Our fetishist regard for John Sebastian Bach as the pinnacle of Western art music obscures the fact that his talent was spawned by at least three generations of gifted predecessors. We celebrate this lineage by exploring the musical family archive Bach discovered in 1735. Among the hidden gems are intensely moving Geistliche Konzerte by his cousin Johann Christoph Bach, and the latter’s father Heinrich Bach. In his earliest preserved cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden, Johann Sebastian superbly imitates the polyphonic motet style of these foregoers, which was going out of fashion.
