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Biographies of Johann Sebastian Bach

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18th century

Little was published about Bach's life in the 18th century, his "Nekrolog" (obituary) being the most extended biographical note about the composer's life.

Contemporary biographical sources

No writings by Johann Sebastian Bach were published during his lifetime. He declined Johann Mattheson's invitation to write an autobiographical sketch for inclusion in the Ehrenpforte. There is little biographical material to be found in the compositions published during his lifetime: the glimpse perceived from the dedication of The Musical Offering to Frederick the Great being a small exception. There are however some letters by the composer in which he gives autobiographical detail, including the letter he wrote in 1730 to Georg Erdmann, and the letter he had joined to the score of his Mass for the Dresden court in 1733. Other contemporary sources include archived reports, like those of the decisions of the Leipzig city council.

Contemporary publications, like Johann Mattheson's Beschützte Orchestre, Johann Adolph Scheibe's Critischer Musicus and Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, rather write about Bach's music than about his life. Bach's entry in Johann Gottfried Walther's 1732 Lexikon is a rare exception in giving biographical information on the composer.

Bach's obituary

Bach's "Nekrolog" was published in 1754 in the fourth volume of Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek. With less than 20 pages it is the most comprehensive 18th-century publication on the composer's life.

Other 18th century biographical material

For the remainder of the century short biographies of the composer appeared in reference works like Johann Adam Hiller's Lebensbeschreibungen berühmter Musikgelehrten und Tonkünstler neurer Zeit, Ernst Ludwig Gerber's Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler and Friedrich Carl Gottlieb Hirsching's Historisch-literarisches Handbuch. The descriptions in such biographical articles were nearly exclusively based on the "Nekrolog", often copied with errors.

Occasionally Bach appears in other writings, like Johann Friedrich Köhler's 1776 manuscript on the history of schools in Leipzig, which gives a short account of Bach falling out with Johann August Ernesti, conrector of the St. Thomas School. In print Bach is mentioned as teacher of some musicians of the next generation, for instance Christoph Nichelmann.

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