Most everyone has heard of Johann Sebastian Bach. They associate MUSIC with his name. Many associate JOY for to Bach, writing and playing music expressed his JOY. A video “The Joy of Bach,” an introduction to Bach’s life and music, is available through most public libraries.
Bach wrote for God. Most of his music is biblical. The famous missionary Dr. Albert Schweitzer called Bach “the fifth evangelist.” Pablo Casals, noted cellist and composer, said, “For the past 80 years I have started each day. . . by playing two Bach preludes and fugues. . . It is a sort of benediction on the house . . . a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with the feeling of incredible marvel of being a human being.”
The Bach family, aunts and uncles and cousins, were known as talented musicians. Bach’s father was a court trumpeter and director of musicians for the Duke of Eisenach.
Bach was born March 21, 1685. He learned to sing and play several instruments at an early age. His life, however, was full of struggles. His brother and sister died when he was young, his mother died when he was 9, and his father when Bach was 10. He went to live with an uncle.
At 18 Bach took first job as organist in the town of Arnstadt. The church leaders then insisted he direct the choir, which lacked musical ability. Bach took this opportunity to break in his newly written innovative choral pieces. However, the singers couldn’t grasp them, and Bach became impatient with the choir. He’s known to have called a choir member a “nanny-goat bassoonist” in a street fight.
So Bach moved to Mühlhausen to be church organist. A fire had destroyed a quarter of the town. Again troubles erupted. The church leaders demanded simple music, not Bach’s ornate chorales. Bach argued he created “well-regulated church music to the glory of God,” and moved on. While there, Bach wrote his only published cantata during his life time: “Gott ist mein Konig” (God is my King).
On October 7, 1707, Bach married his cousin Maria Barbara. He found a job of providing music for the Duke of Weimar and its 5,000 town inhabitants. Bach wrote profusely, producing a new cantata every month, thus the years in Weimar are considered “his cantata years.” For three years, Bach accomplished the self-set task of preparing a different cantata for each Sunday. He not only created the music but copied it and rehearsed it with the choir members. And this was prior to the Xerox machine.
When he moved to another musical position in Capellmeister, the duke had Bach jailed for a month because Bach had violated a part of his job contract. During this time Bach wrote a year’s cycle of organ chorale preludes. Finally he was released to move on to Leipzig, Germany, as its music director.
Bach’s wife died, leaving him to raise the four living children of their original seven.
In December of 1721, he married Anna Magdalena, a soprano soloist. She bore him 13 children, many of which were lost to childhood illnesses. She sang and copied his compositions.
Bach’s eyesight failed in his latter years. Still in a darkened room, he wrote his most creative works such as Mass in b minor and the Goldberg Variations.
Then on July 28, 1750, he awoke to see perfectly in bright light. Later that day he suffered a stroke and died.
After his death Bach was obscure for a century until Felix Mendelssohn rediscovered his compositions.
Jesu, Joy of Mans' Desiring by J. S. Bach