Hajjaj Salama

(Not everyone who has been buried in the earth is dead).

The book "The World of Bach.. The Story of the Family of one of Music's Geniuses" carries a double value. On one hand, it chronicles the life of "Johann Sebastian Bach," a unique musician whose musical pieces, collected from several European countries, carried "overflowing emotions" that immortalized their creator and ranked him among the greatest musicians—a great artist descended from a great family of master musicians. On the other hand, the author of the book, "Volker Hagedorn," is no ordinary author, but rather one of the most famous music critics in Germany; he is also an independent musician and journalist who has worked for many of his country’s major newspapers.

Throughout its chapters and pages, the book confirms to us that true creativity is what grants its owner immortality, to which the saying applies: "Not everyone who has been buried in the earth is dead," a saying that prefaces the pages of the book. In fact, the book answers the question that greets us in the first pages: "I wonder what things time immortalizes... and which ones it folds into the depths of oblivion?" Yes, it answers this question clearly and points us to those things that time immortalizes and does not consign to oblivion; the various stations in the career of the genius musician "Johann Sebastian Bach" and the musical pieces he left behind are all things that will remain permanent and eternal forever.

Sailing into the Life of a Wonderful Family

Who among us doesn’t know "Johann Sebastian Bach"? But did you know that he is the seed of a family whose roots back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The version we have of the book "The World of Bach.. The Story of the Family of one of Music's Geniuses" was translated from German by Dr. Hind Asaad and published by Dar Al-Yasmeen in Cairo in 2020. The book sails through its chapters and pages into the worlds and stories of a wonderful family that lived in Europe at a time that witnessed many transformations due to wars and epidemics, when music was a means to overcome suffering and death in the seventeenth century—an art that the Bach family mastered before the birth of its genius "Johann Sebastian Bach."

Through this rich book, the author "Volker Hagedorn" takes us on a journey to learn the history of this family, starting from weddings, deaths, musical notes, and organs, leading to the great musician Johann Sebastian Bach, who represents a unique case in the world of music. At the same time, this book extends its events to the present time to inform us about the conditions of the places where the Bach family lived today and how "Johann Sebastian Bach" became a child prodigy.

Luminous Traces

Hagedorn described the work of researchers whose luminous traces of unpublished records appeared during the Baroque era, as well as one of the most exciting research crimes in the history of music. This began in Berlin, which was subjected to bombing, and the appearance of the legendary "Bach Family Archive" in Ukraine, a collection of musical works by members of the Bach family—a collection that represents the foundation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s genius. Volker Hagedorn’s book paints a diverse and dazzling artistic picture of a time and customs to breathe life into the roots of the musician "Johann Sebastian Bach" in a brilliant manner.

The author divided the book into several chapters, giving each chapter a title expressing the period it covers in the career of "Johann Sebastian Bach." There is the chapter "Arrival", then "War", then "Ascent", then "Wedding", then "Plague", then "Father", then "Launch", then "A Long and Arduous Journey", followed by the conclusion, a list of books and references, and finally the musical works. Through these chapters, the author sought to present everything he could collect of data, large or small, about the Bach family at the beginning of the seventeenth century, as well as the subsequent period of time and their environment which they influenced and were influenced by.

Evoking Music

He was also interested in collecting information about the world of "Bach" through sources about the family and its music, presenting all of this sometimes via documentary narrative and sometimes via evoking music, and paragraphs from reports and approaches that combine reality and fiction. He indeed succeeded in restoring those intense atmospheres with their diverse scents—the scents of death, life, music, and challenge from era to era. The book tracks the "Old Bach Family Archive," trying to resurrect this family once again through a long journey of research and investigation. Through the pages of the book, we learn how Bach was attached to music since childhood, how he traveled from city to city on foot to hear the performances of the musicians he loved in his era, and how he studied music at the hands of his brother at age fifteen until he composed his first musical works in August 1703, which were religious pieces. Bach had many religious musical works and individual performances played on the piano and other instruments. The book follows the life of the German Baroque "Johann Sebastian Bach," who was born on March 21, 1685, and lived until 1750, starting from when he was a child in a family of 60 people including fifteen musicians, and the victories and defeats he went through in his career until he became a prominent landmark in the history of music in his country, one of the most famous musicians in the world, and indeed one of the greatest musical composers of all time.