Composers › Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
The great master of the Baroque: organist, teacher and father of twenty children, he wrote the music every pianist still learns from today.
Life
He was born in Eisenach, Germany, into a family of musicians. Orphaned at ten, he grew up with his elder brother, who taught him to play the keyboard.
He worked as organist and music director in several German towns and from 1723 until his death he was Kantor of St Thomas Church in Leipzig, where he wrote music for the services every week.
In his lifetime he was admired above all as an organist; after his death his music was almost forgotten, until in 1829 Felix Mendelssohn conducted the St Matthew Passion in Berlin and brought him back to the centre of music history.
Portrait: Elias Gottlob Haussmann (1748), public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.
Curiosities
- In 1705, aged twenty, he walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, about 400 km, to hear the famous organist Dietrich Buxtehude.
- The Well-Tempered Clavier (1722) has a prelude and fugue in each of the 24 keys: a way of showing that with the new tuning you could play in all of them.
- The Two-Part Inventions began as exercises to teach his son Wilhelm Friedemann to play.
At the piano
- In Bach's time the piano did not exist yet: this music was played on the harpsichord or clavichord. Use little or no pedal.
- Each hand sings its own melody: practise hands separately until each one stands on its own.
- Care about articulation (legato and staccato notes) more than volume.
Pieces to learn 2 pieces
Learn it note by note with Piano Learning
With “Wait for the note” the piece stops until you play the right key, on your phone or on your own piano (the app listens). Hands separately, speed from 10%, sheet music always in front of you.
Get it free on Google Play Free like La Campanella, the Turkish March, Jingle Bells and Frère Jacques. Hundreds of other pieces with one single purchase, no subscription.