Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach spent his whole life within one corner of Germany, working steadily as a church and court musician. Born in Eisenach in 1685 into a sprawling family of professional musicians, he was orphaned at ten and raised by an older brother, then worked through organist posts in small towns and court jobs in Weimar and Cöthen. From 1723 until his death in 1750 he ran the music at Leipzig's main churches, for years producing a new sacred cantata nearly every week while teaching, rehearsing, and raising a large family.

In his lifetime he was better known as a virtuoso organist than as a composer, and much of his music sat unpublished for decades after his death. What he left turned out to be a kind of foundation: music where several melodic lines run at once, each one independent, all of them locking together.

Start with the Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G major, pure momentum for strings. Then hear the other side of him in the cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.