Johann Sebastian Bach.

Orphaned by age ten, Johann Sebastian Bach moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph, an organist who taught him organ music and construction. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a violinist and trumpeter; his uncles were church organists and court composers. Born on March 21, 1685, in Eisenach into this musical family, he walked over 300 kilometers at 14 to attend the prestigious St. Michael’s School in Luneburg. There he studied organ, harpsichord, singing, theology, history, geography, and languages including Latin, Italian, and French. Exposure to German, French, and Italian composers broadened his musical horizons.

Bach’s first masterpiece, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, emerged in 1702 from his bold organ improvisations in Arnstadt. After overstaying a leave to study with Dietrich Buxtehude in Lubeck, he was fired but married his second cousin Maria Barbara. He studied Vivaldi’s concertos and arranged them for organ, adopting dramatic introductions and rhythms. As Cantor in Leipzig from 1723, he wrote a cantata for every Sunday and feast day; 224 survive. In 1730 he presented his wife with the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach. His Mass in B Minor earned him appointment as Royal Court Composer of Saxony. In 1747, he visited King Frederick the Great, improvising and later composing the Musical Offering. He led the Collegium Musicum from 1729 to 1750, performing at Zimmerman’s Coffeehouse.

Bach married his second cousin Maria Barbara in 1707; she inspired his early compositions. They had seven children, four surviving to adulthood, including composers Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Maria died in 1720. On December 3, 1721, he married Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a soprano 17 years his junior. They had thirteen children, among them Johann Christian Bach and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach. Bach fathered twenty children in total. His sons became important composers in the Rococo style. Descendants of Bach live in many countries.

Bach’s music directly influenced Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. His 1,127 works cataloged as BWV remain essential in music education. His The Well-Tempered Clavier is definitive for students and concert musicians. His unmarked grave lay at Old St. John’s Cemetery until his remains were moved in 1894 and finally to St. Thomas Church in Leipzig in 1950. He is remembered as the most performed and recorded composer in history, with his music used in many films and stage productions.