What Bach Never Wrote Down

Bach wrote some of the most detailed music ever composed — but he didn’t write everything down. Tempo, articulation, ornamentation, even the notes a continuo player was expected to play: much of this depended on knowledge that Bach could simply assume his musicians already had. Using the Courante from Bach’s Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828, I explore what the page tells us — and what eighteenth-century musicians were expected to bring to it themselves. Perhaps the interesting question isn’t just what did Bach write? It’s what didn’t he need to write? #Bach #JSBach #ClassicalMusic #BaroqueMusic #musichistory