"One of the most extraordinary things about history's most extraordinary musician is the fact that this man's music, which exerts such a magnetic attraction for us today, against which we tend to measure much of the achievement in the art of music in the last two centuries, that this music had absolutely no effect on either the musicians or the public of his own day. And the strange thing about Bach is that he doesn't at all fit our conception of the misunderstood genius who was years ahead of his time. He was certainly misunderstood, but not because he was ahead of his time, rather because according the musical disposition of that day, he was generations behind it."

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

Glenn Gould, Glenn Gould on Bach (1962)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach