7 Johann Sebastian Bach 7education at that time. By 1695 both his parents were dead,
and he was looked after by his eldest brother, Johann
Christoph (1671–1721). Christoph was the organist at
Ohrdruf, and he apparently gave Johann Sebastian his first
formal keyboard lessons. In 1700 the young Bach secured
a place in a select choir of poor boys at the school at
Michaelskirche, Lüneburg.
Bach evidently returned to Thuringia late in the
summer of 1702, already a reasonably proficient organist
and composer of keyboard and sacred music. By March 4,
1703, he was a member of the orchestra employed by
Johann Ernst, duke of Weimar (and brother of Wilhelm
Ernst, whose service Bach entered in 1708). When the new
organ was completed at the Neue Kirche (New Church) in
Arnstadt, on the northern edge of the Thuringian Forest,
Bach helped test it, and in August 1703 he was appointed
organist—at age 18.
The Arnstadt Period
At Arnstadt, where he remained until 1707, Bach devoted
himself to keyboard music, for the organ in particular. In
October 1705 he obtained a month’s leave to walk to
Lübeck (more than 200 miles [300 km]), with the specific
intention of becoming acquainted with the spectacular
organ playing and compositions of Dietrich Buxtehude.
He did not return to Arnstadt until mid-January 1706.
During these early years, Bach inherited the musical
culture of the Thuringian area, a thorough familiarity with
the traditional forms and hymns (chorales) of the orthodox
Lutheran service, and, in keyboard music, perhaps a bias
toward the formalistic styles of the south. But he also
learned eagerly from the northern rhapsodists, Buxtehude
above all. By 1708 he had arrived at a first synthesis of
northern and southern German styles.