The Second Birth
"40 Stories About Famous Composers" by D. Tenev - Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750
Preface: Dear reader and listener, as it happens, we end year 2024 and start the new year with my favourite music, simply because Bach comes after Händel in Tenev’s book although they are born the same year. They played organ and harpsichord, the piano didn’t even exist yet. It was invented during the later period of their life time, in Padua, Italy, in 1726, by the Medici’s Keeper of the Instruments, Bartolomeo Cristofori. It took some time before the piano reached Prussia and Britain. Händel was a wealthy star composer of church music and opera in Britain and in all German lands. Bach was poorer and known as a singer and a performer, a master of baroque improvisation, but his musical compositions were neither liked nor known. His contemporaries liked Johann Pachelbel instead. "Ironically, it is Bach’s work which is used to teach harmony in music schools today, Bach is the master of voice leading”, said a friend of mine, a professional musician. Bach cared so much about music that he called a student ‘a nanny-goat bassoonist’ (may be because he played too high vibrato), for which Bach got beaten in public and had to carry a dagger to protect himself from angry pupils. Now, that’s passion! Many of Bach’s numerous compositions were written as school exercises, also for his family members. For example, Bach wrote one of my all time favourites, a 2,5 minute long Prelude in C Major, as an exercise for his second wife Anna Magdalene, a singer, who was 20 years old when she married Bach and gave birth to 13 of their children. Yet, to this day, weddings prefer Pachelbel. Never heard of a wedding entertained by Sebastian Bach.
I thank Dragan Tenev for his stories and wish You a Happy New Bach Year!
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The Second Birth
Berlin - March 11, 1829.
Although the cold was biting cruelly and it was a hundred times better to be at home, there was not a single free place in the large hall of the "Singing Academy", even for those who were standing. Meanwhile, the interest of Berliners in this unusual concert was quite justified. It was not every day that one could hear a combined choir of four hundred singers, accompanied by the orchestra of the Philharmonic Society under the direction of twenty years old Mendelssohn perform for the first time “St Matthew Passion” - a grandiose musical work written a hundred years ago, which had been performed so far, only once since its creation in 1729! The author of "Matthäus Passion" was the unknown Johann Sebastian Bach, former cantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche Cathedral, who became famous among his contemporaries mostly as a virtuoso organist, without making any impression on them as a composer. Of course, he was completely unknown as a composer to the contemporary German audience, but the fact that Mendelssohn had called him “the greatest musician that Germany had produced” was in itself enough reason not to miss this vicarious concert. At the same time, it should be noted, and not least, that in the performance of St Matthew Passion", which told about the martyrdom of Christ as the medieval "mysteries" had once been told, the most famous singers of the Berlin Royal Chamber were guests as soloists.
- And you know, my dear, - said Frau von Schlitz, - all the participants and even the copyists of sheet music have given up to help revive Bach's music, which Faulkner claims is “a priceless national treasure that no other nation in Europe can boast of”. - She lowered her voice. - Imagine, the only one who didn't want to buy a ticket for tonight and asked for two free cards was Signor Spontini, the director of the opera!
- What can you expect from an Italian, - the young Baroness von Dorn smiled condescendingly and in order not to be left behind by her friend, she added significantly - It is rumoured in the city that the young Mendelssohn discovered the score of “Matthäus Passion” quite by accident. He had stopped by a butcher and bought meat, but when he got home, he noticed that it was wrapped in a sheet filled with ugly written notes. Mendelssohn tried to decipher the stained and blood-smeared tiny signs on the five lines and was stunned. This made him sit down at the piano and try to play them. When he had finished, he ran to the butcher and immediately bought from his attic all the manuscripts of old Bach, which had been brought to the butcher shop by some ragged man for a paltry price.
- My God, who told you all this, Elizabeth? - Frau von Schlitz asked ironically. - It's been a long time since I've heard a more ridiculous fiction.
- They told it at Baroness Sweeten's tea! - The young aristocrat said, offended by the tone. - Fools don't gather there! They were only the most selected guests ...
- Nevertheless, I must assure you that it was impossible for such a thing to happen! Frau von Schlitz replied businesslike, - because, first, Mendelssohn is the son of one of the richest bankers in Berlin and will never go out to buy meat himself, secondly, because there will be no butcher in Berlin who will wrap his client's meat in ink paper, and thirdly, because the notes of “Matthäus Passion” have been found nowhere else but in the dusty library of the Joachimsthal High School!
- And how could they get exactly there? - Her young friend teased her, as she had not been able to get the expected effect of the meat story.
- It is believed that the manuscripts were given to the library by Princess Amalia, sister of King Frederick II, who had purchased them from Bach's son Johann Christian Bach.
- The same Johann Christian Bach who was the music teacher of the Queen of England?
- Yes, the same! - Frau von Schlitz confirmed authoritatively, and added, but quite seriously - Actually, you know, Elisabeth, it doesn't matter where the music sheet of "Matthäus Passion" and Bach's other manuscripts were found. It is much more important that they have found them at all and that, now, the world will hear the music of the first organist, whom his contemporaries have not appreciated at all as a composer.
- And why didn't they value it? - asked the Baroness.
- Because he was born in Germany, my dear, and you know that sometimes it takes us Germans at least a hundred years to understand that someone is a genius! Therefore, the …
There was applause in the hall and the two women raised their heads. Mendelssohn had appeared on the scene. He sat down at the piano with his back to the audience, as was the custom to conduct at the Singing Academy, and raised his hand. Then, as if from heaven, the sounds of the most extraordinary music that anyone in Germany had listened to flew to the audience . . .
The success of Bach's “St Matthew Passion” was so spectacular when it was first performed that on the March 21 of the same year, on the very day on which Johann Sebastian Bach himself had been born one hundred and forty-four years ago, the concerto was repeated.
The second performance aroused even more enthusiasm than the first.
The audience was crazy with excitement. Its applause did not stop . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
After the concert on March 21, 1829, the director of the "Singing Academy" Zelter, who had stubbornly opposed the public performance of the “St Matthew Passion" because the audience would not understand it, declared himself defeated and invited a small circle of fans of Bach's music to dinner. In the place of honor, to the right of the wife of the tenor Devrient, he seated a very inconspicuous guest, dressed in ill-cut clothes, with an elongated, clean-shaven face and an unusually high forehead. While he was having dinner, this guest did not say a word to his neighbor and his main concern all the time after dinner was not to dip his sleeve into the plate in front of him. However, his young dining companion noticed that he had an excellent appetite ...
At last Frau Devrient could not stand it and leaned over to Mendelssohn, who was sitting on the other side of her.
- Who is this fool to my right? - She whispered.
- This is the famous philosopher Hegel, dear lady! The young musician replied in a whisper. - He, too is a great admirer of Bach's music and spoke about it in detail in his lectures on aesthetics to students at the University. Last year, when I listened to him…
Suddenly Frau Dervient saw how the "fool on the right", finally, dipped his sleeve into his plate and fussed and worried about it. He didn't know how to get out of the situation he was in.
- Fate itself helps me to correct my mistake! - thought the amused Frau Devrient, and although she had not yet exchanged a word with the great German thinker, she immediately came to his aid and chirped:
- Oh, Herr Professor, allow me to help you because of our mutual respect for Bach's music. - A charming smile spread across her face. - You can't do it alone. . . .
Hegel looked at his beautiful neighbor with gratitude, and then, with the expression of a guilty child, he decided shyly:
- You are quite right, dear Madam, for I myself am really unable to do anything but get more dirty…
Eisenach — March 21, 1685.
At dawn, a new child was born in the family of the musician Johann Ambrosius Bach. It was a boy. When they put him in the cradle, the invisible fairy godmothers flew over it to determine his future.
- Well, we're here again! - The first fairy said. - For which time do we come to old Bach's house?
- For the eighth, - replied the second fairy godmother smiling, - but here our work in the male line will not be difficult. For two hundred years we have been making all the men in this family only musicians. We started with their great-grandfather Veit Shtoss, the miller who played the zither. And, will we send this one on the path of his ancestors or . . .
- Even if we give him another future, he'll still be a musician, dear sisters! - The third fairy said condescendingly. - Lately, people in Germany have been sticking more and more stubbornly to family traditions when it comes to their trades. But I suggest that we blind him at the end of his life.
- Why blind him? - The other two fairy godmothers asked in surprise. - Why would he need to be blind at the end of his life?
- For a little variety in the monotonous existence of this old family… - answered the third fairy.
- If you insist, let him go blind! - said the second fairy and turned to the first. - What are we going to do with the money?
- As with the other Bachs, there won't be too much, nor too little! - The first fairy godmother smiled.
- This is the worst opportunity for a human life. I will, therefore, add to your stingy gift at least some iron-strong health and inhuman diligence, as retribution to some degree.
- Let him be a genius then, if you think I'm a stingy! - The first fairy added aggrieved. - I don't want you to think I'm bad to him.
- What else can I add then! - the good-natured fairy laughed. - There's nothing more left for me, he’s got enough, it seems. A family that has been delighting people's hearts with music for two hundred years has the right to receive a little fame in the end . . .
She laughed and added:
- Well, let's go then! We have no more work here.
And, the fairy godmothers flew away from the cradle of the newborn Johann Sebastian Bach, as the boy would have been called after his birth.
. . . . . . . . . .
Johann Sebastian Bach's childhood was not distinguished in any way from the childhood of his other peers in Eisenach. At first, there were only games, songs, heroic wounds on the knees, picking bird eggs from nests, good appetite from the clean air, and the angelic sleep. Then came the school in the old Dominican monastery, Latin, arithmetic, German literature. At the same school where Johann Sebastian studied, was educated even Martin Luther, who had, later studied at Wartburg Castle, perched above Eisenach, in order to translate the Bible into a language understandable to the German peasants…
Johan Sebastian Bach’s birthplace, Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany.
The teachers were very pleased with the student Johann Sebastian. He was extremely smart, punctual, and hardworking. He studied what they taught with love and diligence that surprised them. And, Latin was his favourite subject…
Early in May, 1694, when the cherries in Eisenach had already begun to ripen, death crept into the house of Johann Ambrosius, and carried away his wife Elisabeth, née Lämmerhirt, the daughter of a tanner from Erfurt. At that time, Johann Sebastian was nine years old. Shortly before he reached the age of ten, his father Johann Ambrosius Bach also died. This happened in January 1695. And, the little boy, whom he had already taught to play the violin, suddenly, became a complete orphan…
. . . . . . . . .
Johann Christoph, his eldest brother, forteen years older than him, took him to Ohrdruf where he worked as an organist at the local church. He was a good brother and he would take care of him, not to starve, but this was the end of caresses.
The violin lessons continued. Harpsichord lessons were added and, of course, organ lessons. The most important of all instruments that had fed more than one Bach.
Johann Sebastian was not only a diligent student, but also a capable one, because, to his brother's surprise, he developed at a breakneck speed. He did not know fatigue and despite the many lessons in the Latin school, where they constantly praised him for his excellent success, he played day and night and improved.
One day, he heard that his brother was playing some unusual music. It was nothing like anything he'd heard before, or sung in church choirs. The melody sounded very pleasant, accompaniment was complex and, in the silence, the sounds torn apart from the harpsichord , were sometimes clinging as if in an argument, sometimes walking calmly next to each other.
Johann Sebastian went in to his brother.
- What are you playing?
His brother was startled and turning around, he said angrily:
- Go back to the other room and do your lessons, instead of asking me questions. It's none of your business what I play. You shouldn't listen to such music.
- Why? - The younger brother dared to ask, in Johann Christoph's sharp tone. - It was very nice.
- Maybe you're right, - his brother softened. - This music isn't for you yet. And now, run to the other room!
The next day, when his brother went to Mass in the church, Johann Sebastian crept into his room and started looking for the notebook with the extraordinary music he had played yesterday. The notebook turned out to be locked in a cabinet with an iron bar, but his hands were thin and the boy managed to break through the irons. Fortunately, the cabinet doors did not have glass. Johann Sebastian rolled up the notebook and pulled it out. Then, he, cautiously, opened the precious scroll and read on its cover the unknown names of Pachelbel, Buxtehude, Froberger and Kerll.
“Here it is! Here it is!" his heart sang, but little Johann Sebastian controlled himself, folded the notebook and put it back in its place so that no one would know about its removal
A plan was born in his head already - he was going to copy the entire magical notebook at night and keep the transcript as the most precious gift of fait, as a key to new worlds of sounds...
In the first nights, Johann Sebastian wore out three candles as he was copying his brother's notebook, and his sister-in-law refused to give him more candles. He had to stop and wait until the nights became brighter so that he can continue his work without a candle.
Only in moonlight.
The intense toiling copying in the darkness lasted for whole six months. And, from the constant staring into the darkness his eyes started hurting. They turned red like the eyes of those white mice that magicians carry around the fairs. Frightened, Johann Christoph called a doctor. The doctor gave eye drops and his eyes got better, but since the night work continued and he became almost blind. He became terribly short-sighted and could read in daylight, only if he bent hard over the book.
Unfortunately, one of the last nights of the copying his brother caught him, and all the slave labor went to waste…
By that time, in the house of Johann Christoph he was, already, the second child. His brother's salary wasn't enough for everyone and Johann Sebastian understood — he had to go. Together with his classmate Erdmann, he set off on foot for Lüneburg, where choristers were needed for the church choir. The only condition that the people of Lüneburg put before the candidates for choristers was that they need to be "children of poor parents" . . .
When Johann Sebastian and Georg Erdmann left Ohrdruf and took the dusty roads to the north, a cholera epidemic broke out in the city, but they only learned about it when they were, already, very far away.
Weimar — November 30, 1717 . . .
The thirty two years old Johann Sebastian Bach, orchestrator of His Serene Highness the Duke of Weimar Wilhelm Ernst, was lying on the hard plank bed looking through the window of his cell how the cold wind carried on surly rain clouds to the north.
Once, seventeen years ago, driven by need, he too, like these clouds, headed north. He had left his brother’s home to knock for bread at other people's doors.
The first independent stop in his life became Lüneburg. He was warmly received. His voice was beautiful. His talent for music - beyond any doubt. For food and negligible pay, he stayed as a chorister at St. Michael's to study at the school attached to the church. This was not a little for an orphan at the age of fifteen in the then German lands ...
"How many things I learned in Lüneburg . . .” - went through the prisoner's thoughts.
The school at St. Michael had a rich music library. In it, Johann Sebastian discovered the music of Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, Heinrich Schütz, and many others, traditionalists or reformers. He carefully studied the scores of their works, tried to penetrate the secret of their creative mechanics. Organist Georg Böhm noticed his diligence and helped him master chorale works and enter the secrets of performing skills. He showed him many useful things related to playing the organ . . .
In 1703, he was already a violinist in the chapel of the brother of the reigning Duke of Weimar Johann Ernst and, in 1704, he moved as organist to Arnstadt …
Arnstadt was associated for him with several very important events. There he composed his first cantata "For you shall not leave my soul in hell", there he met his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, and, again from Arnstadt, he headed to Lübeck to hear for himself the fabulous concerts that the famous organist Buxtehude organized in the local cathedral before the Christmas holidays.
It was in Lübeck that he attended the mourning concert of Buxtehude on the occasion of the death of King Leopold I and was shocked. He had received a month's leave of absence from the church trustees in Arnstadt and spent four whole months with the great organ master, fascinated by his art. Buxtehude appreciated his extraordinary talent for music and even offered him his place, on a "small" condition: Johann Sebastian was to marry his daughter, a good, but ten years older than himself, and a very ugly girl, whose hand had already been refused by Handel and Mendelssohn under the same conditions. Of course, he also refused. He had long loved Maria Barbara and they had promised to connect their lives as soon as Johann Sebastian could find a better-paying job that would provide them with a more tolerable life.
After his delay from his vacation, a sharp conflict broke out between him and the church board in Arnstadt. This was the reason for him to look for a new service.
He found it in Mühlhausen, the free Imperial city that had offered him the place of their recently deceased organist, Johann Georg Ahle, in the Church of St. Blasius. The salary was not small - 85 guilders. In addition to this, the young musician would also receive in kind three boxes of wheat, three cubic meters of wood for combustion, six bags of coal and three pounds of dry fish. Everything delivered from the city at the entrance of his home! Could a musician ask for more!
On October 17, 1707, he and Maria Barbara were married in the village of Dornheim, near Arnstadt. Then they spent a few days in Erfurt and returned to their new home in Mühlhausen.
During the time he spent in Mühlhausen, Johann Sebastian worked a lot. He composed a number of new things. But in Mühlhausen, fourteen days before he took office, a great fire had broken out, and a considerable part of the city had burned down. The city government did not care any more about the reforms of religious music and after a year in the free imperial city, Johann Sebastian left it. He began working in Weimar at the court of Wilhelm Ernst as an organist and chamber musician.
Here, too, his salary was good, but the humiliations he had to endure afor it from his wayward master exceeded it. But he endured. The children had come one after another and he couldn't afford the luxury of being proud and unemployed. At home, they waited only on his two hands.
The years went by one after another. He worked. He composed continuously, but the music he wrote was not successful, while his fame as an organist grew hourly. He was, already, known as an organ virtuoso in all the German principalities. In fact, it was this fame that caused him to be called in September 1717 at the musical celebrations in Dresden. At that time, the famous French organist Louis Marchand was located there. The courtiers had decided to arrange a competition between him and Johann Sebastian . . .
Johan accepted the challenge. He accepted it not as a buffoon ready to entertain bored aristocrats, but as a musician who would, finally, be able to show what he was able to do . . .
Marchand offered to demonstrate to his opponent how he plays. Maybe Johan Sebastian would have given up the race after hearing it?
The Frenchman sat down at the organ with finesse and grace. As soon as he ran his fingers over the keyboard, Johann Sebastian appreciated his mastery. Marchand played magnificently. With perfect technique and artistry. The listeners were stunned. When Marchand had finished and bowed to them as only a Frenchman could bow, their applause had no end.
It was Johann Sebastian's turn. He sat clumsily in front of the organ and ran his fingers, rough-looking, over the keyboard of the huge organ. It was the same melody that the Frenchman had played. Marchand smiled condescendingly. But in the following moment the smile froze on his face. The organ seemed to take a breath and like a powerful cry its sounds were torn out of it so changed and so different that he was amazed. He had never heard anything louder and more exciting. And the metamorphoses of his melody did not stop, they poured like a veritable waterfall of sounds on the silent listeners. Marchand trembled. He couldn't stand the excitement that gripped him. At the moment Johan Sebastian's fingers detached from the keys only the echo of the last chords of his improvisation remained in the huge hall and slowly faded.
People did not react at the first moment. Marchand's applause preceded the applause of the Germans…
That evening, the arranged race in Count Fleming's salon did not take place. Marchand had left Dresden with the first mail car he had come across . . .
"And now I am in prison because I have 'dishonoredly' asked my prince to release me from service!" said the prisoner to himself.
Already in the spring he had received an offer from Prince Leopold Anhalt Kötten to go to work for him as Canon Master of his small orchestra. It was an opportunity to get away from Weimar. Moreover, after the death of Kapellmeister Drese, it was not him who had been appointed, but his son, although Johann Sebastian had been recognized by all musicians as the most worthy among them for this service and Telemann had, already, rejected the Prince offer to take the place of the late Drese...
The lock on the cell door rattled. The old guard Caspar entered.
- Good afternoon, Herr Bach, - he greeted. - Here's the food for lunch. I have some good news for you. Today, His Highness has ordered us to release you on the second of December. Your resignation has finally been accepted!
- Thank you, Caspar, thank you very much for the news - the young man smiled and got up from the plank bed. - Finally free again . . .
Leipzig - January 14, 1750.
- Well, Mr. Doctor, what do you say after the examination? - said old Bach and waited.
- We will need surgery, dear Herr Bach. You have used up your eyes in an unforgivable way. How long have you been short-sighted?
Bach told the story of the night transcripts.
- It's a miracle that you were able to look at all after that, - said Dr. Taylor, the traveling English physician, whom fait had brought to Leipzig. - Anyone else in your position would have been completely blind. Your friends told me that you have written a lot in your life ...
- Unfortunately, very little of what I wrote was sung or printed, Mr. Doctor, - sighed the old man.
- But you are known in all German lands as an unsurpassed organist! - The Englishman objected.
- As a performer — yes, but not as an artist! - The old musician whispered dejectedly. - I can't understand why people don’t like my music.
- Let's hope that other generations will appreciate it more, - Dr. Taylor laughed to encourage him. - It's hard to satisfy your contemporaries.
- Maybe you're right! - Johan Sebastian nodded. - When are you going to operate me?
- I would like to do it tomorrow. Do you agree?
- I agree, - Bach said. - In any case, one can’t go blind more than once. I already see almost nothing anyway. - He got up from his seat. - You're going to do us an honour at my humble table, don't you, Mr. Doctor? You are invited to join us at lunch.
- I accept it with pleasure, Herr Bach, - replied the Englishman. - I was once in London to visit Mr. Handel.
- Lucky man! - Bach couldn't help himself. - I missed to see him three times. Once, in year seven hundred and nineteen, I even went all the way to Halle to meet him, but Händel had already left his hometown.
In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen . . . Since then, thirty-one years have passed, but it felt like yesterday. ..
At that time, Bach was, already, working in Köthen. He was a Chapel Master of the Prince's chapel. The orchestra was small as the properties of the young Prince, but he himself was a good man. He loved to sing, listened to music with pleasure and constantly told stories about his trip to Italy.
On his travels, he always took Bach with him.
After one such trip to Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, Johann Sebastian had found Maria Barbara already buried. She died in July 1720 ...
- I was, suddenly, left alone with four children! - Old Bach went on quietly, but the Englishman tactfully did not ask him anything, and he added: - Then, I decided to leave Köthen, where I had lived two happy years, and went to Hamburg, but I could not get the organist appointment. The position was given to someone, who gave the church treasury four thousand marks… I returned to Köthen and sought solace at work. The following year, I wrote six concertos for orchestra and sent them with dedication to the Margrave of Brandenburg, but he did not seem to like them and their monetary response was desperately small. Meanwhile, the children began to feel an increasingly acute need for female care. I had no choice and I married my current wife, Anna Magdalena Wilcken, the daughter of the Weisenfeld trumpeter.
Bach sighed deeply.
- Then came the service at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, the endless quarrels with the church trustees, then came my wonderful work with the Leipzig students at the Collegium Musicum, which was founded by Telemann in the year seven hundred and four, the other children came, some of my children died, came the title of Court Kapellmeister, which gave me a certain protection against the intrigues of the church magistrates, and so on, and so on...
- Is it true that you also played in the palace of King Frederick the Great? - Dr. Taylor asked curiously.
- Yes, I did. It was three years ago. In the morning I gave a big concert in the Garrison Church in Potsdam and, in the evening, I played in the court church in Sanssouci ...
- Did the King then give you the theme on which your famous 'Musical Sacrifice' was written?
- No, it happened during the concert in the palace, at which the king himself played the flute. Then I received the theme and wrote on it the fugue "Musical Gift", but due to the play on the words "gift" and "sacrifice", which means both "gift" and "sacrifice" in German, "Musical Gift" became "Musical Sacrifice". So what - the king deserved it! His theme was completely mediocre. And, although I tried, people who understood music understood the truth. Oh, my God, how many funny and sad things happen in a human life . . . — laughed the old man and added - I think I have bored you, Mr. Doctor, but let's go to the table. After you, please…
Leipzig — January 15, 1750 . . .
Dr. Taylor's first operation was unsuccessful. The second as well. Bach was blind forever…
Leipzig — March 4, 1750 . . .
He was now dictating the "Art of the Fugue" to his new son-in-law Altnikol — his pupil, who had married his youngest daughter. He was in a hurry to finish it. In the meantime, he had, already, processed 18 chorales and re-edited them... And the rest of the works? There were so many of them! And who would have thought of them, to look for them someday: "The Well-Tempered Piano" was written for the exercises of Anna Magdalene, "The Musical Notebook" for the exercise of his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann. And the passions? The cantatas? Fugues and preludes? Choral works! It took pages and pages to list everything written. It would have been forgotten after him. But Bach did not regret creating it. He had put his whole heart, his whole life, all his genius into it, in which none of his contemporaries wanted to believe . . .
So what! The important thing is that he had not lived aimlessly, he had worked all his life. Because life without a purpose was worthless for a man! A man passed by. Only his deeds remained. Everything else was vanity…
Leipzig - July 18, 1750.
Old Johann Sebastian Bach, suddenly, could see clearly.
God had had mercy on him! Then came the hemorrhage in the brain and the darkness descended again. This time not only in his eyes, but also in his thoughts.
The agony lasted for ten whole days, from July 18 to July 28.
On July 28, 1750, at nine and a half o'clock in the evening, Bach died.
Death wanted to take away his soul, but when she looked for it in his tormented body, she saw with disappointment that it was gone. Bach had given it to mankind during his lifetime. Then the old lady, seething with anger, left his house. The genius had overtaken her...
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