Maria Barbara Bach

Maria Barbara Bach (born October 20 ^{. Jul} / the thirtieth October  1684 ^greg. In Miter ; buried 7. July 1720 in Köthen ) was the daughter of Johann Michael Bach , a cousin of the second degree and the first wife of Johann Sebastian Bach .

Silhouette (~ 1800)

Life

Maria Barbara and Johann Sebastian Bach had great-grandparents in common:

Johannes Bach

Christoph Bach

Heinrich Bach

Johann Ambrosius Bach

Johann Michael Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Maria Barbara Bach

Village church in Dornheim

Maria Barbara's father was cantor in Arnstadt and then organist and town clerk in Gehren. He died when Maria Barbara was ten years old. Her mother, Catharina Wedemann from Arnstadt, died in 1704. Maria Barbara then lived with her two older sisters Friedalena Margaretha and Barbara Catharina Bach in the house of the Arnstadt mayor Martin Feldhaus and his wife Margarethe, née Wedemann.

When Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach married on October 17, 1707 in Dornheim near Arnstadt, both parents were no longer alive.

In the year before their wedding, on November 11th, 1706, at a hearing Johann Sebastian Bach was accused of having "for a long time had the strange maiden bid on the choir and made music". Some biographers have suggested that Maria Barbara was this singer. However, that is unlikely because at that time she had already lived in Arnstadt for two years and was a niece of the mayor on top of that - so by no means a “strange” maid. "Whether it was about his cousin and future wife Maria Barbara," writes Martin Geck, "must remain open."

Maria Barbara Bach died unexpectedly while her husband was staying in Karlsbad in the wake of his employer, Prince Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen . The exact date of death and the cause of death are not known; she was buried in the old cemetery in Koethen on July 7, 1720, before JS Bach's return home.

Memorial in Gehren in memory of Johann Michael Bach and his daughter Maria Barbara Bach

In 2004 the city of Köthen erected a memorial stone in the Friedenspark in memory of Maria Barbara Bach. Another memorial in memory of Maria Barbara Bach and her father Johann Michael Bach is located in Gehren, where she was born.

children

• Catharina Dorothea (December 28, 1708 - January 14, 1774)
• Wilhelm Friedemann , the Dresden or Hallesche Bach (born November 22, 1710, † July 1, 1784)
• Johann Christoph (February 23, 1713 - February 23, 1713)
• Maria Sophia (February 23, 1713 - March 15, 1713)
• Carl Philipp Emanuel , the Berlin or Hamburg Bach (* March 8, 1714 - December 14, 1788)
• Johann Gottfried Bernhard (born May 11, 1715 - † May 27, 1739)
• Leopold Augustus (born November 15, 1718 - † September 29, 1719)

See also

• Bach family

literature

• Johannes Ninck: The two wives of Johann Sebastian Bach. Look into the family life of the great sound engineer. Schloeßmann, Leipzig 1939 (completely outdated from a biographical point of view)
• Lisbeth Haase: "Oh, how did you love him and his game". Her life at the side of Johann Sebastian Bach: Maria Barbara and Anna Magdalena Bach. Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2000, ISBN 3-7751-3531-6 .
• Siegfried Neumann: The wedding of Johann Sebastian Bach with Maria Barbara Bach. In: Dornheim history & stories. Circle of Friends for the Preservation of the Wedding Church by JS Bach, Dornheim 2003, pp. 16–20.
• Uwe Wolf : Johann Sebastian Bach's Chromatic Fantasy BWV 903/1 - a tombeau on Maria Barbara Bach? In: Cöthener Bach Hefte 11 (2003), pp. 97–115.
• Christoph Wolff : Johann Sebastian Bach. Updated new edition, Frankfurt / M. 2005; Pp. 98-102.
• Martin Geck: Bach - life and work. rororo Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2001.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jens Philipp Wilhelm: The case of JS Bach - some comments according to current law on the Arnstadt "fretfulness" of Johann Sebastian Bach . Website from J. Wilhelm, February 15, 2001, accessed on May 21, 2018 (pdf, 151 kB).
2. ↑ Bach - life and work . rororo 2001, p. 64.