Born in the same year as his baroque counterpart Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach came into the world on March 21st 1685. He was born in Eisenach, Germany, where his father was a town musician. Bach came from a long line of composers - over 300 years' worth of Bachs all worked as professional musicians. By the time Johann was 10, both his parents had died, so he was brought up by his older brother, who was a church organist. Johann became a very good organist, too.
As with many things in Bach's life, family was everything. Musicians in Bach's extended family included court musicians, teachers, composers and church organists, something that young Johann would himself grow into.
Johann Sebastian Bach held three major jobs in his life: first he worked for a duke, then for a prince, and finally, he became director of music at the St. Thomas Church and School in Leipzig, Germany. Even though his job in Leipzig kept him very busy, in his spare time, Bach conducted a group of musicians who liked to get together to perform at a local coffee house.
It seems almost bizarre to suggest that Bach was not especially popular using his lifetime, but particularly towards the end of his life he was seen as a bit of a dinosaur. No one really knew much about his music until 100 years after his death, when another composer, Felix Mendelssohn, conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion.
Bach is now seen as one of the greatest geniuses in music history. He wrote all kinds of music -- for organ and other keyboard instruments, orchestras, choirs, and concertos for many different instrumental combinations. Bach was fond of incorporating the numbers 14 and 41 into his musical works, because they were derived from the mystical numerology values of the letters in his own name. We're not quite sure how that ended up as 'Air on a G-string', but his works are littered with references to those numbers.
Four of Bach's children went on to have careers as composers - Carl Philip Emmanuel (pictured), Wilhelm Friedemann, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian. However, none of them managed to eclipse their father in terms of popularity.
Photo source: wikipedia.org
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