Bach, J.S.: Schubler Chorales / Toccata And Fugue In D Minor

Wolfgang

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Cat No: 8553150

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099415026

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BACH, J.S.

Description
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750) Schübler Chorales, BWV 645 - 650 Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537 Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538 (Dorian) Pièce d'orgue, BWV 572 Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 545 Johann Sebastian Bach was a member of a family that had for generations been occupied in music. His sons were to continue the tradition, providing the foundation of a new style of music that prevailed in the later part of the eighteenth century. Johann Sebastian Bach himself represented the end of an age, the culmination of the Baroque in a magnificent synthesis of Italian melodic invention, French rhythmic dance forms and German contrapuntal mastery. Born in Eisenach in 1685, Bach was educated largely by his eldest brother, after the early death of his parents. At the age of eighteen he embarked on his career as a musician, serving first as a court musician at Weimar, before appointment as organist at Arnstadt. Four years later he moved to Muhlhausen as organist and the following year became organist and chamber musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. Securing his release with difficulty, in 1717 he was appointed Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen and remained at Cöthen until 1723, when he moved to Leipzig as Cantor at the School of St. Thomas, with responsibility for the music of the five principal city churches. Bach was to remain in Leipzig until his death in 1750. As a craftsman obliged to fulfil the terms of his employment, Bach provided music suited to his various appointments. It was natural that his earlier work as an organist and something of an expert on the construction of organs, should result in music for that instrument. At Cöthen, where the Pietist leanings of the court made church music unnecessary, he provided a quantity of instrumental music for the court orchestra and its players. In Leipzig he began by composing series of cantatas for the church year, later turning his attention1o instrumental music for the Collegium musicum of the University, and to the collection and ordering of his own compositions. The Schübler Chorales, known by this title because of their contemporary publication by J.G. Schübler, were written in the Leipzig period of Bach's life. The first of the six, Wachet auf, in E flat major, is possibly the most familiar of all, not least from its appearance in the cantata of the same title, for the 27th Sunday after Trinity in 1731. The chorale melody appears in the tenor part, after the well known violin and viola obbligato played by the right hand, over a simple pedal part. The second, Wo soil ich fliehen hin or Auf meinen lieben Gott, in E minor, has the chorale melody in the pedals, with imitative counterpoint between the two manual parts. The third of the set, Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten, in C minor, again has the ch9rale melody in the pedals, with three-voice imitative counterpoint on the manuals and derived from the chorale. It
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