Georg Böhm

French and Italian operas were regularly performed in Hamburg, while in the area of sacred music, Johann Adam Reincken of St. Katharine's Church (Katharinenkirche) was one of the leading organists and keyboard composers of his time.

Soon after Flor died in 1697, Böhm applied for an audition for the post, mentioning that he had no regular employment at the time.

[1] From 1700 to 1702 he must have met and possibly tutored the young Johann Sebastian Bach, who arrived in Lüneburg in 1700 and studied at the Michaelisschule, a school associated with the Church of St. Michael (Michaeliskirche).

Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, writing to Johann Nikolaus Forkel in 1775, claimed his father loved and studied Böhm's music, and a correction in his note shows that his first thought was to say that Böhm was Johann Sebastian's teacher.

[2] On 31 August 2006 the discovery of the earliest known Bach autographs was announced, one of them (a copy of Reincken's famous chorale fantasia on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon") signed "Il Fine â Dom.

bit may suggest either "domus" (house) or "Dominus" (master), but in any case it proves that Bach knew Böhm personally.

[3] This connection must have become a close friendship that lasted for many years, for in 1727 Bach named none other than Böhm as his northern agent for the sale of keyboard partitas nos.

Many of his works were designed with flexibility of instrument in mind: a particular piece could be played on the organ, the harpsichord, or the clavichord, depending on the situation in which the performer found himself.