Johann or Johannes Bach (26 November 1604 – buried 13 May 1673) was a German

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and musician of the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

. He was the father of the so-called "Erfurt line" of

Bach family The Bach family refers to several notable composers of the Baroque music, baroque and Classical period (music), classical periods of music, the best-known of whom was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). A family genealogy was drawn up by Johann ...

musicians. Born in

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

, Johannes was the eldest son of Johannes Hans Bach and the brother of Christoph Bach and Heinrich Bach. All three were composers. He spent seven years studying under Johann Christoph Hoffmann, a '' stadtpfeifer'' in

Suhl Suhl () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located SW of Erfurt, NE of Würzburg and N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella- ...

. From 1634 he served as organist at St. Johannis church in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban agg ...

, and was later organist at Suhl.HOASM
/ref> In 1635 he became town musician and director of the Raths-Musikanten in

, and was organist at the town's '' Predigerkirche'' from 1636. His first wife, Barbara Hoffman (a daughter of his teacher), died half an hour after bearing a stillborn son in 1639. Following this he married Hedwig Lämmerhirt, the daughter of a town councilman in Erfurt. His children from this marriage included Johannes Christian Bach,

Johann Aegidius Bach Johann Aegidius Bach (9 February 1645 – November 1716) was organ (music), organist, Viola, violist, and municipal orchestra director of Erfurt, Germany. He was Johann Sebastian Bach's 1st cousin once removed, Johannes Bach's son, and the father of ...

, and

Johann Nicolaus Bach Johann Nicolaus Bach (or Johann Nikolaus Bach) ( – 4 November 1753) was a German composer of the Baroque period. Johann Nicolaus was the eldest son of Johann Christoph Bach and the second cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was educated at ...

. Bach's works included two

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

s, ''Unser Leben ist ein Schatten'' and ''Sei nun wieder zufrieden'', and an

aria In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanime ...

, ''Weint nicht um meinen Tod''.

References

* Entry for "Johann(es) Bach" under "Bach", ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'' online.

External links

* 1604 births 1673 deaths 17th-century classical composers Johannes Bach German Baroque composers German classical composers German male classical composers Musicians from Erfurt {{Germany-composer-stub

See also

References

External links