{"id":1297,"date":"2013-09-23T11:14:02","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T10:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geraldgarcia.com\/wordpress\/?p=1297"},"modified":"2013-09-23T14:00:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T13:00:27","slug":"new-book-on-bach-reveals-the-abuse-and-thuggish-behaviour-he-probably-received-at-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/?p=1297","title":{"rendered":"New book on Bach reveals the abuse and thuggish behaviour he probably received at school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.monteverdi.co.uk\/about\/gardiner\">Sir John Eliot Gardiner&#8217;s<\/a> new biography of JS Bach <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardianbookshop.co.uk\/BerteShopWeb\/viewProduct.do?ISBN=9780713996623\">Music in the Castle of Heaven<\/a> shows a different world to the distant, sanitised one we are often presented with when we hear about the composer.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com.c51.previewmysite.eu\/WPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/image8.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1301\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com.c51.previewmysite.eu\/WPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/image8.jpg\" width=\"216\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/WPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/image8.jpg 216w, http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/WPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/image8-196x300.jpg 196w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\" \/><\/a>Archival sources, including school inspector reports, reveal that Bach&#8217;s education was troubled by gang warfare and bullying, sadism and sodomy \u2013 as well as his own extensive truancy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif;\"><!--more-->His first school, Eisenach Latin school in Thuringia, Germany, was largely attended by the children of bourgeois tradespeople. However, Gardiner said that documents damn the boys as &#8220;rowdy, subversive, thuggish, beer- and wine-loving, girl-chasing \u2026 breaking windows and brandishing their daggers&#8221;. He added: &#8220;More disquieting were rumours of a &#8216;brutalisation of the boys&#8217; and evidence that many parents kept their children at home \u2013 not because they were sick, but for fear of what went on in or outside school.&#8221; For punishment, Bach&#8217;s contemporaries endured beatings and the threat of &#8220;eternal damnation&#8221;. Such experiences must have left &#8220;lasting scars&#8221; on him, Gardiner believes.<\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2013\/sep\/21\/secret-bach-teenage-thug\">Read more in the Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir John Eliot Gardiner&#8217;s new biography of JS Bach Music in the Castle of Heaven shows a different world to the distant, sanitised one we are often presented with when we hear about the composer. Archival sources, including school inspector &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/?p=1297\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,4,77,41],"tags":[409,7,408],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/247767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geraldgarcia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}