NotePlayMusicAt age twenty, Bach asked for four weeks off from his church job, walked 250 miles across Germany on foot to hear a master organist, and stayed four months.
Prelude in C major, BWV 846 — The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Bach turns a series of plain five-note broken chords into an endless harmonic river—one prelude and fugue for every major and minor key.
The 20-year-old organist who walked 250 miles—and stayed four months
In October 1705, the 20-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach was working as church organist in Arnstadt. Eager to learn from the great northern organist Dietrich Buxtehude at St. Mary’s Church in Lübeck, Bach requested four weeks of leave—and walked roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) north on foot.
So captivated was Bach by Buxtehude’s evening concerts (the Abendmusiken) that four weeks turned into four months. When he finally walked back in early 1706, the Arnstadt town consistory hauled him into a disciplinary hearing—not only for overstaying his leave by three months, but also for filling the hymns with “surprising variations and strange ornaments” that confused the congregation.
Writing a new masterpiece every single Sunday in Leipzig
From 1723 until his death in 1750, Bach served as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, overseeing the music for four churches, teaching Latin and singing at the St. Thomas School, and raising a household in which he fathered twenty children (ten of whom survived to adulthood, including famous composers C. P. E. Bach and J. C. Bach).
During his first years in Leipzig, Bach composed, copied parts for, rehearsed, and directed a new sacred cantata almost every single week—while still finding time to assemble The Well-Tempered Clavier (48 preludes and fugues cycling through all 12 major and 12 minor keys twice), the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, and the St. Matthew Passion.
Nearly forgotten as a composer—until Mendelssohn revived him
To most of 18th-century Europe, Bach was remembered primarily as a legendary keyboard virtuoso and strict contrapuntist whose dense polyphony was going out of fashion. At the bottom of his scores he quietly wrote the initials S.D.G.—Soli Deo gloria (“To God alone be the glory”).
Yet inside the studios of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier remained the secret bible of keyboard playing. And when the 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829—the first performance outside Leipzig since Bach’s death—the modern Bach revival exploded worldwide.
Why Bach’s broken chords teach you harmony automatically
In the opening of Prelude in C major (BWV 846), there is no separate “melody” and “accompaniment”—every measure is a single 5-voice chord unfolded one note at a time (C major → D minor 7 in third inversion → G7 in first inversion → C major). Practicing broken chords trains your hands and ears to feel harmonic tension and resolution.
Historical sources & references
- C. P. E. Bach & J. F. Agricola, Nekrolog (1754): Obituary published in Lorenz Christoph Mizler’s Musikalische Bibliothek recounting the 1705 foot journey to Lübeck.
- Arnstadt Consistory Minutes (21 February 1706): Official church council transcript questioning Bach over his four-month absence and bold organ harmonizations.