28 Nov

Johann Sebastian Bach

In this article you will learn:

Any lover of real music will truly admire this name.

Birth and childhood

Was born greatest composer in 1685, (21) March 31 in the large family of Johann Ambrosius Bach and his wife Elisabeth. The birthplace of little Johann was the small town of Eisenach (at that time the Holy Roman Empire). Sebastian was the eighth child and also the youngest.

Bach's passion for music was inherent in nature and this is not surprising, because most of his ancestors were professional musicians. Bach's father was also a musician, and at the time of the birth of his eighth son, he organized concerts in Eisenach.

At the age of 9, Sebastian’s mother died, and a year later his father left the world. The elder Bach, Johann Christoph, took on raising his younger brother.

Music lessons

Living with Christophe, Sebastian entered the gymnasium, simultaneously learning music from his brother. Christophe gave him lessons in playing various musical instruments, mainly the organ and clavier.

At the age of 15, the future genius began studying at a vocal school. It bore the name of St. Michael and was located in the city of Luneburg. Bach turned out to be an amazingly capable student. He eagerly learned the basics musical art, studied the work of other musicians, developed comprehensively. In Lüneburg, Johann wrote his first organ pieces.

First job

After graduating in 1703, the young genius went to serve Duke Ernst in Weimar. He served as a court musician. This responsibility weighed heavily on Bach, and with great relief he changed jobs, receiving the position of organist in the Church of St. Boniface in the city of Arndstadt.

The composer's musical talent began to bring him well-deserved fame.

In 1707, Johann decided to move to the city of Mülhusen, continuing to serve as a church musician in the Church of St. Blaise. The city authorities were very pleased with his work.

Weimar

That same year, Bach married for the first time. The girl's name was Maria Barbara, she was the musician's cousin.

In 1708 the family moved to Weimar. There Johann again began to serve as court organist. In Weimar, a young couple had 6 children, but unfortunately only three survived. All of them later became talented musicians.

It was in Weimar that Bach became famous as a skilled organist and harpsichord master. He absorbed the music of other countries and composed something unimaginable. Even the then famous French organist Louis Marchand refused to compete with him. At this time, Bach created real masterpieces.

Köthen

Tired of Weimar, Bach decided to leave the service. For such a desire, he was even arrested, since the Duke did not want to let the musician go. But, soon, released, Johann went to donate his music to the city of Köthen to the Duke of Anthalt-Köthen. This happened in 1717. During this period, the “Well-Tempered Clavier” and the famous “Brandenburg Concertos” were written, the Brandenburg Concertos, English and French suites were composed.

In 1720, while Bach was away, his wife Barbara died.

Bach married a star for the second time singing scene in 1721. The singer's name was Anna Magdalene Wilhelm. The marriage should be considered happy. The couple had 13 children.

The creative journey continues

In 1723, Bach performed the St. John Passion in the Church of St. Thomas. In the same year, he received the position of choir cantor there, and soon became the “musical director” of all the churches in the city.

The periods of Bach's life in Leipzig are considered the most productive.

The last years of the composer

At the end of his life, Johann Bach was rapidly losing his sight. The capricious public believed that his time had passed, and now he was writing boring and outdated music. And the musician continued to create, despite everything. Thus were born the plays called “Music of the Offering.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – great German composer, bandmaster, virtuoso organist. More than two centuries have passed since his death, and interest in his written works does not fade. According to the New York Times, a ranking of world composers who created masterpieces that stand above time was compiled, and Bach ranks first on this list. His music, as the best that humanity could create, was recorded on the Voyager Golden Record, attached to a spacecraft and launched from Earth into Space in 1977.

Childhood

Johann Sebastian was born on March 31, 1685 in the German town of Eisenach. In the large Bach family, he was the youngest, eighth child (four of them died in infancy). Since the beginning of the 16th century, their family was famous for its musicality; many of its relatives and ancestors were professionals in music (researchers counted about fifty of them). The composer's great-great-grandfather, Faith Bach, was a baker and an excellent player of the zither (a plucked instrument) musical instrument in the form of a box).

The boy's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, played the violin in the Eisenach church and worked as a court accompanist (in this position he organized social concerts). The elder brother, Johann Christoph Bach, served as an organist in the church. From their family came so many trumpeters, organists, violinists and flutists that the surname “Bach” became a common noun, the name given to any more or less worthwhile musician, first in Eisenach, and then throughout Germany.

With such family, it is natural that little Johann Sebastian began to learn music before he learned to speak. He received his first violin lessons from his father and greatly pleased his father with his greed for musical knowledge, diligence and abilities. The boy had an excellent voice (soprano) and, while still very young, was a soloist in the choir of a city school. In his future profession no one doubted that Sebastian was bound to become a musician.

When he was nine years old, his mother Elisabeth Lemmerhirt died. A year later, the father also died, but the child was not left alone; his older brother Johann Christoph took him in with him. He was a sedate and respected musician and teacher in the city of Ohrdruf. Together with his students, Johann Christoph taught his younger brother to play church music on the harpsichord.

However, to young Sebastian these activities seemed monotonous, boring and painful. He began to educate himself, especially when he found out that his older brother had a notebook with works by famous composers in a locked closet. At night, young Bach would go into the closet, take out a notebook, and copy out the notes in the moonlight.

From such tiring night work, the young man’s eyesight began to deteriorate. What a shame it was when the older brother discovered Sebastian doing this and took away all the notes.

Education

In Ohrdruf, young Bach graduated from high school, where he studied theology, geography, history, physics, and Latin. School teacher advised him to continue his studies at the famous vocal school at St. Michael's Church in the city of Luneburg.

When Sebastian was fifteen years old, he decided that he was already completely independent, and went to Luneburg, walking almost 300 kilometers from Central Germany to the north. Here he went to school and within three years(from 1700 to 1703) was on full board and even received a small stipend. During his studies, he visited Hamburg, Celle, Lubeck, where he became acquainted with creativity modern musicians. At the same time, he tried to create his own works for the clavier and organ.

After graduating from vocal school, Sebastian had the right to enter the university, but did not use it because he needed to earn a living.

Creative path

Bach went to Thuringia, where he got a job in the private chapel of Duke Johann Ernst of Saxony as a court musician. For six months he played the violin for gentlemen and gained his first popularity as a performer. But to a young musician I wanted to develop, to discover new creative horizons for myself, and not to please the ears of the rich. He went to Arnstadt, 200 kilometers from Weimar, where he began working as a court organist in the Church of St. Boniface. Bach worked only three days a week and still received a fairly high salary.

The church organ was tuned to new system, y young composer a lot of new opportunities appeared, which he took advantage of and wrote about thirty capriccios, suites, cantatas and others organ works. However, three years later, Johann had to leave the city of Arnstadt, as he had tense relations with the authorities. The church authorities did not like his innovative approach to the performance of cult spiritual works. At the same time, the fame of the talented organist spread throughout Germany faster than the wind, and Bach was offered lucrative positions in many German cities.

In 1707, the composer came to Mühlhausen, where he entered service at the Church of St. Blaise. Here he began working part-time as an organ repairman and wrote the festive cantata “The Lord is My King.”

In 1708, he and his family moved to Weimar, where he stayed for a long time as a court composer and organist. It is believed that it was here and during this period that his creative path as a composer of music.

In 1717, Bach left Weimar to become a court conductor in Köthen with Prince Leopold of Anhalt, who appreciated the composer's talent. The prince paid Bach well and gave him complete freedom of action, but he professed Calvinism in religion, which excluded the use of sophisticated music in worship. Therefore, in Köthen, Bach was mainly engaged in writing secular works:

• suites for orchestra;
• six Brandenburg concertos;
• French and English suites for clavier;
• Volume 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier;
• suites for solo cello;
• two-voice and three-voice inventions;
• sonatas;
• three partitas for solo violin.

In 1723, Sebastian moved to Leipzig, where he took a job at the Church of St. Thomas as a choir cantor. Soon he was offered the position of “musical director” of all Leipzig churches. This period creative activity was marked by the writing of the following works:

• "Matthew Passion";
• "Christmas Oratorio";
• "St. John's Passion";
• Mass in B minor;
• "High Mass";
• "Majestic Oratorio".

Throughout his life, the composer wrote more than a thousand works.

Family

In the autumn of 1707, Johann married his second cousin Maria Barbara. Only seven children were born into the family, but three of them died in infancy.

Two of those who survived later became quite famous in musical world people:

• Wilhelm Friedemann, like his father, was an organist and composer, improviser and master of counterpoint.
• Carl Philipp Emmanuel also became a musician, composer, known as the Berlin or Hamburg Bach.

In June 1720, Maria Barbara died suddenly, and Bach was left a widower with four young children.

When the pain of the loss subsided a little, Sebastian again thought about a full-fledged family. He didn’t want to bring a stepmother into the house for his children, but it was already unbearable for him alone. It was during this period that the singer Anna Magdalena Wilke, his daughter, gave concerts in Köthen old friend, court musician in Weissenfeld. Young Anna visited Bach several times and played sweetly with his children. Sebastian hesitated for a long time, but finally proposed to her. Despite the sixteen-year age difference, the girl agreed to become the composer’s wife.

In 1721, Bach and Anna Magdalena got married. His young wife belonged to a musical dynasty and had an amazing voice and hearing. This marriage became happier for the composer than the first. Kind and flexible Anna accepted the children as her own, and was also an excellent hostess. Their house was now always clean and cozy, tasty, noisy and fun. For his beloved, Johann Sebastian created “The Music Book of Anna Magdalena Bach.”

In the evenings, candles were lit in the house, people gathered in the living room, Bach played the violin, and Anna sang. At such moments, crowds of listeners gathered under their windows, who were then allowed into the house to have dinner with the owners. The Bach family was very generous and hospitable.

Thirteen children were born to this marriage, only six of them survived.

Unfortunately, after Johann's death, disagreements began between his children. Everyone left, only two younger daughters remained with Anna Magdalena - Regina Susanna and Johanna Caroline. Financial assistance none of the children provided assistance, and the wife of the great composer spent the rest of her life in complete poverty. After her death she was even buried in unmarked grave for the poor. The most youngest daughter Bach Regina eked out a terrible existence; at the end of her life she was helped by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Last years of life and death

Johann Sebastian lived to be 65 years old. In recent years, his eyesight has deteriorated greatly, which was damaged in his youth. The composer decided to undergo an operation, which was performed on him by British ophthalmologist John Taylor. The doctor's reputation was not good, but Sebastian clung to last hope. However, the surgical intervention was unsuccessful, and Bach was completely blind. However, he did not stop composing; now he dictated his works to his wife or son-in-law.

Ten days before his death, a miracle happened, and Bach’s sight returned, as if to last time I was able to see the faces of my beloved wife and children, the light of the sun.

On July 28, 1750, the great musician’s heart stopped. He was buried in Leipzig in a church cemetery.

The outstanding German composer, organist and harpsichordist Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685 in the city of Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. He belonged to an extensive German family, most of whose members were professional musicians in Germany for three centuries. Johann Sebastian received his primary musical education (playing the violin and harpsichord) under the guidance of his father, a court musician.

In 1695, after the death of his father (his mother had died earlier), the boy was taken into the family of his older brother Johann Christoph, who served as a church organist at St. Michaelis Church in Ohrdruf.

In the years 1700-1703, Johann Sebastian studied at the church choir school in Lüneburg. During his studies, he visited Hamburg, Celle and Lubeck to get acquainted with creativity famous musicians of its time, new French music. During these same years he wrote his first works for organ and clavier.

In 1703, Bach worked in Weimar as a court violinist, in 1703-1707 as a church organist in Arnstadt, then from 1707 to 1708 in the Mühlhasen church. His creative interests were then focused mainly on music for organ and clavier.

In 1708-1717, Johann Sebastian Bach served as court musician for the Duke of Weimar in Weimar. During this period, he created numerous chorale preludes, an organ toccata and fugue in D minor, and a passacaglia in C minor. The composer wrote music for the clavier and more than 20 spiritual cantatas.

In 1717-1723, Bach served with Duke Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen in Köthen. Three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin, six suites for solo cello, English and French suites for clavier, and six Brandenburg concertos for orchestra were written here. Of particular interest is the collection “The Well-Tempered Clavier” - 24 preludes and fugues, written in all keys and in practice proving the advantages of the tempered musical system, the approval of which was hotly debated. Subsequently, Bach created the second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, also consisting of 24 preludes and fugues in all keys.

"Started in Köten" Music book Anna Magdalena Bach", which includes, along with plays by various authors, five of the six "French Suites". In the same years, "Little Preludes and Fuguettes" were created. English Suites, Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue" and other keyboard works. During this period, the composer wrote a number of secular cantatas, most of which were not preserved and received a second life with a new, spiritual text.

In 1723, his “St. John Passion” (a vocal-dramatic work based on gospel texts) was performed in the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig.

In the same year, Bach received the position of cantor (regent and teacher) at the Church of St. Thomas in Leipzig and the school at this church.

In 1736, Bach received the title of Royal Polish and Saxon Electoral Court Composer from the Dresden court.

During this period, the composer reached the heights of his mastery, creating magnificent samples in different genres, - sacred music: cantatas (about 200 have survived), "Magnificat" (1723), masses, including the immortal "High Mass" in B minor (1733), "Matthew Passion" (1729); dozens of secular cantatas (among them the comic "Coffee" and "Peasant"); works for organ, orchestra, harpsichord, among the latter - "Aria with 30 variations" ("Goldberg Variations", 1742). In 1747, Bach wrote a cycle of plays entitled "Musical Offerings", dedicated to to the Prussian king Frederick II. Last job The composer's work was "The Art of Fugue" (1749-1750) - 14 fugues and four canons on one theme.

Johann Sebastian Bach - the largest figure in the world musical culture, his work represents one of the peaks philosophical thought in music. Freely crossing features not only of different genres, but also of national schools, Bach created immortal masterpieces that stand above time.

At the end of the 1740s, Bach's health deteriorated, and he was particularly concerned about the sudden loss of his vision. Two unsuccessful cataract surgeries resulted in complete blindness.

He spent the last months of his life in a darkened room, where he composed the last chorale “I stand before Thy throne,” dictating it to his son-in-law, organist Altnikol.

On July 28, 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig. He was buried in the cemetery near St. John's Church. Due to the lack of a monument, his grave was soon lost. In 1894, the remains were found and reburied in a stone sarcophagus in the Church of St. John. After the church was destroyed by bombing during World War II, his ashes were preserved and reburied in 1949 in the chancel of St. Thomas Church.

During his lifetime, Johann Sebastian Bach was famous, but after the composer's death his name and music were forgotten. Interest in Bach's work arose only in the late 1820s; in 1829, the composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy organized a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin. In 1850, the Bach Society was created, which sought to identify and publish all the composer's manuscripts - 46 volumes were published over half a century.

Through the mediation of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the first monument to Bach was erected in Leipzig in 1842 in front of the old school building at the Church of St. Thomas.

In 1907, the Bach Museum was opened in Eisenach, where the composer was born, and in 1985 in Leipzig, where he died.

Johann Sebastian Bach was married twice. In 1707 he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. After her death in 1720, in 1721 the composer married Anna Magdalena Wilken. Bach had 20 children, but only nine of them survived their father. Four sons became composers - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784), Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), Johann Christoph Bach (1732-1795).

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

In the last years of his life, contemporaries considered Bach's music to be out of fashion. Today, many generations of musicians around the world have graduated from schools named after the great composer.

It is interesting that almost fifty relatives of the greatest German organist studied music, which means Johann was by no means the only gifted musician in his family.

Early life

In the spring of 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born into the family professional musicians. It is believed that the boy became a fifth generation musician. His father served as a musician at court, living in the city of Eisenach. Perhaps due to heredity, Johann s early age gravitates towards music.

At the age of nine, having lost both parents in turn, Bach completely transferred to the care of his older brother. Which, in turn, free time, actively engaged musical education boy teaching him to play the organ and clavier.

At the age of fifteen, the young man goes to the city of Lüneburg, enrolling locally in a vocal school. While studying at St. Michael's School, Johann Sebastian receives diversified development. Getting to know famous composers and constant travel inspired the young man to test himself by trying on the role of a composer. So, in 1700, Bach began to write his music, under the supervision of his brother, who provided Johann all possible assistance in his musical development.

Service after vocal school

• After graduating from school in Lüneburg, the young performer was sent to Weimar to serve as a musician at the court of Duke Ernst. The talented organist is invited to a service in the New Church in Arndstadt, where the cantata he composed will be performed for the first time. Defending his demands and views, the young composer invites him to sing in church choir woman. This fact was performed for the first time and, in the opinion of the leadership, could not be combined with church music.
• The move to Mühlhausen in 1707 was marked by the composer's new work in the church of St. Blaise. New job It pays well and gives you the opportunity to do what you love while continuing to create. Bach managed to work in the new city for a year. Having managed to successfully marry his cousin this year and publish his first cantata, the composer left for Weimar.
• Returning to a familiar city, the musician receives a higher salary for his work and greater freedom for creativity. Johann's service is also performed by the court organist. It is in Vermar that the musician’s children are born. In addition to children, during the nine years of living in the city, Bach creates his own best essays. Toccatas and fugues, sunny cantatas that give flight to the senses, and organ music were born. Bach was forced to resign by the unpleasant act of the Duke, who placed a musician of a much lower level in a higher place instead of a talented composer. For his act, Johann Sebastian spent a whole month in prison, upon release from which the musician and his family left for Ketten. So Bach leaves another city that brought him the birth of children.

The subsequent habitat will remain with the composer for ten long years. Here he will work for Prince Leopold as bandmaster. Shocked by the composer's virtuosity, the Margrave of Brandenburg asks Bach to write a series of concertos in the Italian spirit, filling them with part of the German spirit. During the composition of the Brandenburg Concertos, Maria Barbara, who was the creator's beloved wife, dies. Trying to drown out the pain of loss, the composer writes music in one breath, filling it with the brightest notes of the soul.

Having finished composing, the musician sends the concertos to the margrave, who, as time passes, forgets about his request and the priceless compositions remain gathering dust on the shelf for a long time. Needing a homemaker, a year after the death of his wife, Johann remarried a woman who had in a wonderful voice, who becomes the mother of his children. A marriage created by convenience becomes happy. Subsequently, the family acquired thirteen children.

Missing organ music, at the first opportunity the composer wrote “The St. John Passion” and began working as a cantor in the Church of St. Thomas. The move to Leipzig becomes the last in the composer's life. Over the next seven years of his life, Bach, being on the rise, created the beautiful “Morpheus Passion”. The work is distinguished by its extraordinary lightness due to the absence of percussion and brass instruments. In addition to updating the works of the choir and orchestra, the musician creates cantatas containing texts from the gospel, as well as concerts for harpsichord and cello. He showed the genius of music and the most amazing “Mass in B Minor”. Having visited King Frederick II, Bach brings the “Musical Offering” as a gift to the ruler. In return, the musician receives nothing.

At the end of July 1950, at the age of 65, the world's greatest composer dies in Leipzig, the city that became his last home.

Heritage German musician remains unchanged, his children, also gifted with talent in music, follow in their father’s footsteps. Recent years the composer begins to suddenly lose his sight. Having suffered several unsuccessful operations, aimed at restoring vision, complications arise and the world loses the great German organist.

Alexander MAYKAPAR

Johann Sebastian BACH

1685 - 1750

Major milestones in life

I.S. Bach is a German composer and clavier player, that is, a performer on keyboard instruments (organ, harpsichord, clavichord).
Born in 1685 in Eisenach. Largest representative the greatest musical kind. During his lifetime he was famous not so much as a composer, but as an organist and harpsichordist. The external circumstances of his life are much less varied than those of many of his contemporary colleagues, for example Handel.

The house in Eisenach where J.S. was born. Bach

Bach spent his childhood in Eisenach. The boy, who lost his parents early (Bach was orphaned by the age of ten), was taken into his family by his older brother Johann Christoph, who lived in Ohrdruf. In 1700, Bach moved to Lüneburg and entered the gymnasium there. By this time, he plays the organ, clavier, violin, viola well, and performs the duties of an assistant cantor.
In 1702, Bach visited Hamburg several times to listen to the venerable J. Reincken. As a result, Reincken himself gives an enthusiastic review of the young Bach's organ playing. Next year, Bach graduates from the Luneburg gymnasium, and in the spring he accepts an invitation to serve in Weimar. He takes part in testing a new organ in Arnstadt and as a result is confirmed as an organist. In this capacity, in 1705 he traveled to Lubeck to listen to the performance of the famous organist Dietrich Buxtehude.
In 1707, Bach moved to Mühlhausen and became organist here at the Blasiuskirche (St. Blaise Church). In the same year he marries his cousin, also an orphan, Maria Barbara. Maria Barbara bore Bach seven children, of whom four survived. The two eldest sons - Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel - later became major composers and went down in music history as the creators of their own musical style.
In 1708, Bach received the position of court organist, chamber musician, and from 1714 - court accompanist in Weimar. In 1717–1723 we find him court bandmaster at Köthen.

Interior of the castle church in Weimar, in which J.S. Bach performed his cantatas

In 1721, after sudden death Maria Barbara, Bach marries the daughter of the court musician in Weissenfeld, Anna Magdalena Wilcken. She also represents a musical dynasty and has a beautiful voice and good hearing. Helping her husband, Anna Magdalena rewrote many of his works. In this marriage, Bach has 13 children, but six of them survive. Famous musician became one of Bach's sons from this marriage - Johann Christian. (Due to the large number of Bach composers in world musical culture, the de facto practice of calling all Bachs by name has become established; when it is simply called “Bach,” we understand that we're talking about about Johann Sebastian.)

Courtyard of the Church of St. Thomas, where the school was located and I.S. lived. Bach

In 1723, Bach received the most important, as shown later life, his position as cantor of the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) and city music director in Leipzig. He moves here and stays here for the rest of his life. From here he made a number of trips, including in 1747 to Potsdam, where he played before King Frederick II, improvising on a theme given by him. Returning to Leipzig, Bach developed this theme in a number of complex polyphonic pieces, printed them and presented them to the king. This work is called “Musical Offering”.
Bach died in 1750.

Grave of I.S. Bach in the Church of St. Thomas

The scale of genius

Bach is one of greatest representatives world musical culture. He created in all that existed in his time musical genres, with the exception of opera, to which, in essence, his oratorios are close. In terms of musical style, his art represents the highest point of musical baroque. A distinctly national artist, Bach combined the traditions of the Protestant chorale with the traditions of the Italian and French schools of music.
The leading genre in vocal instrumental creativity Bach - spiritual cantata. Bach created five annual cycles of cantatas, which differ in their belonging to church calendar, according to textual sources (psalms, choral stanzas, “free” poetry), according to the role of the chorale, etc. Of the secular cantatas, the most famous are “Peasant” and “Coffee”. The dramatic principles developed in the cantata were implemented in the masses and the Passion. The “High” Mass in B minor, the “St. John Passion,” and the “Matthew Passion” became the culmination of the centuries-long history of these genres. Organ music occupies a central place in Bach's instrumental work.
Synthesizing the experience of organ improvisation inherited from his predecessors (D. Buxtehude, J. Pachelbel, G. Böhm, I.A. Reinken), various variational and polyphonic composition techniques and contemporary principles of concertoing, Bach rethought and updated traditional genres organ music- toccata, fantasia, passacaglia, chorale prelude. Virtuoso performer, one of the greatest experts of his time keyboard instruments, Bach wrote a lot for the clavier. Among keyboard works the most important place occupies the “Well-Tempered Clavier” - the first experience in the history of music artistic application developed at the turn of the 17th–18th centuries. tempered system. The greatest polyphonist, in the fugues “HTK” Bach created unsurpassed examples, a kind of school of contrapuntal mastery, which was continued and completed in “The Art of Fugue”, on which Bach worked over the last ten years of his life. Bach's music for violin, cello, flute, oboe, instrumental ensemble, orchestra - sonatas, suites, partitas, concertos - marks a significant expansion of the expressiveness and technical capabilities of instruments, reveals a deep knowledge of instruments and universalism in their interpretation. Six Brandenburg Concertos for various instrumental compositions, implementing the genre and compositional principles of the concerto grosso, were important stage on the way to a classical symphony.
During Bach's lifetime, a small part of his works was published. The true scale of Bach's genius, which had a strong influence on the subsequent development of European musical culture, began to be realized only half a century after his death. Among the first connoisseurs is the founder of Bach studies I.N. Forkel (who published “Essay on the Life and Work of Bach” in 1802), K.F. Zelter, whose work to preserve and promote Bach's legacy led to the performance of the St. Matthew Passion under the baton of F. Mendelssohn in 1829. This performance, which had historical significance, served as an impetus for the revival of Bach’s work in the 19th–20th centuries. In 1850, the Bach Society was formed in Leipzig. (On the fruits of the Society’s activities, see our article “Monument of World Musical Culture” - “Art” No. 18 (354), September 16–30, 2006, p. 3).