Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a German Lutheran composer, organist, teacher, and church musician whose works became central to the Western sacred-music tradition. Born in Eisenach on March 21, 1685, into a large family of professional musicians, he was orphaned as a child and continued his musical training under his elder brother Johann Christoph. His early career included appointments as organist at Arnstadt and Mühlhausen and later service at the court in Weimar, where he developed a major reputation as an organist and composer.

From 1717 to 1723 Bach served as Kapellmeister at Köthen, producing important instrumental and chamber works. In 1723 he became Thomaskantor in Leipzig, responsible for music at St. Thomas Church, St. Nicholas Church, and the city's schools. There he composed and directed cantatas, Passions, motets, and other works for the Lutheran liturgical year while also teaching, examining musicians, and supervising church music across the city.

Bach's sacred output includes the St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, Mass in B Minor, Christmas Oratorio, and hundreds of church cantata movements. His chorale harmonizations drew on inherited Lutheran melodies and became especially influential in later hymnals. Although Bach often did not originate the melodies he harmonized, his settings shaped how generations of church musicians heard and taught them. His synthesis of counterpoint, theology, congregational chorale tradition, and instrumental craft remains foundational to Lutheran and wider Christian music.