The Music the World Forgot

When Johann Sebastian Bach died in Leipzig in 1750, the musical world shrugged. Critics dismissed his compositions as overly complex, hopelessly old-fashioned. His manuscripts were scattered, sold for pennies, some used as wrapping paper in butcher shops. For nearly eighty years, the man who had poured his soul into glorifying God through music was treated as a relic — a stone the builders of Western culture casually tossed aside.…