![]() ![]() Leipzig by comparison is about a half or quarter the size of those largest cities. Gluck, Graun, and Telemann work in court or church positions in Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg which are three of the largest German cities. But one way to try to get a sense of the scope could be comparison to the size of cities and the composers worked in them. ![]() It's hard to say how many people would have heard Bach's music in these various positions. ![]() Later Bach was the music director for several churches in Leipzig from 1723-1750. In his early career Bach was a court musical director in Weimar and Kothen. Regarding audiences it seems you can make a general division between church audiences and aristocratic connoisseurs and professional musicians. ![]() Ironically, it may not have been published, because it had been so widely distributed in manuscript form there wouldn't have been a market for sales. Interestingly, The Well Tempered Clavier was not published during Bach's lifetime. the market for Bach's music was small as most considered it too difficult and technical.emphasis was on publishing keyboard works, which I think was practical matter, it's easier for people to use keyboard scores than orchestral and it's less costly to publish.The Wikipedia page List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach printed during his lifetime has a nice summary. It seems his music was more widely distributed in hand written manuscripts that published score. However, hand written manuscripts of his music must be considered too. It's pretty well known that most of Bach's music was not published during his lifetime. I think you need to think about it in more general terms, the extent of Bach's influence during his lifetime, by looking at distribution of scores and performance audiences. Even today with data for recording and concert ticket sales you would not be able to do more than make a super general estimate of listeners. Trying put an actual number on this would be absolute speculation. His compositions didn't start to take off and gain recognition until almost 80 years after his death when Mendelssohn performed the St Matthew Passion in 1829. Over a roughly 50 year active span it is likely that a few tens of thousands of attendees at those churches and courts heard his music.ĭespite being born in the same year as Handel about 130 km away they never met although Bach did make efforts to meet but Handel wasn't interested. So, during his lifetime his work was played mostly in the churches and courts where he was employed primarily to play the organ. In the last decades of his life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He was granted the title of court composer by his sovereign, Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in 1736. From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ music. He composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1723 he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar, where he expanded his organ repertory, and Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. ![]()
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