Johann Sebastian Bach (March 31, 1685 [Old Style: March 21] – July 28, 1750) was a German composer and musician from the late Baroque period. He created many works for different instruments and musical styles, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo pieces like the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard music such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ compositions like the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He was known for his skill in counterpoint, a style where multiple melodies are played together, as seen in The Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. Felix Mendelssohn helped revive interest in Bach’s music with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. Since then, Bach has been celebrated as one of the greatest composers in classical music.

The Bach family had many composers before Johann Sebastian was born in Eisenach, where he was the youngest child of city musician Johann Ambrosius Bach. After losing both parents at age 10, he lived with his older brother, Johann Christoph, for five years and then continued his music education in Lüneburg. In 1703, he returned to Thuringia and worked as a musician in Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen. Around that time, he visited courts in Weimar, where he expanded his organ repertoire, and the reformed court in Köthen, where he focused on chamber music. By 1723, he became the church music director in Leipzig, responsible for music in four Lutheran churches, the St. Thomas School, and the university’s student ensemble, Collegium Musicum. He began composing annual cycles of church cantatas and published his organ and keyboard music in 1726. In Leipzig, he had difficult relationships with his employer, a situation that improved when Augustus III of Poland granted him the title of court composer in 1736. In his later years, Bach revised and expanded many of his earlier works. He died in 1750 at age 65 due to complications after eye surgery. Four of his twenty children—Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian—became composers.

Bach improved German musical styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmony, and how he used rhythms, forms, and textures from other countries, especially Italy and France. His compositions include hundreds of sacred and secular cantatas, Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He used Lutheran hymns in both large vocal works and smaller pieces like his four-part chorales and sacred songs. Bach wrote extensively for organ and other keyboard instruments, composed concertos for violin and harpsichord, and created suites for chamber music and orchestras. Many of his works use contrapuntal techniques like canon and fugue, where melodies intertwine.

After his death, Bach was still mainly known as an organist in the 18th century. In the 19th century, biographies of Bach were published, and by the end of that century, all his known music had been printed. His music was studied through magazines, later websites, a catalog of his works called the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV), and new editions of his compositions. His music became more popular through arrangements like “Air on the G String” and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” as well as recordings, including three boxed sets of his complete works to mark the 250th anniversary of his death.

Early life, marriages, and education

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21 March 1685 O.S. in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, which is now part of Germany. He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach, who was the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth, who was born into a family of a town councillor. The Bach family, which can be traced back to Vitus "Veit" Bach (died 1619), had many generations of musicians in the Thuringia region. This area had a culture that was not heavily influenced by outside ideas, and most musical traditions remained traditional. Music was often passed down through families, especially through the courts.

There is no clear information about Bach's early life before 1693, and details about his musical education are uncertain. His father likely taught him the violin, which was his father’s main instrument, and basic music theory. One of his uncles, Johann Christoph Bach (1645–1693), may have introduced him to the organ, though this is not certain because the uncle may not have been close to Bach’s family.

Bach’s mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later in February 1695. At age 10, Bach moved in with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach (1671–1721), who was the organist at St. Michael’s Church in Ohrdruf, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. There, Bach studied, performed, and copied music, including his brother’s, even though it was not allowed because music scores were valuable and paper was expensive. He also received lessons on the clavichord from his brother. Johann Christoph introduced him to the works of many famous composers, such as Johann Caspar Kerll, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied); Georg Böhm, Johann Reincken, and Friedrich Nicolaus Bruhns from Hamburg, and Dieterich Buxtehude; Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis Marchand, and Marin Marais from France; and Girolamo Frescobaldi from Italy. At the local gymnasium, Bach studied theology, Latin, and Greek.

By 3 April 1700, Bach began attending St. Michael’s School in Lüneburg, which was about two weeks’ travel north of Ohrdruf. The journey was likely made mostly on foot. While at the school, he sang in the choir until his voice changed, and he had access to the school’s large music library. Recent evidence suggests he also received organ lessons there. He also met sons of aristocrats from northern Germany who were studying at the nearby Ritter-Academie to prepare for other careers.

In 1707, four months after moving to Mühlhausen, Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach. That same year, their first child, Catharina Dorothea, was born. Maria Barbara’s older, unmarried sister joined them and helped care for the household until her death in 1729. Three sons were born: Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Gottfried Bernhard. All became musicians, and the first two became composers. Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara had seven children in total. Their twins, born in 1713, died within a year, and their last son, Leopold, also died shortly after birth. On 7 July 1720, while Bach was in Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, Maria Barbara died suddenly. The following year, Bach met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a talented soprano who was 16 years younger than him, while she was performing at the court in Köthen. They married on 3 December 1721. Together, they had 13 children, six of whom lived to adulthood: Gottfried Heinrich; Elisabeth Juliane Friederica (1726–1781); Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian, both of whom became musicians; Johanna Carolina (1737–1781); and Regina Susanna (1742–1809).

Career

In January 1703, shortly after finishing school at St. Michael's in 1702 and being denied a job as an organist in Sangerhausen, Bach was hired as a court musician in the chapel of Johann Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. His duties there are not clearly described, but they likely included simple, non-musical tasks. During his seven-month time in Weimar, his skill as a keyboard player became well-known, leading to an invitation to inspect a new organ and give the first performance at the New Church (now called Bach Church) in Arnstadt, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southwest of Weimar. On August 14, 1703, Bach became the organist at the New Church, with light responsibilities, a relatively good salary, and access to a new organ tuned to allow music in many different keys to be played.

Although Johann Ernst III enjoyed music, their relationship became difficult. Between 1705 and 1706, Bach upset the duke by staying away for about four months after taking a four-week leave. During this time, he studied with the organist and composer Johann Adam Reincken and visited Lübeck to hear Reincken and Dieterich Buxtehude perform. The trip to Lübeck was reportedly 450 kilometers (280 miles) each way, and Bach walked. Buxtehude likely introduced Bach to Reincken so he could learn from Reincken’s ability to write fugues, his organ playing, and his improvisation skills. Bach had already studied Reincken’s music closely, copying Reincken’s famous piece An Wasserflüssen Babylon when he was 15 years old. When Bach returned to see Reincken in 1720 and showed his own improvisation skills, Reincken reportedly said, “I thought this art was dead, but I see it lives in you.”

In 1706, Bach applied for a job as organist at the Blasius Church in Mühlhausen. As part of his application, he performed a cantata at Easter on April 24, 1707, that was similar to his later work Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. His application was accepted a month later, and he began the job in July. The position offered better pay, improved conditions, and a stronger choir. Bach convinced the church and town leaders in Mühlhausen to fund a costly renovation of the Blasius Church’s organ. In 1708, Bach wrote Gott ist mein König, BWV 71, a festive cantata for the opening of a new council. This was the only Bach cantata published during his lifetime. Bach returned to Weimar in 1708 after Johann Ernst’s death as court organist. He worked with Johann Ernst’s son, also named Johann Ernst, who had a strong interest in music. The prince’s love for collecting music was well-known, and in 1713, when one of Bach’s students, P. D. Kräuter, requested time off to study in Weimar, he mentioned the French and Italian music the prince planned to introduce there. The prince also composed music, and Bach created two organ concertos, BWV 592 and BWV 595, based on a theme by the prince.

Bach left Mühlhausen in 1708, returning to Weimar as organist and later becoming Konzertmeister (director of music) at the ducal court in 1714. This role allowed him to work with a large group of professional musicians. Bach and his wife moved into a house near the ducal palace. His time in Weimar marked a period of steady composition of keyboard and orchestral works. He developed the skill and confidence to expand musical structures and incorporate styles from other countries. He learned to write dramatic openings and use rhythmic and harmonic techniques used by Italian composers like Vivaldi, Corelli, and Torelli. Bach absorbed these styles by arranging Vivaldi’s string and wind concertos for harpsichord and organ. He was especially drawn to the Italian style, where one or more solo instruments alternate with the full orchestra throughout a piece.

In Weimar, Bach continued to play and compose for the organ and perform with the duke’s ensemble. He also began writing preludes and fugues that later became part of The Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of two volumes written over 20 years, each containing 24 pairs of preludes and fugues in every major and minor key. He also started work on the Little Organ Book, which includes traditional Lutheran hymns arranged in complex musical patterns. In 1713, Bach was offered a job in Halle when he advised officials during a renovation of the main organ in the Market Church of Our Dear Lady by Christoph Cuntzius.

In early 1714, Bach was promoted to Konzertmeister, a role that required him to perform a church cantata each month in the castle church. The first three cantatas in this new series were Himmelskönig, sei willkommen, BWV 182, for Palm Sunday; Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12, for Jubilate Sunday; and Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten!, BWV 172, for Pentecost. His first Christmas cantata, Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63, premiered in 1714 or 1715. In 1717, Bach fell out of favor in Weimar. According to the court secretary’s report, he was jailed for nearly a month before being dismissed: “On November 6, [1717], the former concertmaster and organist Bach was confined to the County Judge’s place of detention for being too stubborn about his dismissal and was finally released on December 2 with notice of his unfavorable discharge.”

In 1717, Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen, hired Bach as his Kapellmeister (director of music). Leopold, a musician himself, valued Bach’s talents, paid him well, and gave him freedom to compose and perform. Leopold was a Calvinist, so he did not use elaborate music in worship, and most of Bach’s work during this time was secular, including orchestral suites, cello suites,

Death and burial

Johann Sebastian Bach died on July 28, 1750, due to problems from eye surgery that did not work. He had a stroke a few days before his death. He was first buried at Old St. John's Cemetery in Leipzig, where his grave had no marker for about 150 years. In 1894, his remains were discovered and moved to a vault in St. John's Church. This building was destroyed during World War II by Allied bombing, and in 1950, Bach's remains were moved to their current location in St. Thomas Church. Later research has questioned whether the remains in the grave are truly Bach's.

An inventory made a few months after Bach's death listed items in his estate, including five harpsichords, two lute-harpsichords, three violins, three violas, two cellos, a viola da gamba, a lute, a spinet, and 52 "sacred books," such as works by Martin Luther and Josephus. C. P. E. Bach ensured that The Art of Fugue, though incomplete, was published in 1751. Alongside one of J. S. Bach's former students, Johann Friedrich Agricola, C. P. E. Bach also wrote the obituary ("Nekrolog"), which appeared in Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, a periodical journal created by the Society of Musical Sciences, in 1754.

Music

Johann Sebastian Bach never traveled to France or Italy, but he was influenced by music from both countries. He studied the works of composers who were alive and those who had passed away. These influences can be heard in his compositions.

The court in Weimar was especially interested in Italian music. Not all the music Bach heard there has been identified, but Antonio Vivaldi was a major influence. Bach borrowed the idea of strong, moving rhythms from Vivaldi’s music.

• The model for BWV 974 has been linked to Vivaldi, Benedetto Marcello, and Alessandro Marcello. In the second half of the 20th century, research by scholars like Eleanor Selfridge-Field showed that the oboe concerto used by Bach was originally written by Alessandro Marcello, as noted in a 1717 printed edition.
• The model for BWV 979 has been linked to Vivaldi and Giuseppe Torelli. It was listed as No. 10 in the Anhang (Appendix) of the Ryom-Verzeichnis (RV) and usually believed to be written by Torelli. However, in 2005, Federico Maria Sardelli argued that it was actually written by Vivaldi. This led to the concerto being relisted as RV 813. The piece was created before 1711, and its structure does not match Vivaldi’s later style.
• No models have been found for BWV 977, 983, or 986. BWV 977 has a more Italian style than BWV 983 or 986. David Schulenberg suggests that BWV 977 may have been inspired by an Italian composer, while BWV 983 and 986 may have been inspired by German composers.

Bach made other transcriptions of Vivaldi’s concertos based on manuscripts of varying quality. In 2011, Joseph Butler studied how original Bach’s transcriptions were compared to Vivaldi’s original works. He found that other composers likely influenced Bach when he created music inspired by Vivaldi. Butler wrote that the concertos Bach transcribed from Vivaldi’s Op. 3 are the most original of his transcriptions, as they were based on published editions of high quality. Other transcriptions were made from manuscripts of less clear quality. Later versions of these works were published in Bach’s Opp. 4 and 7:

• After Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in B-flat major (later published as Op. 4 No. 1, RV 383a): Concerto in G major, BWV 980 (harpsichord)
• After Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in G minor, RV 316 (later published as Op. 4 No. 6, RV 316a): Concerto in G minor, BWV 975 (harpsichord)
• After Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in G major (later published as Op. 7 No. 8, RV 299): Concerto in G major, BWV 973 (harpsichord)
• After Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto Grosso Mogul in D major, RV 208 (later published as Op. 7 No. 11, RV 208a): Concerto in C major, BWV 594 (organ)
• After Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in D minor, RV 813 (formerly RV Anh. 10, often linked to Torelli): Concerto in B minor, BWV 979 (harpsichord)

Bach used the theme from the first movement of Vivaldi’s “Spring” concerto in The Four Seasons for the third movement (aria) of his cantata Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende?, BWV 27. Vivaldi’s concertos and arias deeply influenced Bach, as seen in his St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, and other cantatas. According to Christoph Wolff and Walter Emery, Bach transcribed six of Vivaldi’s concertos for solo keyboard, three for organ, and one for four harpsichords, strings, and basso continuo (BWV 1065), based on Vivaldi’s concerto for four violins, two violas, cello, and basso continuo (RV 580).

Arcangelo Corelli’s influence on chamber music extended beyond Italy. His works helped shape the music of many composers, including Bach, Vivaldi, Georg Friedrich Handel, and François Couperin. Bach studied Corelli’s work and based an organ fugue (BWV 579) on Corelli’s Opus 3 of 1689. Handel’s Opus 6 Concerti Grossi were modeled on Corelli’s older Opus 6 Concerti, not the later three-movement Venetian concerto style favored by Vivaldi.

Jean-Baptiste Lully is credited with creating the French overture in the 1650s. This form was widely used in the Baroque and Classical eras, especially by Bach and Handel. Later French composer François Couperin influenced the dance-based movements in Bach’s keyboard suites. Lully’s music changed the style of dances in the French court, replacing slow, stately movements with lively ballets featuring rapid rhythms and well-known dance types like gavottes, menuets, rigaudons, and sarabandes, which Bach also used in his compositions.

Bach’s music includes four-part harmony, modulation, ornamentation

Reception and legacy

During the 18th century, Johann Sebastian Bach’s music was mostly admired by knowledgeable experts. The first biography about Bach was written at the start of the 19th century, and the Bach Gesellschaft completed and published all of his known works by the end of that century. After the Bach Revival, Bach was recognized as one of the greatest composers, a title he still holds today. The BACH motif, which he sometimes included in his music, has been used in many tributes to him since the 19th century.

In the second half of the 18th century, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was highly respected, even more than his father. Composers like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven admired his work and collected it eagerly. Mozart once said, “Bach is the father, we are the children.” However, Carl Philipp Emanuel always acknowledged his father’s original ideas in his own compositions, which were often preferred over his father’s after Johann Sebastian Bach died.

During his lifetime, Bach was respected by his colleagues, but his fame outside a small group of experts was due more to his skillful performances than his compositions, which were rarely shared. He did receive public recognition, such as being named court composer by Augustus III of Poland and being praised by Frederick the Great and Hermann Karl von Keyserling. However, he also faced challenges, like in Leipzig, where he was treated poorly. Some critics, like Johann Adolf Scheibe, suggested he write simpler music, while others, such as Johann Mattheson and Lorenz Christoph Mizler, supported him. After Bach’s death, his reputation as a composer declined for a time because his music was seen as old-fashioned compared to new styles. People mainly remembered him as a skilled organ player and teacher. Most of the music printed during his lifetime was for the organ or harpsichord.

Bach’s family members inherited many of his manuscripts, but not all worked to preserve them, leading to some losses. Carl Philipp Emanuel played a major role in protecting his father’s legacy by writing his father’s obituary, publishing his four-part chorales, and helping save many of his father’s works. In 1805, Abraham Mendelssohn, who was married to a granddaughter of Daniel Itzig (a supporter of Bach), bought a large collection of Bach’s manuscripts from Carl Philipp Emanuel’s family and donated them to the Berlin Sing-Akademie. Wilhelm Friedemann, Bach’s eldest son, performed some of his father’s cantatas but later sold part of his collection. Bach’s students, including his son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnickol and others, helped spread his music. Some early admirers, like Itzig, were not musicians. His daughters took lessons from Kirnberger and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and Sara Itzig Levy became a collector of Bach’s works and a supporter of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

While in Leipzig, performances of Bach’s church music were limited to some motets and Passions conducted by his student Johann Friedrich Doles. A new group of Bach fans began collecting and copying his music, including large works like the Mass in B minor. Gottfried van Swieten, an Austrian official, helped share Bach’s legacy with composers in Vienna. Haydn owned copies of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Mass in B minor and was influenced by Bach’s music. Mozart owned a copy of one of Bach’s motets and transcribed some of his instrumental works. Beethoven learned The Well-Tempered Clavier completely by age 11 and called Bach the “progenitor of harmony.”

In 1802, Johann Nikolaus Forkel published the first biography of Bach, dedicated to van Swieten. In 1805, Abraham Mendelssohn donated a large collection of Bach manuscripts to the Berlin Sing-Akademie. The Sing-Akademie sometimes performed Bach’s works publicly, such as his first keyboard concerto, with Sara Itzig Levy playing the piano. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, Bach has been widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in Western music history.

In the early 19th century, more of Bach’s music was published for the first time. Breitkopf & Härtel printed chorale preludes, Hoffmeister published harpsichord music, and The Well-Tempered Clavier was printed by multiple publishers in 1801. Vocal music, like motets and the Magnificat, was also published. In 1818, a publisher called the Mass in B minor the greatest composition ever. Bach’s influence was seen in the next generation of composers. Abraham’s son, Felix Mendelssohn, wrote his first Magnificat at age 13, clearly inspired by Bach’s work.

Felix Mendelssohn’s 1829 performance of the St. Matthew Passion started the Bach Revival. The St. John Passion was first performed publicly in 1833, and the Mass in B minor had its first public performance in 1844. More of Bach’s vocal works were published in the 1830s and 1840s, including six cantatas and the St. Matthew Passion. Organ compositions were also published. Chopin began writing his 24 Preludes, Op. 28, inspired by The Well-Tempered Clavier in 1835, and Schumann published his Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH in 1845. Composers like Zelter, Franz, and Liszt arranged Bach’s music for modern tastes or combined it with new works, such as Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” Liszt, influenced by Mendelssohn, developed an interest in Bach’s organ music and commissioned a special instrument in the 1840s.

In 1850, the Bach-Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was formed to promote Bach’s music. The society began publishing Bach’s works in a complete edition, starting with Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1. Robert Schumann, Moritz Hauptmann, and Otto Jahn led this project, which was created 100 years after Bach’s death.