Great Musical Composers

Bach’s rival hears him improvise—and quietly leaves Dresden rather than play. What could Johann Sebastian Bach do at the keyboard to silence a celebrated French virtuoso?

In the German courts of the early eighteenth century, princes compete to make their capitals centres of artistic life, and music is both a calling and a contest. George T. Ferris begins with Bach: a gifted organist, a devoted student of music, and a composer whose genius his own generation only partly recognized. From there, these biographical sketches trace the lives and legacies of German, French, and Italian composers who shaped music’s changing forms. What did Bach’s fellow musicians hear in his work—and how did his influence reach beyond his own time?

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