During his lifetime, Johann Sebastian Bach was a Konzertmeister who played eloquent music for the masses at church, but his unique, free-flowing style was not always appreciated when his day job called for him to play traditional church standards. He was jailed by a duke, passed over for promotions, and told repeatedly to tone it down. Yes, for most of his life, Bach was more akin to an unsung hero than the celebrated genius we know him as today.
That recognition would come, but not until long after he was gone. His manuscripts, preserved against the odds and rediscovered by later generations, ignited a revival that reshaped the entire Western musical tradition. What his contemporaries dismissed as excessive, the rest of the world would come to regard as pure genius. This is the life and story of Johann Sebastian Bach.
