Johann Sebastian Bach Facts

SCORE ANALYSIS: Bach is known for his love of musical puzzles. He would often leave hints and clues in his works. See if you can figure out the hidden meaning of this excerpt from his third violin partita!

BACH FACT: No one has ever made this joke before

DID YOU KNOW? Bach wrote this cadence and it slaps

the "J.S." in J.S. Bach stands for Jamocha Shake

Prolific use of the ❤️ emoji by Bach (instead of writing 'Herz')...

FUN FACT: Bach is currently dead.

HISTORY TIME: As he aged, Bach began to lose his eyesight. To fix this, he underwent 2 surgeries by surgeon John Taylor. Unfortunately, Bach went completely blind from these surgeries due to the single-payer health care system and the fact that John Taylor wasn't a real doctor.

BACH TRADITIONS: Bach's first wife, Maria Barbara, was actually his cousin. Who knew that Bach had so much in common with the state of Mississippi!

FACT ALERT: A 20-year-old Bach walked 280 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck just to hear famed organist Dietrich Buxtehude perform, so you bet your ass can walk to the polls on November 3rd.

DID YOU KNOW? Historians are only 90% sure that Bach was even a composer. There's a 10% chance that he was actually a weatherman for Fox News.

HISTORY TIME: Did you know that Bach was really into creating low fidelity beats?

CANTATA FACT: 1723 to 1729 are known as Bach's "Cantata Cycle Years" due to the large amount of cantatas he composed at Leipzig. However, out of the 300 cantats that he wrote, over 100 of them were lost in a fire when Bach burned a celebratory effigy of his ex-girlfriend, Karen.

DID YOU KNOW? Bach was turned down for the job of organ master at Sangerhausen after graduating from St. Michael's. So don't worry about the call back interview at Walmart, Jeremy. I'm sure that psychology degree will get you somewhere.

BACH FACT: To practice his engraving skills at 10 years old, Bach would steal and copy his older brother's compositions. This act was forbidden because of the personal, private nature of compositions and because the elder Bach was known to keep nudes mixed in with his sonatas.

ANNA FACTOID: Anna Magdalena met Johann in 1721 and the couple were shortly married. Anna soon gave birth to 13 of Bach's 20 known children. Unfortunately half of them died in childhood because Bach was a strict anti-vaxxer.

DID YOU KNOW? Bach and Handel were born in the same year and lived only 80 miles apart. Bach tried to visit Handel in 1719, but when he arrived in Halle, Handel was out vacationing in the Bahamas.

QUICK FACT: Bach supports the USPS and you should too.

JOHANN FACT: Bach's alleged remains are in a tomb at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, however the authenticity of the skeleton has been called into question many times. Other famous people that might be buried there could include Elvis Presley, JFK, and Bono. Who knows!

STORY TIME: At the time of his death, Bach owned 5 harpsichords, 2 lute-harpsichords, 3 violins, 3 violas, 2 cellos, a viola da Gamba, a lute, and a spinet. Yet today, millennials can hardly make rent payments. Fun!

ACTUAL FACT: After he was appointed to work for the chapel of Duke Johann Ernst III, Bach was unhappy with the quality of singers, even calling one "Zippel Fagottist" (literally "weenie bassonist). Seriously, folks. This is a true fact. Look at the Wikipedia page.