The Young Bach" focuses on the time when Bach was just beginning his professional career as a musician. Orphaned at the age of 10, Bach moved to Ordruf, to live with his older brother Johann Christoph, who taught him keyboard playing and probably organ construction. At the age of 15, Bach left home and travelled to Lüneburg with a musical scholarship at St. Michaelis. At this age he undoubtedly heard the music of Georg Böhm, organist of the St. Johanniskirche, also in Lüneberg. The organ there was superb, but in poor condition at the time.

The young Bach also the opportunity to visit Celle, where the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg had created a court immersed in French music and culture. Bach also visited the large northern city of Hamburg, which had some of the greatest organs in Europe. The elderly Jan Adam Reinken played the large organ of St. Katharinen Church in Hamburg, and was also co-founder of the first opera company in northern Europe. His friendship with Bach would later be rekindled when Bach applied for the position of music director at the Jacobi Church only a couple of blocks away. These experiences shaped Bach’s musical career, and his style of composition. The adoption of French ornamentation style and a life-long infatuation with writing musical variations -- from the partitas, the Passacaglia, to the Goldbergs and Art of Fugue -- all begin during this period.

By the time he was 20, Bach had taken his first major job as organist on a new instrument in the town of Arnstadt in Thuringia. It was from Arnstadt that he took his famous trek north to Lübeck to meet Buxtehude. Buxtehude presided over one of the most important church music programs in northern Europe, and was so impressed with the young Bach that he offered to make Bach his successor. The only catch was that Bach would have to marry Buxtehude’s daughter, just as Buxtehude had married the daughter of his predecessor. Bach’s heart belonged to Barbara Maria Bach (whom he later married) and he declined the offer. Confident that he could command a good salary and have a promising career as an organist, Bach left Arnstadt for Mülhausen in 1707. He stayed there for less than one year, before taking a court appointment in Weimar - at double the salary.

In one sense, almost all of Bach’s organ works are youthful works. His job in Weimar was his last as an organist. When he left Weimar to serve as Capellmeister at the court of Köthen, he was in his early 30s. Although Bach continued to write for the organ, especially as Cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig, the majority of his output for the instrument occurred during his Weimar years and before.

The Young Bach features the music of Bach in his teens and 20s – composed during the time he spent in Lüneburg, Arnstadt, Mülhausen, and Weimar.

Roger Sherman