Johann Christoph Bach (organist at Ohrdruf)
Johann Christoph Bach (16 June 1671 – 22 February 1721) was a musician of the Bach family. He was the eldest of the brothers of Johann Sebastian Bach that survived childhood.
Life
Johann Christoph was born in Erfurt, where he studied under Johann Pachelbel. His library of keyboard music included works by Pachelbel, Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Kaspar Kerll.
In 1690 Johann Christoph became organist at the Michaeliskirche at Ohrdruf. In 1694 he married Dorothea von Hof.[1] They had five sons who became musicians, three of them at Ohrdruf.[2] He died, aged 49, in Ohrdruf.
Relationship with his brother Johann Sebastian
Johann Sebastian Bach's parents both died before he was ten (his mother died in 1694, and his father the next year), and he moved in with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, who raised him from that point on. According to J.S. Bach's obituary written by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola, it was under Christoph's guidance that J.S. Bach "laid the foundations of his keyboard technique".
Johann Christoph is also remembered for a story related by Johann Sebastian's early biographers:[3]
The most renowned Clavier composers of that day were Froberger, Fischer, Johann Caspar Kerl, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Bruhns, and Böhm. Johann Christoph possessed a book containing several pieces by these masters, and Bach begged earnestly for it, but without effect. Refusal increasing his determination, he laid his plans to get the book without his brother's knowledge. It was kept on a book-shelf which had a latticed front. Bach's hands were small. Inserting them, he got hold of the book, rolled it up, and drew it out. As he was not allowed a candle, he could only copy it on moonlight nights, and it was six months before he finished his heavy task. As soon as it was completed he looked forward to using in secret a treasure won by so much labour. But his brother found the copy and took it from him without pity, nor did Bach recover it until his brother's death soon after.[4]
The brother had however not died "soon after".[5][3] After having stayed with his brother for five years Johann Sebastian left Ohrdruf, joining the choir of St. Michael's Convent at Lüneburg.[6] Around the time Johann Sebastian left Lüneburg a few years later he composed a Cappricio for his eldest brother, BWV 993.[7]
References
Sources
- Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work at Project Gutenberg, translation by Charles Sanford Terry of Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke by Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1802). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe. 1920 (e-version: 2011).
- Philipp Spitta. Johann Sebastian Bach: His Work and Influence on the Music of Germany (1685–1750), translated by Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller Maitland. Volume I, 1899.