Bach - Special Exhibition

Special Exhibition at Berlin Cathedral, March 12 – May 3, 2026
“Without Berlin, There Would Be No Bach”
125 years ago, the world’s first Bach Festival was celebrated in Berlin

“Without Berlin, we would no longer have Bach today.” This was stated by Hermann Kretzschmar, chairman of the New Bach Society, at the opening of the world’s first Bach Festival, which was celebrated in Berlin from March 21 to 23, 1901. To mark the 125th anniversary of this event, the Bach House in Eisenach is hosting a small-scale exhibition in the Imperial Hall of Berlin Cathedral from March 12 to May 3, 2026.

The exhibition explores the rediscovery of Bach in Berlin around 1800 and the background of the Bach Festival concept, the events of the 1901 Berlin Bach Festival and the subsequent Berlin Bach Festivals in 1926, 1976, and 1991, as well as the influence of the Bach Festivals on performance practice and the local Bach movements and their own independent Bach Festivals, which were now beginning to spring up, as was already the case in Essen in 1907 and in Leipzig in 1908. Original documents will be on display throughout. This is a preview of the exhibition “125 Years of Bach Festivals – 100 Bach Festivals” in Eisenach starting June 4, as the New Bach Society will celebrate the 100th Bach Festival in its history in Leipzig from June 11 to 26, 2026.

Admission to the exhibition is included in the cathedral admission fee (ticket).