Bach FAQ 78
Who Was and Is More Famous: Johann Sebastian Bach or His Sons?..
It depends. And, with a wink: Until the first of Bach's sons even had a profession, his father was the most famous Bach..
Seriously: This is about the time when Johann Sebastian Bach was at the height of his musical success during his lifetime. And it’s about the period when his sons followed in his footsteps in this “discipline” (... long after I had written that section, I removed the words “during his lifetime.” I did this because the peak of one’s fame is usually when one is still alive.)..
But that wasn't the case at all with Bach. He is today far more famous than he was during his lifetime. And it's true: That's also the case for many artists across all disciplines..
Johann Sebastian Bach was forgotten by the public the very day he died. For a full 80 years. His work was lost. Not really, it was never gone. And yet that’s not quite right either, because ninety percent of his works did in fact disappear. What is meant here, however, is that awareness of his extraordinary talent was lost. And that was precisely the time when his four sons rose to fame..
And so it came to pass that, during the lifetimes of Johann Sebastian Bach’s four sons, they, too, became famous. Just like their father. Two of them were even more famous than their father. It was not until some 80 years after Bach’s death that Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy performed the St. Matthew Passion again. It was precisely this one performance that marked the beginning of the era in which Johann Sebastian Bach really became– and gradually, throughout the whole world – truly famous. The fame of his sons naturally faded after their deaths. For them, too, musical trends and tastes were constantly changing..
And here’s a little “aha” moment for you: Bach had six sons who were musicians. Bernhard Bach was a cantor, and Bach wrote the following about his sixth musical son: “Gottfried Heinrich Bach, the fourth son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Born on February 26, 1724. He, too, had a penchant for music, especially the keyboard.” Bach’s son Carl Phillip Emanuel later added: “He was a great genius, but one that was never fully developed.”..
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