Photon, I concede that had JSB been born in 1953, he would not have written high Baroque music. Your Part/Reich hybrid is a plausible hypothesis.
99.999% of all people are a product of their time, but people like JSB are a product of something else. They are influenced to an extent by what occurs around them, but they are not defined by context.
As for Bach's genius and faith, those are givens. As for his "pugnacity," considering his genius, his workload, the demands of his family, and the complete cluelessness of his co-workers in Leipzig, its little wonder that he gained a repetition for being somewhat abrupt.
I've seen JSB's IQ estimated at 165, which I think maybe a bit low. History has crowned him the greatest composer of all time, but his contemporaries knew him as a first rate organist and a third rate composer. No wonder he was a wee but short with his "colleagues."
99.999% of all people are a product of their time, but people like JSB are a product of something else. They are influenced to an extent by what occurs around them, but they are not defined by context.
As for Bach's genius and faith, those are givens. As for his "pugnacity," considering his genius, his workload, the demands of his family, and the complete cluelessness of his co-workers in Leipzig, its little wonder that he gained a repetition for being somewhat abrupt.
I've seen JSB's IQ estimated at 165, which I think maybe a bit low. History has crowned him the greatest composer of all time, but his contemporaries knew him as a first rate organist and a third rate composer. No wonder he was a wee but short with his "colleagues."