Status Updates From Music in the Castle of Heav...

Life in Leipzig to start was not exactly lovely. Unruly students, his teaching obligations to them and much more still he threw all his energies into three cantata cycles and two Passions.

With four young children to raise, Bach, lost no time in finding a new wife. Anna Magdalena Wilcke was a professional singer and came from musical stock. Their wedding was in December 1721.

Bereavement
Mark left Cothen with his prince in May 1720 to lead a music festival 130 miles south. While he was away his first wife suddenly died and was buried. The news that she had been ill and died, reached him only when he entered his own house. She was perfectly healthy when he left.

Köthen employment: first time he had left the profession of Church organist to operate within an almost exclusively secular environment. He was given generous facilities. Here he composed WTC Vol 1, B-concertos, sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin, sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord, suites for solo cello, 4 Ouvertures for orchestra. Also 2-3 part Inventions

Bach worked in Köthen from 1717 to 1723 as Hofkapellmeister of Prince Leopold.

Bach worked on important instrumental works during these years, including the Brandenburg Concertos and the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. Bach composed a series of secular cantatas such as Der Himmel dacht auf Anhalts Ruhm und Glück, BWV 66 for the prince's birthday, and Die Zeit, die Tag und Jahre macht, BWV 134. Wiki

BWV 208.
Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd
The “Hunt Cantata.” Performed at the birthday celebration of Duke Christian of Weissenfels 1713.
For the first time Bach adopted wholesale the conventions of Italian opera and the secure chamber cantata. A chance to experiment without fear of censure.

Shitty employer in Arnstadt.
Next job: Muhausen. Better but still not great pay and conditions. He moved on before the end of a year there.