ABSTRACT
Scholars often highlight the last years of Bach’s life as ‘the last decade’.1 This emphasis goes beyond the sheer chronological facts, since during these years the composer’s views, preferences and creative strategies were substantially modied. These changes were so dramatic that several contemporary testimonies, by people who were not in contact with the composer during these last years,2 literally contradict the facts of his activity. This deep change in Bach’s intellectual world was inuenced in more than one way by the milieu in which he lived and worked.
