BACH.
Bach's position as one of a numerous family of musicians is unique, for it cannot be said of any other composer that his forefathers, his contemporary relations, and his descendants were all musicians, and not only musicians, but holders of important offices as such.
Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest of all that bore that name, considered the founder of his family to be Veit Bach, a Thuringian musician who settled in Pressburg in Hungary as a baker and miller. Later, because of religious persecution, he returned to his native country, where he lived at the village of Wechmar near Gotha, dying in 1619. Of his numerous musical descendants, Johann (1604-1673) became organist at Schweinfurt, and afterward director of the town musicians at Erfurt. Here, though the town suffered much from the effects of war, he founded a family which quickly increased and soon filled all the town musicians' places, so that for about a hundred and fifty years, and even after no more of the family lived there, the town musicians were known as "The Bachs."
