Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750
Score
First page of Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach

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Themes & character
A family music book·Not all by Bach·Beginner repertoire·Compiled 1722 and 1725

About the piece

Two manuscript books Bach began in 1722 and 1725 for his second wife, Anna Magdalena, a professional singer. They were working household collections rather than published works, filled in over years by Bach, by Anna Magdalena herself, and by their children. Several of the best known pieces in them are not by Bach at all. The two famous minuets in G, learned by generations of beginners as Bach's, were identified in the twentieth century as the work of Christian Petzold, and other entries belong to Couperin and Bach's own sons.

The composer

Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685–1750

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He is known for his mastery of counterpoint, as heard in The Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. Felix Mendelssohn precipitated the Bach Revival with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. Ever since, Bach has been acclaimed as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.

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