On 28 July, 1750, a sickly and exhausted old man was found dead while recuperating from eye-surgery. Viewed by his peers as outdated and irreverent, he would eventually be regarded as one of the greatest musical genius’s who ever lived, nearly 80 years later (Mellers). Today, we know this man as Johann Sebastian Bach, a virtuoso organist and prolific composer from the baroque era of classical music; whose works spanned over 1000 musical pieces and influenced entire generations of western music schools of thought (J.S. Bach). Bach’s importance to western music development wouldn’t have been noticed by his contemporaries, who mostly favored the preclassical styles of homophony which were harmonically simpler in tone and structure (Mellers). His sphere of influence had affected many important composers whose names include: Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven; who themselves made major contributions to the preeminence and development of western music. In terms of originality and complexity, Bach’s compositions represent some of the most sophisticated and ambitious classical pieces to date, which through his rigorous use of counterpoint, tonal control and attention to single moods (called affects) had helped refine western music from a folk-based expressive form to a highly complex and evolved form of musical expression (Tonality). But in order to understand Bach and his well noted contributions, one must also understand his life in the context of the changing musical forms of the era and his personal musical influences which helped define his unique compositional platform.
Born on 21 March, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringen (in modern day Germany), he was the eighth child in a family that produced at least 53 well respected city and court musicians in over seven generations of time. Johann Sebastian Bach was named by his two godfathers,