Johann Sebastian Bach

By Lea

Do you want to meet one of my favorite composers from the past? Well, if you do, the composer you would meet is Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach composed over 1,200 pieces, played the organ, and his father taught him the violin. One of my favorite compositions that Bach wrote is Concerto for Two Violins. It is a duet (piece for two instruments to play together) for the violin.

Bach grew up in Eisenach, Germany. His family was very social, polite, and nice, unlike some families in those days. They were actually like family; the children weren’t the slaves of the house.

At a young age, he was a teacher of instruments and music. One night as he was walking, six of his students attacked him from behind. They wanted Bach to apologize to one of the students for calling him a “nanny-goat bassoonist,” meaning that the student that played bassoon sounded like a goat.

When Bach turned ten years old, his parents died and he went to live with his brother. Bach was able to take care of himself before he was fifteen. After that, he went to live on his own.

Bach’s love life was very unique. Married twice, Bach was first married to his cousin, Maria Barbara (people married their relatives a lot in those days). After she died, he married Ann Magdalena, who was a great singer and played the keyboard extremely well.

You are probably wondering why he was famous in the first place. Well, of course, he was a wonderful composer and musician. Sometimes when he was playing his organ, he would have a stick in his mouth to reach some of the higher or lower notes in time. He was not a show-off, but played his music for the love of the sound. “There is nothing remarkable about it. All you have to do is hit the right key at the right time and the instrument plays itself,” he once said.

When Bach was married, he fathered twenty children, though only ten grew all the way to adulthood. They all had very, similar, names: Five of them were named Johann, just like himself, two Johanna, and four became famous composers themselves.

Later in Bach’s life, he became blind from copying his music in bad light for so many years. When it came to his dying day, he was sixty-five years old and died of a stroke. Barely any of his music was published while he was alive, but he still kept on writing it. When he did die, it took one hundred years for Bach to be really recognized and for his pieces to become widely known. Isn’t it sad—when you are alive, you don’t get to feel the glory of being famous.

Being a musician is a very thrilling adventure through, what I like to call, mind worlds. You can experience emotions, lifetime opportunities, and your very own secrets. Bach composed many different kinds of music—duets, concertos, variations, and much more. I sure hope everyone in this world has a little bit of Bach’s music with him or her everywhere they go.