Different Eras Of Music: Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach
There have been many amazing composers of music. All composers come from different backgrounds. There are also many different composers from different eras of music and there has been a couple of different eras of music. There was Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century and other different eras. I will mainly be focusing on the Baroque era with which Johann Sebastian Bach was born in and composed during. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Germany in the year of 1685, about 85 years after the Baroque era began. Bach passed away in 1750 at about the closing of the baroque era. Bach was born in a decently large family compared to today's standards. There were nine people in his family, seven other
siblings and two parents and he was one of the younger kids.

G.H.M Johann Sebastian Bach's direct family and distant relatives were very music orientated. Bach's dad as well as many of his brothers, uncles and cousins were professional musicians. Just about every summer they would usually have a get together like a family reunion and typically compose more music. I think that would be extremely fun to compose music with relatives every summer. I can definitely imagine that music was a gigantic part of Bach’s life and his relatives. When Johann was around ten years old his mother died then about eight months later his father passed away. I cannot even imagine thinking of losing my mom and then a little after have my dad leave me also. That must have been an incredibly rough time for Johann to go through.Since He was only ten when his parents passed away, his brother, Christoph and his wife took care of Sebastian. During the time Sebastian was with Christoph, Christoph gave Johann his first formal music lesson. This first formal music lesson probably insured that Sebastian would end up choosing to have a musical career. Sebastian had a love for the organ ever since his childhood. He once walked 200 miles to listen and see an organist play. Sebastian stayed three and a half hours of the performance and once he got home he was an organist. I know I would not have walked 200 miles to even go see my favorite band perform and he went to see an organist perform and he didn't even know if he liked organs. That is some extreme devotion to music.
G.H.M
Bach had two marriages, the first one ended by her dying. After his first wife's death he married a gifted and professional soprano singer named Magdalena Wilcke. Both of their main focuses were on their family and how they can make it the best they
can.
Sebastian believed that his musical career was a support to his family and not his family was a support to his musical career. That shows that his family was something that he cherished more than his musical career.
Johann Sebastian Bach had a four kids with his first wife until she passed away and when he got married to his second wife she added 13 more kids to their family. Then they had three more kids with each other. Unfortunately only eleven of his 20 children made it to adulthood. Many people passed away in Johann’s life, his parents and almost half of his children did. I could not imagine being this man, with the trials he had but he still managed to push through all of his trials and still be one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era.
Johann Sebastian Bach was considered a master of Polyphonic music. He truly was a master of polyphonic textures. Bach also was an expert in the ways of an organ. I mostly know him for just his organ pieces. For example Toccata and Fugue in D minor, almost everyone knows that song.
Other than his family life he had a an extreme devotion to his music career. He compiled around 1,128 different pieces of music. Considering He lived 65 years and did not start writing music until he was around 15, that means on average he would
have
G.H.M
had to write about 22 pieces every year. I can't imagine writing one piece of music and there is no possible way I could write 22 pieces a year.
Before Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his musical masterpieces he would write G.H.M at the top of every single page. G.H.M meant God Help Me, from this we can tell he was a man of God and put his trust in Him. Sebastian believed that by writing this on all of his pages that God would help give him inspiration on his compositions. This could be one of the reasons Johann was able to come up with so many musical pieces and be able to become so famous.
Johann Sebastian Bach in my opinion was one of the best composers in the Baroque era. Sebastian had many complex songs. He was considered a master of polyphonic music. He knew how to blend the different voices together and how to make them both distinct. Toccata and fugue in D minor has probably got to be my favorite piece of music that he wrote. Almost everyone knows this piece. This piece of music is an example of how complex Sebastian could be. This piece definitely has many voices to it. We get high notes and low notes mixed into it. I think it is crazy how many tones he could mix into his pieces and they would still sound amazing. That would definitely be a crazy skill to have, be able to have so many things blended together but still be able to have everything so distinct. I never realised how much of a family man Johann Sebastian Bach was. He probably was so successful in his music career because he put his family and God first. I love listening to his music because it is so distinct and different from today's music. Johann was honestly a master at the polyphonic music of the Baroque
era.