Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, on March 21, 1685, and died in Leipzig, Germany, on July 28, 1750. Approximate performance time is four minutes.

In addition to his incomparable talents as a composer, Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the finest keyboard virtuosos of his day. Bach’s mastery extended to both the harpsichord and organ. Bach was able to execute the most difficult passages with a minimum of visible effort. As Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nicolaus Forkel, described:

Bach is said to have played with so easy and so small a motion of the fingers that it was hardly perceptible. Only the first joints of the fingers were in motion; the hands retained, even in the most difficult passages, its rounded form; the fingers rose very little from the keys, hardly more than in a trill, and when one was employed the others remained quietly in position. Still less did the other parts of his body take any share in his playing, as happens with many whose hand is not light enough. He rendered all of his fingers, of both hands, equally strong and serviceable, so that he was able to execute not only chords and all running passages, but also single and double trills with equal ease and delicacy.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s employment as an organist occurred during his early years in Arnstadt, Mülhausen, and Weimar. The organ work known as the “Little” Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, in all likelihood dates from Bach’s Arnstadt period.

Several of Bach’s organ compositions have found a place in the concert hall via transcriptions for orchestra and smaller ensembles. This concert features a transcription of the “Little” Fugue in G minor for brass quintet, arranged by trumpeter Ronald Romm (b. 1946), a longtime member of the Canadian Brass.