On July 28th 1750 - 250 years ago, there died one of the greatest musicians who ever lived - Johann Sebastian Bach - and music lovers throughout the western world will remember his life with untold gratitude.

He was born in 1650 in Eisenach in northern Germany and died in Leipzig where great celebrations of his music are taking place this year.

Johann was a chorister in the church choir. While he was young he became an excellent violinist and organist. It was a very musical town and district and the young Bach was soon caught up in its rich musical life. In those days a musician was expected to write - and perform - music he had written himself.

He held musical posts in several nearby towns, each one wanting a different sort of music.

He wrote music for instruments (get a copy of one of his Brandenburg Concertos).

He wrote for choirs (listen to his magnificent St. Matthew Passion).

He wrote for the pipe organ (listen to the Toccata and Fugue in D minor), and he was an expert in organ building.

He took all these musical forms to new, and undreamed of, heights.

He was often asked to test new organs. He was severe, but fair. With the organ builder standing by (usually white with fright!) Bach would draw all the stops and announce, "Let's see what its lungs are like!"

He could improvise (make up the music as he played it) for an hour or more, holding his hearers spellbound.

Bach never stopped learning. He never stopped improving himself, or his music. At the age of 65 he spent the last hours of his life dictating (for he had become blind) revisions to a special set of organ pieces he had written, based on the hymn tunes of his church (called Chorale Preludes).

And he wrote at the end of his compositions

Ad maiorem Deum magnum

(To the greater Glory of God)

for he believed that his gifts were God given, and that his music should help others to see God.

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