While working as organist at the new church in Arnstadt Bach lived with his widowed aunt and his 3 cousins in a modest little house at Kohlgasse 7, whose timbers date from 1582. The Bach family owned this house for 45 years, and it was used as a meeting house for members of the huge Bach family who were spread all over the province of Thuringia. When Bach left Arnstadt for a while to go to Lubeck, his cousin in the house took over as organist for him. The Bach dynasty was so pervasive in the music scene in Arnstadt that it is said that musicians working there were referred to as 'Bachs', no matter what their name.
After falling into disrepair this house has been carefully restored, the process of which is recorded with photographs in an exhibition there, now being run by volunteers. It was in fact actually given to Johann Christoph Bach, who was a court musician and the identical twin brother of Bach's father, by the widow of a baker. Johann Christoph died in 1693. It was a thrill to visit this house knowing that Bach had lived there.
