Thinkers Timeline

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer and organist usually regarded as the supreme master of Baroque music and one of the greatest composers in any tradition. He was born in Eisenach into a large and distinguished family of working musicians — the name Bach had become almost a synonym for musician in parts of central Germany. He was orphaned at ten and raised by an older brother who trained him in the organ and in composition. From fifteen he worked continuously as a professional musician: as a choirboy, as a church organist in small towns, as a court musician at Weimar and then Cothen, and from 1723 until his death as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, where he was responsible for the music at several city churches, the Thomasschule, and important civic occasions. He wrote music almost constantly. His output includes more than two hundred sacred cantatas, the St Matthew and St John Passions, the B minor Mass, the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, The Art of Fugue, dozens of organ works, and hundreds of other pieces. He married twice and had twenty children, several of whom became important composers in the following generation. He went blind in his last year and died after an unsuccessful eye operation. His music was not widely celebrated after his death and had slipped into relative obscurity by 1800; its revival in the nineteenth century, launched by Felix Mendelssohn's 1829 performance of the St Matthew Passion, began a long process by which Bach came to be regarded as a central figure of world music.

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He was born in 1770 in Bonn, in what is now Germany. He is one of the most important composers in the history of Western music. He was baptised on 17 December, so he was probably born a day or two earlier. He came from a musical family. His grandfather was a respected court musician. His father, Johann, was also a musician but a difficult man and a heavy drinker. Johann saw young Ludwig's talent and pushed him hard, sometimes cruelly, hoping to create a child star like Mozart. Beethoven gave his first public performance at the age of seven. In 1792, aged 21, he moved to Vienna, the music capital of Europe. He studied briefly with Joseph Haydn. He soon became famous in Vienna, first as a pianist and then as a composer. Wealthy noble families paid him to write music. He never took a full court post. He preferred to work as a freelance composer, which was unusual for his time. In his late twenties, he began to lose his hearing. By his forties he was almost completely deaf. He kept composing, often using a notebook to communicate with visitors. His later works, including the Ninth Symphony, were written when he could no longer hear them properly performed. He never married, though he loved several women, often unhappily. He died in Vienna in 1827, aged 56. Around 20,000 people attended his funeral.