By ROBIN LEAVER

Last year we had a feast of the music of Mozart as we celebrated the 250th anniversary of his birth. Concerts, recitals, broadcasts, books, journals, and newspapers focused our attention on the astonishing output of this musical genius whose life was far too short. When such anniversaries of the births or deaths of prominent composers come along, we take the opportunity and focus our attention on the music of each of these masters. But there is a problem. Once the anniversary is over, the spotlight moves to highlight the work of another composer—Elgar, for example, in 2007. Of course, Mozart will not be forgotten in 2007, but other composers may not fare as well in their post-anniversary years.

J.S. Bach

The last Bach anniversary was in the year 2000, the 250th anniversary of his death, which was marked throughout the world with the usual celebratory concerts, recitals, and other events. The next significant Bach anniversary will be in 2035, the 350th anniversary of his birth, though it is likely that the 275th anniversary of his death will be celebrated in 2025. But this is still too long to wait to celebrate and enjoy a wide range of Bach's music! Thus at the beginning of this new year Juilliard is featuring three major Bach works alongside smaller pieces by Biber and Purcellat the fifth annual Jerome L. Greene Concert in Alice Tully Hall.

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has had, and continues to have, an almost continuous influence on the development of Western music. Mozart was intrigued by Bach's vocal and keyboard counterpoint. Beethoven expressed the view that, in terms of music, his name should not be "Bach" (German for brook or stream) but rather "Meer" (ocean). Mendelssohn and Schumann were composers whose efforts in promoting Bach's music led to the creation of the Bach Gesellschaft and the publication of his collected works. Chopin revered The Well-Tempered Clavier and played the preludes and fugues regularly. For Reger and Busoni the works of Bach were frequently the starting point for their own compositions. Similarly, Schoenberg, Webern, and Stravinsky were drawn into the music of the Leipzig cantor. And each of us continues to be influenced by the music of this master. At an early stage of their development pianists encounter the two-part inventions and move on to The Well-Tempered Clavier, string players eventually turn to the demands of the sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin and cello, organists begin with the simpler chorale preludes and the eight small preludes and fugues (even if they are of doubtful authenticity!), and all of us at some stage of encountering the intricacies of music theory have had to study Bach's four-part chorales.

But there is so much more: The Art of Fugue, the Musical Offering, the "Brandenburg" Concertos, the orchestral suites, a whole range of chamber music, the oratorios, the two great Passions, the superlative B-minor Mass, and the major compositional output of his career—the cantatas—which remain for many unexplored aural territory.

Today it is forgotten that until the 1960s very few of Mozart's piano concertos were performed regularly. Similarly, Bach's cantatas, apart from the few that have become fairly well-known, are not performed as frequently as they should be, yet they contain some of the most sublime music that the master ever composed. All of the 200-plus cantatas are now available in a variety of recordings, most influenced one way or another by the "early music" movement in which the attempt is made to approximate the performance practice of the mid-18th century, by the use of period instruments, Baroque articulation, and a greater appreciation of the dance forms that underlie much of Bach's music. While this has been wonderfully illuminating, allowing us to hear the transparency and vigor of Bach's counterpoint, there is a downside. When I was in my teens in England in the mid-1950s, I went to many orchestral concerts in London. Then it was quite common, at the end of the first half of the concert—after hearing a symphony of, say, Mozart or Beethoven—that the orchestra would be reduced a little, and a Bach keyboard concerto, an orchestral suite, or a "Brandenburg" Concerto would be performed. This is not so common nowadays. There seems to be a widespread attitude that implies that this is not the music for a modern symphony orchestra. This is unfortunate because it means that audiences are missing out on hearing Bach. I am unashamed to confess that my preference is for performances of Bach's music on period instruments, played in Baroque style and with small ensembles, such as the superlative one-to-a-part performances of the "Brandenburg" Concertos by the ensemble Concerto Italiano (Naïve OP 30412). But I am so grateful for conductors such as Sir Adrian Boult, who introduced me, as a teenager, to the music of Bach, heard in the context of the later symphonic repertory. This music is too good to be performed only one way and needs to be introduced to people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to hear it.

Jerome L. Greene Concert Juilliard Chamber Orchestra and Choral Union Judith Clurman, conductor Alice Tully Hall Monday, Feb. 5, 8 p.m. Free tickets available Jan. 22 in the Juilliard Box Office. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

The three Bach works to be performed in the Jerome L. Greene Concert reflect two spheres of Bach's activity in Leipzig (1727-1750): an orchestral suite that the composer performed with his Collegium Musicum in Zimmermann's coffee house, and two cantatas he performed in the two principal churches of the city. Yet they also connect with his early career in that some of the movements of the orchestral suite date from his Cöthen period (1717-1723) and may even date from his earlier Weimar period, and the Cantata No. 4 (Christ lag in Todes Banden) may be his earliest extant cantata (c. 1706).

The other cantata to be heard, No. 176 (Es ist ein trotzig, und verzagt Ding), will undoubtedly become known as "The Juilliard Cantata," as the original continuo part, created for the work's premiere in 1725, is part of the large collection of rare manuscripts donated to the Juilliard library last year by the School's chairman, Bruce Kovner. So here is the opportunity to come and hear this cantata for the first time under its new name: "The Juilliard Cantata."

Robin A. Leaver, a faculty member since 2002, is past president of the American Bach Society.