Funny things J.S. Bach did
-wrote a 20+ minute song about coffee
-picked a fight with a bassoonist calling him a “nanny-goat bassoonist”
-threw his wig at a musician who played a wrong note
-the second movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, which is just two half-note chords
-kids
tag yourself I’m the second movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
Oof, I don't know if I can only pick one, but if I have to choose, it's "picked a fight with a bassoonist calling him a 'nanny-goat bassoonist'."
For my REAL answer, though, it would be that, "wrote a 20+ minute song about coffee", and "kids".
I should elaborate on my reasons though. And also give more context on these "funny things" Bach did, because the full story behind these statements are wild.
(Warning for some sexual references and vulgarity below!)
1. "Coffee" -- Please listen to BWV 211, Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Be still, stop chattering), guys, it's actually pretty good despite being a secular cantata. It tells of a father, Schlendrian, getting exasperated over his daughter, Lieschen, being addicted to coffee, to the point where he tries to dissuade her from it or else she won't get married. And even though it is, on its surface, essentially a lighthearted short opera, it does tell a lot of what the state of 18th-century Germany was like. Coffee was a fairly new thing at the time, and many people thought and believed that it was a number of different things, from being a cure to constipation or an aphrodisiac, to being a cause for impotency and depravity.
The piece by Bach would have been performed at the Café Zimmermann coffeehouse in Leipzig (now destroyed during an air raid of the city in World War II), and while largely a place frequented by men and forbade women (to the point that women formed their own all-female Kaffeekranzchen, or coffee circles), the latter could attend concerts performed there. It's also worth noting that Bach was an avid coffee drinker and was said to have drank 30 cups a day. It's even speculated that the ending was written by a female intellectual named Mariane von Ziegler (the rest of it by a librettist named Christian Friedrich Henrici, or Picander as he is known by his pen name) and that Johann Sebastian's eldest daughter, Catharina Dorothea, sang the part of Lieschen while he played on the harpsichord.
2. "Kids" -- Anyone who has ever taken the time to look at a Bach biography should know that Johann Sebastian Bach fathered 20 children: 7 with his first wife and second cousin Maria Barbara Bach and 13 with his second wife and soprano singer Anna Magdalena Bach née Wilcke. Half of those 20 children died before reaching adulthood, and four of his sons (Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian) became accomplished composers and musicians (there's also Johann Gottfried Bernhard, but there's not much to say about him since 1) he died when he was 24 and 2) he gave up music to study law shortly before he died). That being said, Johann Sebastian and the rest of his family were not exactly... prudish when it came to the pleasures of the flesh.
Far from being the constantly stern bewigged man who looks like he doesn't have time for fun in the Haussmann portrait (aka the authentic portrait of Bach that everyone knows), in reality it's more accurate to say that the family and Sebastian himself are rather open to the idea of sex (honestly, with the number of children that he had, it's not hard to imagine that he probably liked it). Look no further than BWV 524, or the Wedding Quodlibet, which has the lines "Große Hochzeit, große Freude / Große Degen, große Scheiden", which essentially talk about a joyous wedding and the sex that comes after since "Degen" means "sword" and "Scheiden" means "sheath"; it doesn't take much effort to figure out the innuendo there. Or even look at a poem in the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, Ihr Diener, werthe Jungfer Braut, which is also filled with sexual innuendos that are most apparent in the second stanza, with references to "drilling the holes" to the word "Flegel" being slang for penis. (Also, given that the poem was in Anna Magdalena's notebook and she didn't erase it or censor it, it seems that she didn't mind the topic of sex either.)
3. "Fight" -- Okay, I deliberately wanted to bring this up last, if only because it... well, you have to admit that it's kinda awesome, Bach with a sword. Sure, getting into a sword duel could have gotten himself killed, but come on, it's Johann Sebastian Bach... with a SWORD!
Anyway, one of the most well-known stories about Bach when he was a young man was his altercation with a student named Johann Heinrich Geyersbach, who was 3 years older than his teacher at the time (Bach was 20 in 1705, when this incident took place). The story goes that Bach insulted Geyersbach's poor bassoon playing, and predictably Geyersbach was upset about it. Angered by this insult, he decided to confront Bach about it late at night on August 5, 1705.
Here are a few screenshots that I took of an article titled "From Ohrdruf to Mülhausen: A Subversive Reading of Bach's Relationship to Authority" by Sara Botwinick.
Important points:
Bach's duties at this time did not include teaching students; he was only really supposed to be in Arnstadt to be an organist at the New Church
Bach insulted Geyersbach's bassoon, which the latter treated as if the insult was directed toward himself, a bassoonist
Geyersbach threw insults at Bach, essentially calling him a cunt
To clear up a few things that might have been lost in translation, "Degen" means "sword", not dagger; the German word for dagger is "Dolch". Similarly, the "stick" often described to be Geyersbach's weapon is more like a cudgel or a club instead of a stick that you can just snap off of a tree.
Johann Sebastian was accompanied by his cousin Barbara Catharina, meaning he wasn't alone during that incident
It wouldn't be weird for Bach to own a sword since it was a part of his uniform
In fact, just the idea of him being able to own a sword at all isn't that weird because in the 17th and 18th centuries, swords were very popular among the middle classes, and Bach's family was a middle class family. So no, nobles, royals, and military personnel weren't the only ones to wear and use swords.
It's possible that Bach called Geyersbach something far worse than "nanny-goat bassoonist". The more accurate translation of what Bach might have said to Geyersbach is "dickhead bassoonist". Again, this is a bit of a lost in translation situation, as "Zippel" is the Central Germany form of "Zipfel", which has several meanings. Per Wiktionary of "Zipfel":
Also from a wonderful Bach Cantatas Website forum:
In short, Bach really just called someone a dick. The "nanny-goat bassoonist" is a censored and unfortunately widespread version of what he more than likely actually said.
At the end of it all, Bach was told to "be nice" and patient with his students even if they sucked in comparison to him.
So yeah! I'll tag myself with those three. All I'll say is that people should stop censoring Bach's more "unclean" side*, as while he is a devout Lutheran, he had a more earthy side just like Martin Luther himself. He was also rebellious, short-tempered, and did not shy away from sex, which is readily apparent with his 20 children.
*This could apply to other composers as well, such as Mozart: see his K. 231, or "Leck mich im Arsch" ("Lick me in the arse" or "Kiss my ass"). If Mozart was to scatological humor, then Bach was to sexual humor.
