Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the cello suites and sonatas and partitas for solo violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.

The Bach family already had several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician, Johann Ambrosius, in Eisenach. After being orphaned at age 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, then continued his musical education in Lüneburg. In 1703 he returned to Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, and for longer periods at courts in Weimar, where he expanded his organ repertory, and Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. In 1723 he was hired as Thomaskantor (cantor at St Thomas's) in Leipzig. There he composed music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city and its university's student ensemble Collegium Musicum. In 1726 he began publishing his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer. This situation was somewhat remedied when his sovereign, Augustus III of Poland, granted him the title of court composer in 1736. In the last decades of his life, Bach reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after a botched eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.

Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly Italy and France. His compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular. He composed Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works but, for instance, also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs. Bach wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments. He composed concertos, for instance for violin and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works use contrapuntal techniques like canon and fugue.

In the 18th century Bach was primarily known as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some significant Bach biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including the Air on the G String and "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", and of recordings such as three different box sets with complete performances of his oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany, on 21 March 1685 O.S. (31 March 1685 N.S.). He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. His father likely taught him violin and basic music theory. His uncles were all professional musicians who worked as church organists, court chamber musicians, and composers. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, introduced him to the organ, and an older second cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach, was a well-known composer and violinist.

Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, the organist at St. Michael's Church in Ohrdruf, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. There he studied, performed, and copied music, including his brother's, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and blank ledger paper was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord. Johann Christoph exposed him to the works of great composers of the day, including South Germans such as Johann Caspar Kerll, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied); North Germans; Frenchmen such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis Marchand, and Marin Marais; and the Italian Girolamo Frescobaldi. He learned theology, Latin and Greek at the local gymnasium.

By 3 April 1700, Bach and his school friend Georg Erdmann—who was two years older than Bach—studied at St. Michael's School in Lüneburg, some two weeks' travel north of Ohrdruf. Their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a broader range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the school's three-manual organ and harpsichords. He also came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany who had been sent to the nearby Ritter-Academie to prepare for careers in other disciplines.

In January 1703, shortly after graduating from St. Michael's and being turned down for the post of organist at Sangerhausen, Bach was appointed court musician in the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III in Weimar. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties. During his seven-month tenure at Weimar, his reputation as a keyboardist spread so widely that he was invited to inspect the new organ and give the inaugural recital at the New Church (now Bach Church) in Arnstadt, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southwest of Weimar. On 14 August 1703, he became the organist at the New Church, with light duties, a relatively generous salary, and a new organ tuned in a temperament that allowed music written in a wider range of keys to be played.

Despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach felt discontented by the calibre of musicians he was collaborating with. He called one of them, Geyersbach, a "Zippel Fagottist" (weenie bassoonist). Late one evening, Geyersbach went after Bach with a stick. Bach filed a complaint against Geyersbach with the authorities. They acquitted Geyersbach with a minor reprimand and ordered Bach to be more moderate about the musical qualities he expected from his students. Some months later, Bach upset his employer with a prolonged absence from Arnstadt: after obtaining leave for four weeks, he was absent for around four months in 1705–1706 to take lessons from the organist and composer Johann Adam Reincken and to hear him and Dieterich Buxtehude play in the northern city of Lübeck. The visit to Buxtehude and Reincken involved a 450-kilometre (280 mi) journey each way, reportedly on foot. Buxtehude probably introduced Bach to his friend Reincken so that he could learn from his compositional technique (especially his mastery of fugue), his organ playing and his skills with improvisation. Bach knew Reincken's music very well; he copied Reincken's monumental An Wasserflüssen Babylon when he was 15 years old. Bach later wrote several other works on the same theme. When Bach revisited Reincken in 1720 and showed him his improvisatory skills on the organ, Reincken reportedly remarked: "I thought that this art was dead, but I see that it lives in you."

In 1706, Bach applied for a post as organist at the Blasius Church in Mühlhausen. As part of his application, he had a cantata performed on Easter, 24 April 1707, likely an early version of his Christ lag in Todes Banden. Bach's application was accepted a month later, and he took up the post in July. The position included significantly higher remuneration, improved conditions, and a better choir. Four months after arriving at Mühlhausen, Bach married Maria Barbara Bach, his second cousin. Bach convinced the church and town government at Mühlhausen to fund an expensive renovation of the organ at the Blasius Church. In 1708, Bach wrote Gott ist mein König, a festive cantata for the inauguration of the new council, which was published at the council's expense. This was to be the first and only cantata by Bach published during his lifetime.

Bach left Mühlhausen in 1708, returning to Weimar this time as organist and from 1714 Konzertmeister (director of music) at the ducal court, where he could work with a large, well-funded contingent of professional musicians. Bach and his wife moved into a house near the ducal palace. Later that year, their first child, Catharina Dorothea, was born, and Maria Barbara's elder, unmarried sister joined them. She remained to help run the household until she died in 1729. Three sons were also born in Weimar: Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Gottfried Bernhard. Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara had three more children—twins born in 1713 and a single birth; none survived past their first birthday.

Bach's time in Weimar began a sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works. He attained the proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing structures and include influences from abroad. He learned to write dramatic openings and employ the dynamic rhythms and harmonic schemes found in the music of Italians such as Vivaldi, Corelli, and Torelli. Bach absorbed these stylistic aspects to a certain extent by transcribing Vivaldi's string and wind concertos for harpsichord and organ; many of these transcribed works are still regularly performed. Bach was particularly attracted to the Italian style, in which one or more solo instruments alternate section-by-section with the full orchestra throughout a movement.