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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685‒1750)

• Organist & composer
• Set new standards for creativity
and technical difficulty
• Recognised as one of the greatest
composers in Western-music
history
• Composed in all Baroque forms &
genres, excluding opera
• Career was defined by his
professional positions (working
primarily for the Lutheran church in
Germany)

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 Bach’s career
Born in Einstadt, Thuringia, 1685
Arnstadt (1703‒7)
& Mühlhausen (1707‒8)
Church organist

Weimar (1703, 08‒17)

Court organist &
Concert master

Köthen (1717‒23)
Court music director

Leipzig (1723‒50)
Civic music director
and Cantor of St
Thomas church
 Brandenburg Concertos
• Six instrumental works
• Dedicated to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg on
24 March 1721
• Described as Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (concertos
with several instruments): each piece has an innovative
combination of woodwind, brass and string instruments
– Concerto: one or more solo instruments with full orchestra, in
several contrasting movements
– A concerto grosso (big concerto) involves a small group of solo
instruments (concertino) and full orchestra (ripieno)

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 Brandenburg Concerto, No. 3
You can access images of Bach’s original autograph
manuscript, and a modern edition of the score, at the
online Petrucci Music Library: http://imslp.org/

Use the ‘search by composer’ function to locate

J.S. Bach, then search the alphabetical list
of his compositions for ‘Brandenburg concerto no. 3’,
follow the link and scroll down to the ‘Scores’ section

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KM Music Conservatory
 Leipzig, Germany
• Bach spent most of his career at the town of Leipzig
• Today there is an annual festival devoted to celebrating Bach’s life
and musical works: http://www.bachfestleipzig.de/en/bachfest

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 Cantata
• A multi-movement sacred vocal work: solo and chorus
sections with instrumental accompaniment
• A central element of the Lutheran (Protestant) church
service: the churches in Leipzig required 58 cantatas per
year, for every Sunday plus special feast days
• Bach produced at least 3 complete cycles of cantatas at
Leipzig: around 200 compositions survive
• Bach’s cantatas combine sacred and secular musical forms,
and older techniques (i.e. Cantus firmus) with newer styles
(the Italian Da Capo aria) to create complex unified musical
and textual structures

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 e.g. Nun komm der Heiden Heiland (1724)
see Grout, A History, p449‒52.
• The opening and closing choruses are based on Luther’s
chorale of 1524, which was in turn adapted from the
Gregorian chant Veni, redemptor gentium

• In between the choruses, four solo recitative and aria

sections set sacred poetry in a more operatic style

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The closing
chorale
movement

Lob sei Gott, dem

Vater, g’than...

[Praise be to God
the father...]

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 Structure of Nun komm der Heiden Heiland
Form Text
• Chorus with Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
orchestral ritornello
• Tenor aria Bewundert O menschen
• Bass recitative So geht aus Gottes Herrlichkeit
• Bass aria Streite, siege, starker Held!
• Soprano & Alto
recitative duet Wir ehren diese Herrlichkeit
• Chorale Lob sei Gott, dem Vater

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KM Music Conservatory
 Musikalisches Opfer (Musical Offering), 1747

• In May 1747, Frederick the Great, King of

Prussia, invited Bach to his court and
challenged him to improvise a fugue at the
keyboard on a melodic theme he had
composed
• The Royal Theme

• Bach returned home and developed his

improvisations into several different pieces,
which he then published.
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Newspaper report of Bach’s meeting with King Frederick

We hear from Potsdam that last Sunday the famous Capellmeister

from Leipzig, Herr Bach, arrived with the intention of hearing the
excellent Royal music at that place [the Royal Palace].
In the evening, at about the time when the regular chamber music in
the Royal apartments usually begins, His Majesty was informed that
Capellmeister Bach had arrived at Potsdam and was waiting in His
Majesty’s antechamber for His Majesty’s most gracious permission to
listen to the music...
His August self [the King] immediately gave orders that Bach be
admitted, and went, at his entrance, to the so-called “forte-piano”,
condescending also to play, in person and without any preparation, a
theme to be executed by Capellmeister Bach in a fugue.
This was done so happily by the aforementioned Capellmeister that
not only His majesty was pleased to show his satisfaction thereat, but
also all those present were seized with astonishment. Herr Bach has
found the subject propounded to him so exceedingly beautiful that
he intends to set it down on paper in a regular fugue and have it
engraved in copper.

translated from Spenersche Zeitung, Berlin newspaper,

May 11, 1747.

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 Structure of Musical Offering
• I. Three-part Ricercar (a type of instrumental fugue)
• II. Five canons
• III. Sonata for flute, violin and continuo in 4 movements ‘Sonata
sopr’il Soggeto Reale’
• IV. Five canons
• V. Six-part Ricercar

• Canon (round): a form of strict imitative counterpoint with

precise repetition of a melodic theme in each voice.
• Fugue: a form of free imitative counterpoint, with a melodic
theme (subject) recurring in different voices throughout the
composition, producing a highly complex contrapuntal texture.
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 Bach’s dedication
Most Gracious King,
In deepest humility I dedicate herewith to Your Majesty a
musical offering, the noblest part of which derives from Your
Majesty’s own august hand. With awesome pleasure I still remember
the very special Royal grace when, some time ago, during my visit in
Potsdam, Your Majesty’s Self deigned to play to me a theme for a
fugue upon the clavier, and at the same time and graciously asking
me to improvise upon it in Your Majesty’s most august presence…
I resolved therefore and promptly pledged myself to work out
this right Royal theme more fully, and then make it know to the
world. This resolve has now been carried out as well as possible, and
it has none other than this irreproachable intent, to glorify, if only in a
small point, the fame of a monarch whose greatness and power, as in
all the sciences of war and peace, so especially in music, everyone
must admire and revere…

Your Majesty’s most humble and obedient servant, the author.

Leipzig, July 7, 1747.
 Summary
• What was the significance of patronage for Bach’s career
as performer and composer?

• Can you summarise the genres of concerto, cantata and

fugue?

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