Johann Sebastian Bach - Legacy

Legacy

A detailed obituary of Bach was published (without attribution) four years later in 1754 by Lorenz Christoph Mizler (a former student) in Musikalische Bibliothek (de), a music periodical. The obituary remains probably "the richest and most trustworthy" early source document about Bach. After his death, Bach's reputation as a composer at first declined; his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging classical style. Initially he was remembered more as a player and teacher.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Bach was widely recognised for his keyboard work. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Robert Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn were among his most prominent admirers; they began writing in a more contrapuntal style after being exposed to Bach's music. Beethoven described him as the "Urvater der Harmonie", "original father of harmony".

Bach's reputation among the wider public was enhanced in part by Johann Nikolaus Forkel's 1802 biography of Bach. Felix Mendelssohn significantly contributed to the revival of Bach's reputation with his 1829 Berlin performance of the St Matthew Passion. In 1850, the Bach Gesellschaft (Bach Society) was founded to promote the works; in 1899 the Society published a comprehensive edition of the composer's works with little editorial intervention.

During the 20th century, the process of recognising the musical as well as the pedagogic value of some of the works continued, perhaps most notably in the promotion of the Cello Suites by Pablo Casals, the first major performer to record these suites. Another development has been the growth of the "authentic" or "period performance" movement, which attempts to present music as the composer intended it. Examples include the playing of keyboard works on harpsichord rather than modern grand piano and the use of small choirs or single voices instead of the larger forces favoured by 19th- and early 20th-century performers.

Bach's music is frequently bracketed with the literature of William Shakespeare and the teachings of Isaac Newton. In Germany, during the twentieth century, many streets were named and statues were erected in honour of Bach. His music features three times – more than any other composer – on the Voyager Golden Record, a phonograph record containing a broad sample of the images, common sounds, languages, and music of Earth, sent into outer space with the two Voyager probes.