(Excerpt) "Not Bach [brook], but Meer [sea] should be his name," Beethoven once said of Johann Sebastian Bach. 1 In this anniversary year marking the two-hundred and fiftieth year of his death on July..
(Excerpt) "Not Bach [brook], but Meer [sea] should be his name," Beethoven once said of Johann Sebastian Bach. 1 In this anniversary year marking the two-hundred and fiftieth year of his death on July 28, Bach is receiving extraordinary attention, which includes a significant biography by Christoph Wolff,2 yet another series of recordings of all the cantatas (that makes five3), and soul-searching among various scholars in an attempt to grasp the essence of this person's life and work.