Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period, born on March 31, 1685 (O.S. March 21), in Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies (now Germany). He passed away on July 28, 1750, in Leipzig.
Bach is now generally regarded as one of the greatest and most prolific composers of all time and is celebrated as the creator of the Brandenburg Concertos, The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, the St John and St Matthew Passions, the Christmas Oratorio and more than 300 cantatas (although only around 200 are extant. He numerous other masterpieces of church and instrumental music.
Bach’s abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout his lifetime, although he was not widely recognized as a great composer until after his death. Today, he is considered to be the master of fugue, the inventor of the solo keyboard concerto, and the greatest composer of the Baroque era.
His compositions include a wide variety of music such as orchestral music (e.g., the Brandenburg Concertos), solo instrumental works (e.g., the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin), keyboard works (e.g., the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier), organ works (e.g., the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor), and choral works (e.g., the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B Minor).
Bach came from a highly musical family and was the last child of a city musician, Johann Ambrosius. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, and continued his musical education in Lüneburg. His career included working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and at courts in Weimar and Köthen before becoming Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas’s) in Leipzig.
In Leipzig, he composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city and for its university’s student ensemble Collegium Musicum. Despite difficult relations with his employer, Bach’s music flourished, and he enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic, and motivic organization, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.
Bach’s legacy is immense, having enriched the German musical tradition and set a precedent in composition that would influence subsequent generations of composers.
Busoni’s “Bach Advanced School”
In October 1909, Breitkopf & Härtel succeeded in winning Ferruccio Busoni for the edition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s piano works. Busoni had…
Busoni’s “Bach Advanced School”
In October 1909, Breitkopf & Härtel succeeded in winning Ferruccio Busoni for the edition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s piano works. Busoni had studied the music of Bach more intensively than almost any other artist of his time had. As a pianist, arranger, theorist and pedagogue, Busoni was instrumental in bringing Bach out of the 19th century and into the 20th century. That same year, Busoni and two collaborators, Bruno Mugellini and Egon Petri, began work on the “instructive” edition, which was to comprise 25 volumes. The first volumes were published in the spring of 1916, and in May 1923, the “Bach Advanced School” project was finally completed. This also marked the end of Busoni’s thirty-year-long creative involvement with Bach’s works, the impact of which still reaches far beyond the “Bach-Busoni formula”.
“All alterations and additions pursue the educational intent of affording the student insight into the mechanism of the composition. Moreover, they illustrate and supplement the views presented only in a sketchy manner in the introductions. In several cases, it takes the sum of the comments on the various pieces to constitute the all-encompassing opinion on one and the same question.” (Ferruccio Busoni)
On the occasion of the centenary of Busoni’s death in 2024, the volumes were provided with a note by Reinhard Ermen on the genesis of the edition and, where previously missing, with an English translation.
R.R.P 18
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