Johann Sebastian Bach

1685 – 1750

Music

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schübler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St. Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. He is known for his mastery of counterpoint, as heard in The Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. Felix Mendelssohn precipitated the Bach Revival with a performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829. Ever since, Bach has been acclaimed as one of the greatest composers of classical music.

Contemporaries

George Frideric Handel

65 yr overlap

Antonio Vivaldi

56 yr overlap

Voltaire

56 yr overlap

Benjamin Franklin

44 yr overlap

Carl Linnaeus

43 yr overlap

Isaac Newton

42 yr overlap

Peter the Great

40 yr overlap

Christopher Wren

38 yr overlap

Louis XIV

30 yr overlap

Immanuel Kant

26 yr overlap

Captain James Cook

22 yr overlap

Catherine the Great

21 yr overlap

Their World