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One of the most profoundly inspired and masterful composers in history, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 ' 1750), was born into a musical family in Eisenach, Germany. Born into a musical family his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills of string-playing. Another relation, the organist at Eisenach's most important church, intructed the young boy on the organ.
In 1695, Johann Sebastian was orphaned; he went to live with his older brother, Johann Christoph, in Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and continued his younger brother's education on that instrument, as well as on the harpsichord. After several years in this arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left his brothers tutelage.
A master of several instruments while still in his teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of 18 as a violinist in a court orchestra in Weimar. Soon after, he took a job as an organist at a church in Arnstadt (1703-1707). Here, as in later posts, his perfectionist tendencies and high expectations of other musicians ' for example, the church choir ' rubbed his colleagues the wrong way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes during his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt (and the working conditions) and moved on the another organist job, this time at he St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen (1707-1708). The same year, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach.
Again caught up in a running conflict between factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar after one year in Muhlhausen. In Weimar (1708-1717), he assumed the post of organist and concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He remained in ...
Going from Child to Woman: The Transformation of Nora Helmer In Henrik Ibsen's, A Dolls House, the character of Nora Helmer goes through the dramatic transformation of a kind and loving house wife, to a desperate and bewildered woman, whom will ultimately leave her husband and everything she has known. Ibsen uses both the characters of Torv...
A girl was not simply what I was, it was what I had to become.' This simple statement by the narrator sums up the theme of 'Boys and Girls', the search and the acceptance of self-identity. Flora's blood on Laird's shirt represented Laird's claim of his superior position in society. In conclusion, Munro sent the reader multiple messages about the di...
"Fools and Kings" Shakespeare's dynamic use of irony in King Lear aids the microcosmic illustration of not only 16th century Britain, but of all times and places. The theme that best develops this illustration is the discussion of fools and their foolishness. This discussion allows Shakespeare not only to portray human nature, but al...
Many characters undergo a change in William Shakespeare's play, As You Like It. Duke Senior goes from being a member of a court to being a member of a forest. Orlando changes from a bitter younger brother to a love-sick young man. But the most obvious transformation undergone, is done by Rosalind. Her change from woman to man,...
Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare that very closely follows the dramatic conventions of revenge in Elizabethan theater. All revenge tragedies originally stemmed from the Greeks, who wrote and performed the first plays. After the Greeks came Seneca who was very influential to all Elizabethan tragedy writers. Seneca w...
