In his own lifetime Johann Sebastian Bach was known above all as an organist. The composer in him was recognized only a century later, when Mendelssohn performed the St Matthew Passion in 1829 — a work that had lain forgotten since Bach's death.
He was born in Eisenach in 1685. Father, uncle, brothers — musicians all. Orphaned at ten, he studied with his brother, then with the older masters, and once walked all the way to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude.
Organist at Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar. Kapellmeister at Köthen. Cantor in Leipzig for the last twenty-seven years. He wrote a cantata a week: two hundred and seven survive.
The Well-Tempered Clavier, the St Matthew Passion, the Mass in B Minor, the Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue — each work a world in itself. He died in 1750, having gone blind.