JOHANN-SEBASTIAN-BACH

CHILDHOOD

• Youngest child of 7
• Orphaned at age 10
• Lived with his older brother for 5 years.
• Dad- Johann Ambrosius
• Mom- Maria Lämmerhirt
• Johann Christoph gave him his first keyboard lessons

SCHOOLING

• First school was at 7
• Selected for a choir of poor boys
• 1700 scholarship to St. Michael’s school Lüneburg, Germany
• Studied Latin

EARLY CAREER

• His first job was in 1703
• Musician for Protestant Churches
• Courts of Weimar and expanded organ repertory
• At Köthen engaged with chamber music.
• 1707 organ position at St. Blaise in Mühlhausen
• His pastor disagreed with him about his music style

MARRIAGES

• 1707 married to Maria Barbra Bach...cousin
• 1720 Maria died of sudden illness at 35
• 1721Bach remarried to Anna Magdalena Bach
• Bach had 20 children total 7 with Maria and 13 with Anna
• Only 6 children out of the 13 survived birth
• Only 3 children out of the 7 survived birth
• Anna died in 1760 penniless

ADULTHOOD

• In 1723 he worked for a college
• 1726 he published his first piano and organ music
• He had difficulties with his coworkers resulting him to go to jail for 30 days
• In 1717 he was asked to work for Prince Leopold of Anhalt Cöthen
• He wanted to be just an organist at St. Thomas Church but had to be a teacher too.

FINAL YEARS

• In 1740 Bach started struggling with his eyesight
• He visited King Fredrick the Great, in 1747
• In the middle of writing a composition “The Art of Fugue” he got surgery to fix his eyesight.
• The surgery went wrong leaving him completely blind.
• Died of a stroke later that year in Leipzig 1750

FUN FACTS

• Bach wrote an autobiography
• Disappeared in 1705 to see organist Dietrich Buxtehude
• When he died the Barouque Era ended because he was so great.
• He had a phenomenal voice even though he was a pianist and organist
• The Crown Prince of Sweden gave him a ring.

Air

https://youtu.be/GMkmQlfOJDk

The Well Tempered Clavier

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=ezZdbzreNcs&feature=youtu.be

TOCCATA AND THE FUGUE

• In D minor
• Written in 1703
• Published in 1833
• An organ song
• https://youtu.be/Nnuq9PXbywA

WEBSITES

• connollymusic.com
• biography.com
• Wikipedia.com
• Britannia.com