Composer · 1685 – 1750
Johann Sebastian Bach
Little-Known Facts
- Bach came from a large musical family and fathered some twenty children, several of whom became noted composers.
- Much of his fame rests on a 19th-century revival, notably Mendelssohn's performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829.
Myths & Misconceptions
Was Bach famous as a composer in his lifetime?
He was admired chiefly as an organ virtuoso; his towering reputation as a composer grew mainly after a 19th-century revival of his music.