Bach Family Sites

Abstract

This essay constitutes a supplement to the authors' Exploring the World of J. S. Bach: A Traveler's Guide (University of Illinois Press, 2016). The original volume described the towns where Johann Sebastian Bach lived or visited, reviewing their history, clarifying their role in Bach's life, and describing their most important cultural landmarks. It did not consider other members of the Bach musical dynasty. They are the subject of the present article. It consists of three principal sections. "Section I: Family Musicians Active in the 'J. S. Bach' Towns" describes the roles that several of these fifty-one towns played in the lives of other Bach family members besides Johann Sebastian. "Section II: Major Bach Family Sites" surveys ten towns that were of decisive importance in the lives of earlier and later members of the family, specifically: Braunschweig/Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel, Bückeburg, Frankfurt an der Oder, Jena, Mannheim, Meiningen, Rheinsberg, Ruppin, and Schweinfurt. "Section III: Briefly Considered: Other Towns, Other Bachs" offers entries on fifteen additional German towns that played roles in the careers of mostly minor members of the Bach family. The current survey spans some three hundred years and seven generations: from Johann Sebastian's great-great-grandfather—the quasi-legendary Veit (Vitus) Bach (ca. 1550–1619)—to his grandson, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst (1759–1845). The new sections, added to the fifty-one of the original book, bring to seventy-six the total number of German cities, towns, and villages inhabited or visited by members of the Bach family dynasty that dot the landscape of what we like to think of as "Bach Country"—now considerably expanded, beyond Saxony and Thuringia, to embrace Lower Saxony (notably Braunschweig and Bückeburg), Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart, Mannheim), and Franconia, which is part of modern Bavaria (Schweinfurt, Bayreuth). A final section, "Section IV: The Bach Family Abroad," tallies the foreign towns and/or countries, eight in all, that played roles (some of great significance) in the lives and careers of the Musical Bach Family: Bender (Bessarabia/Moldova), Constantinople/Istanbul (Turkey), England, Italy, Paris, Pressburg/Bratislava (Slovakia), Rotterdam, and Stockholm.