Half Of Johann Sebastian Bach's Children Tragically Died Before Reaching Adulthood - Grunge (2024)

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What happened to Johann Sebastian Bach's children? ›

Johann Sebastian Bach had two wives and a total of 20 children. Sadly, only half of those children survived to adulthood. But of those 10, four became notable composers; each with their own story, their own home town and their own relationship with their father's music.

Bach was married twice — first to Maria Barbara Bach and, upon her death, to Anna Magdalena Wilcke — and sired 20 children. 10 survived into adulthood — six sons and four daughters.

Bach lost a brother and a sister in early childhood, and his mother died when he was only nine years old. Hit by poor sewage disposal and badly organised waste disposal, his father died nine months later in February 1695.

A well-known factoid about Johann Sebastian Bach is that he and his two wives produced 20 children. And for most people today that's as far as the story goes. But a stark reality of family life in Bach's time was that parents tended to have lots of children because childhood mortality was so high.

Bach has no known descendants living today. His great-granddaughter, Frau Carolina Augusta Wilhelmine Ritter, who died 13 May 1871, was his last known descendant. [1] (The article from which this was taken was written in 1930. It is currently believed that there are 15 living direct descendants of J.S.

A cataract couching was performed. After surgery, Bach was totally blind and unable to play an organ, compose or direct choirs and orchestras. He was confined to bed and suffering from immense pain of the eyes and the body.

Bach, on the other hand, maintained his hearing but did go blind near the end of his life, a problem that was exacerbated by a poorly done eye surgery by a man named John Taylor, who was a medical charlatan.

He died of complications after a botched eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65. Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic, and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.

Johann Sebastian Bach, with his wives Maria Barbara (m. 1707–1720) and Anna Magdalena (m. 1721–1750), fathered 20 children over his lifetime. His first was born in 1708 when Bach was 23, with his last coming into the world in 1742, when the composer was 57.

Bach was part of a musical dynasty and he was not only the patriarch but the musical teacher of his children. Several of whom became famous composers and performers. Notably Catharina (singer), Wilhelm Friedemann (composer), Carl Philipp Emanuel (composer), Johann Christoph (composer) and Johann Christian (composer).

What led to Bach's death? ›

Bach underwent eye surgery by the famous yet controversial ophthalmologist Sir John Taylor, who stayed in Leipzig from 4 to 7 April in 1750. Complications necessitated an additional operation. Although Bach was able to see again for a short time, he suffered a stroke and died shortly afterwards on 28 July in 1750.

The name of Johann Sebastian Bach is universally revered these days as one of the big names of music, but it was not always so. Even in his own lifetime, Bach was regarded as old-fashioned, and when he died in 1750 his music was almost immediately forgotten by the majority of the musical world.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) wrote more than a thousand musical works, and had twenty children.

However, opinions of biographers are very controversial. If I would have to decide, I would tend to believe that Bach married a second time, because he fell in love with Anna Magdalena. Bach's wedding with her didn't take place earlier but eighteen months after the death of his first wife.

Trouble flared up again in July 1736; it then took the form of a dispute over Bach's right to appoint prefects and became a public scandal. Fortunately for Bach, he became court composer to the elector of Saxony in November 1736.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) wrote more than a thousand musical works, and had twenty children. Four of his six sons became respected composers in their own right.

In the mid-1980s, Bach began dating Maria Aquinar. The couple had a son, Paris, in 1988. Bach and Aquinar married in July 1992 and had another son, London, in 1994 and a daughter, Sebastiana, born in 2007.

Barbara followed him to Italy to be with him and they married in 1968. They had two children, Francesca Gregorini and Gianni Gregorini.

Bach was at the Carlsbad spa accompanying his employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, when she died. When Bach left Köthen, Maria Barbara was in perfectly good health; but when he returned two months later, he was shocked to learn that she had died and been buried on 7 July. The cause of her death is undocumented.