Bach: The Musical Craftsman
1685-1750 AD
1685 1685
11.0E50.55N
MUS

ARNSTADT, GERMANY
	Lutheran church-goers in Arnstadt, Germany, were not pleased when their organist took a leave of absence in 1704.
	Young Johann Sebastian Bach stayed away four times longer than expected, failed to rehearse the church choir, and on his return, the congregation noticed he was adding strange variations to familiar hymns.
	Bach, who had been studying with master organist Dietrich Buxtehude, eventually resigned, but it was hardly the end of his career.
	Born into the fifth of seven generations of musical Bachs, Johann became one of the world's greatest musical geniuses, defining the German baroque musical period. His output was so huge that it would take a lifetime merely to copy everything he wrote.
	His masterpieces, among them the "B minor Mass" and the "St. Matthew Passion," are performed regularly more than 200 years after his death. "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," is still one of the most familiar of all choral works.
	Bach was the sixth child of J. Ambrosius Bach, born in 1685 at Eisenach, Germany, in the shadow of the castle where Martin Luther had been held prisoner. He took violin and viola lessons from his father at an early age and when his parents died he went to live with his brother, who introduced him to the organ.
	In 1707 Bach married his cousin, Maria Bach. They had seven children of whom Wilhelm and Carl also became famous musicians.
	During his career, Bach served as court organist at Weimar, Germany, chamber musician and concertmaster to the Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst, chapel master to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen and cantor of St. Thomas' Church. He thought of himself as an artisan, making music much as a tailor makes clothing or a cobbler turns out shoes.
	Music and religion were synonymous to Bach. "Music," he said, "should have no other aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul."
	Bach also had a sense of humor, which occasionally comes through some of his musical compositions, including the "Coffee Cantata," which satirized the then-new European fashion for coffee drinking.
	Bach died in 1750 with his greatest works unpublished. During his lifetime he was known as an organ virtuoso but was more celebrated as the father of illustrious musicians than as a master in his own right.
	His compositions might have been undervalued were it not for a handful of biographers and admirers who kept his work before the eyes of the musical world. Composer Felix Mendelssohn, who studied Bach's scores, produced the "St. Matthew Passion" in Berlin in 1829, reigniting interest in his work.