Johann Sebastian Bach

He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor.

The Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1046–1051, original title: Six Concerts à plusieurs instruments) are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721 (though probably composed earlier).

He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor.

The Mass in B minor (BWV 232) by Johann Sebastian Bach is a musical setting of the complete Ordinary of the Latin Mass.

Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period.

Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, Tomaso Albinoni, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich Schütz, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel.

He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor.

The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, are a work written for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations.

He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor.

The St Matthew Passion (Matthäus-Passion), BWV 244, is a Passion, a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander.

The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach.

The Bach family was of importance in the history of music for nearly two hundred years, with over 50 known musicians and several notable composers, the best-known of whom was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750).

From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music.

Thuringia is also home to prominent German intellectuals and creatives, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Friedrich Schiller, and is location of the University of Jena, the Ilmenau University of Technology, the University of Erfurt, and the Bauhaus University of Weimar.

The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach.

In 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born here.

From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ music.

Compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach printed during his lifetime (1685-1750) include works for keyboard instruments, such as his Clavier-Übung volumes for harpsichord and for organ, and to a lesser extent ensemble music, such as the trio sonata of The Musical Offering, and vocal music, such as a cantata published early in his career.

From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music.

The Art of Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, can be played on a keyboard instrument (harpsichord or organ) or by a string quartet or a string orchestra.

From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music.

Johann Sebastian Bach worked as the city's organist in 1707-08.

Bach's compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular.

As far as is known, Johann Sebastian Bach's earliest surviving cantatas date from 1707, the year he moved to Mühlhausen (although he may have begun composing them at his previous post at Arnstadt).

From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig.

Johann Sebastian Bach held the position of Thomaskantor from 1723 until his death in 1750.

Bach's compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular.

Apart from his hundreds of church cantatas, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote secular cantatas in Weimar, Köthen and Leipzig, for instance for members of the Royal-Polish and Prince-electoral Saxonian family (e.g. Trauer-Ode), or other public or private occasions (e.g. Hunting Cantata). The text of these cantatas was occasionally in dialect (e.g. Peasant Cantata) or in Italian (e.g. Amore traditore). Many of the secular cantatas went lost, but for some of these the text and the occasion are known, for instance when Picander later published their libretto (e.g. BWV Anh. 11–12).

After becoming an orphan at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph Bach, after which he continued his musical development in Lüneburg.

He was the eldest of the brothers of Johann Sebastian Bach who survived childhood.

He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs.

Johann Sebastian Bach's chorale harmonisations, alternatively named four-part chorales, are Lutheran hymn settings that characteristically conform to the following:

He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments.

Organ compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach refers to the compositions in the seventh chapter of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, catalogue of Bach's compositions), or, in the New Bach Edition, the compositions in Series IV.

From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music.

Today, Anhalt-Köthen is mostly remembered as a long-time residence of Johann Sebastian Bach, while he worked for Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen.

He composed Latin church music, Passions, [[List of masses, passions and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach#Oratorios and associated cantatas|oratorios]], and motets.

As Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach provided Passion music for Good Friday services in Leipzig.

He composed Latin church music, Passions, [[List of masses, passions and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach#Oratorios and associated cantatas|oratorios]], and motets.

It is uncertain how many motets Johann Sebastian Bach composed, because some have been lost, and there are some doubtful attributions among the surviving ones associated with him.

From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig.

Johann Sebastian Bach was the most famous Thomaskantor, from 1723 to 1750.

He composed concertos, for instance [[List of orchestral works by Johann Sebastian Bach#Violin concertos (BWV 1041–1043)|for violin]] and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra.

Johann Sebastian Bach's Violin Concertos, BWV 1041–1043, and his six Brandenburg Concertos survive in their original instrumentation.

He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs.

Songs and arias by Johann Sebastian Bach are compositions listed in Chapter 6 of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV 439–524), which also includes the Quodlibet.

Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

In Vienna, Baron Gottfried van Swieten presented house concerts of ancient music in the late 1700s, where Mozart developed his love of music by Bach and Handel.

Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals and websites exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions.

The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV; Bach works catalogue) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.