Early life

Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family of musicians on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia (a state in central Germany). Johann Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, played stringed instruments. His mother was Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. Young Johann Sebastian may have learned the basics of string playing from his father.

By the age of 10, Johann Sebastian had lost both parents. His eldest brother, Johann Christoph, looked after him in Ohrdruf. Christoph was an organist and is believed to have given Johann Sebastian his first keyboard lessons. In 1700, Johann Sebastian began attending school in Lüneburg, where he sang in the boys' choir at St. Michael's Church. The school had a famous music library with more than 1,100 titles in it.

Professional career

By the time Bach left Lüneburg in 1702 or 1703, he was a skilled organist and composer. In August 1703, at the age of 18, he was appointed church organist in the New Church at Arnstadt.

At Arnstadt, Bach devoted himself to keyboard music, particularly on the organ. His employers complained that the church gathering could not sing along with the organ as he played it, however. In turn, Bach did not have a good opinion of the local singers and instrumentalists and was on bad terms with them.

In June 1707, Bach got a job as church organist in Mühlhausen. On October 17, he married his second cousin Maria Barbara Bach. Bach produced several church cantatas while at Mühlhausen but resigned from his post after just a year.

Next he went to serve as court organist and a member of the orchestra at Weimar. Encouraged by Duke Wilhelm Ernst, he concentrated on the organ during the first few years at Weimar. In 1714, he became concertmaster there. His duties included composing a new cantata every month.

In August 1717, Bach was appointed musical director to Prince Leopold of Köthen. He resigned from his post at Weimar, but Duke Wilhelm refused to let him go. In about November 1717, Bach again asked for permission to leave Weimar. The duke imprisoned him for almost a month. A few days after his release, Bach moved to Köthen.

Maria Barbara Bach died in 1720, leaving him with four children. Bach then married Anna Magdalena Wilcken in 1721. Apart from his first wife's death, these early years at Köthen were probably the happiest of Bach's life. Among Bach's great works composed during that time were the Brandenburg concertos.

In 1723, Bach accepted a position as cantor (choir leader and teacher) in Leipzig. In that position, he was to supply performers to four churches, including the two most important, St. Nicholas and St. Thomas. During the early years, he produced a large number of new cantatas, sometimes up to one per week. Beginning in 1729, he also directed the Leipzig Collegium Musicum (Leipzig Music Society), an orchestra of students and professionals that he led off and on into the early 1740s.

In 1736, Bach became court composer to the elector of Saxony in Dresden, where he was able to devote himself more to his own projects. During the last decade of his life, he became interested in more progressive music. He completed the Mass in B Minor in 1749, a year before he died.

Death

Bach died, blind and weakened by illness, on July 28, 1750, at Leipzig. He had fathered 20 children with his two wives, nine of whom had lived past the age of 5. Four sons worked as professional musicians; his daughters were not educated.

Scholars have marked Bach's death as the end of the Baroque period in music. (The Baroque period was a phase in the history of Western art and culture that began in the 17th century.) His music has remained very much alive, however, and has influenced many of the great composers who followed him. (See also classical music.)