Portraits · Composers · V of XVII

Johann Sebastian Bach

1685–1750 · Composer and organist

I was made to work; if you are equally industrious you will be equally successful.
Ich habe fleißig seyn müssen; wer eben so fleißig ist, der wird es eben so weit bringen können.
Johann Sebastian Bach · as recorded by Forkel, 1802

Read it in the source →

Johann Sebastian Bach gave this answer, his first biographer reports, whenever he was asked how he had mastered his art. Johann Nikolaus Forkel published it in 1802, from what Bach's sons told him.

In 1720 Bach wrote out a fair copy of six works for violin alone. This is its first page.

Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Ueber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke (Leipzig: Hoffmeister & Kühnel, 1802), ch. VIII, p. 45. English: Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life, Art, and Work, trans. Charles Sanford Terry (London: Constable, 1920), p. 106.

The originals

Oil portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1746, grey curled wig, dark coat with gilt buttons and a white shirt, looking at the viewer — **The likeness**PAINTED BY ELIAS GOTTLOB HAUSSMANN · 1746Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (Haussmann died 1774; faithful reproduction of a 2D work, PD-Art). Wikimedia Commons; the Leipzig portrait of 1746. Cropped above the canon sheet he holds, which carries writing.

A page of dense handwritten violin music in brown ink, headed 'Sonata 1ma à Violino Solo senza Basso di J. S. Bach', marked Adagio — **Solo Violin Sonata No. 1, 1720**The Adagio that opens his six works for violin alone, 'senza Basso', without a bass. The title page of his fair copy is dated 1720.Autograph fair copy, 1720, first page of Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Mus. ms. Bach P 967 (via Bach digital). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.