J.S. Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach’s 300-year-old church music inspires music lovers all over the world to this day. In his new book, the well-known Bach scholar Michael Maul, artistic director of the Leipzig Bach Festival, offers a well-founded and at the same time easily accessible »instruction manual« for the music of the famous composer. He vividly marvels at breathtaking moments in Bach’s cantatas, passions or the Mass in B minor, and in his very personal monologues with Bach, he brings to life the context in which the works were composed and the often perplexing connections between text and music – and sometimes biography.

At the same time, Maul reveals why Bach soon despaired of his »curious authorities« and why, after five years as Cantor at St. Thomas, he almost completely lost his initially irrepressible desire to compose church music and increasingly withdrew into an internal exile.

In short: Maul’s new book is a declaration of love for his revered composer that is as fervent as it is touching. It pursues one goal above all: to awaken in readers a desire to listen to Bach’s works. Numerous illustrations and a playlist available on Spotify complete the volume and make it a fantastic gift for all music lovers.

»... Michael Maul very skilfully looks behind the scenes, so to speak, and not in a novelistic way, but in a highly serious and beneficial way.« Andreas Göbel, rbb kultur