JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH J.S. Bach was born three hundred years ago and was baptized at Eisenach on March 23, 1685. His parents died in his 10th year and his older brother, Johann Christoph, organist at Ohrdruf, took charge of him and taught him music. The elder brother is said to have been jealous of J.S.'s talent, and to have forbidden him access to a manuscript volume of works by Froberger, Buxtehude, and other great organists. Every night for six months J. S. got up, put his hand through the lattice of the bookcase and copied the volume out by moonlight, unfortunately to the permanent damage of his eyesight - he was blind his last year. But when he had finished, his brother discovered the copy and took it from him. In 1700, now 15 and thrown on his own resources by the death of his brother, J.S. went to Luneberg, where his unbroken soprano voice obtained for him an appointment at the school of St. Michael as chorister. At age 19 he became organist at Arnstadt. He had a habit of astonishing his congregation by the way he harmonized the chorales and this, along with the fact that he invited his female cousin to sing privately in the church, got him in trouble. In 1707 he obtained the organistship of St. Blasius in Mulhausen where he married his cousin and here he wrote his first great church contatas. In 1708 Bach went to Weimar where his successes were crowned by his appointment, in 1714, at the age of 29, as Hofkonzertmeister to the duke of Weimar. In 1723, he removed to Leipzig, where he became cantor of the Thomasschule. His wife died in 1720, leaving 7 children. In 1721 Bach married again, and for the beautiful soprano voice of his second wife he wrote many of his most inspired arias. Although his most colossal achievements date from his cantorship in Leipzig, grave troubles were not to be avoided in any large family living on the wages of learning in those unsanitary days. Of his first seven children, only three survived. By his second wife he had thirteen children, of whom he lost four of his six sons. Three of his sons, Friedemann, Phillip Emanuel, and Johann Christoph showed great talent, and Phillip went on to become the court-composer of the king of Prussia. This led, in 1747, to J.S.'s being summoned to visit Frederick the Great at Potsdam, an incident which Bach always regarded as the culmination of his career. He died of apoplexy on July 28, 1750. His loss was deplored as that of one of the greatest organists and clavier players of his time. At his death his manuscripts were divided amongst his sons, where many have been irrecoverably lost; indeed, only a small proportion of his greater works was recovered when, after the lapse of nearly a century, Mendelssohn, at the age of 12 read the autograph of the St. Matthew Passion in the Royal Library at Berlin. He never rested until he had given a private performance of it, the first since Bach's death. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Wagner, and Brahms were later also influenced by Bach. Bach was not so much a reformer or an inventor of new forms as a seeker of truth. All the material that could be assimilated into a mature art he vitalized in his own way, and he had no imitators. The language of music changed at his death, and his influence became all-pervading just because he was not the prophet of the new art, but the unbiased seeker of truth. Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian www.billpetro.com/HolidayHistory