Johann Sebastian
Bach 21 March 1685 - 28 July 1750 was a prolific
German composer and organist whose sacred and
secular works for choir, orchestra and solo
instruments drew together the strands of the
baroque period and brought it to its ultimate
maturity.
Although he introduced no new forms, he enriched
the prevailing German style with a robust
contrapuntal technique, a control of harmonic
and motivic organisation from the smallest to
the largest scales, and the adaptation of
rhythms and textures from abroad, particularly
Italy and France. He is one of the greatest
composers of all time.
There are over 1000 known compositions by Johann
Sebastian Bach. A few are listed here in the
order of the BWV catalog, including the spurious
works in the BWV Anhang ("Appendix"). The
complete list can be found at
o 1.1 Cantatas (1–224)
o 1.2 Motets (225–231)
o 1.3 Liturgical works in Latin (232–243a)
o 1.4 Passions and Oratorios (244–249)
o 1.5 Secular cantatas (249–249)
o 1.6 Chorales (250–438)
o 1.7 Songs and arias (439–518)
o 1.8 Songs (519–523)
o 1.9 Quodlibet (524)
• 2 Works for organ
o 2.1 Trio sonatas for organ (525–530)
o 2.2 Preludes and Fugues, Toccatas and Fugues,
and Fantasias for organ (531–591)
o 2.2.1 Eight Short Preludes and Fugues
(553–560)
o 2.3 Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor (582)
o 2.4 Trios and miscellaneous pieces for organ
(583–591)
o 2.5 Concertos for organ (592–598)
o 2.6 Chorale Preludes I: Orgelbüchlein (Little
Organ Book) (599–644)
o 2.7 Chorale Preludes II: Schübler Chorales
(645–650)
o 2.8 Chorale Preludes III: "Leipzig" Chorale
Preludes ("The Great Eighteen" chorales)
(651–668)
o 2.9 Chorale Preludes IV: "German Organ Mass",
part of Clavier-Übung III ( 669–689)
o 2.10 Chorale Preludes V: Kirnberger chorale
preludes (690–713)
o 2.11 Miscellaneous chorale preludes (714–764)
o 2.12 Partitas and chorale variations (765–771)
• 3 Works for harpsichord
o 3.1 Inventions and Sinfonias (772–801)
o 3.2 Four Duets from Clavier-Übung III
(802–805)
o 3.3 English Suites (806–811)
o 3.4 French Suites (812–817)
o 3.5 Miscellaneous suites (818–824)
o 3.6 Partitas for keyboard (published as
Clavier-Übung I) (825–830)
o 3.7 French Overture, from Clavier-Übung II
(831)
o 3.8 Suites and suite movements (832–845)
o 3.9 The Well-Tempered Clavier (846–893)
o 3.10 Preludes and fugues, toccatas and
fantasias (894–923)
o 3.11 Little Preludes from Clavier-Büchlein for
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (924–932)
o 3.12 Six Little Preludes (933–938)
o 3.13 Five Preludes from the collection of
Johann Peter Kellner (939–943)
o 3.14 Fugues and fughettas (944–962)
o 3.15 Sonatas and sonata movements (963–970)
o 3.16 Italian Concerto, from Clavier-Übung II
(971)
o 3.17 Keyboard arrangements of concertos by
other composers (972–987)
o 3.18 Variations and miscellaneous pieces for
keyboard (988–994)
• 4 Works for miscellaneous solo instruments
o 4.1 Works for solo lute (995–1000)
o 4.2 Sonatas and partitas for solo violin
(1001–1006)
o 4.3 Suite for solo lute (1006a)
o 4.4 Suites for solo cello (1007–1012)
o 4.5 Partita for solo flute (1013)
• 5 Works for duo of keyboard and other
instrument
o 5.1 Works for violin and keyboard instrument
(1014–1026)
o 5.2 Sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard
instrument (1027–1029)
o 5.3 Sonatas for flute and keyboard instrument
(1030–1035)
o 5.4 Trio sonatas (1036–1040)
• 6 Concertos and orchestral suites
o 6.1 Violin concertos (1041–1045)
o 6.2 Brandenburg Concertos (1046–1051)
o 6.3 Harpsichord concertos (1052–1065)
o 6.4 Orchestral suites (1066–1071)
• 7 Canons (1072–1078)
• 8 Late Contrapuntal Works: The Musical
Offering and The Art of Fugue (1079– 1080)
• 9 More recent BWV additions
o 9.1 Miscellaneous (BWV 1081–1089)
o 9.2 Neumeister Chorales (BWV 1090–1120)
o 9.3 Various organ works (BWV 1121–1126)
o 9.4 Strophic aria (BWV 1127)
• 10 BWV Anh. 43 to BWV Anh. 189 (appendix)
o 10.1 Various works
o 10.2 Anna Magdalena's Notebooks
o 10.3 More spurious works
o 10.4 Falsely attributed works
• 11 Reconstructed concertos
Johann Sebastian Bach was a member of one
of the most extraordinary musical families of
all time. For more than 200 years, the Bach
family had produced dozens of worthy performers
and composers during a period in which the
church, local government and the aristocracy
provided significant support for professional
music making in the German-speaking world,
particularly in the eastern electorates of
Thuringia and Saxony. Sebastian's father, Johann
Ambrosius Bach, was a talented violinist and
trumpeter in Eisenach, a town of some 6,000
residents in Thuringia. The post involved the
organisation of secular music and participation
in church music. Sebastian's uncles were all
professional musicians, ranging from church
organists and court chamber musicians to
composers. Contemporary documents indicate that,
in some circles, the name Bach had come to be
used as a synonym for "musician".
House in Eisenach where Bach was bornThe Bach
family were proud of their musical achievements,
and around 1735 Bach drafted a geneaology,
"Origin of the Musical Bach
Bach's mother died in 1694, and his father the
following year. The 10-year-old orphan moved in
with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach,
the organist at Ohrdruf, a nearby town. There,
he copied, studied and performed music, and
apparently received valuable tuition from his
brother. The elder brother also supposedly
taught young JS Bach to play the clavichord At
the age of 14, Johann Sebastian was awarded a
choral scholarship, with his older school
friend, Georg Erdmann, to study at the
prestigious St Michael’s School in Lüneburg, In
January 1703, shortly after graduating, Bach
took up a post as a court musician in the chapel
of Duke Johann Ernst in Weimar, a large town in
Thuringia
It was around the time of his Arnstadt
appointment that Bach was embarking on the
serious composition of organ preludes. These
works, in the North German tradition of
virtuosic, improvisatory preludes, showed tight
motivic control (where a single, short music
idea is explored cogently throughout a
movement). However, these works were not as
contrapuntal as some of his later works
He married his second cousin from Arnstadt,
Maria Barbara Bach.[1] They had seven children,
four of whom survived to adulthood. Two of
them—Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach—became important composers in the
ornate rococo style that followed the baroque.
On 7 July 1720 while Bach was abroad with Prince
Leopold, tragedy struck: his wife, Maria
Barbara, died suddenly. The following year, the
widower met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young,
highly gifted soprano who performed at the court
in Cöthen; they married on 3 December 1721.
Despite the age difference—she was 17 years his
junior—they appear to have had a happy marriage.
Together, they had 13 children.
In 1747, Bach went to the court of Frederick the
Great in Potsdam, where the king played a theme
for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue
based on his theme. Bach improvised a three-part
fugue on Frederick’s pianoforte, then a novelty,
and later presented the king with a Musical
Offering which consists of fugues, canons and a
trio based on the "royal theme", nominated by
the monarch.
Bach died in Leipzig in 1750, at the age of 65.
During his life he had composed more than 1,000
works.
