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A Talented Orphan

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was orphaned at the age of 10 and sent to live with his newly married older brother Johann Christoph, who was a musician. It was there he basi produced his musical natural abilities and qualities on both organ and harpsichord. By 18, the young prodigy was appointed organist of the Neue Kirche at Arnstadt in Germany. However, the position was not the dream occupation he might have hoped. The Church authorities were not impressed with his strange ability to create and became even more discontented with the young talent when he took an extended trip to Lubeck to listen the concerts of Buxtehude and stayed away three months longer than he will have to have.

The early years

Once he left Arnstadt, he worked at St Blasius Church in Muhlhausen until the cathedral elders started out to disagree in regards to having organ music for the duration of the service. He left to work for the powerful Duke Wilhelm of Weimar for almost a decade, but when he did not receive the professional progress he had hoped for, he took a position with the more musical Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. The Duke was so furious for leaving, he had him arrested and put in prison for a month, but at long last freed him to take up his new post as Capellmeister at Prince Leopold’s court.

Success and grief at the court of Prince Leopold

It was there that he was capable to flourish, fabricating a good deal of works for organ and the keyboard instruments of the time, compiling the basi book of his monumental “The Well-Tempered Clavier” and formulating the remarkable Brandenburg Concertos. For a time, his life seemed perfect, until his beloved cousin Maria Barbara, whom he had married, of a sudden passed away, leaving him a widower with 4 young children, including his two sons who would become widely known and esteemed composers in their own right one day, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

In 1721, Bach re-married the daughter of a musical colleague, Anna Magdalena Wilcke, who was a fine soprano, as well as good housekeeper and splendid mother. They would have a further thirteen children together, altho sadly ten of them would die in infancy.

The move to Leipzig

A week after Bach had remarried, the Prince took a wife, but she resented the time he expended with Bach in musical activities, and Bach saw it was time for he and his growing family to seek better chances for themselves. He secured the esteemed post of Thomaskantor at Leipzig, where he would stay for the rest of his life. During the basi five years he formulated a remarkable number of particular works, such as the St John (1724) and St Matthew (1727) Passions, even altho he had only the most fixed resources. Every time he asked for more money, the Church authorities would in truth threaten to reduce his little salary.

The final years

During the final years of his life, his music begun to grow more exploratory. Major works formulated at this time included the Goldberg Variations, Variations for Organ on Vom Himmel Hoch, and the landmark “The Art of Fugue,” which though both unfinished, integrate masterworks of contrapuntal techniques.

He lost his eyesight toward the end of his life, and the cause of death recorded in a contemporary newspaper was that it was the result of an not successful eye operation carried out by the English surgeon John Taylor. His bequest to the musical world in the form of all his works and his assorted gifted children may never be underestimated.

Bach Art Fugue Pic

Bach Art Fugue Photo

Bach Art Fugue Pic

Bach Art Fugue Photo

Most helpful client reviews

40 of 40 humans found the following review helpful.
the Art of Perfection
By philvscott
Bach’s extreme composition has so often times been described as cerebral that it’s inclined to put a casual listener off. Much as I admire Charles Rosen’s piano recording, for example, I find it’s not not common for the mind to wander off someplace around the halfway mark. Perhaps it’s the strings’ capacity to project a lyrical line, but I find the Emerson Quartet gripping from beginning to untimely end, and after living with this CD for a while, the work makes more sense to me. The Art of Fugue is a monumental piece of art: like a great sculpture, it plainly exists, and as a listener you may fetch to it as much or as little as you like without affecting it is integrity. Unlike, say, a Mahler symphony, it does not demand finish aroused dedication (except from the performers, which it unquestionably gets here)- and yet, when the music just stops mid-stream at the point where Bach supposedly died, the shock is more outstanding than any number of Mahlerian hammer blows.
Beautifully recorded, sensitively played and, to descend to world for a moment, I detect it’s also discounted. Perfect.

52 of 56 humans found the following review helpful.
IN A WORD: “SMOOTH”
By NotATameLion
If one word could sum up this performance it would be “smooth.” I have come late to the recordings of the Emerson String Quartet. This has to be amongst this very suitable group’s best.

The Art of the Fugue is, if not my bestloved piece by Bach, then surely high on the short-list. This is music completely realized–with an almost mystic greatness. Les Violins du Roy and the Delme Quartet (in Robert Simpson’s arrangement) have both done outstanding chamber versions of the work.

This recording by the Emerson Quartet is well at ease in such lofty company.

This recording lets the music speak for itself. It does so brilliantly. The crystal clear sound quality works hand in hand with the performance.

Everything here is evenhanded and well judged. This is pulled off without any loss of the music’s passion, fire, or insight. I can not commend this version of Bach’s last outstanding work highly enough.

If you are giving careful consideration to getting a copy, do not hesitate.

17 of 19 persons found the following review helpful.
Stunningly Sublime
By T. Hudock
It’s hard to express in words the aroused connection this recording makes. The extraordinary playing by the Emerson on this CD makes these works by Bach come alive in a way like I’ve never heard before. This is a moving and poetic recording, and you’ll swear you may listen oboes and trumpets coming from only four string instruments. What may I say, I was wholly blown away by this veritably sublime and perfective recording. Emerson Quartet is just amazing.

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