Name: ___________________________________ Date: ___________________ Period:

________________

Twenty Children & 1,200 Compositions Johann Sebastian

Bach
Born in Eisenach, Germany 1685, Died in Leipzig, Germany 1750
Directions: Read the following, brief biography about the life of Johann Sebastian Bach
and answer the questions that follow. We will complete the listening example as a class.

Read the entire passage first.

Review the questions at the end.
Re-read if necessary to find the answers.

The Life of Johann Sebastian Bach

As a young music teacher, Bach was walking out one night when six
of his own students attacked him. They wanted an apology. Bach had called
one of them a nanny-goat bassoonist someone who makes a bassoon
sound like a goat. But Bach wouldnt take back what he said; he drew a
knife in self-defense. Luckily, the fight was broken up before anyone was
really hurt.
All his life Bach had trouble with people who didnt see things his
way. He once wanted to quit a job, and his employer, a duke, wanted him to
stay. Bach was so stubborn that the duke threw him in jail.
But here is the difference between Bach and the average stubborn person: during the
month he spent in jail, Bach wrote forty-six pieces of music music that we still listen to three
hundred years later.
How could Johann Sebastian Bach have ever thought of becoming anything but a
musician? His is the largest family tree in music. Almost all his male relatives were musicians
some seventy-six in all, fifty-three of them named Johann!
Bachs mother read him Bible stories, and his father taught him violin, sometimes late into
the evening. But both parents were dead by the time Bach turned ten, and he went to live with a
brother.
Bach was able to support himself before he was fifteen. He sang and took organ-playing
jobs in towns near enough to walk to. (Bach was always a dedicated musician even if it meant
blisters. Once he walked two hundred miles just to hear the great organist Dietrich Buxtehude
play.)
Bach spent his whole life in one small part of Germany. He was married twice, first to his
cousin, Maria Barbara, and after she died, to Anna Magdalena, who was a good singer and
keyboard player. Anna Magdalena helped Bach in his work so much that her handwriting came to

look like his. Bach wrote 1,200 musical worksand fathered twenty children (though only ten
lived to adulthood.) Five were name Johann, two Johanna, and four grew up to be famous
composers themselves.
In his free time at night, Bach would sit in his armchair, with a baby on his lap as his wife
and children played and sang. Bach loved food and coffee (once he wrote a whole cantata about
coffee). Among his most prized possessions were two silver coffeepots.
Bach was known as a dazzling organist. His strong legs pumped the pedals, his large
hands performed acrobatics on the keyboard, and hed even use a stick in his mouth to reach
certain notes. But he wasnt a show-off. He said of his playing, There is nothing remarkable
about it. All you have to do is hit the right key at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
Later in life, Bach went blind, probably from copying out his own music in poor light for so
many years. He died of a stroke at age sixty-five.
Hardly any of his music was published while he was alive, nor did he expect it to be. Bach
did not think he was writing music for musicians in the future. He was a professional much of
his music was written for teaching other musicians. Not until about a hundred years after his
death did the genius of Bach begin to be widely recognized.
Music Notes
Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations to relax a millionaire. One of his pupils, Johann Goldberg,
worked for an insomniac count who needed music to get to sleep. The count sent the most
generous payment Bach ever received.
The famous Two-Part Inventions (or Ideas) were written for Bachs children, to exercise each
finger and train the hands to play independently.
The Brandenburg Concertos were a sort of job application to a court official of Brandenburg.
Bach didnt get the job, but his concertos are today among the best-known instrumental
works of this entire period.
Mariane Ziegler, a poet who had published three books, supplied the words for several of
Bachs works. In working with her Bach was ahead of his time, for women were allowed no
public role in creating or performing music.

Review
1. What happened to Bach when he was a young teacher?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
__
2. What did Bach do during his one month he spent in jail?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
__

3. How many men in Bachs family were named Johann?

_________________________________________________
4. Who was Bachs first wife?
________________________________________________________________________
5. Bach had ______________ children, only ______________ lived to be adults.
6. What
1)
2)
3)

instruments did Bach play?

_______________________________________
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

7. How many musical works did Bach write?

_________________________________________________________
8. Bach wrote a cantata about his favorite beverage, _____________________________.
9. Explain why Bach probably went blind:
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
_
10.
Explain what Bach died of and how old he was:
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
__
11.

The title of three Bach pieces are:

1) _________________________________________________________________
2) _________________________________________________________________
3) _________________________________________________________________

Song Title: Toccata and Fugue in d minor

Style of Music: _______________________________
What instruments did you see/hear?

______________________________________________
_

__________________________________________
_

______________________________________________
_

__________________________________________
_

1. Draw or write about any thoughts or images come to mind as you listen to this
piece of music.

2. Did you enjoy the performance? Why or why not?

______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
__

BAROQUE ERA CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Lookforthewords,attheleft,inthegrid
ARIA
BACH
BAROQUE
CLAVIER
COMPOSER
HANDEL

S P F B A N N A M E L E T R R
A P U R C E L L Z F H Q T F E
K I D L A V I V N W P J H X S

BUXTEHUDE
B G S S R G P Y V K P A A O O CLAVICHORD
U B U X T E H U D E R R N N P

T C A V S A E N U P R I D L M
N L E C E Z A Y S O L A E E O HARPSICHORD
F A E V H Q K I C R V M L U C

MESSIAH
OPERA
Y V G
ORATORIO
ORCHESTRA C I M
ORGAN
V C L
PURCELL
U H P
SAKBUT
SCARLATTI M O D
TELEMANN
G R I
TIMPANI
T D B
VIOLIN
VIVALDI

V C A C Q A A L E R Q L
R R H M Y R T K S S O A
E O G F S L O R S G R V
R A F O W A R K I T A I
G I P V K T I P A W B E
N A P M I T O R H F C R
F V I O L I N K H X T T