to Dresden after his appointment as Saxon-Weissenfels Kapellmeister and a visit to Berlin (1747), where he was received with honor by Frederick the Great, Bach lived in Leipzig in complete solitude, devoting himself entirely to service, family and students. His most significant works arose here, for the most part (especially spiritual cantatas) thanks to his official duties. In old age he had the misfortune of going blind.
Johann Sebastian Bach. Life and art
Johann Sebastian Bach was not only a brilliant composer, but also one of greatest performers on piano and organ. His contemporaries admired his last quality most of all, while full recognition his outstanding compositional activity fell to the lot of later generations.
Bach was married twice: first time to his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, daughter of Johann Michael Bach, who died in 1720, and then (from 1721) Anna Magdalene, daughter of the chamber musician Wülken in Weissenfels, who survived her husband. Bach left behind 6 sons and 4 daughters; 5 more sons and 5 daughters died before his death.
Much has come from the Bach school famous musicians. Among them, the first place is occupied by his four sons, who made a significant name for themselves in the history of music, or at least occupied a prominent position in their time. musical world.
For information about the composer’s works, see the article Bach’s Works – Briefly. Biographies of other great musicians - see in the “More on the topic...” block below the text of the article.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH – THE CHOSEN ONE OF MUSIC
The surname Bach and the word “musician” were synonymous in Germany for several centuries, because this ancient family gave the world 56 musicians, but only in the fifth generation was born the one who was destined to glorify the surname -. His biographer later wrote that Johann's work radiated such bright light that its reflection fell on all representatives of the family. This man became the pride of his fatherland; it seemed as if the art of music itself patronized him. However, during the life of the great composer he could hardly be considered the chosen one of fate.
Influenced by brother
At first sight life path Johann Sebastian Bach may seem no different from the biographies of other German musicians who lived in XVII-XVIII centuries. He was born in 1685 in the small town of Eisenach in Thuringia. Bach was orphaned early - he was only 9 years old when his mother died, and a year later his father. He was taken in by his older brother Johann Christoph, who was an organist in a neighboring town. First Johann Sebastian 
He studied music under the guidance of his brother and school cantors; he later moved to the Lower Saxon city of Lüneburg, where he attended a church school. He mastered the technique of playing the harpsichord, violin, viola, organ; in addition, Johann Sebastian was a singer in the choir, and later became an assistant cantor after a voice mutation.
Already in his youth, Bach was clearly aware of his vocation in organ music. He constantly studied the art of organ improvisation from the best German masters of that time. Subsequently, these skills will become the basis of his mastery. It is worth adding to this the acquaintance of Johann Sebastian with various genres European music. He participated in concerts of the court chapel of the city of Celle, which was distinguished by its love for French music, visited Lubeck and Hamburg, had the opportunity to study the works of Italian masters in the school library.
Young perfectionist
Johann Sebastian was already a fairly educated and experienced musician after school, but the desire to learn did not leave him throughout his life. He was interested in everything that could expand his professional horizons even a little. Bach's career was characterized by perfectionism and an eternal desire for self-improvement. It was not at all by chance that he occupied this or that position, every level of his musical hierarchy (from organist to cantor) 
earned through perseverance and hard work. And with every step, the practicing musician turned into a composer, whose creative impulses and achievements went far beyond the goals that were set for Bach.
In 1703 he became court musician to Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar. A few months later they started talking about him as a prominent performer. Bach was then invited to Arnstadt to take up the position of church organ caretaker. In the Church of St. Boniface, Johann Sebastian worked with a well-tuned instrument, which expanded his performing and composing capabilities. In Arnstadt he wrote a lot organ works, but over time he had problems communicating with local authorities. Bach was not satisfied with the level of training of choir singers, and local officials showed dissatisfaction with him musical accompaniment choral performance that allegedly confuses the parishioners.
Bach's large family
In Arnstadt, Johann Sebastian fell in love with his cousin Maria. Despite their relationship, the lovers decided to get married, but they 
the family union was short-lived. Maria lived only 36 years, although she gave birth to the composer 7 children. Only four of them survived. Bach's second wife was Anna Magdalena, who was 16 years younger than him. But such an age difference did not prevent Anna from becoming a caring mother for her husband’s already grown-up children. She gave Johann Sebastian 13 more heirs and did an excellent job managing household and was sincerely interested in her husband’s achievements in the musical field.
In search of prospects
When Bach was offered the position of organist in Mühlhausen in 1706, he without a doubt changed his job. The position was profitable and provided Johann Sebastian with clearly greater opportunities than in Arnstadt, but it turned out to be insufficient to contribute to the development of church music, as Bach believed. By this time he had already accumulated an extensive repertoire and, without seeing 
for his own prospects, he wrote a resignation letter to the city magistrate.
A variety of activities awaited Johann Sebastian Bach in the castle church and chapel at the court of Duke Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. In Weimar, the composer managed to complete several of his iconic works - Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Passacaglia in C minor, as well as the famous "Organ Book" - a guide for beginning organists. Bach became famous far beyond the city as an expert in improvisation and the best adviser on organ construction. The Weimar period also dates back to the failed competition between Johann Sebastian and the famous French organist Louis Marchand, which was overgrown with myths and decided to give in to his opponent even before the meeting.
Experience of Weimar and Köthen
The composer's dream of regularly writing church music came true after his appointment as vice-kapellmeister in 1714. According to the terms of the contract, Bach had to create new works every month. Johann Sebastian was no less active in his role as accompanist. The intense musical life of Weimar gave the composer the opportunity not only to become closely acquainted with European music, but also to create under its influence. He made organ arrangements of concertos, keyboard arrangements by Tomaso Albinoni and Alessandro Marcello.
In Weimar, Bach first turned to the genre of suite and solo violin sonata. The master’s instrumental experiments were not in vain - in 1717 he was invited to Köten and offered 
take the post of Grand Duke's bandmaster. The most favorable creative atmosphere reigned here. Prince Leopold was a passionate music lover and also a musician who played the viol and harpsichord and had extraordinary vocal abilities. Johann Sebastian was supposed to accompany the prince's singing and playing, but his main responsibility was to lead the chapel orchestra. Here the composer's creative interests moved to the instrumental sphere. In Köthen he wrote orchestral suites, concertos, and sonatas for violin and cello. There he continued his teaching work and created compositions, as he said, for musical youth who strive to learn. The first among them is “The Music Book of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.” He began it in 1720 for his first-born son and future composer. In addition to arrangements of chorales and dance miniatures, it contains prototypes of the “Well-Tempered Clavier” and two and three-voice “Inventions”. In a couple of years he will complete these meetings.
Simultaneously with the annual increase in the number of Bach's students, his teaching repertoire was also replenished. This legacy of Johann Sebastian became a school of performing skills for many generations of musicians.
The end of Bach's wanderings
With a wealth of experience and an enviable repertoire, Bach took another step higher in his career and became music director of Leipzig and cantor of the school of St. Thomas. 
This city became the last point on the map of Bach's wanderings. Here he reached the top of the service hierarchy. While the magistrate allocated funding for the creation of liturgical music, Johann Sebastian's energy as a cantor knew no bounds. He attracted experienced professional musicians to perform. His Leipzig work combined the knowledge and skills acquired in Weimar and Köthen. He created cantatas weekly and wrote more than one and a half hundred of them, at the same time he composed two of his own famous works on the theme of the Gospel - “The Passion according to John” and “The Passion according to Matthew”. In total, he wrote four or five passions, but only these have been fully preserved to this day.
In Leipzig, the composer again took on the duties of bandmaster and headed the student “Musical Commonwealth”. With this group, Bach gave weekly concerts for secular audiences, making an invaluable contribution to musical life cities. Researchers believe that it was in Leipzig that a special type of piano concerto by Johann Sebastian arose. These were, in modern terminology, remixes - adaptations of his own concertos for violin or violin and oboe.
Unforgotten genius
In 1747, Johann Sebastian was invited to visit the royal residence in Potsdam to improvise on a new musical instrument - the piano. I asked the composer the theme 
Frederick II himself. Inspired by this idea, Bach created the grandiose cycle “Musical Offering,” which is considered an incomparable monument of contrapuntal (polyphonic) art. In parallel with this creation, the composer completed the cycle “The Art of Fugue”, conceived many years ago, which contained all types of canons and counterpoints.
Towards the end of his life, Johann Sebastian lost his sight, and she helped him in his work loving Anna Magdalena. His name gradually began to be lost in the line of other musicians, but, contrary to popular myth, great composer was not completely forgotten. died 1750. His grave was lost over time and only in 1894 the composer’s remains were accidentally discovered during the reconstruction of the church.
Numerous published and handwritten works by Bach were collected by his students and simple connoisseurs of the composer’s work, because he, like no one else, in a time generous with talent, managed to connect the incompatible, completing the evolution of many genres.
Surname Johann Sebastian Bach translated from German means “stream”. Once using this analogy, he said that “it’s not a stream, but a sea 
there must be a name for him,” meaning the entire scale of the genius’s creativity.
Bach's older brother had a collection of works famous composers of that time, which he hid from Johann Sebastian in a closet with bars. Nine-year-old Bach somehow pulled out at night music collection and under moonlight rewrote it. One day his brother found him, took the notes and sent him to bed. In tears, Johann Sebastian shouted that he himself would write such music or even better. Time has shown that the boy kept his promise.
Updated: April 7, 2019 by: Elena
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – great German composer, bandmaster, virtuoso organist. More than two centuries have passed since his death, and interest in his written works does not fade. According to the New York Times, a ranking of world composers who created masterpieces that stand above time was compiled, and Bach ranks first on this list. His music, as the best that humanity could create, was recorded on the Voyager Golden Record, attached to a spacecraft and launched from Earth into Space in 1977.
Childhood
Johann Sebastian was born on March 31, 1685 in the German town of Eisenach. IN large family He was Bakhov's youngest, eighth child (four of them died in infancy). Since the beginning of the 16th century, their family was famous for its musicality; many of its relatives and ancestors were professionals in music (researchers counted about fifty of them). The composer's great-great-grandfather, Faith Bach, was a baker and played the zither very well (this is a plucked instrument) musical instrument in the form of a box).
The boy's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, played the violin in the Eisenach church and worked as a court accompanist (in this position he organized social concerts). The elder brother, Johann Christoph Bach, served as an organist in the church. From their family came so many trumpeters, organists, violinists and flutists that the surname “Bach” became a common noun; it was the name given to anyone more or less standing musician first in Eisenach, and then throughout Germany.
With such family, it is natural that little Johann Sebastian began to learn music before he learned to speak. He received his first violin lessons from his father and greatly pleased his father with his greed for musical knowledge, diligence and abilities. The boy had an excellent voice (soprano) and, while still very young, was a soloist in the choir of a city school. No one doubted his future profession; Sebastian was bound to become a musician.
When he was nine years old, his mother Elisabeth Lemmerhirt died. A year later, the father also died, but the child was not left alone; his older brother Johann Christoph took him in with him. He was a sedate and respected musician and teacher in the city of Ohrdruf. Together with his students, Johann Christoph taught his younger brother to play church music on the harpsichord.
However, to young Sebastian these activities seemed monotonous, boring and painful. He began to educate himself, especially when he found out that his older brother had a notebook with works in a closed closet. famous composers. At night, young Bach would go into the closet, take out a notebook and copy out the notes in the moonlight.
From such tiring night work, the young man’s eyesight began to deteriorate. What a shame it was when the older brother discovered Sebastian doing this and took away all the notes.
Education
In Ohrdruf, young Bach graduated from high school, where he studied theology, geography, history, physics, and Latin. School teacher advised him to continue his studies at the famous vocal school at St. Michael's Church in the city of Luneburg.
When Sebastian was fifteen years old, he decided that he was already completely independent, and went to Luneburg, walking almost 300 kilometers from Central Germany to the north. Here he went to school and within three years(from 1700 to 1703) was on full board and even received a small stipend. During his studies, he visited Hamburg, Celle, Lubeck, where he became acquainted with creativity modern musicians. At the same time, he tried to create his own works for clavier and organ.
After graduating from vocal school, Sebastian had the right to enter the university, but did not use it because he needed to earn a living.
Creative path
Bach went to Thuringia, where he got a job in the private chapel of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony as a court musician. For six months he played the violin for gentlemen and gained his first popularity as a performer. But to a young musician I wanted to develop, to discover new creative horizons for myself, and not to please the ears of the rich. He went to Arnstadt, 200 kilometers from Weimar, where he began working as a court organist in the Church of St. Boniface. Bach worked only three days a week and still received a fairly high salary.
The church organ was tuned to new system, y young composer a lot of new opportunities appeared, which he took advantage of and wrote about thirty capriccios, suites, cantatas and other organ works. However, three years later, Johann had to leave the city of Arnstadt, as he had tense relations with the authorities. The church authorities did not like his innovative approach to the performance of cult spiritual works. At the same time, the fame of the talented organist spread throughout Germany faster than the wind, and Bach was offered lucrative positions in many German cities.
In 1707, the composer came to Mühlhausen, where he entered service in the Church of St. Blaise. Here he began working part-time as an organ repairman and wrote the festive cantata “The Lord is My King.”
In 1708, he and his family moved to Weimar, where he stayed for a long time as a court composer and organist. It is believed that it was here and during this period that his creative path as a composer of music.
In 1717, Bach left Weimar to become a court conductor in Köthen with Prince Leopold of Anhalt, who appreciated the composer's talent. The prince paid Bach well and gave him complete freedom of action, but he professed Calvinism in religion, which excluded the use of sophisticated music in worship. Therefore, in Köthen, Bach was mainly engaged in writing secular works:
- suites for orchestra;
- six Brandenburg concertos;
- French and English suites for clavier;
- Volume 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier;
- suites for solo cello;
- two-voice and three-voice inventions;
- sonatas;
- three partitas for solo violin.
In 1723, Sebastian moved to Leipzig, where he took a job at the Church of St. Thomas as a choir cantor. Soon he was offered the position of “musical director” of all Leipzig churches. This period creative activity was marked by the writing of the following works:
- "Matthew Passion";
- "Christmas Oratorio";
- "St. John's Passion";
- Mass in B minor;
- "High Mass";
- "Majestic Oratorio".
Throughout his life, the composer wrote more than a thousand works.
Family
In the autumn of 1707, Johann married his second cousin Maria Barbara. Only seven children were born into the family, but three of them died in infancy.
Two of those who survived later became quite famous people in the music world:
- Wilhelm Friedemann, like his father, was an organist and composer, improviser and master of counterpoint.
- Carl Philipp Emmanuel also became a musician, composer, known as the Berlin or Hamburg Bach.
In June 1720, Maria Barbara died suddenly, and Bach was left a widower with four young children.
When the pain from the loss subsided a little, Sebastian again thought about a full-fledged family. He didn’t want to bring a stepmother into the house for his children, but it was already unbearable for him alone. It was during this period that the singer Anna Magdalena Wilke, his daughter, gave concerts in Köthen old friend, court musician in Weissenfeld. Young Anna visited Bach several times and played sweetly with his children. Sebastian hesitated for a long time, but finally proposed to her. Despite the sixteen-year age difference, the girl agreed to become the composer’s wife.
In 1721, Bach and Anna Magdalena got married. His young wife belonged to a musical dynasty and had an amazing voice and hearing. This marriage became happier for the composer than the first. Kind and flexible Anna accepted the children as her own, and was also an excellent housewife. Their house was now always clean and cozy, tasty, noisy and fun. For his beloved, Johann Sebastian created “The Music Book of Anna Magdalena Bach.”
In the evenings, candles were lit in the house, people gathered in the living room, Bach played the violin, and Anna sang. At such moments, crowds of listeners gathered under their windows, who were then allowed into the house to have dinner with the owners. The Bach family was very generous and hospitable.
Thirteen children were born to this marriage, only six of them survived.
Unfortunately, after Johann's death, disagreements began between his children. Everyone left, only two younger daughters remained with Anna Magdalena - Regina Susanna and Johanna Caroline. None of the children provided financial assistance, and the great composer’s wife spent the rest of her life in complete poverty. After her death, she was even buried in an unmarked grave for the poor. Bach's youngest daughter Regina eked out a terrible existence; at the end of her life she was helped by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Last years of life and death
Johann Sebastian lived to be 65 years old. In recent years, his eyesight has deteriorated greatly, which was damaged in his youth. The composer decided to undergo an operation, which was performed on him by British ophthalmologist John Taylor. The doctor's reputation could not be called good, but Sebastian clung to his last hope. However surgery It turned out to be unsuccessful, and Bach became completely blind. However, he did not stop composing; now he dictated his works to his wife or son-in-law.
Ten days before his death, a miracle happened, and Bach’s sight returned, as if to last time I was able to see the faces of my beloved wife and children, the light of the sun.
On July 28, 1750, the great musician’s heart stopped. He was buried in Leipzig in a church cemetery.
Johann Sebastian Bach, an outstanding German composer, one of the most influential composers in history, died on July 28, 1750 - exactly 9 years after the death of Antonio Vivaldi. Bach's creative baggage includes more than 1000 works, among which there are representatives of, perhaps, all genres, in addition to opera.
Biography of Johann Sebastian
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 31, 1685 in the small town of Eisenach. He was the sixth child in the family of the then famous violinist Johann Ambrose Bach. This was a musically gifted family with rich traditions. Among the composer's ancestors there were organists, flutists, violinists, trumpeters, and bandmasters. On his 5th birthday, his father gave Bach his first violin, which the boy very quickly learned to play.
In addition to his talented violin playing, the young Bach was also famous for his magnificent voice, which allowed him to sing in the church choir. However, it is difficult to call his childhood happy, since at the age of nine he lost his mother, and a year later, his father. Until 1700, he lived with his older brother, but when the latter’s own family grew quite large, Sebastian was forced to move out and settle in Lunerbrurg. There he studied at the church choir school.
Bach wanted to go to university after graduating from school, but was forced to postpone this idea because he needed to earn money for food. He got a job as an organist at new church city of Arnstadt, however, due to disagreements with the local environment and authorities, he soon left the city and at the beginning of 1707 moved to Mühlhausen, where he got a job as an organist at the Church of St. Vlasiya.
Composer Bach
In 1708-1717, Bach lived in the city of Weimar, where he not only worked as a local organist, but also received the position of court musician for the Duke of Weimar. At the same time, Bach created many compositions for the organ in such genres as fugues, fantasies, preludes, and toccatas, which would later be considered the pinnacle of organ musical art.
After Weimar, Bach moved to Köthen, where he devoted a lot of time to writing music - mainly orchestral. Much attention He devoted his time to the clavier and was one of the first to compose concert works specifically for this instrument.
The last years of Bach's life
The last period of his life, from 1723 to 1750, Bach lived in Leipzig, where he served as “musical director” of all churches. His responsibilities included supervising the training and work of new musicians and singers, as well as assigning works that were allowed to be performed.
By the end of the 1740s, the composer's health had deteriorated significantly, most of all worrying about the sharp deterioration of his vision. Bach underwent two operations to remove cataracts, but both were unsuccessful and ultimately led to complete blindness. True, this did not stop Bach, and he continued to write, dictating notes to his assistant.
Literally ten days before his death, the composer unexpectedly regained his sight, but within a few hours he was struck down. Despite the titanic efforts of doctors, the great composer died on July 28, 1750.
Came to Bach's funeral great amount of people. He was buried near the Church of St. Tom, where he served for 27 years. In 1894, the composer's body was reburied due to the fact that a road was built at the place of his previous burial.