Bach’s widow, Anna Magdalena, still had a number of younger children to care for, so after his death she traded her portion of her husband’s music back to St. Thomas Church, in exchange for an extra six months in the cantor’s residence. The church made formal copies for republishing, so most of the songs themselves survive, but they had no particular use for the originals, and eventually began selling them as scrap paper to wrap fish and other market goods in.
