Germany had the finest organists in Europe in the Seventeenth Century; and there was no greater one among them than Johann Sebastian Bach.
Moreover, no one understood the Chorale better, or made more use of it, than Bach.
Bach’s life was uneventful. He was born in 1685 in Eisenach, near the Wartburg (celebrated for the legend of Tannhäuser), was organist at Weimar and Kapellmeister at Cothen for the Prince Leopold and Cantor of the Thomas School in Leipzig from 1723 until his death in 1750. He was also organist and director of the two chief churches in Leipzig.
Bach wrote every form of music except the opera. His industry was prodigious. “In Bach’s hands the music of the period marked its climax of expression, the Chorale was idealized to its highest pitch, the combination of Orchestra, chorus and solo voices in the Passions, the B-minor mass and the Church Cantatas became pillars of the house of musical art for all time, the principle of equal temperament[51] was fixed for good in Clavichord work, the violin became a solo instrument which could speak unaided for itself, and the organ came finally into its own. All this immense range of work was accomplished by an unobtrusive, unadvertising man of the highest moral force and of simple, deeply religious and deep-feeling character, a personality who would have considered it the highest possible tribute to be called the worthy father of a devoted family.”[52]
When Bach and his son, Philipp Emmanuel, went to work to draw their family tree, they found they had fifty-three musicians to hang on the boughs.
The whole Bach family played the organ and every other keyboard instrument. They were all marvellous players of the harpsichord.
Bach’s contribution to the development of the Orchestra is that he treated each separate instrument lovingly and as if it were an individual, so that he prepared the way for the occasional solos in orchestral compositions. He wrote for a great many instruments that were rapidly going out of fashion, such as the oboe d’amore, the oboe di caccia, the viola d’amore and the viola da gamba.
Bach stands at the parting of the ways of ancient music and modern music. Bach is the bridge between the Old and the New. He is often called the “musicians’ musician.”
Bach’s four Overtures for Orchestra are usually spoken of as Suites; but they are compositions on the Lully type. Critics have pointed out that Bach uses instruments to get the effect of fulness rather than color.
