short biography of johann sebastian bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685-1750)

Who Was Johann Sebastian Bach?

Johann Sebastian Bach had a prestigious musical lineage and took on various organist positions during the early 18th century, creating famous compositions like "Toccata and Fugue in D minor." Some of his best-known compositions are the "Mass in B Minor," the "Brandenburg Concertos" and "The Well-Tempered Clavier." Bach died in Leipzig, Germany, on July 28, 1750. Today, he is considered one of the greatest Western composers of all time.

Born in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany, on March 31, 1685 (N.S.) / March 21, 1685 (O.S.), Johann Sebastian Bach came from a family of musicians, stretching back several generations. His father, Johann Ambrosius, worked as the town musician in Eisenach, and it is believed that he taught young Johann to play the violin.

At the age of seven, Bach went to school where he received religious instruction and studied Latin and other subjects. His Lutheran faith would influence his later musical works. By the time he turned 10, Bach found himself an orphan after the death of both of his parents. His older brother Johann Christoph, a church organist in Ohrdruf, took him in. Johann Christoph provided some further musical instruction for his younger brother and enrolled him in a local school. Bach stayed with his brother's family until he was 15.

Bach had a beautiful soprano singing voice, which helped him land a place at a school in Lüneburg. Sometime after his arrival, his voice changed and Bach switched to playing the violin and the harpsichord. Bach was greatly influenced by a local organist named George Böhm. In 1703, he landed his first job as a musician at the court of Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar. There he was a jack-of-all-trades, serving as a violinist and at times, filling in for the official organist.

Early Career

Bach had a growing reputation as a great performer, and it was his great technical skill that landed him the position of organist at the New Church in Arnstadt. He was responsible for providing music for religious services and special events as well as giving music instruction. An independent and sometimes arrogant young man, Bach did not get along well with his students and was scolded by church officials for not rehearsing them frequently enough.

Bach did not help his situation when he disappeared for several months in 1705. While he only officially received a few weeks' leave from the church, he traveled to Lübeck to hear famed organist Dietrich Buxtehude and extended his stay without informing anyone back in Arnstadt.

In 1707, Bach was glad to leave Arnstadt for an organist position at the Church of St. Blaise in Mühlhausen. This move, however, did not turn out as well as he had planned. Bach's musical style clashed with the church's pastor. Bach created complex arrangements and had a fondness for weaving together different melodic lines. His pastor believed that church music needed to be simple. One of Bach's most famous works from this time is the cantata "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit," also known as "Actus Tragicus."

Working for Royalty

After a year in Mühlhausen, Bach won the post of organist at the court of the Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar. He wrote many church cantatas and some of his best compositions for the organ while working for the duke. During his time at Weimar, Bach wrote "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," one of his most popular pieces for the organ. He also composed the cantata "Herz und Mund und Tat," or Heart and Mouth and Deed. One section of this cantata, called "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" in English, is especially famous.

In 1717, Bach accepted a position with Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. But Duke Wilhelm Ernst had no interest in letting Bach go and even imprisoned him for several weeks when he tried to leave. In early December, Bach was released and allowed to go to Cöthen. Prince Leopold had a passion for music. He played the violin and often bought musical scores while traveling abroad.

While at Cöthen, Bach devoted much of his time to instrumental music, composing concertos for orchestras, dance suites and sonatas for multiple instruments. He also wrote pieces for solo instruments, including some of his finest violin works. His secular compositions still reflected his deep commitment to his faith with Bach often writing the initials I.N.J. for the Latin In Nomine Jesu, or "in the name of Jesus," on his sheet music.

In tribute to the Duke of Brandenburg, Bach created a series of orchestra concertos, which became known as the "Brandenburg Concertos," in 1721. These concertos are considered to be some of Bach's greatest works. That same year, Prince Leopold got married, and his new bride discouraged the prince's interest in music. Bach completed the first book of "The Well-Tempered Clavier" around this time. With students in mind, he put together this collection of keyboard pieces to help them learn certain techniques and methods. Bach had to turn his attentions to finding work when the prince dissolved his orchestra in 1723.

Later Works in Leipzig

After auditioning for a new position in Leipzig, Bach signed a contract to become the new organist and teacher at St. Thomas Church. He was required to teach at the Thomas School as a part of his position as well. With new music needed for services each week, Bach threw himself into writing cantatas. The "Christmas Oratorio," for example, is a series of six cantatas that reflect on the holiday.

Bach also created musical interpretations of the Bible using choruses, arias and recitatives. These works are referred to as his "Passions," the most famous of which is "Passion According to St. Matthew." This musical composition, written in 1727 or 1729, tells the story of chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew. The piece was performed as part of a Good Friday service.

One of his later religious masterworks is "Mass in B minor." He had developed sections of it, known as Kyrie and Gloria, in 1733, which were presented to the Elector of Saxony. Bach did not finish the composition, a musical version of a traditional Latin mass, until 1749. The complete work was not performed during his lifetime.

Final Years

By 1740, Bach was struggling with his eyesight, but he continued to work despite his vision problems. He was even well enough to travel and perform, visiting Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia in 1747. He played for the king, making up a new composition on the spot. Back in Leipzig, Bach refined the piece and gave Frederick a set of fugues called "Musical Offering."

In 1749, Bach started a new composition called "The Art of Fugue," but he did not complete it. He tried to fix his failing sight by having surgery the following year, but the operation ended up leaving him completely blind. Later that year, Bach suffered a stroke. He died in Leipzig on July 28, 1750.

During his lifetime, Bach was better known as an organist than a composer. Few of his works were even published during his lifetime. Still Bach's musical compositions were admired by those who followed in his footsteps, including Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. His reputation received a substantial boost in 1829 when German composer Felix Mendelssohn reintroduced Bach's "Passion According to St. Matthew."

Musically, Bach was a master at invoking and maintaining different emotions. He was an expert storyteller as well, often using melody to suggest actions or events. In his works, Bach drew from different music styles from across Europe, including French and Italian. He used counterpoint, the playing of multiple melodies simultaneously, and fugue, the repetition of a melody with slight variations, to create richly detailed compositions. He is considered to be the best composer of the Baroque era, and one of the most important figures in classical music in general.

Personal Life

Little personal correspondence has survived to provide a full picture of Bach as a person. But the records do shed some light on his character. Bach was devoted to his family. In 1706, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. The couple had seven children together, some of whom died as infants. Maria died in 1720 while Bach was traveling with Prince Leopold. The following year, Bach married a singer named Anna Magdalena Wülcken. They had thirteen children, more than half of them died as children.

Bach clearly shared his love of music with his children. From his first marriage, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach became composers and musicians. Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach and Johann Christian Bach, sons from his second marriage, also enjoyed musical success.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Johann Sebastian Bach
• Birth Year: 1685
• Birth date: March 31, 1685
• Birth City: Eisenach, Thuringia
• Birth Country: Germany
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: A magnificent baroque-era composer, Johann Sebastian Bach is revered through the ages for his work's musical complexities and stylistic innovations.
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• St. Michael's School (Luneburg, Germany)
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 1750
• Death date: July 28, 1750
• Death City: Leipzig
• Death Country: Germany

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Johann Sebastian Bach Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/johann-sebastian-bach
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: September 15, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014

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Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, 1685; d. Leipzig, 1750)

Born into a musical family, Bach received his earliest instruction from his father. After his father's death in 1695, Bach moved to Ohrdruf, where he lived and studied organ with his older brother Johann Christoph. He also received an education at schools in Eisenach, Ohrdruf, and Lüneburg. Bach's first permanent positions were as organist in Arnstadt (1703-1707) and Mühlhausen (1707-1708). During these years, he performed, composed taught, and developed an interest in organ building. From 1708-1717 he was employed by Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar, first as court organist, and after 1714, as concertmaster. During this period, he composed many of his best organ compositions; in his capacity as concertmaster, he was also expected to produce a cantata each month. In Weimar, Bach's style was influenced by his study of numerous Italian compositions (especially Vivaldi concertos).

Bach's next position, as Music Director for the Prince Leopold of Cüthen (1717-1723), involved entirely different activities. Since the court chapel was Calvinist, there was no need for church compositions; Bach probably used the Cüthen organs only for teaching and practice. His new works were primarily for instrumental solo or ensemble, to be used as court entertainment or for instruction. Among the important compositions at Cüthen were the Brandenburg Concertos, the first volume of Das wohltemperirte Clavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier), the "French" and "English" Suites for harpsichord (although the "English" Suites may be from the Weimar period), and most of the sonatas and suites for other instruments. Bach also composed a few cantatas for special occasions (birthdays and New Years).

In 1723, Bach was appointed cantor at the St. Thomas Church and School, and Director of Music for Leipzig, positions which he retained for the rest of his career. His official duties included the reponsibility of overseeing the music in the four principal churches of the city, and organizing other musical events sponsored by the municipal council. For these performances, he used pupils from the St. Thomas School, the city's professional musicians, and university students. Bach divided his singers into four choirs (one for each of the four main churches); he personally conducted the first choir, which sang on alternate Sundays at St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. His usual performing group consisted of around sixteen singers and eighteen instrumentalists, although these numbers could be augmented for special occasions. During his first six years in Leipzig (1723-1729), Bach's most impressive compositions were his sacred cantatas (four yearly cycles), and the St. John and St. Matthew Passions. Bach apparently gave virtuoso organ recitals in Leipzig and on various tours, although he had no official position as organist in Leipzig.

After 1729 Bach no longer concentrated so completely on composing sacred vocal music. For services, he re-used his own substantial repertory of cantatas, and turned increasingly to the music of his contemporaries. In 1729-1737 and 1739-1741, he was director of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, an organization which had been founded by Telemann in 1704. This group of professional musicians and university students performed weekly concerts (out-of-doors in the summer, and at Zimmerman's coffee-house in the winter). Although no specific programs for these concerts have survived, Bach apparently revived and many of his instrumental compositions from Cüthen, wrote new works (e.g., secular cantatas), and conducted pieces by other composers. During the 1730s, Bach renewed his interest in keyboard compositions, and prepared the first three volumes of his Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice) for publication (1731, 1735, 1739); the fourth volume appeared in 1741-1742. In the 1730s, he also showed considerable interest in the royal court at Dresden, and was named "Hofkomponist" (court-composer") in Dresden in 1736.

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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was music's most sublime creative genius. Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist of the Baroque Era.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21st 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. The young Bach was offered a choral scholarship to the prestigious St Michael's School in 1699. 1703 saw Bach become the organist at St Boniface's Church in Arnstadt - a role that saw him on a regular salary and expanding his skills at the keyboard. Bach composed the cantata Gott ist mein König in 1708 - he was paid handsomely, and it helped him cement his early career. The Brandenburg Concertos were composed in 1721 as a sort-of musical job application for the Margrave Ludwig of Brandenburg - it was unsuccessful. In his later years Bach faced harsh criticism. During the 1720s and 1730s when he was composing his most important works - the Passions and the Goldberg Variations among them - a new Italian style invaded Germany, making his work appear outdated. The Well Tempered Clavier, a quintessential student text, was finished in 1744 and comprised two volumes of piano music in every musical key. With the notable exception of opera, Bach composed towering masterpieces in every major Baroque genre: sonatas, concertos, suites and cantatas, as well as innumerable keyboard, organ and choral works. Bach died on July 28th 1750 in Leipzig. It is still disputed whether it was a botched eye operation or a stroke caused by pneumonia were to blame for his death. Bach's popularity was decaying until 1829, when Mendelssohn performed the St Matthew Passion and rescued Bach from oblivion. Did you know? Bach once walked two hundred and thirteen miles to hear a performance by an organist whom he admired. Once he had heard the concert, he turned round and walked the same distance home again.

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The Life and Legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach

By Leipzig Bach Archive

Bach-Archiv Leipzig

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is one of the most influential musicians of all times - in 2011, the New York Times named him the most important composer in the history of music. Although the story of his life still holds some white spots, his life and legacy are being kept alive - especially in Leipzig, where he served as Thomaskantor for 27 years.

Wedding Quodlibet BWV 524 (1707/1708) by Johann Sebastian Bach Leipzig Bach Archive

A life for music

Bach came from the largest family of musicians in music history, with well over 100 musical family members documented. Music was always present and performed at annual family reunions and large family gatherings. In such a context, this Wedding Quodlibet BWV 524, a satirical collage of various songs, must have been composed by Bach at the age of about 22. Bach developed his own personal style early on, among other stations while working in Weimar, Köthen and eventually Leipzig. 

City View of Eisenach (1650) by Caspar Merian Leipzig Bach Archive

"I was obliged to be industrious; whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well." (Johann Sebastian Bach) Bach spent the first few years of his childhood in Eisenach, where his father Johann Ambrosius was the town musician director. Eisenach was the home of the Dukes of Saxe-Eisenach and had about 6,000 residents at the time. Following his parents' death, Bach left the town in 1695 and from then on lived with his older brother in Ohrdruf.

Bach was made organist at the Weimar court in 1708. In 1714, the Duke promoted him to concertmaster which required him to compose one cantata each month for the court chapel service. In Weimar, a scholar of the Bach Archive made the most spectacular Bach discovery of the last decades. In a collection of the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek that had previously remained unnoticed by Bach researchers, the scholar discovered a hitherto unknown work in 2005: a birthday aria that Bach had composed for the Weimar Duke in 1713.

Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen (c. 1720) by Unknown Leipzig Bach Archive

"He was a gracious Prince, who both loved and knew music." (Johann Sebastian Bach on Prince Leopold) In Köthen, Bach had reached the highest stage in his career. As the Kapellmeister, music director to the princely court of the young, music-loving Leopold, he could freely work on his music in an inspiring and creative environment from 1717 to 1723. But he was also destined to experience the worst event in his life in Köthen. In 1720, his first wife Maria Barbara died while Bach was on a trip for work. The following year he married court singer Anna Magdalena.

"Eternity, thou thundrous word" BWV 20 (soprano part) (1724) by Johann Sebastian Bach Leipzig Bach Archive

As Thomaskantor and music director of the city of Leipzig, Bach was responsible for the music performances in the Leipzig churches. He composed most of the pieces himself, with older members of the St. Thomas Choir assisting him in finishing the vocal performance parts and during rehearsals. Researching manuscripts by the St. Thomas Choir members helps us today to more accurately date Bach's works. Many of the original vocal performance parts remained in St. Thomas School after Bach's death. In 1951, they were donated to the Bach Archive to be stored permanently.

Presentation of the score BWV 20 (2017) Leipzig Bach Archive

The autograph scores which served as templates for the vocal performance parts were often hastily composed by Bach. Crossed-out sections and corrections give Bach researchers insight into the creative process behind the compositions. After Bach's death, his scores were divided among his sons and eventually released across the world. In 2016, the Bach Archive was first able to purchase the cantata autograph "O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort" [O eternity, thou word of thunder] BWV 20 —after it had traveled from Hamburg to Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, New York, and London—from the Basel Paul-Sacher Stiftung.

The Leipzig Town Hall (c. 1720) by Peter Schenk Leipzig Bach Archive

"Here the authorities are odd and little interested in music" (Johann Sebastian Bach) In August 1730, as a result of an ongoing dispute with the Leipzig City Council and repeated interventions from the Town Hall into the cantor's responsibilities, Bach wrote his famous "Draft of a well-appointed church music". With this memorandum, the Thomaskantor wanted to show the city council the consequences of the current anti-music school policy. Effective cultural policy decisions to fill vacant places in the St. Thomas Choir boarding school would lead to increasing member shortages for cantata performances. Bach complained about this situation, which he thought was unsustainable, and made suggestions for improvement.

Goldberg Variations BWV 988 (1741) by Johann Sebastian Bach Leipzig Bach Archive

From 1726, Bach published his compositions for piano and organ in several parts as a "clavier exercise". In 1741, the fourth and final part appeared in the Goldberg Variations . The link between this work and Bach's pupil Johann Gottlieb Goldberg can be traced back to an anecdote from Johann Nikolaus Forkel. In his biography of Bach written in 1802 he states that Goldberg had to play variations for his employer Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, the Russian ambassador at the Dresden court, each night "for restlessness".

Art of Fugue BWV 1080 (1752) by Johann Sebastian Bach Leipzig Bach Archive

"What I have to say about Bach's lifework: Listen, play, love, worship and - shut up!" (Albert Einstein) Through The Art of Fugue , Bach wanted to establish his musical legacy. Today, the work is still famous for having the greatest set of counterpoints in music history. He had even started preparing for the printing of the work and first rounds of corrections himself. However, after Bach's death, the work had to finally be printed by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. The work was published in the spring of 1751. A second edition followed as early as 1752.

Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach (1748) by Elias Gottlob Haußmann Leipzig Bach Archive

If Johann Sebastian Bach has shaped the evolution of classical music like hardly any other composer, no painting has shaped our modern Bach picture as much as the portrait Elias Gottlob Haußmann created of the Thomaskantor. There are two originals of the portrait, both of which are located in Leipzig. They show the only authentic representation of the musician. Bach presents himself with a serious look and shows the viewer a sheet of music. It carries a canon in the strict contrapuntal style that identifies him as a learned musician.

Scenographiae Lipsiacae (detail) (1749) by Joachim Ernst Scheffler Leipzig Bach Archive

The center of Bach's life and work was St. Thomas Square in Leipzig. St. Thomas School, which adjoined the church on the left, not only included classrooms and rehearsal rooms for the St. Thomas choir but also the Thomaskantor residence. This is where Bach lived with his family, was visited by musicians from all over, and died on July 28, 1750.

St. Thomas Church is now the center of the Leipzig Bach preservation efforts. In St. Thomas Church, Bach's works are performed by the St. Thomas Choir in weekly motets and by international artists during the annual Bach Festival.

Bach Birthday at the Thomaskirchhof in Leipzig (2010) Leipzig Bach Archive

The old St. Thomas School (including Bach's residence) was demolished in 1902. A Bach monument has stood in its place in the center of St. Thomas Church square since 1908, created by Carl Seffner. For Bach's birthday on March 21 , Leipzig elementary school children meet here each year to sing a birthday canon together. They then cut the birthday cake.

The Leipzig Bach Archive at the Bosehaus (2010) Leipzig Bach Archive

The Leipzig Bach Archive

Opposite St. Thomas Church and Bach monument, the Bach Archive Leipzig is situated. As the world’s pre-eminent centre of Bach scholarship its purpose is to research the life, work and influence of the Bach family of musicians, to preserve their heritage and to communicate it to a general public. The scientific work of the Bach Archive is the basis for the Bach Museum’s exhibitions and shapes the annual Bach Festival and the biennial Bach Competition.

Bach's original manuscripts (2019) Leipzig Bach Archive

The greatest treasure of the Bach Archive are the 44 sets of original performance parts , which his widow Anna Magdalena transferred to the Thomasschule shortly after his death. Today the precious originals are kept in an air-conditioned vault in the Bach archive and made available for research. The research database Bach digital offers access to Bach's manuscripts for everyone. High-resolution images allow scholars and Bach enthusiasts worldwide to view the autographs in detail. Musicians can download, print and play from digital reproductions of Bach's originals.

Making research a tangible experience: The research laboratory in the Bach Museum (2019) Leipzig Bach Archive

Bringing research to life Scientists examine Bach's paper types on special light tables and investigate every aspect of his handwriting in detailed forensic work. You can experience the researchers' working method for yourself in the Bach Museum research laboratory. By analyzing manuscripts, paper types, and watermarks, we can often accurately date the origins of Bach's works.

The Bach Festival Leipzig - Bach's music at the original venues (2014) Leipzig Bach Archive

Making research audible The work of the Bach scholars leads time and again to new insights into the sound and form of Bach's works - this is where science happens that can be heard. Every year in June, Bach admirers from all over the world come to Leipzig for the Bach Festival. Taking place over ten days with more than 100 concerts, Bach's works are performed at the original venues for which they once were written. The festival is a celebration of a composer so invested in his craft he was able to create timeless compositions that have captured audiences to this day.

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Leipzig Bach Archive

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J.S.Bach - Biography

J.S.Bach Biography

Johann Sebastian Bach (March 21, 1685 (O.S.) � July 28, 1750 (N.S.) ) was a German Composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. His works, noted for their intellectual depth, technical command, and artistic beauty, have provided inspiration to nearly every musician in the European tradition, from Mozart to Schoenberg .

Formative years

J. S. Bach was born in Eisenach , Germany , in 1685 and died in 1750 at the age of 65. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach , was the town piper in Eisenach , a post that entailed organizing all the secular music in town as well as participating in church music at the direction of the church organist, and his uncles were also all professional musicians ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers, although Bach would later surpass them all in his art. In an era when sons were expected to assist in their fathers' work, we can assume J. S. Bach began copying music and playing various instruments at an early age.

Bach's mother died when he was still a young boy and his father suddenly died when J. S. Bach was nine, at which time Bach moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach , who was the organist of Ohrdruf in Germany. While in his brother's house, Bach continued copying, studying, and playing music. According to one popular legend of the young composer's curiosity, late one night, when the house was asleep, he retrieved a manuscript (which may have been a collection of works by Johann Christoph's former mentor, Johann Pachelbel ) from his brother's music cabinet and began to copy it by the moonlight. This went on nightly until Johann Christoph heard the young Sebastian playing some of the distinctive tunes from his private library, at which point the elder brother demanded to know how Sebastian had come to learn them.

It was at Ohrdruf that Bach began to learn about organ building. The Ohrdruf church's instrument, it seems, was in constant need of minor repairs, and he was often sent into the belly of the old organ to tighten, adjust, or replace various parts. The church organ, with its moving bellows, manifold stops, and complicated mechanism, was the most complex machine in any European town. This hands-on experience with the innards of the instrument would provide a unique counterpoint to his unequalled skill at playing it; Bach was equally at home talking with organ builders and with performers.

While in school and as a young man, Bach's curiosity compelled him to seek out great organists of Germany such as Georg B�hm , Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken , often taking journeys of considerable length to hear them play. He was also influenced by the work of Nicholas Bruhns . Shortly after graduation (Bach completed Latin school when he was 18, an impressive accomplishment in his day, especially considering that he was the first in his family to finish school), Bach took a post as organist at Arnstadt in 1703. He apparently felt cramped in the small town and began to seek his fortune elsewhere. Owing to his virtuosity, he was soon offered a more lucrative organist post in M�hlhausen . Some of Bach's earliest extant compositions date to this period (including, according to some scholars, his famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor ), but much of the music Bach wrote during this time has been lost.

Professional life

Still not content as organist of Muhlhausen, in 1708 Bach took a position as court organist and concert master at the ducal court in Weimar . Here he had opportunity not only to play the organ but also to compose for it and play a more varied repertoire of concert music with the duke's ensemble. A devotee of contrapuntal music, Bach's steady output of fugues begins in Weimar. The best known example of his fugal writing is probably The Well-Tempered Clavier , which comprises 48 preludes and fugues, one pair for each major and minor key , a monumental work not only for its masterful use of counterpoint but also for exploring, for the first time, the full glory of keys � and the means of expression made possible by their slight differences from each other � available to keyboard musicians when their instruments are tuned according to Andreas Werckmeister 's system of well temperament or similar system.

Also during his tenure at Weimar, Bach began work on the Orgelb�chlein for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. This 'little book' of organ music contains traditional Lutheran church hymns harmonized by Bach and compiled in a way to be instructive to organ students. This incomplete work introduces two major themes into Bach's corpus: firstly, his dedication to teaching, and secondly, his love of the traditional chorale as a form and source of inspiration. Bach's dedication to teaching is especially remarkable. There was hardly any period in his life when he did not have a full-time apprentice studying with him, and there were always numerous private students studying in Bach's house, including such 18th century notables as Johann Friedrich Agricola . Still today, students of nearly every instrument encounter Bach's works early and revisit him throughout their careers.

Sensing increasing political tensions in the ducal court of Weimar, Bach began once again to search out a more stable job conducive to his musical interests. Prince Leopold of Anhalt-C�then hired Bach to serve as his Kapellmeister (director of music). Prince Leopold, himself a musician, appreciated Bach's talents, compensated him well, and gave him considerable latitude in composing and performing. However, the prince was Calvinist and did not use elaborate music in his worship, so most of Bach's work from this period is secular in nature. The Brandenburg concerti , as well as many other instrumental works, including the suites for solo cello, the sonatas and partitas for solo violin , and the orchestral suites, date from this period.

In 1723, J. S. Bach was appointed Cantor and Musical Director of the Thomaskirche , Leipzig . This post required him not only to instruct the students of the St. Thomas school ( Thomasschule ) in singing but also to provide weekly music at the two main churches in Leipzig. Bach endeavored to compose a new church piece, or cantata , every week. This challenging schedule, which basically amounted to writing an hour's worth of music every week, in addition to his more menial duties at the school, produced some of his best music, most of which has been preserved. Most of the cantatas from this period expound upon the Sunday readings from the Bible for the week in which they were originally performed; some were written using traditional church hymns, such as Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland , as inspiration for the music.

On holy days such as Christmas , Good Friday , and Easter , Bach produced cantatas of particular brilliance, most notably the Magnificat in D for Christmas and St. Matthew Passion for Good Friday. The composer himself considered the monumental St. Matthew Passion among his greatest masterpieces; in his correspondence, he referred to it as his 'great Passion' and carefully prepared a calligraphic manuscript of the work, which required every available musician in town for its performance. Bach's representation of the essence and message of Christianity in his religious music is considered by many to be so powerful and beautiful that in Germany he is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Evangelist .

Family life

Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach , on October 17, 1707 after receiving a small inheritance. They had 7 children, 4 of whom survived to adulthood. Little is known of Maria Barbara. She died suddenly on July 7, 1720 while Bach was travelling with Prince Leopold.

While at C�then , Bach met Anna Magdalena Wilcke , a young soprano . They married on December 3, 1721. Despite the age difference (she was 17 years his junior), the couple seem to have had a very happy marriage. Anna supported Johann's composing (many final scores are in her hand) while he encouraged her singing. Together they had 13 children.

All the Bach children were musically inclined, which must have given the aging composer much pride. His sons Wilhelm Friedemann Bach , Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach , Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach , Johann Christian Bach , and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach all became accomplished musicians, with C.P.E. Bach winning the respect of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . Although the barriers to women having professional careers were great, all of Bach's daughters most likely sang and possibly played in their father's ensembles. The only one of the Bach daughters to marry, Elisabeth Juliana Friederica , chose as her husband Bach's student Johann Christoph Altnickol . Most of the music we have from Bach was passed on through his children, who preserved much of what C.P.E. Bach called the 'Old Bach Archive' after his father's death.

At Leipzig, Bach seems to have fit in amongst the professoriate of the university, with many professors standing as god-parents for his children, and some of the university's men of letters and theology providing many of the librettos for his cantatas. In this last capacity Bach enjoyed a particularly fruitful relationship with the poet Picander . Sebastian and Anna Magdalena also welcomed friends, family, and fellow musicians from all over Germany into their home; court musicians at Dresden and Berlin as well as musicians including George Philipp Telemann (one of C.P.E.'s godfathers) made frequent visits to Bach's house and may have kept up frequent correspondence with him. Interestingly, George Friedrich Handel , who was born in the same year as Bach, made several trips to Germany, but Bach was unable to meet him, a fact he regretted.

Having spent much of the 1720s composing weekly cantatas, Bach assembled a sizable repertoire of church music that, with minor revisions and a few additions, allowed him to continue performing impressive Sunday music programs while pursuing other interests in secular music, both vocal and instrumental. Many of these later works were collaborations with Leipzig's Collegium Musicum , but some were increasingly introspective and abstract compositional masterpieces that represent the pinnacle of Bach's art. These erudite works start with the four volumes of his Clavier-�bung ('Keyboard Practice') a set of keyboard works to inspire and challenge organists and lovers of music that includes the Six Partitas for Keyboard (Vol. I), the Italian Concerto , the French Overture (Vol. II), and the Goldberg variations (Vol. IV).

At the same time, Bach wrote a complete Mass in B Minor , which incorporated newly composed movements with portions from earlier works. Although the mass was never performed during the composer's lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest of his choral works.

After meeting King Frederick II of Prussia in Potsdam in 1747, who played a theme for Bach and challenged the famous musician to improvise a three-part fugue based on his theme, Bach presented the king with a Musical Offering including several fugues and canons based on the 'royal theme.' Later, using a theme of his own design, Bach produced The Art of Fugue . These 14 fugues (called contrapuncti by Bach), are all based on the same theme, demonstrating the versatility of a simple melody. Bach improvised a three-part fugue on Frederick's piano forte on the spot, and later wrote the set called The Musical Offering . He wrote a six part fugue, but in fact he changed the subject to one he considered more suitable for such extensive elaboration. Frederick's original theme begins in triads and then ends with a chromatic descent that has been called stylish and was probably more characteristic of the transitional from baroque to classical period. However, Bach used chromatic descent in many other works, famously the Fugue in G minor from Sonata No. 1 for Unaccompanied Violin and in the romanesca bass line in his monumental Chaconne in D minor from Partita No. 2 for Unaccompanied Violin .

When The Art of Fugue was almost complete, Bach became ill, owing to complications from an eye operation. One of his sons inserted the musical motif BACH into a lower part of the music at the end of the work to commemorate him. It is said that the final work Bach completed was a chorale prelude for organ dictated to his son, Altkinol, from his deathbed. It is entitled 'When in the hour of greatest need'. When the notes of the final cadence are counted, and mapped onto the roman alphabet , the word 'Bach' is again found.

Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750. During his life time he composed over 1,000 pieces.

In his later years and after his death, Bach's reputation as a composer declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging classical style . He was far from forgotten, however: he was remembered as a player and teacher (as well, of course, as composer), and as father of his children (most notably C. P. E. Bach ). His best-appreciated compositions in this period were his keyboard works, in which field other composers continued to acknowledge his mastery. Mozart and Beethoven were among his most prominent admirers. On a visit to the Thomasschule in Leipzig , Mozart heard a performance of one of the motets (BWV 225) and exclaimed, 'Now, here is something one can learn from!'; on being given the parts of the motets, 'Mozart sat down, the parts all around him, held in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest chairs. Forgetting everything else, he did not stand up again until he had looked through all the music of Sebastian Bach'. Beethoven was also a devotee, learning the Well-Tempered Clavier as a child and later calling Bach 'Urvater der Harmonie' ('original father of harmony') and 'nicht Bach, sondern Meer' ('not a stream but a sea', punning on the literal meaning of the composer's name). 1 �( http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/m_rasmus_801.html )

The revival in the composer's reputation among the wider public was prompted in part by Johann Nikolaus Forkel 's 1802 biography, which was read by Beethoven among others. Goethe became acquainted with Bach's works relatively late in life, through a series of performances of keyboard and choral works at Bad Berka in 1814 and 1815; in a letter of 1827 he compared the experience of listening to Bach's music to 'eternal harmony in dialogue with itself'. 2 �( http://www.bremen.de/web/owa/p_anz_presse_mitteilung?pi_mid=76241 ) . But it was Felix Mendelssohn who did most to revive Bach's reputation with his 1829 Berlin performance of the St. Matthew Passion . Hegel , who attended the performance, later called Bach a 'grand, truly Protestant, robust and, so to speak, erudite genius which we have only recently learned again to appreciate at its full value'. 3 �( http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Vocal/BWV244-Spering.htm ) . Mendelssohn's promotion of Bach, and the growth of the composer's stature, continued in subsequent years. The Bach Gesellschaft (or Bach Society) was founded in 1850 to promote the works, and over the next half century it published a comprehensive edition.

Thereafter Bach's reputation has remained consistently high. During the 20th century the process of recognising the musical as well as the pedagogic value of some of the works has continued, perhaps most notably in the promotion of the Cello Suites by Pablo Casals . Another development has been the growth of the authentic or period performance movement, which attempts to present the music as the composer intended it. Examples include the playing of keyboard works on the harpsichord rather than a modern grand piano , and the use of small choirs or single voices instead of the larger forces favoured by 19th and early 20th century performers.

Johann Sebastian Bach's contributions to music, or to borrow a term popularized by his student Lorenz Christoph Mizler , 'musical science' are frequently compared to the 'original geniuses' of William Shakespeare in English literature and Isaac Newton in physics.

Works: the BWV numbering system

Johann Sebastian Bach pieces are indexed with BWV numbers, where BWV is Bach Werke Verzeichnis . The catalog, published in 1950, was compiled by Wolfgang Schmieder and the BWV numbers are sometimes referred to as Schmieder Numbers. A variant of this system uses S, instead of BWV, for Schmieder.

The catalog is organised thematically rather than chronologically: BWV 1-222 are cantatas , BWV 225-248 the large-scale choral works, BWV 250-524 chorales and sacred songs, BWV 525-748 organ works, BWV 772-994 other keyboard works, BWV 995-1000 lute music, BWV 1001-1040 chamber music , BWV 1040-1071 orchestral music and BWV 1072-1126 canons and fugues . In compiling the catalog Schmieder largely followed the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe, a comprehensive edition of the composer's works produced between 1850 and 1905.

For a list of works catalogued by BWV number, see List of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach .

Further reading

• The New Bach Reader by Hans T. David (Editor), Arthur Mendel, Christoph Wolff Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; New Ed edition (1999) ISBN: 0393319563
• J. S. Bach (Vol 1) by Albert Schweitzer Publisher: Dover Publications (1966) ISBN: 0486216314
• Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company (2001) ISBN: 0393322564
• J. S. Bach As Organist: His Instruments, Music, and Performance Practices by George Stauffer, Ernest May Publisher By Indiana University Press (1999)ISBN: 025321386X
• The Bach Reader (W. W. Norton, 1966), edited by Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel , contains much interesting material, such as a large selection of contemporary documents, some by Bach himself.
• The early biography by Johann Nikolaus Forkel , �ber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (1802), a translation of which is included in The Bach Reader (see above), is of considerable value, as Forkel was able to correspond directly with people who had known Bach.
• An early groundbreaking study of Bach's life and music is the multi-volume Johann Sebastian Bach (1889), by Philippe Spitta.
• Another famous study of his life and music is J. S. Bach (1908), by the versatile scholar and organist Albert Schweitzer .
• Christoph Wolff 's more recent works ( Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician and Johann Sebastian Bach: Essays ) include a discussion of Bach's 'original genius' in German aesthetics and music.
• Douglas Hofstadter 's G�del, Escher, Bach : an Eternal Golden Braid uses the music of Bach to explore formal methods, logic, mathematics and other topics.
• List of recordings of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach
• Bach family
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• Johann Christian Bach
• Sir Colin Davis
• Glenn Gould
• Andras Schiff

External links

• Glory to God Alone: The Life of J.S. Bach entry �( http://www.elca.org/co/mosaic/winter02.html )
• 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry �( http://www.mckeeth.org/wikilinks/bach1911.html )
• J.S. Bach Home Page �( http://www.jsbach.org/ )
• Bach-Archiv Leipzig �( http://www.bach-leipzig.de/ )
• J. S. Bach bibliography on the web �( http://www.music.qub.ac.uk/~tomita/bachbib )
• J. S. Bach's Education and Career �( http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/life.html )
• J.S.Bach cantatas �( http://www.bach-cantatas.com/ ) extensive references including cantatas by BWV number.
• Online recordings of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier �( http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/wtc.html )
• Free recordings of Bach's Cantata 140 and other audio examples �( http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/Bach/ )
• Free recordings of Bach's 15 Three-Part Inventions (Sinfonias) for keyboard �( http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/Pandora/vorbis/piano/Hokanson/Master_Works/index.html )
• J.S Bach's Scores �( http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/make-table.cgi?Composer=BachJS&preview=1 ) by Mutopia Project
• Piano Society - Bach �( http://www.pianosociety.com/index.php?id=10 ) - Features a small biography and various free recordings, including the complete first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
• Free Bach sheet music for download. �( http://www.pianopublicdomain.com ) Features free sheet music collection of J. S. Bach.
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Johann Sebastian Bach: Baroque innovator and king of counterpoint

Meet the king of counterpoint, Johann Sebastian Bach

BBC Music Magazine

An introduction to the unparalleled composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), who changed the course of Baroque music and brought the wonders of counterpoint into classical music.

Who was Johann Sebastian Bach?

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, active during the first half of the 18th century during the later Baroque era of classical music. He is one of the most important composers in the history of classical music.

• Best German composers of all time

In particular, Bach's innovative use of counterpoint proved hugely influential in the development of classical music.

When was Bach born?

JS Bach was born in 1685, the most talented member of a prodigiously gifted musical family. He was only nine when his mother died in 1694 and orphaned a year later when his farther died.

Where did Bach grow up?

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach , in central Germany, the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. After the death of both of his parents in 1694-95, the 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach , who worked as organist at St. Michael's Church in nearby Ohrdruf . Later, Bach and a schoolfriend were enrolled in the prestigious St. Michael's School in Lüneburg .

Who taught Bach music?

He was taken into the care of an elder brother, Johann Christoph, who taught him keyboard playing before sending him north to Lüneburg to continue his education. There he became acquainted with the organist and composer Georg Böhm, heard the great organist Johann Adam Reincken at Hamburg and orchestral music played at the nearby court of Celle.

What was Bach's first job?

By 1703, Bach was a court musician at Weimar, but in that year he accepted an organist’s post at Arnstadt where he disgraced himself with the town council by turning four weeks leave into three months. Bach had occupied his time well, though, travelling to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude’s organ playing and becoming acquainted with his music at first hand.

When did Bach start writing his sacred cantatas?

He survived Arnstadt for about three and a half years, however, before moving on to Mühlhausen as organist of St Blasius. Mühlhausen proved to be significant since it was here that he produced pieces in a form that we now recognise as being the kernel of his musical output – the sacred cantata.

In 1708 Bach retraced his footsteps toward the Weimar court to take up duties first as organist, then as Konzertmeister . Here he wrote prolifically for the organ, drawing on all he had learned from Buxtehude and other north-Germany composers as well as Italian and French styles. The music possesses great expressive individuality at the same time revealing Bach’s awe-inspiring understanding of the instrument for which he was writing. The evidence is found in such pieces as the Passacaglia in C minor and the Orgelbüchlein (or 'Little organ book'), designed to educate the fledgling organist.

• The best recordings of JS Bach's Orgelbüchlein

Italian influences

It was in Weimar, too, that Bach seems first to have encountered Italian concertos, especially the Venetian solo type developed by Vivaldi . The early fruits of his understanding and interpretation of the forms can be seen not only in the arrangements for solo harpsichord and organ of concertos by Vivaldi and others, which he made at Weimar, but also in the music of the cantatas which he wrote during the later years of his time there, between 1713 and his departure for Cöthen in 1717 .

Three sacred cantatas , in particular, claim our attention for their expression and originality: Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWV 4), Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis (BWV 21), and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV 61) in which Bach brilliantly combines the French overture and Lutheran hymn in the opening chorus. The great secular cantata of this period is a birthday tribute to the Duke of Sachsen-Weissenfels, War mir behagt, ist nur die muntre jagd! (BWV 208) with its celebrated aria ‘ Schafe Können sicher weiden’ (Sheep may safely graze).

The Brandenburg Concertos

At Cöthen, Bach’s responsibilities were different from those at Weimar. As Kapellmeister his chief concern was the running of Prince Leopold’s court orchestra among whose members from time to time was the musically gifted prince himself, a viola da gamba player. The orchestral cornerstone of Bach’s years at Cöthen (1717-23) are the Brandenburg Concertos , assembled in response to a ‘command’ from Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. Bach’s manuscript of the six concertos is dated 24 March 1721, though the music was composed over a longer period, some of it going back to the Weimar years.

Among the key works which can be ascribed to the period, however are the Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin, the Suites for solo cello, six Sonatas for violin and harpsichord and several collections for solo harpsichord, notably Book 1 of the ‘48’.

Who was Bach married to?

Bach’s seemingly contented life at Cöthen was clouded by two events. First came the death of his wife, Maria Barbara in 1719. Then, late in 1721, just after his second marriage to Anna Magdalena Wilcke, the Prince himself married but, alas for Bach, chose a consort who showed no interest in music. The creative friendship between composer and prince was terminated and Bach sought work elsewhere. In 1722 he applied for the position of Kantor at the Thomasschule in Leipzig and after much shilly-shallying – Telemann and Christoph Graupner were preferred candidates – he was formally appointed to the post in April 1723.

As Kantor of St Thomas’s Church and Leipzig’s ‘Director Musices’, Bach was responsible both for the music of the city’s four principal churches and for providing pieces for civic occasions.

• Thomaskirche in Leipzig and Bach: the church's musical history, importance and legacy explored

Between 1723 and 1729 he not only composed three complete annual cycles of sacred cantatas for the church year, but also his two great accounts of the Passion St John (1724) and St Matthew (1727). Most of the cantatas were entirely new works, and almost all containing music of striking originality that may justly be placed on a level with the Passions, the Christmas Oratorio and the Mass in B minor.

The Coffee Cantata

By the end of the 1720s, Bach was in conflict with the Leipzig authorities, who reprimanded him for not carrying out his duties to the letter. From then, Bach made a deliberate move to diversify his activities. In 1729 he became director of a Leipzig ‘collegium musicum’, consisting mainly of students but which also included professional musicians. Bach enjoyed his connection with the society, which lasted in to the 1740s, providing it with harpsichord concertos and secular cantatas, including the celebrated Coffee Cantata .

In addition, Bach remained active during the last 20 years of his life, composing compiling and revising his music, giving organ recitals and advising on the construction of keyboard instruments. The products of this concluding period are dominated by the Mass in B minor, the Goldberg Variations for harpsichord (1741 or 1742), the Musical Offering and the Art of Fugue

What are Bach's best known works?

Bach is best known for his orchestral music, including the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites. He also composed some much-loved concertos, including two Violin Concertos and a Concerto for Two Violins (commonly known as the Bach Double Concerto).

• The greatest violin concertos of all time
• Recording of the Month: JS Bach Violin Concertos

Other important instrumental compositions include the Cello Suites , for solo cello; 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 vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor .

• Five essential works by JS Bach

What is Bach's greatest piece?

The Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Violin Concertos, the Cello Suites, the B Minor Mass: among so much incredible music, it's impossible to pick a favourite. Your answer will be a personal one. We can say that all the works above, and very much more Bach besides, are worth getting to know.

When did Bach die?

Bach died on 28 July 1750, after undergoing eye surgery.

What was Bach's greatest accomplishment?

This is quite a tough question to answer, as Johann Sebastian Bach's contributions to classical (or Baroque) music were so huge. However, his overriding achievement is probably his development of counterpoint as it existed in late Baroque music, and the wonderful musicality of his output, across so many instrumental forms and combinations.

Nicholas Anderson

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Johann Sebastian Bach

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Johann Sebastian Bach by Stephen A. Crist , Derek Stauff LAST REVIEWED: 28 March 2018 LAST MODIFIED: 28 March 2018 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199757824-0043

Johann Sebastian Bach is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of European art music. During his lifetime (b. 1685–d. 1750), Bach ranked among the foremost musicians in Germany; he was active as organist, teacher, director, instrument technician, and composer. Bach’s compositional legacy includes examples in all major genres of the time except opera: nearly two hundred church cantatas; approximately two dozen secular cantatas; a handful of motets; the B-Minor Mass and some shorter works with Latin texts; the St. Matthew and St. John Passions ; the Christmas , Easter , and Ascension Oratorios ; a large body of organ music (including works based on chorales); many important harpsichord works (e.g., Two- and Three-Part Inventions, English and French Suites, Well-Tempered Clavier, Italian Concerto, Goldberg Variations ); chamber music; concertos (including the popular Brandenburg Concertos); the Musical Offering; and The Art of Fugue . Several of Bach’s contemporaries were equally or even more prolific, but the uniformly high quality of his output is unparalleled. Some of his music was known and esteemed in the latter half of the 18th century and the early decades of the 19th by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and others. In 1850, the centenary of Bach’s death, Robert Schumann and other leading musicians formed the Bach-Gesellschaft, with the goal of making his complete works available in print. Since then, admiration for Bach’s music has remained high, especially among musicians. Many composers have identified Bach’s style as an influential factor in the development of their own musical language. The milestones of Bach research—such as the biographies Forkel (see David and Mendel 1998 , cited under Historical and Biographical Documents ) and Spitta 1951 (cited under Biographies ), the Bach-Jahrbuch (see Journals and Serial Publications ), the Bach-Gesellschaft edition (1851–1900), and the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (cited under Music Editions )—have mirrored the development of the field of musicology as a whole. The secondary literature on Bach has mushroomed to gigantic proportions. The present article provides some guideposts to assist in steering interested readers through this mass of material.

For general background on Bach and his time, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article Baroque Music . An excellent starting place for Bach’s life and works is Wolff and Emery’s article in the venerable Grove Music Online . The German language equivalent is Breig 1999 . Boyd 1999 , cited under Reference Works , also has entries succinctly overviewing Bach’s life and music. Butt 1997 and Leaver 2017 offer broader essays surveying Bach’s most important genres, his historical context, and reception of his music. Küster 1999 touches on all of Bach’s music and is another good, general survey. Emans, et al. 2000–2015 , is a huge multivolume project, jam-packed with information.

Breig, Werner. “Johann Sebastian Bach.” In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Personenteil . Edited by Friedrich Blume and Ludwig Finscher, col. 1397–1535. Vol. 1. Kassel, Germany: Bärenreiter, 1999.

An extensive encyclopedia entry comparable to Wolff and Emery’s Bach, Johann Sebastian . Lengthy summaries of Bach’s life and works, including helpful tables listing works by genre. Available online by subscription.

Butt, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bach . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

A fascinating compilation of essays surveying Bach’s output (“Profiles of the Music”) with introductory chapters on Bach’s historical context and concluding essays on his influence and reception.

Emans, Reinmar, Michael Heinemann, Sven Hiemke, and Siegbert Rampe, eds. Das Bach-Handbuch . 7 vols. Laaber, Germany: Laaber-Verlag, 2000–2015.

A multi-volume reference work with substantial articles by many different contributors: Vol. 1 (2012): cantatas (2 parts); Vol. 2 (2007): Latin church music; Vol. 3 (2009): passions, oratorios, and motets; Vol. 4 (2007–2008): keyboard and organ works (2 parts); Vol. 5 (2013): orchestra and chamber music; Vol. 6 (2000): Bach-Lexicon; Vol. 7 (2015): Bach’s world.

Küster, Konrad, ed. Bach Handbuch . Stuttgart and Weimar, Germany: Metzler, 1999.

A hefty tome, including the editor’s own four-hundred-page survey of Bach’s vocal music, plus in-depth treatment by other contributors of the organ music, keyboard music, chamber and orchestral music, and several late works ( Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, canons). Includes important introductory essays on politics, reception, performance practice, and theology.

Leaver, Robin A., ed. The Routledge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach . London and New York: Routledge, 2017.

A more extensive and advanced collection of essays than Butt 1997 , this volume not only has chapters on Bach’s main genres and forms but also includes essays for the would-be researcher on the main primary sources in Bach research (documents, music manuscripts, and printed editions), influences on Bach, and the main contexts for his music (home, school, church, and court). Does not include a bibliography.

Wolff, Christoph, and Walter Emery. “ Bach, Johann Sebastian .” In Grove Music Online .

A bit dated since its first appearance in 1980, though revised in 2001, this encyclopedia article nonetheless remains a good overview of Bach’s life and works. Includes a useful tabular list of works and extensive, though dated, bibliography. Available by subscription to Oxford Music Online .

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Hey Kids, Meet Johann Sebastian Bach | Composer Biography

Hey Kids, Meet Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (Baptized 1685-1750) German Baroque Era Composer

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany in 1685. As a child, Bach's father taught him to play violin and harpsichord . One of his uncles, Johann Christoph Bach, introduced him to the art of organ playing.

In 1707, Bach married his second cousin Maria Barbara Bach. They had seven children.

In 1708 Bach became the court composer, organist, and Konzertmeister (instrument-playing leader of the orchestra) of the Weimar orchestra for the Duke of Weimar. When the Kapellmeister (conductor of an orchestra or choir) died in 1716, Bach asked about taking this job, but the duke appointed someone else. When Bach asked to be released from the Duke's service he put Bach in jail for four weeks before finally dismissing him.

In 1717 Bach accepted a new post as the Kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Köthen. He was a very nice person to work for and very musical. However, the organ was not very good so Bach did not write organ music during this time. Instead, Bach focused on composing for the orchestra. During his six-year post in Köthe, Maria died, and Bach married Anna Magdalena Wilcke. Bach had 13 more children with Anna Magdalena and became the father of 20 children.

In 1723, Bach became the cantor, organist, and music composer for St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Germany. Bach remained there for the rest of his life and focused on composing choral works.

Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750. He was considered an "old-fashioned" composer during his lifetime, and almost forgotten after his death. He is most remembered for his  Brandenburg Concertos , the  Well-Tempered Clavier , and the celebrated organ work  Toccata and Fugue in D Minor . Today, Bach is considered such an important composer that the year of his death is a defining point in music history. It marks the end of the Baroque Era .

Watch a Video About Johann Sebastian Bach

Learn about Johann Sebastian Bach with this popsicle stick theater presentation from the MakingMusicFun.net Academy. Print the Meet Bach | Free Video Music Lesson Study Guide to drill the facts.

Watch a performance of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ.

Print Related Resources for Johann Sebastian Bach

Piano books for kids.

Bach | Meet the Composer Series Piano Book, Vol. 4

Beginner and Easy Piano Sheet Music

Minuet in G Beginner Piano Sheet Music/Level 1 Musette in D Beginner Piano Sheet Music/Level 1 Aria from Suite in D Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 3 Toccata in D Minor Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 3 May the Sheep Freely Graze Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 4 Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5 Minuet in D Minor Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5 Minuet in G (1) Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5 Minuet in G (2) Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5 Minuet in G Minor Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5 Musette in D for Intermediate/Level 5 Piano Solo Siciliano Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5 Toccata in D Minor Easy Piano Sheet Music/Level 5

Easy Guitar Sheet Music

Minuet in G (1) for Guitar Solo (Notation) Minuet in G (2) for Guitar Solo (Notation and Tab)

Music Classroom Resources for Johann Sebastian Bach (Famous Composers)

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach – for many humans it means just heavenly music for more than 300 years. Johann Sebastian Bach – and that is to say his life , his family , and his work – that is meanwhile, in the era of the internet 4.0, even much more. Today there is an additional entertaining offer, which is present only for a short time beyond Bach’s music and beyond many Bach biographies. 

Johann Sebastian Bach in the Ulm Minster , Germany.

In addition … you are always perfect here on my web portal when it’s about the subject of Bach plus entertainment. Of course, you can listen to the most favored Bach Music Works . You get many Bach book recommendations, and you can explore 150 cool  Bach postage stamps . There is more: you get not less than eight exciting short biographies with different lengths to read, to listen to, and even to watch. There are the so-called Bach quotes , soon 500 Bach FAQ – many for kids and exciting ones for fans – hundreds of pictures and even a real Bach cartoon film. Beyond that there are my recommendations for more Bach websites, like the one by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, the Bachhouse in Eisenach , the smallest Bach location Dornheim or Bach in Weimar (… where still today a Bach House is missing) and many, many more. There are curiosities, exciting stuff, funny sections, and amazing facts. By the way, in France, they call him Jean-Sébastien Bach , and in the Spanish-speaking world, he is Juan Sebastian Bach . In Albania, they even write “Bah” on a postage stamp, without a “c”; so that it sounds proper when Albanians say “Johann Sebastian Bach.” However, Jean, Juan or just Johann – he is, he was, and he will remain – and that is sure – one of the most significant musicians in the world: Johann Sebastian Bach . 

Johann Sebastian Bach – Welcome to the Internet Portal about the Composer 

Welcome to the multimedia-based project "Bach on Bach" and the German sister website "Bach ueber Bach." Johann Sebastian Bach and genealogy: Two subjects – not just one. Of course, on my website, it is first all about the most famous family of musicians all over the planet, the Bachs, back then Bache or Baeche today, whatever you like better. In addition, it is of course about the outstanding shining figure in their middle, the Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach. Secondly, everything is about the theme of genealogy. In general plus in particular – of course – it is about the Bach genealogy, about the genealogy of this special family of musicians from Thuringia in Germany. We even help, if you are exploring, whether you are related to Bach .

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Johann Sebastian Bach – How and Where Do You Find Everything, when You Return?

You probably have experienced it before; you discovered something exciting on a website. Then, when you come back later, it is sort of hidden so well, which you don't find it again. Because the theme of "Johann Sebastian Bach" is complicated anyway, this website does not want to add one more challenge. Therefore, it is actually really easy here: the navigation is to your left, that's as easy, as on almost every website. There are some fifteen chapters, in which you find exactly what is labeled.

However, there is one exception: everything that you do not discover in these fifteen chapters is what you will find in the central chapter "Johann Sebastian Bach." It is chapter number three. There are eight short biographies, the Johann Sebastian Bach biography video and the Johann Sebastian Bach "facts." You will find the Bach cities and the Bach places too: five or nine or twelve or thirty-three. Here are all Bach choirs, Bach orchestras, and Bach societies listed, which honor the star musician with his name in their institution's titles. There's a section related to a Bach cartoon, and you will find the so-called "Ursprung" (... created by Johann Sebastian Bach himself). Moreover, you will find the almost only personal, that is to say, private letter, which Johann Sebastian Bach once sent from Leipzig to his friend George Erdmann in Gdansk. Finally, here are listed the most exciting Bach websites in the world, and you will learn why you might be able to sing "Bach". Just B-A-C-H. Of course, you cannot sing Johann Sebastian Bach.

My MJSBW: My Manual for Your Johann Sebastian Bach Website

This website related to one of the greatest composers and musicians of all time is designed for many who are interested in this phenomenon, "Johann Sebastian Bach," and so my little manual might help right at the perfect time. Also, it finally directs you to the place where you want to get to. Welcome, whether you are a fan of the Thomas Cantor already, or if you love the music of Johann Sebastian Bach meanwhile for years or you just want to learn more about him. In addition, students and kids are very welcome here: especially for you, these pages are designed not only to learn more about the master but also to do so with a lot of fun. Of course, I – as the creator of this website – I am pleased about all who find their way to this portal: via Bach's music or those who have read a biography before and now want to have more fun beyond the book with the theme of Bach. With this "Bach on Bach" project, you can plan trips to "Bach Country," too. This term "Bach Country" indeed is a little casual and if you prefer, I could use the term "Land of the Bache." However, I just find Bach Country much cooler. The "e" is the plural of Bach back then; today it would be the Bachs.

For those, who want to "discover" Bach for the first time, it is perfect here, because a selection of his musical works, which you may experience soon on this website, is not a collection of with my taste, but the very objective "mirror" of millions of Google and YouTube results. Are you in the mood to discover one of the Bach Videos or, alternatively – without any narrated text – one of the Bach Music Videos ?

However, let us get back to my manual for you. Like this third paragraph on page one and the two before, all pages on this website are constructed in the same way. First, there is general information about the theme, a proposal for the perfect reading fun and excitement or how you can make the most of every page. Therefore, this is actually text, which does not match the theme of the page, like this manual is not about Johann Sebastian Bach. To avoid this, so it will not get on your nerves on one page or another, in the upper right corner there often is a shortcut, with which you get to the actual theme of the particular page fast. The text matching to the theme, later, is generally constructed for those with a certain amount of leisure and some time. This is for those who want to have fun being entertained, those who want to take the time looking at the photos and who are excited by the text under the illustrations and such like. The "shortcuts" in the upper right corner and in bold letters are meant for those who are in a hurry on the web. It is for those who like it "to the point," and want it right now. So, now can be the first time for you to decide whether you want to learn more about Johann Sebastian Bach. If so, scroll back up, check the navigation in the middle and help yourself to what you are interested in most.

Alternatively, you share my philosophy, and find this nice and want to go on reading what I have to say. Of course, you will have completed the page much later. However, you will know how to speed up at any given point. For some who have found this page, it is like a sort of theme park offer too, so to speak a Johann Sebastian Bach Adventure Park. Here is the Bach website where you will find so many stories about the important stuff. Also, stories related to these stories. If you research into the matter of Johann Sebastian Bach, which is still possible today, then you discover some unbelievable new facts, opposite facts, astounding stuff, funny details and strange information. Here, on "Bach on Bach" you will find the results, the findings, the objections. However, not just these facts, because these discoveries always come with my stories. We developed relationships; we met exciting people, made friendships so that you may discover cousins of Johann Sebastian Bach and their families. It is the hunt for antique engravings and paintings, booklets, and books, postcards, paintings and this and that. We call these trophies "jewels": lovable errors on printings and stamps  or we discover notes of Johann Sebastian Bach on stamps to honor the jungle doctor Albert Schweitzer . In addition, we finally found out, that the family of Johann Sebastian Bach is the most notable and largest family of musicians on the planet by far. Bottom-line is that all of our adventures is like finding more  pyramids in the desert sand of Gizeh in Egypt  – even if the scale of our discoveries was much smaller, and the size of what we found is too. With a smile.

Now you have the choice again: either you decide on one of the themes about Johann Sebastian Bach in the navigation to your left and up, or you decide to go on reading here. If you go on reading on this page, you upgrade your pleasant anticipation, read more about the goal of this website and the project and decide to switch to reading about the master, who was ennobled as the greatest composer of all time by the New York Times in the year 2011 : Johann Sebastian Bach.

The Bach video comes with the short biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. It is just a quick experience, to learn where the star was once living and acting. A professional is narrating the text; you listen to music of Johann Sebastian Bach and this way it is really entertaining. Also, you "are through" in just nine minutes and have an overview. That is to say about the life of Johann Sebastian Bach.

The video comes with the work and music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Thirty-three pieces in just five minutes? That is what we accomplished here easily. However, this "musical introduction" is really collected for kids and visitors, who believed until today, the name of Bach is just related to flowers by Dr. Edward Bach from Great Britain . Real lovers of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach might not listen to these five minutes. You do know what the court composer composed and where you can find it in a brilliant music quality, that is to say on thousands of CDs of world-famous classical orchestras and musicians.

The Johann Sebastian Bach Website, That Actually Is a Little Very Different

B-A-C-H: You can actually sing and perform this name on an instrument. However, that is not true anywhere else in the world. It is only true in the German language. Just try that with the name Beethoven or Mendelssohn Bartholdy . However, it works with the last name of Johann Sebastian Bach, although with his first name ... it will not.

This website about Johann Sebastian Bach and about the Bach Family of Musicians wants to be a little different to all other websites, which already exist about the composer on the internet here and there. With that in mind, I do not only offer one short biography but several ones; one among them is a short video biography, and one is my ultra-short Bach biography in a coloring book ( Caution, that was an advertisement! ). You will not find just 5 Johann Sebastian Bach postage stamps, but 150 Bach stamps. Also, there are Bach pictures, Johann Sebastian Bach videos, and Bach music videos as well as Bach quotes and Bach tributes. Of course, you will find Johann Sebastian Bach FAQ about the master and his family. No question, I offer Bach music, and you will learn about the BWV. After reading, you will know the secret behind B-A-C-H. In addition, you will know about the famous letter of Bach to George Erdmann, and who George Erdmann was. We guide your way to the excitement of the Bach House in Eisenach, to the Bach Archive in Leipzig, to the Veit Bach Mill in Wechmar and all Bach monuments worldwide. Bach books will play a significant role on this website: Bach books for every Bach related area: biographies, Bach for children and Bach fiction. Not that we want to introduce all 24,000 books, which were written regarding this theme and had been published later. No, it is entirely around those, which are exciting today as freshly printed copies. In Germany and the German language, these are about 50 to 100 books about the master. Also, believe me, 50 to 100 is enough to produce some kind of confusion. Of course, it does! Therefore, I will also deliver such a service for Bach books in English soon. We found, if you separate those books into sections like Bach biographies, Bach novels, Bach children's books as well as Bach travel guides, that would be a cool idea – and that is what we have done for you on this website.

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100,000 Music Gifts?

There are indeed and certainly far more than 100,000 music gifts here. And many of them come from the publishing house "Bach 4 You" in Flein near Heilbronn, Southern Germany   … learn more.

Johann Sebastian Bach plus angel in Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. Here you see him on an age-old steel engraving . This memorial of Bach is located in Eisenach, to the right of the Bach House and the Bach Museum.

Music, Work and Life of Composer Johann Sebastian Bach from Thuringia

The father of Johann Sebastian Bach: Johann Ambrosius Bach . In the background, you see the Wartburg Castle close to the Bach city of    Eisenach, Thuringia .

Everything about Johann Sebastian Bach is complicated. Every subarea is challenging. This project is based on my wish back then, to get an entry into that theme myself. That was in the time when I began to be interested in the composer, the bandleader, the Thomas Cantor, the musician Johann Sebastian Bach from Eisenach. Moreover, in his family. Shortly after that for his work as well, for his music and his life. Therefore, what came out of it? Interest, even better: a significant interest, to share my discoveries with more folks, with my Johann Sebastian Bach website, which you have just discovered. Because I am an entertainment person, of course, this project created my goal to add exciting illustrations to the information, just to lighten the text. Also, what fits better than adding excellent photos of the Bach cities and Bach places, stamps related to the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach and much, much historic and authentic material? Pictures of books, drawings, erasures. Of age-old postcards, and engravings and paintings, which are hundreds of years old. Moreover, what could be so ambitious to be the only ones to arrange the work of Bach? That was the Bach Society , who came into being for that very purpose. Experts still fight today regarding the Bach genealogy. Do you know of a guidepost into the music of Johann Sebastian Bach? How you grapple with Bach, approach him, how you find him? No? I thought so – because if there was such a thing – at least I have not found it. There is so much, which has been discovered regarding Bach already and has again been lost after that. On the other hand, it is just in the process of getting lost again and is waiting for somebody to find it in the endless depths of the internet by accident or by the advice of a competent person. As said before: Johann Sebastian Bach is complicated all around.

Johann Sebastian Bach by the weight: The heaviest Bach book weighs 5.5 lbs. The smallest book weighs just 0.13 lbs. The book you see above is not the heaviest nor the lightest of all Johann Sebastian Bach books. However: it is the reddest of all.

Books about Johann Sebastian Bach

With books about Johann Sebastian Bach you always receive an overwhelming option. Whether that is true in the English language area too, I still have to find out for you.

If you are looking for a book about Johann Sebastian Bach, you realize very fast – with such a theme, you have the agony of choice. Because there are not dozens of Bach books, there are hundreds. Well – not all of them are up-to-date. However, in Germany, there are probably 50 to 100 from which you can choose. There is not just one Johann Sebastian Bach biography . No, there are ten or twenty, which you find as a choice. There are historical biographies about Johann Sebastian Bach too and really up-to-date ones. There are well-known authors and less well-known ones. There are Bach books from specialists and scientists and those from newcomers. From real authors and those who are not real authors yet. There are just: Bach books plus more Bach books about this exceptional musician from the city of Eisenach: about Johann Sebastian Bach.

With this Johann Sebastian Bach biography from among the Bach books, you make a perfect choice. Wolff is one of the best Bach authors in the past 250 years – and today he is the Bach specialist worldwide. You can buy this Bach biography of ... where else ... on Amazon.

Finally, now – there is a ray of light regarding the "challenge of Bach," because from now on there are my Bach book recommendations for you. I hope you see me smiling! On this Bach website, I collected the very best books regarding the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach. Preselected for you. However, here you will find relatively few publications related to the topic. Some one hundred may be a few more on the German site. Fewer on the English website, but not yet presented. I have searched for them for you from among 24,000 Bach books and some 54,000 publications, which exist on the theme of Bach today.

There are three books alone, just around the theme of the genealogy of the Bach Family of Musicians and about Johann Sebastian Bach. Our research regarding the  Bach genealogy is based on these three "bibles" (... plus one expertise, not published as a book) – and you will discover the following: we already found genealogical secrets well beyond the content of these books above. However, we do respect these three authors or better scientists very much! Without their expertise and processing, it would have been impossible to expand the collection of data around Johann Sebastian Bach and add more for you.

Have we checked on 24,000 books within 53,000 publications about Johann Sebastian Bach for you? No, not really. Did you believe that we did? No, we have checked the Bach books of the last 50 years for you, and we separated the wheat from the tares. No, I am kidding. Again, we did not do such a thing. We have researched those 100 Bach books according to our personal taste. Those, which I do not present here today, are mainly excellent too. How could I decide to call those, which I did not choose tares? They are not! Nevertheless, they are less to my taste ... than those, which I present you on these Bach "book pages" and you don't get a comment on these, not from me: Bach biographies, Bach travel guides, Bach novels, Bach books for children. Also, some Bach books which you almost cannot imagine are related to Johann Sebastian Bach. We will expand this offer in the oncoming years and add new publication about Johann Sebastian Bach for you.

24,000 Johann Sebastian Bach books in just 250 years? Sure. Moreover, all of them are perfectly cataloged? Yes, by Yo Tomita, Professor Yo Tomita. You don't know him? Not yet.

A Funny Maker

A funny maker ... that is what I am. That is what they called the great-grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach. That was Hans, der Spielmann (... the closest translation would be maybe "Hans, the Gleeman"). He was not, what you call a comedian today. That is also not, what I am. There actually is no translation of the word used back then in German to the present day German. Nobody uses the term "funny maker" anymore. Therefore, I was looking for a similar word in English, which actually does not exist. Here, right here on this page of my Johann Sebastian Bach website, I am fooling around every now and then. That is how I am. That is what fun is for me. Also, I wish you to have such fun as well. As we go on with our "manual," hardcore surfers may criticize this mental walking frame – but why are you still here? Seriously: Please forgive me. As said, I am a funny-maker. They called it a joker at the beginning of the last century until today. Today I am, and I remain a Punchinello.

Generally, this project is not slapdash, but always "different." It needs, and it wants your time. It wants to be a "Bach Adventure Park." Moreover, it needs your leisure. However, it does not show up in baroque style, even though Johann Sebastian Bach fits so perfectly into this epoch. This Bach project wants to be a little bold. Also cool – and modern. Whether this Johann Sebastian Bach website and my Bach project will meet that goal? We will see.

In the past I shared my ice cream with her –   today I share Johann Sebastian Bach with you. By the way: The girl on the left did not become my wife.

Genealogy in General – The Genealogy of Johann Sebastian Bach in Particular

In the United States of America, many folks are "obsessed" with researching their ancestors. I estimate it is ten to twenty times more than the people in Germany do. Of course, as it seems actually clear where the roots of Germans are: In Germany. In most cases. Alternatively, a little bit to the left or the right. That is not the case on the other side of the Atlantic. You people in the US just want to know where your folks came from.

We are infected, my wife and I. By ancestry research. A trend passion and our new leisure time occupation of choice. We were interested in it already two decades ago. However ... you actually have to be "contaminated." Like with a cold, it does not work if there is the "genealogy virus alone." It needs ugly cold and rainy weather as well, so to speak, and then the viruses are green-lighted. What the nasty weather means for a cold, your own age seems to be for ancestry. Age 50 is what professionals tell us – is the age to start researching. Often – it is just one person in a generation or a family. Of course, there are exceptions: some already begin as young folks, just a little later.

This is a Bach genealogy too: On the right side is my grandpa, Herbert Bach.

For everyone who can imagine himself – after the reading of our adventure with the Bach Family of Musicians and Johann Sebastian Bach – researching his own family, I want to level the ground, so to speak. Not with the depth and expert knowledge like with the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach and his tribe. Nope, it is more like a guided approach for the beginners among you, and an enthusiasm for those who thought about such earlier. However, you never know whether you as an advanced researcher will not find something really new on my pages. Maybe a new way, outside the box, an idea, a different way. However, nothing will work in this chapter without the expertise of professionals, whom I will question of course in the oncoming years.

The following paragraph is for my German audience only and tells that if they manage to find just one line into the United States of America, this will be more than rewarding. Then they would experience the same as my wife, and I did. Both of us found ancestors in the U.S. plus relatives. I compare such development to like having found a medieval treasure chest with gold and jewelry. So, why is this true? I tell them to hop to the next picture and go on reading. By the way: you will discover throughout the project, that Renate and I are real America lovers. Starting in early childhood, our love for America was growing each year. America for us is fun and challenging. Meanwhile, we have more friends in the States than in Germany, and my promise is: I will work on my English, as soon as the Johann Sebastian Bach project is sort of accomplished.

The Johann Sebastian Bach genealogy in the United States of America: Between New York and Los Angeles not a single photo had been burnt during World War II.

Do you remember the factor of folks researching their roots when we compare Germany and the United States? Ten to twenty times. Some ten to twenty times as many folks in the U.S. research their history compared to people in Germany – that is my guess. When so many individuals research so much, they do discover much. In addition, there are many pictures, newspaper articles, and stories. You find tons of age-old letters. However, you cannot compare these discoveries with what you find here in Germany. How do I know? It is like hunting "Ü-Eier." Well, that will become tough to explain. What is an " Ü-Ei " in English? First: The "Ü" stands for "Ueberraschung." Which is a surprise. The "Eier" are eggs. Therefore, these are surprise-eggs, officially Kinder, which is the name of the company and surprise. Kids call them Ü-Ei in German, which is almost neither to explain nor to pronounce. What is an "Ü-Ei"? A surprise-egg (... or Kinder Surprise) is an egg made of chocolate wrapped in the famous orange and white tin foil. The inside of these eggs are hollow, and there is a little toy inside. However, it is true in only every seventh egg. These eggs have existed in Germany for more than two or three decades, and it is a real hype with them. Collectors pay high prices, there are collections and exhibits, and for those who collect them, it is a real adventure to be surprised by the next content. By the way: you may not buy any "Ü-Eggs" in the USA as the law says it's illegal to combine food and toys, as little children might eat the toy and play with the chocolate. Of course, that is not a translation of the German paragraph, but an entire explanation for you people from abroad. It is a strange website – this Johann Sebastian Bach website. It is. I told you so.

This is what we experienced and still experience today. For all folks outside the United States: chances are not bad, that you do have roots in America too, as every family tree branches more and more. In addition, in many families, one line has emigrated. One tribe would generate this constellation. If you are from Europe, you might "meet" Native Americans, maybe your grandfather was a brewery owner or another family member, like August Reinhold Bach, had drowned in a ship accident, worse than the Titanic tragedy. You will make acquaintance with fellow researchers. Folks, who are excited by your passion too. You will find relatives in the United States, cousins, and nephews. They might send photos of your relatives and your ancestors. In addition, you will hear stories. Some are many pages long. In these stories, you will read about these Native Americans: real ones! You read about real fortunes, which came into being and were lost again. You will read in the original immigration application of your own great-great-grandfather, you will discover his handwriting, and you learn why authorities had problems with him. My great-great-great-grandpa once showed up drunk at immigration, and it is preserved in his file in writing. All that are not just stories – suddenly it is your own personal history. Just breathtaking.

The Bach Family of Musicians or Better: The Johann Sebastian Bach Genealogy

If you meet him – while browsing in old books or on the internet or somewhere else; it is Hans Bach, a gleeman. It is not Hans Bach, the Gleeman. For a genealogist, who is researching in the matter of Johann Sebastian Bach this is like the difference between George Bush and George W. Bush . Okay, or like the difference between "day and night ."

The Bache – or better, the genealogy of the Bache: Johann Sebastian Bach, Veit Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Johann Christian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach – is a true challenge. After all – is there one Veit Bach – or are there two or even three Veits? Johann Christoph Bach is a name; you do not even need to start googling. Because the most famous Johann Christoph Bach covers his name with all the information and hides all the other 25 Johann Christophs. Hans, a glee man shows up. However, you have to be very smart, to realize he is not Hans the Gleeman. One Hans is a member of the family of musicians. "Hans, a glee man" is not. A glee man, the Gleeman – der Spielmann, ein Spielmann in German. Who warns you, it is not the same person? When the Milan Bach is the London Bach at the same time and when the Berlin Bach is the Hamburg Bach too: then it is just confusing. This is what the Bach genealogy is: Strange. That is to say, Johann Sebastian Bach married a née Bach, for instance. Moreover, generally, all the Bachs seem to have much fun with choosing just one common name for their offspring, as if there were no different names but Johann or Christoph. At least the number of spouses of Johann Sebastian Bach is clearly arranged. There were exactly two, and their names were Maria Barbara Bach , daughter of a cantor with the name of Bach in Gehren and in Köthen, the singer  Anna Magdalena Bach . Correct, the last one was the woman with the little notebook. Bach's first spouse is not shown in any picture at all. None at all. In addition, there is just one picture of Bach's second wife, which scientists do not object.

The names of all of them? Bach! Johann August Reinhold Bach and his sons. The father Johann August Reinhold died during the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914, on a trip from the United States to Thuringia. Is it all Greek to you? It does not matter – because now you have "Bach on Bach." Here you will discover if you like it, how Johann August Reinhold and our Johann Sebastian Bach were related.

Man, mouse and the whole Bach genealogy (... this would be the translation "word by word," as we say it in German. The correct translation for you people is that "the ship sank with all hands"). Anyway ... only a few families lost all their genealogy documents on a cruise. Johann August Reinhold's daughter survived. Johann August Reinhold did not. In addition, his Bach genealogy of this tribe was lost, too. You could not make copies back then. We have a lovely and very close relationship with Johann August Reinhold's descendants today.

The Empress of Ireland – painted by Briana Bach-Hertzog , who is living in Virginia, USA today. She painted the portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach for my project too, which decorates page one of this website in the upper left corner. The artistic genes are conserved through the centuries, without any doubt.

Sunk on the eve of World War I: The ship and his history. Overshadowed by the beginning of the fights in Europe, almost nobody remembers this catastrophe, when more passengers died than in the sinking of the Titanic . For us, this is a fascinating document on a trip back in time to the era of Johann Sebastian Bach.

It wants to be exciting – the overall project "Bach on Bach," with all its themes and sections. I want that you do not find much content anywhere else that is why I make it so very different. A real biography about Johann Sebastian Bach – that is what others do better. Here on "Bach on Bach" you get the life of Johann Sebastian Bach differently than in hundreds of publications in the last years: Shorter and a little longer. Yes, plus more flowery as well. With illustrations, of course. Easily digestible. In different lengths, that is special. In addition, illustrated differently. In the Johann Sebastian Bach section and there in the "biography corner," there is a short biography video as well, and you will find the first short biography about Bach from the year 1750, the so-called Bach Necrology , alternatively the Bach Obituary. If you find the German version cool, it is the Bach Nekrolog .

Next is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach: 33 of the most favored and most well-known pieces is what I was searching for you, and I decided on those. In addition, you can listen to these works: either to all 33 of them in 333 seconds or three minutes each piece. The "Best of Bach" so to speak – however, it is not my taste, but the taste of the world.

On my Johann Sebastian Bach internet portal, there is so much to discover. In addition, it is clearly arranged, your Bach website. However, you will not explore it in ten minutes. That is not my approach. I want to keep you here. Please expect the unusual – but expect it never to be too serious. One restriction: you can expect quality. Everywhere (... one exception: my English grammar): With pictures and images, reproductions, the Bach genealogy section, the research, the editing, the short biographies plus the little videos. I took and still take a lot of time for this – the quality – including optimization in the future as well. For your pleasure – and for mine as well.

Whether it is in the USA, in the Netherlands or Germany – Bach and music, that fitted f or centuries, and that still fits today. It is really exciting how many descendants of the great-great-grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach, that is to say, Veit Bach, still make music today, how many even make their living with music or are just creative beyond music.

Johann Sebastian Bach Music (1)

What would a Bach website be without Bach music? In the section "Bach Work + Music," you will not find the most beautiful works of Johann Sebastian Bach, but the most favored and the most well known. According to Google and to YouTube .

Johann Sebastian Bach composed a lot. Very much. The master. No question, to perfection. The most popular pieces are – no doubt – the "Well-Tempered Piano," from that work one piece is better known, especially outside Germany, with the title of "Air." Then the "Toccata" of Bach, the "Ave Maria" (... I know!), the "Cantata for the Change of the Town Council," the "Coffee Cantata," the "Farmer's Cantata," but not - the "Beer Cantata." Bach's "Brandenburg Concerts," the "French Suites," the "Christmas Oratorio," the "Easter Oratorio" and so on ... He wrote and composed so much, that Bach music lovers generated a whole Bach Work Catalog, the Bach Werke Verzeichnis, the BWV. This is why the original Bach Society was created, and it was dissolved after that goal was accomplished, according to its statute. That is why the actual NBG is the New Bach Society (Neue Bachgesellschaft, NBG) today. It is, so to speak, the second edition. However, this BWV is not the only catalog of Johann Sebastian Bach's works. Here on "Bach On Bach" you will learn more.

Music "not from this world": that is to say the music of the Royal Polish and Electoral-Saxon Court Composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Personality

It is said he was complicated. It is said Johann Sebastian Bach once threw his peruke. Seriously: have you never seen the calmest person "explode" one day? And if you put such an "outbreak of violence" of Bach – probably he had no better flying objects at that moment at hand – in relation to his genius, that is to say he had to work with so many students that couldn't even sing one single note, than it's my opinion, just my opinion, that this hint is really inappropriate. If you try to judge Bach's temper with this one isolated story.

That is how I judge the analysis of so few known and reported events. Like the story around the unleashed epee of the organist Bach at Arnstadt. Little, very little is known of the private person of Johann Sebastian Bach. Precisely one letter with personal content is what he left for posterity. Exactly: It is the famous letter to his school friend George Erdmann. While you almost know what other artists liked best for dessert, what we do know about Johann Sebastian Bach is almost nothing. The exception is what he wrote in this one mentioned letter. In this letter from Leipzig. In this letter from Johann Sebastian Bach to his school friend George Erdmann.

The letter to his school friend George Erdmann – Johann Sebastian Bach had written it here at Leipzig. It is almost the only document in which Bach left something personal to the world – except for his music of course.

One Shop? No ... There Are Even Five Shops!

A short visit here is worthwhile not only for Bach fans, but for everyone who needs a music gift from time to time. One click will take you there ... and then on from there .

99 Music Calendars, Composers Calendars, Bach Calendars, Beethoven Calendars, and Bach Calendars

Bach Calendars , European style, 2024 + 2025, 3 sizes. Find out the difference between an EU style calendar and a US style calendar.

Johann Sebastian Bach the Exciting Way: That Is what this Website Wants to Offer

This is what this Bach website wants to offer: to highlight everything related to Johann Sebastian Bach, but as well to the Bach Family of Musicians. Also, it wants to do that excitingly. It is more than just a collection of facts; this is what is already exists on paper and the internet. This website wants to do better. Like Johann Sebastian Bach would have probably done, editing the facts. Therefore, they are fun while you approach the person of Bach and his life. That is my actual goal. How you find your way to him and give him a chance, to present his music work, actually does not matter. I am serious, with much respect: offering perfect music, serving godly musical knowledge ... that is what I am not perfect in. I am – as I mentioned – more "at home" in the section of entertainment. For all those serious people, those Bach enthusiasts and those Bach confessors, 53,000 authors and thousands of publisher companies have already been taken care of. I just address the rest of you. Also, this website is for one or another, who finds that a combination is possible. Reference plus "very easy going" at the same time, so to speak.

Johann Sebastian Bach in Weimar. The monument is photographed excitingly . Only for that reason, Bach looks so impressive. An interesting question is when there will be a Bach House to honor this world-famous artist in Weimar ?

Johann Sebastian Bach FAQ

Johann Sebastian Bach FAQs, or Johann Sebastian Bach FAQ? With an "s" ... or without an "s"? Let u s not care. Alternatively, call them Q&A if you like. However, there are 100 exciting questions and 100 correct answers. This is the section for kids, for students, for Bach starters – here you get the answers "to the point": All is related to Johann Sebastian Bach, but also to the Bach Family of Musicians as well.

Johann Sebastian Bach FAQs (... or if you like, the plural without an "s" and for that reason, just Johann Sebastian Bach FAQ) is a unique section on this JSB website, which addresses students in particular, but Bach novices as well. Bach FAQ has the perfect answers to the most frequently asked questions related to Johann Sebastian Bach, to the famous Bach sons or those associated with the music of Bach. First, you get a short answer to the point. After that, you will find more and more detailed information related to the question. I put together precisely 100 questions for you and I will provide you with an answer to each of them.

Johann Sebastian Bach Videos

Johann Sebastian Bach videos. All Bach videos are accomplished meanwhile, and with them, you experience the journey of life Johann Sebastian Bach once started some 330 years ago. In combination with the Bach music videos meanwhile, it is a total of some 1,150 of my self-created little shows. Most of them have a length of three to six minutes. Just watch one or two videos, and maybe you will get hungry for more, or maybe – for all? The little works report about the Bach House in Eisenach, a "trip of Johann Sebastian Bach around the world on stamps" and it goes without saying you get really great impressions about all the essential Bach cities and Bach places, just in case you want to visit those places one day in the future.

What is necessary to explain? What is – maybe – necessary to tell? Maybe the Bach videos. Those who want to have real fun with this Johann Sebastian Bach website get a tiny "manual" here too. The little shows and the Bach music videos are different. The shows come with narrated text, and they are embedded in music. Mostly they present the Bach cities and the Bach places . You will discover the many domains where Bach lived and worked. However, you will experience those places as well, where Bach lived before he got his first "real" job at Arnstadt. One little Bach show introduces Johann Sebastian Bach on stamps, and there is a short biography. Beyond those nine Bach cities and Bach places, there are several more villages and towns, which are linked to the name of Johann Sebastian Bach directly. Gotha, for instance, is one of the Bach cities and Erfurt too. In a third category, you will find Bach cities and Bach places, in which the Thomas Cantor performed back then: just once or several times. Also, there are locations, where Bach inspected an organ. You will find short narrated videos about Gotha, Erfurt, and Dornheim too.

In addition, there are the Bach music videos. First, there are the most well known and most famous of Bach works which you can choose to listen to. Moreover, for the reason you may watch "something" while you listen to this music of Johann Sebastian Bach, I offer you to choose from many, many interesting photo themes. You decide which one is right for you. Alternatively, you listen to the same piece of music again and decide on another photo theme after the first. Important, so important is something that I should already better tell you about here and on the page later again. You first must decide on a piece of music. Click on the title in the red navigation, then decide on the photo theme you want to see. It does not work vice versa because we would have to offer 1,158,921 Bach music videos instead of "just" 1,089. Sorry for your inconvenience.

Between the years 1600 and 1800, the name of Bach didn't only stand for the master himself. In these three centuries, the name of Bach was also linked to a whole and a large family of musicians. This family was so much said to deliver a high quality of music like only a few companies managed and still manage this today. Keywords are Caterpillar, Google, and Xerox. In Austria, for instance, you "kaercher" which means you pressure clean something. Actually mostly with one of these yellow machines, which are produced by a German company in Swabia: Kaercher. Back then, it was the Bachs whom communities and churches wanted to hire. Even in a period when almost no Bach ever worked in such a position anymore, they called this group of folks: the Bachs, actually the Bache with an "e" at the end, which was plural of Bach back then. This is one more reason why there are Bach cities and Bach places. However, on this Johann Sebastian Bach website all 33 Bach cities and Bach places are related to the composer, except for a few, which are so heavily related to the Bachs as a family of musicians, that we just cannot skip them. All is somewhat very confusing. However, even with a significant portion of goodwill, some are not Johann Sebastian Bach cities at all – in the sense of this website.

Just imagine you like this video. If so you will find many more, which you might not have been aware of without that hint here. The story of Johann Sebastian Bach actually began in Wechmar in Thuringia. In the Bach place of Wechmar or better and German: In the "Bach origin community Wechmar" on the doorstep of Gotha. Johann Sebastian Bach had never been in Wechmar. However, Veit Bach, who isn't missing in any biography, had died here in the year 1619. With mentioning Veit in the "Ursprung," it is for the first time in Wechmar when the name of Bach and a musical skill met in history.

Not earlier than in 2014 this video has been accomplished. About Weimar, not to be confused with Wechmar. Here you may watch this show too if you liked the video above. By the way, Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked twice in Weimar. One was a very short period; one was a very long time.

By the way, it is handed down: Johann Sebastian Bach has visited Erfurt at least once for a professional reason. But probably he has been there several more times for family purposes. This miniature portrait of the city of Erfurt was our first accomplished Bach video:  What a city! What a history! In that video, you will meet Bach author Helga Brueck. This video was already accomplished in 2012. It is a pity Mrs. Brueck died much too early in 2013. Here we want to remember her. Without her, we would have never found my roots.

However: On "Bach on Bach," there are very different exciting videos too. I researched the internet for you, checking on cool clips regarding the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach or his music. Also, it goes without saying that I would love to hear about more videos out there from you. What you do not find here for a purpose are the typical music videos as they are familiar on YouTube. They are cute, many of them are excellent, some perform Johann Sebastian Bach's music to perfection – but you will find those videos without my help. In my third section of Bach videos, you will find this and that, what matches the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Funny performances, exciting ideas, small takes to smile about, plus Bach videos to just make you shake your head. Well, you probably remember: Really serious these are different places on the internet. Here it has to be ... funny as well.

This Bach video related to stamps around the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach is really not designed for stamp collectors. It is designed for those among you, who just want to search for exciting stuff on this Johann Sebastian Bach Adventure Park. Come on, what are you waiting for? Try it. Click on the play button ( > ) now.

Are you too impatient now to watch one more Johann Sebastian Bach video? Then scroll down a little. If not, please find a foretaste to a really rewarding tour destination in the matter of Bach: the Bach city of Eisenach.

The second category of Bach videos are the Bach music videos. You hear one piece of music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and you watch one theme of pictures of your choice. There are 33 picture themes, and there are 33 music works. So that are how many Bach music videos? Exactly 1,089.

Johann Sebastian Bach music videos. You really do have to get used to the fact that I decided not only for themes of pictures, which are related around the composer but more that are not related to the court composer at all. There are German touristic highlights for Bach enthusiasts from abroad; there are picture themes for children, for nature lovers, for USA fans, for Paris enthusiasts and some more exciting subjects. Why don't you try it out?

Johann Sebastian Bach Stamps

Whether it's about Johann Sebastian Bach stamps from the Caribbean...

A passion inside a passion – our Bach stamps . Yes, you just can fall in love with these little sticky cutes. And when you discover these small miniature works of art –for the first time somewhere, tiny and diffuse (... for instance on the internet ...), then you will be delighted. However, when you experience a Bach stamp "live" for the first time – so to speak, that is when you hold one in your hands and watch it – then it fascinates you. After that experience, you might go on a hunt for the next Bach stamps. Then you do not just think about how to get them all, but you first think twice how you find out where and how to get a summary – that is to say a summary about all the Bach stamps on Earth , released until the present day. And you approach the philatelists. Because collecting Bach stamps has not been the fascination of collecting stamps in general, not the pure excitement of stamps. In my case, it is ... yes, it's a pleasure that comes with the theme of Bach, actually "department Bach stamps." At the same time, there was my wish to present all those "jewels." That is, to present them all to perfection, so you get excited. Please visit the round about 150 miniature works of art. If you like it, in an unbelievable resolution, size, and sharpness via Flickr.

... or Bach stamps from Europe, Africa, South America or like this here, from China: On this Johann Sebastian Bach website you will find all of them. More? You will not find more Bach stamps anywhere. Not on the internet, not in the real world.

Quotes, Tributes, Poems Related to the Subject of Johann Sebastian Bach

Tributes to Bach, respectively Bach quotes (... it depends on which view you see it ...) – here is the tribute of German composer Max Reger : All together in one of the sections. I have prepared some really unique ones for you. It is a total of 66 tributes or quotes related to Johann Sebastian Bach, which are awaiting you. Also, you may read them all better than the one by Max above.

Actually, in the Bach tributes section, respectively the quotes section, you will not find the quotes which Johann Sebastian Bach said about others. Here on "Bach on Bach" it is about tributes, that famous or at least known personalities said about the work of the master or about Johann Sebastian Bach. Sayings, wisdom and the mentioned tributes, which then became quotes in a time of 300 years. I collected them from the most different corners of the internet; I archived them, I recycled them with love and tinkered with them for you in a new constellation. Also, you get pictures of the personalities who stated them – the quotes. In addition, for those who will not be happy with the name of the person who adored Johann Sebastian Bach that much, I have added a short biography to let you know a little more about the admirer of Bach. If you can't really get enough, there is a link which makes you an expert if you "click yourself clever." There are some 66 quotes and tributes, but there are not 66 authors, as some of them have stated more than one tribute. One or another tribute did not make it into the collection for several reasons. This page almost never wants to assume the status of completeness. It has to remain entertaining. The last statement is true except for the stamps, the most tributes regarding Bach in a collection, the Bach genealogy, and a few disciplines more. One quote is not permitted to enter the "Bach Hall of Fame." If you are interested in which one that is, feel free to click here – I installed a back button for you there. If you are pleased with Bach tributes, then you will have exceptional fun with these 66 Bach tributes. It is, in my opinion, the most complete collection of tributes to Bach. If you show me a more complete collection – mine will be the most complete again after a couple of days.

Ludwig van Beethoven: His tribute about the life works of Johann Sebastian Bach has even found its way onto a Bach memorial. You will meet both on this Bach website . The tribute – and the Bach memorial.

My Johann Sebastian Bach Image Archive

Those who are just in the mood for pictures around Johann Sebastian Bach will be rewarded here. Nowhere else will you find so many different and consequently sharp, high resolution and exciting photos and images around the theme of Bach, like on this Johann Sebastian Bach portal. It starts with the fact that only photos and images, as well as illustrations, are permitted, which are photographed in a high standard or scanned to perfection. So it's not about the completeness of this Bach niche of the internet, not at any price. Only what is beautiful or exciting and high quality is permitted to get in here.

What photos exactly will you find in the Bach picture archive? For instance photos of the Bach cities and Bach places. Alternatively, many, many photos of the Bach monuments all over the world. When I took these photos myself, especially as this eases the copyright situation dramatically, then you get the Bach memorial from a frog's view, from the right, from the left, once from a very close distance and another from "one-mile distance." Almost always with perfect weather conditions, which is pure sunshine. With only very few compromises. So that everyone realizes, actually you realize, how much fun I had, to find these locations, to experience these places and finally to take photos of these locations. After that, we edited the tons of photos, optimized them and eventually not only used them as illustrations on many, many pages of this website but also collected them for this Bach picture archive. However, there is more in that section, especially for Bach enthusiasts. I won't tell you here. Find it out yourself.

Of course, I provide an example. Erfurt is no real "Johann Sebastian Bach city." However, there is no doubt, Erfurt is a Bach city. More than 60 files in the church records of Erfurt are related to the Bach Family of Musicians. Almost everything that is beautiful in Erfurt is what I have taken photos of for you. You can experience the pics in the department "Bach pictures," one at a time. Alternatively, you can decide for the department "Bach + Music" and choose one music piece of the master and then decide for the photo theme of Erfurt by clicking the matching button.

Practically all "real" Bach cities and Bach places are photographed during perfect weather. With many, many details - all that you can do without an extended vacation and without the knowledge of a local. Many an archway, many a Bach monument and many a detail made a second visit necessary. Because the sunshine came from the wrong direction. Alternatively, bad weather surprised me. You will discover perspectives and get many images of sights, which you probably will not realize, and discover visiting many places a first time in the matter of Bach. You will experience just the result, which you get if someone is not only interested in the passion of Johann Sebastian Bach but likes taking photos as well. However, all photos, which you might find perfect on this website, are placed as well on Flickr: better, sharper, in higher resolution. All surfers with an experience of more than four hours surfing on the web may excuse the following – there is a manual for Flickr as well. Because we want to take care, don't we? Finally, in this chapter of Bach photos: there are always more photos in the Bach picture archive than you think there are. It will be the biggest Bach picture archive in the world soon, and that is not just with "a few more images." It is necessary to find really a lot more pictures.

What else do you find there? Historical pictures, for instance. Much of what you might find on the internet here and there in poor quality – plus not in real high definition. Original documents, engravings, Bach portraits, historical sights of the Bach cities and Bach places, postcards, books ... just: more, than you can imagine at this moment. Get there now with a click here .

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Music of Bach (2) – You Probably Don't Know it this Way for Sure

This website always wants to be a guarantee for surprises ... and that will remain this way into the future. So you might have read in the music chapter 1 above regarding the music of the master already. Here now I present a very uncommon way to learn more about Bach's music and Bach's work. How Johann Sebastian Bach's music sounds, especially the very well-known pieces that is what you already know for sure. However, if you do not sit in a concert hall, you listen to your surround sound system at home, or you have your headphones on now, why don't you offer your eyes in "the next round" something special and interesting to watch? Like standing in front of an Italian ice cream variety, everything is offered here to you on "Bach on Bach" to mix your own ingredients: music and pics. Precisely 33 themes of gorgeous photos and exciting pictures are what we have collected and put together for you. Also, we searched for the 33 most admired music works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Now you may combine every piece of music with every theme of photos. It is actually true: you have the choice of 1,089 music and photo theme video combinations, which you may enjoy one after another.

Johann Sebastian Bach International

How do you get the idea to offer a Johann Sebastian Bach website in 35 language versions? It is that easy: I just overdo everything. That is true for the foreign language versions too.

Yes, it is a little challenge, which I had in my head back then. It was the beginning of February 2013. To spread the cultural assets of Johann Sebastian Bach even more and even more dynamically all over the planet, the internet is just perfect. And if there is one last existing hurdle left, it is to communicate the most exciting things about the master in one's own mother language (I know a mother language is always one's own mother language). With much fun learning English and talking English, I know that even with 20 years of experience, I am challenged by English text, by a book or by a movie more than when I experience it in the German language, in my mother language.

This is why I hope for help from abroad. I still hope for support from students or from Bach enthusiasts, who are not "just coming along the way." Even before I ever asked, I met first Xi, next Elena, and they translated my Chinese, my Russian and my Ukrainian version to perfection. There are much ambition and time needed, but my concept is entailed. If it works out, what I imagine and how I imagine it, then there will be much Bach knowledge available to learn one day. That is in 35 international languages and maybe beyond. Besides the languages spoken by our neighbors and those in the European Union, there are such challenges left like Hindi, Korean, Vietnamese and Indonesian. When the English website is proofread to perfection, I will ask for the help of students in universities all over the planet.

The Chinese version of the "Bach on Bach" project about Johann Sebastian Bach. Like this one, there is a Korean, a Hebrew, an Arabic, an Indonesian and some thirty versions more. Our pride is the Chinese page and the Chinese biography video about Johann Sebastian Bach. Also, there is half the Russian and half the Ukrainian version meanwhile. Do you just want a quick check what these versions look like?

Famous Composers + Famous Families of Musicians

If you want to learn more about the colleagues of "music poet" Johann Sebastian Bach and the most famous families of musicians on Earth, you are perfect here too.

In my website section "Famous Composers and Families of Musicians"  there is a little additional service regarding the colleagues of Johann Sebastian Bach. On the one hand, there will be a separate little website one day, where you will find information and cool stuff about many, many composers of all epochs. On the other hand, there is a whole chapter about these guys here on "Bach on Bach" which provides you with some general information plus an offer to discover more exciting websites about these musicians. This is what I created for you if you want to cheat on my favorite, Johann Sebastian Bach, just a little. If, for you, not only Johann Sebastian Bach counts, but also more classical composers, and you want to join them now, please just click here .

"The Composer" (Der Komponist)  – an internet portal for all events around classical music on Earth beyond the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach. That is what I had planned earlier in the overall project. It was one of those ideas, which I did not develop until the end. But a little "piece of art " (... the title page above) coming with it is accomplished.  I do not want to hide it from you. Here, this little artwork will remain into the future. However and that is important: there never was such a magazine.

33 Bach Cities and Bach Places

Finally, it is clear. Clarity regarding the question, how many Bach cities and Bach places there are around. Five or eight or nine? Alternatively, are there thirty-three or maybe more? Well, it depends, but we clear that up for you. With a whole page and indeed much exciting information.

Back to the locations, which you already may connect to the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. There is one question: did he "act" already at his place of birth? Sure he did because he sang together with his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach. More precisely, he sang to his father's music. Also, both made money that way. So, to the point: he worked, and he was employed in five cities. Four more towns and villages are what you may add as important Johann Sebastian Bach places. That is a total of nine crucial Johann Sebastian Bach locations.

Next, there are three more cities and communities, which are absolutely considered Bach cities and Bach places, but they are no real "Johann Sebastian Bach cities" or "Johann Sebastian Bach places." Why that is so, is what you do not find here. However, that much right away: there has been the Bach Family of Musicians as well.

Finally, there are many, many cities and communities, in which Johann Sebastian Bach "has just done something." Whether these locations are Bach cities or Bach places just for that reason, we might very much argue about that.

Last but not least, there are some few "collections of houses," which had been existing as communities but they are not anymore. There are locations where Johann Sebastian Bach once was, but he didn't perform there, he did not inspect there, and it's the moment, where a little burlesque would start. If you now would like to learn more about these Bach cities and Bach places right away and why you may connect which one with Johann Sebastian Bach, then please click here .

Stop, stop: If you make every city, every community and every place, where a famous Bach or one of the less famous Bache of this family of musicians has lived, acted or performed a Bach city, a Bach community, a Bach village or a Bach nest, than many, really many locations would be considered a Bach place, way beyond Bueckeburg, Schweinfurt, Milan and London. But that ... is getting absurd now.

There are nine Bach cities and Bach places, which have played an essential role in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. There he once lived, he worked, and he learned or had at least married.

Johann Sebastian Bach 4 Ever

Once again, back to the subject of books: there are hundreds of books related to Johann Sebastian Bach. For the reason, there is at least one section on my website that helps you really serious, here again, is my hint to the section with all actual books you can buy currently ... for instance in the bookstore of your choice. Are you in the mood to discover these serious Bach books now? Just a click will do .

Johann Sebastian Bach on Paintings, Drawings, Erasures, and Engravings

There is probably no other musician, aside of Johann Sebastian Bach, who is displayed on so many paintings, drawings, engravings, erasures, and scribbles, which show what Bach did not look like. However, one picture, which exists even three times as an original (... actually 2 + 1 for experts), is the exception: It is the painting "Johann Sebastian Bach" by Elias Gottlob Haußmann. How he painted him, is what the Thomas Cantor actually looked like. All the others, for example, the artists Rentsch and Ihle and the many ones later, have painted Bach how they just liked it. Maybe, but only maybe the so-called "old age picture" of Bach shows him realistically too – but it is not certain. Johann Sebastian Bach: Nothing around the master is just smooth. You will meet many, many portraits of the genius on the many hundred pages of this Johann Sebastian Bach website, both historical and modern.

Johann Sebastian Bach, what he very probably looked like. This work is painted by Elias Gottlob Haußmann, during Bach's lifetime, probably around 1745.

What Else Can You Find on the Internet? About this Genius Johann Sebastian Bach from Eisenach in Thuringia

What would a Bach website be, if you would not find more recommendations regarding more Bach websites on the internet? It goes without saying, that the important ones are listed below, but you will discover smaller ones as well. Finally – how could that be different – I added some of my further Bach websites ... they are Bach websites with particular Bach themes. It all starts with Wikipedia , for all those, who love it relatively "entertainment free" but to the point. However, this source is what you would have found even without my help. However, leaving it away here ... that would not have worked. One of the best sources is www.bach.de . However, it's in German only. Sorry. But I had to tell you about this particular website, as it's author's name is Peter Bach. So? He is not related. Also, he's a doctor, while I am related to the composer from Thuringia . Of course, I am just kidding, as he worked for his title and I did nothing but genealogy to find out that I am a far related relative. More as a practical joke, you get a link here to a Bach College , actually, it's a German Gymnasium in Southern Germany, namely Mannheim: The Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Gymnasium.

Now we are serious again, and there's - as the number one – my own website "Johann Sebastian Bach for Children – Info, Links, Fun" ... it is exciting for kids. It is the perfect amount between information, music, interesting fun to discover about the millennium composer, and it addresses both students and teachers.  "Bach in Wechmar" informs, like no other website, precisely about the Bach location, when the name of Bach and the term of music once met for the first time. Now and then some ads point to additional offers, however, it's not in the way like promotion often is placed. This advertisement is promoted by the publishing house of my wife , and there you may discover one Bach highlight or another. However, be aware: even my hint in this last sentence could be considered promotion. Therefore, because you might not have realized that – with a smile, again here – I point to this fact for you.

So back to my recommendations, they are spread all over my pages of this Bach website. There is for instance – at position 1 of course – the Bachhaus (Bach House) in Eisenach . Only a few minutes away from the town center. We both, my wife and I are convinced: That is the most exciting, the really very most exciting Bach Institution all over the planet. After that, there is the website of the "Bach Friends in Dornheim" (... it's a pity it's in German only) . The residents of this 500 folks village have done an outstanding job by saving the little wedding church, where Johann married his first wife back then. The Bach-Archive in Leipzig  in the direct neighborhood of the St. Thomas Church and the new Bach monument is next, and the offer, the website and the events of the New Bach Society are exciting. Of course, you will learn on my website, why it is the New Bachgesellschaft, which is the New Bach Society and not just the Bach Society. The St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) has a website worth a visit. Two websites, which I recommend on my German sister page – however, I regret, they are in English only – are a perfect suggestion for you. In English again the J.S. Bach Home Page and finally the internet and Bach portal of our friend Aryeh Oron in Israel with his most gigantic Bach offer in English language on the globe: the Bach Cantatas Website . Sure, you do find Bach videos and more Bach videos on YouTube. All Bach choirs, Bach orchestras and Bach societies in the world is what you find on my internet portal and what if you visit a real cute website johannsebastian.de (... sorry German only) ? Let us travel south and explore which websites are there to discover and worth a visit. In Switzerland the Johann Sebastian Bach Forum is exciting (... sorry again, not yet in English), "Bach in Köthen" is entertaining and there is a website with important information about Bach's oldest son, who was born in Weimar: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach . However, it's still in German only, and there will be an English page late in 2018 or early 2019. If you want to learn more about this first of all Bach sons, you better click to FAQ 116 on the German website "Bach ueber Bach" and use "Google Translator," to get a full and most detailed summary regarding on what they have done to this poor Bach son in 300 years. It's an affair of the heart to repair his reputation. Okay now, that should be enough in the discipline "more cool Bach websites."

Johann Sebastian Bach and the Small Green Aliens from Outer Space

Do you remember? Do you remember the year 1977? Jimmy Carter was President of the United States of America and NASA, together with the Voyager Golden Record Team, led by Carl Sagan, decided on a selection of pictures and music pieces, which were launched – on a "Golden Record" – in the spacecrafts Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 "direction nowhere." Main issue: out of our solar system. 55 nations narrated a first "Hello," "Grüezi" or just "Howdy." Even in historic Greek, just in case these extraterrestrial recipients of our message would be some 2,000 "years behind," and there is something like an interstellar Greece on an Earth similar planet. Sure, it was not just an ordinary "How are you?" There came many exciting short messages with it. The life term of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 – of course just estimated – is 500 million years.

The attached pictures are fascinating too: They range from "man walks a dog ( ... a "spitz", which is a tiny dog race, is mentioned ... ) on a flower meadow", via an "... on his back lying gator" to a "woman with shopping cart in the supermarket bites in grapes".

What about Johann Sebastian Bach? How is all this related to Johann Sebastian Bach? Sure, we humans have sent music as well. What would this Golden Record be without music? 27 music works. From the Old World Europe, from the New World, America, from Asia and Australia. Now, who is first in that collection? It is Johann Sebastian Bach. Because he is one of the first in the alphabet? No, I checked on that for you. If not, there are other reasons. Which work is it? One piece of the "Brandenburg Concerts." Which other classical composer is present? Mozart. Of course. Headword "The Magic Flute." Who else? Beethoven. With his "Fifth Symphony." What rings the bell with the headword Beethoven? He is present two times, a second time at the very end of the list. However...

Johann Sebastian Bach wins the competition, which was never advertised, clearly. Also, that is to say secretly and obviously. Because there are two, additional works included from Johann Sebastian Bach: even earlier than the first work of Mozart and Beethoven. It is "Gavotte en Rondeau" of Johann Sebastian Bach. Even before Beethoven shows up on the intergalactic stage, there is a third piece of music for these aliens that is to say just a short piece. One small piece from the "Well-Tempered Clavier."

Three times Johann Sebastian Bach, two times Ludwig van Beethoven, one time Mozart. Johann Sebastian Bach on rank 1 + 10 + 17. Ludwig van Beethoven on rank 18 + 27. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on rank 11. However, I have to mention that regarding dramaturgy, the best always comes last, which indeed requires some amount of patience from every extraterrestrial, experiencing the "Golden Record." However, Beethoven wins against Johann Sebastian Bach, if you add up the lengths of the musical offerings and compare that: Johann Sebastian pieces add up to a total of 12 ½ minutes, Beethoven music on the "Golden Record" has a length of 14 minutes. Of course, musicians from far away from the "Land of the Bache" are represented too: Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong have the privilege.

You find this style and content funny? Yes, it is actually sort of. That is how I had fun writing it. Because it's fun for me, you learn much, much more about Johann Sebastian Bach. Also, you do so in a more entertaining way, than anywhere else in the world and on the internet. Is that a deal? Of course, I thought that before. It is just "Johann Sebastian Bach my way" so to speak: based very, very loosely on Frank Sinatra.

Johann Sebastian Bach (... among other musicians) on his way to E.T. & Co.!

Johann Sebastian Bach Monuments

So? Do you know it? How many Johann Sebastian Bach monuments in the world honor this composer? Anyhow, here on this website you will find them all. Those in Germany, the ones in the United States of America and of course the only one in Shanghai in China. Many, actually almost all of them are what I took photos of for you. In 1,000 variations – well, it might not be that many. I was busy for 45 minutes around the one in Ansbach, Germany. Today I am most excited by the view in Ansbach, where you can read "Bach" in the background. Three Bach monuments are still on my wishlist: all of those are only presentable with a considerable amount of organization. That is Johann Sebastian Bach in Shanghai, JSB in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and finally one monument of Bach in Cleveland, Ohio. These three are still missing. There is one month left until nature is perfect in both the USA and China and I hope to find three supporters until then, who would take photos of these three monuments of Johann Sebastian Bach in a way that I would do it if I were there. Here is a quick detour to the pictures of all the Johann Sebastian Bach monuments.

Johann Sebastian Bach in Ansbach, Bavaria, Germany. Exciting: there is no such thing as the word "Bach" on the house in the background. This word actually is Ansbach.

Bach Choirs, Bach Orchestras and Bach Societies All Over the World

Bach choirs, Bach orchestras, Bach societies. Did you know that most of them are in Germany? Sure, you knew that. Did you know there are 90 in Germany? Almost the same number is how many you find in both the United Kingdom and the USA combined.

If we add up all choirs, orchestras, and societies, that decorate themselves with his name to honor Johann Sebastian Bach, we get to the number of 222. The most exciting ones? Two institutions in Japan, one in New Zealand and there are two choirs with the name of Johann Sebastian Bach in Johannesburg and Pretoria, both in South Africa. Finally, there is a choir in Taipei. Here you get to all those 222 Bach choirs, and Bach orchestras, and Bach societies with one click.

Johann Sebastian Bach for All Interested Children on this Planet

The goal of this project is to spread the knowledge about the work of Johann Sebastian Bach even more. Also, the invitation to learn more about his life, about the Bach genealogy and to meet the many Bach cities and Bach places, where the master once lived and worked.

I believe that there are subjects when it is not that important to be excited. However, it sometimes just is about not spoiling something with the first contact. It is on that goal that my whole project and the website "Bach on Bach" are based on. It definitely wants to be a counterpart to the exquisite, but just different existing projects and websites about the musician.

To excite kids and students or to bother the words above again, not to scare them away, that is an ambitious part of the aspect inside my project. To transport highly complicated material excitingly, to edit it and to make it easy consumable: that is what I want with these pages and the whole cross-media project. For that purpose, this website is prepared multi-medially too. It is a website to experience and to discover, maybe it is even a "Johann Sebastian Bach Adventure Park." FAQ bring facts to those who approach other websites this way, too. The " Facts, Facts, Facts " section provides answers "to the point" – however in a different way. Moreover, for those who hate lengthy biographies, there is not just the one short biography, I offer eight ones in various lengths, including a brief video biography. Biographies: short and even shorter. To read, to experience via an interactive back and forth to a version with music or without. Finally, there is the mentioned nine-minute biography video: just to relax and watch.

Sure: This paragraph here (... on precisely this page, where you are reading at this very moment) is not optimized for kids. It is written for music teachers, for musicians with children, for schools, for music societies, for parents and grandparents. With fun and while interacting with the audiovisual offerings like videos, music videos, and background music, I want to offer the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach in a pedagogical way; in a way that is only possible with this modern medium. This Johann Sebastian Bach website is supposed to be the opposite of boring ... and that is true especially for kids and students. Some corners of this website have changed already during the evolution process. So the short biographies and in particular the FAQs were developed to be more and more child-friendly. Beyond these 100 FAQ, this platform wants to pick up interested folks on the internet: as the author, I have developed additional very unusual questions, that students or a young person could possibly ask. They are answered here. First, this offer starts with the 100 answers to the 100 most exciting questions. However, that will change chaotically soon – in the sense of the word. While the question "Who is the father of Johann Sebastian Bach?" is a common one, the question "Who painted the most famous picture of Johann Sebastian Bach?" is a less common question. This future area of the FAQ, that is to say starting with FAQ 101 and the following is currently coming into being in summer 2017.

A short portion of advertisement is just necessary here and now (... yes, this is no editorial paragraph, it is sort of an ad): There is one specialty which shows up as late as today with this Johann Sebastian Bach project. It is an offer for the very youngest in our society, which you can introduce as late as summer 2017 to the work and life of the Thomas Cantor with a coloring book. In both English and German at a time. Therefore, it's a highly pedagogical value. It's painted by a cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach, Briana Bach-Hertzog. Of course, of a second cousin – but without question, she belongs to the most famous family of musicians all over the world. End of this commercial paragraph .

This is an advertisement paragraph too. It is about my book. About Johann Sebastian Bach. Written by me, illustrated by Petra-Ines Kaune and put together by my wife, Renate. The biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for children. During the last many decades, relatively few books for kids have been published about the Thomaskantor. However, none of those really was a biography like mine, that is to say, none of those even came close. My biography about the life of the genius? Two very best friends forever, both cherubs, have common fun around the life and work of the "Royal Polish and Electoral-Saxon Court Composer." They are Veit and Balthazar. Balthazar was educated in how to tell especially exciting stories. Veit is a little cherub who specializes in performing music. In my biography for children about Johann Sebastian Bach, the reader is participating in a few days in the life of both. "Their stage" is both their own two little clouds and the clouds where they have breakfast, lunch and dinner together with the other cherubs. All of it is accompanied by music from Johann Sebastian Bach in the audiobook version. One version is not. That is to say, you may buy it in three versions: One is without music, one is with 18 times music, one version is with 66 times music. Of Johann Sebastian Bach. And me. Not only as a paper book, a real book so to speak, you may like this work as an e-book as well, and this is to say in two formats, one is with illustrations, one is pure text.  Well, this is true after the following pic: The biography about Johann Sebastian Bach for children. And for adults, too. How come? Please click here.  Okay here, end of advertisement .

Yes, that is what children should look like, who have made acquaintance with the theme of Johann Sebastian Bach or his music.

Wow, You Are Actually Still Here?

Are you still here? I am very pleased. Therefore, I thank you very much for your patience. For your time. I did not take it easy: to either make this introduction short or – as a second option – to write just like I love to write. Finally, I decided for the second option. As you always have the possibility to cancel the rest, take a shortcut or start to explore the page on your own, as it is well arranged. Also, this website is designed to be a Johann Sebastian Bach Adventure Park. However, maybe you are here to let me entertain you in "the matter of the master." Perhaps you like the style, my style of writing. That is why it's not about writing all that in a shorter way. In our current internet era, there is almost no time left for anything, and there is nearly no time left to enjoy something on the internet that you found recently, because you are actually already on the hunt for the next entertainment, which you want to consume as fast as you possibly can. Speaking of that, take yourself some time, when you discover the many Johann Sebastian Bach stamps, take your time when you watch all the Johann Sebastian Bach videos or when you discover all those Bach photos in the Bach image archive. Just for fun, make acquaintance with the Bach FAQ. Alternatively, I invite you as a guest for a short Bach short biography or a more extended Bach short biography. Nowhere else can you get a collection of all current new books on the market: I prepared such for you. The same thing is correct for the genealogy. It's unique in size and correctness in the world. The so-called Bach quodlibet is worth a click . Really. What about the Bach cartoon section? Now – what are you waiting for? Thanks for your attention. Also, as said, thank you for your time.

Yours Peter Bach, Jr.

Update from June 3rd, 2021

A long, long time ago I already had fun living: author Peter Bach, Jr. in an original historic Bavarian costume – the latest chapter in a Bach genealogy.

The Bach Coloring Book + The Bach Biography for Children: the Perfect Gift!

Two real biographies about Johann Sebastian Bach. Click here to get to the store. A lot of fun awaits you there as well.

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