Bach FAQ 18
How Did Johann Sebastian Bach Met His Maria Barbara?..
Maria Barbara Bach initially lived with her parents in Gehren. Her father, Johann Michael Bach, was the organist there. Gehren is about 30 kilometers (... some 19 miles) from Arnstadt, both Thuringia. Johann Sebastian worked in Arnstadt in the very year before he married Maria Barbara. However, it remains unclear where they met and how they got to know each other..
Theoretically, there are five possibilities. The first is that Maria Barbara and Johann Sebastian met when Maria Barbara was in Arnstadt for a concert or church service. One might assume she was in Arnstadt if one believes the story that Johann Sebastian had a “strange maiden” perform in church. Some speculate that this was Maria Barbara..
On the other hand, tradition suggests that she was indeed the “strange maiden,” but Maria Barbara Bach was well known in Arnstadt. The third possibility is that Johann Sebastian Bach met her in Gehren. And finally, the fourth is that he saw her for the first time at one of the many family gatherings that took place regularly every year in the Bach family. Finally, and fifthly, other sources suggest that Maria Barbara lived in Arnstadt for quite some time and that the two of them crossed paths there..
In any case, Maria Barbara Bach was also somewhat fortunate that Dietrich Buxtehude’s daughter in Lübeck was a full ten years older than she was. For in Lübeck, Johann Sebastian Bach was offered an exciting position relatively shortly before his wedding. However, he could only have accepted it if he had married his predecessor’s daughter. It remains unclear to us whether it was the ten-year age difference, whether he had already fallen in love with Maria Barbara by the time of his trip north, or what it was about Miss Buxtehude that Bach did not like..
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