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Bach J. S

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) spent the last twenty-seven years of his life as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, where his duties included producing a new cantata almost every week for the city's principal churches. His reputation in his own lifetime rested chiefly on his organ playing; the large-scale vocal works and much of the instrumental output were never published. His six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello survived only in manuscript copies until a thirteen-year-old Pablo Casals came across them in a Barcelona second-hand shop in 1889; he spent the next twelve years studying them before performing a single suite in public. They now sit at the heart of every cellist's training.

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