Few composers loom larger in Western music history than Johann Sebastian Bach – and few are surrounded by as many myths. Over the centuries, Bach has been described as everything from a neglected genius labouring in obscurity to a joyless

Johann Sebastian Bach is known as a composer of precise intellectual rigour. But beneath the carefully calibrated precision of his music lies a deep current of messy sorrow. Again and again over the course of his career, Bach returned to

Today, we remember Johann Sebastian Bach as one of the most prolific composers in music history. However, a significant portion of his output – about half – has not survived. These lost works span categories including sacred and secular cantatas,

In 1875, the English lawyer Arthur Duke Coleridge, an amateur musician with influential connections, spent some time in Leipzig studying music alongside the young Charles Villiers Stanford. He became acquainted with Bach‘s B-minor Mass, a work that had received its

The new book Bach: The Cello Suites by Edward Klorman features exhaustive research into the six Bach Cello Suites and is available as a new Cambridge Music Handbook through Cambridge University Press. This handbook is not to be underestimated, despite

The story has it that the Goldberg Variations were written for the harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727–1756), who entertained the long white nights of Count Hermann Karl von Keyserling (1697–1764), the Russian ambassador to Saxony. Bach was well paid for

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has played a central role in the illustrious career of Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski. Born in Warsaw on 4 April 1969, Anderszewski spent part of his childhood in Paris, and then continued his studies

Happy Birthday to Johann Sebastian Bach, again! As we discovered last time, Bach’s birthday falls on either 21 March according to the Julian calendar, or 31 March if you prefer the Gregorian calendar. Bach probably celebrated his birthday on 21