The Six Cello Cuites performed in Viola

Abstract

TODAY IT STRIKES US AS INCOMPREHENSIBLE that the music of Johann Sebastian Bach should ever have been in need of revival. However, in 1789, only thirty-nine years after Bach's death, Mozart expressed amazement that so many Bach works were completely unknown to him for the rarity of their performance. By 1824, the subject of Bach prompted Beethoven to pose the question, "Why is he dead?" and to offer his own pessimistic prediction that he might live again "if he is studied, and for that we have no time." While the music of Bach has always been beloved and revered by professional musicians, it took Mendelssohn's 1829 performance of the St. Matthew Passion — one hundred years after its last Leipzig performance — to launch a lasting movement for public recognition.