The period from 1600 to 1750 gave western music some of its most well-known and beloved works. During this time, referred to as the Baroque Period, these pieces were written by some of the most prolific composers of all time. These musicians came from across Europe. Frenchmen, Italians, Englishmen, Germans, and others all made great contributions and advancements toward the development of music as we know it. However two of these men were perhaps the most important of all - George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach.
While both of these men were born in Germany, the details of each of their employment in the musical profession includes vast differences in both the method by which they acquired their influences and the countries in which they held positions. The purpose of this essay is to use the details of each composer's life, prior to composition of the pieces in question, and musical examples from within the composition written from each man to differentiate and highlight specific writing styles and habits. Furthermore, two pieces will be from a genre that both Bach and Handel wrote in fairly extensively, the keyboard suite, will be used as these musical examples. Bach's English Suite No. 4 in F major (BWV 809) and Handel's Keyboard Suite No. 1 in A major (HWV 426) are the works that will be used.
From Bach's Birth to His Time in Cothen.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 to a family of musicians in Eisenach, Germany. At that time, the Bach family was well-known in their region of East-Central Germany as musicians to the point that their name was nearly synonymous with music. Sebastian's father was named Johann Ambrosius Bach and was the court and town musician in the town of Eisenach. Prior to Sebastian's birth, Ambrosius had been employed in the town of Erfurt. The town of Erfurt certainly had some impact on Sebastian's life, through Ambrosius, and was a rather important place in terms of music.
