Bach, Johann Sebastian

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.

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Grieg, Edvard

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist born on June 15, 1843, in Bergen, Norway. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. Grieg’s use of Norwegian folk music in his compositions brought the music of Norway to fame and helped develop a national identity, much like Jean Sibelius did in Finland and Bedřich Smetana in Bohemia.

Grieg was raised in a musical family; his mother was his first piano teacher and taught him to play when he was aged six. He studied in several schools, including Tanks Upper Secondary School. During the summer of 1858, Grieg met the eminent Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, who recognized the boy’s talent and persuaded his parents to send him to the Leipzig Conservatory.

Grieg’s later years were marked by his establishment of a home called “Troldhaugen” near Bergen, where he spent much of his time composing. He made several tours in Scandinavia, on the Continent, and in England, playing his piano concerto in London in 18882. Grieg passed away on September 4, 1907, in Bergen.

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Handel, George Frideric

Georg Friedrich Händel, was a German-born English composer of the late Baroque era, celebrated for his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions. He was born on February 23, 1685, in Halle, Brandenburg (now Germany), and passed away on April 14, 1759, in London, England.

Handel’s music is renowned for its grandeur, dramatic qualities, and depth of expression. Notably, he composed the most famous of all oratorios, Messiah (1741), and is also known for such occasional pieces as Water Music (1717) and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749).

His early musical education was under the composer Friedrich W. Zachow in Halle. After his father’s death, Handel enrolled as a law student at the University of Halle but quickly gravitated towards a career in music. He served as an organist at the Reformed Cathedral in Halle for a year before moving to Hamburg, where he joined the opera orchestra and presided over the premiere of his first opera, Almira.

Handel traveled in Italy from 1706 to 1710, where he met many of the greatest Italian musicians of the day, including Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. His time in Italy was prolific, resulting in two operas, numerous Italian solo cantatas, and some Latin church music.

In 1712, Handel settled in London, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalized British subject in 1727. His influence was such that he started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. After a physical breakdown in 1737, he changed direction creatively, addressing the middle class with English choral works. Following the success of Messiah in 1742, he never composed an Italian opera again.

Handel’s legacy includes more than forty operas and a wealth of other works. His music was admired by Classical-era composers, especially Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, and remains a cornerstone of the Western classical music canon.

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Haydn, Franz Joseph

Franz Joseph Haydn, was an Austrian composer born on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria. He passed away on May 31, 1809, in Vienna.

Haydn is celebrated as one of the most prominent figures in the development of the Classical style in music during the 18th century and is hailed as the “Father of the Symphony” and the “Father of the String Quartet” for his substantial contributions to musical form.

Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote Eszterháza Castle. This isolation from other composers and trends in music led him to become highly original in his work. Despite this, his music circulated widely, and for much of his career, he was the most celebrated composer in Europe.

He was a friend and mentor to Mozart, a tutor to Beethoven, and the elder brother of composer Michael Haydn. His life’s work includes the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio, and his influence on later composers was profound.

Haydn’s early life was marked by hardship. He was born to Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright, and Maria, née Koller, who had worked as a cook in the palace of a local aristocrat. Despite his parents’ lack of formal musical training, they were musically inclined, and Haydn’s father taught himself to play the harp. Recognizing their son’s musical talent, Haydn’s parents accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Frankh, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, to apprentice young Haydn in music.

Haydn’s musical journey began in earnest when he moved to Vienna at the age of eight to serve as a chorister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Although he received little formal instruction in music theory, he acquired a vast practical knowledge of music through constant performances

Throughout his life, Haydn composed numerous works, including the famous “London Symphonies,” “Paris Symphonies,” “The Creation,” and “The Seasons.” His music is characterized by its clarity, precision, and wit, and it laid the groundwork for what would become the standard forms of Classical music.

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