Johann Sebastian Bach

Born in Eisenach on 21 March 1685, died in Leipzig on 28 July 1750; Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer, organist, harpsichordist and Thomaskantor. From 1703 to 1707 he was organist at the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt, in 1707/08 at the Divi Blasii church in Mühlhausen, from 1708 to 1717 court organist and chamber musician and finally Konzertmeister in Weimar, and from 1717 to 1723 Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in Köthen. In Weimar numerous organ works were written, in Köthen above all instrumental works; as Thomaskantor he was responsible from 1723 for the music and the training at the principal churches of Leipzig. His output comprises cantatas, Passions, organ and keyboard works, concertos and contrapuntal cycles. He came from a widely ramified family of musicians; after the early death of his parents he grew up from 1695 with his elder brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf. From 1700 to 1702 he was a scholarship pupil at the Michaeliskloster in Lüneburg, and in 1703 he took up his first post as a court musician in Weimar. In 1707 he married his cousin Maria Barbara in Mühlhausen, who died in 1720; in 1721 he entered a second marriage, with Anna Magdalena Wilcke. In Leipzig, besides the cantorate, he also directed the Bach Collegium Musicum and with it brought instrumental works of his own and of others to performance; most of his harpsichord concertos go back to earlier pieces for violin or oboe. Sixteen albums in the Cybele catalogue contain his music. Christian Roderburg recorded the Suites BWV 1007-1009 (1995) and BWV 1010-1012 (1997) on marimba, Gisbert Schneider organ works on the great Silbermann organ of Freiberg Cathedral in 2002, and Martin Schmeding the Goldberg Variations BWV 988 in 2009. Thomas Günther presented the keyboard works in three instalments: Das Wohltemperierte Clavier Band I (2013), Clavierübung II & III (2015) and Das Wohltemperierte Clavier Band II (2025); to these were added the harpsichord works played by Fritz Siebert in 2015 and the Sonatas and Partitas BWV 1001-1006 in a version for viola played by Atilla Aldemir in 2019. He also appears in mixed programmes: German Music of the 18th Century with Jeremias Schwarzer and Egon Mihajlovic (1998), Michael Denhoff’s Campanula albums (1995 and 2024), the saxophone quartet album The Invitation (2007), the audiobook Weht ein Stadtspaziergang durch den Traum (2014) and Bäche – Orchestral Works of the Bach Family with the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen under Bernhard Forck (2023). To these is added the benefit gala recording Doc Heilein and Friends Gala 2021 – Joyful (2022), with “Breit aus die Flügel”.