Harmony And Discord

by Julian Shuckburgh

This is an integrated biography, and very much a story of Bach’s actual life, as opposed to the sanctified version that was spread during the 19th century. The picture that emerges is of a man who was very attached to his family, very professional, devout, rather stick-in-the-mud, very hot-tempered and therefore not easy to work with… One of the interesting and remarkable things about the new approach is that Shuckburgh has, for the first time, catalogued Bach’s works (of which there are a huge number) in chronological order, placing them in the context of his life by date.