Johann Sebastian Bach was a renowned musician. He was born in the year 1685 in Germany. He was raised in a family of musicians and this served to enable him to develop an interest in music. Even if Bash was singing, carried out music composition, and played various instruments, he is better remembered for his work of art on the organ. Among the current population, there is a portion that has a belief that his compositions are the best organ music in history.
His parents died in the same year at the time he was nine years old. This caused him to go and live with his elder brother who was an organ player. There is a belief that Bach probably learned the organ during his stay with this brother of his (Anonymous, Johann Sebastian Bach Biography, not dated). Bach turned out to be an organ player for the Kneue Kirch.
While in school, the cantor at his school was impressed with his voice in singing and decided to sponsor him to join the elite singers of the renowned Michaelis monastery choir at Luneburg. In the course of his stay in Luneburg, he had the opportunity to learn about idioms and musical forms like the Hamburg organ style of playing at the Celle court.
In the year 1702, he left Luneburg to make an application for the job of an organist in his home country, Thuringia in the church of Arnstadt. However, at that time the church had been destroyed by fire. So, while the church was still under reconstruction, Bach was offered employment by Duke Johann, the younger brother of the Duke of Weimar. He was offered employment as a violinist in the chamber orchestra. On top of his job as a violinist, he was as well-appointed as an assistant to the court organist in the year 1703, in July. After the reconstruction of the church being completed, Bach was accepted as the church organist after a remarkable interview.
In the year 1705 in October, he took a leave from his duties at Arnstadt to engage in studying the techniques of the famous composer and organist, Buxtehude in the northern town of Lubeck. He introduced in his playing at Arnstadt, these musical techniques. But the community of Lutheran, which was conservative, was not comfortable with these techniques and requested Bach to commit time towards offering training to the choir boys instead of committing his time carrying out the composition of his new music.
However, Bach had a feeling that his preferences were being twisted towards the other direction and went on carrying out his compositions. There was the compounding of the controversy that surrounded Bach at the time the church council discovered that he had been allowing Maria Barbara, his cousin, into the choir loft as he practiced on the organ. Possibly having a feeling that he is restrained in his current job, he shifted his interest to Mulhausen. Here there was a vacant position of the organist in the St. Blasius church. In the year 1706, towards its end, Bach was once again accepted for his unique talent and commenced his studies at Mulhausen. In October the same year, he married his cousin by the name Barbara Maria Bach with whom they were able to get seven children.
A short time after his marriage, he became an organist for the “Duke of Saxe-Weimar” and he was as well a chamber musician. In the course of the nine years that followed he turned out to be a very famous organ player. Later he changed jobs and his new employer was a person who loved his music so much and he was called Prince Leopold. This new employer, Prince Leopold, was a Calvinist and a musician who was capable. The prince toured Europe over and over again. Following his preference for secular music, as a result of his traveling, the Prince was made proficient in all the secular music fads in Europe that were the latest. It was, thus, at Cothen from where Bach engaged in writing most of his concertos and the music for the harpsichord.
In the year 1720, his wife died. One year thereafter he married another wife by the name of Anna Magdalena and they were able to get thirteen children. Prince Leopold also took a wife but the wife, the new princess, had no interest in music and neither appreciated nor encouraged music. Bach having much concern about taking care of his large family and forecasting that at some point this new princess would turn out to be an obstacle in his career at Cothen, once more Bach sought another place that could be more favorable to his ambitions.
Bach presented an application for a rather prestigious position of music director in the year 1722 of the Thomasschule. He was able to get this job one year later after other two people turned down the job. In the years that followed, he became in great demand to serve as a teacher due to the knowledge as well as skills he had with the organ. He as well commenced on carrying out the publication of his own work. He wrote more than two hundred pieces of music. However, he took much joy in engaging in carrying out studies in music and playing musical instruments rather than in writing music.
In the last year of Bach’s life, he started losing his eyesight. This resulted in two operations being carried out on him to enable him to recover his sight. It is believed that the operations carried out on his eyes could have played a major part in making his life even shorter. Three months after the time the last operation was carried out on him, he died. This was on the twenty-fifth day of July 1749 and at this time he was aged 65 years. His wife died ten years later. She died in abject poverty (Anonymous, Johann Sebastian Bach Biography, not dated).
Reference
Anonymous. Not dated. “Johann Sebastian Bach Biography.” Kidzworld.com, Inc., 2009. Web.