Johann Sebastian Bach and Duke Ellington: A Comparative Essay

Many past composers’ works are what modern society analyze and look at to identify how music was written during that era and how it has evolved over time. Just like any piece of history, the decisions that composers choose to make when writing music, the ideas are always changing and can have a very serious impact on how music was composed at the time. There have been many important, turn-point composers that similarly change music throughout time and have even been labeled with their own particular style and sound. This essay will compare two composers who both changed music and created their own style in similar ways: J.S. Bach and Duke Ellington.

The first composer mentioned from what is considered the Baroque era in musical history was Johann Sebastian Bach, and he was born on March 21st, 1685 in Germany. He was considered one of the most important, influential composers and organist from the Baroque era. Starting as a young musician, Bach received the first part of his musical education from his father, Johann Ambrosius. Because Bach comes from an extended long line of family musicians, it was only expected for him to follow down the same path. He went to school around the age of 8, became a choir boy, and studied music, such as sacred works of motets, concertos, and cantatas. He began to learn piano from his older brother around 1695. J.S. Bach later on became the most famous composer out of his entire family, but only until after his death on July 20th, 1750. It was not until Felix Mendelssohn ‘revived’ Bach’s work, ‘St. Matthew Passion’. After what was called ‘Bach’s Revival’, many other musicians and composers started to discover more of Bach’s compositions that was seemingly forgotten up until this wave of discoveries. As time passed, many of Bach’s pieces became very popular and loved throughout all society. Many musicians of all ages and levels also began to take his pieces in their practicing sessions. Because his pieces were so chromatic and composed with a sequential style, his pieces are used for motor skills when playing instruments. For example, in his piece, ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ has many movements and parts that leap around and move often. In the image, the movement of the top line is disjoint and constant. Chord are arpeggiated, so it is understandable why Bach’s pieces were popular for the use of practicing music.

J.S. Bach still is very famous among modern society, and is said to be the composer who tested the boundaries of counterpoint and created different types of composition, opened up new dimensions in virtually every department of creative work in format, density and musical quality, and also in technical demands. J.S. Bach’s work had always been extremely organized, intricate, and very complex with many unordinary musical decisions. Like Bach deciding to use very dissonant harmonies in other voices, dissonant chord progressions, many sequences, extreme yet purposeful and strategic ornamentation, and many chromatic moving lines for melodies in his compositions. Bach has been considered to be ‘the supreme master of counterpoint’. He took varieties of influences around Europe when composing his works, such as writing in the style of Italian concertos and organizing it and recomposing parts of it so it can fit into one instrument solo piece, all with the preciseness of his counterpoint methods. Because his works were so different compared to other popular music during the Baroque era, after his music was discovered again, his compositions fit more into what the Baroque era was known for. Essentially those characteristics are extreme detail, dramatic intensity, and complexity in rhythms, melodies, and ornamentation in music.

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In similar groundbreaking fashion, much later in time, the composer and musician Duke Ellington comes along to change music once again through music history’s transformation. Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C. Ellington was also born into a family of musicians, his mother and father both played keyboards. Once again, being born in a family of musicians, it was destined for Ellington to become the famous musician he was. Around the time Ellington was more interested in music, ‘ragtime’ music was in full swing. Being inspired by those performers loving and having less rules and structure when making music, Ellington decided to be a fulltime pianist. He composed his first piece, ‘Soda Fountain Rag’, at age 15, and is what starts Ellington’s composing style and experiments with different musical choices than just a ‘ragtime’ sound. Because Ellington was in a time where music was slowly changing from more structured, simple music, through his compositions, a new genre was starting to emerge, later known as jazz. His style is described as “…eclectic, combining blues, various forms of jazz, and the big-band sound of swing music”.

His compositions are also used to practice with when jazz musicians are studying the specific genre. His solos are used to practice improvisation and understanding the form of the song to know what scales to play and create from. From the score written in Ellington’s own handwriting, the notation itself is complex in the sense of chords being used and the movement of the chords. Overall, it looks simple, but what makes it in the style of Ellington’s musicianship is the fact that most of his solos and large percentage of the piece is his improvisation. If that was notated, it would look similarly to Bach’s compositions with chromatic stepwise motion, dissonant harmonies played together, and extreme complexity of the rhythms being used.

Duke Ellington’s style of compositions is considered to be alive with shifts of color. Ellington was very conscious of the different sound each of his instrumentalists got. When writing music, he was always very aware of the specific sound that he wanted and the instruments that would help make the best composition. He would orchestrate pieces for his own orchestra and tour around all over the United States. His music became very popular and many of his song became favorites among the younger, more open-minded society. Many of his melodies were easy to remember yet always changing, depending on the performance. Ellington communicated eloquently with rhythms as well as melody in his own manner, in a genre of his own, mixing various influences. Most of his compositions were a mix of experimenting with different styles, like a bossa rhythm, or with a salsa feel, or even a waltz, and creating different rhythms and syncopation, and creating melodies with different accidentals to create more of a dissonant, unordinary sound that stuck to people’s heads.

In conclusion, comparing Johann Sebastian Bach and Duke Ellington is an odd combination, yet there are similarities that were stated. Both musicians were born into families of musicians and became the most successful ones with their family names. The keyboard was their prime instruments. They were talented at improvisation, and with their musical talents and abilities they created new music that tested the normal standards of society’s taste during their time. J.S. Bach created new music that progressed compositions earlier written in the Baroque era by adding more dissonance, more chromaticism to melodies, and more complex rhythms, leading to have the Baroque era end with his death, because his music was so influential later and defined what that era characterized as. Duke Ellington composed similarly and also moved music during his time to the creation of a newer genre and is known for that genre. His compositions also contained more dissonant chords with chromatic melodies that were not ordinary tonal melodies like most of the music around that time, having Ellington a large name in the jazz genre for the rest of music history. Both musicians pushed boundaries of composition, ended and started era of music, and made their own styles to be known and recognized by other musicians for years to come.