Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was a German composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was the second child and eldest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. Despite his acknowledged genius as an improviser and composer, his income and employment were unstable, and he died in poverty.
Manuscript copy of Der Trost gehöret (BR-WFB F26)
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach House (now a museum), where Friedemann lived in Halle
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific authorship of music across a variety of instruments and forms, including; orchestral music such as the 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 Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.
1748 portrait of Bach, showing him holding a copy of the six-part canon BWV 1076.
Johann Ambrosius Bach, 1685, Bach's father. Painting attributed to Johann David Herlicius [de]
The Wender organ Bach played in Arnstadt
Organ of the St. Paul's Church in Leipzig, tested by Bach in 1717