Johann Sebastian Bach

Overview

Biography

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period whose work has influenced virtually every subsequent Western composer. Born in Eisenach, Thuringia, into a family of musicians, he worked successively as organist in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, court musician in Weimar, and Kapellmeister in Cöthen, before settling as Thomaskantor in Leipzig — a position he held for the final 27 years of his life.

Bach's output spans nearly every musical genre of his era except opera: over 1,000 surviving works including sacred cantatas, orchestral suites, keyboard preludes and fugues, masses, passions, and concertos. His two great collections of preludes and fugues, The Well-Tempered Clavier, traverse all 24 major and minor keys and remain cornerstone studies in keyboard technique and tonal harmony. The Brandenburg Concertos (1721) are the jewels of Baroque orchestral writing, and the Mass in B Minor stands as one of the supreme choral works ever written.

Bach was largely forgotten after his death, until Felix Mendelssohn's famous revival of the St Matthew Passion in 1829 sparked a renaissance of interest. Today he is revered not just as a historical figure but as a living presence in concert halls worldwide — his music studied, performed, and loved by musicians of every tradition.