“…a book full of piano pieces, from back-then most famous masters…which his brother possessed, was, without taking notice of all requests, who knows for what reasons, denied. Diligence, to get forward, lead to the following innocent cheating. The booklet lay in a cabinet locked only by a closed grill door. So he took it because he was able to get through the grill with his little hands as he managed to roll the booklet, which was only stapled in paper. In this way, he took it out at night, when everybody was in bed and copied it at moonshine, as he was not having any of a light. After six months, this musical booty was happily in his hands. He tried, secretly and with increasing ambition, to get use out of it, when, accompanied by his most significant heart suffering, his brother realized the cheating and took the copy which he was written with so much effort, away from him with no mercy. A grasping person, whose ship went under on its way to Peru with one hundred thousand talers on board, may provide an agile idea of little Johann Sebastian's sadness about this loss…”

Toccata - Johann Adam Reincken

Chaconne in C minor (BuxWV 159) - Dietrich Buxtehude

Ouverture (Suite No 2 in D) - Georg Böhm

Biblical Sonata No 2: The melancholy of Saul assuaged - Johann Kuhnau

Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor (BWV 582) - Johann Sebastian Bach

Thus the 1754 Obituary of Johann Sebastian Bach introduces us to the Andreas-Bach-Buch. This recital explores the contents of the book which has such a profound musical influence on Bach, and culminates with the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor (BWV 582), included in the book.