Home About us Products Services Contact us Bookmark
:: wikimiki.org ::
Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 – July 28, 1750) was a German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together almost all of the strands of the baroque style and brought it to its ultimate maturity. Although he introduced no new musical forms, he enriched the prevailing German style with a robust and dazzling contrapuntal technique, a seemingly effortless control of harmonic and motivic organisation from the smallest to the largest scales, and the adaptation of rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France. Bach's forceful suavity and vast output have earned him wide acknowledgement as one of the greatest composers in the Western tonal tradition. Revered for their intellectual depth, technical command and artistic beauty, his works include the Brandenburg concertos, the keyboard suites and partitas, the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, The Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue and a large number of cantatas, of which about 220 survive. An example of some of these stylistic traits appears below, in the chorus Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe from the Christmas Oratorio, written in 1734 during his mature period.

Biography

Early years

JS (Sebastian) Bach was a member of one of the most extraordinary musical families of all time. For more than 200 years, the Bach family had produced dozens of worthy performers and composers during a period in which the church, local government and the aristocracy provided significant support for professional music making in the German-speaking world, particularly in the eastern electorates of Thuringia and Saxony. Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a talented violinist and trumpeter in Eisenach, a Thuringian town of some 6,000 residents. The post involved the organisation of secular music and participation in church music. Sebastian's uncles were all professional musicians, ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers. Contemporary documents indicate that just the name Bach had come to be used as a synonym for "musician." His mother died in 1694, and his father the following year. The 10-year-old orphan moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, the organist at Ohrdruf, a nearby town. There, he copied, studied and performed music, and apparently received valuable tuition from his brother. This exposed him to the work of the great South German composers of the day—such as Pachelbel and Froberger—and possibly the music of North Germans and of the French composers such as Lully, Louis Marchand and Marin Marais. The boy probably witnessed and assisted the maintenance of the organ, a precursor to his lifelong professional activity as a consultant in the building and restoration of organs. Bach's obituary indicates that the young music enthusiast would copy music out of his brother’s scores, but because scores were valuable and private commodities at the time, Johann Christoph forbade Johann to do so. organ At the age of 14, Sebastian was awarded a choral scholarship, with his older school friend, Georg Erdmann, to study at the prestigious St Michael’s School in Lüneberg, not far from Hamburg, the largest city in Germany. This involved a long journey with his friend, probably partly on foot and partly by coach. His two years there appear to have been critical in exposing him to a wider palette of European culture than he would have experienced in Thuringia. In addition to singing a cappella in the choir, it is likely that he played the School’s three-manual organ and harpsichords. He probably learnt French and Italian, and received a thorough grounding in theology, Latin, history, geography and physics. He would have come into contact with sons of noblemen from northern Germany sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in diplomacy, government and the military. It is likely that he had significant contact with organists in Lüneberg, in particular Georg Böhm, and visited several of those in Hamburg, such as Reinken and Bruhns. Through these musicians, he probably gained access to the largest instruments he had played. It is also likely that he became acquainted with the music of the North German tradition (in particular the work of Buxtehude), with music manuscripts from further afield, and with treatises on music theory that were in the possession of these men.

Arnstadt and Mülhausen (1703–08)

In January 1703, shortly after graduating, Bach took up a post as a court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar, a large town in Thuringia. His role there is unclear, but appears to have included menial, non-musical duties. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboardist spread. He was invited to inspect and give the inaugural recital on the new organ at St Boniface’s Church in Arnstadt. The Bach family had close connections with this oldest town in Thuringia, about 180 km to the southwest of Weimar at the edge of the great forest. In August 1703, he accepted the post of organist at that church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a new organ free of technical defects and tuned to a modern system that allowed a wide range of keys to be used. It was around the time of his Arnstadt appointment that Bach was embarking on the serious composition of organ preludes, among them the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor. These works, in the North German tradition of virtuosic, improvisatory preludes, already show remarkably tight motivic control (where a single, short music idea is explored cogently throughout a movement). However, in these works the composer was still grappling with issues of large-scale structure, and had yet to fully develop his powers of contrapuntal writing (where two or more melodies interact simultaneously). Strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer failed to prevent tension between the headstrong, precocious young organist and the authorities after several years in the post. He was apparently dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir. More seriously, there was his unauthorised absence from Arnstadt for several months in 1705–06, when he visited the great master Buxtehude in the northern city of Lübeck. This well-known incident in Bach’s life involved his walking some 400 km each way to spend time with the man he probably regarded as the father-figure of German organists. The trip reinforced Buxtehude’s style as a foundation for Bach’s earlier works, and the fact that he overstayed his planned visit by several months suggests that his time with the old man was immensely valuable to his art. Despite his comfortable position in Arnstadt, by 1706 Bach appears to have realised that he needed to escape from the family milieu and move on to further his career. He was then offered a more lucrative post as organist at St Blasius’ in Mühlhausen, a large and important city to the north. The following year, he took up this senior post with significantly improved pay and conditions, including a good choir. Four months after arriving at Mühlhausen, he married his second cousin from Arnstadt, Maria Barbara. They had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Three of them—Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach—became important composers in the rococo style that followed the baroque. The church and city government at Mühlhausen must have been proud of their new musical director. They readily agreed to his plan for an expensive renovation of the organ at St Blasius’s, and were so delighted at the elaborate, festive cantata he wrote for the inauguration of the new council in 1708—God is my king BWV 71, which is clearly in the style of Buxtehude—that they paid handsomely for its publication, and twice in later years had the composer return to conduct it.

Weimar (1708–17)

After barely a year at Mühlhausen, Bach left to take up a position as court organist and concert master at the ducal court in Weimar, a far cry from his earlier position there as ‘lackey’. The munificent salary on offer at the court and the prospect of working entirely with a large, well funded contingent of professional musicians may have prompted the move. The family moved into an apartment just five minutes’ walk from the ducal palace. In the following year, their first child was born and they were joined by Maria Barbara’s elder, unmarried sister, who remained with them to assist in the running of the household until her death in 1729. It was in Weimar that two musically significant sons were born—WF and CPE Bach—who went on to become important composers themselves in the ornate rococo style that superseded the baroque. Bach’s position in Weimar marked the start of a sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works, in which he had attained the technical proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing large-scale structures and to synthesise influences from abroad. From the music of Italians such as Vivaldi, Corelli and Torelli, he learnt how to write dramatic openings and adopted their sunny dispositions, dynamic motor-rhythms and decisive harmonic schemes. Bach inducted himself into these stylistic aspects largely by transcribing for harpsichord and organ the ensemble concertos of Vivaldi; these works are still concert favourites. He may have picked up the idea of transcribing the latest fashionable Italian music from Prince Johann Ernst, one of his employers, who was a musician of professional calibre. In 1713, the Duke returned from a tour of the Low Countries with a large collection of scores, some of them possibly transcriptions of the latest fashionable Italian music by the blind organist Jan Jacob de Graaf. He was particularly attracted to the Italian solo-tutti structure, in which one or more solo instruments alternate section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a movement. These Italianate features can be heard in the excerpt below of the Prelude to English Suite No. 3 for harpsichord (1714). The solo-tutti alternation is achieved when the player deftly changes between the lower keyboard (of a fuller, slightly louder tone) and the upper keyboard (of a more delicate tone). In Weimar, he had the opportunity to play and compose for the organ, and to perform a varied repertoire of concert music with the duke’s ensemble. A master of contrapuntal technique, Bach’s steady output of fugues began in Weimar. The largest single body of his fugal writing is Das wohltemperierte Clavier ("The well-tempered keyboard" - "Clavier" meaning keyboard instrument). It consists of 48 preludes and fugues, one pair for each major and relative minor key. This is a monumental work for its masterful use of counterpoint and its exploration, for the first time, of the full range of keys—and the means of expression made possible by their slight differences from each other—available to keyboardists when their instruments are tuned according to systems such as that of Andreas Werckmeister. During his tenure at Weimar, Bach started work on The little organ book for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann; this contains traditional Lutheran chorales (hymn tunes), set in complex textures to assist the training of organists. The book illustrates two major themes in Bach’s life: his dedication to teaching and his love of the chorale as a musical form.

Cöthen (1717–23)

chorale Sensing increasing political tensions in the ducal court of Weimar, Bach began once again to search out a more stable job that was conducive to his musical interests. Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen hired Bach to serve as his Kapellmeister (director of music). Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach’s talents, paid him well, and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. However, the prince was Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his worship; thus, most of Bach’s work from this period was secular. The Brandenburg concertos and many other instrumental works date from this period, including the Orchestral suites, the Six suites for solo cello and the Sonatas and partitas for solo violin. This photograph of the opening page of the first violin sonata shows the composer's handwriting—fast and efficient, but just as visually ornate as the music it encoded. On 7 July 1720 while Bach was abroad with Prince Leopold, tragedy struck: his wife, Maria Barbara, died suddenly. The following year, the widower met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young, highly gifted soprano who performed at the court in Cöthen; they married on 3 December 1721. Despite the age difference—she was 17 years his junior—they appear to have had a happy marriage. Together, they had 13 children.

Leipzig (1723–50)

1721 In 1723, Bach was appointed Cantor and Musical Director of St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig, a prestigious post in the leading mercantile city in Saxony, a neighbouring electorate to Thuringia. Apart from his brief tenures in Arnstadt and Mülhausen, this was Bach’s first government position in a career that had mainly involved service to the aristocracy. This final post, which he held for 27 years until his death, brought him into contact with the political machinations of his employer, the Leipzig Council. The Council comprised two factions: the Absolutists, loyal to the Saxon monarch in Dresden, Augustus the Strong; and the City-Estate faction, representing the interests of the mercantile class, the guilds and minor aristocrats. Bach was the nominee of the monarchists, in particular of the Mayor at the time, Gottlieb Lange, a lawyer who had earlier served in the Dresden court. In return for agreeing to Bach’s appointment, the City-Estate faction was granted control of the School, and Bach was required to make a number of compromises with respect to his working conditions. Although it appears that no one on the Council doubted Bach’s genius, there was continual tension between the Cantor, who regarded himself as the leader of church music in the city, and the City-Estate faction, which saw him as a schoolmaster and wanted to reduce the emphasis on elaborate music in both the School and the Churches. The Council never honoured Lange’s promise at interview of a handsome salary of 1,000 talers a year, although it did provide Bach and his family with a smaller income and a good apartment at one end of the school building, which was renovated at great expense in 1732. Bach’s job required him to instruct the students of the St Thomas School in singing and Latin, and to provide weekly music at the two main churches in Leipzig. In an astonishing burst of creativity, he wrote up to five annual cantata cycles during his first six years in Leipzig (two of which have apparently been lost). Most of these concerted works expound on the Sunday readings from the Bible for every Sunday and feast day in the Lutheran year; many were written using traditional church hymns, such as Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, as inspiration. To rehearse and perform these works at St Thomas’s Church, Bach probably sat at the harpsichord or stood in front of the choir on the lower gallery at the west end, his back to the congregation and the altar at the east end. He would have looked upwards to the organ that rose from a loft about four metres above. To the right of the organ in a side gallery would have been the winds, brass and timpani; to the left were the strings. The Council provided only about eight permanent instrumentalists, a source of continual friction with the Cantor, who had to recruit the rest of the 20 or so players required for medium-to-large scores from the University, the School and the public. The organ or harpsichord were probably played by the composer (when not standing to conduct), the in-house organist, or one of Bach’s elder sons, Friederich or Emmanual. LeipzigHaving spent much of the 1720s composing cantatas, Bach had assembled a huge repertoire of church music for Leipzig’s two main churches. He now wished to broaden his composing and performing beyond the liturgy. In March 1729, he took over the directorship of the Collegium Musicum, a secular performance ensemble that had been started in 1701 by his old friend, the composer Georg Phillip Telemann. This was one of the dozens of private societies in the major German-speaking cities that had been established by musically active university students; these societies had come to play an increasingly important role in public musical life and were typically led by the most prominent professionals in a city. In the words of Christoph Wolff, assuming the directorship was a shrewd move that 'consolidated Bach’s firm grip on Leipzig’s principal musical institutions’. During much of the year, Leipzig’s Collegium Musicum gave twice-weekly, two-hour performances in Zimmerman’s Coffeehouse on Catherine Street, just off the main market square. For this purpose, the proprietor provided a large hall and acquired several musical instruments. Many of Bach’s works during the 1730s, 40s and 50s were probably written for and performed by the Collegium Musicum; among these were almost certainly parts of the Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice), and many of the violin and harpsichord concertos. During this period, he completed the Mass in B Minor, which incorporated newly composed movements with parts of earlier works. In 1735, he presented the manuscript to the elector of Saxony in a successful bid to persuade the monarch to appoint him as Royal Court Composer. Although the mass was never performed during the composer’s lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest choral works of all time. In 1747, Bach went to the court of Frederick the Great in Potsdam, where the king played a theme for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue based on his theme. Bach improvised a three-part fugue on Frederick’s pianoforte, then a novelty, and later presented the king with a Musical Offering which consists of fugues, canons and a trio based on the "royal theme", nominated by the monarch. Its six-part fugue includes a slightly altered subject more suitable for extensive elaboration. The Art of Fugue, was written months before his death, and was unfinished. It consists of 18 complex fugues and canons based on a simple theme. A magnum opus of thematic transformation and contrapuntal devices, this work is often cited as the summation of polyphonic techniques. The final work Bach completed was a chorale prelude for organ, dictated to his son-in-law, Altnikol, from his deathbed. Entitled Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit (Before thy throne I now appear); when the notes of the final cadence are counted and mapped onto the Roman alphabet, the word "BACH" is again found. The chorale is often played after the unfinished 14th fugue to conclude performances of The Art of Fugue. Bach spent his last days in Leipzig and died there in 1750, at the age of 65. During his life he had composed more than 1,000 works. At Leipzig, Bach seems to have maintained active relationships with several members of the faculty of the university. He enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with the poet Picander. Sebastian and Anna Magdalena welcomed friends, family, and fellow musicians from all over Germany into their home. Court musicians at Dresden and Berlin, and musicians including George Philipp Telemann (one of CPE’s godfathers) made frequent visits to Bach’s apartment and may have kept up frequent correspondence with him. Interestingly, Georg Friedrich Händel, who was born in the same year as Bach in Halle, only 50 km from Leipzig, made several trips to Germany, but Bach was unable to meet him, a fact that he appears to have deeply regretted.

Works

Style

Bach’s inventive and unique melodies combine the finest of Italian, French and German styles while remaining full and contrapuntal; however, his melodies often imply emotion rather than convey it—something that many people today have trouble understanding. Bach’s counterpoint is among the most careful and precise ever conceived; the complexity of it is captivating to composers and non-composers alike, and contains as many as five melodies all harmonizing with each other at once. This combination of original melodic style and masterful counterpoint forged a powerful influence on later composers. Several notable composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn increased their attention to harmony and wrote more complex works after being introduced to Bach. Nowadays, his styles and melodies are the basis for music ranging from hymns and religious music to pop and rock music. Many of Bach’s themes—particularly the theme from Toccata and Fugue in D minor—have been used in rock songs repeatedly and have received notable popularity. Although the works of Bach generally influenced other composers, one would do well to remember that in Bach’s era, greatness was decided by the ability to master a technique, not by inventiveness. His musical style reflects the customs and conventions of his day, and was affected by the works of Couperin and Domenico Scarlatti. Vivaldi also inspired Bach a great deal as can be seen by Bach’s transcriptions of Vivaldi’s violin concerti into harpsichord works.

The BWV numbering system

:Main article: BWV JS Bach’s works are indexed with BWV numbers, an initialism for Bach Werke Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue). The catalogue, published in 1950, was compiled by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue is organised thematically, rather than chronologically: BWV 1–224 are cantatas, BWV 225–48 the large-scale choral works, BWV 250–524 chorales and sacred songs, BWV 525–748 organ works, BWV 772–994 other keyboard works, BWV 995–1000 lute music, BWV 1001–40 chamber music, BWV 1041–71 orchestral music, and BWV 1072–1126 canons and fugues. In compiling the catalogue, Schmieder largely followed the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe, a comprehensive edition of the composer's works that was produced between 1850 and 1905. For a list of works catalogued by BWV number, see List of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Organ works

Bach was best known during his lifetime as an organist, organ consultant, and composer of organ works both in the traditional German free genres such as preludes, fantasias, and toccatas, and stricter forms such as chorale preludes and fugues. He established a reputation at a young age for his great creativity and ability to integrate aspects of several different national styles into his organ works. A decidedly North German influence was exerted by Georg Böhm, whom Bach came in contact with in Lüneburg, and Dietrich Buxtehude in Lübeck, whom the young organist visited in 1704 on an extended leave of absence from his job in Arnstadt. Around this time Bach also copied the works of numerous French and Italian composers in order to gain insights into their compositional languages, and later even arranged several violin concertos by Vivaldi and others for organ. His most productive period (1708–14) saw not only the composition of several pairs of preludes and fugues and toccatas and fugues, but also the writing of the Orgelbüchlein ("Little Organ Book"), an unfinished collection of 49 short chorale preludes intended to demonstrate various compositional techniques that could be used in setting chorale tunes. After he left Weimar, Bach's output for organ fell off, although his most well-known works (the six trio sonatas, the Clavierübung III of 1739, and the "Great Eighteen" chorales, revised very late in his life) were all composed after this time. Bach was also extensively engaged later in his life in consulting on various organ projects, testing newly built organs, and dedicating organs in afternoon recitals.

Other keyboard works

Bach wrote many works for "clavier," usually understood to mean an unspecified keyboard. Although the piano ("Klavier" in German) was invented in Bach’s lifetime, most scholars doubt he had one or intended any of his music for it. His keyboard works may have been intended for harpsichord or clavichord instead. The Inventions and Sinfonias, as well as the Six Little Preludes (BWV 933–938) were most likely intended for instructional purposes rather than concert use. He also wrote a set of English suites and a set of French suites, complex and difficult music based loosely on dance forms. He also wrote a number of other solo dances, suites, partitas, and the like. The most notable examples of this miscelanneous ouevre are the six partitas (BWV 825–830), seven tocattas (BWV910–916), four duets (BWV802–805), the Italian Concerto (BWV971), the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (BWV903), Overture in the French Style (BWV831). Among the best known of Bach’s clavier works is The Well-Tempered Clavier, consisting of two separate sets of preludes and fugues in each of the twelve major and minor keys. The word "well-tempered" refers to the temperament in which the keyboard is tuned; tuning systems before Bach's time were not flexible enough to allow compositions in all keys to be played without retuning. It is, however, uncertain what temperament he meant. Another famous work is the thirty Goldberg Variations; while somewhat cerebral, their emotional content and range is increasingly being appreciated. Bach also showed his skill in composing variations based on one theme in such works as the ten variations titled "Aria variata alla maniera italiana" (BWV989).

Chamber music

Bach wrote music for single instruments, duets and small ensembles. Bach's works for solo instruments—the 6 sonatas and partitas for solo violin (BWV1001–1006), the six cello suites (BWV 1007–1012) and the Partita for solo flute (BWV1013)—may be listed among the most profound works in the repertoire. Bach has also composed a suite and several other works for solo lute. He wrote trio sonatas, solo sonatas (accompanied by continuo) for the flute and for the viola da gamba, and a large number of canons and ricercare, mostly for unspecified instrumentation. The most significant examples of the latter are contained in The Art of Fugue and The Musical Offering.

Orchestral works

Bach's best-known orchestral works are the Brandenburg concertos, so named because he submitted them as a job audition for the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1721 (he did not get the job). These works are examples of the concerto grosso genre. Other surviving works in the concerto form include two violin concertos, a concerto for two violins (often referred to as Bach’s "double" concerto), and concertos for one, two, three, and even four harpsichords. It is widely accepted that many of the harpsichord concertos were not original works, but arrangements of now lost concertos for other instruments. A number of violin, oboe, and flute concertos have been reconstructed from these. In addition to concertos, Bach also wrote four orchestral suites, a series of stylised dances for orchestra. The work now known as the Air on a G String is an excerpt from Orchestral Suite No. 3.

Vocal and choral works

Cantatas

Bach performed a cantata every Sunday at the Thomaskirche, on a theme corresponding to the lectionary readings of the week. Although he performed cantatas by other composers, he also composed at least three entire sets of cantatas, one for each Sunday and holiday of the church year, at Leipzig, in addition to those composed at Mühlhausen and Weimar. In total he wrote more than 300 sacred cantatas, of which only about 195 survive. His cantatas vary greatly in form and instrumentation. Some of them are only for a solo singer; some are single choruses; some are for grand orchestras, some only a few instruments. A very common format, however, includes a large opening chorus followed by one or more recitative-aria pairs for soloists (or duets), and a concluding chorale. The recitative is part of the corresponding Bible reading for the week and the aria is a contemporary reflection on it. The concluding chorale often also appears as a chorale prelude in a central movement, and occasionally as a cantus firmus in the opening chorus as well. The best known of these cantatas are Cantata No. 4 ("Christ lag in Todesbanden"), Cantata No. 80 ("Ein feste Burg"), Cantata No. 140 ("Wachet auf") and Cantata No. 147 ("Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben"). In addition, Bach wrote a number of secular cantatas, usually for civic events such as weddings. The two Wedding Cantatas and the Coffee Cantata, which concerns a girl whose father will not let her marry until she gives up her coffee addiction, are among the best known of these.

Motets

As part of Bach’s regular church work, he copied and performed motets by many other composers (indeed, he usually began each Sunday service with one). These motets were mostly for double-choir motets of the Venetian school, or more contemporary imitations of the style. Bach wrote several motets himself, and they are also mostly for double choir, though the largest of them, Jesu, meine Freude, is written for a single, five-voice choir. Exactly how many motets is a matter of dispute; there are six undoubted motets by Bach, a couple others of doubtful authorship, and some works classified in the BWV as cantatas but considered by some scholars to be motets. It is not certain for what occasion Bach wrote these works, but it is thought that most were for funerals. There are no instrumental parts for these motets (except Lobet den Herrn, which has a continuo part), but it was typical of performance practice of the time to double vocal works with instruments and accompany them with continuo, so this method is often followed for modern performances; other performers do them a cappella.

Large works

Bach’s large choral-orchestral works include the famous St Matthew Passion and St John Passion, both written for Holy Week services at the St Thomas’s Church, the Christmas Oratorio (a set of six cantatas for use in the Liturgical season of Christmas). The Magnificat in two versions (one in D major for a substantial orchestra with trumpets and timpani, and one for a smaller orchestra in E-flat major, with extra movements interpolated among the movements of the Magnificat text) and the Easter Oratorio compare to large, elaborated cantatas, of a lesser extent than the Passions and the Christmas Oratorio. Bach's other large work, the Mass in B minor, was assembled by Bach near the end of his life, mostly from pieces composed earlier (such as Cantata 191 and Cantata 12). It was never performed in Bach’s lifetime, or even after his death until the 19th century. All of these works, unlike the motets, have substantial solo parts as well as choruses.

Performances

In Bach’s time musical ensembles were generally not as large as, say, in Brahms's. Few of his works were composed for more than a dozen musicians. It is a matter of debate whether present-day performers should adhere to authentic performance, or choose larger, modern orchestrations to which many of his works have been adopted. Some of his more important chamber music does not indicate preferred instruments, leaving even larger space for arrangements. Highly influential interpreters of Bach include Glenn Gould and Edwin Fischer (piano), Wanda Landowska (harpsichord), Helmut Walcha and E. Power Biggs (organ), Pablo Casals, Yo-Yo Ma and Anner Bylsma (cello), Nathan Milstein (violin), Karl Richter (chorus and orchestra), Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt (cantatas, authentic performance), Joshua Rifkin and Andrew Parrott (choral works, one per part). Wendy Carlos recorded Switched-On Bach in 1968 on the newly invented Moog synthesizer; this recording, along with Glenn Gould's idiosyncratic performances, was an immense contribution to popularisation of Bach's music during the 20th century.

Transcriptions

Bach’s music has inspired many composers to create music based on his themes, or transcribe his works for other instruments. He is the most arranged and transcribed classical composer. His complete works for harpsichord have been edited or transcribed by Busoni, and Liszt wrote both a praeludium and fugue on the BACH motif. Another familiar transcription is the Ave Maria by Charles Gounod, based on the first prelude of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Andres Segovia was famous for his playing arrangements of Bach works transcribed for acoustic guitar. Mozart arranged some of the fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier for string trio, Schoenberg arranged for orchestra Bach's "St. Anne" organ prelude and fugue in Eb major, and Webern arranged for orchestra the ricercar from the "Musical Offering". There are arrangements of the "Art of Fugue" for orchestra, for brass quintet, and for saxophone quartet.

Legacy

In his later years and after his death, Bach's reputation as a composer declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging classical style. He was far from forgotten, however: he was remembered as a player and teacher (as well, of course, as composer), and as father of his children (most notably CPE Bach). His best-appreciated compositions in this period were his keyboard works, in which field other composers continued to acknowledge his mastery. Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin were among his most prominent admirers. On a visit to the Thomasschule in Leipzig, Mozart heard a performance of one of the motets (BWV 225) and exclaimed, "Now, here is something one can learn from!"; on being given the parts of the motets, "Mozart sat down, the parts all around him, held in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest chairs. Forgetting everything else, he did not stand up again until he had looked through all the music of Sebastian Bach". Beethoven was a devotee, learning the Well-Tempered Clavier as a child and later calling Bach "Urvater der Harmonie" ("original father of harmony") and "nicht Bach, sondern Meer" ("not a stream but a sea", punning on the literal meaning of the composer's name). Chopin used to lock himself away before his concerts and play Bach's music. The revival in the composer’s reputation among the wider public was prompted in part by Johann Nikolaus Forkel’s 1802 biography, which was read by Beethoven among others. Goethe became acquainted with Bach's works relatively late in life, through a series of performances of keyboard and choral works at Bad Berka in 1814 and 1815; in a letter of 1827 he compared the experience of listening to Bach's music to "eternal harmony in dialogue with itself". . But it was Felix Mendelssohn who did the most to revive Bach's reputation with his 1829 Berlin performance of the St Matthew Passion. Hegel, who attended the performance, later called Bach "grand, truly Protestant, robust and, so to speak, erudite genius which we have only recently learned again to appreciate at its full value".. Mendelssohn's promotion of Bach, and the growth of the composer’s stature, continued in subsequent years. The Bach Gesellschaft (or Bach Society) was founded in 1850 to promote the works, and over the next half century it published a comprehensive edition. Thereafter Bach’s reputation has remained consistently high. During the 20th century the process of recognising the musical as well as the pedagogic value of some of the works has continued, perhaps most notably in the promotion of the Cello Suites by Pablo Casals. Another development has been the growth of the authentic or period performance movement, which attempts to present the music as the composer intended it. Examples include the playing of keyboard works on the harpsichord rather than a modern grand piano, and the use of small choirs or single voices instead of the larger forces favoured by 19th- and early 20th-century performers. Johann Sebastian Bach’s contributions to music, or, to borrow a term popularised by his student Lorenz Christoph Mizler, "musical science" are frequently compared to the "original geniuses" of William Shakespeare in English literature and Isaac Newton in physics. As an example of the best which humanity has to offer, Bach’s music was selected for inclusion on the Voyager Golden Records. Scientist and author Lewis Thomas once suggested how the people of Earth should communicate with the universe: "I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later." Some composers have paid tribute to Bach by setting his name in musical notes—B-flat, A, C, B-natural (B-natural is H in German)—or its contrapuntal derivatives. Bach himself set the precedent for this musical acronym, most notably in Contrapunctus XIV from the Art of Fugue. Whereas Bach conceived this cruciform melody as a compositional form of devotion to Christ and his cross, later composers have employed the BACH motif in homage to the composer himself. Bach’s obvious devotion to Christ in his liturgical oeuvre was given special credence with the 1934 discovery of the Calov Bible in Frankenmuth Michigan.

Media

Further reading

Modern scholarship


- David HT, Mendel A (Eds), revised and expanded by C Wolff, The new Bach reader, 2nd ed, New York, Norton, 1999 (ISBN 0393319563) :A significant repository of documentary evidence, including contemporary documents, some by Bach himself. This book includes an English translation of the biography of Bach, by the early 19th-century German musicologist Forkel.
- Wolff C, Johann Sebastian Bach: the learned musician, New York, Norton, 2001 (ISBN 0393322564) :A comprehensive and engaging account of Bach's life.
- Williams P, The life of Bach, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004 (ISBN 0521533740) :A shorter expose of the composer's life, using his obituary as the starting point; a valuable complement to Wolff's biography.
- Hofstadter D, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid :Explores cognition, formal methods, logic and mathematics—particularly Gödel's incompleteness theorem—in the music of Bach, the art of MC Escher and other sources.
- Stauffer G, JS Bach as organist: his instruments, music, and performance practices, Indiana University Press, 1999 (ISBN 025321386X)

Earlier scholarship


- Schweitzer A, JS Bach Vol 1, Dover, 1966 (ISBN 0486216314)
- Spitta P, Johann Sebastian Bach, ... , 1889 :An early, groundbreaking, three-volume study of Bach's life and music.

See also


- Bach family
- Glenn Gould
- Helmut Walcha
- Helmuth Rilling
- List of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach
- List of recordings of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
- Rosalyn Tureck
- Wanda Landowska
- John Eliot Gardiner
- :Category:Compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach

External links


- [http://www.npj.com/thefaceofbach/index.html Faces of Bach] Site discussing the portraits of J.S.Bach.
- [http://www.mckeeth.org/wikilinks/bach1911.html 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica entry]
- [http://www.jsbach.org/ "J.S. Bach Home Page"]
- [http://www.carolinaclassical.com/bach/index.html Detailed Biography with scores of selected cantatas in PDF]
- [http://www.skwik.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bach Downloads Toccata in D minor and more...]
- [http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~tomita/bachbib J. S. Bach bibliography]
- [http://homepages.pathfinder.gr/asp1961/music/bach.html Music for piano (midi)]
- [http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/bachindex.html J. S. Bach's resource by Timothy A. Smith]
- [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/ J.S.Bach cantatas]
- Christoph Wolff’s more recent works (Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician and Johann Sebastian Bach: Essays) include a discussion of Bach’s "original genius" in German aesthetics and music. Wolff gives an exciting account of the discovery of the famous Bach Family archive, evacuated from wartime Berlin’s Singakademie to Silesia and from there vanished into Russia until just a few years ago, at .
- [http://alan.melvin.com/ Links to arrangements of music by Bach for guitar]
- [http://www.jsbach.net/ J.S. Bach resource maintained by David J. Grossman], includes a catalog of works, images, MIDI files and audio
-
-
- [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=bach&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1 Bach cylinder recordings], from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

References


- Boyd, Malcolm. Bach, Oxford University Press; 3rd ed. (2000) ISBN 0195142225
- David, Hans T and Mendel, A; The Bach reader, Norton; Revised ed. (May 1, 1996) ISBN 0393002594
- Forkel, Johann Nicolaus; On Johann Sebastian Bach's Life, Genius, and Works, (1802), translated by A. C. F. Kollmann (1820)
- Rasmussen, Michelle (August, 2001) [http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/m_rasmus_801.html "Bach, Mozart, and the 'Musical Midwife'"], The New Federalist

Notes

# Wolff C, Johann Sebastian Bach: the learned musician, New York, Norton, 2001, p126 # Carolina Classical Connection (1997-2005). [http://www.carolinaclassical.com/bach/muhlhausen.html J.S. Bach Biography: Muhlhausen]. Retrieved April 27, 2005. "Bach's maternal uncle, died at Erfurt, bequeathing to his nephew a sum of 50 gulden. This inheritance...[made] it possible for Bach to propose and subsequently to marry his second cousin from Arnstadt, Maria Barbara Bach...The wedding took place on October 17 in the village church at Dornheim, near Arnstadt." # Rasmussen # http://www.bremen.de/web/owa/p_anz_presse_mitteilung?pi_mid=76241 # http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV244-Spering.htm # Wolff C, Johann Sebastian Bach: the learned musician, New York, Norton, 2001, p341 Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Sebastian ko:요한 제바스티안 바흐 ms:Johann Sebastian Bach ja:ヨハン・ゼバスティアン・バッハ simple:Johann Sebastian Bach th:โยฮันน์ เซบาสเทียน บาค

March 21

March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). It is also the first day of the astrological year. There are 285 days remaining.

Events


- 1556 - In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake.
- 1788 - A fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans and leaves most of the town in ruins.
- 1800 - With the church leadership driven out of the Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.
- 1801 - The Battle of Alexandria was fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.
- 1804 - Code Napoléon was adopted as French civil law.
- 1857 - Earthquake in Tokyo, Japan kills over 100,000.
- 1871 - Journalist Henry Morton Stanley began his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
- 1919 - The Chinese High School is established in Singapore by Tan Kah Kee.
- 1918 - World War I: Second Battle of the Somme begins
- 1928 - Charles Lindbergh is presented the Congressional Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
- 1935 - Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means 'Land of the Aryans'.
- 1940 - Paul Reynaud becomes Prime Minister of France
- 1945 - World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma
- 1952 - Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio
- 1960 - Apartheid: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180
- 1963 - Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.
- 1964 - In Copenhagen, Denmark, Gigliola Cinquetti wins the ninth Eurovision Song Contest for Italy singing "Non ho l'età" (I'm not old enough).
- 1965 - Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9 which is the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes.
- 1965 - Martin Luther King Jr leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.
- 1970 The first Earth Day proclamation was issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.
- 1970 - Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski-jumping championship in Germany; his image becomes that of the "agony of defeat guy" in the opening credits of ABC's Wide World of Sports.
- 1970 - In Amsterdam, Netherlands, Dana wins the fifteenth Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland singing "All Kinds of Everything".
- 1980 - President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
- 1980 - On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who Shot JR?"
- 1985 - Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.
- 1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations that tie baseball player Pete Rose to baseball gambling.
- 1990 - Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
- 1999 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
- 2002 - In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh along with three other suspects are charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
- 2004 - In Malaysia, the 11th Federal and State elections are held, returning the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional to power with an increased majority.
- 2005 - In Red Lake, Minnesota, 10 are killed in a school shooting, the worst since the Columbine High School massacre.

Births


- 1521 - Maurice, Elector of Saxony (d. 1553)
- 1527 - Hermann Finck, German composer (d. 1558)
- 1685 - Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (d. 1750)
- 1713 - Francis Lewis, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1803)
- 1763 - Jean Paul, German writer (d. 1825)
- 1768 - Joseph Fourier, French mathematician (d. 1830)
- 1806 - Benito Juárez, Mexican statesman and national hero (d. 1872)
- 1839 - Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Russian composer (d. 1881)
- 1869 - Florenz Ziegfeld, theatrical producer (d. 1932)
- 1876 - John Tewksbury, American athlete (d. 1968)
- 1882 - Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, American actor (d. 1971)
- 1895 - Zlatko Baloković, Croatian violinist (d. 1955)
- 1901 - Karl Arnold, German politician (d. 1958)
- 1902 - Son House, American musician (d. 1988)
- 1904 - Forrest Mars Sr., American candymaker (d. 1999)
- 1906 - Jim Thompson, American designer and businessman
- 1913 - George Abecassis, English race car driver (d. 1991)
- 1920 - Georg Ots, Estonian singer (d. 1975)
- 1921 - Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (d. 1986)
- 1922 - Russ Meyer, American film director and producer (d. 2004)
- 1923 - Shri Mataji Nirmala Shrivastava, Indian founder of Sahaja Yoga
- 1927 - Hans-Dietrich Genscher, German politician
- 1932 - Walter Gilbert, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1932 - Joseph Silverstein, American violinist and conductor
- 1930 - James Coco, American actor (d. 1987)
- 1934 - Al Freeman, Jr., American actor
- 1935 - Brian Clough, English footballer and football manager (d. 2004)
- 1940 - Solomon Burke, American singer
- 1943 - Vivian Stanshall, British musician (Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band)
- 1945 - Rose Stone, American musician (Sly & the Family Stone)
- 1946 - Timothy Dalton, British actor
- 1956 - Ingrid Kristiansen, Norwegian runner
- 1958 - Sabrina Le Beauf, American actress
- 1958 - Gary Oldman, English actor
- 1959 - Nobuo Uematsu, Japanese composer
- 1960 - Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver (d. 1994)
- 1961 - Lothar Matthäus, German footballer
- 1962 - Matthew Broderick, American actor
- 1962 - Rosie O'Donnell, American comedienne, actress, talk show host, and publisher
- 1963 - Ronald Koeman, Dutch footballer and football manager
- 1967 - Jonas "Joker" Berggren, Swedish musician (Ace of Base)
- 1975 - Justin Pierce, British actor (d. 2000)
- 1975 - Mark Williams, Welsh snooker player
- 1976 - Liza Harper, French actress
- 1977 - DJ Premier, American rapper (Gang Starr)
- 1980 - Ronaldinho, Brazilian footballer
- [[1980{months

July 28

July 28 is the 209th day (210th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 156 days remaining.

Events


- 1493 - Great fire in Moscow
- 1540 - Thomas Cromwell, is executed on order from Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.
- 1794 - Maximilien Robespierre is guillotined in front of a cheering crowd, for sending thousands of others to a similar fate during the French Revolution.
- 1821 - Peru declares independence from Spain.
- 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church begins - Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
- 1866 - The Metric Act of 1866 becomes law and legalizes the standardization of weights and measures in the United States.
- 1868 - The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
- 1873 - The Japanese government implements land and tax reform as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.
- 1878 - Great Britain's William Gowland becomes the first non-Japanese to reach Yarigatake peak (3,180 meters), and he names the mountain the Japanese Alps, a name that is eventually used to refer to the entire mountain range.
- 1914 - World War I begins: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after it failed to meet the conditions of an ultimatum it set on July 23 following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian assassin. This event leads to the outbreak of war.
- 1932 - US President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, DC.
- 1942 - World War II: USSR leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately killed.
- 1943 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah - The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
- 1945 - A US Army bomber accidentally crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 injuring 26.
- 1965 - Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
- 1973 - Watkins Glen, New York concert attended by 600,000 to see The Band, The Allman Brothers Band, and the Grateful Dead.
- 1976 - The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.
- 1990 - Alberto Fujimori becomes president of Peru
- 1992 - Mary J. Blige releases her album What's the 411?. It is considered the album that started the new subgenre, hip-hop soul (also see 1992 in music).
- 1995 - Network Solutions announces a new policy to help companies protect their trademarks on the Internet.
- 1996 - Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric man, was discovered near Kennewick, Washington.
- 1997 - Guatemala becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 1998 - Monica Lewinsky scandal: Ex-White House intern, Monica Lewinsky receives transactional immunity in exchange for her grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with US President Bill Clinton.
- 2002 - Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset, Pennsylvania, were rescued after 77 hours underground.
- 2003 - NPR broadcasts the first episode of Day to Day, a one-hour radio newsmagazine
- 2005 - Larry Brown is introduced as the head coach of the New York Knicks NBA franchise, at a press conference in Madison Square Garden.

Births


- 1659 - Charles Ancillon, French Huguenot pastor (d. 1715)
- 1804 - Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher (d. 1872)
- 1844 - Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (d. 1889)
- 1866 - Beatrix Potter, English author (d. 1943)
- 1867 - Charles Dillon Perrine, American-born astronomer (d. 1951)
- 1872 - Albert Sarraut, French politician (d. 1962)
- 1874 - Ernst Cassirer, German philosopher (d. 1945)
- 1887 - Marcel Duchamp, French painter (d. 1968)
- 1896 - Barbara La Marr, American actress (d. 1926)
- 1901 - Rudy Vallee, American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer (d. 1986)
- 1902 - Karl Popper, Austrian-born philosopher of science (d. 1994)
- 1904 - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1990)
- 1907 - Earl Tupper, American inventor (d. 1983)
- 1909 - Malcolm Lowry, English novelist (d. 1957)
- 1914 - Carmen Dragon, composer (d. 1984)
- 1915 - Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1915 - Frankie Yankovic, American musician (d. 1998)
- 1916 - David Brown, American film producer
- 1922 - Jacques Piccard, Belgian-born undersea explorer
- 1925 - Baruch S. Blumberg, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1927 - John Ashbery, American poet
- 1929 - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady of the United States (d. 1994)
- 1934 - Jacques d'Amboise, American dancer and choreographer
- 1935 - Simon Dee, British television broadcaster
- 1936 - Garfield Sobers, West Indian cricketer
- 1938 - Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru
- 1940 - Philip Proctor, American comedian
- 1941 - Riccardo Muti, Italian conductor
- 1943 - Bill Bradley, basketball player and U.S. Senator
- 1945 - Jim Davis, American cartoonist
- 1945 - Richard Wright English keyboard player (Pink Floyd)
- 1948 - Sally Struthers, American actress
- 1949 - Steve Peregrin Took, English singer and songwriter (d. 1980)
- 1951 - Santiago Calatrava, Spanish architect
- 1952 - Yoshitaka Amano, Japanese artist
- 1952 - Vajiralongkorn, Crown Prince of Thailand
- 1954 - Steve Morse, American guitarist
- 1954 - Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
- 1958 - Terry Fox, Canadian athlete and cancer activist (d. 1981)
- 1962 - Rachel Sweet, American singer
- 1965 - Lori Loughlin, American actress
- 1972 - Elizabeth Berkley, American actress
- 1976 - Jacoby Shaddix, American singer (Papa Roach)
- 1977 - Tiago Andres Vaz, Brazilian composer
- 1977 - Emanuel Ginóbili, Argentine basketball player
- 1979 - Birgitta Haukdal, Icelandic singer

Deaths


- 450 - Theodosius II, Roman Emperor (b. 401)
- 1057 - Pope Victor II
- 1128 - William Clito, Count of Flanders (b. 1102)
- 1230 - Duke Leopold VI of Austria (b. 1176)
- 1527 - Rodrigo de Bastidas, Spanish conquistador
- 1540 - Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, English statesman
- 1631 - Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, Spanish dramatist (b. 1569)
- 1655 - Cyrano de Bergerac, French poet (b. 1619)
- 1667 - Abraham Cowley, English poet (b. 1618)
- 1675 - Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer (b. 1605)
- 1685 - Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, English statesman (b. 1618)
- 1718 - Etienne Baluze, French scholar (b. 1630)
- 1741 - Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (b. 1678)
- 1750 - Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer (b. 1685)
- 1762 - George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe, English politician (b. 1691)
- 1794 - Maximilien Robespierre, French Revolutionary leader (b. 1758)
- 1794 - Louis de Saint-Just, French Revolutionary leader (b. 1767)
- 1835 - Édouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier, French marshal (b. 1768)
- 1842 - Clemens Brentano, German poet (b. 1778)
- 1844 - Joseph Bonaparte, older brother of Napoleon I and King of Naples and Spain (b. 1768)
- 1849 - King Charles Albert of Sardinia (b. 1798)
- 1869 - Jan Evangelista Purkyně, Czech anatomist (b. 1787)
- 1930 - Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1862)
- 1934 - Marie Dressler, Canadian actress (b. 1868)
- 1942 - William Matthew Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (b. 1853)
- 1957 - Edith Abbott, American social worker, educator, and author (b. 1876)
- 1965 - Edogawa Ranpo, Japanese author (b. 1894)
- 1968 - Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
- 1971 - Myril Hoag, baseball player (b. 1908)
- 1972 - Helen Traubel, American soprano (b. 1903)
- 1982 - Keith Green, American gospel singer, songwriter, and pianist (b. 1953)
- 1996 - Marguerite "Marge" Ganser, American singer (Shangri-Las) (b. 1948)
- 1999 - Trygve Haavelmo, Norwegian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- 2002 - Archer John Porter Martin, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910)
- 2003 - Lady Valerie Goulding, Irish Senator and campaigner for the disabled (b. 1918)
- 2004 - Francis Crick, English molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1916)
- 2004 - Sam Edwards, American actor (b. 1915)
- 2004 - Tiziano Terzani, Italian journalist (b. 1938)

Holidays and observances


- Canada - Commemoration of the deportation of the Acadians
- Faroe Islands - Ólavsøka Eve
- Peru - Independence Day
- San Marino - Fall of the Fascist Government

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/28 BBC: On This Day] ---- July 27 - July 29 - June 28 - August 28 -- listing of all days ko:7월 28일 ms:28 Julai ja:7月28日 simple:July 28 th:28 กรกฎาคม



Counterpoint

:This article is about the concept of counterpoint in music. For the Star Trek: Voyager episode of the same title, see Counterpoint (Voyager episode). Counterpoint is a musical technique involving the simultaneous sounding of separate musical lines. It is especially prominent in Western music. In all eras, writing of counterpoint has been subject to rules, sometimes strict. Counterpoint written before approximately 1600 is usually known as polyphony. The term comes from the Latin punctus contra punctum ("note against note"). The adjectival form contrapuntal shows this Latin source more transparently. By definition, chords occur when multiple notes sound simultaneously; however, chordal, harmonic, "vertical" features are considered secondary and almost incidental when counterpoint is the predominant textural element. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction rather than harmonic effects generated when melodic strands sound together. It was elaborated extensively in the Renaissance period, but composers of the Baroque period brought counterpoint to a kind of culmination, and it may be said that, broadly speaking, harmony then took over as the predominant organising principle in musical composition. The late Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach wrote most of his music incorporating counterpoint, and explicitly and systematically explored the full range of contrapuntal possibilities in such works as The Art of the Fugue. Given the way terminology in music history has evolved, such music created from the Baroque period on is described as contrapuntal, while music from before Baroque times is called polyphonic. Hence, the earlier composer Josquin Des Prez is said to have written polyphonic music. Homophony, by contrast with polyphony, features music in which chords or vertical intervals work with a single melody without much consideration of the melodic character of the added accompanying elements, or of their melodic interactions with the melody they accompany. As suggested above, most popular music written today is predominantly homophonic — governed by considerations of chord and harmony. But these are only strong general tendencies, and there are many qualifications one could add. The form or compositional genre known as fugue is perhaps the most complex contrapuntal convention. Other examples include the round (familiar in folk traditions) and the canon. In musical composition, counterpoint is an essential means for the generation of musical ironies; a melodic fragment, heard alone, may make a particular impression, but when it is heard simultaneously with other melodic ideas, or combined in unexpected ways with itself, as in a canon or fugue, surprising new facets of meaning are revealed. This is a means for bringing about development of a musical idea, revealing it to the listener as conceptually more profound than a merely pleasing melody.

Species counterpoint

Species counterpoint is a type of strict counterpoint, developed as a pedagagical tool, in which a student progresses through several "species" of increasing complexity, gradually attaining the ability to write free counterpoint according to the rules at the given time. The idea is at least as old as 1532, when Giovanni Maria Lanfraco described a similar concept in his Scintille de musica. The late 16th century Venetian theorist Zarlino elaborated on the idea in his influential Le institutioni harmoniche, and it was first presented in a codified form in 1619 by Lodovico Zacconi in his Prattica di musica. Zacconi, unlike later theorists, included a few extra contrapuntal techniques as species, for example invertible counterpoint. By far the most famous pedagogue to use the term, and the one who made it famous, was Johann Fux. In 1725 he published Gradus ad Parnassum (Step by Step Up Mount Parnassus) a work intended to help teach students how to compose, using counterpoint — specifically, the contrapuntal style as practiced by Palestrina in the late 16th century — as the principal technique. Fux described five species: #Note against note; #Two notes against one; #Four notes against one; #Notes offset against each other (as suspensions); #All the first four species together, as "florid" counterpoint.

Considerations for all species

Students of species counterpoint usually practice writing counterpoint in all the modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Aeolian). The following rules apply to melodic writing in all species: #The counterpoint must begin and end on a perfect consonance. #The final must be approached by step. If approached from below, the leading tone must be raised, except in the case of the Phrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C# is necessary at the cadence. #Permitted melodic intervals are the perfect fourth, fifth, and octave, as well as the major and minor second, major and minor third, and ascending minor sixth. When the ascending minor sixth is used it must be immediately followed by motion downwards. #If writing two skips in the same direction--something which must be done only rarely--the second must be smaller than the first, and the interval between the first and the third note may not be dissonant. #If writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with motion in the other direction. #Contrary motion should predominate. #The interval of a tenth should not be exceeded between the two parts, unless necessary. #The interval of a tritone in three notes is to be avoided (for example, a melodic motion F - A - B natural), as is the interval of a seventh in three notes.

First species

In first species counterpoint, each note in an added part
- (or parts) sounds against one note in the cantus firmus. Notes in all parts are sounded simultaneously, and move against each other simultaneously. The species is said to be expanded if any of the added notes is broken up (simply repeated). A few further rules given by Fux, by study of the Palestrina style, and usually given in the works of later counterpoint pedagogues, are as follows. Some are vague, and since good judgement and taste have been regarded by contrapuntists as more important than strict observance of mechanical rules, there are many more cautions than prohibitions. #Begin and end on either the unison, octave, or fifth, unless the added part is underneath, in which case begin and end only on unison or octave. #Use no unisons except at the beginning or end. #Avoid hidden or parallel fifths or octaves. #Attempt to keep the two parts within a tenth of each other, unless an exceptionally pleasing line can be written outside of that range. #Avoid moving in parallel thirds or sixths for too long. #Avoid having both parts move in the same direction by skip. #Attempt to have as much contrary motion as possible. In the following examples, all in two voices, the cantus firmus — the given part — is in the lower voice. The same cantus firmus is used for each, and each is in the Dorian mode. Dorian mode

Second species

In second species counterpoint, two notes in the added part (or parts) work against each longer note in the given part. The species is said to be expanded if one of the two shorter notes differs in length from the other. Additional considerations in second species counterpoint are as follows, and are in addition to the considerations for first species: #It is permissible to begin on an upbeat, leaving a half-rest in the added voice. #The accented beat must have only consonance (perfect or imperfect). The unaccented beat may have dissonance, but only as a passing tone, i.e. it must be approached and left by step in the same direction. #Avoid the interval of the unison except at the beginning or end of the example, except that it may occur on the unaccented portion of the bar. #Use caution with successive accented perfect fifths or octaves. They must not be used as part of a sequential pattern. Dorian mode

Third species

In third species counterpoint, four (or three) notes move against each longer note in the given part. As with second species, it is expanded if the shorter notes vary in length among themselves. Dorian mode

Fourth species

In fourth species counterpoint, a note is sustained or suspended in an added part while notes move against it in the given part, creating a dissonance, followed by the suspended note then changing (and "catching up") to create a subsequent consonance with the note in the given part as it continues to sound. Fourth species counterpoint is said to be expanded when the added-part notes vary in length from each other. The technique requires chains of notes sustained across the boundaries determined by beat, and so creates syncopation. syncopation

Florid counterpoint

In fifth species counterpoint, sometimes called florid counterpoint, the other four species of counterpoint are combined within the added part (or added parts). In the example, the first and second bars are second species, the third bar is third species, and the fourth and fifth bars are third and embellished fourth species. syncopation

General notes

It is a common and pedantic misconception that counterpoint is defined by these five species, and therefore anything that does not follow the strict rules of the five species is not counterpoint. This is not true; although much contrapuntal music of the common practice period indeed adheres to the rules, there are exceptions. Fux's book and its concept of "species" was purely a method of teaching counterpoint, not a definitive or rigidly prescriptive set of rules for it. He arrived at his method of teaching (or so he believed, at least) by examining the works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, an important late 16th century composer and one who in Fux's time was held in the highest esteem as a contrapuntist. Works in the contrapuntal style of the 16th century—the "prima pratica" or "stile antico," it was called by modernist composers then—were often said by Fux's contemporaries to be in "Palestrina style." Indeed, Fux's treatise is a rather accurate compendeum of Palestrina's techniques.
- (Note: in counterpoint, the parts or individual melodic strands are often called voices, even if the music is thought of as instrumental.)

Contrapuntal derivations

Since the Renaissance period in European music, much music which is considered contrapuntal has been written in imitative counterpoint. In imitative counterpoint, two or more voices enter at different times, and (especially when entering) each voice repeats some version of the same melodic element. The fantasia, the ricercar, and later, the fugue (the contrapuntal form par excellence) all feature imitative counterpoint, which also frequently appears in choral works such as motets and madrigals. Imitative counterpoint has spawned a number of devices that composers have turned to in order to give their works both mathematical rigor and expressive range. Some of these devices include:
- Inversion: The inverse of a given fragment of melody is the fragment turned upside down – so if the original fragment has a rising major third (see interval), the inverted fragment has a falling major (or perhaps minor) third. (Compare, in twelve tone technique, the inversion of the tone row, which is the so-called prime series turned upside down.) In a completely separate sense, a contrapuntal inversion of melodies being simultaneously sounded by voices is the subsequent switching of the melodies between voices, so that for example an upper-voice melody is now sounded in some lower voice, and vice versa.
- Retrograde refers to the contrapuntal device whereby notes in an imitative voice sound backwards in relation to their order in the original.
- Retrograde inversion is where the imitative voice sounds notes both backwards and upside down.
- Augmentation is when in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the notes are extended in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced.
- Diminution is when in one of the parts in imitative counterpoint the notes are reduced in duration compared to the rate at which they were sounded when introduced.

Dissonant counterpoint

Dissonant counterpoint was first theorized by Charles Seeger as "at first purely a school-room discipline," consisting of species counterpoint but with all the traditional rules reversed. First species counterpoint is required to be all dissonances, establishing "dissonance, rather than consonance, as the rule," and consonances are "resolved" through a skip, not step. He wrote that "the effect of this discipline" was "one of purification." Other aspects of composition, such as rhythm, could be "dissonated" by applying the same principle (Charles Seeger, "On Dissonant Counterpoint," Modern Music 7, no. 4 (June-July 1930): 25-26). Seeger was not the first to employ dissonant counterpoint, but was the first to theorize and promote it. Other composers who have used dissonant counterpoint, if not in the exact manner prescribed by Charles Seeger, include Ruth Crawford-Seeger, Carl Ruggles, Dane Rudhyar, and Arnold Schoenberg.

External links


- [http://www.ntoll.org/interests/music/species/ A guide to species counterpoint]
- [http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk.C/index.html Principles of Counterpoint]
- [http://www.o-art.org/history/early/Seeger.html On Dissonant Counterpoint by David Nicholls]
- [http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m2298/2_17/61551810/p6/article.jhtml?term= Dane Rudhyar's Vision of American Dissonance by Carol J. Oja]
- [http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/textd/Dissonantcounterpoint.html Dissonant counterpoint examples and definition]
- [http://www.music.columbia.edu/~chris/ctrpnt.html De-Mystifying Tonal Counterpoint or How to Overcome Your Fear of Composing Counterpoint Exercises] by Christopher Dylan Bailey, composer at Columbia
- [http://www.greenwych.ca/musicmid.htm New Tonal Music composed with emphasis o