couple of words along the lines of regarded as one of the greatest I for one will not object I remember that the theme that Frederick II played for JSB was judgged not to be very simple au contraire Errasing simple 16 41 22 Jul 2003 UTC Done I have a question about this Spitta bio Does it pre date Forkel 1808 Spitta was born in 1841 so I guess not His bio was written in the 1870s as far as I can make out OK I have fixed the bios to make clear that Forkel s is the first Also while I had the page open I took the opportuniy to add your suggested text above about Bach s preiminence This article as well as many others related to Bach the BACH motif and fugues all assert that the last fugue of the Kunst der Fuge remained unfinished as Bach died before he could complete it Though it s nearly established canon by now Christopher Wolff and several other noted Bach researches contend that it s simply false the KdF was finished it just wasn t handed over to posterity correctly by keepers of the Bach estate the final editions were not incorporated See notably the book Johann Sebastian Bach by Christopher Wolff This together with the Bach dictated the choral Vor deinem Thron tret ich hiermit at his death bed canard not present in the article thankfully is perhaps the most commonly cited Bach myth I don t have direct access to original material about it though which is why I m reluctant to alter the article too much For now I ve eliminated the remark as it adds too little to the main article to be sorely missed Could somebody sort it out once and for all and present the different views probably in The Art of Fugue We ll get around to updating the linking articles in the aftermath CPE Bach I note the comment that CPE Bach earned the respect of Mozart This seems to rather understate his significance given the prime influence his work had on all the Classical period composers and through them on the early development of 19th cent romanticism esp with relation to piano works Does anyone object to a small emendation to include at least reference to Haydn and Beethoven I agree In fact when 18th century music critics talked about the great Bach they meant CPE Bach not JS Bach s date of birth Is March 21 1685 correct One contributor has been changing it to March 31 Is there any uncertainty Verifiable references only please 12 20 2004 Nov 26 UTC Happy to oblige Johann Sebastian s birthdate is March 21 1685 There are three reliable primary sources Johann Gottfried Walther in his Musicalisches Lexicon J S Bach s son CPE who was author of his obituary and J S himself in his carefully prepared family genealogy The Georgenkirche baptismal register gives his date of baptism as March 23 two days after his birth Walther was an uncommonly reliable historian for the period and in addition he was a close friend of Bach Of course in the register it was March 21 But before 1700 the Julian calendar was used in the Protestant parts of Germany According to the Gregorian calendar which we use in Wikipedia this date is March 31 Therefore I think the correction was right if there is no evidence that March 21 is Gregorian His birthdate doesn t change because we ve switched to a Gregorian calendar He was born 21 March 1685 which is a Julian date It may be appropriate to indicate that it s Julian e g 21 March 1685 O S but changing it to another date would not be a correction Well it should be indicated that it is Julian otherwise it is natural to assume that it is Gregorian It seems to me that Gregorian dates should be indicated anyway for all dates whereas dates according to all other dates are optional In this case of course we should indicate both dates Further we have articles about Gregorian dates not about Julian dates therefore we should link 31 March not 21 March Wikipedia uses the Gregorian calendar Um well George Washington was born on February 11 but when the Gregorian calendar kicked i