German composer. Creator of the form of the concerto for keyboard and the modern chamber music, where each instrument is from now on of equal importance, Bach carried to perfection all the forms of the music of his time, except for the opera.

Its work is located at one transition period between the baroque of the XVII ^E century and the great traditional period which opens with second half of the XVIII ^E century: Quite moderate keyboard (1722-1744), six Brandenburger Concertos (1721), Passion according to saint Jean (1722), Passion according to saint Matthieu (1729), Mass in “so” minor (1732, 1737.1749), Oratorio of Christmas (1734).

Bach does not have anything the musician to the dark and tormented genius popularized by the romanticism. The image which it left is that of a good craftsman which, in the long patience of a work of each day, is to have produced, at the end of a regulated life, a multiform work which summarizes the music. This creativity, disciplined and continues, is at the bottom more impressive than the fulgurances of an artist inspired. It is what Beethoven thought who, exploiting the name of Bach (which wants to say, in German, “brook”), estimated that Meer (sea) would have been appropriate better for the majesty and the width of its genius. As for Goethe, Bach evoked for him the spirit even of God planing on water before Creation.

The life of Bach is placed under triple signs of the family, the religion and the service of the princely or municipal power.

It is with the family tradition that it owes its early initiation with the music. Bach goes down from a long line from musicians amateurs (its first known ancestor, Veit, are a baker, fiddler at his hours, installed in Thuringe, where it is at the origin of a true clan) or professionals: his/her father, Johann Ambrosius, were musician of the towns of Erfurt and Eisenach. It is his/her older brother, Johann Christoph, organist with Ohrdruf, which collects it when the death of his/her mother (1694), then of her father (1695), leaves it orphan. And it is his/her cousin, Johann Gottfried Walther, who introduces it in 1707 at the court of Weimar. Bach, itself, will marry twice and live in a house filled with cries of children.

The religion, then, deeply marked and inflected its work. The piety of the court Lutheran of Weimar caused the major part of the 300 cantatas which it composed (and of which 224 reached us). And it is the Calvinism of the court of Köthen, whose reformed austerity banished the music of the church, which directed its research towards the instrumental music. Lastly, one owes with the cantorat of Bach with Saint-Thomas of Leipzig his Passions and his oratorios.

In third place, Bach, if it released the music of a good amount of formal constraints, was put up with the political and social constraints of its time. It filled well the contracts which bound it to its Masters - dukes, princes or councils of city - regularly providing his Sunday cantata, its choral or its oratorio with the great festivals, its sonatas and its imaginations for the profane entertainments. A choir master, it is not other thing only one higher servant, who provides for the devotions and the pleasures with the prince.

Bach however never completely attached its temperament, and what remains industrial relationships of a life so plain it is the memory of its contentions with its employers, for some escapades: in 1705, when it goes to foot in Lübeck to hear with the organ the Buxtehude old man and that there remains absent four months instead of four weeks; in 1717, when the duke of Weimar imprisons it for one month to prevent it from going to Köthen; in 1732, when the middle-class men of Leipzig deplore its frequent stays in Kassel or Dresden, where either an organ retains, or a professional singer.

The true voyage of Bach, it is that which it does in 1747 in Potsdam, where the Large Frederic receives it like equal and a topic of improvisation proposes to him. Bach is carried out and, on its return to Leipzig, it takes again and amplifies the royal reason: it is the musical Offering.

Simplest, to define the work of Bach, is to announce what it does not comprise: Bach did not compose of opera. Although certain musicologists, referring to famous Ach! who punctuate many arias of the cantatas or there Passions, wanted to see a scenic form of writing.

This field put except for, Bach could, musicalement, do everything or almost. “I worked much, he said; whoever works also assiduously will make a success of me as well as.” He knew the invoice and the technique of the instruments and was consulted as expert (he gained much money to repair organ). One admired it for his exceptional talents of clavierist. Excel viola player, it played readily of the violin and, of its desk, directed the orchestra. It was able to judge acoustics of a room and to grant its instruments.

It appeared to its contemporaries especially as an incomparable Master of the organ (one found even with his virtuosity something of diabolic). But its great originality is to have operated the synthesis of all musical knowledge of the past and its time. Bach assimilated the great crowned polyphony of the Rebirth, the French and Italian Masters, the Germanic traditions of North and the South. Thus its style was formed, which superimposes the melody with a rich polyphony with the very tight counterpoint.

In this direction, Bach invented less than it did not improve existing forms and techniques. The art of Bach is combinative, where mix not only with the topics, but also of the structures. Bach treats the voice like an instrument, imbricates the layman and crowned, links the cantata Lutheran with the catholic liturgy.

The music of Bach is at the same time ordered and complex, limpid and erudite. Often started over weak time, from where the dancing character of many partitions, works of Bach rest on the monothematism: it is the main theme which counts, to which all work must be subjected, as in the Toccata and runs away in minor “D”. Bach, not only carries out a perfect balance between the horizontal writing (the melody) and the vertical writing (the harmony), but still it completes the obliged style, carefully noting each part, which must be played such as she is written, finally leaving very little place to the improvisation. One can however note, in his style, an evolution and distinguish three great phases.

To his installation in Leipzig, the Bach young person overflows of ideas, tests himself with all the kinds. He writes an expressive music, in charge of feelings. At the same time, he wants to prove his skill by brilliant effects, as in his first works for organ. Of its arrival at the Saint-Thomas school to the neighborhoods of 1735, Bach writes especially cantatas and works of organ. Its style was purified until carrying out balance between the expressed feeling and the counterpoint.

In the last decade of its life, it develops all the possibilities of the counterpoint, outcome to a dazzling polyphonic richness.

Bach will not sacrifice to the gallant style which knows the favors of Europe as from 1730. Virtuoso, it does not worry to be pleasant. And while the composers devote themselves to phrased and dramatic contrasts which put at the mode the opera buffa, Bach devotes its last years to the exercises of the Art of the running away (17 runnings away and 4 guns) remained unfinished, music of architect which does not owe anything with pretty and with decorative where the music of time takes pleasure. It is this severe and stripped art, quasi intellectual, which, after short and scornful eclipse, ensures the permanent topicality of Bach. As well this one was it able, mixing technical rigor and legitimate pride, to make spout out, exploiting the German notation, of the music of its simple name: “B flat, C, if”.