Powerpoint Pictures: Beethoven; Mozart; Bach; Handel

I’m going to put on some pieces of music for you to listen to.

And I wonder if you can tell me who the composer is.

These are pieces of music that you may have heard before, and I wonder if you know or can guess who wrote them.

Was it?

A – BeethovenB – MozartC – BachD – Handel

Let’s listen to these pieces of music. [Play Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major; Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring; Toccata and Fugue in D minor]

Do you know who wrote those pieces of music?

It was Bach – Johann Sebastian Bach.

He was someone who loved music.  He grew up in a family of musicians.  His dad was the court trumpeter to the Duke where he lived in Germany, and he taught music as his job.

Johann Sebastian had his dad’s love of music, but also his dad’s musical ability too.

He could play the violin, and the viola, and the organ, and the harpsichord, and something which is like an old fashioned piano called a clavichord.

And he was really good at singing.

Johann Sebastian loved music and he was really good at playing music.

But there was something else that Johann Sebastian Bach loved, and that was Jesus.

He wanted the music he played to show how much he loved Jesus.

When he grew up, Johann Sebastian played and taught music for his job, just like his dad did.  He also wrote new music too, like those pieces we listened to.

He wrote music to go with the parts of the Bible that were read every Sunday.

He wrote music to go with songs that were already being sung in church, like those written by Martin Luther.

He wrote music for Christmas and Easter Sunday that was happy and music for Good Friday that was sad.