The first major biographies of Johann Sebastian Bach, including those by Johann Nikolaus Forkel and Philipp Spitta, were published in the 19th century. Many more were published in the 20th century by, among others, Albert Schweitzer, Charles Sanford Terry, Christoph Wolff and Klaus Eidam.
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.Spitta 1899 III, p. 228 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.Eidam 2001, chapter XVIII Other contemporary sources include archived reports, like those of the decisions of the Leipzig city council.Eidam 2001, chapter XIV
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.Johann Mattheson. Das Beschützte Orchestre, oder desselben Zweyte Eröffnung, footnote p. 222 Hamburg: Schiller, 1717.Johann Adolf Scheibe. pp. 46–47 in Critischer Musicus VI, 14 May 1737. Quoted in Eidam 2001, Chapter XXII.Lorenz Christoph Mizler. Musikalische Bibliothek. Volume I, Part 4, pp. 61–73. Leipzig, April 1738. Includes a reprint of Johann Abraham Birnbaum's Unpartheyische Anmerckungen über eine bedenckliche stelle in dem Sechsten stück des Critischen Musicus. published early January of the same year. Bach's entry in Johann Gottfried Walther's 1732 Lexikon is a rare exception in giving biographical information on the composer.Johann Gottfried Walther Musicalisches Lexicon oder Musicalische Bibliothec, p. 64. Leipzig, W. Deer. 1732.
Bach's obituary
Bach's "Nekrolog" was published in 1754 in the fourth volume of Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek."Nekrolog" 1754 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 ,Johann Adam Hiller. "Bach (Johann Sebastian)", pp. 9–29 in Lebensbeschreibungen berühmter Musikgelehrten und Tonkünstler neurer Zeit, Vol. 1. Leipzig: Dyk, 1784. Ernst Ludwig Gerber's Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der TonkünstlerErnst Ludwig Gerber. "Bach (Joh. Sebastian)", column 86 ff. in Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler. Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1790. and Friedrich Carl Gottlieb Hirsching's Historisch-literarisches Handbuch.. "Bach, Johann Sebastian", pp. 77–80 in Historisch-literarisches Handbuch berühmter und denkwürdiger Personen, welche in dem 18. Jahrhunderte gestorben sind: oder kurzgefaßte biographische und historische Nachrichten von berühmten Kaisern, Königen, Fürsten, großen Feldherren ... und andern merkwürdigen Personen beyderley Geschlechts. Erster Band: A - Brindley. Leipzig: Schwickert, 1794. The descriptions in such biographical articles were nearly exclusively based on the "Nekrolog", often copied with errors.Spitta 1899, I, pp. ii–iii
Occasionally Bach appears in other writings, like '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.Spitta 1899, III, pp. 11–12 In print Bach is mentioned as teacher of some musicians of the next generation, for instance Christoph Nichelmann.
19th century Forkel's biography was published shortly after the 50th anniversary of the composer's death, and concentrated mostly on an analysis of his compositions. The first biography based on an extensive research of primary sources was published by Spitta in the second half of the 19th century.
Forkel's biography
Johann Nikolaus Forkel's Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work) appeared in Leipzig in 1802. Its biographical material expands what is already in the "Nekrolog" with details Forkel collected from Bach's eldest sons. An English translation, expanded with updates in footnotes and appendices, was published in 1920 by Charles Sanford Terry.Forkel 1920
Centennial biographies A century after the composer's death two short biographies were published. Joh. Carl Schauer published Joh. Seb. Bach's Lebensbild : Eine Denkschrift auf seinem 100 jährigen Todestag, den 28. Jul. 1850, aus Thüringen, seinem Vaterlande,Schauer 1850 and Carl L. Hilgenfeldt published Johann Sebastian Bach's Leben, Wirken und Werke: ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (Johann Sebastian Bach's life, influence and works: a contribution to the art history of the 18th century) "als Programm zu dem am 28. Julius 1850 eintretenden Säculartage des Todes von Johann Sebastian Bach" (as a program for the centennial days of Johann Sebastian Bach's death, starting 28 July 1850).Hilgenfeldt 1850, title page
Bitter's multi-volume biography In 1865 Karl Hermann Bitter published a two-volume Bach biography. The biography contains some documents from Bach's time that had not been published before, presented with a wealth of historical inferences and personal reflections.Spitta 1899, I, pp. iv–v An abridged English translation of the biography appeared in 1873. Shortly after becoming Prussian minister of finance in 1879, Bitter published an enlarged reworking in four volumes of the biography.Bitter
Spitta's comprehensive biography
Philipp Spitta's Johann Sebastian Bach was published in Leipzig in two volumes, in 1873 and 1880 respectively. Its English translation was published by Novello in three volumes.
In his introduction Spitta dismisses all previous biographies apart from the "Nekrolog", Forkel, and part of Gerber.Spitta 1899, I, p. v He is particularly harsh on Bitter.Spitta 1992 Vol. I, p. xiii Spitta's biography went down in history as "... the most ... comprehensive and important single work on Johann Sebastian Bach".Spitta 1992 Vol. I, p. xix It eclipsed the previous biographies and laid down premises and methodology for future Bach scholarship.Wolff 1991 pp. 4–5
Bach-biography in English In the United Kingdom the 19th-century Bach Revival was inscribed in existing traditions respecting baroque music.McKay, Cory. "The Bach Reception in the 18th and 19th century" at The Bach-biographies that were published in English were throughout the century largely based on German examples. An amateurishForkel/Terry 1920 pp. xix–xxi translation of Forkel had appeared in London in 1820.Forkel 1820 Edward Francis Rimbault had published his Hilgenfeldt/Forkel adaptation in 1869.Rimbault 1869 An abridged version of Bitter's first edition had appeared in 1873.Bitter 1873 In 1882 the first original English biography appeared, Reginald Lane Poole's Sebastian Bach.Spitta 1992 Vol. I, p. xviii Lane Poole bases the biographical data entirely on Spitta, and adds a chronological list of 200 church cantatas by Bach."The Life of Sebastian Bach" in Chicago Tribune. July 29, 1882, p. 9. By the mid-1880s the translation of Spitta's volumes was complete.Spitta 1884–1885
1890s Richard Batka published his biography of the composer in 1892, as part of the series.
20th century New biographies were written by Schweitzer and Terry in the first half of the 20th century. Only by the end of the century, quarter of a millennium after the composer's death, new major biographies appeared by Eidam and Wolff.
First Decade By the end of the 19th century the Bach Gesellschaft had completed its task of publishing all known works by Bach. The first decade of the new century brought new significant biographies of the composer.
Schweitzer Albert Schweitzer's Johann Sebastian Bach, le musicien-poète appeared in 1905. It analyses Bach's works primarily from a religious perspective.Eidam 2001, Introduction Its 1908 German edition was enlarged, and more content was added to the 1911 English version.Schweitzer
Pirro In 1906 André Pirro published a Bach-biography in France. The biography became available in English in 1957, based on the 1949 enlarged French edition.Pirro
Parry In 1909 a new English-language biography of Bach appeared, written by Hubert Parry.Parry 1909 In its preface the author pays his homage to Spitta and excuses him for his specialised technicalities: for his new biography Parry proposes a more condensed survey of the topic.Parry 1909, p. v-vi Parry shows Bach chauvinism by designating everything what was composed in the 17th century as immature.Stephen A. Crist. Beyond "Bach-Centrism": Historiographic Perspectives on Johann Sebastian Bach and Seventeenth-Century Music at
Biographical fiction In 1925 Esther Meynell published The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach, fictitiously telling the story of Bach's life through the eyes of his second wife Anna Magdalena Bach.Meynell 1925 The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, a 1968 film featuring Gustav Leonhardt as Johann Sebastian Bach, took the same perspective.A. H. Weiler. "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)" in The New York Times, April 7, 1969
Terry Charles Sanford Terry's Bach biography of 1928 focusses on the places where Bach lived. It is the first biography that contains biographical documents not yet included in Spitta's.Wolff 1991 p. 4
Gurlitt Bach's 250th birthday was remembered with a short biography by Wilibald Gurlitt, "Niederschrift des Jubiläumsvortrages bei der Bach-Feier des Ev. Studentenpfarramtes der Universität Freiburg i.Br. im Sommersemester 1935" (written out version of the jubilee speech at the Bach feast of the evangelical student community of the university of Freiburg im Breisgau, in the summer semester of 1935). Published in 1936, it was translated in English in 1957. An enlarged German edition was published in 1980.Gurlitt
From 1945 to the 1970s In 1950, two centuries after the composer's death, Wolfgang Schmieder published the BWV catalogue. The decades following World War II also saw the publication of a number of biographical works.
Bach Reader and Arthur Mendel published The Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents in 1945. It was revised as The New Bach Reader by Christoph Wolff in 1998.David & Mendel
Cherbuliez Swiss musicologist Antoine-Elisée Cherbuliez (1888–1964)Wolfgang W. Müller. Suche nach dem Unbedingten: spirituelle Spuren in der Kunst, p. 49. Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2008. derives the biographical material for his 1946 Bach biography essentially from the "Nekrolog", and the biographies by Forkel, Spitta and Terry.Cherbuliez 1946, p. 13
Neumann – Bach Archive Werner Neumann, from 1951 director of the East-German section of the Neue Bach-Ausgabe (NBA), published several biographies of the composer. In 1953 Auf den Lebenswegen Johann Sebastian Bachs, acclaimed by Alfred Dürr, the director of the West-German section of the NBA.Alfred Dürr. Review of Auf den Lebenswegen Johann Sebastian Bachs by Werner Neumann in Die Musikforschung 9/2, 1956, pp. 231-233 An enlarged German edition was issued in 1962.Neumann 1953 In 1960 Bach: eine Bildbiographie was published. These two works were translated as Bach and his world and Bach: A Pictorial BiographyNeumann 1960