Bach the Humorist

From chortling gags heard in his church music, to the off-beat physical humor enlivening his first published keyboard music, to the jesting chutzpah of his Brandenburg Concertos, Bach’s wittiest creations display the composer/performer’s irreverence for expectation and reflect his musical—and social—daring. While no composer’s image is sterner than that of Johann Sebastian Bach, his early admirers painted a more varied picture of the composer than did later commentators driven by the imperatives of Art and the rigors of unsmiling scholarship. Convivial, dramatic, domestic, and courtly contexts could spark Bach to indulge in droll escapades and jokes, but even beyond such occasions, the prankster lurks in the transgressions of genius.

Bach the Capellmeister

As Capellmeister, Bach was in charge of all musical matters at the court of Cöthen. Although the prince’s Reformed religious faith ruled out the performance of church cantatas, Bach did compose occasional vocal works for special occasions. His chief works of this period, however, were suites, sonatas, and concertos for the court instrumental ensemble, as well as keyboard music for his family and pupils. Among the famous compositions composed or completed at Cöthen and discussed in this chapter are the inventions, Well-Tempered Clavier, organ sonatas, cello suites, sonatas and partitas for violin and flute, and Brandenburg Concertos.