Johann Sebastian Bach was influenced by his large family of musicians. There will also be music by his ancestors and descendants at the Leipzig Bach Festival.
Johann Sebastian Bach: In the footsteps of Leipzig's most famous Thomaskantor
Today, Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the greatest classical composers of all time. The baroque composer went down in music history as a master of polyphonic melodies. “Bach is famous today for the incredible miracles he performed on the piano and organ,” said Bach Festival director Michael Maul in an interview with DW. “He composed fugues and preludes in all keys that have fascinated generations of musicians and composers.”
Two of his major works for keyboard instruments can be heard at the Leipzig Bach Festival this year: “The Art of Fugue”, played by the Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov and the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, the first part of which is interpreted by the Hungarian pianist András Schiff and the second part of which is performed by the Hungarian pianist András Schiff. part played by Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt. “The Well-Tempered Clavier” is one of the best-known textbooks by Johann Sebastian Bach and is celebrating its 300th anniversary this year.
The office of Thomaskantor
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach in March 1685 and died in Leipzig in 1750. There he worked as Thomaskantor for 27 years until his death and conducted, among other things, the famous Thomanerchor, which had existed since 1212. With more than 800 years of choir history, the choir is one of the oldest boys' choirs in Germany. Despite this long tradition, the cantors are counted from number one after the death of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Andreas Reize, new Thomaskantor in Leipzig
Last autumn, the Swiss conductor and church musician Andreas Reize took over from his predecessor Gotthold Schwarz as the 18th Thomaskantor after Bach. The Thomaner traditionally open the Bach Festival, this time on June 9th with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The Leipzig Bach Archive has just published a new complete edition of the works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
The Bach family celebrated the first Bach Festival
Johann Sebastian Bach comes from a widespread family of musicians. The relatives and ancestors were active in Northern Germany and especially in today's federal states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Once a year they met for musical family celebrations. “The Bach family invented the Bach festival, so to speak,” says Michael Maul.
The Leipzig Bach Festival takes up the idea of the large family of musicians this year under the motto “Bach – We Are Family”, with choirs from all over the world and with works by the ancestors and successors of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The town pipers and organists
Johann Sebastian Bach's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was employed as a Stadtpfeifer, that is, as a town musician. His cousin, Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703), played as the city organist in Eisenach and is said to have been a great role model for Johann Sebastian Bach. At the age of ten, Johann Sebastian Bach lost his parents and lived for a few years with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach (1671 to 1721), who was also an organist and taught him to play the piano.
Copy (after 1750) of the family tree of the Bach family based on a lost template by Johann Sebastian Bach
Later, Bach collected the compositions of his ancestors, as well as the works of composers who influenced him, in the so-called “Alt-Bachisches Archiv”. Bach listed 53 family members alone, most of whom worked as church or court musicians. The works of his ancestors and role models such as Dietrich Buxtehude and Heinrich Schütz can be heard at the Bach Festival in six concerts on “Bach's roots”.
Bach's rise to the position of Thomaskantor
Even though Bach learned different instruments, the organ remained his main instrument. At the age of 18 he received his first organist position in Arnstadt. In Weimar he was appointed concert master in 1714 and then rose to become “Kapellmeister” to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen in Köthen. There he also composed the famous “Piano Booklet for Anna Magdalena” in 1722, written for his second wife, as well as the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, a cycle of 24 preludes and fugues through all major and minor keys.
Watch video 02 :26
Michael Maul explains: “Who was Bach?”
In May 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach took office for life as Thomaskantor in Leipzig. As a teacher of the Thomaner, he had to accompany the masses with music on all Sundays and public holidays. Converted, this meant that he composed an average of one cantata per week, at least during his first year in office. What Johann Sebastian intended as “commercial music” is today referred to by many as “divine music” that inspires people all over the world. In 2023, these Leipzig cantatas will be sung in a separate cycle at the Bach Festival.
Bach also composed his Christmas Oratorio and his great passions, the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, in Leipzig. While Bach's piano and organ works were cultivated by subsequent generations, his vocal works were almost forgotten in public until the 19th century.
Bach Renaissance in the 19th century
It wasn't until the 19th century that people rediscovered Bach's vocal music. “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy performed Bach's great St Matthew Passion for the first time in Berlin in 1829 and everyone was totally enthusiastic and fascinated by this complex and yet so effective music,” explains Michael Maul. Mendelssohn Bartholdy adapted the work to the taste of the time and had it played in an abridged version with a large orchestra. Under Thomaskantor Andreas Reize, the Thomaner will perform the St. Matthew Passion on June 17th at the Bach Festival. DW will stream the concert and make it available as video-on-demand on the “DW Classic Music” YouTube channel.
Bach societies worldwide
In the course of the rediscovery of Bach's music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the first Bach societies were founded. The oldest is the “Bach Society in Leipzig”, whose founding members include the composers Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt.
In 1900 the “New Bach Society” was founded in Leipzig, which has made it its mission to promote and disseminate Johann Sebastian Bach's music to this day. The society runs the Bach Museum in Eisenach and invites people to a Bach festival in different cities every year. This year, together with the Leipzig Bach Festival, it celebrates the large international Bach family.
Under the motto “Bach – We Are Family”, the Leipzig Bach Festival invites international Bach choirs
As the Bach Archive found out, there are now more than 300 Bach societies in Germany and around the world. The most recent include the “Sociedad de Bach” in Paraguay, founded in 2008, and the “Soft Bach Society Yamaguchi” from Japan from 2013. In Malaysia, the conductor and founder David Chin has been celebrating his own Bach Festival every year since 2015. For the director of the Bach Festival, Michael Maul, this is proof that Bach's music continues to delight people all over the world to this day. “We keep discovering more secrets because this music has so many facets. It can be heard and explored over and over again and you will always come across new beauties and peculiarities”.