'I have tried to reflect the state of Bach research and to insert things that I have not yet seen written anywhere,' he says.īach's childhood is hinted at in the obit his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach wrote, including that he would secretly borrow his brother's music book to copy the pieces of 'famous masters.' In his biography, Maul put together many of these pieces of the mosaic in chronological order. Maul has researched Johann Sebastian Bach for more than 20 years - and feels he is far from done. Too many questions remain unanswered, and new notes or fragments of manuscripts still turn up. 'My impression is that there were much stronger cultural-political conflicts in Bach's time that people didn't know about,' the renowned Bach researcher told DW. 'There are many Bach biographies where Bach is portrayed as an eternal winner,' says Michael Maul, who reviewed documents that allow for a different interpretation. He describes a man who repeatedly offended his employers and in later years increasingly withdrew from church music.

In his bilingual English-German illustrated biography, titled 'Bach,' Bach Festival Leipzig artistic director Michael Maul takes a look at other aspects of the great 18th-century composer's life.

Thomas church in Leipzig, the 'Well Tempered Clavier' set of preludes and 'The Art of Fugue' all retain a lasting influence on the music world. His timeless 'Christmas Oratorio,' the cantatas composed while cantor of St. We know that Johann Sebastian Bach was a musical genius.

Skull music art notes