Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach on March 21, 1685, according
to the Old Style reckoning, which is ten days behind the Gregorian
calendar. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, had married an Elisabeth
Lämmerhirt nearly twenty years earlier in Erfurt, where he was town
player. Probably he became Court musician to Duke Johann Georg, at
Eisenach, whither he had removed. His plea to return to Erfurt was
disallowed by his noble employer and so it came that Johann Sebastian
saw the light in Eisenach. Not, however, in the rambling house on
the Frauenplan as traditionally supposed. Comparatively recent
investigation has shown that the actual birthplace is a short distance
away, in a street named after Martin Luther. A rather unromantic
looking dwelling, it was occupied till just before the Second World War
by a barber.
There is a certain symbolic propriety that Bach should have been
born in Eisenach rather than in the more prosaic Erfurt. Eisenach
had powerful religious and romantic associations. Luther had been
entertained by Frau von Cotta in one of its gabled houses while the
Reformer was still a boy. High above the city towered the Wartburg,
where Luther translated the Bible, threw his inkwell at the Devil,
and composed some of his sturdiest chorales. Up there, too, had dwelt
the saintly Elisabeth, while in its halls knightly Minnesingers had
competed in tourneys of song. In the remoter distances rose the fabled
Hörselberg, where according to legend Dame Venus held her unholy court
and ensnared the souls of unwary men. Just what impression these things
made on the child Bach we cannot say. At any rate he could not remain
untouched by the currents of music. The boy had a pretty treble voice
and at the local school he sang in the so-called Currende choir, making
a few pennies now and then on feasts and holidays, at weddings and at
funerals, in company with his schoolmates. He may even have sat in the
organ loft of St. George’s Church, pulling out the heavy stops for his
uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, who had been the organist there for many
years.
Nevertheless, we have no elaborate record of Johann Sebastian’s
boyhood. His father, indeed, taught him the rudiments of violin and
viola, and Terry credits the youngster with “patient concentration” in
the pursuit of these instrumental studies. We do know that he became
before long an uncommonly proficient violinist but took particular
delight in playing viola when he participated in ensemble work. Like
Mozart in after years, the youthful Bach loved to find himself “in the
middle of the harmony.”