Leipzig boasts that it is ''The City of Music," no small claim in a country that takes music as seriously as does Germany, which has a number of world-famous orchestras and where great musicians are considered national heroes. Many of the most famous of them were, like Bach, closely associated with Leipzig.
Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, and Gustav Mahler all composed, performed, conducted, or lived here at one time, as have many other noted musicians. Their music fills the air in concert halls and outdoor venues, statues and monuments are dedicated to them, museums are devoted to their lives and work, and some of their haunts have been preserved.
Hard as it is to believe, Bach was almost forgotten after his death, his music rarely performed. He was rediscovered by Mendelssohn, who conducted Bach's ''St. Matthew Passion" in St. Thomas Church in 1841 -- the first time it had been performed in Leipzig in almost a century -- and initiated a series of ''historical concerts" that restored Bach's reputation.
Even the location of Bach's grave was forgotten for a time. In 1949, his by-then-identified remains were unceremoniously transferred from a cemetery to St. Thomas. The story goes that a workman with a wheelbarrow showed up unannounced at the church one day and demanded of a startled pastor: ''Here's old Bach, what do you want me to do with him?" He now rests in front of the main altar in the nave of St. Thomas, the church with which he was most involved.
Among his other duties, Bach was director of the St. Thomas Boys Choir, founded in the early 13th century. The 100-voice choir of 10-to-13-year-olds specializes in Bach and still sings at services in St. Thomas and nearby St. Nicholas Church, where Bach also played the organ and conducted.
