The Portraits of Johann Sebastian Bach are various paintings in which the Baroque German composer Johann Sebastian Bach is portrayed. The Bach portrait painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann is the best known of all and different copies of it were made over the years. Other paintings have also been discovered often with debate regarding their authenticity.
In 1747, Bach was admitted as the fourteenth member of the Correspondierende Societät der musicalischen Wissenschaften (lit. 'Corresponding society of musical sciences') of Lorenz Christoph Mizler, an association for musical studies founded in 1738. Under the society's rules, each member had to donate a portrait of himself to the society's headquarters. It would serve as a model for the engravings that, together with the various biographies of the members, would appear in the Musicalische Bibliothek (Musical library), the official magazine of the association. [1]
Upon joining, Bach handed in his own portrait made in 1746 by Elias Gottlob Haussmann. In it, Bach upholds the triple six-voice canon BWV 1076. The company, in fact, required candidates to submit a scientific-mathematical work as proof of their erudition. [2]
According to an oral tradition, after the dissolution of the association in 1755, the painting was donated by Mizler to Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, who, around 1800, donated or sold it to August Eberhard Müller, assistant to the Thomaskirche cantor Johann Adam Hiller and then his successor. Müller, in 1809, then donated it to the Thomasschule. [3]
Over the years, the portrait underwent various more or less drastic restorations: [3] in 1852 it was refreshed, and, in 1879, the painter Friedrich Preller the Younger repainted it heavily. In 1913 the Thomasschule gave it on permanent loan to the Municipal History Museum in Leipzig, where it underwent further restoration and where it still stands today. In 1960 it was examined by the Dresden Institut für Denkmalpflege, which confirmed the numerous operations it underwent. [4]
A 1748 copy of Haussmann's painting belonged to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, then passing to Johann Christian Kittel. Subsequently, after the latter's death, it was purchased from an antique dealer in Berlin by the Jenke family. [5] Some argue that this is the original portrait that Bach gave to Mizler's society, and that the previous one is the replica. In this case, the dates of the two portraits should be reversed. [6]
In 1791, Johann Marcus David made a copy of the authentic portraits executed by Haussmann. It resembled the 1746 portrait in the features of the dress and the 1748 portrait in the face. As to its origin, it may have been commissioned by Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1814), known to have been in possession of a portrait of Bach, and, after him, the painting may have passed to Georg Pölchau. The last owner of it, Helene Brest, died in the Battle of Berlin in 1945 during the World War II, and later her painting was destroyed. [7]
Kapellmeister, from German Kapelle (chapel) and Meister (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in its meaning and is today used for denoting the leader of a musical ensemble, often smaller ones used for TV, radio, and theatres.
Christian Friedrich Henrici, writing under the pen name Picander, was a German poet and librettist for many of the cantatas which Johann Sebastian Bach composed in Leipzig.
Köthen ( ) is a town in Germany. It is the capital of the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt, about 30 km (19 mi) north of Halle.
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel was a German composer of the Baroque era.
Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen was a German prince of the House of Ascania and ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Köthen. Today, he is best remembered for employing Johann Sebastian Bach as his Kapellmeister between 1717 and 1723.
Throughout his life as a musician, Johann Sebastian Bach composed cantatas for both secular and sacred use. His church cantatas are cantatas which he composed for use in the Lutheran church, mainly intended for the occasions of the liturgical year.
Elias Gottlob Haussmann was a German painter in the late Baroque era. Haussmann served as court painter at Dresden, and from 1720, as the official portraitist at Leipzig. He is mostly known for his portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach which was painted in 1746.
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the cello suites and sonatas and partitas for solo violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.
Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof was a German physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enlightenment in Poland.
Johann Adolph Scheibe was a German-Danish composer and significant critic and theorist of music. Though much of his theoretical work survives, most of his compositions are lost, though the extant ones demonstrate a style between the Baroque and Classical periods.
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the secular cantata Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht, BWV 134.1, BWV 134a, while he was in the service of the court of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. Bach wrote the work as a serenata for the celebration of New Year's Day 1719.
As Thomaskantor, Johann Sebastian Bach provided Passion music for Good Friday services in Leipzig. The extant St Matthew Passion and St John Passion are Passion oratorios composed by Bach.
The Weimarer Passion, BWV deest, is a hypothetical Passion oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, thought to have possibly been performed on Good Friday 26 March 1717 at Gotha on the basis of a payment of 12 Thaler on 12 April 1717 to "Concert Meister Bachen". It is one of several such lost Passions. Both the text and music are lost, but individual movements from this work could have been reused in latter works such as the Johannes-Passion. At one time, it was thought that the work set chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew to music, with interspersed chorales and arias, but current consensus is that it is possible that the text reflected a synopsis of two or more Gospel texts, as well as the interspersed chorales and arias.
Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest, BWV 194, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for dedication of the church and organ at Störmthal on 2 November 1723.
Lobet den Herrn, alle seine Heerscharen, BWV 1147, BWV Anh. 5, is a church cantata text by Christian Friedrich Hunold which was performed, most likely in a setting by Johann Sebastian Bach, for the twenty-fourth birthday of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen on 10 December 1718. The composition is lost, but its libretto survives in a 1719 print.
Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147.1, BWV 147a, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Weimar in 1716 for the fourth Sunday in Advent, 20 December. It is uncertain if the work was performed then. He later expanded the work in 1723 as Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147.
The first major biographies of Johann Sebastian Bach, including those by Johann Nikolaus Forkel and Philipp Spitta, were published in the 19th century. Many more were published in the 20th century by, among others, Albert Schweitzer, Charles Sanford Terry, Christoph Wolff and Klaus Eidam.
The 1754 obituary of Johann Sebastian Bach is usually called the Nekrolog. It was published four years after his death.
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