Bach, Johann Sebastian 1685-1750
German composer

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach. Orphaned before he was 10, he was placed in the care of his elder brother, Johann Christoph Bach (1671-1721), organist at Ohrdruf, who taught him to play the organ and clavier. Bach was forbidden to use his brother's music library, and resorted to copying out scores at night, a habit which remained with him throughout his life and eventually ruined his eyesight. In 1700 he became a church chorister at St Michael's church, L�neberg. When his voice broke, he served as a violinist and harpsichord accompanist.

In 1704, after a year at the court of Weimar, he was appointed organist at Arnstadt, where he wrote many of his early church cantatas, including the colourful 'Easter' cantata, BWV15. He found his official duties as choirmaster increasingly tedious, and in 1705 he took a month's leave, which he exceeded, to journey on foot to L�beck to hear the organist Diderik Buxtehude. This and his innovations in the chorale accompaniments infuriated the authorities at Arnstadt. In 1707, now married to his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, he left to become organist at M�hlhausen. The prevailing Calvinism there meant disapproval of his more elaborate anthems, but his imposing inaugural cantata, 'God is my King', was approved for publication.

In 1708 he moved to the ducal court at Weimar and remained there nine years. The two toccatas and fugues in D minor, the fantasia and fugue in G minor, the preludes and fugues in C and G, and the Little Organ Book of short preludes, all belong to this period. In 1716 the duke gave the senior post of kapellmeister to a musician who was greatly inferior to Bach, who promptly resigned, to take up shortly afterwards the post of kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-C�then.

During his time at C�then, Bach wrote four overtures, the six French and six English suites, several concertos for one and two violins, and others for various groups of instruments. Six of these were written in 1721 as a commission for the margrave of Brandenburg, who has given his name to them ever since. In The Well-tempered Clavier (1722), which profoundly influenced Mozart, Bach transformed the conventional structure of preludes and fugues written in each major and minor key.

In 1720 Maria died suddenly. Of their seven children, four had survived. In 1722 Bach married Anna Magdalena Wilken, an accomplished singer, harpsichordist and copyist, for whom he wrote a collection of keyboard pieces. For his six surviving children by her, Bach wrote a keyboard instruction book, and with Anna he completed a second Notebook. In 1723 he was appointed cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, a post which he retained for the remainder of his life, despite acrimonious disagreements with the authorities and his colleagues. To make it more difficult for them to overrule his decisions, Bach solicited the title of court composer to the Elector of Saxony (Augustus II), and for his sponsor he wrote the 30 'Goldberg Variations'. Goldberg was a pupil of his, and of his son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

Bach's house in Leipzig became a centre of musical pilgrimage, and many eminent musicians, including several relations, became his pupils. He became conductor of the Collegium Musicum, a society composed mainly of students, in 1729, but in 1743 refused to join the newly sponsored concert society, from which originated the famous Gewandhaus concerts. At Leipzig he wrote nearly 300 church cantatas, of which 200 survive, mainly choral in character but including many fine arias for solo voices. His greatest works from this period are usually reckoned to be the two passions (St John Passion and St Matthew Passion), the Mass in B Minor (begun in 1733), and the Christmas Oratorio.

In 1747 Bach visited Berlin and was unexpectedly invited to Potsdam by Frederick the Great, who asked him to try his latest Silbermann pianofortes. After much improvization, Bach departed with a subject given to him by Frederick which he developed into a trio for flute, violin, and clavier, entitled The Musical Offering. He died two years later, almost totally blind, of apoplexy. At the time of his death he was engaged on a masterly series of fugues for keyboard, The Art of Fugue. His work stands midway between the old and the new, his main achievement being his remarkable development of polyphony. To his contemporaries he was known mainly as an organist, and a century was to pass before he was to achieve due recognition as a composer.

Bibliography: T Dowley, Bach His Life and Times (1985); M Boyd, Bach (1983); H T David and A Mendel, The Bach Reader (1966).