Owing to his virtuosity, he was soon offered a more lucrative organist post in Mühlhausen. He apparently felt cramped in the small town and began to seek his fortune elsewhere. Shortly after graduation (Bach completed Latin school when he was 18, an impressive accomplishment in his day, especially considering that he was the first in his family to finish school), Bach took a post as organist at Arnstadt in 1703. He was also influenced by the work of Nicholas Bruhns. While in school and as a young man, Bach's curiosity compelled him to seek out great organists of Germany such as Georg Böhm, Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken, often taking journeys of considerable length to hear them play. This hands-on experience with the innards of the instrument would provide a unique counterpoint to his unequalled skill at playing it Bach was equally at home talking with organ builders and with performers. The church organ, with its moving bellows, manifold stops, and complicated mechanism, was the most complex machine in any European town. The Ohrdruf church's instrument, it seems, was in constant need of minor repairs, and he was often sent into the belly of the old organ to tighten, adjust, or replace various parts. It was at Ohrdruf that Bach began to learn about organ building. This went on nightly until Johann Christoph heard the young Sebastian playing some of the distinctive tunes from his private library, at which point the elder brother demanded to know how Sebastian had come to learn them. According to one popular legend of the young composer's curiosity, late one night, when the house was asleep, he retrieved a manuscript (which may have been a collection of works by Johann Christoph's former mentor, Johann Pachelbel) from his brother's music cabinet and began to copy it by the moonlight. While in his brother's house, Bach continued copying, studying, and playing music. Bach was nine, at which time Bach moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who was the organist of Ohrdruf in Germany. Bach began copying music and playing various instruments at an early age.īach's mother died when he was still a young boy and his father suddenly died when J.

In an era when sons were expected to assist in their fathers' work, we can assume J. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the town piper in Eisenach, a post that entailed organizing all the secular music in town as well as participating in church music at the direction of the church organist, and his uncles were also all professional musicians ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers, although Bach would later surpass them all in his art. Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685 and died in 1750 at the age of 65.

Bach the learned musician