Johann Sebastian Bach[a] (31 March [O.S.

21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German

composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such
as the Art of Fugue, the Brandenburg Concertos, and the Goldberg Variations as well as for vocal
music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach
Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.[3]

The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born
as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After becoming an orphan at age 10, he
lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph Bach, after which he
continued his musical development in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia,
working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and, for
longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar—where he expanded his repertoire for
the organ—and Köthen—where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723
he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St. Thomas) in Leipzig. He composed
music for the principal Lutheran churches of the city, and for its university's student
ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1726 he published some of his keyboard and organ
music. In Leipzig, as had happened in some of his earlier positions, he had a difficult
relation with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the
title of court composer by King Augustus III of Poland in 1736. In the last decades of his
life he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of
complications after eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.
Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery
of counterpoint, harmonicand motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms,
forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's
compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular.[4] He composed
Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns,
not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his
sacred songs. He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments.
He composed concertos, for instance for violinand for harpsichord, and suites, as
chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works employ the genres
of canon and fugue.
Throughout the 18th century Bach was mostly renowned as an organist, while his
keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic
qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach biographies, and by
the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of
scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals and websites exclusively
devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a
numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His
music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including for
instance the Air on the G String, and of recordings, for instance three different box sets
with complete performances of the composer's works marking the 250th anniversary of
his death.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach,
in present-day Germany, on 21 March 1685 O.S. (31 March 1685 N.S.). He was the son
of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth
Lämmerhirt.[10] He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius, [11] who
likely taught him violin and basic music theory.[12] His uncles were all professional
musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians, and
composers. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach (1645–1693), introduced him to the
organ, and an older second cousin, Johann Ludwig Bach (1677–1731), was a well-known
composer and violinist.[13]
Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later.[7] The 10-year-old
Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach (1671–1721), the organist
at St. Michael's Church in Ohrdruf, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.[14] There he studied,
performed, and copied music, including his own brother's, despite being forbidden to do
so because scores were so valuable and private, and blank ledger paper of that type
was costly.[15][16] He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on
the clavichord. J.C. Bach exposed him to the works of great composers of the day,
including South German composers such as Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann
Christoph had studied) and Johann Jakob Froberger; North German
composers;[5] Frenchmen, such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis Marchand, and Marin
Marais; and the Italian clavierist Girolamo Frescobaldi. Also during this time, he was
taught theology, Latin, Greek, French, and Italian at the local gymnasium.[17]
By 3 April 1700, Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmann—who was two years Bach's
elder—were enrolled in the prestigious St. Michael's School in Lüneburg, some two
weeks' travel north of Ohrdruf.[18][19] Their journey was probably undertaken mostly on
foot.[17][19] His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a wider range of
European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the School's three-
manual organ and harpsichords.[17] He came into contact with sons of aristocrats from
northern Germany, sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in other
disciplines.
While in Lüneburg, Bach had access to St. John's Church and possibly used the church's
famous organ from 1553, since it was played by his organ teacher Georg
Böhm.[20] Because of his musical talent, Bach had significant contact with Böhm while a
student in Lüneburg, and also took trips to nearby Hamburg where he observed "the
great North German organist Johann Adam Reincken".[20][21] Stauffer reports the
discovery in 2005 of the organ tablatures that Bach wrote out when still in his teens of
works by Reincken and Dieterich Buxtehude, showing "a disciplined, methodical, well-
trained teenager deeply committed to learning his craft".[20]