The young Johann Sebastian Bach learned the music from Thuringian composers such as Johann Pachelbel and his uncle Johann Christoph. In 1700, when he was 15 years old, he walked 350 km to Luneburg where he studied during three years with Georg Böhm, a distinguished organist and composer. He learned there how to compose chorale variations, preludes and fugues. He certainly learned a lot in reading books and manuscripts of Monteverdi, Carissimi, Schein, Scheidt, Schütz in the very rich music library of the Saint Michael College.
In December 1704 he walked again some 400 km from Arnstadt to Lübeck to meet with Dietrich Buxtehude, and he stayed there more than three months. This must have been an incredible encounter between two giants: Buxtehude was the most important North German composer in the late 17th century and his organ works in Stylus Fantasticus such as the Toccata in F are the climax of the North German school. We know many of his works (notably the Passacaglia) only through copies made by Bach in that time in Lübeck. Bach’s Passacaglia, a true masterpiece from a young composer, may be regarded as a tribute to Buxtehude.
Later in Weimar, J.S. Bach copied the “Livre d’orgue” by Nicolas de Grigny, a very polyphonic French organ book of that time, full of four voices and five voices pieces. The chorale prelude “Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot”, BWV 678, shows this French influence.
He also copied the “Fiori Musicali” by Girolamo Frescobaldi, the most important Italian organist and composer of the early 17th century. We can hear this influence in many of his instrumental and organ pieces, even in the works that Bach composed at the end of his life, from the KlavierÜbung III to the Musical Offering.
Johann Sebastian never left Germany, but he was extremely well informed about European music from different countries. The most extraordinary thing is that he never tried to “imitate” those masters, but he always incorporated some elements in his own musical language, never loosing his own path. This remains a lesson for all of us, more than three hundred years later.
–Bernard Foccroulle
