Among the Bach family’s ancestors, Johann Sebastian particularly admired the works of Johann Christoph Bach of Arnstadt and continued to perform them later in Leipzig. Bach’s second cousin was responsible for church and court music in Eisenach for many years and was probably one of his first organ teachers.

His powerful motets and cantatas, based on proverbs, have been preserved in Bach’s music archive, including the lively wedding dialogue ‘Meine Freundin, du bist schön’ (‘My friend, you are beautiful’), a musical depiction of a wedding celebration, to which his descendant Johann Sebastian responded forty years later with his equally whimsical ‘Hochzeits-Quodlibet’ (‘Wedding Quodlibet’).