Johann Sebastian Bach, The Pop Chart Wizard!
July 28 1750 Johann Sebastian Bach the master of sublime Baroque music died on this day.Celebrated for the choral and sacred music that he composed nearly 400 years ago Bach has had a surprising impact on modern pop charts influencing stars such as Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga.According to Paul McCartney Bachs Bourre in E minor lent its shape and harmony to the opening of Blackbird by The Beatles.And a piccolo trumpet plays lines from Bachs Brandenburg Concerto No.
2 in the orchestration of the worldwide Number One hit Penny Lane.Other Bach borrowings in Beatles songs includes All You Need Is Love where his Invention No.8 in F rings out during the final orchestral section.His four-part chorale O Sacred Head Now Wounded inspired Paul Simon when he was writing Bridge Over Troubled Water and a reworking of Bachs Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring opens Lady Linda by the Beach Boys.The chart-topping Everythings Gonna Be Alright by pophip-hop trio Sweetbox featured a comprehensive sample of Bachs Air on the G Stringfrom his Orchestral Suite No.3 while the harpsichord music that opens Lady Gagas Bad Romance is based on the Fugue in B minor from BachsWell-Tempered Clavier.Even heavy metal has felt Bachs influence.
His Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is featured in Eddie Van Halens instrumental piece Eruption while renowned guitarist Jimmy Page adapted Bachs Lute Bourre in E minor during a live performance of Led Zeppelins Heartbreaker.Rap has also encompassed Bachs work.Slim Shady leans on the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in Eminems Brainless while Brazilian rapper MC Fioti samples Bachs Partita in A minor for soloflute in his monster hit Bum Bum Tam Tam.All this would probably have amused if not gratified Bach who was born in Germany on March 21 1685.
He became a composer organist harpsichordist violist and violinist of the Baroque era and is seen by many as musics most sublime creative genius.He came from a family of musicians stretching back several generations.His father Johann Ambrosius worked as the town musician in the family hometown of Eisenach.In the 65 years that Bach lived he composed 1128 known pieces of music while another 23 were lost or unfinished.His best-known compositions include The Well-Tempered Clavier Toccata and Fugue in D minor Air on the G String Goldberg Variations and the Brandenburg Concertos.In 1706 he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach.
They had seven children but only four reached adulthood.Maria herself died in 1720 and the following year Bach married a singer named Anna Magdalena Wlcken.They had 13 children bringing Bachs total as a father to 20 but tragically more than half of the second marriages offspring died as children.By 1740 Bach was struggling with his eyesight and in 1750 he decided on surgery to correct his vision.
It went horribly wrong and the operation left him blind.Said to have been broken-hearted Bach later suffered a stroke and died in Leipzig on July 28 1750.
