BACH. – A family of musicians from Thuringia, whose progenitor was Veit (Vitus), born c. 1550 and died in 1619. The most notable among the elder generation was Johann Christoph, born at Arnstadt on 8 December 1642 and died on 31 March 1703, composer of vocal works including a Biblical History and of organ chorales. But the most illustrious member of the family is Johann Sebastian, born at Eisenach on 21 March 1685, died at Leipzig on 28 June 1750, a musician of universal renown.
Left an orphan in childhood, he was guided in his art by his elder brother Johann Christoph, organist at Ohrdruf. In 1703 he served for a few months as court musician, as violinist, in the private chapel of Prince Johann Ernst of Saxony at Weimar, and then became organist in the new church at Arnstadt. In 1707 he accepted the post of organist in the church of St Blasius at Mühlhausen. Frustrated by conservative elements in his efforts to renew church music, he returned the following year to Weimar as court organist and chamber musician to the Duke, greatly improving his financial position. In 1717 he moved to Köthen as Kapellmeister and director of chamber music for Prince Leopold of Anhalt, where he composed, among other works, the six sonatas for violin and the six concertos known as the Brandenburg Concertos, so called because they were written for Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. He left Köthen in the spring of 1723 to go to Leipzig, succeeding Kuhnau as Cantor, that is, director of the St Thomas School and director of music at the university, an office indeed inferior in dignity to that of Kapellmeister. He was probably induced to accept this position by the need to enrol his many grown-up sons at the university. His exceptional merits were not appreciated during his long residence of 27 years in this city, and there were sometimes serious conflicts with the school rectors. He made many journeys, but generally led a quiet and austere family life, devoting more time to teaching. Despite the lack of understanding among the citizens, the musician’s fame spread through Germany, so that he was often visited and honoured by many admirers passing through Leipzig. In his last years his sight failed, and after an operation in the winter of 1749–50 he lost his sight completely.
It is remarkable that a genius of such power should have lacked universal recognition among his contemporaries, who admired him rather as an unrivalled executant—organist and harpsichordist—than as a composer. Fallen into oblivion (though Mozart and Beethoven studied his works), the credit for his revival is due to Mendelssohn, who in 1829 directed in Berlin the St Matthew Passion; from that time began the studies that culminated in the great edition of his music (1851–1900), few of which had been published during the composer’s lifetime, and in the fundamental biography by Philipp Spitta (1873–1880).
Bach is one of the artists who most profoundly expressed the religious sentiment, a truly fundamental element in all his work; this character may be recognised even in his instrumental music, not only in chorales, preludes and fugues for organ, but in the very numerous compositions in which a severe inspiration prevails. He is the sovereign master of the fugue: from the Inventions in 2 and 3 parts to The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue, his supreme mastery in contrapuntal art is displayed. His vocal compositions reveal the most varied and intense qualities of Bach’s art: foremost among them are the sacred cantatas written for every Sunday and feast of five whole years, on texts drawn from the Gospel or from sacred writings elaborated by certain poets, among them Neumeister; about two hundred have come down to us, many of them masterpieces of unequalled expressive felicity. Of the five great Passions in oratorio form only two remain: that according to St John (1723), of prevailingly mystical character, and that according to St Matthew (1729), a superb dramatic conception that in its broad architecture encloses grand scenes and suggestive episodes. Other qualities of Bach’s art are seen in the motets, the three Christmas Oratorios, those of the Ascension and of Easter. Though a Protestant by confession, Bach incorporated elements inspired by the Catholic rite, composing four short Masses, the melodious Magnificat and that great Mass in B minor (1733–34), written for the Catholic court at Dresden, which stands among the loftiest religious conceptions of all time.
Several of Johann Sebastian’s sons became distinguished musicians, not unworthy of their father’s name: the eldest, Wilhelm Friedemann, born at Weimar on 22 November 1710 and died at Berlin on 1 July 1784, had a musical temperament of the first order; he was his father’s favourite, and organist from 1733 to 1746 in the church of St Sophia at Dresden, and until 1764 in that of Our Lady at Halle; he later moved to several German cities, leading a dissolute life contrary to the strict family tradition. Besides organ and instrumental music he composed Heilig for chorus and orchestra and a sacred cantata with symphony.
The second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, known as the Berlin or Hamburg Bach, born at Weimar on 8 March 1714 and died at Hamburg on 14 December 1788, studied at the universities of Leipzig and Frankfurt an der Oder, where he founded a choral school; in 1738 he went to Berlin, and in 1740 became chamber harpsichordist to Frederick II; in 1767 he succeeded Telemann as director of church music at Hamburg. He was a prolific composer, especially skilled in improvisation and in the art of thematic variation: much of his output consists of harpsichord, orchestral and chamber music, and in the religious field he wrote 22 Passions, two oratorios and numerous cantatas, as well as the celebrated theoretical work on harpsichord teaching, Versuch über die wahre Art, das Klavier zu spielen.
The fourth son, Johann Christoph Friedrich, known as the Bach of Bückeburg, born at Leipzig on 21 June 1732 and died at Bückeburg on 26 January 1795, first studied law, then became chamber musician and later Kapellmeister at Bückeburg until his death. Of the three oratorios on texts by Herder that survive, there are The Childhood of Jesus and The Resurrection of Lazarus (both of 1773); we also have the cantata Pygmalion, motets and instrumental music.
Finally, the youngest son, Johann Christian,