Bible connection

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad,because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. – Matthew 5:11-12

All about J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

The Bach Archive researcher, Michael Maul, was looking through a shoebox that had only narrowly escaped a fire in the Anna Amalia Library a few months before. Inside lay more than 100 letters and poems dedicated to the 52nd birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach’s patron, Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. Maul had hoped to find a greeting from the composer himself, who in 1713 was the court organist. What he found instead was a two-page hand-written aria for soprano and harpsichord, the first Bach vocal work discovered in 70 years.

The text is a 12-stanza poem by Johann Anton Mylius, beginning, “Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn’ ihn” (Everything with God and nothing without him). The music, British conductor John Eliot Gardiner told The Guardian, is “a reflective, meditative, soothing piece, as Bach’s church music so often is.” The Bach Archive asked Gardiner to record and perform the piece and the aria’s first recording can be heard at NPR.org.

J.S. Bach is still influencing people with his faith expressed in his music.

When he was 48, Bach acquired a copy of Luther’s three-volume translation of the Bible. He poured over it as if it were a long-lost treasure. He underlined passages, corrected errors in the text and commentary, inserted missing words, and made notes in the margins. Near 1 Chronicles 25 (a listing of Davidic musicians) he wrote, “This chapter is the true foundation of all God-pleasing music.” At 2 Chronicles 5:13 (which speaks of temple musicians praising God), he noted, “At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.”

Bach was a Christian who lived with the Bible. Besides being the baroque era’s greatest organist and composer, and one of the most productive geniuses in the history of Western music, Bach was also a theologian who just happened to work with a keyboard.

He was born and schooled in Eisenach, Thuringia (at the same school Martin Luther had attended), part of a family that in seven generations produced 53 prominent musicians. Johann Sebastian received his first musical instruction from his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician. By age 10 Bach was orphaned, and he went to live and study with his elder brother, Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf.

By age 15 Bach was ready to establish himself in the musical world, and he immediately showed immense talent in a variety of areas. He became a soprano (women weren’t permitted to sing in church) in the choir of Lüneburg’s Church of Saint Michael. Three years later, he was a violinist in the chamber orchestra of Prince Johann Ernst of Weimar. After a few months, he moved to Arnstadt to become a church organist.

In October 1705, Bach was invited to study for one month with the renowned Danish-born German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude. Bach was so enamored with his teacher, he stretched the visit to two months. When he returned to his church, he was severely criticized for breach of contract and, in the ensuing weeks, for his new organ flourishes and harmonies that accompanied congregational singing. But he was already too highly respected to be dismissed.

In 1707 he married a second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and went to Mülhausen to become organist in the Church of Saint Blasius. After various moves and prominent jobs, he finally settled down in Leipzig in 1723, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Maria died in 1720, and the next year he married Anna Magdalena Wilcken, an accomplished singer. She bore him 13 children, to add to the seven he’d had by Maria, and helped copy his music for performers.

Bach’s stay in Leipzig, as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas’s church and school, wasn’t always happy. He squabbled continually with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. Some said he was a stuffy old man who clung stubbornly to obsolete forms of music. Consequently, they paid him a miserable salary, and when he died even contrived to defraud his widow of her meager inheritance.

Ironically, in this setting Bach wrote his most enduring music. For a time he wrote a cantata each week (today, a composer who writes a cantata a year is considered ambitious), 202 of which survive. Most conclude with a chorale based on a simple Lutheran hymn, and the music is at all times closely bound to biblical texts. Among these works are the Ascension Cantata and the Christmas Oratorio.

In Leipzig he also composed his epic Mass in B Minor, The Passion of St. John and The Passion of St. Matthew—all for use as worship services. The last piece has been called “the supreme cultural achievement of all Western civilization,” and even the radical skeptic Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) admitted upon hearing it, “One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as gospel.”

After Bach’s death, people seemed glad to wipe their ears of his music. He was remembered less as a composer than as an organist and harpsichordist. Some of his music was sold, and some was reportedly used to wrap garbage. For the next 80 years his music was neglected by the public, although a few musicians (Mozart and Beethoven, for example) admired it. Not until 1829, when German composer Felix Mendelssohn arranged a performance of The Passion of St. Matthew, did a larger audience appreciate Bach the composer.

In terms of pure music, Bach has become known as one who could combine the rhythm of French dances, the gracefulness of Italian song, and the intricacy of German counterpoint—all in one composition. In addition, Bach could write musical equivalents of verbal ideas, such as undulating a melody to represent the sea.

But music was never just music to Bach. Nearly three-fourths of his 1,000 compositions were written for use in worship. Between his musical genius, his devotion to Christ, and the effect of his music, he has come to be known in many circles as “the Fifth Evangelist.”

More

10-minute video biography

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A capella boy choir Libera sings an Air

What do we do with this?

It should not surprise us that a Christian musical genius was left unpraised and even abused in the flower of his talent. Yet it is still shocking. Maybe it should encourage us to keep on serving whether we are  appreciated or not. Whatever genius we offering is just that, an offering, not our part of a transaction for which we expect a profit. As Jesus keeps saying, “What does it profit us if we gain the whole world and lose our souls? What can we give in exchange for our souls?”

Revisit what you think it important. What has God given you to give and how are you making it a priority? Is some power trying to undermine your devotion?