What was bach like

As he never touched on topics connected with his own life, the lack of knowledge on this subject is unavoidable. Several letters of recommendation testify to the great efforts Bach expended to advance the careers of his sons and pupils.

He must have been a loving husband and family man. Bach often drew on well-known dance movements and folk tunes. Surviving documents provide little information on his light-hearted, cheerful side. Bach and his librettist Christian Friedrich Henrici alias Picander employ an unbelievable quantity of irony, esprit and ambiguous wittiness in their lampooning of local circumstances, i. Dancing and free beer rounded off the merry manifestation of loyalty for the new owner of the estate and the perplexed local priest too surely observed the frolicsome goings-on with a somewhat pinched expression.

Your email address will not be published. I have read your privacy policy and agree that you receive, save and utilize my details to be able to answer my query. I can withdraw my permission at any time. A socialite with a great sense of humour? Gaining insight into the personality of Johann Sebastian Bach. No, I haven't seen the flute section, but I will check it out.

How much sex a person enjoys really has little bearing on how creative, or hard-working, or musical he or she is. Or even how many children he or she left behind. In any case, as someone pointed out --if no one has, let me be the first--the fact that J.

Bach had 20 children only shows that he had at least 20 minutes of sex in his married life; heavens, any modern American has that much sex in, well, a year. Even I've had 20 minutes of sex, and I only have one kid, and I haven't composed a thing.

Shouldn't I have composed one-twentieth of Bach's volume of work? That simply proves how relevant this discussion is. And then, what if Bach did have a lot of sex, but hated every minute of it? He was a Lutheran, remember?

The serious question is: did Bach's sexual activity or tendencies impinge on his music? This is a question as meaningful as: If Wagner was infinitely wealthy, would he have been a great philanthropist? Would he have lent a few thaler to Mozart, if Wolfie asked nicely? The answer, by the way, is yes. And another thing. This whole thing of being homosexual. When I was a teen, I thought this question was one of the greatest ideas anyone had ever invented.

Was Napoleon a homosexual? George Washington? John the Baptist? Karl Marx? Joan of Arc? I was convinced that this issue was a veritable Rosetta Stone, and could explicate every eccentricity --and later, every incidence of genius--that had fascinated man forever. And then someone invented Bisexuality, and I realized that people could lust after anything, from their wives and husbands to --a mailbox. And different things on different days.

In the last analysis, looking at a person's sexual desires may be a legitimate way of doing certain things, such as explaining certain literary tendencies of some author and in modern academia, it appears that you can't get away from this kind of thing if you really want that paper published but, to me, it's all uninteresting.

When someone brings up Bach's sexuality, it is uncomfortable to think that any statment that person makes is relative to his or her own sexuality --or at least what that person thinks he would like us to believe about his own sexuality.

Because, make no mistake, we are all anxious about the perception of our sexuality in others. The less said, the better! I'm not much of a prude, but yes, I like to keep discussions of sex restricted to occasions in which it is really useful.

And the crowning glory, the closet asexual! Oh lord. Bach's wives had 20 children. Considering the state of 18 th century biotechnology we may reasonably assume that they totalized at least about 20 minutes of sexual activity. The rest is wildly conjectural. Scientifically most of us got 'here' the same way.

I hope we agree. So I have to sat that while all the speculation and conjecture can be quite humorous, a good share of what Bach wrote had to fall in the case of the Cantatas within the expectations of the formal guidelines of the church.

The less said in relation to the Cantatas about his or the sex lives of others, the better. The details of composition and performance history are much more interesting to me. I am so pleased that each week I can learning something about one Cantata. I used to wonder how I could ever get a picture of these works completely, and now Aryeh and this group have provided an answer to my wish.

I enjoy reading the academic descriptions of the motifs, in particular because for a number of years now I have edited DMA dissertations for students in exchange for my continuing music lessons, and I find these writings informative as they continue to develop me both intellectually and as an editor.

I cannot say how much I appreciate what I get to read from the scholars in the group, and from those who write about the recordings.

This is from a woman's point of view. He quotes the dictum with which he was brought up: Never discuss sex, politics or religion. Since he has no interest in Bach or Wagner, Hell, that doesn't leave much to discuss. However, I think it's also a little silly to argue that Bach fans don't care about Bach the man. I should think for most the opposite is true. East German musicologists a generation back kicked up quite a storm by questioning Bach's religious faith - something that could also be considered irrelevant to the enjoyment of his music.

I'd guess the Bach world would be in a tizzy if we discovered a collection of correspondence between Bach and a friend that extended over many years and contained the kind of idle chatter that was the norm among recreational letter writers of the day. And the twenty children? Is that a simple oddity?

Contraception has been around in one form or another since prehistory. Artificial contraception was, the last I read, probably developed for sale to 17 th century soldiers. In any case, it was available. I should think that fathering 20 kids would argue that Bach liked children and was probably not anti-social.

I suppose that some cynics today might tag Bach with the title of "breeder" or "natalist" - terms of derision in one circle I frequent occasionally. Yet for some reason the idea of the master having kids under-foot throughout most of his adult life not to mention his students makes me like Bach the man.

I just wish we knew more about him. A: His organ had no stops. A: His Organ Baroque! Present day academics and grad students take note. I am persuaded that a person's sexual make-up influences all he or she does, including their artistic creativity. But if you want to understand how and to what effect, rating Bach, Bruckner and Picasso on a Kinsey scale leads nowhere.

Human sexuality is not the same as the birds' and the bees'. It is not a matter of certain bodily parts doing what nature wants them to perform. We are governed not by instinct, but by desire, law, language, fantasy and inhibition. Sexual behavior is just one indicative of what possibly goes on in the person's mind; in no way does it reveal the core of their attitude towards sexuality. Considering this is as important a part of their mental equipment and world view as their attitude towards death no need to explain why both are so intimately linked , one should not be surprised that sexuality is at the center of much investigation.

Desilva goes on again right in my opinion : "In the last analysis, looking at a person's sexual desires [not easily done; they are mostly concealed] may be a legitimate way of doing certain things, such as explaining certain literary tendencies of some author [it is admittedly more difficult with music]".

He is of course free to conclude: "But, to me, it's all uninteresting". Others might feel quite the opposite. Right again with reservations : "When someone brings up Bach's sexuality, it is uncomfortable to think that any statement that person makes is relative to his or her own sexuality [ Why is that "uncomfortable"?

Should not we be prepared to read any statement as an utterance reflecting reality as perceived by one particular person? How can we better our understanding of matters human other than by comparing, sifting, modifying, rectifying subjective utterances? Mr Silva's last word is the only one I strongly disagree with: "The less said, the better! With Bach it is also the enigmatic personality of the man that continues to fascinate us; that 'uncommon' mix of the earthy and the celestial, the plodding day to day grind and the sublime.

However, perhaps now there is a little less mystery than there was a few years ago. One of the pleasures of my later years has been to see scholarship sweep away the Victorian notions of Bach which were foisted upon me in my youth:- the images of the poor, unwanted, unsupported, unappreciated hack, weighed down by the demands of his family and the unreasonableness of his employers.

There is a wonderful counterbalancing line in Wolff where he suggests that, after he had established himself in Leipzig Bach was so powerful as to have been 'virtually ungovernable' I like thatalong with the attendant implications that employers loathe and resent this sort of situation and frequently try to establish their authority in petty and juvenile ways.

Well, having probably had too much to say on list in the last couple of weeks I'll get in first! I am going to join the lurkers at the back of the bar foa while. Mine's a pint of bitter and a packet of nuts No pork scratchings, please! Though I grant that any person is ultimately a mystery, Bach is less of a mystery than, say, Mozart.

Perhaps this is because I was brought up close to a pietistic religious tradition, and familiar with people who were doctrinaire and somewhat inflexible, but at the same time warm and creative and understanding, and even quite passionate. Bach handwriting analysis Kim Patrick Clow wrote February 17, : I can not recall the documentary, but there was a segment where a handwriting expert offered her analysis of Bach's letter where he specifically mentioned his frustrations with the Leipzig town council, and what he desired for the nominal performance ensemble for his Sunday services.

Can anyone recall that documentary or who the German specialist was that offered the analysis. I would like to contact them more directly in regards to their readings of other composers from the periods. Would it be possible to get an insight to a composer's mind set and or personality from their musical scores too? William Rowland Ludwig wrote February 18, : [To Kim Patrick Clow] Judging solely what we know about Bach; he was a very devout religious person who was somewhat an ogre who, in general, was difficult to get along with because he was all business, trying with great frustration, to deal with people who compared to his genius were idiotswho unfortunately for him were wealthy enough to hold him within their powers.

He was polite when needed to be but was no diplomat and that is what led to many of his personality problems with other people and particularly at least one student. His great intellectual powers are unquestionable. His creative powers extended beyond musiche was an inventor not only of musical instruments but other things also.

The great man never wrote an opera, but how many composers have matched the dramatic flair of these last two minutes? I use these gorgeous tunes here as cleansing transition pieces, musical trous normands if you will. You won't want to miss the word painting over Geist erfreun "delighted spirit" with the gorgeous melisma at With the first violins gyrating around the melody with breathless runs of sixteenth notes, the orchestration has a distinct Mozartian feel: further evidence, if any was needed, that Bach anticipates all of classical music.

At , the oboes bow out in deference to the words, Und ihr, ihr andachtsvollen Saiten "And you, you strings of deep devotion". Now how cute is that? Now try to wrap your head around this if you can: in his day, Bach was considered old-fashioned even by his own sons, who couldn't be bothered with his stile antico. A solemn opening adagio segues into a brisker andante at , with the left hand marking the rhythm in eighths.

If the four repeated Gs the dominant of the key , beginning at , do not pierce your musical heart, it may be that you have no such thing. They're a pedal tone over which the left hand plays the descending line Eb-D-C-Bb. This leads to a flatted sixth Ab still in the home key of Cm at that turns the page and signals the approaching end of the Schumann part.

As a bonus, Glenn Gould seems to have forgotten to mutter to himself. Also, you won't want to miss Martha Argerich's masterly take on that last movement. His darkness is deep yet gentle, sad yet sweet. A retooling of the first movement of a cantata bwv 46 that he wrote 25 years earlier, the Qui Tollis of the Bm Mass could have been composed at any time in the last years. Which of Mozart's operas is not timestamped? A distinctive feature is the anxious sequence of throbbing pulses of the bass line with the viola playing two-note successions.

Beginning at the 8th bar , the flutes come in to relieve the weight of perpetually falling thirds. Don't be surprised that the piece ends not on the tonic chord Bm but, in anticipation of the next aria, on its dominant F. The Qui tollis is part of the Gloria and must be fully appreciated in that wider context. Bach never stopped finetuning his monumental Mass, adding enough liturgical material along the way to make it unacceptable to Protestants and Catholics alike.

Like the Art of Fugue, the work recapitulates all of Bach's learning. It is likely that he intended the former as a treatise on the instrumental science of music and the latter, pragmatic considerations aside, as its vocal counterpart. In particular, the Mass is the culmination of all choral music, past and present, to the extent that it features every single idea known to mankind about singing in a group. Bach never heard the Mass performed in full in his lifetime.

Meanwhile the violin solo, Yehudi Menuhin's favorite, weaves its way around it with frequent rhythmic changes. Andreas Scholl, the world's greatest countertenor, shines. There's no describing the heart-rending beauty of this music; so, bowing to Wittgenstein's wisdom, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

At this most solemn juncture of the most solemn hour of the most solemn day of the Christian calendar, what does Bach give us?

A sweet, gentle dance! Only the achingly beautiful motet-like bridge at departs from the basic homophony of the piece, with short canonic phrases and a measure of vocal independence. The whole chorus is structured as a pair of nested palindromes: Iaba-II-Iaba. Bach was big on those. The music dissolves into a chorale of exquisite beauty : Dies mein Herz, mit Leid vermenget… geb ich dir "This my heart, crowded with sorrows… I give to you".

If more grace and tenderness can be captured in a simple melody, I haven't heard it yet. As Jaroslav Pelikan pointed out, Bach's theology was supple and nonsectarian. In any event, the Kyrie and the Gloria of the Bm Mass were part of a job application with the new Elector of Saxony, who being a Catholic would not have looked too kindly to a Passion. Bach thought that a Court appointment would raise his standing with the ruling doofuses of the Leipzig council.

Sadly, crafting one of the crown jewels of Western civilization didn't quite cut it and Bach was turned down—though he did get the job three years later. After three kyrie for the trinity and an eleison "have mercy" , Bach segues into a long five-part fugue. At , the first oboe and the flute introduce the theme. After an interlude, the theme is reintroduced successively by the lines of tenor , alto , soprano , and bass The rest is a typically Bachian fugal development with a staggering number of melodic motifs vying for attention.

Not enough attention is given to recitatives. While Mozart's seem little more than random sequences of notes that try hard not to intrude, Bach's recitatives are extraordinary works of art in and of themselves.

I'll admit to having been slow to grasp this fact, which only repeated exposures to his sacred music made increasingly "obvious. In the key of Em, the organ holds a low droning pedal tone E for five measures The two orchestras play together until the most rousing vocal entry ever heard this side of the Milky Way sees the chorus spell the Em chord in rising thirds and climb up to the root, followed by a brief modulation to E major at the next measure, then right back to the key.

Now you know where Wagner got the idea for his blitz modulations. The melody culminates on a descending line from G to E that is sustained over nearly two measures by the sopranos. Herreweghe rightly highlights this syncopated bass line, which other conductors too often neglect. This is followed by a repeated call-and-response between the two choirs : sehet—WEN?

The ending features an immensely rich counterpoint, perhaps the most complex music ever written. The SMP is a composition over which Bach gushed with pride. I've come to regard the two movements as inseparable, so there it is. The melody on which it is based is also used in the St John Passion.

When nothing happens , they get mad! The piece is in Em but the theme is introduced by the bass starting over Bm and then proceeds along the cycle of fourths tenor over Em, alto over A, soprano over D to end on a G chord, the key's relative major, with the flutes and oboes making their entrance.

The sense of rising anger is amplified by the presence of two choirs. The Picardy third on the final blut minor-to-major modulation caused by the G ends the piece on a note of hope, a common device in liturgical music.

After going through a i-iv-V7 run with A dim7 subbing for the V7 , the voices come in one at a time at the 4th bar —alto, second sopranos, first sopranos, tenor, and bass—to form a 5-voice counterpoint starting at the 8th measure ; during all that time, the continuo holds the root as a pedal note.

The piece ends on an imperfect cadence—the V chord is played in its first inversion, with the bass set to A , the third of the chord and the leading tone of the key. This detail matters because, despite the final Picardy third, it contributes to the weak sense of resolution. Mozart's Requiem was heavily influenced by Handel and the Bach lineage, and it shows.

After Gardiner's, here is Rilling's slower version in modern-era tuning. Bach composed chorales by taking old melodies and making them his own. So did Paul Simon, paring down Bach's chorale to lovely effect. All that Vivaldi study paid off after all… The plaintive quality of the request begins to weaken at as the two choirs lose their unity and go their separate ways over die Kraft verschwindt je mehr und mehr "my strength wanes more and more".

It is striking that each verse beats to a different rhythm. At , a descending diminished seventh interval brings a striking dissonance A Bb C D over the text in Der saure Weg wird mir zu schwer "the bitter path becomes too difficult for me". It's roughly the principle of a mirror fugue, which consists of two "inverted" fugues. Bach uses six mirrors at once, which is nothing short of miraculous.

The result is bouncy carnival-like music of catchy elegance. Just as the motion of the stars does not depend on any telescope, the Art of Fugue is not bound to any particular instrument. There is no evidence that Bach ever intended this material to be performed in public. It's an instructional vehicle. In his last words on the cross, Jesus declares himself done with his work: "It is finished.

The title comes from the word Tetelestai , meaning "Paid in full. Instead of the sink, make this the sins of the world and you get the idea. Unlike most opera writers, Bach treated the voice like any other instrument, sometimes overlooking minor technicalities such as the need of singers to breathe. At , the countertenor holds that C for 13 seconds on Die Trauernacht "woeful night"! The middle part , Der Held aus Juda siegt mit Macht "Judea's hero conquers with might" breaks the tone of despondency.

It features long melismas on kampf and macht to end abruptly with the voice, a highly unusual signoff. No one can touch Andreas Scholl but such is Bach's universal "plasticity" that Marian Anderson's Hollywoodian vollbracht works for me. A technical point. In the second measure, Bach modulates to Em, the fourth of the key Bm.

Instead of just going there, as any rock song would, he first modulates to B major perhaps to set the cadence V7-i and land in the desired Em. But that would be too simple, so Bach does it in two steps: V-iv followed by V7-i. By adding the leading tone D to the mix to resolve to the new root E , he uses a diminished-seventh substitution to produce B-Am-D dim7-Em.

This is modulation of the highest caliber.