This work is a record of Johann Sebastian Bach's career, not a critical appreciation of his music. His personality has been so buried under the towering pyramid of his manuscript that, for most of us, he is but faintly visible on a background of the Bachgesellschaft folios. Contents: family; school; apprenticeship; young organist; Weimar; Cothen; Das jetzt florirende Leipzig; director musices; battle of the prefects; last years.