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Contemporary Views of Bach

Toward the later part of J.S. Bach's life, he worked at St. Thomas' Church in Leipzig. He continued playing as its organist and composing in his polyphonic style of music. However, a new French style galant was emerging. It viewed music in a totally different way than Bach.
Bach was considered the preserver of the old to his contemporaries. And as he aged, his music became more abstract from the contemporary French style galant invading Leipzig. Consequently, according to Gerhard Herz in his book Essays on J.S. Bach, he never became fashionable and his musical style became isolated. Bach's contemporaries distinguished him as an "uneducated and outdated master" (Herz 10). They blamed him for having "stood on the shoulder of the past generations instead of participating in building the present and future of music" (Herz 10).
Max Graf, author of Composer and Critic described Bach's situation as a "lonely island on which Bach had been writing......

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Approximate Word Count: 2972
Approximate Pages: 12 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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