With the exception of William Shakespeare we probably know less about the private life of Johann Sebastian Bach than we do about that of any of the other supreme artistic figures of modern history. As reported in chapter 1, the extant documents bearing on his life are almost invariably “official” in character. But, although no letters from Bach to any members of his immediate family have sur-vived, one letter addressed to his childhood friend, Georg Erdmann, does touch, if ever so briefly, on his private situation. It is dated October 28, 1730. It is, typically, essentially a business letter in which Bach expresses his interest in leaving Leipzig and asks his friend to see what he could do. Quite untypically, Bach appends a concluding paragraph, much in the manner of a postscript, or at least a reluctant afterthought, in which he notes:

Ten years before Bach wrote this letter, his first wife (and cousin), Maria Barbara, had died suddenly in July 1720, after less than thirteen years of marriage, at the age of thirty-five. Less than a year and a half later, on December 3, 1721, Bach, the widowed father of four young children, married Anna Magdalena Wilcke, then twenty years old.