Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on the 21st March 1685 into a family which was immersed in music. Most family members expected that he would be a great musician, but none would have predicted that his music would continue to effect the world some 300 years after his death. Sebastian was taught by his father, and driven by a thirst to learn often spent time with another relative, Johann Christoph Bach, listening to and learning from the music that Christoph wrote.Sebastian spent most of his life going from church to church composing music for different events and purposes. He married his second cousin Maria Barbara Bach, who was a good singer and musician. After going through a few different jobs employed by towns, he was appointed court organist and chamber musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst. There he played in the court orchestra and also provided music for the place chapel. It was working here that Bach produced most of his great works. This was due to the fact that he had more freedom here than at any of his previous jobs, and Ernst encouraged him to write good music. Although it was not here that Bach wrote T
The prelude we are studying is one which is based on harmonic sequences. It progresses through a few different keys until it comes back to the tonic again. Its seems like merely a series of drifting chords. At bar 16 the subject reappears in C major, which marks the beginning of the Final section. This is why he wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier. It uses stretto's and semiquaver patterns to build up the end, finally finishing on a C major chord. A German organist found the progressions to harsh so he added an extra bar. In a tonal fugue the answer is modified in some way. The stretto is used to build tension and climax. He had a falling out with Ernst and was then imprisoned for one month. The final section has quite a dense texture. The first stretto, which is when there is an overlapping of the theme, occurs in bar 7. Most other fugues go subject, answer, subject, and answer.
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