Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family so full of musicians that in parts of Germany the very word 'Bach' meant a player of music. Orphaned at ten, he learned his craft by copying scores by moonlight and walking miles to hear the great organists of his day. He spent his life as a working church musician — organist, choirmaster, cantor — composing not for fame or posterity but to meet next Sunday's deadline, week after week, year after year.

From that humble labor came some of the most perfect music ever conceived: the Mass in B minor, the St Matthew Passion, the Brandenburg Concertos, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the cantatas that pour out by the hundred. In his hands a fugue became a cathedral of sound, every voice independent yet woven into a single shining order. He signed his manuscripts 'Soli Deo Gloria' — to God alone the glory — and meant it.

He was largely forgotten for decades after his death, his manuscripts scattered, until a younger generation rediscovered him and the world understood what it had nearly lost. We honor him as the patient architect of harmony — the man who proved that the most disciplined craft, done faithfully and without applause, can reach the very heights of the human spirit.