Bach Parcours

Old Town Hall, Markt 1, 04109 Leipzig

As a world famous composer, Johann Sebastian Bach is the leading figure in Leipzig’s musical history. At the same time, however, he was a city official, school teacher and orchestra leader and was connected to Leipzig’s everyday life in many ways. Without the city council, the university, the church superiors and private patrons as well as the Thomaner and city musicians, Bach would not have been able to create and perform his invaluable work.
As the former seat of the city administration and the centre of public life, the Old Town Hall is the perfect place to explore in compact form the urban environment as well as the official conditions and personal entanglements of Bach’s time in Leipzig. The »Bach Parcours« , conceived on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Bach’s inauguration in 2023, follows the traces of the composer at 19 stations and thematises central areas of his
Leipzig life and work with the help of precious original objects.
Unique items are to be seen, rang ing from the oath swearing bible of the Leipzig city council to the pulpit of St John’s Church at the old cemetery, and the gallery on which the city’s musicians performed. With the crowning jewel of the world famous Bach portrait painted by Haußmann in 1746, paintings of the councillors, sovereigns, musicians and, last not least, the reformer Martin Luther illustrate the day to day, as well as spiritual, framework within which the cantor of St Thomas Church lived and worked. It conveys an impression of his period of service in Leipzig which was full of conflict, according to current knowledge.

Get your personal tour plan at the ticket office, pick up your smartphone and discover on your way the brilliant artist Bach also as a child of his time, a vulnerable person and a contentious employee.

As part of the city’s theme year 2023 “Leipzig – the whole city as a stage” in cooperation with the Bach Archive Leipzig.