JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

A Small Boy With a Big Family Business

I was born in Eisenach in March 1685, the youngest son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, who worked as a town musician. Music was simply what people in our family did, the way other families kept bakeries. My mother died in 1694 and my father followed in 1695, so I went to live with my elder brother in Ohrdruf. A few years later, from 1700 to 1702, I sang as a chorister at St Michael's School in Lüneburg, and that's where I learned how much there was still to discover.

Organ Benches and Open Doors

In 1703 I became organist of the New Church in Arnstadt, and in 1707 I took the same kind of post at St Blasius's Church in Mühlhausen. That year I also married my second cousin Maria Barbara, which kept the family business nicely close to home. In 1708 I moved to Weimar as court organist, and that was the point where people began to take real notice of what I could do. By 1714 I had been promoted to concertmaster there, which meant I now had to compose regularly for the court as well as play.

From Princes to Pupils in Leipzig

In 1717 I signed a contract with Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, who loved music and let me write plenty of it. In 1721 I married the court singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, and in 1723 I took the post of cantor at St Thomas's Church in Leipzig, where I stayed for the rest of my life. Between my two marriages I had twenty children, seven with Maria Barbara and thirteen with Anna Magdalena, so our house was rarely quiet. Leipzig also had coffee houses, and I wrote a small comic piece about a father and his coffee-loving daughter, the Coffee Cantata, which was probably first heard at Zimmermann's coffee house.

The Greatest Hits, If I May Call Them That

If you want a gentle place to start, try the Air on the G String, which floats along so calmly that it makes the whole room slow down, or Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, which rolls forward with a warm, steady glow. The Prelude No 1 in C Major and the Cello Suite No 1 in G Major Prelude are both built from flowing patterns that ripple along like water over smooth stones, and the Brandenburg Concerto No 2, one of the concertos I presented to the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1721, is bright and lively. The Goldberg Variations take one tune and turn it around in many different ways, while the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor opens with a dramatic organ blast, though some scholars have questioned since 1981 whether I wrote it at all. My St Matthew's Passion, first performed in Leipzig in 1727, is the largest of these, and it tells the story of Jesus's last days with a depth that I'm still glad to have managed.

The Year Everything Went Quiet

In 1720 I went on a trip to Carlsbad, and while I was away Maria Barbara died. I came home to a house that had already been emptied of her, and nothing I composed could change that. I did what I always did and went back to my work, and I think the music from those years carries more quiet feeling because of it. Then in 1721 I married Anna Magdalena, and the household filled up with voices again.

Unfinished Business and Failing Eyes

In my last decade I took on larger projects, such as The Art of Fugue, which I began around 1740, and a visit in 1747 to Frederick II in Potsdam, which led to The Musical Offering. I also finished the Mass in B minor in 1748 and 1749, after sending its first two parts to the Elector of Saxony back in 1733. My eyesight got worse, and I had eye operations in March and April 1750 with a surgeon named John Taylor, but they didn't help. I suffered a stroke and died in Leipzig on 28 July 1750, aged 65, leaving The Art of Fugue unfinished.

Forgotten, Then Found

The Art of Fugue was published in 1751, the year after I died, but for a long time afterwards my music was not played very much. Then in 1829 Felix Mendelssohn performed the St Matthew Passion, and that began a revival of my music all through the nineteenth century. Since then people have kept coming back to it, and I'm honestly a little surprised and very pleased about that. Players and listeners still find new things in it today, which is exactly what I hoped a piece of music could offer.

What I'd Like to Hand You

I'd like to give you a bit of calm, because there's a lot of noise out there and my music has always been good at making room. You don't need to know anything about harmony or counterpoint to enjoy it, just a few quiet minutes and an open ear. Start with whichever piece sounds most inviting to you, and let it play to the end without checking anything else. If you come away feeling a little steadier and a little more curious, then I've done what I set out to do.