The prolific Johann Sebastian Bach composes his…

The prolific Johann Sebastian Bach composes his six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin in 1720, while employed as a Kapellmeister at Köthen. (The actual manuscript will nearly be destroyed but someone had saved it from being used as butcher paper).

Here, Bach composes more secular/chamber music than sacred or choral music; the Brandenburg Concertos, Double Concerto, and Cello Suites are all composed about this time.

His patron, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, himself a musician, appreciates Bach’s talents, pays him well, and gives him considerable latitude in composing and performing.

The prince is Calvinist, however, and does not use elaborate music in his worship; thus, most of Bach’s work from this period is secular.

The Sonatas each consist of four movements, in a slow-fast-slow-fast tempi format, with the second movement as a fugue.

The Partitas are collections of dances, making use of the baroque format of allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, but none following it to the letter: the first substitutes a bourrée for the gigue; the second includes a chaconne as a fifth movement; and the third's resemblance to the format is only in its final gigue.

The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, renowned for their intimacy, contain a great variety of technical devices, a wide range of emotional content, and some of Bach's most compelling voice interactions and conversations.

While Bach is abroad with Prince Leopold on July 7, 1720, tragedy strikes: his wife, Maria Barbara, dies suddenly at thirty-six, having borne him seven children, three of whom had died at an early age.