The story of this place
For 27 years, from 1723 until his death in 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach served as cantor of the Thomasschule and director of music at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, producing a cantata almost every week and premiering here the St Matthew and St John Passions and the Mass in B minor. Overworked, underpaid and often quarrelling with the town council, he wrote in Leipzig the works now regarded as the summit of Western music. Bach's remains were lost after his death, identified only in 1894 and reburied in the church chancel in 1950. The Thomanerchor, the boys' choir he once led, still sings his motets every week, an unbroken tradition stretching back over 800 years.