When you think of classical music, three composer’s names tend come up: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Despite them all having been around at different times (though Mozart and Beethoven met briefly in Vienna), they had something in common. They were all geniuses. And they were all not appreciated in their own times. Later, though, the works of Bach was rediscovered by Felix Mendelssohn, who arranged for a performance of St. Matthews Passion in 1829. It was a resounding success and it earned Mendelssohn much acclaim at the early age of 20. After that performance, Wolfgang Schmieder began indexing Bach’s works giving us that lovely “B.W.V” next to a number that we now see beside every one of Bach’s pieces.

How did this wonderful composer come about to this earth? Well, let’s go back to the beginning…

The Time of Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 31 March 1685 and died in 28 July 1750.

Bach lived during the period of music known as the Baroque period. If you study Classical music, you will notice that pieces composed in the same era will sound similar. For example, if you were to compare Johann Pachabel and Antonio Vivaldi, they would both have about the same styles, such as the Poly-phony style in which there are two voices in one piece, and not just melody and harmony as it evolved into in the Classical period. If you don’t recognize the names, Johann Pachabel is best known for his Canon in D, the only canon he ever wrote, and Antonio Vivaldi is best known for his Four Seasons composition.

Bach's own handwriting

Another composer from the baroque period and J.S Bach’s contemporary is Georg Friedrich Händel – who later added an “E” to the “Georg”, changed the “Friedrich” to “Frideric” (though who could blame him – Fried-rich?) and dropped the two dots above his “ä” in his “Händel” when he moved to England and became a subject of the country, making him George Frideric Handel.

A person, who had much to do with Bach’s career and who could have changed it was Georg Philipp Telemann, who in his time exceeded Bach’s popularity greatly as he was offered a post in Eisenach as Kapellmeister over Bach. Despite that, Telemann and Bach may have kept up a strong correspondence with one another, and Telemann was even godfather of one Bach’s own son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Curiously, although Handel lived about 50 miles away from Bach in later life, they never once met – a fact which Bach regretted deeply.

When Bach was 10, he became an orphan and was sent to live with his oldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach. It was there that, at midnight, when everyone was asleep, he would creep down to his brother’s study and copy music in a dimly lit room. It may have been because of this that later in life his eyes gave out and he died shortly after a failed eye operation.

When J. S. Bach was 22, he decided that he was of the age to settle down and choose a wife. He had fallen deeply in love with his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and so it was perfect that they should marry. In those days, marrying one’s cousin was not scandalous at all, and considered okay as long as it was your 2^nd cousin and not your 1^st. Scary, isn’t it? Bach and Maria had seven children together, of which four survived childbirth.

They had a comfortable and happy marriage until Maria’s sudden death in 1720. According to Maria and Bach’s second surviving son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian was away in the Carlsbad spa with his employer, the Duke of Anhalt-Cöthen, when Maria died. When Johann Sebastian returned to their home in Cöthen, he found out that she had died and had already been buried.

Bach took a year to mourn but looking after four children was not an easy task. He was a busy man as the Kapellmeister (director of music) to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen and so he married Anna Magdalena Wilcke in 1721 to help out with the washing up, presumably. Anna Magdalena was 17 years Bach’s junior and a very talented soprano singer. Bach wrote a number of compositions dedicated to her, most notably the Notebook for Anna Magdalena.

Together, they had 13 children, of whom six survived.

It has to be said that Bach, like Beethoven, was rather grumpy in his time, but perhaps that is to be expected of a perfectionist.

And older Bach looking rather grumpy.

After Bach

Bach’s legacy lives on, and is an irreplaceable part of every classical musician’s repertoire. The Classical era gave us melodious composers such as Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Muzio Clementi and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The Romantic period gave us breath-taking composers such as Felix Mendelssohn, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Frederic Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Baroque music gave us many marvelous composers like Arcangelo Corelli, George Frideric Handel, Johann Pachabel and Antonio Vivaldi, but none like the great Johann Sebastian Bach.

Since Mendelssohn’s history changing discovery, Bach has garnered many admirers’, among whom, are Frederic Chopin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. He has influenced thousands of young composers in both Classical and Rock/Pop genres. In fact, his Toccata and Fugue in D minor has been used in many rock songs. Bach has even been referred to as the “father of all music” – a title that has never been more true.

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.