Biodata Johann Sebastian Bach

J. S. Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685 and died in 1750 at the age of 65. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the town piper in Eisenach, a post that entailed organizing all the secular music in town as well as participating in church music at the direction of the church organist, and his uncles were also all professional musicians ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers, although Bach would later surpass them all in his art. In an era when sons were expected to assist in their fathers' work, we can assume J. S. Bach began copying music and playing various instruments at an early age.
Bach's mother died when he was still a young boy and his father suddenly died when J. S. Bach was nine, at which time Bach moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who was the organist of Ohrdruf in Germany. While in his brother's house, Bach continued copying, studying, and playing music. According to one popular legend of the young composer's curiosity, late one night, when the house was asleep, he retrieved a manuscript (which may have been a collection of works by Johann Christoph's former mentor, Johann Pachelbel) from his brother's music cabinet and began to copy it by the moonlight. This went on nightly until Johann Christoph heard the young Sebastian playing some of the distinctive tunes from his private library, at which point the elder brother demanded to know how Sebastian had come to learn them.

Bach as a young man

It was at Ohrdruf that Bach began to learn about organ building. The Ohrdruf church's instrument, it seems, was in constant need of minor repairs, and he was often sent into the belly of the old organ to tighten, adjust, or replace various parts. The church organ, with its moving bellows, manifold stops, and complicated mechanism, was the most complex machine in any European town. This hands-on experience with the innards of the instrument would provide a unique counterpoint to his unequalled skill at playing it; Bach was equally at home talking with organ builders and with performers.
While in school and as a young man, Bach's curiosity compelled him to seek out great organists of Germany such as Georg Böhm, Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken, often taking journeys of considerable length to hear them play. He was also influenced by the work of Nicholas Bruhns. Shortly after graduation (Bach completed Latin school when he was 18, an impressive accomplishment in his day, especially considering that he was the first in his family to finish school), Bach took a post as organist at Arnstadt in 1703. He apparently felt cramped in the small town and began to seek his fortune elsewhere. Owing to his virtuosity, he was soon offered a more lucrative organist post in Mühlhausen. Some of Bach's earliest extant compositions date to this period (including, according to some scholars, his famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor), but much of the music Bach wrote during this time has been lost.
Johann Sebastian Bach pieces are indexed with BWV numbers, where BWV is Bach Werke Verzeichnis. The catalog, published in 1950, was compiled by Wolfgang Schmieder and the BWV numbers are sometimes referred to as Schmieder Numbers. A variant of this system uses S, instead of BWV, for Schmieder.
The catalog is organised thematically rather than chronologically: BWV 1-222 are cantatas, BWV 225-248 the large-scale choral works, BWV 250-524 chorales and sacred songs, BWV 525-748 organ works, BWV 772-994 other keyboard works, BWV 995-1000 lute music, BWV 1001-1040 chamber music, BWV 1040-1071 orchestral music and BWV 1072-1126 canons and fugues. In compiling the catalog Schmieder largely followed the Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe, a comprehensive edition of the composer's works produced between 1850 and 1905.
For a list of works catalogued by BWV number, see List of compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Further reading

• The New Bach Reader by Hans T. David (Editor), Arthur Mendel, Christoph Wolff Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company; New Ed edition (1999) ISBN: 0393319563
• J. S. Bach (Vol 1) by Albert Schweitzer Publisher: Dover Publications (1966) ISBN: 0486216314
• Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company (2001) ISBN: 0393322564
• J. S. Bach As Organist: His Instruments, Music, and Performance Practices by George Stauffer, Ernest May Publisher By Indiana University Press (1999)ISBN: 025321386X
• The Bach Reader (W. W. Norton, 1966), edited by Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, contains much interesting material, such as a large selection of contemporary documents, some by Bach himself.
• The early biography by Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Über Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (1802), a translation of which is included in The Bach Reader (see above), is of considerable value, as Forkel was able to correspond directly with people who had known Bach.
• An early groundbreaking study of Bach's life and music is the multi-volume Johann Sebastian Bach (1889), by Philippe Spitta.
• Another famous study of his life and music is J. S. Bach (1908), by the versatile scholar and organist Albert Schweitzer.
• Christoph Wolff's more recent works (Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician and Johann Sebastian Bach: Essays) include a discussion of Bach's 'original genius' in German aesthetics and music.
• Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid uses the music of Bach to explore formal methods, logic, mathematics and other topics.