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 Leipzig (1723-1750) This period saw Bach’s choral music flourish and includes several full year cycles of cantatas which he wrote for each Sunday. Prior to this, he had been employed for the post of cantor at St. Thomas’ School in Leipzig. It was a position which he considered as an opportunity for free educational opportunities for his numerous talented children.  His duties at St. Thomas’ School were much and it included teaching in the school and also supervising the music in four Liepzig Churches to which the school furnished choristers. Amidst all these, he still found out the time to direct a local music society choir, the Collegium Musicum, for which he composed and arranged a number of concertos and other secular music. This period, however, produced some important keyboard works which include Part II Of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the remarkable Clavierubung(“Keyboard Studies”), a four-volume series. At the end of his life, Bach’s eyesight completely failed. Nevert...

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 and was a contemporary of George Handel. He was an outstanding German composer of the Baroque. He was born in Eisenach, and he was the son of a town musician.Bach was orphaned at age ten and had to go and live with his elder brother, Johann Christoph Bach who was also an organist at Ohrdruf. In addition to receiving keyboard instruction from this capable musician, Bach was also an outstanding student in the Ohrdruf Lyceum. In 1700-1702, he completed his rather meager education in St. Luneburg, where he earned his living as a soprano singer in the unusually fine church choir. At the age of 18, he took up a job briefly as a violinist at Weimar, then held more responsible posts as organist at Arnstadt(1703-1707) and Muhlhausen(1707-1708). Bach's later activities as musician and composer reflected the needs of the three musical establishments with which he was associated. Weimar (1708-1717) Bach's duties were connected mainly with religio...