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Johann Sebastian Bach

✨ 1685–1750, Baroque music and organ

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a German composer, organist and teacher whose music became one of the foundations of Western classical tradition. Born in Eisenach into a family of musicians, he learned music from an early age and quickly mastered the organ, an instrument for which he became especially admired. During his career he worked in several German cities, including Arnstadt, Weimar, Köthen and Leipzig, where he spent the final twenty-seven years of his life as cantor of St.

Thomas Church. His responsibilities included composing music for church services, directing choirs, training students and performing as an organist. Although respected by specialists during his lifetime, he was valued more for his skill as a performer and teacher than for the lasting importance of his compositions. Bach wrote more than a thousand surviving works covering nearly every musical genre of his time except opera.

His output includes cantatas, passions, masses, concertos, orchestral suites, chamber music, organ pieces and keyboard collections such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations. He combined technical mastery with expressive depth, making inventive use of harmony, counterpoint and musical structure. Counterpoint is the art of weaving several independent melodies together so that they form a coherent whole.

After his death, changing musical tastes reduced his popularity, but the nineteenth century brought renewed interest, especially through Felix Mendelssohn's revival of the St. Matthew Passion. Today Bach's music is performed around the world and continues to influence composers, performers and music students.

💡 Did you know?

Do you know that Bach was so passionate that he once walked over 400 kilometers on foot? He absolutely wanted to go and listen to a famous organist play in another city. He was not afraid to make long efforts to learn the secrets of the best musicians and become a master himself.

Bach came from a family where everyone loved music. He had 20 children, and several of them also became famous composers! At home, music was played all the time, it was a bit like living in a permanent concert with all his large family.

At the end of his life, Bach became almost blind, but that didn't stop him! He continued to compose by dictating his notes to his students or his sons. His music was so engraved in his mind that he could hear all the instruments of an orchestra in his head without needing to see them.