#1 Johann Sebastian Bach was born in March 1685 in Eisenach.

Located in the modern central German state of Thuringia it is approximately 170km to the north-east of Frankfurt and 300km south-west of Berlin, with Leipzig about 170km to the west. 

#2 Bach never left what we now know as Germany.

His parents died by the time he was 10 years old. He attended a choir school for poor boys in Lüneberg (near Hamburg), then at 18 began his career in Arnstadt (from where he set out on his epic 400km walk to Lübeck to hear the famous Dietrich Buxtehude play the organ) followed by jobs in Mühlhausen and Weimar. After a protracted contractual argument, and a short spell in jail, Bach moved to the employ of Prince Leopold of Cöthen (to the north of Leipzig) in late 1717. Bach was then to have just one more job throughout his entire life: as director for church music of the city of Leipzig where he stayed from 1723 until his death in 1750.

#3 Bach had compiled the ‘Brandenburg Concertos’ by early 1721 although some may have been composed up to 10 years earlier. 

As Prince Leopold’s musical director he was in charge of chamber and orchestral music, producing many of his best known instrumental works here. There are clues that point to some of the concertos – or earlier versions – being performed there, but it seems he produced the manuscript handed down to us as a gift to Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg.

#4 The Brandenburg Concertos were first published in 1850.

The manuscript is now in the Berlin State Library.

#5 The first LP recording of the complete set was directed by Adolf Busch in 1934.

Followers of our Bach, the Universe and Everything series will be interested to know that Concerto No. 2 is among the tracks included on the Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft.