Background
Johann Christoph was born in Erfurt in June 1671, a few months before the family moved to Eisenach, where Johann Sebastian was born fourteen years later as the last child.
Johann Christoph was born in Erfurt in June 1671, a few months before the family moved to Eisenach, where Johann Sebastian was born fourteen years later as the last child.
He was the eldest of the brothers of Johann Sebastian Bach who survived childhood. In 1686 Johann Christoph was sent to Erfurt to study under Johann Pachelbel for the next three years. By the end of his apprenticeship he was organist in the Saint Thomas church in that town for a short time, followed by some months at Arnstadt where several Bach relatives lived.
In 1690 Johann Christoph became organist at the Michaeliskirche at Ohrdruf.
His mother Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt had died earlier that year, and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach died in March the next year. At the time, Johann Jacob was thirteen, and Johann Sebastian not even ten.
Johann Christoph"s five sons were born between 1695 and 1713. An anecdote is told by Johann Sebastian"s early biographers:
The brother had however not died "soon after".
All of Johann Christoph"s sons became musicians, three of them at Ohrdruf.
He died, aged 49, in Ohrdruf.