Bach Skid Row Analysis

Music, much like most of what human beings have declared to be a form of art, has gone through thousands of years of evolution that it now no longer resembles much of what its pioneers intended to be. Indeed, the definition of music in itself along with its performance and significance may vary according to different cultures and social contexts. It is this ambiguity that has allowed music to traverse not only physical boundaries but also to build bridges between gaps, whether it be culturally or even through a metaphysical period of time and space. It was, however, not always so black-and-white during the days of early musical revolution; it was even less of the case when it came to classical music. For the remainder of this thesis,
While most people would assume a composer is merely someone who sits at a piano, Bach was in reality an organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist. A pioneer of the Baroque period, Bach began musical tutelage under his father, a famous local violinist from his hometown of Eisenach, Germany. Born in 1685, the young Johann Sebastian had to live with his brother Johann Christoph from the tender young age of 9 after his parents had passed away. Through his brother, who has an organ player in church and had himself studied under

Johann Pachelbel, Bach began learning the clavichord before being given a scholarship to study music at the age of 14. This would later prove invaluable as it exposed him to a wider aspect of
European culture, whilst rubbing shoulders with the sons of noblemen. Once free from his studies at
St. Michael’s School in Lüneburg, Bach came into the employment of several churches and even one Duke Johann Ernst from Weimar. His dissatisfaction with his employers led him to seek a job at
St. Blasius’s, where not only did he have better working conditions, but it is also where he met his future wife Maria Barbara Bach. After convincing the church and city government to renovate