His father is an excellent violinist, his grandfather's two brothers are talented composers, and his uncles and sisters are respected musicians. For young Bach, he has great musical talent, and he is very lucky to grow up in such a family. But fate insisted on finding some trouble: he lost his mother at the age of 9 and his father at the age of 10, so he had to rely on his eldest brother to continue raising him. Although there are a lot of music materials at home, his bossy brother just won't allow him to read and study, no matter how he pleads. Bach had to take advantage of his brother's leaving home and going to bed late at night to secretly copy his favorite music in the moonlight. It took half a year to copy it, and his eyesight was greatly damaged. In his later years, he spent painfully in blindness until his death.
When Bach 15 years old, he finally left home alone and embarked on the road of independent life. With his beautiful singing voice and excellent playing skills of the clavichord, violin and organ, he was admitted to the choir affiliated to St. Michel's Church in Lombard and also entered the God School. The library here is rich in classical music works, and Bach plunged into it like a huge sponge, fully absorbing and integrating the artistic achievements of various European schools and broadening his musical horizons. In order to practice piano, he often stays up late. Every holiday, he has to walk dozens of miles to Hamburg to listen to famous musicians. He graduated from St. Michel University in 1702 and became a violinist in an indoor band the following year. In the next twenty years, he did a lot of work. Bach was mainly known as an outstanding organist all his life, although he was also a composer, teacher and conductor. 1723, 38-year-old Bach began to lead the singing class in St. Thomas' church in Leipzig, and he served as a horn for 27 years for the rest of his life.
Weimar era (1708- 17 17)
Bach played his oratorio "God is My King, BWV7 1", and resigned in the same year to accept a more generous position: as the court orchestra of William Ernst, Duke of Weimar; 17 14 became a musician. He composed most organ works in Weimar Bach, discovered Vivaldi's music for the first time, and began to compose concertos. 17 17 accepts the position of Le Zheng of Anhalt Baron Arklow in Corden; However, his resignation was blocked by William Ernst, and he was imprisoned even before he was relieved of his obligations.
ketten Age( 17 17- 1723)
The days in Kelten were the golden age of Bach's life. During this period, he created a lot of excellent secular music and religious music, such as the first volume of the Average Piano Music Collection, which is known as the keyboard music in the Old Testament, and the Brandenburg Concerto, a landmark in the history of orchestral development. At the same time, Bach also works in Cotten Palace. The mirror hall of Cotten Palace is very gorgeous, and there are also statues of Bach here.
1724, Bach's master, Prince Keton, seemed indifferent to music, so he resigned from the court and went to Leipzig to be the music director (music director) of St. Thomas Church School, where he spent the remaining 27 years of his life.
Since then, Coton Town has been full of vitality because of Bach's music: its choir has been using Bach's name since 1906, 1935 founded Bach Music Festival, and 1967 held Bach Music Festival and Bach Music Competition alternately here to commemorate Bach's 250th anniversary. This tradition has continued to this day. 1983, the Coton Museum of History opened the Bach Memorial Hall.
Leipzig era (1723- 1750)
Leipzig period is the longest period in Bach's life, and it is also the most creative period. At this time, Bach's playing skills and composition level have reached the point of perfection. His representative works in Leipzig include Touching Mass in B minor, Passion of Matthew, Piano Music with Equal Rhythm Volume II, The Art of Fugue, etc., which embodies his profound composition attainments. 1747, when the king of uncrowned music went to Potsdam, he was summoned by another king, Frederick of Prussia, and improvised. The audience here are all impressed. In the second year, Bach developed the theme of this performance and wrote another work summarizing his art of composing and playing-The Contribution of Music.
In Leipzig, Bach was the conductor of St. Thomas Boys Choir for 27 years. Due to long-term overuse of eyes, Bach's eyesight declined and he suffered from cataracts in his later years, but he still insisted on dictation and writing. A few days before his death, he was dictating a hymn "Towards the Altar of the Lord". Every note of the music expresses the last pious prayer of the old man before his death, and finally comes to an abrupt end in Bar 26, becoming a masterpiece of the master.
1750 On the night of July 28th, Bach drew the last rest of his life and walked safely to the altar in his heart. Three days later, johann sebastian bach was buried in the cemetery of St. John's Church in Leipzig. Bach's works are profound, tragic, broad and restrained, and full of the breath of real life in Germany in the first half of the18th century. He believes in religion and Lutheranism. He wants his music to serve the church. Most of his works are religious music. His music embodies the thoughts of ordinary German citizens living in18th century. He is deeply influenced by the pain brought by life and has a rich and profound understanding of life. Although he is passive and obedient, he hasn't seen a way to change his life. He believes that a person must have a strong will, lofty beliefs and the spirit of self-sacrifice. Da is the main content reflected in Bach's artistic works. His works reflect this humanistic thought among German citizens in18th century from different angles and with different images.
He is the last great religious artist. He believes that music is "the harmonious voice of praising God", and praising God is the central content of human life. His music was originally composed by Luther hymns called hymns. Through the melody, we can see that the composer combined the popular voices at that time. In the form of music, he has no intention to innovate, but to push the existing form to the peak.
Bach's works have certain philosophical and ethical significance, but his forms of expression are not abstract and dogmatic. On the contrary, in his works, philosophy and ethics are combined with lyric and landscape writing. Although modelling technique was not widely used like Handel's, Bach inevitably drew lessons from the description of natural scenery (such as wind blowing and rivers) in order to set off certain inner feelings. The polarity of Bach's music content determines the vitality and comprehensiveness of his music style. There is no obvious difference between Bach's vocal music style and instrumental music style. He created a new style of combining vocal music and instrumental music. He has created many large-scale vocal works full of dramatic factors, among which the most influential are The Passion of Matthew and Mass in B minor. In these works, Bach, as a devout Protestant, expressed his pity and sympathy for human disasters and sufferings and his desire for a peaceful and happy future through religious music forms (passionate melody, mass, classical songs, oratorios, etc.). ) Among Bach's vocal works, oratorios are the most colorful. Bach's oratorios, on the one hand, inherited the secular tradition of "Conluta" approaching opera, on the other hand, inherited the tradition of religious oratorios approaching polyphonic chorus, and created a new type of oratorios which integrated vocal music and instrumental music. Both content and style are much richer than the old oratorio.
Bach's oratorios are also divided into secular and religious. Most of his secular oratorios are written for the needs of officialdom entertainment, and the lyrics are mostly boring words in ancient Greek mythology to remember the little people and praise the nobles. Bach often goes beyond the scope of lyrics, or grasps individual unimportant words as an excuse to write a lively and interesting music work, such as "Peasant Chorus". This oratorio was sung and answered by two farmers in Saxon dialect, with a strong sense of humor in folk conversation. Bach's religious oratorios are a genre he often creates for a long time, with a large number, accounting for almost half of all his music works. The content of these songs is profound and rich, and the expression methods are also very diverse and constantly evolving. Bach started with chorus chorus, and later he expanded the scope of chorus and wrote some indoor solos. Kontha Road also wrote various forms of chorus, but the pure chorus was written less. Bach used many forms in his religious oratorios, and his recitation, aria, duet and chorus all had their own unique characteristics. Oratorio is a combination of instrumental music and vocal music. It is not accompanied by instrumental music, but is composed of small ensembles, large ensembles or other different musical instruments.
Bach's suffering music, like chorus, is also a comprehensive genre of instrumental vocal music; Bach freely used various forms of vocal music and instrumental music according to the needs of expressing his psychological state at different stages. Bach developed the idea of musical generalization in the form of mass, shaped rich musical images and expressed Ding's profound thoughts and feelings. In this respect, he is similar to Handel. They all got rid of the limitations of opera art at that time, but returned to religious music. Although this is the inevitable result under specific historical conditions, this contradiction is particularly serious in Bach's Mass. Bach's instrumental music is the most important. His piano works are much richer in content, genre and style than those of his predecessors and contemporaries. Bach enriched the content, genre and style of piano music by drawing lessons from various experiences in the process of composing piano music. For example, he absorbed its improvisation and tragic spirit from organ music, and developed the polyphonic form of organ ancient music according to the characteristics of piano. Drawing on the experience of French pianists, he wrote a suite composed of Latin dance; He studied the Italian violin music style and scarlatti's piano music style, which was most obvious in his variations in C minor and fantasy EQ.
Bach's dance music originated from daily life and historical traditions, and his music has never been divorced from the German music tradition. The piano music collection with even rhythm is one of Bach's important legacies in the field of "pure music". As a work with German spirit, Equal Rhythm Piano Music Collection embodies that rigorous German thinking. In addition, Bach's band works such as French Suite, English Suite and Six Brandenburg Concertos also express the composer's prayer and desire for peace and a better life. These works have aroused strong repercussions in the hearts of the German people.