Print“For the benefit and use of musical young persons with a desire to learn, and also composed in this studio for those already skilled for their special pastime.”
It is the year 1722 when the 37-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach writes these words on the title page of a composition that is still today regarded as one of his most important works: the “Well-Tempered Clavier”. The work is intended as a contribution to the musical education of his 20 children, but the master of baroque music creates the transition into a new époque with his extraordinary composition. He in fact opened the door with his composition to the era of “classical music”. Whereas it was not at all usual in the baroque age to lay down strict instructions, in the “Well-Tempered Clavier” Bach starts to create a new order in music and to open up hitherto unsuspected possibilities in composition.
For experts Bach is the genius of the millennium, but in his lifetime his creative output did not meet with very much respect.
Milestones in music: from Johann Sebastian Bach to Kraftwerk
 |
He was born in Eisenach in 1685, and first moved to the Lyceum in Ohrdruf, then to Lüneburg for training in singing and playing the organ. He completed his education at the organ in Celle and Hamburg, and at the age of 18 became the organist in Arnstadt. Here he falls into dispute with untalented “silly bassoonists” and moves away to Mühlhausen, where at the age of 22 he marries his cousin Maria Barbara. Seven children are the outcome of this marriage. Some ten years later Bach becomes the court musical director (“Hofkapellmeister”) in Köthen, where, after the death of his first wife, he marries Anna Magdalena Wülken, 16 years his junior, who is to present him over the years with 13 more children. After another six years, in 1723, he finally moves to Leipzig and works there as organist and choirmaster (“Kantor”) until his death in 1750.
An unusual mixture of creativity, precision and discipline is the essential feature of Bach’s genius, which unfold in an unbridled joy in playing music and a life’s work with an immense wealth of form.
Bach is a virtuoso on the organ and the harpsichord, skilled on the violin and the viola, and a master of improvisation. He composes almost without interruption: fugues, cantatas, passions – with the exception of the opera he creates masterpieces in every musical genre that was customary in his day. There are more than 1,000 works in the authoritative Bach Masterpieces catalogue, despite the fact that many of his earlier works have to be regarded as lost forever.
An unusual mixture of creativity, precision and discipline is the essential feature of Bach’s genius, which unfold in an unbridled joy in playing music and a life’s work with an immense wealth of form.
Bach is a virtuoso on the organ and the harpsichord, skilled on the violin and the viola, and a master of improvisation. He composes almost without interruption: fugues, cantatas, passions – with the exception of the opera he creates masterpieces in every musical genre that was customary in his day. There are more than 1,000 works in the authoritative Bach Masterpieces catalogue, despite the fact that many of his earlier works have to be regarded as lost forever.
Innumerable musicians have dealt intensively with his works in subsequent centuries. Many later composers were inspired by Bach. Ludwig van Beethoven was so excited by the “Well-Tempered Clavier” that he transfered the new composition possibilities into symphonic form. Johannes Brahms invoked Bach, and Felix Mendelssohn arranged, in 1829, for a performance of his “St Matthew Passion”, thus ushering in a veritable Bach euphoria.
“Bach is the beginning and end of all music,” says the composer Max Reger. “We are all bungling amateurs in comparison with him,” says the famous Robert Schumann. And Keith Jarrett, one of the most significant jazz pianists of our day and age, praises Bach with the words, “This music doesn’t need any help from me.”
Bach, however, is only one of the great German composers. The list is a long one: Georg Friedrich Händel, Bach’s contemporary and, in his own day, far more famous, is one of the great composers, alongside Ludwig van Beethoven, the creator of the Ninth Symphony which is now the “European National Anthem”. The unconventional pianist Johannes Brahms, the child prodigy Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Richard Wagner, who created a whole new operatic form, and Anton Bruckner, who brought Wagner’s music into the concert hall, continue this list. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who played a crucial role in the development of electronic music, and not to forget the band “Kraftwerk”, are examples of this living tradition.
“Bach is the beginning and end of all music,” says the composer Max Reger. “We are all bungling amateurs in comparison with him,” says the famous Robert Schumann. And Keith Jarrett, one of the most significant jazz pianists of our day and age, praises Bach with the words, “This music doesn’t need any help from me.”
Bach, however, is only one of the great German composers. The list is a long one: Georg Friedrich Händel, Bach’s contemporary and, in his own day, far more famous, is one of the great composers, alongside Ludwig van Beethoven, the creator of the Ninth Symphony which is now the “European National Anthem”. The unconventional pianist Johannes Brahms, the child prodigy Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Richard Wagner, who created a whole new operatic form, and Anton Bruckner, who brought Wagner’s music into the concert hall, continue this list. Karlheinz Stockhausen, who played a crucial role in the development of electronic music, and not to forget the band “Kraftwerk”, are examples of this living tradition.
 |
Hof Symphonic Orchestra |
Germany boasts a proud musical heritage and a distinct contemporary musical life. Dance, theatre and the band “Tote Hosen” – art and music are part and parcel of this country’s feeling for life. Many festivals, from the north to the south, have become fixed institutions for music-lovers of all genres: the Wagner Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the “Hurricane” in Scheessel, the Festival in Ansbach in honour of Johann Sebastian Bach, or “Rock am Ring” at the Nürburgring motor racing circuit are just a few examples.
The smallest children are encouraged to make and learn music before they even leave the kindergarten. This, again, is part of the legacy of Bach, who gave his children music lessons from a very early age onwards. Germany has preserved this love of encouraging the younger generation: some 900,000 students are taught in state music schools every year by 35,000 teachers, so many a young talent will be given the chance of becoming a great musician one day.
These impressive figures can be continued almost ad infinitum. In this country there are more than 2,000 self-employed composers and arrangers, about 100 music publishers, and 2,000 music and dance groups. About 25,000 young people start a degree course in music every year in Germany, and more than 1.4 million people sing in almost 50,000 choirs. It would be impossible to imagine Germany without music.
The smallest children are encouraged to make and learn music before they even leave the kindergarten. This, again, is part of the legacy of Bach, who gave his children music lessons from a very early age onwards. Germany has preserved this love of encouraging the younger generation: some 900,000 students are taught in state music schools every year by 35,000 teachers, so many a young talent will be given the chance of becoming a great musician one day.
These impressive figures can be continued almost ad infinitum. In this country there are more than 2,000 self-employed composers and arrangers, about 100 music publishers, and 2,000 music and dance groups. About 25,000 young people start a degree course in music every year in Germany, and more than 1.4 million people sing in almost 50,000 choirs. It would be impossible to imagine Germany without music.
Welcome to Germany
