
			Johann Sebastian Bach 

         Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest 
 composers in Western musical history. More than 1,000 of his 
 compositions survive. Some examples are the Art of Fugue, 
 Brandenburg Concerti, the Goldberg Variations for 
 Harpsichord, the Mass in B-Minor, the motets, the Easter and 
 Christmas oratorios, Toccata in F Major, French Suite No 5, 
 Fugue in G Major, Fugue in G Minor ("The Great"), St. 
 Matthew Passion, and Jesu Der Du Meine Seele. He came from a 
 family of musicians. There were over 53 musicians in his 
 family over a period of 300 years.
         Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany 
 on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a
 talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills for 
 string playing; another relation, the organist at Eisenach's 
 most important church, instructed the young boy on the 
 organ. In 1695 his parents died and he was only 10 years 
 old. He went to go stay with his older brother, Johann 
 Christoph, who was a professional organist at Ohrdruf. 
 Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and continued 
 his younger brother's education on that instrument, as well 
 as on the harpsichord. After several years in this 
 arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in 
 Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left his brother's 
 tutelage.
         A master of several instruments while still in his 
 teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of 
 18 as a "lackey and violinist" in a court orchestra in 
 Weimar; soon after, he took the job of organist at a church 
 in Arnstadt. Here, as in later posts, his perfectionist 
 tendencies and high expectations of other musicians - for 
 example, the church choir - rubbed his colleagues the wrong 
 way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes during 
 his short tenure. In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed
 up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt (and the 
 working conditions) and moved on to another organist job, 
 this time at the St. Blasius Church in Muhlhausen. The same 
 year, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. 
         Again caught up in a running conflict between 
 factions of his church, Bach fled to Weimar after one year 
 in Muhlhausen. In Weimar, he assumed the post of organist 
 and concertmaster in the ducal chapel. He remained in Weimar 
 for nine years, and there he composed his first wave of 
 major works, including organ showpieces and cantatas.
         By this stage in his life, Bach had developed a 
 reputation as a brilliant, if somewhat inflexible, musical 
 talent. His proficiency on the organ was unequaled in Europe 
 - in fact, he toured regularly as a solo virtuoso - and his 
 growing mastery of compositional forms, like the fugue and 
 the canon, was already attracting interest from the musical 
 establishment - which, in his day, was the Lutheran church. 
 But, like many individuals of uncommon talent, he was never 
 very good at playing the political game, and therefore 
 suffered periodic setbacks in his career. He was passed over 
 for a major position - which was Kapellmeister (Chorus 
 Master) of Weimar - in 1716; partly in reaction to this 
 snub, he left Weimar the following year to take a job as 
 court conductor in Anhalt-Cothen. There, he slowed his 
 output of church cantatas, and instead concentrated on
 instrumental music - the Cothen period produced, among other
 masterpieces, the Brandenburg Concerti.
         While at Cothen, Bach's wife, Maria Barbara, died. 
 Bach remarried soon after - to Anna Magdalena - and forged 
 ahead with his work. He also forged ahead in the 
 child-rearing department, producing 13 children with his new 
 wife - six of whom survived childhood - to add to the four 
 children he had raised with Maria Barbara. Several of these 
 children would become fine composers in their own right - 
 particularly three sons: Wilhelm Friedmann, Carl Philipp 
 Emanuel and Johann Christian. 
         After conducting and composing for the court 
 orchestra at Cothen for seven years, Bach was offered the 
 highly prestigious post of cantor (music director) of St. 
 Thomas' Church in Leipzig - after it had been turned down by 
 two other composers. The job was a demanding one; he had to 
 compose cantatas for the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas 
 churches, conduct the choirs, oversee the musical
 activities of numerous municipal churches, and teach Latin 
 in the St. Thomas choir school. Accordingly, he had to get 
 along with the Leipzig church authorities, which proved 
 rocky going. But he persisted, polishing the musical 
 component of church services in Leipzig and continuing to 
 write music of various kinds with a level of craft and 
 emotional profundity that was his alone.
         Bach remained at his post in Leipzig until his death 
 in 1750. He was creatively active until the very end, even 
 after cataract problems virtually blinded him in 1740. His 
 last musical composition, a chorale prelude entitled "Before 
 They Throne, My God, I Stand", was dictated to his 
 son-in-law only days before his death. 

