Magmavision2000

I thought I read years ago that Bach was almost a forgotten composer entirely.  Can you imagine?

The first recorded use of the term "classical music" dates to Oxford English Dictionary, c:a 1829. It was meant to canonize the golden age between Bach and Beethoven. While most orchestras probably prioritized playing the latest, contemporary compositions (just like today's popular music tends to dominate the total music consumption), apparently Bach wasn't entirely forgotten by then or otherwise the term would not cover music eras back to his time.

But yes, a lot of music has been lost, in particular those composed by other people than white, middle aged men. For instance many women apparently were just as competent as male colleagues but didn't get performed or recognized as much. While Wikipedia lists ~400 female composers born between 2300 BC and 1875 AD, I imagine a lot of digging has happened in the past 50 years and many probably only small fragments of their production are known.