Köthen: 1717-1723

Johann Sebastian Bach

II LIFE

Early Life
Arnstadt: 1703-1707
Mühlhausen: 1707-1708
Weimar: 1708-1717

Köthen: 1717-1723

Bach’s new employer, Leopold, loved and understood music and could play the violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord as well as sing bass. The prince held Bach in high regard and stood as godfather for his seventh child. Bach, in turn, named the child Leopold August in his employer’s honor. Bach later said that the years in Köthen were among the happiest of his life. Since the court was Calvinist, rather than Lutheran, Bach was not required to compose church cantatas. He concentrated instead on writing secular cantatas and instrumental music for Leopold’s talented chamber ensemble, producing masterpieces such as the Brandenburg Concertos (named for their dedication to the Margrave of Brandenburg), the works for unaccompanied violin and for unaccompanied cello, and a host of solo concertos and orchestral suites. Bach also began to assemble keyboard collections for the instruction of his young sons and his growing coterie of private students. The collections included the Inventions and Sinfonias, the French and English Suites, and the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

In the summer of 1720, Bach’s wife died while he was away on a trip with the prince, and the following year the 36-year-old composer married the 20-year-old Anna Magdalena Wilcken, a court singer descended like himself from a long line of musicians. The marriage proved to be a perfect musical match: Magdalena assisted her husband by painstakingly copying a great deal of his music; he, in turn, assembled two volumes of house music in her honor (the Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach of 1722 and 1725). Magdalena Bach gave birth to 13 children, six of whom survived infancy. Of these, two became famous musicians: Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach and Johann Christian Bach.

In 1722 the important post of cantor (music teacher) at the Saint Thomas School in Leipzig fell vacant. Bach applied for the position, but his candidacy was not viewed with great enthusiasm by the town council. Only after Georg Philipp Telemann and Christoph Graupner (a then well-known chapel master in Darmstadt) declined the post did the council settle on Bach, with one member complaining, “Since the best men can’t be obtained, mediocre ones will have to be taken.” Bach nevertheless accepted the offer and left Köthen with his family in the spring of 1723.


Leipzig: 1723-1750

III WORKS

Cantatas
Motets
Oratorios and Passions
Magnificat and B-Minor Mass
Organ Works
Clavier Works
Works for Solo Instruments
Works for Instrumental Ensemble
Musical Offering, Canonic Variations, Art of Fugue
Method of Composing

IV THE REVIVAL OF BACH’S MUSIC