A 1748 portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach shows him holding one of his scores. Image from Wikipedia Commons.
In Sunday’s (3/24) El País (Madrid), Sergio Pagán writes, “When the youngest child of the town musician Johann Ambrosius Bach and his wife Elisabetha was born in Eisenach, Germany, 339 years ago on March 21, 1685, no one could have imagined the importance that this new life would have in the history of Western music. That child, Johann Sebastian Bach … would be, and still is today, the most influential composer in the long history of music from the 17th century to today. Every Easter, his Passions can be heard in concerts all over the world in a musical liturgy that goes beyond the Protestant religion in which the composition was conceived…. The Well-Tempered Clavier, the French Suites, the Organ Book and Inventions are all works intended for educational purposes … Written in the early years of the 18th century, these books now form part of the curricula of all conservatories around the world…. Bach’s [compositions have] a singular quality that has allowed his music to be approached from radically different perspectives … from transcriptions for (sometimes picturesque) instruments, such as the accordion, the hurdy-gurdy and the pan flute, to their successful manipulation by the great masters of jazz.”
