We sometimes think of all musicians and artists as being crazy party animals, but Johann Sebastian Bach, possibly the greatest composer who ever lived, was a very quiet and conservative man. Bach spent almost all of his life as a church organist and choir director - never traveling far from where he was born in Germany. It was Bach’s job to write new music every week for Sunday services, and he wrote more music than almost anyone else - hundreds of pieces for organ and choir, of course; but also hundreds more for clavier (an old-fashioned kind of piano), orchestra, and every other kind of instrument that was available at the time.

 

One of the reasons that Bach’s music is so famous is because he uses counterpoint so beautifully. Counterpoint is the art of arranging two (or three, or even four or five!) different melodies so that they are played all at the same time and all work together. Bach did this better than anyone, and nearly everyone who has studied music since his time has studied his pieces to try to learn how he did it so well.

 

Bach had a huge, and very musical, family. Four of his children grew up to be famous musicians in their own right - Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach, Wilhelm Friedmann Bach, Johann Christoph Freidrich Bach, and John Christian Bach.

 

An interesting thing about Bach is that he wasn’t so well known, except among other musicians, until the 1800’s; probably because he didn’t travel or lead a flamboyant lifestyle like some other composers. His son, Carl, was more famous during his lifetime. In 1820 the composer Felix Mendelssohn put together a concert in Paris, France of Bach’s music. It was an enormous success, and paved the way for audience members to love Bach’s music as much as other musicians always had.