Why Organs Organs are the Least Boring Instruments

If you've never heard of Johann Sebastian Bach, take a seat and read on as this man is possibly the deciding musician of his time (early to mid 1700s), uniting the dispersed pieces of the Baroque period and ultimately bringing it to its ultimate maturity through his choir, secular and solo instrument pieces. What Bach introduced to classical music was what is called a contrapuntal technique. This is a term for the relationship between two different voices that don't follow the same contour or rhythm but that are interdependent in harmony. His works, ranging from the Brandenburg concertos and the Cello suites, amongst countless other masterpieces, have resulted in him being considered one the greatest composers of all time.

Bach stemmed from a particularly musical family. His father, the director of the Eisenach town musicians, taught him to play the violin and the harpsichord. All of Bach's uncles were professional musicians with his uncle Johann Christoph Bach being particularly famous and introducing him to the organ. One of Bach's fateful occurrences happened 1694 at the age of ten, when his mother, and eight months later, his father died. Bach moved in with his oldest brother, also called Johann Christoph Bach, a successful organist at the Michaelskirche (Michael's church) in a town nearby called Ohrdruf. There, Bach threw himself into studying, copying and secretly composing music. His brother taught him to play the clavichord and exposed him to several great German, French and Italian composers. At night, Bach would secretly copy notes of his brother's scores and compose pieces in order to practice them the next day, which when his brother found out, were immediately locked away as they were valuable commodities of that time.

At 14, Bach won a scholarship to study at a prestigious music school near Hamburg. There, amongst other subjects, he learned how to play the three manual organ and its hapsichords. By my count, that is already four instruments by the age of 14! Near this school was a famous church, the Johanniskirche, where the famous organ player, Georg Boehm, played the immense organ. Bach therefore possibly had access to some of the finest instruments of that time. After his graduation, Bach's name started to be spoken across Germany and his fame as a keyboard player increased.

He accepted a post at the St. Boniface's church as the organist. He was granted a generous salary of the time and for his and was able to begin composing some of his pieces known today. Bach, throughout his life, had issues with authorities and tended to do what he pleased and what he thought was right. Even at the St. Boniface's church, his unauthorised absence to visit one of the most famous organists of that time, Dieterich Buxtehude, caused anger to flare up amongst the authority figures. This coupled with a brawl after a night out only increased their disapproval. The 400km away visit to Buxtehude though paved the way for Bach's future pieces.

Bach left after only a short time to move to Muehlhausen where he received a more lucrative position as organist of St. Blasius's. There he married his second cousin Maria Barbara Bach after four months. He wrote the festive cantata in honour of the costly St. Blasius's organ renovation. That same year he was offered a position as the court organist and concertmaster at the ducal court in Weimar, which he decided to move to, relishing the idea of working with a well funded and professional cast. There their first child of seven was born and the two most musically significant sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

At that point Bach had fully developed his unrivalled musical skills and the period as concertmaster showed a continued composition of masterpieces. Through influences of Italian classical music by the likes of Vivaldi, he was able to exquisitely dramatise organ openings and lighten the musical mood. As the concertmaster Bach wrote his possibly biggest masterpiece, Das wohltemperierte Clavier (the well-tempered piano), which portrays the ingenious of how he utilised the contrapuntal technique. For his eldest son, Bach wrote the Little Organ Book, which contains traditional Lutheran chorales, which allow for a more intense organ training.

Due to Bach's personality trait of always following his own path despite being told otherwise, he was eventually unfavorably dismissed, landing an even more stable job as the director of music for the prince Leopold of Anhalt-Coethen. As a musician himself, the prince paid Bach well and greatly appreciated his talents, giving him a considerable amount if musical freedom. A further exceptional piece, the Brandenburg concertos were composed during his time there.

Tragically, Bach's wife suddenly died while he was away on a trip with prince Leopold, ultimately leaving him to care for all seven children. A year after his wife's death, Bach met Anna Maria Wilcke, a gifted soprano, 17 years his junior that also performed at Coethen. They married on the following December, having a total of 13 kids together, six of whom survived till adulthood (that's twenty kids during his lifetime he had!).

Bach eventually took on a challenging job of becoming the Cantor of the Thomasschule (Thomas school), which was next to the Thomaskirche (Thomas church) in Leipzig and the Director of Music in the main churches of the town. This position is the most significant in terms of power. He now had a high end government position, which included a high level of freedom and responsibility. He finally settled down with his large family and held this post for 27 years. He was faced with numerous problems of instructing off-tune students and providing weekly music at the two main churches, coupled with constant friction with the council. There he wrote up a whopping five annual cantata cycles, which evolve around Gospel readings and traditional church hymns. All in all, Bach composed a vast amount of church music for both Leipzig churches. Taking up the directorship to the Collegium Musicum, a private music society started by university students, only broadened his influence on Leipzig's musical sector.

His composition Mass in B Minor raised him to the position of Royal Court Composer. It is considered one of the greatest choral works of all time. In 1747, Bach experienced a further career breakthrough when he was challenged by Frederick II of Prussia in Potsdam, Berlin to improvise a three-part fugue on his pianoforte. This six part fugue musical offering he presented to the king was a novelty at that time. Bach wrote the Art of Fugue, which consisted of 18 immensely complex fugues and canons based on a simple theme. Again, through the use of the contrapuntal technique, this piece is often referred to as the "summation of polyphonic techniques".

Unfortunately, Bach's health was at a steady decline, resulting in his death in 1750 at the age of 65. He composed more than 1,000 pieces during his lifetime, many of them monumental. Funny enough, although Georg Frideric Haendel and Bach were born in the same year and Haendel only 50kn away from Leipzig, making numerous trips to Germany during his lifetime, they were never able to meet.

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