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Bach; Brandenberg Concertos

Johann Sebastian Bach;
The Brandenburg Concertos

One of the most profoundly inspired and masterful composers in history, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750), was born into a musical family in Eisenach, Germany. Born into a musical family his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills of string-playing. Another relation, the organist at Eisenach’s most important church, intructed the young boy on the organ.
In 1695, Johann Sebastian was orphaned; he went to live with his older brother, Johann Christoph, in Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and continued his younger brother’s education on that instrument, as well as on the harpsichord. After several years in this arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left his brothers tutelage.
A master of several instruments while still in his teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of 18 as a violinist in a court orchestra in Weimar. Soon after, he took a job as an organist at a church in Arnstadt (1703-1707). Here, as in later posts, his perfectionist tendencies and high expectations of other musicians – for example, the church choir – rubbed his colleagues the wrong way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes during his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt (and the working conditions) and moved on the another organist job, this time at he St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen (1707-1708). The same year, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach.
Again caught up in a running conflict between factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar after one year in Muhlhausen. In Weimar (1708-1717), he assumed the post of organist and concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He remained in Weimar for nine years, and there he composed his first wave of major works.
By this stage in his...