After biking through the Thuringian Forest during the morning, we arrived in Arnstadt, the town where the young Bach (18 years old at the time in 1703) held his first position as a professional musician. 
One of the many highlights of our visit to this charming small town is the statue of Bach shown below. It has been controversial since it was created in 1985 by Professor Bernd Göbel to mark the 300th anniversary of J.S. Bach’s birth. It depicts the composer as an rather insouciant 18 year-old (as imagined by the artist as there is no known painting of Bach at this age).

J.S. Bach statue in Arnstadt

In the afternoon we toured St. Bonifatious Church, which was destroyed in the great town fire in 1581 and rebuilt between 1676 and 1683 as the "Neue Kirche" (New Church). Master organ builder Johann Friedrich Wender made an organ for the Neue Kirche in 1703, which 18-year old Johann Sebastian Bach examined and tested.

Bach was the organist here from 1703 until 1707. In 1935, the church was renamed the "Johann Sebastian Bach Church" to mark the musician's 250th birthday.

On the organ gallery on the west side is the Baroque Wender organ already played by J.S. Bach and beneath it, on its own gallery, the Romantic Steinmeyer organ dating from 1913.

We were fortunate to have had a private tour of the church followed by an extraordinary organ performance, both led by the current Bach Church organist.

Baroque Wender Organ from 1703

We concluded the tour by singing a Bach cantata to the organist's accompaniment (click here for video).