The Fifth Evangelist
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On an evening in May 1747, an ageing musician was summoned to the palace of Sanssouci by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The king handed him a theme — a twisting, chromatic melody designed to be almost impossible to fugue — and asked him to improvise. The musician sat at the fortepiano and improvised a three voice fugue on the royal theme; he later worked out a six voice ricercar for publication. That musician was Johann Sebastian Bach, and the resulting work, the Musical Offering, would become one of the most intellectually astonishing compositions ever written. Yet when Bach died three years later, his music was already being dismissed as old-fashioned. His keyboard music remained valued by performers and teachers, while his large sacred works returned to wider public attention in the nineteenth century.
“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”
1685–1750
Born in Eisenach, Thuringia, into a dynasty of musicians stretching back generations. Died in Leipzig at sixty-five after months of declining health and two failed eye operations. Buried in an unmarked grave; his remains were not identified until 1894.
1,100+
Over a thousand surviving works catalogued in the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV), spanning cantatas, concertos, sonatas, suites, passions, masses, organ works, and keyboard music. Many more are believed lost.
20
Seven children with his first wife Maria Barbara Bach, thirteen with his second wife Anna Magdalena Wilcke. Only ten survived to adulthood. Four sons — Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian — became prominent composers in their own right.
27
Served as Thomaskantor and Director of Church Music in Leipzig from 1723 until his death in 1750 — composing cantatas for every Sunday, training the choir, teaching Latin to schoolboys, and battling the city council over budgets and discipline.
Baroque composer, organist, master of counterpoint, creator of the Brandenburg Concertos, the Well-Tempered Clavier, and the St. Matthew Passion
Defining Events
The Brandenburg Concertos
Six concertos dedicated to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg — a dazzling showcase of Baroque instrumental writing that explored every possible combination of solo instruments against a string ensemble. Composed during Bach's years at Köthen under Prince Leopold, the concertos were essentially a job application. The Margrave never acknowledged them; the manuscripts were found in his library after his death, unsold and unperformed. Today they are among the most frequently performed orchestral works in the classical repertoire.
The Well-Tempered Clavier
Two volumes of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four major and minor keys — a systematic exploration of tonal possibility that became the foundation of Western keyboard education. Book I was completed at Köthen in 1722; Book II was compiled in Leipzig around 1742. Beethoven called it his daily bread. Chopin studied it before every performance. Schumann declared that Bach's fugues were his “daily bread.” It remains the single most important work in the keyboard repertoire.
The St. Matthew Passion
A monumental setting of the Passion narrative from the Gospel of Matthew for double chorus, double orchestra, and soloists — over three hours of music that traces the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ with an emotional depth that has no parallel in Western sacred music. First performed on Good Friday, 11 April 1727 at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Its score remained in circulation after Bach's death; Felix Mendelssohn's Berlin revival in 1829 became a landmark in the expansion of Bach's public reputation.
Timeline
Born in Eisenach
Born on March 21 (Old Style) in Eisenach, Thuringia, the youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the town's director of musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. The Bach family had produced professional musicians for generations — over fifty Bachs held musical positions across Thuringia. Music was not a vocation in the Bach family; it was a trade, passed from father to son like carpentry or blacksmithing.
Orphaned at Nine
Both parents died within months of each other — his mother Elisabeth in May 1694, his father Johann Ambrosius in February 1695. The nine-year-old Johann Sebastian moved to Ohrdruf, where his eldest brother Johann Christoph, a former pupil of Pachelbel, took him in and gave him his first formal keyboard instruction. According to early biographers, young Bach secretly copied a forbidden manuscript of keyboard works by moonlight; his brother discovered the copy and confiscated it.
First Organ Post at Arnstadt
At eighteen, appointed organist of the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt — his first organist appointment. Bach quickly gained a reputation for extraordinary keyboard skill but clashed with church authorities over his elaborate improvisations during services, his habit of introducing surprising harmonies into the congregational hymns, and a four-month unauthorised absence to study with Buxtehude in Lübeck.
The Walk to Lübeck
Granted four weeks' leave, Bach walked over 250 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear Dietrich Buxtehude, the greatest organist in northern Germany, play his famous Abendmusiken concerts. Bach stayed nearly four months — three months beyond his leave — absorbing Buxtehude's improvisatory style and grand choral writing. The Arnstadt consistory reprimanded him upon his return, but the pilgrimage transformed his musical ambitions forever.
The Weimar Years
Served as court organist, then concertmaster, to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. Composed most of his great organ works and began writing cantatas at a rate of one per month after his promotion in 1714. When Bach accepted a position at Köthen without the Duke's permission in 1717, Wilhelm Ernst had him arrested and imprisoned for nearly a month before granting his release.
Kapellmeister at Köthen
The happiest years of Bach's professional life. As Kapellmeister to the young, music-loving Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, Bach was free to compose secular instrumental music: the Brandenburg Concertos, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the Cello Suites, and the orchestral suites. His first wife, Maria Barbara, died suddenly in July 1720 while Bach was away with Prince Leopold at Carlsbad.
Thomaskantor in Leipzig
Appointed Cantor of the Thomasschule and Director of Church Music for Leipzig — responsible for music at four churches. Bach was not the city council's first choice; Georg Philipp Telemann declined the offer, and Christoph Graupner was unable to secure his release. One councillor remarked: 'Since the best cannot be obtained, mediocre ones will have to be accepted.' Bach would spend the remaining twenty-seven years of his life proving that assessment spectacularly wrong.
The Musical Offering
Visited Frederick the Great at Sanssouci and improvised a fugue on a complex theme the king provided. Bach later expanded the improvisation into the Musical Offering (BWV 1079) — a collection of ricercars, canons, and a trio sonata, all built on Frederick's theme. The work is a masterclass in counterpoint, containing puzzles and intellectual challenges that musicians and mathematicians have studied for centuries.
Key Figures
Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen
The young Calvinist prince who hired Bach as his Kapellmeister in 1717 and gave him the creative freedom to compose purely instrumental music — free from the demands of the Lutheran liturgy. Leopold was an accomplished musician himself, playing violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord. Their relationship was unusually close for the era; Bach called him a prince 'who both loved and understood music.' When Leopold married in 1721, his new wife had no interest in music, and the court's musical life declined. Bach began looking for a new position, eventually leaving for Leipzig. Leopold died in 1728 at just thirty-three. Bach returned to Köthen to perform a funeral cantata for the prince he had loved.
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was an accomplished flautist and composer who employed Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel as court harpsichordist. In May 1747, the sixty-two-year-old Bach visited Potsdam at the king's invitation. Frederick guided him through the palace, showing off his collection of Silbermann fortepianos, then challenged him with a complex chromatic theme. Bach improvised a three-voice fugue on the spot and later sent Frederick the completed Musical Offering — one of the most intellectually demanding works in all of music. The encounter between Europe's most powerful monarch and its greatest composer became one of the legendary meetings in cultural history.
The Legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach died on July 28, 1750, after declining health and unsuccessful eye surgery. His family, pupils, and collectors preserved much of his music, though works were also lost and changing tastes reduced the public reach of his church compositions. Anna Magdalena continued caring for children and received assistance in Leipzig; the familiar story of complete abandonment oversimplifies her later life.
Mendelssohn's 1829 Berlin performance of the St. Matthew Passion brought a preserved score before a new public. The Bach Revival grew from that performance and from generations of teaching, collecting, editing, and playing. Today Bach's work remains a resource for musicians across many traditions. The first person ePub imagines the working life behind it: family responsibilities, demanding patrons, faith, and the patient labour of composition.
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