The Master's Voice: What we know of Bach, and may never comprehend

From arguably the leading Bach scholar alive today. That's been worked on more recently by Ellen Exner (p. 129 of this PDF). Berlin was a cultural hub at this time, with people visiting and consuming its culture. Bach's music was not "lost for a large part of modern history," and not even a century, or lost at all. If anything in that direction, his popularity surged in the 19th century, but he certainly wasn't some "eureka!" discovery in 1829. Also, the notion that Bach was simply content to write his church music and live his life is really a skewed picture. He applied for a number of jobs (and got many of them), including at the Thomaskirche, which is...not an insignificant job in 18th century Germany. You're falling into this provincial image of Bach as some hermetic church musician who just wanted to write his antiquated music, but that's hardly the full story. Was he as widely popular as Handel? No, I'm not arguing that. Handel lived and worked in Hamburg, wrote opera, moved to Italy, wrote cantatas, moved to England, wrote oratorio and opera and was by all accounts a very cosmopolitan composer. H

None of this is inconsistent with what I've said.

You're making serveral straw man arguments, and I will continue to question your ability to read because you haven't been doing it very well thus far.

is what you said.

Yes, that's what I said. Tell me what part of that sentence has anything to do with Handel or the Messiah. You are making logical jumps all over the place, and haven't actually put out an argument yourself, instead positing several contradictory stances in order to, I assume, quibble just for the sake of doing so.

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