Johann Sebastian Bach Sheet Music

Johann Sebastian Bach – A Brief Biography of the Great Composer

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist of the Baroque period. He is recognized as one of the most accomplished composers in the Western musical tradition.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the director of the town musicians and his mother, Elisabeth, was the daughter of the city clerk .

The family had seven children, of whom Johann Christian was the youngest. He received his first lessons from his father, himself a player and an organist, who taught him keyboard technique in addition to music theory. In 1700 the young Johann Sebastian moved to Ohrdruf in the county of Gotha to continue his studies.

In 1702 Johann Sebastian moved to Lüneburg, where he took lessons from Michael Reinhard. He then studied law in Leipzig, but he never practiced this profession and so was called "doctor of nothing".

In 1706, Bach used the title in the dedication of his "Violin Concerto in A minor". He also worked as a keyboard player, violinist and organist at various churches in the area. He died in Weimar and was buried in the Saint Peter and Paul's Church in Weimar. Bach published six books of keyboard works, which are commonly known as "The Well-Tempered Clavier".

Bach is considered to be one of the most prolific composers of all time

Some say that Johann Sebastian Bach is the most prolific composer of all time. His music spans many different genres and styles including orchestral, choral, and instrumental compositions.

After his family had moved to the town of Eisenach, Sebastian began music lessons in 1695 with his father. In 1703, when he was ten years old, the family moved to Erfurt. His father continued his musical training with an organist friend.

The boy also received instruction in violin playing from a schoolmaster. When Sebastian was fifteen years old, he became a member of the choir at the St. George’s Church in Arnstadt. Sebastian himself confessed later that when he had received his first pay he ran around in high spirits and spent the money extravagantly.

However, in spite of occasional lapses into self-indulgence, Sebastian made great progress under the influence of this sympathetic teacher, and made rapid strides in his instrument, to which, until then, he had been a stranger.

With the somewhat limited resources of the school orchestra at his disposal, his bandmaster thought it would be good for Sebastian's training to let him arrange and conduct a number of pieces.

He had been impressed with Sebastian's natural aptitude for the work, though he still regarded the boy's mother as his best student when it came to the mastery of the conductor's podium. Listen to some of Bach's greates hits here.

Most famous musical works

Johann Sebastian Bach is most famous for his work, the Mass in B Minor. His life was one of devotion to music and his family. Johann Sebastian Bach began his career as a church organist, and eventually became the court conductor in Dresden.

Bach also wrote many other compositions and a variety of musical works, such as pieces for the keyboard. He composed over three hundred secular cantatas of which more than two hundred survive.

His best-known work is the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, in 1749 Bach was appointed to a prestigious musical position in Köthen, where he fell out with the chief music-teacher, Nikolaus Simrock. Bach writes on musical and textual authority through all the cases, sometimes planning an elaborate finale in which the ideas are woven together.