JS Bach 🎼🎶🇬🇧

On the occasion of the 337th anniversary of Johan Sebastian Bach’s birth in 1685

Photo by Aramis Cartam on Pexels.com

Johan Sebastian Bach is widely considered one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music. His works are remarkable for intellectual depth, mastery of technical and expressive means and artistic beauty. Born into a family of musicians in 1685, in present-day Central Germany, young Johan Sebastian has been exposed to music and composition from an early age and naturally absorbed the essential skills of a musician and a composer. His family was traditionally involved in the art of music for generations and, also after Johan Sebastian, this dedication remained within the family spanning seven generations. For this reason, the many members of the Bach family are identified by the initials of their first names, in the case of Johan Sebastian, as JS Bach.

Score of one of JS Bach’s most famous compositions

Bach’s music is characterised by the complexity of the composition and the harmony of the contrapuntal invention. Basically, independent melodic lines are merged into a new poliphonic musical effect generated by the complex layers of music with their own performance identity. Bach’s musical production showed a growing ability to organise complex works based on German style models and the works of Italian composers of the time.

There are several more specific characteristics of Bach’s style. In Baroque times, composers who composed according to Italian taste often wrote simple melodic lines, which were then enriched by the performers with embellishments and improvised passages. On the contrary, Bach used an extremely detailed and flowery form of musical writing, which leaves a small space for the possibility for performers to add arbitrary passages.

Of the many existing portraits of JS Bach, only a few have a clear link with the composer. The oil painting on the right is by Elias Gottlob Hausssmann, a contemporary painter of JS Bach who probably made this portrait or commissioned by the Bach family in 1748 and represents the composer towards the end of his life.

Below you will find a YouTube video with one of my favourite pieces by JS Bach: the third movement of his 5th Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1050, composed in 1720-1721, played by the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Jeannette Sorrell.