The Bach Museum in Leipzig opens a special exhibition on "Jewish Life and the Bach Family of Musicians" this Thursday. Many manuscript scores, books, and printed works testify to the enthusiasm for Bach among Jewish families in the 18th century, as the Bach Archive announced. Other items document anti-Jewish attitudes and prejudices during Bach's time or bear witness to the crimes of the National Socialists.

Special exhibition "Jewish life and the Bach family of musicians"

The Bach Archive owes some of its most valuable Bachiana to the music publisher Max Abraham (1831-1900), who founded Germany's first public music library in 1893. His nephew, Henri Hinrichsen, continued to run the library and expanded it with valuable holdings; he was murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1942.

The special exhibition for the theme year "Tacheles 2026. Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony" runs until December 13, 2026. It is complemented by audio and media stations of the permanent exhibition - from Jewish and Christian perspectives.

Founded in 1950, the Leipzig Bach Archive sees itself as a center of musical expertise in the main place of activity of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Its purpose is to research the life and work of the composer and the Bach family of musicians, to preserve his legacy and to disseminate it as educational material.

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