Chamber Music for two flutes

With musicians just as with instrument-makers, talents that run in families are not unusual in the history of Western music. But it was given to only a few families to remain above average over several generations.

The children did not give their father Johann Sebastian Bach unalloyed pleasure; it is harrowing to read of an "undutiful son" Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach (1715-1739), who must have been an incredibly skilled organist, already holding a prestigious place at the age of 19, but probably then could not handle the pressure, ran away and in the years following, to the grief of his parents, became a drunkard and got into debt until his early death. They did not really have everything easy with the overpowering, formidable genius of the head of the family. They took flight in various ways, all thoroughly distanced from admiration and respect. After all, the surviving male offspring were all able musicians, three of them famous, perhaps in the late 18th century even more famous than their father.