Today Bach is everywhere: in piano lessons, concert halls and films. But for decades after his death in 1750, most music lovers barely knew his name. His comeback is one of the great stories of music, and it comes with a legend about a butcher.
Old-fashioned overnight
By the time Bach died, his style of complex counterpoint already sounded old-fashioned. The public wanted lighter, simpler music, the kind his own sons wrote. Much of his music had never been printed. Manuscripts were divided among his family and pupils, and many were lost. Of the roughly three hundred church cantatas he is thought to have written, about two hundred survive.
Kept alive by musicians
Bach never disappeared completely. Keyboard players copied his music by hand and studied it. Mozart rearranged some of his fugues, and the young Beethoven made his name playing The Well-Tempered Clavier. Bach was a composer for musicians, not yet for the public.
Mendelssohn, 1829
Everything changed when Felix Mendelssohn, aged twenty, conducted the St Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829, about a hundred years after its first performance. He had received a copy of the score from his grandmother as a gift some years earlier. The concert was a sensation, and it started a Bach revival across Europe. In 1850 a society was founded to publish everything Bach wrote.
The butcher's paper legend
A much-loved story says that Mendelssohn, or someone in his circle, found Bach's music wrapped around meat or fish bought at a shop, and traced it back to a pile of old manuscripts. It is a wonderful story, and pages of old music really were reused as scrap paper in those days, but there is no evidence for it. The true history is less dramatic: a copied score, a young conductor and a city ready to listen.
Reading Bach today
Bach's music is perfect for reading practice: phrases that rarely repeat, two or three clear voices, and patterns that train both hands. Many of his pieces are full of sharps and flats, which makes them slow to read at first. In iCanPiano Style every black key is visible in the note, so a Bach invention opens much sooner.
- F sharp: right half black. Play the black key to the right of F.
- B flat: left half black. Play the black key to the left of B.
- B natural: no natural sign. A note that is all black or all white is played on a white key.
Frequently asked questions
Was Bach forgotten after his death?
By the public, largely yes, for several decades. Musicians kept studying his keyboard music, and Mendelssohn's 1829 performance of the St Matthew Passion brought him back to the public.
Is the story of Bach's music used as wrapping paper true?
There is no evidence for it. Old music paper was reused in those days, but the rediscovery of the St Matthew Passion came from a copied score Mendelssohn received as a gift.
How much of Bach's music is lost?
A large part. Of about three hundred church cantatas, roughly two hundred survive, and other works are known only by name.