Contemporary biographical sources

No writings by Johann Sebastian Bach were published during his lifetime. He declined Johann Mattheson's invitation to write an autobiographical sketch for inclusion in the Ehrenpforte.^[1] There is little biographical material to be found in the compositions published during his lifetime: the glimpse perceived from the dedication of The Musical Offering to Frederick the Great being a small exception. There are however some letters by the composer in which he gives autobiographical detail, including the letter he wrote in 1730 to Georg Erdmann, and the letter he had joined to the score of his Mass for the Dresden court in 1733.^[2] Other contemporary sources include archived reports, like those of the decisions of the Leipzig city council.^[3]

Contemporary publications, like Johann Mattheson's Beschützte Orchestre, Johann Adolph Scheibe's Critischer Musicus and Lorenz Christoph Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, rather write about Bach's music than about his life.^[4][5][6] Bach's entry in Johann Gottfried Walther's 1732 Lexikon is a rare exception in giving biographical information on the composer.^[7]

Bach's obituary

Bach's "Nekrolog" was published in 1754 in the fourth volume of Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek.^[8] With less than 20 pages it is the most comprehensive 18th-century publication on the composer's life.

Other 18th century biographical material

For the remainder of the century short biographies of the composer appeared in reference works like Johann Adam Hiller's Lebensbeschreibungen berühmter Musikgelehrten und Tonkünstler neurer Zeit,^[9] Ernst Ludwig Gerber's Historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler^[10] and Friedrich Carl Gottlieb Hirsching's Historisch-literarisches Handbuch.^[11] The descriptions in such biographical articles were nearly exclusively based on the "Nekrolog", often copied with errors.^[12]

Occasionally Bach appears in other writings, like Johann Friedrich Köhler [wikisource:de]'s 1776 manuscript on the history of schools in Leipzig, which gives a short account of Bach falling out with Johann August Ernesti, conrector of the St. Thomas School.^[13] In print Bach is mentioned as teacher of some musicians of the next generation, for instance Christoph Nichelmann.^[14]

Forkel's biography

Johann Nikolaus Forkel's Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work) appeared in Leipzig in 1802. Its biographical material expands what is already in the "Nekrolog" with details Forkel collected from Bach's eldest sons. An English translation, expanded with updates in footnotes and appendices, was published in 1920 by Charles Sanford Terry.^[15]

Centennial biographies

A century after the composer's death two short biographies were published. Joh. Carl Schauer published Joh. Seb. Bach's Lebensbild : Eine Denkschrift auf seinem 100 jährigen Todestag, den 28. Jul. 1850, aus Thüringen, seinem Vaterlande,^[16] and Carl L. Hilgenfeldt published Johann Sebastian Bach's Leben, Wirken und Werke: ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (Johann Sebastian Bach's life, influence and works: a contribution to the art history of the 18th century) "als Programm zu dem am 28. Julius 1850 eintretenden Säculartage des Todes von Johann Sebastian Bach" (as a program for the centennial days of Johann Sebastian Bach's death, starting 28 July 1850).^[17]

Bitter's multi-volume biography

In 1865 Karl Hermann Bitter published a two-volume Bach biography. The biography contains some documents from Bach's time that had not been published before, presented with a wealth of historical inferences and personal reflections.^[18] An abridged English translation of the biography appeared in 1873. Shortly after becoming Prussian minister of finance in 1879, Bitter published an enlarged reworking in four volumes of the biography.^[19]

Spitta's comprehensive biography

Philipp Spitta's Johann Sebastian Bach was published in Leipzig in two volumes, in 1873 and 1880 respectively. Its English translation was published by Novello in three volumes.

In his introduction Spitta dismisses all previous biographies apart from the "Nekrolog", Forkel, and part of Gerber.^[20] He is particularly harsh on Bitter.^[21] Spitta's biography went down in history as "... the most ... comprehensive and important single work on Johann Sebastian Bach".^[22] It eclipsed the previous biographies and laid down premises and methodology for future Bach scholarship.^[23]

Bach-biography in English

In the United Kingdom the 19th-century Bach Revival was inscribed in existing traditions respecting baroque music.^[24] The Bach-biographies that were published in English were throughout the century largely based on German examples. An amateurish^[25] translation of Forkel had appeared in London in 1820.^[26] Edward Francis Rimbault had published his Hilgenfeldt/Forkel adaptation in 1869.^[27] An abridged version of Bitter's first edition had appeared in 1873.^[28] In 1882 the first original English biography appeared, Reginald Lane Poole's Sebastian Bach.^[29] Lane Poole bases the biographical data entirely on Spitta, and adds a chronological list of 200 church cantatas by Bach.^[30] By the mid-1880s the translation of Spitta's volumes was complete.^[31]

1890s

Richard Batka published his biography of the composer in 1892, as part of the Musiker-Biographien series.^[32]

First Decade

By the end of the 19th century the Bach Gesellschaft had completed its task of publishing all known works by Bach. The first decade of the new century brought new significant biographies of the composer.

Biographical fiction

In 1925 Esther Meynell published The Little Chronicle of Magdalena Bach, fictitiously telling the story of Bach's life through the eyes of his second wife Anna Magdalena Bach.^[39] The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, a 1968 film featuring Gustav Leonhardt as Johann Sebastian Bach, took the same perspective.^[40]

Terry

Charles Sanford Terry's Bach biography of 1928 focusses on the places where Bach lived.^[33] It is the first biography that contains biographical documents not yet included in Spitta's.^[41]

Gurlitt

Bach's 250th birthday was remembered with a short biography by Wilibald Gurlitt, "Niederschrift des Jubiläumsvortrages bei der Bach-Feier des Ev. Studentenpfarramtes der Universität Freiburg i.Br. im Sommersemester 1935" (written out version of the jubilee speech at the Bach feast of the evangelical student community of the university of Freiburg im Breisgau, in the summer semester of 1935). Published in 1936, it was translated in English in 1957. An enlarged German edition was published in 1980.^[42]

From 1945 to the 1970s

In 1950, two centuries after the composer's death, Wolfgang Schmieder published the BWV catalogue. The decades following World War II also saw the publication of a number of biographical works.

Basso

Around 1980 Alberto Basso published the two volumes of his Italian Bach-biography Frau Musika.^[55] The biography largely follows Spitta's model, with updates to intermediate research.^[56]

Around Bach's 300th birthday

In the years leading up to Bach's 300th birthday in 1985 some new biographies were published. Malcolm Boyd's Bach appeared in 1983.^[57] Denis Arnold's Bach appeared the next year,^[58] as well as a new French biography by Roland de Candé,^[59] and a German one by Werner Felix. That last one was translated into English in 1985.^[60] Piero Buscaroli's Italian biography appeared in 1985.^[61]

Turn of the century

Around the 250th anniversary of Bach's death (2000) several new biographies were published, along with reprints and revised editions of earlier publications.

Williams

In 2004 a new English biography of Bach, written by Peter Williams, was published by the Cambridge University Press.^[72] In 2007 Williams published J. S. Bach: A Life in Music.^[73] Williams's Bach: A Musical Biography was published posthumously in September 2016.^[74]

Gardiner

John Eliot Gardiner's Music in the castle of heaven was published in 2013.^[75]

Schulenberg

David Schulenberg's biography, Bach, was published in 2020.^[76]