WHEN John Eliot Gardiner grew up on his family's farm in Dorset, he met Johann Sebastian Bach on the stairs every day. By some remarkable chance, a refugee from Silesia had given the Gardiners a portrait of the composer to keep safe during the second world war. Painted by Elias Gottlob Haussmann in 1748, a couple of years before Bach's death, it was one of a tiny handful of authenticated pictures painted during the great man's lifetime. The young John Eliot found it a bit scary, but he nevertheless developed a lifelong fascination with the composer. Now 70, Sir John, as he has since become, is presenting his reflections about the man and his music in a new book.
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