Getting to know him

Here’s a strange thing about Johann Sebastian Bach.

Here’s a strange thing about Johann Sebastian Bach. You can be devoted to his work, love it more intensely than any other music, yet never get round to hearing some of his most awe-inspiring compositions, or even know what you’re missing. There are dozens — literally dozens — of pieces of 24-carat Bach whose names are known only to professional musicians and scholars and are barely represented in the recording catalogue: you might find two good digital performances of them, maybe three.

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Bach wrote at least 400 Church cantatas, of which half are missing. But, so far as the average music lover is concerned, most of those that did survive might as well have been used to line a Victorian dresser, or have been incinerated in a bombing raid.