Baroque Music History: J. S. Bach and G. P. Telemann

Vocabulary flashcards covering the lives, appointments, compositions, and social contexts of Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, and other Classical and Baroque era composers.

Georg Philipp Telemann

A highly prolific German composer and friend of J. S. Bach who wrote over 3,000 works in Italian, French, German, and Polish styles, acted as a pioneer of composer intellectual property rights, and was more famous in his lifetime than Bach.

Paris Quartets

A series of quartets composed by Telemann during a seven-month stay in Paris, scored for flute, violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord, featuring an unusual texture in which the viola da gamba plays an independent part rather than functioning as simple continuo.

Arnstadt

The German town where J. S. Bach secured his very first professional job as an organist following his time as a teenage chorister in Lüneburg.

Mühlhausen

The post Bach took after five years in Arnstadt, where congregations began complaining that his compositions were overly complex and contained too many simultaneous musical parts.

Weimar

The court of a wealthy duke where Bach worked as an organist for nine years until he was passed over for the director position and ended up temporarily jailed after attempting to leave.

Cöthen

The prestigious court where Bach served as Kapellmeister for nine years under a supportive Calvinist prince, directing an 18-player orchestra and composing secular instrumental masterpieces such as the Brandenburg Concertos.

Anna Magdalena

The 21-year-old musician who married J. S. Bach a year and a half after his first wife died, who was 15 years younger than him and with whom he expanded his family.

Esterházy Family

The wealthy aristocratic family who employed Joseph Haydn as a servant-status worker in their castle, exemplifying the pre-Beethoven social standing of composers.

Saint Thomas Church

The municipal church and school in Leipzig where Bach served as music director and cantor for the final 27 years of his life, managing music for four churches and teaching 55 students.

Cantata

A 25-minute sacred vocal composition featuring recitatives and arias that Bach composed and rehearsed weekly in Leipzig to serve as a musical sermon reflecting the Sunday gospel and epistle readings.

Leipzig Collegium Musicum

An amateur student musical society originally established by Telemann and later directed by J. S. Bach during his career in Leipzig.

Soli Deo Gloria

A Latin inscription, abbreviated as SDG and meaning 'To God Alone the Glory,' which Bach wrote at the end of his compositions alongside appeals like 'Jesus help.'

Counterpoint

A complex compositional technique involving the combination of multiple independent melodic lines of equal importance sounding simultaneously, a texture at which Bach was uniquely masterful.