Johann Sebastian Bach: The Life Story Behind the Baroque Master

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music that sounds like mathematics and like prayer at the same time. His fugues are built with a logic that a mathematician could admire, and his chorales are sung in churches every Sunday, by people who may not know his name but who know his tunes. He wrote more than a thousand works, for organ, for choir, for orchestra, and for solo instruments, and he did it while working as a church musician, a court musician, and a teacher, raising twenty children, and living a life that was, by the standards of genius, remarkably ordinary. He was not famous in his lifetime in the way Mozart or Beethoven were. He was a craftsman, a worker, and a father, and his music was only fully recognised long after his death.

He was born in Eisenach, in Germany, in 1685, into a family of musicians that had been making music for generations. The Bach family was like a guild, with uncles, cousins, and brothers who were all organists, violinists, or composers, and Johann Sebastian was the most talented of them all, though no one knew it at the time. He was orphaned at ten, he was raised by his older brother, he walked hundreds of miles to hear a famous organist play, and he worked in small towns, in Weimar, in Köthen, and in Leipzig, writing music for church services, for princes, and for his students. He did it quietly, without seeking fame, and he left behind a body of work that is now seen as the foundation of Western music.

His life is a story of work, not of drama. He did not die young, he did not go deaf, he did not have a scandalous love life. He worked, he taught, he composed, and he raised a large family, and he did it with a skill and a devotion that are hard to match. That ordinariness is what makes him interesting, because it shows that genius does not need a dramatic life. It can live in a small town, in a church, in a classroom, and in a house full of children, and it can produce music that lasts for centuries.

A Child of the Bach Musical Family

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 31 March 1685 in Eisenach, in what is now Germany, the youngest of eight children of Johann Ambrosius Bach, a town musician, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. The Bach family had been musicians for at least six generations, with organists, violinists, and composers in towns across Thuringia, and Johann Sebastian grew up in a house where music was not a hobby, but a trade, like carpentry or farming. His father taught him the violin, and his uncles taught him the organ, and he learned music the way other children learn a family business, by watching, by listening, and by practising every day.

His mother died in 1694, when he was nine, and his father died in 1695, when he was ten, leaving him an orphan. He went to live with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who was an organist in Ohrdruf, and who taught him the keyboard, the organ, and the art of composition. Johann Christoph was a strict teacher, and he is said to have kept a book of music by other composers locked away, which the young Sebastian copied by moonlight, a story that may be exaggerated, but that shows his hunger to learn. He was a bright, serious child, and he was determined to become a musician, like his father and his brother before him.

He went to school in Ohrdruf, and then, in 1700, at the age of fifteen, he went to Lüneburg, where he sang in the choir of St. Michael’s School, and where he learned about French music, about Italian music, and about the organ. He was a good student, and he was a good singer, and he earned a small income from his singing, which helped him to live away from home. He also walked to Hamburg, a journey of about fifty kilometres, to hear the famous organist Johann Adam Reincken play, and he walked to Lübeck, a journey of more than four hundred kilometres, to hear Dietrich Buxtehude, the most famous organist of the time. Those walks, long and hard, show a young man who was willing to travel far to hear great music, and who was determined to learn from the best.

He got his first job as a musician in 1703, at the age of eighteen, as a court musician in Weimar, and then as an organist in Arnstadt, where he was responsible for the organ in the New Church. He was young, and he was already a skilled organist, but he was also difficult, quarrelling with his employers, with the choir, and with the town council, because he wanted to play music his own way, and because he was not good at following rules. That difficulty would stay with him, and it would cause him trouble in every job he held, but it also showed that he took music seriously, and that he would not compromise on quality, even for a small-town church.

Arnstadt, Weimar, and the Young Organist

In Arnstadt, Bach was the organist of the New Church, and he was expected to play for services, to teach the choir, and to keep the organ in good repair. He did his job well, but he also did things that annoyed his employers. He took a long leave, of four months, to go to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude, when he had only been given four weeks, and he returned late, and he was reprimanded. He also got into a fight with a bassoon player, and he was accused of playing music that was too complicated for the congregation. He was young, and he was impatient, and he wanted to play the music he loved, not the simple music that a small town expected. He left Arnstadt in 1707, after four years, and he moved to Mühlhausen, where he became the organist of St. Blasius Church.

In Mühlhausen he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach in 1707, and they had seven children together, of whom four survived to adulthood. The marriage was happy, and Maria Barbara supported his work, and she managed the household while he composed and played. He wrote a cantata for the town council, Gott ist mein König, which was a success, and he was offered a better job in Weimar, as court organist and chamber musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst. He took the job in 1708, and he moved to Weimar, where he would stay for nine years, from 1708 to 1717, a period in which he wrote a great deal of organ music, including the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, a piece that is still one of the most played organ works in the world, though its authorship has been questioned by some scholars.

In Weimar, Bach was a court musician, and he was expected to compose music for the duke, to play the organ, and to teach. He was also a father, with a growing family, and he was a teacher, with students who came to learn from him. He was becoming known as a great organist, and people travelled to hear him play, and to ask him to test new organs, which he did with a critical ear, listening for faults and for quality. He was also becoming frustrated, because he wanted to become Kapellmeister, the head of music at the court, and when the duke chose another man for the job, Bach was disappointed, and he began to look for a new position. He found one in Köthen, as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold, and he left Weimar in 1717, after a quarrel with the duke, who had him imprisoned for a month for asking to leave. That imprisonment is a strange fact, and it shows how seriously a prince took the loss of a musician, and how little freedom a court musician had in those days.

Köthen, the Prince, and Music Without Words

Köthen was a different world from Weimar. Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen was a Calvinist, and his court did not use music in church services in the same way, so Bach was free to write instrumental music, for orchestra, for solo instruments, and for chamber groups, without the demands of weekly cantatas. It was in Köthen, from 1717 to 1723, that Bach wrote some of his most famous instrumental works, including the Brandenburg Concertos, a set of six concertos for different combinations of instruments, written for the Margrave of Brandenburg, and the Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys, written as a teaching work for his students and for his children. He also wrote the solo violin sonatas and partitas, and the solo cello suites, works that are now the foundation of the repertoire for those instruments, and that are played by every serious violinist and cellist in the world.

His wife Maria Barbara died suddenly in 1720, while Bach was travelling with the prince, and he returned home to find that she had died and been buried in his absence. It was a shock, and a great loss, and he was left with four children to raise on his own. He married again in 1721, to Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a singer at the court, who was sixteen years younger than him, and who became his partner for the rest of his life. They had thirteen children together, of whom six survived to adulthood, and Anna Magdalena helped him by copying his music, by singing, and by managing the household. She was not only his wife. She was his assistant, his copyist, and his friend, and her work, in copying his manuscripts, has helped to preserve his music for us today.

In Köthen, Bach was happy, and he was productive, but the prince’s court was small, and Bach wanted a larger stage, and a better-paid job, for his growing family. In 1723 he applied for the job of Thomaskantor, the director of music at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, one of the most important musical posts in Germany, and he was chosen, after the first choice, Georg Philipp Telemann, turned the job down. Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723, with his family, and he would stay there for the rest of his life, for twenty-seven years, until his death in 1750. It was in Leipzig that he wrote his greatest church music, and it was there that he became the Bach we know today.

Leipzig, the Thomaskantor, and a Lifetime of Cantatas

Leipzig was a large, busy city, with a university, with trade fairs, and with two main churches, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, where Bach was responsible for the music. As Thomaskantor, he was expected to compose a cantata, a piece for choir, soloists, and orchestra, for every Sunday and for every feast day, which meant writing a new piece almost every week. He did it, for years, writing more than two hundred cantatas, of which about two hundred survive, and many of them are masterpieces, with beautiful arias, choruses, and instrumental writing. He also taught Latin and music at the St. Thomas School, where he lived with his family, and where he taught boys who sang in the choir. It was a hard job, with long hours, with quarrels with the town council, and with a salary that was never quite enough for his large family, but Bach did it, and he did it well.

In Leipzig he also wrote his great Passion settings, the St. John Passion, first performed in 1724, and the St. Matthew Passion, first performed in 1727, which tells the story of the crucifixion of Jesus, with a choir, soloists, and two orchestras. The St. Matthew Passion is one of the longest and most profound works in all music, lasting more than three hours, and it is still performed every year in churches and concert halls around the world, especially at Easter. He also wrote the Mass in B Minor, a large mass for choir, soloists, and orchestra, which he worked on for many years, and which was not performed in full during his lifetime. It is now seen as one of the greatest works of sacred music ever written, a summary of his life’s work, and a testament to his faith.

He also wrote the Goldberg Variations, a set of thirty variations for harpsichord, written for a student, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, and the Art of Fugue, a collection of fugues that explores the art of counterpoint, which he left unfinished at his death. He was a teacher, and he wrote music to teach his students, and his children, and his Well-Tempered Clavier, which he wrote in Köthen and in Leipzig, is still the first book that every piano student studies, because it teaches the keyboard in all keys, with a prelude and a fugue in each key. He was not only a composer. He was a teacher, and his teaching, through his music, has lasted for centuries.

His eyesight began to fail in his last years, and he had two operations on his eyes, performed by a travelling eye surgeon, John Taylor, which made his sight worse, not better, and which left him almost blind. He died on 28 July 1750 in Leipzig, at the age of sixty-five, after a stroke, and he was buried in St. John’s Churchyard in Leipzig, in an unmarked grave. His music was not widely known after his death, and it was only in the nineteenth century, when Felix Mendelssohn performed the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829, that Bach’s reputation began to grow, until he became recognised as one of the greatest composers who ever lived.

Twenty Children and a House Full of Music

Bach had twenty children, seven with his first wife Maria Barbara, and thirteen with his second wife Anna Magdalena, and of those twenty, ten survived to adulthood. That is a large family, even for the eighteenth century, and it meant that his house in Leipzig was always full of children, of music, and of noise. Several of his sons became composers themselves, including Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, and Johann Christian Bach, who became known as the London Bach, and who influenced Mozart. His daughters also sang and played, and his house was a school, a studio, and a family home all at once. He taught his children music, he wrote pieces for them, and he expected them to practise, and to learn, as he had learned from his own father and brother.

Anna Magdalena was central to that household. She copied his music, she sang in his cantatas, and she kept a notebook, the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, which contains simple pieces for keyboard, some by Bach, some by other composers, and some by Anna Magdalena herself. The notebook is still used today to teach children the piano, and it is a record of a family that made music together, every day, as part of ordinary life. Bach’s life was not a life of fame and glamour. It was a life of work, of family, and of music, and that ordinariness is part of what makes him so admirable.

The Rediscovery and Why Bach Endures

After Bach’s death, his music was largely forgotten, except by musicians who studied his works in private. His sons, who were famous in their own time, wrote in a newer, lighter style, and Bach’s complex, old-fashioned music seemed out of date. It was only in 1829, when Felix Mendelssohn, a young composer, performed the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin, that the public began to rediscover Bach, and to recognise him as a master. Since then, his reputation has only grown, until he is now seen as the father of Western music, the composer whose work is the foundation for everything that came after him, from Mozart to Beethoven to the composers of today.

His music is played every day, in churches, in concert halls, and in homes, and it is studied by every music student, because it teaches counterpoint, harmony, and the art of composition in a way that no other music does. The Well-Tempered Clavier is still the first book for piano students, the cello suites are still the first pieces for cellists, and the Brandenburg Concertos are still played at festivals around the world. Bach’s music has lasted because it is both logical and emotional, both mathematical and spiritual, and because it speaks to people who know nothing about music, as well as to people who know a great deal. That double quality is rare, and it is why Bach endures.

The Organ, the Choir, and a Working Musician’s Day

Bach’s daily life in Leipzig was a working musician’s life, not a glamorous one. He woke early, he taught at the St. Thomas School, he rehearsed the choir, he played the organ for services, and he composed in the evenings, often by candlelight, with his family around him. He was responsible for the music in two churches, for the boys in the choir, and for the town’s musical life, and he did it with a small salary, and with constant quarrels with the town council about money, about his teaching duties, and about the quality of the choir. He wrote letters complaining about his pay, about the boys who could not sing, and about the council’s lack of support, and those letters, which survive, show a man who was frustrated, and who felt undervalued, even though he was doing extraordinary work. That frustration is human, and it is one that many working musicians feel today, when they are asked to do a great deal, with little pay, and little thanks.

He also tested organs, travelling to other towns to play a new organ, and to give his opinion on its quality, a job that required a keen ear, and a knowledge of how an organ works, from the pipes to the bellows. He was respected as an organ expert, and his opinion mattered, and he took the job seriously, because a good organ was essential for church music, and a bad organ could ruin a service. That practical work, as an organ tester, as a teacher, and as a choirmaster, is part of his story, and it shows that he was not only a composer in a tower. He was a working musician, with a job, with a family, and with daily duties, and he did those duties well, even when he was frustrated, even when he was tired, and even when no one outside Leipzig knew his name. He was also a man who loved coffee, and who was known for his strong coffee, which he made himself, with great care, counting the beans, and grinding them by hand. That small detail, of a man who loved coffee, is a human one, and it reminds us that Bach was not only a composer, but also a person, with daily habits, with a family, and with a love of simple things. He lived in a house full of children, he taught, he played, and he drank coffee, and he wrote music that is still played today. That ordinariness, combined with genius, is what makes him so admirable, and so human.

My Take:

I think Bach is the composer I respect most, even though his music is the hardest for me to understand, because his life shows that genius does not need drama. He was not a child prodigy who toured Europe, he did not go deaf, he did not die young, and he did not have a scandalous love life. He was a church musician, a teacher, and a father of twenty children, and he wrote music every week, for church services, for his students, and for his family, and he did it with a skill that no one has matched. That ordinariness is inspiring to me, because it means that great work does not need a dramatic life. It needs work, every day, in a small town, in a church, in a classroom, and in a house full of children.

What I admire most is his work ethic. He wrote a cantata almost every week in Leipzig, for years, and each cantata is a new piece, with new music, for a new Sunday. That is an extraordinary amount of work, and it is work done without fame, without a large salary, and without the applause that Mozart and Beethoven received. He did it because it was his job, and because he believed that music for church should be the best music he could write, even if no one outside Leipzig ever heard it. I think about my own work, and about how hard it is to do good work when no one is watching, and Bach’s story tells me that good work matters, even when no one is watching, because the work itself is the reward, and because, in time, someone will notice.

I also admire his family life, and the way he raised twenty children while composing. That is a hard life, by any standard, with a large family to feed, with a house to run, and with a job that demanded new music every week. He did it with Anna Magdalena, who copied his music, who sang, and who managed the household, and I think we should remember her, as we remember Lee Krasner and Georgette Magritte, as a partner whose work made his work possible. Bach’s music was not made by a lone genius in a tower. It was made in a house full of children, with a wife who helped, and with students who learned, and that is a more human story than the lone genius story, and a truer one.

His walks to hear Buxtehude and Reincken are a part of his story that I love, because they show a young man who was willing to walk hundreds of kilometres to hear great music. He walked to Hamburg, he walked to Lübeck, and he did it because he wanted to learn, and because he knew that hearing a great organist was worth a long walk. I think about how easy it is today to hear any music, with a phone, with a recording, and I wonder if we have lost something by making it so easy. Bach had to walk, and the walking made the listening more precious, because he had earned it. I do not think we should walk hundreds of kilometres to hear music today, but I do think we should remember that listening is an act, and that it deserves effort, and attention, and not only a tap on a screen.

I have mixed feelings about his quarrels with his employers, and I want to be honest about that. He quarrelled in Arnstadt, he quarrelled in Weimar, and he quarrelled in Leipzig, with the town council, with the choir, and with anyone who told him what to do. He was difficult, and he was stubborn, and he did not like to be told that his music was too complicated, or that he should write simpler music for the congregation. I understand his frustration, because he was a great musician, and he was being asked to write simple music for people who did not understand his work. But I also think that a church musician has a duty to the congregation, not only to himself, and that Bach sometimes forgot that. He was right about the music, and wrong about the people, and that is a human failing, and one I can understand.

The story of his imprisonment in Weimar is another part of his life that surprises me, because it shows how little freedom a musician had in those days. He asked to leave his job, and the duke had him imprisoned for a month, for asking. That is a shocking fact, and it reminds me that musicians in the eighteenth century were servants, not artists, and that Bach’s freedom, which we take for granted today, was not a given. He fought for it, by leaving, by quarrelling, and by insisting on his worth, and that fight is part of his legacy, even if it is not as famous as his music. He was not only a composer. He was a man who wanted to be free, and who paid a price for that freedom.

I do not understand all of Bach’s music, and I want to be honest about that. The Art of Fugue is a difficult work, and the late quartets of Beethoven are easier for me to feel than a Bach fugue, which can sound like mathematics to my ears. I have listened to the Well-Tempered Clavier many times, and I still do not understand it fully, but I keep listening, because I trust that Bach knew what he was doing, and that the music will reveal itself slowly. That is a different kind of listening from Mozart, whose tunes hit me at once. Bach asks me to be patient, to listen again, and to grow with the music, and I respect that, even if I do not yet fully understand it.

What I take from his life is a lesson about work and about teaching. Bach was a teacher, and he wrote music to teach his students, and his children, and his teaching, through his music, has lasted for centuries. The Well-Tempered Clavier is still taught, the cello suites are still taught, and the Brandenburg Concertos are still played, because they teach something that cannot be taught in words: how to make music that is both logical and beautiful. I think that is a good way to live: to do your work well, to teach others, and to leave something behind that will help the next generation. Bach did that, quietly, in Leipzig, in a house full of children, and his teaching is still with us today.

If I could ask Bach one question, I would ask him what he felt when he played the organ, alone in a church, with no audience, only the sound of the pipes and the silence of the building. I think he would say that he felt close to God, and that the organ was a way of speaking to something larger than himself. That is a beautiful answer, and it is one I want to keep, because it reminds me that music is not only entertainment, and not only art, but also prayer, and that a person can pray with an organ, with a choir, and with a fugue, as well as with words. Bach prayed with music, every week, for twenty-seven years in Leipzig, and his prayers are still being heard today.

In the end, I think Bach teaches me that a life of work, of family, and of faith, can produce great art, and that genius does not need to be loud, or young, or famous, to be real. He was a craftsman, a teacher, and a father, and he wrote music that is still played, still studied, and still loved, more than two hundred and seventy years after his death. That is a legacy that few people have left, and it came from a man who was born in Eisenach, who was orphaned at ten, who walked to hear great organists, and who worked, every day, in a small town, in a church, and in a house full of children. I am glad we have his music, and I am glad that Mendelssohn rediscovered it, and I hope that the reader listens to it, not as a lesson, but as a gift, from a man who worked quietly, and who left us with a world of sound.

I also think about his daily life in Leipzig, and about how ordinary it was, and how extraordinary the music that came from it was. He woke early, he taught, he rehearsed, he played the organ, and he composed by candlelight, with his family around him, and he did it every day, for twenty-seven years, without fame, without a large salary, and without the applause that other composers received. That ordinariness is inspiring to me, because it means that great work does not need a grand stage. It needs a daily routine, a job, a family, and a commitment to do the work well, even when no one is watching. Bach did that, and his music is the proof that ordinary work, done with care, can become extraordinary, in time.

There is a lesson in his letters to the town council, complaining about his pay, and about the choir, that I want to keep, because it shows that even a great composer can feel undervalued, and can be frustrated by his employers. He wrote those letters, he argued, and he kept working, even though he felt that the council did not appreciate him. I think about my own work, and about how I feel when I am not appreciated, and I remember Bach, writing a cantata every week, even when the council complained, even when the choir could not sing, and I feel a little less alone. Frustration is part of work, and it does not have to stop work. Bach proved that, by working through it, week after week, for twenty-seven years.

I think about his sons, and about how four of them became composers, and how they wrote in a newer style, and how their father’s music seemed old-fashioned to them, and to their audiences. That is a sad story, in a way, because a father who is a genius can be a hard act to follow, and his sons had to find their own voices, in a world that had moved on from his style. But it is also a hopeful story, because his sons kept music alive in the family, and they taught others, and they helped to preserve their father’s work, even when it was not fashionable. I respect them for that, and I think about the children of famous people, who have to live in a shadow, and find their own light, and Bach’s sons did that, each in his own way.

Finally, I want to say something about the organ, and about how Bach’s organ music is still played, in churches, every Sunday, by organists who may not know his name, but who know his tunes. That is a legacy that few composers have: to write music that is used, every week, in worship, by ordinary people, in ordinary churches, not only in concert halls. Bach wrote for church, for God, and for his congregation, and his music is still doing that work, more than two hundred and seventy years after his death. I find that moving, because it means that his work was not only art, but also service, and that service continues, every Sunday, in churches around the world. That is a fitting end to a life of work, of family, and of faith.

I also think about his coffee, and about how a small, human detail can make a great man feel close. He counted his coffee beans, he ground them by hand, and he made his coffee with care, and that care, in a small thing, is the same care he brought to his music, counting notes, and writing fugues, with the same attention. I like that image, of Bach in his kitchen, making coffee, before going to teach, or to play the organ, because it reminds me that genius lives in ordinary moments, not only in great ones, and that a life of work is made of small, careful acts, repeated every day.

I also think about his eyesight, and about how he lost it, after operations that were meant to help him, and how he kept composing, even when he could barely see, dictating music to his son-in-law, and to his students, in his last months. That is a story of work done in darkness, and I find it moving, because it shows a man who would not stop, even when his eyes failed him, just as Beethoven would not stop when his ears failed him. Both men kept working, in the dark, and in the silence, and their music is the proof that work can continue, even when the body fails.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Johann Sebastian Bach born?

Bach was born on 31 March 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, into a family of musicians that had been making music for generations. He was orphaned at ten and raised by his older brother in Ohrdruf.

What are the Brandenburg Concertos?

The Brandenburg Concertos are six concertos for different combinations of instruments, written by Bach in Köthen and sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg. They are among his most famous instrumental works.

How many children did Bach have?

Bach had twenty children, seven with his first wife Maria Barbara and thirteen with his second wife Anna Magdalena. Ten survived to adulthood, and several of his sons became composers.

What is the Well-Tempered Clavier?

The Well-Tempered Clavier is a collection of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys, written by Bach as a teaching work. It is still studied by every piano student today.

When did Bach die and why was he forgotten?

Bach died on 28 July 1750 in Leipzig, at sixty-five, after a stroke. His music was largely forgotten after his death until Felix Mendelssohn performed the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829, starting a rediscovery.

What is the St. Matthew Passion?

The St. Matthew Passion is a large work for choir, soloists, and two orchestras telling the story of the crucifixion, first performed in Leipzig in 1727. It lasts more than three hours and is still performed at Easter.