Photo gallery

1 / 41
01
Opening of the Bachhaus on 27 May 1907: The Neue Bachgesellschaft e. V., an international society of Bach lovers based in Leipzig, established the first Bach museum in the town of Bachʼs birth. Joseph Joachim, Georg Bornemann and Georg Schumann stand at the door; the choir of the Church of St Thomas in Leipzig sings at the front, whilst the smartly dressed citizens wait to be admitted.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

2 / 41
02
Today, the Bachhaus is one of the most frequently visited music museums in Germany, with more than 300 original exhibits on the subject of Bachʼs life and music in rooms covering 600 square meters.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

3 / 41
03
In front of the Museum stands the Bach monument by the Stuttgart sculptor Adolf von Donndorf, unveiled in 1884. Joseph Joachim, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt contributed towards the monument – and even Britainʼs Queen Victoria was among the donors.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

4 / 41
04
Access to the Bachhaus is via the foyer of the new museum building, which was opened in 2007. The architect Berthold Penkhues – a student of Frank O. Gehry – won the first prize in an architectural competition with the design in 2003.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

5 / 41
05
In the foyer, the portrait of Bach by the Berlin painter Johannes Heisig deserves particular attention. (“Dir, dir Jehova will ich singen”, 2004).
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

6 / 41
06
The transition to the old part of the Bachhaus is marked by the original entrance door to Bachʼs apartment in the St Thomasʼs School in Leipzig. Bach, his family, pupils and guests walked through this door for 27 years.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

7 / 41
07
The entrance area of the old Bachhaus is overlooked by a golden statue of Bach: This is the preliminary study created in 1903 by the sculptor Carl Ludwig Seffner for the Leipzig Bach monument, which was erected outside the Church of St Thomas in Leipzig in 1908. Bach stands a little more freely here, and the neck ruff and the organ behind him are missing.
Photo: André Nestler

8 / 41
08
The glass harmonica opposite this, dating from around 1775, was allegedly owned by the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

9 / 41
09
The “trumpet-violin” is a real curiosity: This violin with built-in natural trumpet was built in around 1717. During his years in Cöthen, Bach had the opportunity to get to know instruments of this type, since there was “a pair of violins within which are trumpets” there.
Photo: André Nestler

10 / 41
10
At Rittergasse 11, opposite the Bachhaus garden, there is a half-timbered house in which Bachʼs father Ambrosius lived from 1671 to 1674 after he had been appointed Director of Music in Eisenach and so moved with his family from Erfurt to Eisenach.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

11 / 41
11
There is a short concert in the instrument hall once an hour.
Photo: Constantin Beyer

12 / 41
12
This organ comes from Kleinschwabhausen near Weimar. The instrument was built in around 1650 and is thus the oldest Thuringian “positive organ” (a small, portable organ). It is possible that Bach had already played it when he was the court organist at Weimar from 1708 to 1717 – this is confirmed by his successor. Even then, the organist needed a “calcant” or organ treader to operate the bellows.
Photo: André Nestler

13 / 41
13
The upper floor of the Bachhaus is reached via the garden and the special exhibition rooms. Here, Bachʼs musical career is explained. This pedestal tray with coins is a reminder of how much Bach earned in Cöthen. The largest of the coins is a thaler from the Electorate of Saxony dated 1715. Its front depicts the Polish King and Elector of Saxony, August the Strong, before whom Bach played many times.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

14 / 41
14
One of the Museum's most puzzling exhibits is the “Bach Goblet”, a drinking vessel owned by Johann Sebastian Bach. The letters and notes that make up the inscription play with the name “Bach” and the figures “14” and “41”, the so-called “Bach numbers”.
Photo: Constantin Beyer

15 / 41
15
A contemporary surgical book is a reminder of Bachʼs eye operation in March 1750 by the English surgeon John Taylor.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

16 / 41
16
The adjoining “Town Musiciansʼ Room” shows typical instruments played by the Eisenach musicians led by Bachʼs father Ambrosius, including a violin dating from 1575.
Photo: André Nestler

17 / 41
17
Bach sang from the Eisenach Hymnal from 1673 when he went to school in Eisenach. Some of Bachʼs school records are exhibited nearby.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

18 / 41
18
The room “Bach’s Inner World” provides a reconstruction of Bach’s private theological library. The reconstruction has been based on the list of Bach’s estate. Four audio tours inform about the 81 books Bach privately owned, quote from them, and explore connections to Bach’s compositions.
Photo: André Nestler

19 / 41
19
Bach once gave his second wife Anna Magdalena a songbird as a gift – this Thuringian birdcage from the 18th century reminds us of this.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

20 / 41
20
The furnishings in the residential rooms date from the period around 1700. The curtains and bed-coverings in the bedroom are in blue print, which was dyed with woad in the 17th century.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

21 / 41
21
The “Componir-Stube” (Composing Room) in the Bachhaus is furnished as one can imagine Bachʼs workroom to have been in St Thomasʼs School in Leipzig, which was demolished in 1902.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

22 / 41
22
The two pastel paintings exhibited in the hallway depict Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach at the ages of about 16 and 20 years.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

23 / 41
23
The kitchen is the oldest room in the historical Bachhaus, built in 1456. From here, visitors pass via a corridor and staircase to the modern part of the Museum.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

24 / 41
24
In the new part of the Museum, three themes are grouped around the “Walkable Composition” in the centre.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

25 / 41
25
Visitors can immerse themselves completely in Bachʼs music in the suspended “bubble chairs” created by the Finnish designer Eero Aarnio.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

26 / 41
26
Under the title “How We See Bach”, the Bach iconography is explained. The exhibition ranges from contemporary, sometimes dubious portraits …
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

27 / 41
27
… through the earliest Bach copperplate engravings from the 18th century …
Photo: André Nestler

28 / 41
28
… to the story of the excavation of Bachʼs remains in 1894 and the reconstruction of what Bach looked like using his skull – this was the first three-dimensional forensic facial reconstruction in the history of medicine.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

29 / 41
29
On the opposite side, we have “What We Know About Bach” – Bach research. At a research table, visitors can compare and read manuscripts or look at websites …
Photo: André Nestler

30 / 41
30
… or follow the journey of a Bach autograph to its printing and appearance in the New Bach Edition. The exhibit is the continuo part of the cantata “Alles nur nach Gottes Willen” (BWV 72). The shared manuscript was produced in 1726 by Johann Sebastian Bach, his second wife Anna Magdalena Bach and Bachʼs pupil and nephew Johann Heinrich Bach.
Photo: André Nestler

31 / 41
31
The section on “How We Play Bach” is all about performance practice. It tells the story from the rediscovery of Bachʼs music in the19th century and revival of the St Matthew Passion under Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in the Sing-Akademie in Berlin …
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

32 / 41
32
… to the renewed focus on historical playing styles and the instruments of the Baroque era through the concept of “historical performance” in the 20th century.
Photo: André Nestler

33 / 41
33
In the part called “inspiration and popularization” a clarinet from the possession of Benny Goodman is on display. The piece „Bach goes to town“ belonged to the King of Swing's repertoire from 1939 on. The clarinet was kindly loaned to the Bachhaus by the Lippmann+Rau Archive in Eisenach. It is one of the most comprehensive Jazz archives in Europe.
Photo: André Nestler

34 / 41
34
The central point of the new building is the “Walkable Composition”. On its outer side, Bachʼs techniques and the most important groups of works are presented using illustrative compositions in 14 audio samples.
Photo: Ulrich Kneise

35 / 41
35
Inside, visitors are transported through spatial illusions into the heart of four Bach performances: an organ recital in Mühlhausen and Dörna …
Photo: André Nestler

36 / 41
36
… the recording of a rehearsal of the St Thomasʼs Choir under its Cantor Georg Christoph Biller in the Old Town Hall in Leipzig …
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

37 / 41
37
… a danced version of the “Art of Fugue” performed by pretty ugly tanz köln, …
Photo: Marc Tamschick

38 / 41
38
… and a performance of the St Matthew Passion by the Echo Klassik prize-winner Christoph Spering.
Photo: Marc Tamschick

39 / 41
39
Bach comics and a large organ puzzle are available in a childrenʼs corner. The puzzle shows the organ in Arnstadt built by Johann Friedrich Wender, where Bach obtained his first appointment as an organist when he was 18 years old.
Photo: Bachhaus Eisenach

40 / 41
40
The large backlit artwork “Goldberg Variations 30+2” was created by New York artist Benjamin Samuel. Line by line, the artist translated the notes of each of the 30 variations of Bach's Goldberg-Variations (and the aria at the beginning and the end) into colors, using a scheme that had been developed by Isaac Newton in 1704.
Photo: Benjamin Samuel

41 / 41
41
After a tour of the Museum, visitors can relax in the Museumʼs own “Café Kantate”, or make themselves at home in the Bachhaus garden – like these students from the “Johann Sebastian Bach” music school in Eisenach.
Photo: Tobias Kromke