Listen and more

We are in Leipzig so we have to attend the Bach Museum and Tuesday is a free day. Also the Market day in Marktplaz for a walk through. The Bach Museum is just by Thomaskircke and it's surprisingly interesting. I learnt of the six (?) generations of Bachs (mostly Johanns) who were musicians and composers and saw original music from the hands of Bach himself and various copyists and a cute instrument to write write neat pairs of staves and a room of portraits, not least the renowned original painting made during his lifetime, and we could play with a machine to make music and counterpoint using different scales, even whole tone. But the best were two rooms with instruments. First up, the one organ keyboard that's known to have been played by Bach himself, although the makings, the pipes and the rest, are destroyed by war or lost. But best of all, the room called Bach's orchestra with a set of baroque instruments of the types held by churches for use. Prime amongst these was a gut, 4-stringed violone of considerable beauty and impressive prominence.  I could only drool, although admittedly it had had much work done in the 1800s. And to walk around with the free audio tour and Bach in my ears. Lovely.

The Bach Museum and Archive is in Leipzig.