Introduction

Abstract

This book deals with J. S. Bach’s posthumous role in music history. Combining the disciplines of history, biography, and musical analysis, it considers how four of the greatest composers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries engaged with Bach’s legacy. Special emphasis is given to Felix Mendelssohn’s and Robert Schumann’s reception of Bach’s organ works, Schumann’s encounter with the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, Richard Wagner’s musings on the Well-Tempered Clavier, and Edward Elgar’s (resoundingly negative) thoughts on Bach’s vocal works.