Pietro Soraci - Johann Sebastian Bach: Sämtliche Klavierwerke IX - Fantasien, Capricci, Ouvertüren & Suiten (2024)

The music recorded on this double CD allows us to get a glimpse on a genius musician’s first steps in the world of composition. Johann Sebastian Bach was orphaned of both parents at a very young age; at ten he had already to find his place in the world. Fortunately, he was neither destitute nor alone; his siblings did not abandon him, and his elder brother Johann Christoph, who lived in Ohrdruf, took care of him. Taking care meant not only providing him with food and shelter, but also to enable him to earn his living. Probably, Johann Sebastian’s outstanding talent was already showing; but even had he had much more ordinary gifts, the obvious option would have been to educate him as a musician. The Bachs were musicians – performers and composers; there was such a coincidence between their family and professional musicianship that, in some zones of Germany, “ein Bach” did not mean just a brook, but also “a musician”. So, unless a Bach had some objective and unsurpassable obstacles preventing him from practising music, the path was laid before him.
Music teaching and learning took the form of apprenticeship, in the style of a Medieval artist’s workshop. Young artists worked, studied, and frequently lived with their teacher – particularly if one’s teacher happened also to be one’s brother, as in Bach’s case. There were also schools of music, like the Thomasschule where Bach himself would teach in later years; but his primary education as a musician took care under his brother’s guidance. Bach did attend a gymnasium, where his intelligence was quickly acknowledged, and where his keen cleverness found the outlet it needed. In later years, Bach would sorely regret the fact of having been unable to attend a university (something he would have deeply loved to do); and he did his best in order to secure that opportunity for his sons.