Johann Sebastian Bach, (born March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia,

Ernestine Saxon Duchies [Germany]—died July 28, 1750, Leipzig), composer

of the Baroque era, the most celebrated member of a large family of north
German musicians. Although he was admired by his contemporaries primarily
as an outstanding harpsichordist, organist, and expert on organ building, Bach
is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time and is
celebrated as the creator of the Brandenburg Concertos, The Well-Tempered
Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, and numerous other masterpieces of church and
instrumental music. Appearing at a propitious moment in the history of music,
Bach was able to survey and bring together the principal styles, forms, and
national traditions that had developed during preceding generations and, by
virtue of his synthesis, enrich them all.

He was a member of a remarkable family of musicians who were proud of their

achievements, and about 1735 he drafted a genealogy, Ursprung der musicalisch-
Bachischen Familie (“Origin of the Musical Bach Family”), in which he traced his
ancestry back to his great-great-grandfather Veit Bach, a Lutheran baker (or miller)
who late in the 16th century was driven from Hungary to Wechmar in Thuringia, a
historic region of Germany, by religious persecution and died in 1619. There were
Bachs in the area before then, and it may be that, when Veit moved to Wechmar, he
was returning to his birthplace. He used to take his citternto the mill and play it while
the mill was grinding. Johann Sebastian remarked, “A pretty noise they must have
made together! However, he learnt to keep time, and this apparently was the
beginning of music in our family.”
Until the birth of Johann Sebastian, his was the least distinguished branch of the
family; some of its members, such as Johann Christoph and Johann Ludwig, had been
competent practical musicians but not composers. In later days the most important
musicians in the family were Johann Sebastian’s sons—Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl
Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christian (the “English Bach”).

Life

Early years

J.S. Bach was the youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach and Elisabeth
Lämmerhirt. Ambrosius was a string player, employed by the town council and the
ducal court of Eisenach. Johann Sebastian started school in 1692 or 1693 and did well
in spite of frequent absences. Of his musical education at this time, nothing definite is
known; however, he may have picked up the rudiments of string playing from his
father, and no doubt he attended the Georgenkirche, where Johann Christoph Bach
was organist until 1703.
By 1695 both his parents were dead, and he was looked after by his eldest brother,
also named Johann Christoph (1671–1721), organist at Ohrdruf. This Christoph had
been a pupil of the influential keyboardcomposer Johann Pachelbel, and he apparently
gave Johann Sebastian his first formal keyboard lessons. The young Bach again did
well at school, and in 1700 his voice secured him a place in a select choir of poor boys
at the school at Michaelskirche, Lüneburg.
His voice must have broken soon after this, but he remained at Lüneburg for a time,
making himself generally useful. No doubt he studied in the school library, which had
a large and up-to-date collection of church music; he probably heard Georg Böhm,
organist of the Johanniskirche; and he visited Hamburg to hear the renowned organist
and composer Johann Adam Reinken at the Katharinenkirche, contriving also to hear
the French orchestra maintained by the duke of Celle.
He seems to have returned to Thuringia in the late summer of 1702. By this time he
was already a reasonably proficient organist. His experience at Lüneburg, if not at
Ohrdruf, had turned him away from the secularstring-playing tradition of his
immediate ancestors; thenceforth he was chiefly, though not exclusively, a composer
and performer of keyboard and sacred music. The next few months are wrapped in
mystery, but by March 4, 1703, he was a member of the orchestra employed by
Johann Ernst, duke of Weimar (and brother of Wilhelm Ernst, whose service Bach
entered in 1708). This post was a mere stopgap; he probably already had his eye on
the organ then being built at the Neue Kirche (New Church) in Arnstadt, for, when it
was finished, he helped to test it, and in August 1703 he was appointed organist—all
this at age 18. Arnstadt documents imply that he had been court organist at Weimar;
this is incredible, though it is likely enough that he had occasionally played there.

George Frideric Handel, German (until 1715) Georg Friedrich Händel,

Händel also spelled Haendel, (born February 23, 1685,
Halle, Brandenburg [Germany]—died April 14, 1759, London, England),
German-born English composer of the late Baroque era, noted particularly for
his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions. He wrote 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).
Life
Handel was the son of a barber-surgeon. He showed a marked gift for music and
became a pupil in Halle of the composer Friedrich W. Zachow, learning the principles
of keyboard performance and composition from him. His father died when Handel
was 11, but his education had been provided for, and in 1702 he enrolled as a law
student at the University of Halle. He also became organist of the Reformed
(Calvinist) Cathedral in Halle, but he served for only one year before going north
to Hamburg, where greater opportunities awaited him. In Hamburg, Handel joined
the violin section of the opera orchestra. He also took over some of the duties
of harpsichordist, and early in 1705 he presided over the premiere in Hamburg of his
first opera, Almira.
Handel spent the years 1706–10 traveling in Italy, where he met many of the greatest
Italian musicians of the day, including Arcangelo Corelliand Alessandro Scarlatti and
his son Domenico. He composed many works in Italy, including two operas,
numerous Italian solo cantatas(vocal compositions), Il trionfo del tempo e del
disinganno (1707) and another oratorio, the serenata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (1708),
and some Latin (i.e., Roman Catholic) church music. His opera Agrippina enjoyed a
sensational success at its premiere in Venice in 1710.
Handel’s years in Italy greatly influenced the development of his musical style. His
fame had spread throughout Italy, and his mastery of the Italian opera style now made
him an international figure. In 1710 he was appointed Kapellmeister to
the elector of Hanover, the future King George I of England, and later that year
Handel journeyed to England. In 1711 his opera Rinaldo was performed in London
and was greeted so enthusiastically that Handel sensed the possibility of continuing
popularity and prosperity in England. In 1712 he went back to London for the
production of his operas Il pastor fido and Teseo (1713). In 1713 he won his way into
royal favour by his Ode for the Queen’s Birthday and the Utrecht Te
Deum and Jubilate in celebration of the Peace of Utrecht, and he was granted an
annual allowance of £200 by Queen Anne.
Recognized by prominent members of both the English aristocracy and the
intelligentsia, Handel was in no hurry to return to Hanover. Soon he had no need to do
so, for on the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the elector George Louis became King
George I of England. In 1718 Handel became director of music to the duke
of Chandos, for whom he composed the 11 Chandos Anthems and the
English masque Acis and Galatea, among other works. Another masque, Haman and
Mordecai, was to be the effective starting point for the English oratorio.
Except for a few visits to the European continent, Handel spent the rest of his life in
England. In February 1727 he became a British subject, which enabled him to be
appointed a composer of the Chapel Royal. In this capacity he wrote much music,
including the Coronation Anthems for George II in 1727 and the Funeral Anthem for
Queen Caroline 10 years later.
From 1720 until 1728 the operas at the King’s Theatre in London were staged by the
Royal Academy of Music, and Handel composed the music for most of them. Among
those of the 1720s were Floridante(1721), Ottone (1723), Giulio
Cesare (1724), Rodelinda (1725), and Scipione(1726). From 1728, after the sensation
caused by John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera (which satirized serious opera), the future of
opera in the Italian style became increasingly uncertain in England. It went into
decline for a variety of reasons, one of them being the impatience of the English with
a form of entertainment in an unintelligible language sung by artists of
whose morals they disapproved. But despite the vagaries of public taste, Handel went
on composing operas until 1741, by which time he had written more than 40 such
works. As the popularity of opera declined in England, oratorio became increasingly
popular. The revivals in 1732 of Handel’s masques Acis and Galatea and Haman and
Mordecai (renamed Esther) led to the establishment of the English oratorio—a
large musical composition for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, without acting or
scenery, and usually dramatizing a story from the Bible in English-language lyrics.
Handel first capitalized on this genre in 1733 with Deborah and Athalia.
Handel also continued to comanage an Italian opera company in London despite many
difficulties. Throughout his London career he had suffered competition not only from
rival composers but also from rival opera houses in a London that could barely
support even one Italian opera in addition to its English theatres. Finally, in 1737, his
company went bankrupt and he himself suffered what appears to have been a
mild stroke. After a course of treatment at Aachen (Germany), he was restored to
health and went on to compose the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline (1737) and
two of his most celebrated oratorios, Sauland Israel in Egypt, both of which were
performed in 1739. He also wrote the Twelve Grand Concertos, Op. 6, and helped
establish the Fund for the Support of Decayed Musicians (now the Royal Society of
Musicians).
Handel was by this time at the height of his powers, and the year 1741 saw
the composition of his greatest oratorio, Messiah, and its inspired
successor, Samson. Messiah was given its first performance in Dublinon April 13,
1742, and created a deep impression. Handel’s works of the next three years included
the oratorios Joseph and His Brethren (first performed 1744) and Belshazzar (1745),
the secular oratorios Semele(1744) and Hercules (1745), and the Dettingen Te
Deum (1743), celebrating the English victory over the French at the Battle of
Dettingen. Handel had by this time made oratorio and large-scale choral works the
most popular musical forms in England. He had created for himself a new public
among the rising middle classes, who would have turned away in moral indignation
from the Italian opera but who were quite ready to be edified by a moral tale from the
Bible, set to suitably dignified and, by now, rather old-fashioned music. Even during
his lifetime Handel’s music was recognized as a reflection of the English national
character, and his capacity for realizing the common mood was nowhere better shown
than in the Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749), with which he celebrated the peace
of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Handel now began to experience trouble with his
sight. He managed with great difficulty to finish the last of his oratorios, Jephtha,
which was performed at Covent Garden Theatre, London, in 1752. He kept his interest
in musical activities alive until the end. After his death on April 14, 1759, he was
buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Music
The first basis of Handel’s style was the north German music of his childhood, but it
was soon completely overlaid by the Italian style that he acquired in early adulthood
during his travels in Italy. The influences of Arcangelo Corelli and Alessandro
Scarlatti can be detected in his work to the end of his long life, and the French style
of Jean-Baptiste Lullyand, later, that of the English composer Henry Purcell are also
evident. There is a robustness in Handel’s later music that gives it a very English
quality. Above all, his music is eminently vocal. Handel’s directness of manner makes
him one of the great masters of choral music. His choruses have a power and
effectiveness that have never been surpassed, and his writing for them is remarkable
for the manner in which he interweaves massive but simple harmonic passages with
contrapuntal sections of great ingenuity, the whole most effectively illustrating the
text. His writing for the solo voice is outstanding in its suitability for the medium and
its unerring melodic line. Handel had a striking ability to depict human character
musically in a single scene or aria, a gift used with great dramatic power in his operas
and oratorios.

Though the bulk of his music was vocal, Handel was nevertheless one of the great
instrumental composers of the late Baroque era. His long series of overtures (mostly
in the French style), his orchestral concertos (Op. 3 and Op. 6), his large-scale concert
music for strings and winds(such as the Water Music and the Fireworks Music), and
the massive double concertos and organ concertos all show him to have been a
complete master of the orchestral means at his command.
Handel had a lifelong attachment to the theatre—even his oratorios were usually
performed on the stage rather than in church. Until almost the end of his life he loved
Italian opera, and only after it involved him in ever-increasing financial losses did he
abandon it for English oratorio. Like other composers of his time, he accepted the
conventions of Italian opera, with its employment of male sopranos and contraltos and
the formalized sequences of stylized recitatives and arias upon which opera seria was
constructed. Using these conventions, he produced many masterpieces. Among the
Italian operas, such works as Giulio Cesare(1724), Sosarme (1732), and Alcina (1735)
still make impressive stage spectacles, with some scenes of great dramatic power
bursting through the formal Baroque grandeur. Many of his Italian operas were
revived in the 20th century.
But Handel’s oratorios now seem even more dramatic than his operas, and they can
generally be performed on the stage with remarkably little alteration. Most of them,
from early attempts such as Esther to such consummately crafted later works
as Saul, Samson, Belshazzar, and Jephtha, treat a particular dramatic theme taken
from the Old Testament that illustrates the heroism and suffering of a particular
individual. The story line is illustrated by solo recitatives and arias and underlined by
the chorus. With Israel in Egypt and Messiah, however, the emphasis is quite
different, Israel because of its uninterrupted chain of massive choruses, which do not
lend themselves to stage presentation, and Messiah because it is a meditation on the
life of Christthe Saviour rather than a dramatic narration of his Passion. Handel also
used the dramatic oratorio genre for a number of secular works, chief among which
are Semele and Hercules, both based on stories from Greek mythology. But the finest
of his secular choral works is Acis and Galatea, which has a youthful magic he never
quite recovered in subsequent pieces of this type.
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Handel’s most notable contribution to church music is his series of large-
scale anthems, foremost of which are the 11 Chandos Anthems; though written for a
small group of singers and instrumentalists, they are conceived on a grand scale.
Closely following these works are the four Coronation Anthems for George II; the
most celebrated of these, Zadok the Priest, is a striking example of what Ludwig van
Beethovencalled Handel’s ability to achieve “great effects with simple means.”
Most of the orchestral music Handel wrote consists of overtures, often in the style of
Lully, and totaling about 80 in number. Handel was equally adept at
the concerto form, especially the concerto grosso, in which he generally employed
four or more movements. His most important works of this type are the Six Concerti
Grossi (known as The Oboe Concertos), Op. 3, and the Twelve Grand Concertos,
which represent the peak of the Baroque concerto grosso for stringed instruments.
The Water Music and Fireworks Music suites, for wind and string band, stand in a
special class in the history of late Baroque music by virtue of their combination of
grandeur and melodic bravura. They are still among the most popular of his works.
Handel also published harpsichord music, of which two sets of suites, the Suites de
pièces pour le clavecin of 1720 and the Suites de pièces of 1733, containing 17 sets in
all, are his finest contribution to that instrument’s repertoire. The ever-
popular Harmonious Blacksmithvariations are in No. 5 of the Suites de pièces of 1720.
Handel’s finest chamber music consists of trio sonatas, notably those published as Six
Sonatas for Two Violins, Oboes, or German Flutes and Continuo, Op. 2 (1733). He
also wrote various sonatas for one or more solo instruments with basso
continuo accompaniment for harpsichord. In addition, he was a notable organist and
composed more than 20 organ concertos, most of which Handel used as intermission
features during performances of his oratorios.
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Influence
In England, Handel was accorded the status of a classic composer even in his own
lifetime, and he is perhaps unique among musicians in never having suffered any
diminution of his reputation there since. As a young man on the European continent,
he had to some extent supplied the demands of aristocratic patronage, but in England
he adapted himself to a different climate of opinion and taste and came to serve and
express the needs of a wider public. More than anyone else, he democratized music,
and in this respect his popular oratorios, his songs, and his best-loved instrumental
works have a social significance that complements their purely musical importance.
Handel’s music became an indispensable part of England’s national culture.
In Germany, meanwhile, interest in his music grew apace in the late 18th century and
reestablished him as a German composer of the first rank.

Major Baroque Composers

Italy
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643): A student of Marc’Antonio Ingegneri
in Cremona, Claudio Monteverdi quickly established himself as one of
the most significant composers of his time. In 1592 he was
appointed suonatore di vivuola (viol and/or violin player) to Duke
Vincenzo I of Mantua; his third book of madrigals, published in 1592,
shows the strong influence of Giaches de Wert, the maestro di
cappella in Mantua. Although the several journeys Monteverdi made with
the duke in the 1590s seem to suggest that his importance at court was
growing, Benedetto Pallavicino was offered de Wert’s post upon its
vacancy in 1596. Increasingly dissatisfied with the his situation in
Mantua, Monteverdi left the court after the Duke’s death, accepting the
position of maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s in Venice in 1613.
Monteverdi wrote some of the most influential compositions of the early
baroque, including the famous 1610 Vespro della Beate
Vergine (Vespers of the Blessed Virgin) and nine books of secular
madrigals published between 1587 and 1651. Monteverdi also
composed the earliest operas still performed today,
including Orfeo (1607) and L'incoronazione di Poppea.
In addition to writing some of the most important music of his day,
Monteverdi unwittingly elucidated perhaps the most critical tenet of the
baroque era during the so-called “Monteverdi-Artusi controversy.” In
1600, Giovanni Maria Artusi published his L'Artusi, ovvero, Delle
imperfezioni della moderna musica, which attacked the “crudities” and
“license” of some of Monteverdi’s then-unpublished madrigals (including
the well known “Cruda Amarilli”). Monteverdi responded to Artusi in the
preface to his Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605), dividing musical practice
into prima prattica (first practice), in which rules of harmony and
counterpoint took precedence over the text, and seconda
prattica (second practice), in which the meaning of the words drove the
harmony.
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Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643): Born in Ferrara, Girolamo
Frescobaldi was a student of the organist and madrigalist Luzzasco
Luzzaschi; he was also likely influenced by the maverick composer Carlo
Gesualdo, who was also in Ferrara at the time. Frescobaldi was a
famous keyboardist, and served as the organist at the church of Santa
Maria in Trastevere in Rome before assuming the same post at St
Peter's in 1608, which he held until his death. During this time he also
held several other influential positions, including that of organist at the
Medici court in Florence from 1628 to 1634. Frescobaldi composed a
small amount of vocal music, but it was his compositions for the
keyboard—which included a number of toccatas, canzonas, ricercars
and capriccios—that influenced composers well into the 18th century—
particularly J. S. Bach, who owned his collection of organ works for
performance during Mass entitled Fiori musicali (1635).
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Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713): Born in Fusignano, Arcangelo Corelli
studied composition and violin in nearby Bologna. After 1675 Corelli
worked for some of the most important musical patrons in Rome,
including Queen Christina of Sweden, for whom he directed concerts. He
also formed a close bond not typical between patron and composer with
Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (later Pope Alexander VIII), at whose palace he
lived for some time. Corelli enjoyed a stellar reputation both in Rome,
where he was accepted in the highest aristocratic circles, and in much of
Europe. His six published collections of concertos, sonatas and other
works for violin were extremely popular, and made him the first
composer to gain an international reputation solely on the basis of his
instrumental music. Because his music uses many of the harmonic
progressions that came to form the basis of modern tonality, his works
are sometimes used as early examples of this newly emergent tonal
system.
Along with his stature as a composer, Corelli was considered to be one
of the preeminent violin virtuosos of his day. As one of his
contemporaries rhapsodized after hearing him play, “I never met with any
man that suffered his passions to hurry him away so much whilst he was
playing on the violin as the famous Arcangelo Corelli, whose eyes will
sometimes turn as red as fire; his countenance will be distorted, his
eyeballs roll as in an agony, and he gives in so much to what he is doing
that he doth not look like the same man.” Corelli’s style of playing
influenced violin technique for centuries, and he instructed many of the
leading violinist-composers of the 18th century, including the Italian
Francesco Geminiani.
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Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741): Born in Venice, Antonio Vivaldi was
trained in music as a child, but was ordained as a priest in 1703.
Although his vocation and striking red hair earned him the moniker “Il
Prete Rosso” (the Red Priest), his picturesque nickname soon became
the only vestige of his priestly duties. Within a year of his ordination,
Vivaldi stated that he no longer wished to celebrate the mass because of
“tightness of the chest,” a condition some have attributed to angina
pectoris, asthmatic bronchitis—or simply to the fact that music was the
Red Priest’s true calling.
Around 1704, Vivaldi began his association with the Ospedale della
Pietà, an institution with which he was connected for most of his life.
Although the Ospedale was usually called an orphanage, it was in reality
a home for the illegitimate daughters of Venetian noblemen, and was
well financed by its “anonymous” benefactors. In addition to room, board,
and an excellent education in music, the Pietà offered a creative outlet
for women at a time when professional opportunities for female
musicians were uncertain. The students of the Pietà played many
different instruments (as one eighteenth-century writer observed, “[They]
play the violin, the recorder, the organ, the oboe, the cello, the bassoon;
in fact, there is no instrument large enough to frighten them”) and were
considered to be among the most accomplished performers of their time.
Because they were constantly in need of new music, the bulk of Vivaldi’s
output—including almost 500 concertos, 46 sinfonias, 73 sonatas,
chamber music and a small number of sacred compositions – was likely
intended for these talented performers.
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Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725): A student of Giacomo Carissimi in
Rome, Alessandro Scarlatti became the maestro di cappella of the
viceroy of Naples in 1684 perhaps by way of his sister, an opera singer
and the mistress of an influential Neapolitan noble. Scarlatti wrote over
100 operas, and his works are thought to represent the change in
approach to the genre—including the standardization of forms,
embellishment of arias and minimization of recitatives—that took place
at the end of the 17th century, ultimately leading to the subgenre opera
seria. In addition to opera, Scarlatti composed more than 600 cantatas
and a number of oratorios. His fame today rests primarily on his vocal
music, but Scarlatti received frequent commissions for instrumental
music during his career as well.
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Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757): The sixth son of Alessandro Scarlatti,
Domenico Scarlatti likely received the best musical education Naples
had to offer. Around 1708, the elder Scarlatti took his son to Venice to
study with Francesco Gasparini (1668–1727), who had been a pupil of
Corelli. From Venice the younger Scarlatti journeyed to Rome—
reportedly with Handel—where the two men performed before Cardinal
Pietro Ottoboni. About 1720 Scarlatti moved to Lisbon, and some ten
years later to Madrid. He is known today primarily for his keyboard
sonatas, in which his frequent borrowings from Hispanic folk tunes and
rhythms create a unique sound that is sometimes called “Iberian
Baroque.”
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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736): Born in Jesi in 1710,
Pergolesi studied under Francesco Sartini. He moved to Naples in 1725,
where he spent his brief career working in the Neapolitan courts. While
in Naples, Pergolesi joined Alessandro Scarlatti in pioneering the
changes underway in the genre of opera, particularly in the new opera
buffa (comic opera). In 1733, he included within his opera Il prigioner
superbo the two act buffa intermezzo La serva padrona (The Landlady
Servant), which immediately became popular in its own right. Its
premiere in Paris in 1752 sparked the so-called querelle des
bouffons (quarrel of the comedians), a debate between devotees of
serious French opera in the style of Lully and Rameau and fans of the
new style of Italian comic opera. During the course of the two-year
dispute, Pergolesi’s work became the figurehead of the Italian style.
In addition to numerous operas, Pergolesi composed a number of
secular instrumental works and sacred pieces. His best known sacred
composition is the Stabat Mater (1736), commissioned to replace a
similar piece by Alessandro Scarlatti which had been performed for
years on Good Friday in Naples. Reprinted more often than any other
composition in the 18th century, the Stabat Mater was an inspiration to
many, including J. S. Bach. Pergolesi’s instrumental compositions
include a concerto and sonata for the violin. Many pieces believed to
have been composed by Pergolesi were later shown to be falsely
attributed, including the music on which Igor Stravinsky based the 1920
ballet Pulcinella.
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France
François Couperin (1668–1733): Born in Paris in 1668, François
Couperin was the son of Charles Couperin (1638–79), the organist at St
Gervais in Paris. After inheriting his father's position at the age of 18,
Couperin eventually became the harpsichordist at Versailles as well.
From the start of his career, Couperin was something of a
nonconformist. In his publications of harpsichord music Couperin
grouped his works into ordres rather than the more typical suites, and
often eschewed the usual dance movements in favor of evocative pièces
de caractère. In order to ensure that his music was properly performed,
Couperin published L'art de toucher le clavecin (1716), which included
fingerings, instructions for ornamentation and playing dotted rhythms
and eight preludes that could serve as introductions to the
eight ordres of his first and second books.
In addition to his keyboard music, Couperin composed a number of
sacred vocal works that were heavily influenced by Italian cantatas and
sonatas, and his interest in the juxtaposition of French and Italian styles
continued throughout his lifetime. His publications in his final decade
offer striking illustrations of this preoccupation, including the Concert
instrumental à la mémoire de Monsieur de Lully (1725) in which Lully
and Corelli are received by Apollo on Mount Parnassus and together
compose “La paix du Parnasse” in the form of a trio sonata. An even
more direct fusing of the two styles occurs in Les nations (1726) and in
his suites for bass viols (1728), of which the first is a French ordre and
the second an Italian sonata da chiesa. Couperin remained somewhat
controversial for much of his career. While some critics dismissed him as
a “dedicated servant of Italy,” others viewed the quality of his playing and
compositions as the epitome of the French classical tradition.
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Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687): One of the most dominant figures of
the French baroque, Giovanni Battista Lulli (later Jean-Baptiste Lully)
was actually an Italian of noble birth who arrived in Paris in 1646. In
1653, he began work at the Court of Louis XIV as an instrumental
composer and dancer. Upon securing the position of superintendent of
music in 1661, Lully started writing comédies-ballets with the playwright
Molière, fusing the tradition of Italian pastoral opera with the
French ballet du cour. In 1672 he acquired the license for the Académie
de musique, and a series of highly restrictive patents gave him a total
monopoly on the use of music on the French stage. Lully even
persuaded the king to limit the number of singers and instrumentalists
that could perform with other Parisian theater troupes.
The apotheosis of Lully’s style was the tragédie-lyrique, a French opera
in five acts incorporating ballet, chorus and lavish sets. The
magnificence of these productions reflected the way of life in Louis XIV’s
court perfectly. Machines that made angels fly and ships tackle the
stormy seas transformed the performances unparalleled spectacles, and
Philippe Quinault’s librettos disseminated the latest currents in royal
thought and praise for the French nation.
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Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1645–1704): Believed to be from a family
of royal painters, Charpentier studied with Carissimi in Rome in the
1660s before returning to Paris around 1670. In addition to his position
as maître de musique at the residence of Marie de Lorraine,
Mademoiselle de Guise, which lasted until her death in 1688, he became
Molière's musical collaborator when the dramatist broke with Lully in
1672. Although Molière's death in 1673 put a premature end to their
partnership, Charpentier continued working with the Comédie-française.
Louis XIV liked his theater music so much that he granted him a pension
in 1683.
In addition to his employment in the secular realm, Charpentier held
several posts in the church during the final decades of his life. After
serving as the maître of the Jesuits' St. Louis church, Charpentier
became the maître de musique des enfants at the Sainte Chapelle in
1698. As a result of these positions, Charpentier’s repertoire includes 11
Mass settings; a large number of Psalms, antiphons, sequences and
lessons; more than 200 motets; and many instrumental works intended
for performance in church. His best known works for the stage are La
couronne de fleurs(1685), David et Jonathas (1688), and Médée (1693),
and he also wrote three unpublished treatises.
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Jean-Phillippe Rameau (1683–1764): Born in Dijon in 1683, Rameau
spent the first 40 years of his life working in the relative obscurity of the
provinces. His move to Paris and the publication of his famous Traité de
l'harmonie in 1722 brought him into the limelight, although he was still
unable to secure employment. In 1726, he published his second and
more contentious treatise, Nouveau système de musique théorique,
which led him into rancorous public disputes in the pages of the Mercure
de France (1729-30). Rameau’s early operas, including Hippolyte and
Aricie(1733), were also the subject of controversy, sparking a lengthy
debate between the old-fashioned Lullists and the avant-garde Ramists
over the identity of “French opera.”
In addition to serving as the maître de musique at the home of the
financier La Poupliniere from about 1735 until 1753, Rameau began
work at court as the King’s compositeur de la musique in 1745 and
collaborated on several projects with Voltaire. In the final decade of his
life, Rameau focused more on theory than on actual composition,
corresponding with other important music theorists including Johann
Mattheson. His ideas about harmony, particularly the notion that every
chord has a basse fondamentale (root note) that preserves the identity of
the chord even when its notes are reordered, form the basis of modern
theories of tonality. Upon Rameau’s death in 1764, over 1500 people
attended his memorial service, which featured over 180 musicians
performing excerpts from his operas.
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Germany
Michael Praetorius (1571–1621): A student of Martin Luther, Praetorius
was theorganist at the Marienkirche in Frankfurt before he became the
organist (1603) and Kapellmeister (1604) at the court in Wolfenbüttel.
His post necessitated a great deal of travel, which allowed him to
advertise his talents as a conductor, organist and knowledgeable expert
on practical music and on musical instruments. An extremely prolific
composer of Lutheran church music, Praetorius’s magnum opus is the 9-
volume Musae Sioniae, which contains over a thousand chorale and
song settings. His only surviving secular work is Terpsichore, a set of
312 dances. In addition to his music, Praetorius provided an invaluable
reference for researchers in the form of his three volume Syntagma
Musicum (1619), a detailed compendium of observations on
contemporary German music, musical instruments and performance.
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Johann Hermann Schein (1586–1630): After studies in music and in
law, Schein held positions as house music director at Schloss
Weissenfels and Kapellmeister to Duke Johann Ernst the Younger at
Weimar before succeeding Calvisius in 1616 as music director and
cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, a position J. S. Bach was to hold
over a century later. Schein was one of the major figures in the
development of the sacred concerto, one of the genres that fueled
Bach’s Lutheran cantatas, and also composed many spiritual madrigals,
motets, songs, dance suites and chorale harmonizations. Although his
early compositions favor the complex polyphony of the sixteenth century,
he quickly abandoned this style in favor of the more modern trend
toward emotional declamation and dramatic contrast, using them to
great advantage in many of his sacred works. Schein is also known for
his friendships with Scheidt and Schütz.
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Samuel Scheidt (1587–1653): Born in Halle, Scheidt studied music in
Amsterdam with the famous composer Sweelinck. Upon returning to
Halle, he became court organist and them Kapellmeister to the Margrave
of Brandenburg. Unlike many other composers including Schütz, Scheidt
stayed in Halle during the Thirty Years’ War, taking a series of smaller
posts until the situation permitted him to return to his position
as Kapellmeister. Scheidt worked with a number of other famous
composers throughout his career, such as Praetorius and Schütz, and
composed many volumes of sacred music that include sacred concertos
and madrigals. He was also well known among his contemporaries for
his instrumental music, particularly his chorale preludes and fantasias for
keyboard.
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Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672): Born in Köstritz, Schütz first studied
music with his father, who was an innkeeper. In 1598, a guest at the inn
—the Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel—heard the young boy sing,
and was so taken with his talent that he asked Schütz’s father if he could
be in charge of his music education. In addition to his studies with the
landgrave’s Kapellmeister, Schütz studied law at the University of
Marburg, graduating with honors in 1608. In 1609, the landgrave gave
Schütz a grant to travel to Venice, where he studied composition with
Giovanni Gabrieli until 1613. After a short stint as the landgrave’s
organist, Schütz became the court composer for the Elector of Saxony in
Dresden in 1615, where Praetorius was also occasionally employed.
Schütz held this position for the rest of his career. During the Thirty
Years’ War, however, he studied briefly with Claudio Monteverdi in
Venice and served as Kapellmeisterto King Christian IV of Denmark for
several years.
Perhaps as a result of his studies in Italy, Schütz is sometimes credited
with bringing the Italianate style to Germany. Like Monteverdi, Schütz
often made use of pungent dissonances to express the meaning of the
text, and even employed special technical figures in analogy to or taken
from classical rhetoric. His two trips to Italy yielded collections of music
that show his assimilation of the Italian style, especially his Il primo libro
de madrigali (1611), dedicated to the landgrave and displaying the
results of his studies with Gabrieli, and the Symphoniae sacrae (1629),
which were published at the end of his time in Venice. In 1627 Schütz
also produced the first German opera, Dafne, the music of which no
longer exists. He is best known for his sacred vocal music, however,
particularly his three books of Symphoniae sacrae, the Psalms of David,
the Sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (the Seven Last Words on the
Cross) and his three Passion settings, which were composed shortly
before the end of his life.
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Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767): Born in Magdeburg in 1681,
Telemann came from a family long connected with the Lutheran church:
his father was a clergyman, his mother the daughter of a clergyman and
his elder brother also followed in the family’s footsteps. Telemann’s
destiny lay elsewhere, however. By the age of 10, he was proficient on
the violin, flute, keyboard and zither, and even wrote an
opera, Sigismundus, at twelve. Her son’s ever-increasing interest in
music worried his mother, who confiscated his instruments and forced
him to take up the study of jurisprudence. According to Telemann,
however, on the way to Leipzig University he met none other than “Herr
Georg Friedrich Handel, who was already of some importance even in
those days.” This encounter was the start of a long friendship between
the two men, who exchanged letters throughout their lifetimes. (On
several occasions, Handel even sent Telemann, an amateur botanist,
“botanical curiosities” from London). Telemann tried to keep his passion
for music a secret, but he was sorely tempted “to drink Music’s philtre,”
as he put it—and drink he finally did. One day, his roommate
“accidentally” came across the score of Telemann's setting of the Sixth
Psalm and arranged for a performance in St. Thomas's Church the
following Sunday. The work was so successful that the Burgomaster of
Leipzig commissioned him to write a new piece for the choir of St.
Thomas every fortnight. Telemann the composer was born.
In 1702, Telemann took his first official job in music as the director of
Leipzig’s opera house and one of its churches. His growing reputation in
Leipzig angered Kuhnau, the city’s music director and Bach’s
predecessor, who was particularly unhappy that student musicians
seemed more interested in working with Telemann on opera productions
than in participating in church music. In 1705, Telemann left Leipzig to
become Kapellmeister to the cosmopolitan court of Count Erdmann II of
Promnitz at Sorau), where the vogue for the French and Italian style
broadened Telemann’s musical horizons. He became well acquainted
with the music of Lully and Campra, composing close to
200 ouvertures and suites during his sixteen years in the position. After
briefly overlapping with Bach in Eisenach and working in several other
cities, Telemann was offered the Hamburg Johanneum in 1721, a post
that entailed the directorship of the city’s five principal churches as well
as teaching responsibilities. He remained at Hamburg for the rest of his
life, and was succeeded in the post by his godson, Carl Phillipp
Emmanuel Bach.
During his lifetime, Telemann enjoyed a fame that far surpassed that of
his contemporary, J. S. Bach. Not only was he considered to be the
better musician—and was compensated accordingly with a salary in
Hamburg at least three times larger than Bach’s in Leipzig – but by all
accounts he was well liked, admired for his driving ambition, impressive
talent and excellent sense of humor. Often called the most prolific
composer in history, Telemann’s surviving repertoire is massive,
including 1043 church cantatas, 46 Passions and many operas. He also
composed a large amount of instrumental music; in an autobiographical
article from 1740, Telemann estimated that he had written 600 suites,
about a quarter of which are extant today. One of his most ambitious was
the three-installment Tafelmusik(Table Music), on whose list of
subscribers was “Mr. Hendel, Docteur en Musique, Londres.”
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George Frideric Handel (1685–1759): Like his friend Telemann,
George Frideric Handel showed a great deal of musical promise during
his childhood in Halle, but was initially encouraged to study law instead.
Although he entered the University of Halle in 1702, he left a year later to
become a violinist in the opera house at Hamburg. It was in this city that
his first two operas, Almira and Nero, were produced in 1705, followed
by Daphne and Florindo in 1708. Handel then traveled to Italy,
premiering Rodrigo (1707) in Florence and Agrippina (1708) in Venice,
where he may also have met Vivaldi. In Rome he studied with Corelli,
and performed La Resurrezione (1709) and Il Trionfo del Tempo (1710).
Early in 1710, Handel left Italy to become Kapellmeister to the Elector of
Hanover, George Louis, who became King George I of England in 1714.
Handel moved to London in 1712, where he remained for the rest of his
life.
Handel arrived in London as a famous opera composer, but English
audiences proved resistant to the genre’s charms. By the early 1730s,
the assaults of critics and the notoriously lascivious lifestyles of the
singers had worn down London audiences, and Handel needed to find a
new medium for his art. The oratorio was the perfect solution. English
oratorios were similar to opera in their use of recitative and aria, but
were rarely staged, and were based on stories from the Bible in the
vernacular. Handel’s addition of the chorus also resonated with London
audiences, who were steeped in the English tradition of anthem-singing.
Ultimately, the English oratorio cemented Handel’s reputation forever—
and works such as Messiah, Judas Maccabeus and Israel in Egypt are
still tremendously popular today.
In addition to his operas, oratorios and well known Coronation Anthems,
written for the coronation of George II, Handel composed a great deal of
instrumental music still performed today. Some of the most famous were
composed for royal occasions, including Water Music, written for
concerts on the Thames, and Music for Royal Fireworks. Others were
published for purchase by subscription, like the Op. 6 Concerti Grossi,
based on the Op. 6 collection of Corelli. After becoming blind in 1751,
Handel died eight years later in London. He is buried in Westminster
Abbey.
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750):

Like many composers born into a musical family, Johann Sebastian

Bach received his earliest instruction from his father in Eisenach. After
his father’s death in 1695, Bach studied in Ohrdruf with his brother,
Johann Christoph, and also attended schools in Eisenach, Ohrdruf, and
Lüneburg. In 1703, Bach attained his first post as organist in Arnstadt,
where he stayed until 1707, followed by a year as organist in
Mühlhausen. From 1708 to 1717 Bach worked for Duke Wilhelm Ernst of
Weimar, first as court organist, and after 1714, as Kapellmeister. Many of
his organ compositions were written during this period, including
the Orgelbüchlein, as well as some of his cantatas. While in Weimar,
Bach also came into contact with a great deal of Italian music, and was
particularly influenced by Vivaldi’s concertos.
Bach embarked on the next phase of his career in 1717, when he
became the Music Director for the Prince Leopold of Cöthen (1717–
1723). Since the court chapel was Calvinist (a religion that did not use
elaborate music in its services), Bach composed a great deal of
instrumental music during this time, including the Brandenburg
Concertos, the Suites for solo cello, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo
violin, the first volume of Das wohltemperirte Clavier (The Well-
Tempered Clavier) and the Orchestral Suites. While there was no need
for sacred vocal music, Bach also composed a few cantatas to
commemorate special events at court.
In 1723, Bach was appointed music director and cantor at the
Thomaskirche in Leipzig, a position he was to hold for the rest of his
career. (Bach was actually the second choice for the position, as the
more famous Telemann had already refused the job). His official duties
were immense, requiring him to oversee the music in the city’s four main
churches, teach and provide music for municipal occasions. During his
first six years in Leipzig, Bach composed four cycles of cantatas and the
St. John and St. Matthew Passions. By 1729, Bach had amassed a large
repertoire of music for services in Leipzig, and was able to turn his
attentions elsewhere. From 1729 to 1737 (and again from 1739 to 1741),
Bach served as the director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a group
of professional musicians and university students founded by Telemann
in 1704. In addition to reviving many compositions from Cöthen for the
Collegium’s weekly concerts, many of Bach’s secular cantatas from this
time were probably composed for the group. Bach also published a
number of more abstract, erudite works for publication, particuarly the
four volumes entitled Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice), which hold
the Six Partitas for Keyboard (Vol. I), the Italian Concerto, the French
Overture (Vol. II) and the *Goldberg *Variations (Vol. IV); another late
work along similar lines is the unfinished Die Kunst der Fuge ( The Art of
Fugue).
Although he was famous during his lifetime, Bach’s contemporaries had
all but dismissed him as old-fashioned by the time of his death in 1750.
According to anecdotal evidence, his music was still respected; Mozart
and Beethoven both reportedly studied his compositions. The true
revival of Bach’s works began in 1829, however, when Felix
Mendelssohn conducted a famous performance of the St. Matthew
Passion in Berlin. After hearing the performance, Hegel called Bach a
“grand, truly Protestant, robust and, so to speak, erudite genius which
we have only recently learned again to appreciate at its full value.”
Mendelssohn’s efforts to promote Bach’s music continued, and
eventually led to the founding of the Bach Gesellschaft (Bach Society),
an organization devoted exclusively to promoting his works.
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England
Henry Purcell (1659–1695): As the son of a musician at court, a
chorister at the Chapel Royal and a composer for three different kings,
Henry Purcell spent his entire life in Westminster. After showing a
proclivity for music at a young age, Purcell may have studied with John
Blow in the Chapel Royal. 18th century historian Charles Burney
questioned the extent of the tutelage, however, writing that “…he had a
few lessons from Dr. Blow, which were sufficient to cancel all the
instructions he had received from other masters, and to occasion the
boast inscribed on the tomb-stone of Blow, that he had been ‘Master to
the famous Mr. Henry Purcell’.”
As part of his royal duties, Purcell was expected to write music to
celebrate special occasions, such as the birthday ode for Queen Mary
entitled “Come Ye Sons of Art, Away.” Although Italian opera had not yet
caught on in England, Purcell composed a number of “semi-operas,”
such as King Arthur (1691) and *The Fairy Queen *(1692), and the only
through-sung English opera of the seventeenth century, *Dido and
Aeneas *(1689). Purcell also wrote a large amount of incidental music
for the theater, which his widow published posthumously as A Collection
of Ayres, Compos'd for the Theatre, and upon Other Occasions(1697).
In addition to his activities at court and in the theater, Purcell was also
involved with the advent of public concerts in London, and composed
harpsichord suites and trio sonatas for performance at these events. In
1683, a group of amateur and professional musicians started a “Musical
Society” to celebrate the Festival of St. Cecilia, “a great patroness of
music,” on November 22. Purcell composed three odes for the Society.
Upon his premature passing in 1695, “the English Orpheus” was buried
adjacent to the organ in Westminster Abbey.