Tuesday: One of the best things about arriving in Arnstadt was to walk into the Bachkirche – so called since 1935 but originally the 'Neue Kirche' (New Church) – to hear the sound of the organ as someone practiced. Playing Bach, of course. I sat for about ten minutes to listen until they'd finished, with a couple of other visitors. The church was built in 1683 to replace an earlier church that had burnt down in 1581.
In 1703, at the age of 18, Johann Sebastian Bach was called to the church to test the new organ, and soon was appointed organist, until he moved to Mülhausen in 1707. He lived at the time with his aunt Martha Elizabeth in what is now the Bachhaus; it has only recently been rescued and renovated, and opened to the public in 2004. Only a couple of rooms on the ground floor are open, and to be honest the renovations have necessarily been so extensive that I didn't really feel the spirits of the Bach family.
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