Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work Quotes

“Bach liked to play the Viola, an instrument which put him, as it were, in the middle of the harmony in a position from which he could hear and enjoy it on both sides.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“A man of rigid uprightness, sincerely religious; steeped in his art, earnest and grave, yet not lacking naive humour; ever hospitable and generous, and yet shrewd and cautious; pugnacious when his art was slighted or his rights were infringed; generous in the extreme to his wife and children, and eager to give the latter advantages which he had never known himself; a lover of sound theology, and of a piety as deep as it was unpretentious—such were the qualities of one who towers above all other masters of music in moral grandeur.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“The artist, in his judgment, is the dictator of public taste, not its slave.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“For Bach's works are a priceless national patrimony;”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“the first and most important of the early notices of Bach was the obituary article, or “Nekrolog,” contributed by his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, and Johann Friedrich Agricola, one of Bach's most distinguished pupils, to the fourth volume of Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek, published at Leipzig in 1754.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Of the 295 Cantatas only 202 have come down to us, three of them in an incomplete state.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“the statement of Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, 346 confirmed by Forkel, 347 Bach's earliest biographer, that his father composed five Cantatas for every Sunday and Festival of the ecclesiastical year.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“in 1747, Bach became a member of the “Society of the Musical Sciences,” founded by Mizler,”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Bach also composed a great number of Cantatas, chiefly for the choir of St. Thomas' School, Leipzig.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“True emotion is not suggested by hammering the Clavier.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Bach preferred the Clavichord to the Harpsichord,”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“On November 21, [pg 44] 1734, the lost Cantata Thomana sass annoch betrübt was sung at the induction of Gesner's successor, Johann August Ernesti, as Rector of St. Thomas' School.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“In 1733 the birthday of another Professor was marked by the performance of the Cöthen Cantata to yet another text ( Die Freude reget sich”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“the appointment of Dr. Gottlieb Kortte as Professor of Roman Law was celebrated by Bach's Cantata Vereinigte Zwietracht der wechselnden Saiten.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“On August 3, 1725, his secular Cantata, Der zufried-engestellte Aeolus, was performed at the students' celebration of Doctor August Friedrich Müller's name-day.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“On Good Friday the Passion was performed in the two principal churches alternately. Leipzig adopted no official Hymn-book. The compilation from which the Hymns were chosen by Bach was the eight-volumed Gesangbuch of Paul Wagner, published at Leipzig for Dresden use in 1697.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Bach was inducted into his office as Cantor of St. Thomas' School at nine o'clock on the morning of Monday, May 31, 1723. He died in his official residence there at a quarter to nine on the evening of Tuesday, July 28, 1750. He was buried early on the morning of Friday, July 31, in the churchyard of St. John's, Leipzig.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“On the death of Kuhnau in 1723 93 Bach was appointed Director of Music and Cantor to St. Thomas' School, Leipzig, 94 a position which he [pg 22] occupied until his death.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“while he was at Lüeburg, he several times travelled to Hamburg to hear the famous organist, 61 Johann [pg 13] Adam Reinken.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Johann Sebastian set out for Lüneburg with one of his Ohrdruf schoolfellows, named Erdmann 59 (afterwards Russian Resident at Danzig), and entered the choir of St. Michael's Convent.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“In 1695, when Johann Sebastian was not quite ten years old, his father died. He lost his mother at an earlier period. 47 So, being left an orphan, [pg 10] he became dependent on his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, Organist at Ohrdruf, 48 from whom he received his earliest lessons on the Clavier.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685, 43 at Eisenach, where his father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was Court and Town Musician.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“the first English version of Forkel's monograph, published in 1820,”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Meanwhile, in 1830 and 1831 the St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion had been engraved, and by 1845 the B minor Mass was in print.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“the memorable revival of the St. Matthew Passion at Berlin, which the youthful Mendelssohn, Zelter's pupil, [pg xviii] conducted in March 1829, exactly one hundred years after the first production of the mighty work at Leipzig.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“That Forkel is remembered at all is due solely to his monograph on Bach. Written at a time when Bach's greatness was realised in hardly any quarter, the book claimed for him pre-eminence which a tardily enlightened world since has conceded him.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work

“Johann Nikolaus Forkel, author of the monograph of which the following pages afford a translation, was born at Meeder, a small village in Saxe-Coburg, on February 22, 1749, seventeen months before the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose first biographer he became.”
― Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Johann Sebastian Bach, His Life; Art, And Work