Secondary sourceNewspaper article1754

Bach's Nekrolog

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Friedrich Agricola · 1754

An obituary of Johann Sebastian Bach published in 1754, written by his son and a former student, and the earliest biography of the composer.

Written by his son and a former student, this obituary is the foundational biography of Bach's life.

Ask Johann Sebastian Bach about this source View the original

Page 158 of Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, 1754, in Fraktur black-letter type. Header reads 'VI. Denkmal dreyer verst. Mitglieder'. Section 'C.' begins with a heading about Johann Sebastian Bach, followed by a body of German text. — Nekrolog for Johann Sebastian Bach, in Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, Volume IV Part 1, Leipzig, 1754.

About this source

What it is

The Nekrolog is the 1754 obituary of Johann Sebastian Bach, published four years after his death in Lorenz Christoph Mizler's periodical Musikalische Bibliothek. It was written by Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and his former student Johann Friedrich Agricola, though no author was named in the original publication.

Why it matters

This obituary is the earliest biography of Bach and the source of many famous anecdotes, including stories about his youth, a musical competition, and his visit to Frederick the Great. Later biographers, including the influential 19th-century writer Philipp Spitta, relied heavily on it, even though some details, like the timing of his brother's death, were later shown to be inaccurate.

Look closer

Why might Bach's son and a former student be both valuable and biased sources about his life?
What does it suggest that later historians found some details in the Nekrolog to be incorrect?
Why do written obituaries matter for how we remember historical figures today?

This newspaper article is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Johann Sebastian Bach on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.