JS Bach had a tumultuous career, including being jailed for four weeks by the Duke of Weimar after resigning from his position in anger. He also walked 250 miles to see his organist hero Dieterich Buxtehude and got in trouble for insulting his church's bassoonist, who hit him with a stick in retaliation. Additionally, Bach's manuscripts were sold by his son to pay debts after his death, and he went blind after risky eye surgery by the same doctor that caused Handel's blindness.

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10 things you didn’t
know about…
Bach

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In 1717, JS Bach
resigned as the Duke of
Weimar’s Konzertmeister.
Furious, the Duke threw him
into jail for four weeks.

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In 1705, while working in
Arnstadt, Bach went AWOL,
walking the round trip of
250 miles to Lübeck to see
and hear his organist hero,
Dieterich Buxtehude.

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That wasn’t only time Bach got
into trouble in Arnstadt.
On suggesting that the
church
orchestra’s
bassoonist
sounded like a ‘nanny-
goat’, the musician in
question confronted
Bach in the town square
and hit him with a stick.

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Bach died in 1750 just
a few months after
disastrous eye surgery
by John Taylor.
Taylor was also
responsible for Handel’s
blindness in later life.

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Bach’s 48 Preludes
and Fugues were
the first time a
composer had
explored all 24 keys,
major and minor.
There are 48
because Bach
did it twice, in two
volumes.

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The ‘48’ were only
possible thanks to a new
system of tuning that
allowed all the keys to
sound agreeable on a
keyboard.

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It’s thought that, on his death, Bach
gave many of his manuscripts to his
son, WF Bach, who promptly sold
many of them to pay off debts.

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A recent theory has
suggested that Bach’s
Cello Suites were, in fact,
written by his wife,
Anna Magdalena.

10. The famous Toccata
and Fugue in D minor
by JS Bach isn’t
actually by JS Bach.
No one knows the
actual composer,
but it’s thought
it may have
originated as a
solo violin work.
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Bach clearly thought
everyone else could be as
fine an organist as he was. ‘All
you have to do is touch the
right key at the right time and
the instrument will play itself’,
he’s rumoured to have said

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