Maria Barbara Bach

20 October] 1684 – buried 7 July 1720) was a German singer and the first wife of composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

The extended Bach family was closely knit, and as Maria Barbara was his second cousin, it is fairly safe to assume that they knew each other at least casually from childhood.

They became close during Bach's tenure as organist of Mühlhausen's St. Blasius Church, and were able to marry at Dornheim on 17 October 1707, thanks to an inheritance of 50 gulden (more than half his annual salary) which he received from his maternal uncle, Tobias Lämmerhirt.

[6] According to the Nekrolog ('obituary') co-authored by Carl Philipp Emanuel and Bach student Johann Friedrich Agricola, Maria Barbara's death in 1720 was sudden and unexpected.

When Bach left Köthen, Maria Barbara was in perfectly good health; but when he returned two months later, he was shocked to learn that she had died and been buried on 7 July.