<P> Two large - scale compositions occupied a central place in Bach's last years . From around 1742 he wrote and reworked the various canons and fugues of The Art of Fugue, which he continued to prepare for publication until shortly before his death . After having extracted a cantata, BWV 191, from his 1733 Kyrie - Gloria Mass for the Dresden court in the mid 1740s, Bach expanded that Mass setting into his Mass in B minor in the last years of his life . Stauffer describes it as "Bach's most universal church work . Consisting mainly of recycled movements from cantatas written over a thirty - five - year period, it allowed Bach to survey his vocal pieces one last time and pick select movements for further revision and refinement ." Although the complete mass was never performed during the composer's lifetime, it is considered to be among the greatest choral works of all time . </P> <P> In January 1749 Bach's daughter Elisabeth Juliane Friederica married his pupil Johann Christoph Altnickol . Bach's health was however declining . On 2 June, Heinrich von Brühl wrote to one of the Leipzig burgomasters to request that his music director, Johann Gottlob Harrer, fill the Thomaskantor and Director musices posts "upon the eventual...decease of Mr. Bach". Becoming blind, Bach underwent eye surgery, in March 1750, and again in April, from the British eye surgeon John Taylor . Bach died on 28 July 1750, from complications connected to the unsuccessful treatment . An inventory drawn up a few months after Bach's death, shows that his estate included five harpsichords, two lute - harpsichords, three violins, three violas, two cellos, a viola da gamba, a lute and a spinet, along with 52 "sacred books", including works by Martin Luther and Josephus . The composer's son Carl Philipp Emanuel saw to it that The Art of Fugue, however still unfinished, was published in 1751 . Together with one of the composer's former students, Johann Friedrich Agricola, this son of Bach also wrote the obituary ("Nekrolog") which was published in Mizler's Musikalische Bibliothek (de), the organ of the Society of Musical Sciences, in 1754 . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue BWV 903 performed by Kevin MacLeod 1 . Fantasia 2 . Fugue Bach re-interpreting older genres tied to the modal system </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue BWV 903 performed by Kevin MacLeod 1 . Fantasia 2 . Fugue Bach re-interpreting older genres tied to the modal system </Td> </Tr>

Bach composed in every genre of the baroque era except