请给一些johann sebastian bach的英文资料

johann sebastian bach
(born e**enach,21 march 1685;died leipzig,28 july 1750)
he was the youngest son of johann ambrosius bach,a town musician,from whom he probably learnt the violin and the rudiments of musical theory.when he was ten he was orphaned and went to live with h** elder brother johann chr**toph,organ**t at st.michael's church,ohrdruf,who g**e him lessons in keyboard playing.from 1700 to 1702 he attended st.michael's school in lüneburg,where he sang in the church choir and probably came into contact with the organ**t and composer georg böhm.he also v**ited hamburg to hear j.a.reincken at the organ of st.catherine's church.
after competing unsuccessfully for an organ**t's post in sangerhausen in 1702,bach spent the spring and summer of 1703 as 'lackey' and violin**t at the court of weimar and then took up the post of organ**t at the neukirche in arnstadt.in june 1707 he moved to st.blasius,mühlhausen,and four months later married h** cousin maria barbara bach in nearby dornheim.bach was appointed organ**t and chamber musician to the duke of saxe-weimar in 1708,and in the next nine years he became known as a leading organ**t and composed many of h** finest works for the instrument.during th** time he fathered seven children,including wilhelm friedemann and carl philipp emanuel.when,in 1717,bach was appointed kapellme**ter at cöthen,he was at first refused perm**sion to le**e weimar and was allowed to do so only after being held pr**oner by the duke for almost a month.
bach's new employer,prince leopold,was a talented musician who loved and understood the art.since the court was calvin**t,bach had no chapel duties and instead concentrated on instrumental composition.from th** period date h** violin concertos and the six brandenburg concertos,as well as numerous sonalas,suites and keyboard works,including several(e.g.the inventions and book i of the '48')intended for instruction.in 1720 maria barbara died while bach was v**iting karl**ad with the prince;in december of the following year bach married anna magdalena wilcke,daughter of a court trumpeter at we**senfels.a week later prince leopold also married,and h** bride's lack of interest in the arts led to a decline in the support given to music at the cöthen court.in 1722 bach entered h** candidature for the prestigious post of director musices at leipzig and kantor of the thomasschule there.in april 1723,after the preferred candidates,telemann and graupner,had withdrawn,he was offered the post and accepted it.
bach remained as thomaskantor in leipzig for the rest of h** life,often in conflict with the authorities,but a happy family man and a proud and caring parent.h** duties centred on the sunday and feastday services at the city's two main churches,and during h** early years in leipzig he composed prodigious quantities of church music,including four or five cantata cycles,the magnificat and the st.john and st.matthew passions.he was by th** time renowned as a virtuoso organ**t and in constant demand as a teacher and an expert in organ construction and design.h** fame as a composer gradually spread widely when,from 1726 onwards,he began to bring out publ**hed editions of some of h** keyboard and organ music.
from about 1729 bach's interest in composing church music sharply declined,and most of h** sacred works after that date,including the b minor mass and the chr**tmas oratorio,cons**t mainly of 'parodies' or arrangements of earlier music.at the same time he took over the direction of the collegium musicum that telemann had founded in leipzig in 1702-a mainly amateur society which g**e regular public concerts.for these bach arranged harpsichord concertos and composed several large-scale cantatas,or serenatas,to impress the elector of saxony,by whom he was granted the courtesy title of hofcompositeur in 1736.
among the 13 children born to anna magdalena at leipzig was bach's youngest son,johann chr**tian,in 1735.in 1744 bach's second son,emanuel,was married,and three years later bach v**ited the couple and their son(h** first grandchild)at potsdam,where emanuel was employed as harpsichord**t by frederick the great.at potsdam bach improv**ed on a theme given to him by the king,and th** led to the composition of the musical offering,a compendium of fugue,canon,and sonata based on the royal theme.contrapuntal artifice predominates in the work of bach's last decade,during which h** membership(from 1747)of lorenz mizler's learned society of musical sciences profoundly affected h** musical thinking.the canonic variations for organ was one of the works bach presented to the society,and the unfin**hed art of fugue may also h**e been intended for d**tribution among its members.
bach's eyesight began to deteriorate during h** last year and in march and april 1750 he was twice operated on by the itinerant ocul**t john taylor.the operations and the treatment that followed them may h**e hastened bach's death.he took final communion on 22 july and died six days later.on 31 july he was buried at st.john's cemetery.h** widow survived him for ten years,dying in poverty in 1760.
bach's output embraces practically every musical genre of h** time except for the dramatic ones of opera and oratorio(h** three 'oratorios' being oratorios only in a special sense).he opened up new dimensions in virtually every department of creative work to which he turned,in format,musical quality and technical demands.as was normal at the time,h** creative production was mostly bound up with the extemal factors of h** places of work and h** employers,but the density and complexity of h** music are such that analysts and commentators h**e uncovered in it layers of religious and numerological significance rarely to be found in the music of other composers.many of h** contemporaries,notably the critic j.a.scheibe,found h** music too involved and lacking in immediate melodic appeal,but h** chorale harmonizations and fugal works were soon adopted as models for new generations of musicians.the course of bach's musical development was undeflected(though not entirely uninfluenced)by the changes in musical style taking place around him.together with h** great contemporary handel(whom chance prevented h** ever meeting),bach was the last great representative of the baroque era in an age which was already rejecting the baroque aesthetic in f**our of a new,'enlightened'one. 20210311