Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most prolific composers in music history, and was also a highly skilled organist whose compositions for choir, orchestra and solo instruments helped identify the main characteristics of the baroque style. Even though he was not responsible for creating any new musical styles or forms, he brought complexity and richness to the German style using many techniques, including counterpoint, organized harmonies and unique adaptations of rhythms from different music from Italy and France.

Born into a highly musical family on March 21, 1685, Bach was born into tradition. For over 200 years, his family had brought many performers and composers to the world during a time when major forces of society, including the church, local government and the elite class supported professional music in Germany. Bach's father was a talented violinist and trumpeter and was responsible for organizing all secular and church music participation in an entire region of Germany. His family had such a rich musical history that the name "Bach" had come to be interchangeable with the word "musician."

Bach lost his mother in 1694 and his father the following year. At 10 years old, he moved in with his eldest brother Johann Crhistoph Bach, an organist where he began to study and perform organ music. He was taught on the most important organ pieces of the day, namely those by Pachelbel and Froberger along with those of French composers such as Marin Marais. He also took an interest in organ restoration, which became part of his other lifelong profession as an organ-builder and restorer. During his early life, the young Bach would effortlessly copy music composed brother against his wishes; eventually Bach's brother put a stop to this activity, as musical scores were considered to be private and very valuable.

At 14, Bach received a choral scholarship with an old school friend Georg Erdmann to study at St. Michael's School in Luneburg, near Hamburg, the center of cultural activity and the largest German city. He spent two years here, and it was during this time that he developed his appreciation for European culture that informed his music and brought inspiration for him to transcribe a great deal of foreign music. He sang in choir and honed his harpsichord and organ skills. He also studied French and Italian and received a full theological education along with training in Latin, history, geography and physics. The school was known for producing great diplomats, soldiers and government leaders so it is likely that Bach came into contact with many members of the privileged class. However, he also was able to work closely with many of the great organists of the time and was able to, through them, gain access to the most impressive organs in Germany. He also spent a great deal of time studying North German musical tradition, another style that greatly informed the work he produced during his life.

Bach had a profound impact on musical culture in Germany and the world, and produced an enormous amount of work in his lifetime. All his works combined mark him as one of the greatest composers in music history. His compositions are often lauded for being highly intellectual, technically complex and artistically stunning. While impossible to limit his best works to a few selections, some of his most notable compositions include the Brandenburg concertos, keyboard suites and partitas, the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, The Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue and a huge amount of cantatas, most likely many more than the 200 surviving.

Bach's style offers highly realized counterpoint, structure and beautiful harmonic progressions and consistent rhythms; all these characteristics create to push his pieces forward the offer a driving sensation. Like other pieces of music from the Baroque period, Bach's work offers many themes and motifs, creating a very ornate texture. All these music themes are carried through until the end of each piece, reinvented again and again to create an unmatched density.

Bach's music has influenced the style of many other composers, including Mozart, Beethoven Schumann and Mendelssohn. The "Bach style," even today, brings something to the music world and can be heard clearly in hymns and other religious works along with even pop and rock songs. Many of his themes have been popularized and used repeatedly in music throughout the ages.

Bach died in Liepzig, Germany on July 28, 1750, at age 65. When he died he had composed more than 1,000 works of music for virtually every imaginable instrument and ensemble.

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