I think you're giving Bach too much credit there, Fong. He didn't invent equal temperament. He championed its cause and demonstrated, better than anyone else, its possibilities in his influential 48 preludes and fugues. (actually it was the very closely related 'well temperament' as true equal temperament didn't become technically feasible until a little later.)
There was no fundamental change in music before and after Bach's time, just a gradual expansion of the chromatic possibilities offered by the new tuning systems.
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