After various moves and prominent jobs, [classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach] finally settled down in Leipzig in 1723, where he remained for the rest of his life.… Bach's stay in Leipzig, as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas's church and school, wasn't always happy. He squabbled continually with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. They said he was a stuffy old man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Consequently, they paid him a miserable salary, and when he died even contrived to defraud his widow of her meager inheritance.

Ironically, in this setting Bach wrote his most enduring music. For a time he wrote a cantata each week (today, a composer who writes a cantata a year is highly praised), 202 of which survive. Most conclude with a chorale based on a simple Lutheran hymn, and the music is at all times closely bound to biblical texts. Among these works are the "Ascension Cantata" and the "Christmas Oratorio."

In Leipzig he also composed his epic "Mass in B Minor," "The Passion of St. John," and "The Passion of St. Matthew"—all for use as worship services. The latter piece has sometimes been called "the supreme cultural achievement of all Western civilization," and even the radical skeptic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) admitted upon hearing it, "One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as gospel."

After Bach's death, people seemed glad to wipe their ears of his music. He was remembered less as a composer than as an organist and harpsichordist. Some of his music was sold, and some was reportedly used to wrap garbage. For the next 80 years his music was neglected by the public, although a few musicians (Mozart and Beethoven, for example) admired it. Not until 1829, when German composer Felix Mendelssohn arranged a performance of "The Passion of St. Matthew," did a larger audience appreciate Bach the composer.