Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest composers in

Western musical history. More than 1,000 of his compositions

survive. Some examples are the Art of Fugue, Brandenburg

Concerti, the Goldberg Variations for Harpsichord, the Mass in B-

Minor, the motets, the Easter and Christmas oratorios, Toccata in F

Major, French Suite No 5, Fugue in G Major, Fugue in G Minor

("The Great"), St. Matthew Passion, and Jesu Der Du Meine Seele.

He came from a family of musicians. There were over 53 musicians

in his family over a period of 300 years.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany on

March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a

talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills for string

playing; another relation, the organist at Eisenach's most important

church, instructed the young boy on the organ. In 1695 his parents

died and he was only 10 years old. He went to go stay with his older

brother, Johann Christoph, who was a professional organist at

Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and

continued his younger brother's education on that instrument, as

well as on the harpsichord. After several years in this arrangement,

Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in Luneberg, Northern

Germany, and so left his brother's tutelage.

A master of several instruments while still in his teens,

Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of 18 as a

"lackey and violinist" in a court orchestra in Weimar; soon after, he

took the job of organist at a church in Arnstadt. Here, as in later

posts, his perfectionist tendencies and high expectations of other

musicians - for example, the church choir - rubbed his colleagues

the wrong way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes

during his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed

up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt (and the working

conditions) and moved on to another organist job, this time at the

St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen. The same year, he married his

cousin 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 post 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 a reputation as a

brilliant, if somewhat inflexible, musical talent. His proficiency on

the organ was unequaled in Europe - in fact, he toured regularly as a

solo virtuoso - and his growing mastery of compositional forms,

like the fugue and the canon, was already attracting interest from

the musical establishment - which, in his day, was the 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