Harold C. Schonberg 在他的《The Lifes of the Great Composers》里是这样写的:
"It seems to be an article of faith, repeated ad nauseum, that he was neglected until Mendelssohn's St.Matthew revival in 1829. That simply is not true."
然后他花了两页多的篇幅来说明巴赫的音乐在他去世后一直是非常受音乐家们重视的。
一个例子,在门演出马太之前歌德就对这个作品非常熟习了,当门在莱比锡演出的消息传到魏玛时,歌德兴奋地说:我仿佛听到了大海的波涛声。