Maria Barbara Bach. Again caught up in a running conflict between factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar after one year in Muhlhausen. In Weimar, he assumed the position of organist and concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He remained in Weimar for nine years, and there he composed his first wave of major works, including organ showpieces and cantatas. By this stage in his life, Bach had developed the reputation of a brilliant, if somewhat inflexible, musician. His proficiency on the organ was unequaled in Europe. In fact, he toured regularly as a solo artist. His growing mastery of compositional forms, like the fugue and the canon, were already attracting interest from Lutheran church. But, like many individuals of uncommon talent, he was never very good at playing the political game, and therefore suffered periodic setbacks in his career. He was passed over for the major position of Chorus Master of Weimar in 1716. Partly in reaction to this, he left Weimar the following year to take a job as court conductor in Anhalt-Cothen. There, he slowed his output of church cantatas, and instead concentrated on instrumental music. The Cothen period produced, among other masterpieces, the Brandenburg Concerti. While at Cothen, Bach's wife Maria Barbara died. Bach remarried soon after to Anna Magdalena and moved on ahead with his work. He also went ahead in having more children, producing 13 children with his new wife, six of whom survived childhood, to add to the four children he had raised with Maria Barbara. Several of these children would become fine composers in their own. Particularly were his three sons, Wilhelm Friedmann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christian. After conducting and composing for the court orchestra at Cothen for seven years, Bach was offered the highly prestigious position of Music Director of St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig after two other composers had turned it down. The job was a demanding one. He had to compose c...
