Chicago Semester

A Short Walk with Bach

Posted by Erik Nussbaum in Around Town in CS Seminars in Staff Stories | Mar 24, 2011

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, and was baptized in a church in Eisenach, Germany two days later. His family tree is the largest in music history. Seventy-six (fifty-three named Johann!) of his male relatives were musicians! Luckily, they didn’t all play trombones.

When he was twenty, Bach was given four weeks of travel leave from his very first job as organist/choirmaster in a small church, to hear a great organist by the name of Buxtehude give a concert. He set out on foot for the 200 mile journey. Music is a bit more accessible now. How far would you be willing to go to experience something vital to your life?

Bach was immersed in music his entire life. He produced nearly 1,200 musical works. Simple pieces, like the Two-part Inventions, were written for his children (his family had 10) in order to train the hands to play independently at a keyboard instrument. Bach was a gifted organist, and composed for that instrument throughout his life. He could play and understood all of the instruments, and composed liturgical music for his church choir and players in the form of cantatas for every season. He composed large works for choir, soloists, and orchestra which are monuments of his Christian faith, testaments to musical learning, and deeply, spiritually beautiful works of art filled with symbolic numerology. These are the Passions based on Matthew and John, and the great B-minor Mass. Hardly any of this music was published during his lifetime, nor did he expect it to be. He wrote music for a purpose, as a professional, fulfilling his duty as was required of a church musician during the Baroque era. The constant necessity to have new music presented each Sunday in church, coupled with a vast knowledge and skill of his subject of course, allowed Bach an ever-present source and place to practice what he loved. How amazing to hear a world premiere every Sunday in church!  What a true gift to God.

Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, who was a good singer and keyboard player in her own right, learned to copy Bach’s manuscripts so well that it’s difficult to tell the difference! Mariane Ziegler, a poet who had published three books, gave words to Bach for several works. Women were allowed no public role in creating or performing music, so despite being regarded during his time as old fashioned, Bach was really ahead of his time in his regard for talented women.

Soli Deo Gloria. “To God be the Glory” is what Bach signed at the end of his compositions. His music is much closer to the heavens than you think. The two Voyager satellites launched in 1977 contain three Bach pieces along with special record playing equipment!

~Erik Nussbaum, Chicago Semester Arts and the City Instructor

Works Consulted:

Lives of the Musicians, Good Times, Bad Times (And What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull

Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys:  Music History As It Ought To Be Taught by David W. Barber