Biography on Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest composers in Western musical history. More than 1,000 of his compositions survive. Some examples are the Art of Fugue, Brandenburg Concerti, the Goldberg Variations for Harpsichord, the Mass in B-Minor, the motets, the Easter and Christmas oratorios, Toccata in F Major, French Suite No 5, Fugue in G Major, Fugue in G Minor (The Great), St. Matthew Passion, and Jesu Der Du Meine Seele.

Bach came from a family of musicians. There were over 53 musicians in his family over a period of 300 years. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was a talented violinist, and taught his son the basic skills for string playing. Another one of his relatives taught him to play the organ. In 1695, his parents died when he was only 10 years old. He went to stay with his older brother, Johann Christoph, who was a professional organist at Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph was a professional organist, and continued his younger brother's education on that instrument, as well as on the harpsichord.

After several years in this arrangement, Johann Sebastian won a scholarship to study in Luneberg, Northern Germany, and so left his brother's tutelage. A master of several instruments while still in his teens, Johann Sebastian first found employment at the age of 18 as a lackey and violinist in a court orchestra in Weimar; soon after, he took the job of organist at a church in Arnstadt. Here, his perfectionist tendencies and high expectations of other musicians rubbed his colleagues the wrong way, and he was embroiled in a number of hot disputes during his short tenure.

In 1707, at the age of 22, Bach became fed up with the lousy musical standards of Arnstadt...