Johann Sebastian Bach
...rich nobleman that had a really hard time falling asleep. Goldberg’s job was to play the harpsichord until the nobleman fell asleep, but he could never seem to play the right music for the task at hand. After becoming frustrated and worn out every night, he begged Bach to compose an arrangement that would be relaxing and that would help the nobleman fall asleep. Bach came up with an arrangement like he had been asked and the piece was named after his pupil and is known today as "The Goldberg Variations." Bach's first career position was as a violinist in the court chapel of Prince Ernest of Weimer. He was promoted to church organist, a position that paid well enough to allow Bach the time to compose. Most of his chapel assignments were for the organ so Bach's Baroque counterpoint and fugue were fashioned for that instrument. Bach also wrote music for the choir and orchestra. After Weimer, Bach went on to work for Prince Leopold at Cothen. Bach’s duties there were to play the organ but he was also asked to direct the choir, which was an exciting surprise for him. Prince Leopold loved orchestral music, and always was encouraging Bach to write original pieces for his orchestra. Today many of Bach's better known orchestral works were composed during his time working for the prince. Bach went to Muhlhausen as an organist in 1707. There he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach and they had seven children together. A year later he was made court organist and chamber musician at Weimar, and later became the concert master. He became the musical director at Kothen in 1717. At Kothen he concentrated on instrumental compositions, especially keyboard works such as the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, the English Suites, the French Suites and the Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions, which were written for the education of his son Wilhelm. He also wrote several unaccompanied violin sonatas and cello suites, and the Brandenburg Concertos, which is recognized as the best concerti grossi ever composed. Three years later his wife Maria passed away, and a year later he married Anna Magdalena Wulken. Together they had 13 children. In 1723 he took the important post of music director of the church of St. Thomas, Leipzig, and of its choir school. Bach's Leipzig responsibility was mainly the education of several hundred boys in the St. Thomas School. He was personally responsible to direct the music at St. Thomas and St. Nicolas church as well. On average he had about 55 boys in the Thomas school choir, who would alternate singing between the two churches. While there he would make some extra income by writing and performing music for special occasions such as weddings and funerals. In a typical week Bach would perform almost every single day. These performances were usually poorly rehearsed. Bach’s eyesight started to decline in the last few years of his life. They figure it was caused by the fact that he had spent so many nights working on his musical compositions with poor lighting conditions. Even after two cataract surgeries his eyesight never improved much. His last piece was “Die Kunst der Fuge”. After this piece of work his eyes were in such bad shape that he was no longer able to compose by himself. The two eye surgeries he had really didn’t help him out but instead they made his eyesight worse and he actually got an infection from one of the operations. During the last few years of his life he went over his many compositions and perfected them with the help of his son in law, Altnikol. He died while in the middle of composing a final fugue. Bach has created a large amount of musical compositions. Many people say that it would take one of today’s best music copyists 40 years to replicate his work, if they were writing continuously. It is said that many of Bach’s piece...